Love of Life And Other Stories
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Jack London >> Love of Life And Other Stories
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11 Love of Life and other stories by Jack London
Scanned and proofed by David Price
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
Love of Life and other Stories
LOVE OF LIFE
"This out of all will remain -
They have lived and have tossed:
So much of the game will be gain,
Though the gold of the dice has been lost."
THEY limped painfully down the bank, and once the foremost of the
two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired
and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience
which comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened
with blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Head-
straps, passing across the forehead, helped support these packs.
Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the
shoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes
bent upon the ground.
"I wish we had just about two of them cartridges that's layin' in
that cache of ourn," said the second man.
His voice was utterly and drearily expressionless. He spoke
without enthusiasm; and the first man, limping into the milky
stream that foamed over the rocks, vouchsafed no reply.
The other man followed at his heels. They did not remove their
foot-gear, though the water was icy cold - so cold that their
ankles ached and their feet went numb. In places the water dashed
against their knees, and both men staggered for footing.
The man who followed slipped on a smooth boulder, nearly fell, but
recovered himself with a violent effort, at the same time uttering
a sharp exclamation of pain. He seemed faint and dizzy and put out
his free hand while he reeled, as though seeking support against
the air. When he had steadied himself he stepped forward, but
reeled again and nearly fell. Then he stood still and looked at
the other man, who had never turned his head.
The man stood still for fully a minute, as though debating with
himself. Then he called out:
"I say, Bill, I've sprained my ankle."
Bill staggered on through the milky water. He did not look around.
The man watched him go, and though his face was expressionless as
ever, his eyes were like the eyes of a wounded deer.
The other man limped up the farther bank and continued straight on
without looking back. The man in the stream watched him. His lips
trembled a little, so that the rough thatch of brown hair which
covered them was visibly agitated. His tongue even strayed out to
moisten them.
"Bill!" he cried out.
It was the pleading cry of a strong man in distress, but Bill's
head did not turn. The man watched him go, limping grotesquely and
lurching forward with stammering gait up the slow slope toward the
soft sky-line of the low-lying hill. He watched him go till he
passed over the crest and disappeared. Then he turned his gaze and
slowly took in the circle of the world that remained to him now
that Bill was gone.
Near the horizon the sun was smouldering dimly, almost obscured by
formless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass and
density without outline or tangibility. The man pulled out his
watch, the while resting his weight on one leg. It was four
o'clock, and as the season was near the last of July or first of
August, - he did not know the precise date within a week or two, -
he knew that the sun roughly marked the northwest. He looked to
the south and knew that somewhere beyond those bleak hills lay the
Great Bear Lake; also, he knew that in that direction the Arctic
Circle cut its forbidding way across the Canadian Barrens. This
stream in which he stood was a feeder to the Coppermine River,
which in turn flowed north and emptied into Coronation Gulf and the
Arctic Ocean. He had never been there, but he had seen it, once,
on a Hudson Bay Company chart.
Again his gaze completed the circle of the world about him. It was
not a heartening spectacle. Everywhere was soft sky-line. The
hills were all low-lying. There were no trees, no shrubs, no
grasses - naught but a tremendous and terrible desolation that sent
fear swiftly dawning into his eyes.
"Bill!" he whispered, once and twice; "Bill!"
He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as though the vastness
were pressing in upon him with overwhelming force, brutally
crushing him with its complacent awfulness. He began to shake as
with an ague-fit, till the gun fell from his hand with a splash.
This served to rouse him. He fought with his fear and pulled
himself together, groping in the water and recovering the weapon.
He hitched his pack farther over on his left shoulder, so as to
take a portion of its weight from off the injured ankle. Then he
proceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing with pain, to the bank.
He did not stop. With a desperation that was madness, unmindful of
the pain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill over
which his comrade had disappeared - more grotesque and comical by
far than that limping, jerking comrade. But at the crest he saw a
shallow valley, empty of life. He fought with his fear again,
overcame it, hitched the pack still farther over on his left
shoulder, and lurched on down the slope.
The bottom of the valley was soggy with water, which the thick moss
held, spongelike, close to the surface. This water squirted out
from under his feet at every step, and each time he lifted a foot
the action culminated in a sucking sound as the wet moss
reluctantly released its grip. He picked his way from muskeg to
muskeg, and followed the other man's footsteps along and across the
rocky ledges which thrust like islets through the sea of moss.
Though alone, he was not lost. Farther on he knew he would come to
where dead spruce and fir, very small and weazened, bordered the
shore of a little lake, the TITCHIN-NICHILIE, in the tongue of the
country, the "land of little sticks." And into that lake flowed a
small stream, the water of which was not milky. There was rush-
grass on that stream - this he remembered well - but no timber, and
he would follow it till its first trickle ceased at a divide. He
would cross this divide to the first trickle of another stream,
flowing to the west, which he would follow until it emptied into
the river Dease, and here he would find a cache under an upturned
canoe and piled over with many rocks. And in this cache would be
ammunition for his empty gun, fish-hooks and lines, a small net -
all the utilities for the killing and snaring of food. Also, he
would find flour, - not much, - a piece of bacon, and some beans.
Bill would be waiting for him there, and they would paddle away
south down the Dease to the Great Bear Lake. And south across the
lake they would go, ever south, till they gained the Mackenzie.
And south, still south, they would go, while the winter raced
vainly after them, and the ice formed in the eddies, and the days
grew chill and crisp, south to some warm Hudson Bay Company post,
where timber grew tall and generous and there was grub without end.
These were the thoughts of the man as he strove onward. But hard
as he strove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind,
trying to think that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill would
surely wait for him at the cache. He was compelled to think this
thought, or else there would not be any use to strive, and he would
have lain down and died. And as the dim ball of the sun sank
slowly into the northwest he covered every inch - and many times -
of his and Bill's flight south before the downcoming winter. And
he conned the grub of the cache and the grub of the Hudson Bay
Company post over and over again. He had not eaten for two days;
for a far longer time he had not had all he wanted to eat. Often
he stooped and picked pale muskeg berries, put them into his mouth,
and chewed and swallowed them. A muskeg berry is a bit of seed
enclosed in a bit of water. In the mouth the water melts away and
the seed chews sharp and bitter. The man knew there was no
nourishment in the berries, but he chewed them patiently with a
hope greater than knowledge and defying experience.
At nine o'clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky ledge, and from sheer
weariness and weakness staggered and fell. He lay for some time,
without movement, on his side. Then he slipped out of the pack-
straps and clumsily dragged himself into a sitting posture. It was
not yet dark, and in the lingering twilight he groped about among
the rocks for shreds of dry moss. When he had gathered a heap he
built a fire, - a smouldering, smudgy fire, - and put a tin pot of
water on to boil.
He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he did was to count his
matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to
make sure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in
oil paper, disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of
another bunch in the inside band of his battered hat, of a third
bunch under his shirt on the chest. This accomplished, a panic
came upon him, and he unwrapped them all and counted them again.
There were still sixty-seven.
He dried his wet foot-gear by the fire. The moccasins were in
soggy shreds. The blanket socks were worn through in places, and
his feet were raw and bleeding. His ankle was throbbing, and he
gave it an examination. It had swollen to the size of his knee.
He tore a long strip from one of his two blankets and bound the
ankle tightly. He tore other strips and bound them about his feet
to serve for both moccasins and socks. Then he drank the pot of
water, steaming hot, wound his watch, and crawled between his
blankets.
He slept like a dead man. The brief darkness around midnight came
and went. The sun arose in the northeast - at least the day dawned
in that quarter, for the sun was hidden by gray clouds.
At six o'clock he awoke, quietly lying on his back. He gazed
straight up into the gray sky and knew that he was hungry. As he
rolled over on his elbow he was startled by a loud snort, and saw a
bull caribou regarding him with alert curiosity. The animal was
not mere than fifty feet away, and instantly into the man's mind
leaped the vision and the savor of a caribou steak sizzling and
frying over a fire. Mechanically he reached for the empty gun,
drew a bead, and pulled the trigger. The bull snorted and leaped
away, his hoofs rattling and clattering as he fled across the
ledges.
The man cursed and flung the empty gun from him. He groaned aloud
as he started to drag himself to his feet. It was a slow and
arduous task.
His joints were like rusty hinges. They worked harshly in their
sockets, with much friction, and each bending or unbending was
accomplished only through a sheer exertion of will. When he
finally gained his feet, another minute or so was consumed in
straightening up, so that he could stand erect as a man should
stand.
He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect. There were
no trees, no bushes, nothing but a gray sea of moss scarcely
diversified by gray rocks, gray lakelets, and gray streamlets. The
sky was gray. There was no sun nor hint of sun. He had no idea of
north, and he had forgotten the way he had come to this spot the
night before. But he was not lost. He knew that. Soon he would
come to the land of the little sticks. He felt that it lay off to
the left somewhere, not far - possibly just over the next low hill.
He went back to put his pack into shape for travelling. He assured
himself of the existence of his three separate parcels of matches,
though he did not stop to count them. But he did linger, debating,
over a squat moose-hide sack. It was not large. He could hide it
under his two hands. He knew that it weighed fifteen pounds, - as
much as all the rest of the pack, - and it worried him. He finally
set it to one side and proceeded to roll the pack. He paused to
gaze at the squat moose-hide sack. He picked it up hastily with a
defiant glance about him, as though the desolation were trying to
rob him of it; and when he rose to his feet to stagger on into the
day, it was included in the pack on his back.
He bore away to the left, stopping now and again to eat muskeg
berries. His ankle had stiffened, his limp was more pronounced,
but the pain of it was as nothing compared with the pain of his
stomach. The hunger pangs were sharp. They gnawed and gnawed
until he could not keep his mind steady on the course he must
pursue to gain the land of little sticks. The muskeg berries did
not allay this gnawing, while they made his tongue and the roof of
his mouth sore with their irritating bite.
He came upon a valley where rock ptarmigan rose on whirring wings
from the ledges and muskegs. Ker - ker - ker was the cry they
made. He threw stones at them, but could not hit them. He placed
his pack on the ground and stalked them as a cat stalks a sparrow.
The sharp rocks cut through his pants' legs till his knees left a
trail of blood; but the hurt was lost in the hurt of his hunger.
He squirmed over the wet moss, saturating his clothes and chilling
his body; but he was not aware of it, so great was his fever for
food. And always the ptarmigan rose, whirring, before him, till
their ker - ker - ker became a mock to him, and he cursed them and
cried aloud at them with their own cry.
Once he crawled upon one that must have been asleep. He did not
see it till it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made a
clutch as startled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there
remained in his hand three tail-feathers. As he watched its flight
he hated it, as though it had done him some terrible wrong. Then
he returned and shouldered his pack.
As the day wore along he came into valleys or swales where game was
more plentiful. A band of caribou passed by, twenty and odd
animals, tantalizingly within rifle range. He felt a wild desire
to run after them, a certitude that he could run them down. A
black fox came toward him, carrying a ptarmigan in his mouth. The
man shouted. It was a fearful cry, but the fox, leaping away in
fright, did not drop the ptarmigan.
Late in the afternoon he followed a stream, milky with lime, which
ran through sparse patches of rush-grass. Grasping these rushes
firmly near the root, he pulled up what resembled a young onion-
sprout no larger than a shingle-nail. It was tender, and his teeth
sank into it with a crunch that promised deliciously of food. But
its fibers were tough. It was composed of stringy filaments
saturated with water, like the berries, and devoid of nourishment.
He threw off his pack and went into the rush-grass on hands and
knees, crunching and munching, like some bovine creature.
He was very weary and often wished to rest - to lie down and sleep;
but he was continually driven on - not so much by his desire to
gain the land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searched
little ponds for frogs and dug up the earth with his nails for
worms, though he knew in spite that neither frogs nor worms existed
so far north.
He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the long
twilight came on, he discovered a solitary fish, the size of a
minnow, in such a pool. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder,
but it eluded him. He reached for it with both hands and stirred
up the milky mud at the bottom. In his excitement he fell in,
wetting himself to the waist. Then the water was too muddy to
admit of his seeing the fish, and he was compelled to wait until
the sediment had settled.
The pursuit was renewed, till the water was again muddied. But he
could not wait. He unstrapped the tin bucket and began to bale the
pool. He baled wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging the
water so short a distance that it ran back into the pool. He
worked more carefully, striving to be cool, though his heart was
pounding against his chest and his hands were trembling. At the
end of half an hour the pool was nearly dry. Not a cupful of water
remained. And there was no fish. He found a hidden crevice among
the stones through which it had escaped to the adjoining and larger
pool - a pool which he could not empty in a night and a day. Had
he known of the crevice, he could have closed it with a rock at the
beginning and the fish would have been his.
Thus he thought, and crumpled up and sank down upon the wet earth.
At first he cried softly to himself, then he cried loudly to the
pitiless desolation that ringed him around; and for a long time
after he was shaken by great dry sobs.
He built a fire and warmed himself by drinking quarts of hot water,
and made camp on a rocky ledge in the same fashion he had the night
before. The last thing he did was to see that his matches were dry
and to wind his watch. The blankets were wet and clammy. His
ankle pulsed with pain. But he knew only that he was hungry, and
through his restless sleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets and of
food served and spread in all imaginable ways.
He awoke chilled and sick. There was no sun. The gray of earth
and sky had become deeper, more profound. A raw wind was blowing,
and the first flurries of snow were whitening the hilltops. The
air about him thickened and grew white while he made a fire and
boiled more water. It was wet snow, half rain, and the flakes were
large and soggy. At first they melted as soon as they came in
contact with the earth, but ever more fell, covering the ground,
putting out the fire, spoiling his supply of moss-fuel.
This was a signal for him to strap on his pack and stumble onward,
he knew not where. He was not concerned with the land of little
sticks, nor with Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by the
river Dease. He was mastered by the verb "to eat." He was hunger-
mad. He took no heed of the course he pursued, so long as that
course led him through the swale bottoms. He felt his way through
the wet snow to the watery muskeg berries, and went by feel as he
pulled up the rush-grass by the roots. But it was tasteless stuff
and did not satisfy. He found a weed that tasted sour and he ate
all he could find of it, which was not much, for it was a creeping
growth, easily hidden under the several inches of snow.
He had no fire that night, nor hot water, and crawled under his
blanket to sleep the broken hunger-sleep. The snow turned into a
cold rain. He awakened many times to feel it falling on his
upturned face. Day came - a gray day and no sun. It had ceased
raining. The keenness of his hunger had departed. Sensibility, as
far as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted. There
was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but it did not bother him so
much. He was more rational, and once more he was chiefly
interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by the river
Dease.
He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips and bound
his bleeding feet. Also, he recinched the injured ankle and
prepared himself for a day of travel. When he came to his pack, he
paused long over the squat moose-hide sack, but in the end it went
with him.
The snow had melted under the rain, and only the hilltops showed
white. The sun came out, and he succeeded in locating the points
of the compass, though he knew now that he was lost. Perhaps, in
his previous days' wanderings, he had edged away too far to the
left. He now bore off to the right to counteract the possible
deviation from his true course.
Though the hunger pangs were no longer so exquisite, he realized
that he was weak. He was compelled to pause for frequent rests,
when he attacked the muskeg berries and rush-grass patches. His
tongue felt dry and large, as though covered with a fine hairy
growth, and it tasted bitter in his mouth. His heart gave him a
great deal of trouble. When he had travelled a few minutes it
would begin a remorseless thump, thump, thump, and then leap up and
away in a painful flutter of beats that choked him and made him go
faint and dizzy.
In the middle of the day he found two minnows in a large pool. It
was impossible to bale it, but he was calmer now and managed to
catch them in his tin bucket. They were no longer than his little
finger, but he was not particularly hungry. The dull ache in his
stomach had been growing duller and fainter. It seemed almost that
his stomach was dozing. He ate the fish raw, masticating with
painstaking care, for the eating was an act of pure reason. While
he had no desire to eat, he knew that he must eat to live.
In the evening he caught three more minnows, eating two and saving
the third for breakfast. The sun had dried stray shreds of moss,
and he was able to warm himself with hot water. He had not covered
more than ten miles that day; and the next day, travelling whenever
his heart permitted him, he covered no more than five miles. But
his stomach did not give him the slightest uneasiness. It had gone
to sleep. He was in a strange country, too, and the caribou were
growing more plentiful, also the wolves. Often their yelps drifted
across the desolation, and once he saw three of them slinking away
before his path.
Another night; and in the morning, being more rational, he untied
the leather string that fastened the squat moose-hide sack. From
its open mouth poured a yellow stream of coarse gold-dust and
nuggets. He roughly divided the gold in halves, caching one half
on a prominent ledge, wrapped in a piece of blanket, and returning
the other half to the sack. He also began to use strips of the one
remaining blanket for his feet. He still clung to his gun, for
there were cartridges in that cache by the river Dease.
This was a day of fog, and this day hunger awoke in him again. He
was very weak and was afflicted with a giddiness which at times
blinded him. It was no uncommon thing now for him to stumble and
fall; and stumbling once, he fell squarely into a ptarmigan nest.
There were four newly hatched chicks, a day old - little specks of
pulsating life no more than a mouthful; and he ate them ravenously,
thrusting them alive into his mouth and crunching them like egg-
shells between his teeth. The mother ptarmigan beat about him with
great outcry. He used his gun as a club with which to knock her
over, but she dodged out of reach. He threw stones at her and with
one chance shot broke a wing. Then she fluttered away, running,
trailing the broken wing, with him in pursuit.
The little chicks had no more than whetted his appetite. He hopped
and bobbed clumsily along on his injured ankle, throwing stones and
screaming hoarsely at times; at other times hopping and bobbing
silently along, picking himself up grimly and patiently when he
fell, or rubbing his eyes with his hand when the giddiness
threatened to overpower him.
The chase led him across swampy ground in the bottom of the valley,
and he came upon footprints in the soggy moss. They were not his
own - he could see that. They must be Bill's. But he could not
stop, for the mother ptarmigan was running on. He would catch her
first, then he would return and investigate.
He exhausted the mother ptarmigan; but he exhausted himself. She
lay panting on her side. He lay panting on his side, a dozen feet
away, unable to crawl to her. And as he recovered she recovered,
fluttering out of reach as his hungry hand went out to her. The
chase was resumed. Night settled down and she escaped. He
stumbled from weakness and pitched head foremost on his face,
cutting his cheek, his pack upon his back. He did not move for a
long while; then he rolled over on his side, wound his watch, and
lay there until morning.
Another day of fog. Half of his last blanket had gone into foot-
wrappings. He failed to pick up Bill's trail. It did not matter.
His hunger was driving him too compellingly - only - only he
wondered if Bill, too, were lost. By midday the irk of his pack
became too oppressive. Again he divided the gold, this time merely
spilling half of it on the ground. In the afternoon he threw the
rest of it away, there remaining to him only the half-blanket, the
tin bucket, and the rifle.
An hallucination began to trouble him. He felt confident that one
cartridge remained to him. It was in the chamber of the rifle and
he had overlooked it. On the other hand, he knew all the time that
the chamber was empty. But the hallucination persisted. He fought
it off for hours, then threw his rifle open and was confronted with
emptiness. The disappointment was as bitter as though he had
really expected to find the cartridge.
He plodded on for half an hour, when the hallucination arose again.
Again he fought it, and still it persisted, till for very relief he
opened his rifle to unconvince himself. At times his mind wandered
farther afield, and he plodded on, a mere automaton, strange
conceits and whimsicalities gnawing at his brain like worms. But
these excursions out of the real were of brief duration, for ever
the pangs of the hunger-bite called him back. He was jerked back
abruptly once from such an excursion by a sight that caused him
nearly to faint. He reeled and swayed, doddering like a drunken
man to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse. A horse! He
could not believe his eyes. A thick mist was in them, intershot
with sparkling points of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely to
clear his vision, and beheld, not a horse, but a great brown bear.
The animal was studying him with bellicose curiosity.
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