The Way of the Strong

by Ridgwell Cullum

Then Leo rose from his seat on the floor of Si-wash's hut, and invited him to visit his workings on the creek bank. Si-wash went, glad that he had been able to dissuade this man who possessed such cold eyes, and so unsmiling a face.

At the creek Leo spoke quite seriously.

"Si-wash," he said, as they stood beside the frozen, snow-laden stream, "I am disappointed in you. I have brought you here to show you your grave. There it is—under the ice. If you don't hire yourself and dogs to me, if you don't accompany us to the coast, I'll drown you in the water under that ice, where it's so cold that all the fires of hell, where your spirit will surely go, will never be able to thaw you out, though you remain there forever, as you undoubtedly will."

Si-wash both liked and feared Leo. But he hated cold water, in fact water of any sort, and feared talk of hell still more; so there was no further discussion. Si-wash accepted his money in advance; and, nearly a month later, the travelers were scaling the perilous heights of the watershed which is really the roof of the northern world.

Once foot is set on the long winter trail, all rest of mind and body is left behind. Days and nights, alike, become one long nightmare of unease. Every hour of the day carries its threat of danger. Every foot of the way is beset by shoals for the feet of the unwary. And the night—the long northern night—is a painful dream crowded with exaggerated pictures of dangers so narrowly escaped during waking, and vivid suggestions of added terrors which the morning light may reveal.

It is called the Shawnee Trail; vain enough appellation. There is no trail; there never has been a trail; nor will there ever be a trail, so long as the northern winter holds its fierce sway in due season. It is just a trackless wilderness, claiming thoroughfare by reason of the impassability of the rest of the country in that region.

There is no room for life in such a world, for there is no rest or relief. Existence is an endless struggle against the overwhelming odds of an outlaw nature. The great white land is broken and torn. It rises and falls, or plunges precipitately in the manner of a storm-swept ocean; but ever the journeyer is borne upward, ever upward, to the barren crests of the watershed which dominate the melancholy spectacle of Nature's wasted endeavor.

For the most it is a silent land; nor is there movement to break the awesome stillness, unless it be the frequent presence of storm. Otherwise the calm is like the silence of the grave, without a whisper to waken the echoes of the riven, age-worn crags, or a movement to stir the hidden valleys into a seeming of life. It is the stillness of outer darkness, lit only by a wintry sheen, like the death-cold stare of wide, unseeing eyes.

Such thoughts and feelings stirred the woman traipsing easily over the smoothly pressed snow-track left by the laden sled. She moved with the curious swing of the snowshoer, leisurely, comfortably. The gee-pole in her hand was an unnecessary equipment, for her path was fully tested by those who understood far better than she the dangers of the road before them.

Audie's eyes were looking out ahead at the men and the dogs. She knew she had no other responsibility than to keep pace. For the rest she knew that the burden of their journey rested on shoulders more capable of bearing it. So her mind was given up to thoughts which could never enter the men's heads. And those thoughts were full of the unutterable desolation of this untamed world.