NNEngine/Gutenberg-Clean · Datasets at Hugging Face

id stringlengths 16 16	text stringlengths 151 2.3k	word_count int64 30 60	source stringclasses 1 value
twg_000012934700	Perhaps it was only the despair of their hunger, the ache of empty bellies. Closer and closer they crept to the silent tent. Locasto opened his eyes. Within a foot of his face were the fangs of a malamute. At his slight movement it drew back with a snarl, and retreated to the door. Locasto could see the other dogs	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934701	crouching and eyeing him fixedly. What could be the matter? What had gotten into the brutes? Where was the Worm? Where were the provisions? Why was the tent flap open and the stove stone-cold? Then with a dawning comprehension that he had been deserted, Locasto uttered a curse and tried to rise. At first he thought he was stiff with	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934702	cold, but a downward glance showed him his condition. He was helpless. He grew sick at the pit of his stomach, and glared at the dogs. They were drawing in on him. They seemed to bulk suddenly, to grow huge and menacing. Their gleaming teeth snapped in his face. He could fancy these teeth stripping the flesh from his body,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934703	gnawing at his bones with drooling jaws. Violently he shuddered. He must try to free himself, so that at least he could fight. Grimly the Worm had done his work, but he had hardly reckoned on the strength of this man. With a vast throe of fear Locasto tried to free himself. Tenser, tenser grew the thongs; they strained, they	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934704	bit into his flesh, but they would not break. Yet as he relaxed it seemed to him they were less tight. Then he rested for another effort. Once again the gaunt, grey bitch was crawling up. He remembered how often he had starved it, clubbed it until it could barely stand. Now it was going to get even. It would	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934705	snap at his throat, rip out his windpipe, bury its fangs in his bleeding flesh. He cursed it in the old way. With a spring it backed out again and stood with the others. He made another giant effort. Once again he felt the thongs strain and strain; then, when he ceased, he imagined they were still looser. The dogs	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934706	seemed to have lost all fear. They stood in a circle within a few feet of him, regarding him intently. They smelled the blood on his head, and a slaver ran from their jaws. Again he cursed them, but this time they did not move. They seemed to realise he could not harm them. With their evilly-slanted eyes they watched	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934707	his struggles. Strange, wise, uncanny brutes, they were biding their time, waiting to rush in on him, to rend him. Again he tried to get free. Now he fancied he could move his arm a little. He must hurry, for every instant the malamutes were growing bolder. Another strain and a wrench. Ha! he was able to squeeze his right	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934708	arm from under the rawhide. He felt the foul breath of the dogs on his face, and quickly he struck at them. They jumped back, then, as if at a signal, they sprang in again. There was no time to lose. They were attacking him in earnest. Quickly he wrenched out his other arm. He was just in time, for	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934709	the dogs were upon him. He struggled to his knees and shielded his head with his arms. Wildly he swung at the nearest dog. Full on the face he struck it, and it shot back as if hit by a bullet. But the others were on him. They had him down, snarling and ripping, a mad ferment of fury. Two	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934710	of them were making for his face. As he lay on his back he gripped each by the throat. His hands were torn and bleeding, but he had them fast. In his grip of steel they struggled to free themselves in vain. They backed, they writhed, they twisted in a bow. With his huge hands he was choking them, choking	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934711	them to death, using them as a shield against the other three. Then slowly he worked himself into a sitting position. He hurled one of the dogs to the tent door. He swung bludgeon blows at the others. They fled yelping and howling. He still held the Mackenzie River bitch. Getting his knee on her body, he bent her almost	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934712	into a circle, bent her till her back broke with a snap. Then he rose and freed himself from the remaining thongs. He was torn and cut and bleeding, but he had triumphed. "Oh, the devil!" he growled, grinding his teeth. "He would have me chewed to rags by malamutes." He stared around. "He's taken everything, the scum! left me	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934713	to starve. Ha! one thing he's forgotten--the matches. At least I can keep warm." He picked up the canister of matches and relit the stove. "I'll kill him for this," he muttered. "Night and day I'll follow him. I'll camp on his trail till I find him. Then--I'll torture him; I'll strip him and leave him naked in the snow."	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934714	He slipped into his snowshoes, gave a last look around to see that no food had been left, and with a final growl of fury he started in pursuit. * * * * * Ahead of him, ploughing their way through the virgin snow, he could see the dragging track of the long snowshoes. He examined it, and noted that	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934715	it was sharp and crisp at the edges. "He's got a good five hours' start of me! Travelling fast, too, by the length of the track." He had a thought of capturing the dogs and hitching them up; but, thoroughly terrified, they had retreated into the woods. To overtake this man, to glut his lust for revenge, he must depend	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934716	on his own strength and endurance. "Now, Jack Locasto," he told himself grimly, "you've got a fight on your hands, such a fight as you never had before. Get right down to it." So, with head bowed and shoulders sloping forward, he darted on the track of the Worm. "He's got to break trail, the viper! and that's where I	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934717	score. I can make twice the time. Oh, just wait, you little devil! just wait!" He ground his teeth vindictively, and put an inch more onto his stride. He was descending a long, open valley that seemed from its trackless snows to have been immemorially life-shunned and accursed. Black, witch-like pines sentinelled its flanks, and accentuated its desolation. And over	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934718	all there was the silence of the Wild, that double-strong solution of silence from which all other silences are distilled, and spread out. Yet, as he gazed around him in this everlasting solitude, there was no fear in his heart. "I can fight this accursed land and beat it out every time," he exulted. "It can't get any the better	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934719	of me." It was cold, so cold that it was difficult to imagine it could ever be warm again. To expose flesh was to feel instantly the sharp sting that heralds frostbite. As he ran, the sharp intake of icy air made his lungs seem to contract. His eyes smarted and tingled. The lashes froze closely. Ice formed in his	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934720	nostrils and his nose began to bleed. He pulled up a moment. "Curse this infernal country!" He had not eaten and the icy air begot a ravenous hunger. He dreamed of food, but chiefly of bacon, fat, greasy bacon. How glorious it would be just to eat of it, raw, tallow bacon! He had nothing to eat. He would have	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934721	nothing till he had overtaken the Worm. On! On! He came to where the Worm had made a camp. There were the ashes of a fire. "Curse him; he's got some matches after all," he said with bitter chagrin. Eagerly he searched all around in the snow to see if he could not find even a crumb of food. There	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934722	was nothing. He pushed on. Night fell and he was forced to make camp. Oh, he was hungry! The night was vastly resplendent, a spendthrift night scattering everywhere its largess of stars. The cold had a crystalline quality and the trees detonated strangely in the silence. He built a huge fire: that at least he could have, and through eighteen	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934723	hours of darkness he crouched by it, afraid to sleep for fear of freezing. "If I only had a tin to boil water in," he muttered; "there's lots of reindeer moss, and I could stew some of my mucklucks. Ah! I'll try and roast a bit of them." He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934724	held it over the fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He put it in his mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth refused to meet in it. However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and bolted them. At last the dawn came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and Locasto flung himself once	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934725	more on the trail. He was not feeling so fit now. Hunger and loss of blood had weakened him so that his stride insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its spring. However, he plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate. Again he examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how crisped and hard was	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934726	its edge. He was not making the time he had reckoned on. The Worm must be a long way ahead. Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep, or strain a sinew, then-- Locasto pictured with gloating joy the terror of the Worm as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake! the	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934727	vermin! On! On! Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly. The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him whenever he exposed	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934728	bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a demon of vengeance, fierce and menacing. He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of ice. The land lay in a wan apathy	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934729	of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear. Icy land and icy sky met in a trap, a trap that held him fast; and over all, vast, titanic, terrible, the Spirit of the Wild seemed to brood. It laughed at him, a laugh of derision, of mockery, of callous gloating triumph. Locasto shuddered. Then night came and he built another giant fire. Again	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934730	he bolted down some roasted muckluck. Overhead the stars glittered vindictively. They were green and blue and red, and they had spiny rays like starfish on which they danced. This night he had to make tremendous efforts to keep from sleeping. Several times he drowsed forward, and almost fell into the fire. As he crouched there his beard was singeing	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934731	and his face scorched, but his back seemed as if it was cased in ice. Often he would turn and warm it at the fire, but not for long. He hated to face the terror of the silence and the dark, the shadow where waited Death. Better the crackling cheer of the spruce flame. At dawn the sky was leaden	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934732	and the cold less despotic. Stretching interminably ahead was that lonely snowshoe trail. Locasto was puzzled. "Where in creation is the little devil going to, anyway?" he said, knitting his brows. "I figured he'd make direct for Dawson, but he's either changed his mind or got a wrong steer. By Heavens, that's it--the little varmint's lost his way." Locasto had	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934733	an Indian's unerring sense of location. "I guess I can't afford to follow him any more," he reflected. "I've gone too far already. I'm all petered out. I'll have to let him go in the meantime. It's save yourself, Jack Locasto, while there's yet time. Me for Dawson." He struck off almost at right angles to the trail he had	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934734	been following, over a low range of hills. It was evil going, and as he broke through the snow-crust mile after wearing mile, he felt himself grow weaker and weaker. "Buck up, old man," he adjured himself fiercely. "You've got to fight, fight." There was a strange stillness in the air, not the natural stillness of the Wild, but an	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934735	unhealthy one, as of a suspension of something, of a vacuum, of bated breath. It was curiously full of terror. More and more he felt like a trapped animal, caught in a vast cage. The sky to the north was glooming ominously. Every second the horizon grew blacker, more bodeful, and Locasto stared at it, with a sudden quake at	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934736	his heart. "Blizzard, by thunder!" he gasped. Was that a breath of wind that stung his cheek? Was it a snowflake that drifted along with it? Denser and denser grew the gloom, and now there was a roaring as of a great wind. King Blizzard was come. "I guess I'm done for," he hissed through clenched teeth. "But I'll fight	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934737	to the finish. I'll die game." It was on him now with a swoop and a roar. He was in the thick of a mud-grey darkness, a bitter, blank darkness full of whirling wind-eddies and vast flurries of snow. He could not see more than a few feet before him. The stinging flakes blinded him; the coal-black night engulfed him.	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934738	In that seething turmoil of the elements he was as helpless as a child. "I guess you're on your last trail, Jack Locasto," he muttered grimly. Nevertheless he lowered his head and butted desperately into the heart of the storm. He was very faint from lack of food, but despair had given him a new strength, and he plunged through	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934739	drift and flurry with the fury of a goaded bull. The night had fallen black as the pit. He was in an immensity of darkness, a darkness that packed close up to him, and hugged him, and enfolded him like a blanket. And in the black void winds were raging with an insane fury, whirling aloft mountains of snow and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934740	hurling them along plain and valley. The forests shrieked in fear; the creatures of the Wild cowered in their lairs, but the solitary man stumbled on and on. As if by magic barriers of snow piled up before him, and almost to his shoulders he floundered through them. The wind had a hatchet edge that pierced his clothes and hacked	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934741	him viciously. He knew his only plan was to keep moving, to stumble, stagger on. It was a fight for life. He had forgotten his hunger. Those wild visions of gluttony had gone from him. He had forgotten his thirst for revenge, forgotten everything but his own dire peril. "Keep moving, keep moving for God's sake," he urged himself hoarsely.	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934742	"You'll freeze if you let up a moment. Don't let up, don't!" But oh, how hard it was not to rest! Every muscle in his body seemed to beg and pray for rest, yet the spirit in him drove them to work anew. He was making a certain mad headway, travelling, always travelling. He doubted not he was doomed, but	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934743	instinct made him fight on as long as an atom of strength remained. He floundered to his armpits in a snowdrift. He struggled out and staggered on once more. In the mad buffoonery of that cutting wind he scarce could stand upright. His parka was frozen stiff as a board. He could feel his hands grow numb in his mits.	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934744	From his fingers the icy cold crept up and up. Long since he had lost all sensation in his feet. From the ankles down they were like wooden clogs. He had an idea they were frozen. He lifted them, and watched them sink and disappear in the clinging snow. He beat his numb hands against his breast. It was of	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934745	no use--he could not get back the feeling in them. A craving to lie down in the snow assailed him. Life was so sweet. He had visions of cities, of banquets, of theatres, of glittering triumphs, of glorious excitements, of women he had loved, conquered and thrown aside. Never again would he see that world. He would die here, and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934746	they would find him rigid and brittle, frozen so hard they would have to thaw him out before they buried him. He fancied he saw himself frozen in a grotesque position. There would be ice-crystals in the very centre of his heart, that heart that had glowed so fiercely with the lust of life. Yes, life was sweet. A vast	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934747	self-pity surged over him. Well, he had done his best; he could struggle no more. But struggle he did, another hour, two hours, three hours. Where was he going? Maybe round in a circle. He was like an automaton now. He did not think any more, he just kept moving. His feet clumped up and down. He lifted himself out	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934748	of snowpits; he staggered a few steps, fell, crawled on all fours in the darkness, then in a lull of the furious wind rose once more to his feet. The night was abysmal; closer and closer it hugged him. The wind was charging him from all points, baffling him like a merry monster, beating him down. The snow whirled around	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934749	him in a narrow eddy, and he tried to grope out of it and failed. Oh, he was tired, tired! He must give up. It was too bad. He was so strong, and capable of so much for good or bad. Alas! it had been all for bad. Oh, if he had but another chance he might make his life	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934750	tell a different tale! Well, he wasn't going to whine or cower. He would die game. His feet were frozen; his arms were frozen. Here he would lie down and--quit. It would soon be over, and it was a pleasant death, they said. One more look he gave through the writhing horror of the darkness; one more look before he	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934751	closed his eyes to the horror of the Greater Darkness.... Ha! what was that? He fancied he saw a dim glow just ahead. It could not be. It was one of those cheating dreams that came to a dying man, an illusion, a mockery. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again--the glow was still there. Surely it must	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934752	be real! It was steady. As he fell forward it seemed to grow more bright. On hands and knees he crawled to it. Brighter and brighter it grew. It was but a few feet away. Oh, God! could it be? Then there was a lull in the storm, and with a final plunge Locasto fell forward, fell towards a lamp	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934753	lighted in a window, fell against the closed door of a little cabin. * * * * * The Worm suffered acutely from the intense cold. He cursed it in his prolific and exhaustive way. He cursed the leaden weight of his snowshoes, and the thongs that chafed his feet. He cursed the pack he carried on his back, which	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934754	momently grew heavier. He cursed the country; then, after a general debauch of obscenity, he decided it was time to feed. He gathered some dry twigs and built a fire on the snow. He hurried, for the freezing process was going on in his carcase, and he was afraid. It was all ready. Now to light it--the matches. Where in	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934755	hell were the matches? Surely he could not have left them at the camp. With feverish haste he overturned his pack. No, they were not there. Could he have dropped them on the trail? He had a wild idea of going back. Then he thought of Locasto lying in the tent. He could never face that. But he must have	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934756	a fire. He was freezing to death--right now. Already his fingers were tingling and stiffening. Huh! maybe he had some matches in his pockets. No--yes, he had--one, two, three, four, five, that was all. Five slim sulphur matches, part of a block, and jammed in a corner of his waistcoat pocket. Eagerly he lit one. The twigs caught. The flame	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934757	leapt up. Oh it was good! He had a fire, a fire. He made tea, and ate some bread and meat. Then he felt his strength and courage return. He had four matches left. Four matches meant four fires. That would mean four more days' travel. By that time he would have reached the Dawson country. That night he made	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934758	a huge blaze, chopping down several trees and setting them alight. There, lying in his sleeping-bag, he rested well. In the early dawn he was afoot once more. Was there ever such an atrocious soul-freezing cold! He cursed it with every breath he drew. At noon he felt a vast temptation to make another fire, but he refrained. Then that	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934759	night he had bad luck, for one of his precious matches proved little more than a sliver tipped with the shadow of pink. In spite of his efforts it was abortive, and he was compelled to use another. He was down to his last match. Well, he must travel extra hard. So next day in a panic of fear he	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934760	covered a vast stretch of country. He must be getting near to one of the gold creeks. As he surmounted the crest of every ridge he expected to see the blue smoke of cabin fires, yet always was there the same empty desolation. Then night came and he prepared to camp. Once more he chopped down some trees and piled	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934761	them in a heap. He was very hungry, very cold, very tired. What a glorious blaze he would soon have! How gallantly the flames would leap and soar! He collected some dry moss and twigs. Never had he felt the cold so bitter. It was growing dusk. Above him the sky had a corpse-like glimmer, and on the snow strange	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934762	bale-fires glinted. It was a weird, sardonic light that waited, keeping tryst with darkness. He shuddered and his fingers trembled. Then ever so carefully he drew forth that most precious of things, the last match. He must hurry; his fingers were tingling, freezing, stiffening fast. He would lie down on the snow, and strike it quickly.... "O God!" From his	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934763	numb fingers the slim little match had dropped. There it lay on the snow. Gingerly he picked it up, with a wild hope that it would be all right. He struck it, but it doubled up. Again he struck it: the head came off--he was lost. He fell forward on his face. His hands were numb, dead. He lay supported	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934764	by his elbows, his eyes gazing blankly at the unlit fire. Five minutes passed; he did not rise. He seemed dazed, stupid, terror-stricken. Five more minutes passed. He did not move. He seemed to stiffen, to grow rigid, and the darkness gathered around him. A thought came to his mind that he would straighten out, so that when they found	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934765	him he would be in good shape to fit in a coffin. He did not want them to break his legs and arms. Yes, he would straighten out. He tried--but he could not, so he let it go at that. Over him the Wild seemed to laugh, a laugh of scorn, of mockery, of exquisite malice. And there in fifteen	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934766	minutes the cold slew him. When they found him he lay resting on his elbows and gazing with blank eyes of horror at his unlit fire. "It's a beast of a night," said the Halfbreed. He and I were paying a visit to Jim in the cabin he had built on Ophir. Jim was busy making ready for his hydraulic	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934767	work of the coming Spring, and once in a while we took a run up to see him. I was much worried about the old man. He was no longer the cheerful, optimistic Jim of the trail. He had taken to living alone. He had become grim and taciturn. He cared only for his work, and, while he read his	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934768	Bible more than ever, it was with a growing fondness for the stern old prophets. There was no doubt the North was affecting him strangely. "Lord! don't it blow? Seems as if the wind had a spite against us, wanted to put us out of business. It minds me of the blizzards we have in the Northwest, only it seems	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934769	ten times worse." The Halfbreed went on to tell us of snowstorms he had known, while huddled round the stove we listened to the monstrous uproar of the gale. "Why don't you chink your cabin better, Jim?" I asked; "the snow's sifting through in spots." He shoved more wood into the stove, till it glowed to a dull red, starred	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934770	with little sparks that came and went. "Snow with that wind would sift through a concrete wall," he said. "It's part an' parcel of the awful land. I tell you there's a curse on this country. Long, long ago godless people have lived in it, lived an' sinned an' perished. An' for its wickedness in the past the Lord has	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934771	put His everlasting curse on it." Sharply I looked at him. His eyes were staring. His face was drawn into a knot of despair. He sat down and fell into a mood of gloomy silence. How the storm was howling! The Half breed smoked his cigarette stolidly, while I listened and shuddered, mightily thankful that I was so safe and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934772	warm. "Say, I wonder if there's any one out in this bedlam of a night?" "If there is, God help him," said the Halfbreed. "He'll last about as long as a snowball in hell." "Yes, fancy wandering round out there, dazed and desperate; fancy the wind knocking you down and heaping the snow on you; fancy going on and on	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934773	in the darkness till you freeze stiff. Ugh!" Again I shuddered. Then, as the other two sat in silence, my mind strayed to other things. Chiefly I thought of Berna, all alone in Dawson. I longed to be back with her again. I thought of Locasto. Where in his wild wanderings had he got to? I thought of Glengyle and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934774	Garry. How had he fared after Mother died? Why did he not marry? Once a week I got a letter from him, full of affection and always urging me to come home. In my letters I had never mentioned Berna. There was time enough for that. Lord! a terrific gust of wind shook the cabin. It howled and screamed insanely	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934775	through the heaving night. Then there came a lull, a strange, deep lull, deathlike after the mighty blast. And in the sudden quiet it seemed to me I heard a hollow cry. "Hist! What was that?" whispered the Halfbreed. Jim, too, was listening intently. "Seems to me I heard a moan." "Sounded like the cry of an outcast soul. Maybe	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934776	it's the spirit of some poor devil that's lost away out in the night. I hate to open the door for nothing. It will make the place like an ice-house." Once more we listened intently, holding our breath. There it was again, a low, faint moan. "It's some one outside," gasped the Halfbreed. Horror-stricken, we stared at each other, then	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934777	he rushed to the door. A great gust of wind came in on us. "Hurry up, you fellows," he cried; "lend a hand. I think it's a man." Frantically we pulled it in, an unconscious form that struck a strange chill to our hearts. Anxiously we bent over it. "He's not dead," said the Halfbreed, "only badly frozen, hands and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934778	feet and face. Don't take him near the fire." He had been peering inside the parka hood and suddenly he turned to me. "Well, I'm darned--it's Locasto." Locasto! I shrank back and stood there staring blankly. Locasto! all the old hate resurged into my heart. Many a time had I wished him dead; and even dying, never could I have	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934779	forgiven him. As I would have shrank from a reptile, I drew back. "No, no," I said hoarsely, "I won't touch him. Curse him! Curse him! He can die." "Come on there," said Jim fiercely. "You wouldn't let a man die, would you? There's the brand of a dog on you if you do. You'll be little better than a	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934780	murderer. It don't matter what wrong he's done you, it's your duty as a man to help him. He's only a human soul, an' he's like to die anyway. Come on. Get these mits off his hands." Mechanically I obeyed him. I was dazed. It was as if I was impelled by a stronger will than my own. I began	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934781	pulling off the mits. The man's hands were white as putty. I slit the sleeves and saw that the awful whiteness went clear up the arm. It was horrible. Jim and the Halfbreed had cut open his mucklucks and taken off his socks, and there stretched out were two naked limbs, clay-white almost to the knees. Never did I see	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934782	anything so ghastly. Tearing off his clothing we laid him on the bed, and forced some brandy between his lips. At last heat was beginning to come back to the frozen frame. He moaned, and opened his eyes in a wild gaze. He did not know us. He was still fighting the blizzard. He raised himself up. "Keep a-going, keep	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934783	a-going," he panted. "Keep that bucket a-going," said the Halfbreed. "Thank God, we've got plenty of ice-water. We've got to thaw him out." Then for this man began a night of agony, such as few have endured. We lifted him onto a chair and put one of those clay-cold feet into the water. At the contact he screamed, and I	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934784	could see ice crystallise on the edge of the bucket. I had forgotten my hatred of the man. I only thought of those frozen hands and feet, and how to get life into them once more. Our struggle began. "The blood's beginning to circulate back," said the Halfbreed. "I guess that water feels scalding hot to him right now. We'll	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934785	have to hold him down presently. Ugh--hold on, boys, for all you're worth." He had not warned us any too soon. In a terrible spasm of agony Locasto threw us off quickly. We grasped him again. Now we were struggling with him. He fought like a demon. He was cursing us, praying us to leave him alone, raving, shrieking. Grimly	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934786	we held on, yet, all three, it was as much as we could do to keep him down. "One would think we were murdering him," said the Halfbreed. "Keep his foot in the bucket there. I wish we'd some kind of dope to give him. There's boiling lead running through his veins right now. Keep him down, boys; keep him	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934787	down." It was hard, but keep him down we did; though his cries of anguish deafened us through that awful night, and our muscles knotted as we gripped. Hour after hour we held him, plunging now a hand, now a foot in the ice-water, and holding it there. How long he fought! How strong he was! But the time came	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934788	when he could fight no more. He was like a child in our hands. There, at last it was done. We wrapped the tender flesh in pieces of blanket. We laid him moaning on the bed. Then, tired out with our long struggle, we threw ourselves down and slept like logs. Next morning he was still unconscious. He suffered intense	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934789	pain, so that Jim or the Halfbreed had to be ever by him. I, for my part, refused to go near. Indeed, I watched with a growing hatred his slow recovery. I was sorry, sorry. I wished he had died. At last he opened his eyes, and feebly he asked where he was. After the Halfbreed had told him, he	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934790	lay silent awhile. "I've had a close call," he groaned. Then he went on triumphantly: "I guess the Wild hasn't got the bulge on me yet. I can give it another round." He began to pick up rapidly, and there in that narrow cabin I sat within a few feet of him, and beheld him grow strong again. I suppose	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934791	my face must have showed my bitter hate, for often I saw him watching me through half-closed eyes, as if he realised my feelings. Then a sneering smile would curve his lips, a smile of satanic mockery. Again and again I thought of Berna. Fear and loathing convulsed me, and at times a great rage burned in me so that	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934792	I was like to kill him. "Seems to me everything's healing up but that hand," said the Halfbreed. "I guess it's too far gone. Gangrene's setting in. Say, Locasto, looks like you'll have to lose it." Locasto had been favouring me with a particularly sardonic look, but at these words the sneer was wiped out, and horror crowded into his	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934793	eyes. "Lose my hand--don't tell me that! Kill me at once! I don't want to be maimed. Lose my hand! Oh, that's terrible! terrible!" He gazed at the discoloured flesh. Already the stench of him was making us sick, but this hand with its putrid tissues was disgusting to a degree. "Yes," said the Halfbreed, "there's the line of the	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934794	gangrene, and it's spreading. Soon mortification will extend all up your arm, then you'll die of blood poison. Locasto, better let me take off that hand. I've done jobs like that before. I'm a handy man, I am. Come, let me take it off." "Heavens! you're a cold-blooded butcher. You're going to kill me, between you all. You're in a	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934795	plot leagued against me, and that long-faced fool over there's at the bottom of it. Damn you, then, go on and do what you want." "You're not very grateful," said the Halfbreed. "All right, lie there and rot." At his words Locasto changed his tune. He became alarmed to the point of terror. He knew the hand was doomed. He	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934796	lay staring at it, staring, staring. Then he sighed, and thrust its loathsomeness into our faces. "Come on," he growled. "Do something for me, you devils, or I'll do it myself." * * * * * The hour of the operation was at hand. The Halfbreed got his jack-knife ready. He had filed the edge till it was like a	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934797	rough saw. He cut the skin of the wrist just above the gangrene line, and raised it up an inch or so. It was here Locasto showed wonderful nerve. He took a large bite of tobacco and chewed steadily, while his keen black eyes watched every move of the knife. "Hurry up and get the cursed thing off," he snarled.	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934798	The Halfbreed nicked the flesh down to the bone, then with the ragged jack-knife he began to saw. I could not bear to look. It made me deathly sick. I heard the grit, grit of the jagged blade. I will remember the sound to my dying day. How long it seemed to take! No man could stand such torture. A	60	gutenberg
twg_000012934799	groan burst from Locasto's lips. He fell back on the bed. His jaws no longer worked, and a thin stream of brown saliva trickled down his chin. He had fainted. Quickly the Halfbreed finished his work. The hand dropped on the floor. He pulled down the flaps of skin and sewed them together. "How's that for home-made surgery?" he chuckled.	60	gutenberg

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Perhaps it was only the despair of their hunger, the ache of empty bellies. Closer and closer they crept to the silent tent. Locasto opened his eyes. Within a foot of his face were the fangs of a malamute. At his slight movement it drew back with a snarl, and retreated to the door. Locasto could see the other dogs

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crouching and eyeing him fixedly. What could be the matter? What had gotten into the brutes? Where was the Worm? Where were the provisions? Why was the tent flap open and the stove stone-cold? Then with a dawning comprehension that he had been deserted, Locasto uttered a curse and tried to rise. At first he thought he was stiff with

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cold, but a downward glance showed him his condition. He was helpless. He grew sick at the pit of his stomach, and glared at the dogs. They were drawing in on him. They seemed to bulk suddenly, to grow huge and menacing. Their gleaming teeth snapped in his face. He could fancy these teeth stripping the flesh from his body,

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gnawing at his bones with drooling jaws. Violently he shuddered. He must try to free himself, so that at least he could fight. Grimly the Worm had done his work, but he had hardly reckoned on the strength of this man. With a vast throe of fear Locasto tried to free himself. Tenser, tenser grew the thongs; they strained, they

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bit into his flesh, but they would not break. Yet as he relaxed it seemed to him they were less tight. Then he rested for another effort. Once again the gaunt, grey bitch was crawling up. He remembered how often he had starved it, clubbed it until it could barely stand. Now it was going to get even. It would

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snap at his throat, rip out his windpipe, bury its fangs in his bleeding flesh. He cursed it in the old way. With a spring it backed out again and stood with the others. He made another giant effort. Once again he felt the thongs strain and strain; then, when he ceased, he imagined they were still looser. The dogs

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seemed to have lost all fear. They stood in a circle within a few feet of him, regarding him intently. They smelled the blood on his head, and a slaver ran from their jaws. Again he cursed them, but this time they did not move. They seemed to realise he could not harm them. With their evilly-slanted eyes they watched

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his struggles. Strange, wise, uncanny brutes, they were biding their time, waiting to rush in on him, to rend him. Again he tried to get free. Now he fancied he could move his arm a little. He must hurry, for every instant the malamutes were growing bolder. Another strain and a wrench. Ha! he was able to squeeze his right

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arm from under the rawhide. He felt the foul breath of the dogs on his face, and quickly he struck at them. They jumped back, then, as if at a signal, they sprang in again. There was no time to lose. They were attacking him in earnest. Quickly he wrenched out his other arm. He was just in time, for

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the dogs were upon him. He struggled to his knees and shielded his head with his arms. Wildly he swung at the nearest dog. Full on the face he struck it, and it shot back as if hit by a bullet. But the others were on him. They had him down, snarling and ripping, a mad ferment of fury. Two

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of them were making for his face. As he lay on his back he gripped each by the throat. His hands were torn and bleeding, but he had them fast. In his grip of steel they struggled to free themselves in vain. They backed, they writhed, they twisted in a bow. With his huge hands he was choking them, choking

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them to death, using them as a shield against the other three. Then slowly he worked himself into a sitting position. He hurled one of the dogs to the tent door. He swung bludgeon blows at the others. They fled yelping and howling. He still held the Mackenzie River bitch. Getting his knee on her body, he bent her almost

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into a circle, bent her till her back broke with a snap. Then he rose and freed himself from the remaining thongs. He was torn and cut and bleeding, but he had triumphed. "Oh, the devil!" he growled, grinding his teeth. "He would have me chewed to rags by malamutes." He stared around. "He's taken everything, the scum! left me

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to starve. Ha! one thing he's forgotten--the matches. At least I can keep warm." He picked up the canister of matches and relit the stove. "I'll kill him for this," he muttered. "Night and day I'll follow him. I'll camp on his trail till I find him. Then--I'll torture him; I'll strip him and leave him naked in the snow."

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He slipped into his snowshoes, gave a last look around to see that no food had been left, and with a final growl of fury he started in pursuit. * * * * * Ahead of him, ploughing their way through the virgin snow, he could see the dragging track of the long snowshoes. He examined it, and noted that

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it was sharp and crisp at the edges. "He's got a good five hours' start of me! Travelling fast, too, by the length of the track." He had a thought of capturing the dogs and hitching them up; but, thoroughly terrified, they had retreated into the woods. To overtake this man, to glut his lust for revenge, he must depend

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on his own strength and endurance. "Now, Jack Locasto," he told himself grimly, "you've got a fight on your hands, such a fight as you never had before. Get right down to it." So, with head bowed and shoulders sloping forward, he darted on the track of the Worm. "He's got to break trail, the viper! and that's where I

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score. I can make twice the time. Oh, just wait, you little devil! just wait!" He ground his teeth vindictively, and put an inch more onto his stride. He was descending a long, open valley that seemed from its trackless snows to have been immemorially life-shunned and accursed. Black, witch-like pines sentinelled its flanks, and accentuated its desolation. And over

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all there was the silence of the Wild, that double-strong solution of silence from which all other silences are distilled, and spread out. Yet, as he gazed around him in this everlasting solitude, there was no fear in his heart. "I can fight this accursed land and beat it out every time," he exulted. "It can't get any the better

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of me." It was cold, so cold that it was difficult to imagine it could ever be warm again. To expose flesh was to feel instantly the sharp sting that heralds frostbite. As he ran, the sharp intake of icy air made his lungs seem to contract. His eyes smarted and tingled. The lashes froze closely. Ice formed in his

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nostrils and his nose began to bleed. He pulled up a moment. "Curse this infernal country!" He had not eaten and the icy air begot a ravenous hunger. He dreamed of food, but chiefly of bacon, fat, greasy bacon. How glorious it would be just to eat of it, raw, tallow bacon! He had nothing to eat. He would have

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nothing till he had overtaken the Worm. On! On! He came to where the Worm had made a camp. There were the ashes of a fire. "Curse him; he's got some matches after all," he said with bitter chagrin. Eagerly he searched all around in the snow to see if he could not find even a crumb of food. There

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was nothing. He pushed on. Night fell and he was forced to make camp. Oh, he was hungry! The night was vastly resplendent, a spendthrift night scattering everywhere its largess of stars. The cold had a crystalline quality and the trees detonated strangely in the silence. He built a huge fire: that at least he could have, and through eighteen

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hours of darkness he crouched by it, afraid to sleep for fear of freezing. "If I only had a tin to boil water in," he muttered; "there's lots of reindeer moss, and I could stew some of my mucklucks. Ah! I'll try and roast a bit of them." He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and

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held it over the fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He put it in his mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth refused to meet in it. However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and bolted them. At last the dawn came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and Locasto flung himself once

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more on the trail. He was not feeling so fit now. Hunger and loss of blood had weakened him so that his stride insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its spring. However, he plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate. Again he examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how crisped and hard was

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its edge. He was not making the time he had reckoned on. The Worm must be a long way ahead. Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep, or strain a sinew, then-- Locasto pictured with gloating joy the terror of the Worm as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake! the

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vermin! On! On! Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly. The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him whenever he exposed

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bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a demon of vengeance, fierce and menacing. He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of ice. The land lay in a wan apathy

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of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear. Icy land and icy sky met in a trap, a trap that held him fast; and over all, vast, titanic, terrible, the Spirit of the Wild seemed to brood. It laughed at him, a laugh of derision, of mockery, of callous gloating triumph. Locasto shuddered. Then night came and he built another giant fire. Again

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he bolted down some roasted muckluck. Overhead the stars glittered vindictively. They were green and blue and red, and they had spiny rays like starfish on which they danced. This night he had to make tremendous efforts to keep from sleeping. Several times he drowsed forward, and almost fell into the fire. As he crouched there his beard was singeing

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and his face scorched, but his back seemed as if it was cased in ice. Often he would turn and warm it at the fire, but not for long. He hated to face the terror of the silence and the dark, the shadow where waited Death. Better the crackling cheer of the spruce flame. At dawn the sky was leaden

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and the cold less despotic. Stretching interminably ahead was that lonely snowshoe trail. Locasto was puzzled. "Where in creation is the little devil going to, anyway?" he said, knitting his brows. "I figured he'd make direct for Dawson, but he's either changed his mind or got a wrong steer. By Heavens, that's it--the little varmint's lost his way." Locasto had

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an Indian's unerring sense of location. "I guess I can't afford to follow him any more," he reflected. "I've gone too far already. I'm all petered out. I'll have to let him go in the meantime. It's save yourself, Jack Locasto, while there's yet time. Me for Dawson." He struck off almost at right angles to the trail he had

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been following, over a low range of hills. It was evil going, and as he broke through the snow-crust mile after wearing mile, he felt himself grow weaker and weaker. "Buck up, old man," he adjured himself fiercely. "You've got to fight, fight." There was a strange stillness in the air, not the natural stillness of the Wild, but an

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unhealthy one, as of a suspension of something, of a vacuum, of bated breath. It was curiously full of terror. More and more he felt like a trapped animal, caught in a vast cage. The sky to the north was glooming ominously. Every second the horizon grew blacker, more bodeful, and Locasto stared at it, with a sudden quake at

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his heart. "Blizzard, by thunder!" he gasped. Was that a breath of wind that stung his cheek? Was it a snowflake that drifted along with it? Denser and denser grew the gloom, and now there was a roaring as of a great wind. King Blizzard was come. "I guess I'm done for," he hissed through clenched teeth. "But I'll fight

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to the finish. I'll die game." It was on him now with a swoop and a roar. He was in the thick of a mud-grey darkness, a bitter, blank darkness full of whirling wind-eddies and vast flurries of snow. He could not see more than a few feet before him. The stinging flakes blinded him; the coal-black night engulfed him.

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In that seething turmoil of the elements he was as helpless as a child. "I guess you're on your last trail, Jack Locasto," he muttered grimly. Nevertheless he lowered his head and butted desperately into the heart of the storm. He was very faint from lack of food, but despair had given him a new strength, and he plunged through

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drift and flurry with the fury of a goaded bull. The night had fallen black as the pit. He was in an immensity of darkness, a darkness that packed close up to him, and hugged him, and enfolded him like a blanket. And in the black void winds were raging with an insane fury, whirling aloft mountains of snow and

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hurling them along plain and valley. The forests shrieked in fear; the creatures of the Wild cowered in their lairs, but the solitary man stumbled on and on. As if by magic barriers of snow piled up before him, and almost to his shoulders he floundered through them. The wind had a hatchet edge that pierced his clothes and hacked

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him viciously. He knew his only plan was to keep moving, to stumble, stagger on. It was a fight for life. He had forgotten his hunger. Those wild visions of gluttony had gone from him. He had forgotten his thirst for revenge, forgotten everything but his own dire peril. "Keep moving, keep moving for God's sake," he urged himself hoarsely.

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"You'll freeze if you let up a moment. Don't let up, don't!" But oh, how hard it was not to rest! Every muscle in his body seemed to beg and pray for rest, yet the spirit in him drove them to work anew. He was making a certain mad headway, travelling, always travelling. He doubted not he was doomed, but

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instinct made him fight on as long as an atom of strength remained. He floundered to his armpits in a snowdrift. He struggled out and staggered on once more. In the mad buffoonery of that cutting wind he scarce could stand upright. His parka was frozen stiff as a board. He could feel his hands grow numb in his mits.

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From his fingers the icy cold crept up and up. Long since he had lost all sensation in his feet. From the ankles down they were like wooden clogs. He had an idea they were frozen. He lifted them, and watched them sink and disappear in the clinging snow. He beat his numb hands against his breast. It was of

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no use--he could not get back the feeling in them. A craving to lie down in the snow assailed him. Life was so sweet. He had visions of cities, of banquets, of theatres, of glittering triumphs, of glorious excitements, of women he had loved, conquered and thrown aside. Never again would he see that world. He would die here, and

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they would find him rigid and brittle, frozen so hard they would have to thaw him out before they buried him. He fancied he saw himself frozen in a grotesque position. There would be ice-crystals in the very centre of his heart, that heart that had glowed so fiercely with the lust of life. Yes, life was sweet. A vast

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self-pity surged over him. Well, he had done his best; he could struggle no more. But struggle he did, another hour, two hours, three hours. Where was he going? Maybe round in a circle. He was like an automaton now. He did not think any more, he just kept moving. His feet clumped up and down. He lifted himself out

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of snowpits; he staggered a few steps, fell, crawled on all fours in the darkness, then in a lull of the furious wind rose once more to his feet. The night was abysmal; closer and closer it hugged him. The wind was charging him from all points, baffling him like a merry monster, beating him down. The snow whirled around

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him in a narrow eddy, and he tried to grope out of it and failed. Oh, he was tired, tired! He must give up. It was too bad. He was so strong, and capable of so much for good or bad. Alas! it had been all for bad. Oh, if he had but another chance he might make his life

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tell a different tale! Well, he wasn't going to whine or cower. He would die game. His feet were frozen; his arms were frozen. Here he would lie down and--quit. It would soon be over, and it was a pleasant death, they said. One more look he gave through the writhing horror of the darkness; one more look before he

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closed his eyes to the horror of the Greater Darkness.... Ha! what was that? He fancied he saw a dim glow just ahead. It could not be. It was one of those cheating dreams that came to a dying man, an illusion, a mockery. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again--the glow was still there. Surely it must

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be real! It was steady. As he fell forward it seemed to grow more bright. On hands and knees he crawled to it. Brighter and brighter it grew. It was but a few feet away. Oh, God! could it be? Then there was a lull in the storm, and with a final plunge Locasto fell forward, fell towards a lamp

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lighted in a window, fell against the closed door of a little cabin. * * * * * The Worm suffered acutely from the intense cold. He cursed it in his prolific and exhaustive way. He cursed the leaden weight of his snowshoes, and the thongs that chafed his feet. He cursed the pack he carried on his back, which

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momently grew heavier. He cursed the country; then, after a general debauch of obscenity, he decided it was time to feed. He gathered some dry twigs and built a fire on the snow. He hurried, for the freezing process was going on in his carcase, and he was afraid. It was all ready. Now to light it--the matches. Where in

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hell were the matches? Surely he could not have left them at the camp. With feverish haste he overturned his pack. No, they were not there. Could he have dropped them on the trail? He had a wild idea of going back. Then he thought of Locasto lying in the tent. He could never face that. But he must have

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a fire. He was freezing to death--right now. Already his fingers were tingling and stiffening. Huh! maybe he had some matches in his pockets. No--yes, he had--one, two, three, four, five, that was all. Five slim sulphur matches, part of a block, and jammed in a corner of his waistcoat pocket. Eagerly he lit one. The twigs caught. The flame

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leapt up. Oh it was good! He had a fire, a fire. He made tea, and ate some bread and meat. Then he felt his strength and courage return. He had four matches left. Four matches meant four fires. That would mean four more days' travel. By that time he would have reached the Dawson country. That night he made

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a huge blaze, chopping down several trees and setting them alight. There, lying in his sleeping-bag, he rested well. In the early dawn he was afoot once more. Was there ever such an atrocious soul-freezing cold! He cursed it with every breath he drew. At noon he felt a vast temptation to make another fire, but he refrained. Then that

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night he had bad luck, for one of his precious matches proved little more than a sliver tipped with the shadow of pink. In spite of his efforts it was abortive, and he was compelled to use another. He was down to his last match. Well, he must travel extra hard. So next day in a panic of fear he

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covered a vast stretch of country. He must be getting near to one of the gold creeks. As he surmounted the crest of every ridge he expected to see the blue smoke of cabin fires, yet always was there the same empty desolation. Then night came and he prepared to camp. Once more he chopped down some trees and piled

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them in a heap. He was very hungry, very cold, very tired. What a glorious blaze he would soon have! How gallantly the flames would leap and soar! He collected some dry moss and twigs. Never had he felt the cold so bitter. It was growing dusk. Above him the sky had a corpse-like glimmer, and on the snow strange

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bale-fires glinted. It was a weird, sardonic light that waited, keeping tryst with darkness. He shuddered and his fingers trembled. Then ever so carefully he drew forth that most precious of things, the last match. He must hurry; his fingers were tingling, freezing, stiffening fast. He would lie down on the snow, and strike it quickly.... "O God!" From his

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numb fingers the slim little match had dropped. There it lay on the snow. Gingerly he picked it up, with a wild hope that it would be all right. He struck it, but it doubled up. Again he struck it: the head came off--he was lost. He fell forward on his face. His hands were numb, dead. He lay supported

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by his elbows, his eyes gazing blankly at the unlit fire. Five minutes passed; he did not rise. He seemed dazed, stupid, terror-stricken. Five more minutes passed. He did not move. He seemed to stiffen, to grow rigid, and the darkness gathered around him. A thought came to his mind that he would straighten out, so that when they found

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him he would be in good shape to fit in a coffin. He did not want them to break his legs and arms. Yes, he would straighten out. He tried--but he could not, so he let it go at that. Over him the Wild seemed to laugh, a laugh of scorn, of mockery, of exquisite malice. And there in fifteen

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minutes the cold slew him. When they found him he lay resting on his elbows and gazing with blank eyes of horror at his unlit fire. "It's a beast of a night," said the Halfbreed. He and I were paying a visit to Jim in the cabin he had built on Ophir. Jim was busy making ready for his hydraulic

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work of the coming Spring, and once in a while we took a run up to see him. I was much worried about the old man. He was no longer the cheerful, optimistic Jim of the trail. He had taken to living alone. He had become grim and taciturn. He cared only for his work, and, while he read his

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Bible more than ever, it was with a growing fondness for the stern old prophets. There was no doubt the North was affecting him strangely. "Lord! don't it blow? Seems as if the wind had a spite against us, wanted to put us out of business. It minds me of the blizzards we have in the Northwest, only it seems

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ten times worse." The Halfbreed went on to tell us of snowstorms he had known, while huddled round the stove we listened to the monstrous uproar of the gale. "Why don't you chink your cabin better, Jim?" I asked; "the snow's sifting through in spots." He shoved more wood into the stove, till it glowed to a dull red, starred

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with little sparks that came and went. "Snow with that wind would sift through a concrete wall," he said. "It's part an' parcel of the awful land. I tell you there's a curse on this country. Long, long ago godless people have lived in it, lived an' sinned an' perished. An' for its wickedness in the past the Lord has

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put His everlasting curse on it." Sharply I looked at him. His eyes were staring. His face was drawn into a knot of despair. He sat down and fell into a mood of gloomy silence. How the storm was howling! The Half breed smoked his cigarette stolidly, while I listened and shuddered, mightily thankful that I was so safe and

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warm. "Say, I wonder if there's any one out in this bedlam of a night?" "If there is, God help him," said the Halfbreed. "He'll last about as long as a snowball in hell." "Yes, fancy wandering round out there, dazed and desperate; fancy the wind knocking you down and heaping the snow on you; fancy going on and on

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in the darkness till you freeze stiff. Ugh!" Again I shuddered. Then, as the other two sat in silence, my mind strayed to other things. Chiefly I thought of Berna, all alone in Dawson. I longed to be back with her again. I thought of Locasto. Where in his wild wanderings had he got to? I thought of Glengyle and

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Garry. How had he fared after Mother died? Why did he not marry? Once a week I got a letter from him, full of affection and always urging me to come home. In my letters I had never mentioned Berna. There was time enough for that. Lord! a terrific gust of wind shook the cabin. It howled and screamed insanely

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through the heaving night. Then there came a lull, a strange, deep lull, deathlike after the mighty blast. And in the sudden quiet it seemed to me I heard a hollow cry. "Hist! What was that?" whispered the Halfbreed. Jim, too, was listening intently. "Seems to me I heard a moan." "Sounded like the cry of an outcast soul. Maybe

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it's the spirit of some poor devil that's lost away out in the night. I hate to open the door for nothing. It will make the place like an ice-house." Once more we listened intently, holding our breath. There it was again, a low, faint moan. "It's some one outside," gasped the Halfbreed. Horror-stricken, we stared at each other, then

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he rushed to the door. A great gust of wind came in on us. "Hurry up, you fellows," he cried; "lend a hand. I think it's a man." Frantically we pulled it in, an unconscious form that struck a strange chill to our hearts. Anxiously we bent over it. "He's not dead," said the Halfbreed, "only badly frozen, hands and

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feet and face. Don't take him near the fire." He had been peering inside the parka hood and suddenly he turned to me. "Well, I'm darned--it's Locasto." Locasto! I shrank back and stood there staring blankly. Locasto! all the old hate resurged into my heart. Many a time had I wished him dead; and even dying, never could I have

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forgiven him. As I would have shrank from a reptile, I drew back. "No, no," I said hoarsely, "I won't touch him. Curse him! Curse him! He can die." "Come on there," said Jim fiercely. "You wouldn't let a man die, would you? There's the brand of a dog on you if you do. You'll be little better than a

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murderer. It don't matter what wrong he's done you, it's your duty as a man to help him. He's only a human soul, an' he's like to die anyway. Come on. Get these mits off his hands." Mechanically I obeyed him. I was dazed. It was as if I was impelled by a stronger will than my own. I began

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pulling off the mits. The man's hands were white as putty. I slit the sleeves and saw that the awful whiteness went clear up the arm. It was horrible. Jim and the Halfbreed had cut open his mucklucks and taken off his socks, and there stretched out were two naked limbs, clay-white almost to the knees. Never did I see

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anything so ghastly. Tearing off his clothing we laid him on the bed, and forced some brandy between his lips. At last heat was beginning to come back to the frozen frame. He moaned, and opened his eyes in a wild gaze. He did not know us. He was still fighting the blizzard. He raised himself up. "Keep a-going, keep

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a-going," he panted. "Keep that bucket a-going," said the Halfbreed. "Thank God, we've got plenty of ice-water. We've got to thaw him out." Then for this man began a night of agony, such as few have endured. We lifted him onto a chair and put one of those clay-cold feet into the water. At the contact he screamed, and I

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could see ice crystallise on the edge of the bucket. I had forgotten my hatred of the man. I only thought of those frozen hands and feet, and how to get life into them once more. Our struggle began. "The blood's beginning to circulate back," said the Halfbreed. "I guess that water feels scalding hot to him right now. We'll

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have to hold him down presently. Ugh--hold on, boys, for all you're worth." He had not warned us any too soon. In a terrible spasm of agony Locasto threw us off quickly. We grasped him again. Now we were struggling with him. He fought like a demon. He was cursing us, praying us to leave him alone, raving, shrieking. Grimly

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we held on, yet, all three, it was as much as we could do to keep him down. "One would think we were murdering him," said the Halfbreed. "Keep his foot in the bucket there. I wish we'd some kind of dope to give him. There's boiling lead running through his veins right now. Keep him down, boys; keep him

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down." It was hard, but keep him down we did; though his cries of anguish deafened us through that awful night, and our muscles knotted as we gripped. Hour after hour we held him, plunging now a hand, now a foot in the ice-water, and holding it there. How long he fought! How strong he was! But the time came

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when he could fight no more. He was like a child in our hands. There, at last it was done. We wrapped the tender flesh in pieces of blanket. We laid him moaning on the bed. Then, tired out with our long struggle, we threw ourselves down and slept like logs. Next morning he was still unconscious. He suffered intense

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pain, so that Jim or the Halfbreed had to be ever by him. I, for my part, refused to go near. Indeed, I watched with a growing hatred his slow recovery. I was sorry, sorry. I wished he had died. At last he opened his eyes, and feebly he asked where he was. After the Halfbreed had told him, he

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lay silent awhile. "I've had a close call," he groaned. Then he went on triumphantly: "I guess the Wild hasn't got the bulge on me yet. I can give it another round." He began to pick up rapidly, and there in that narrow cabin I sat within a few feet of him, and beheld him grow strong again. I suppose

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my face must have showed my bitter hate, for often I saw him watching me through half-closed eyes, as if he realised my feelings. Then a sneering smile would curve his lips, a smile of satanic mockery. Again and again I thought of Berna. Fear and loathing convulsed me, and at times a great rage burned in me so that

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I was like to kill him. "Seems to me everything's healing up but that hand," said the Halfbreed. "I guess it's too far gone. Gangrene's setting in. Say, Locasto, looks like you'll have to lose it." Locasto had been favouring me with a particularly sardonic look, but at these words the sneer was wiped out, and horror crowded into his

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eyes. "Lose my hand--don't tell me that! Kill me at once! I don't want to be maimed. Lose my hand! Oh, that's terrible! terrible!" He gazed at the discoloured flesh. Already the stench of him was making us sick, but this hand with its putrid tissues was disgusting to a degree. "Yes," said the Halfbreed, "there's the line of the

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gangrene, and it's spreading. Soon mortification will extend all up your arm, then you'll die of blood poison. Locasto, better let me take off that hand. I've done jobs like that before. I'm a handy man, I am. Come, let me take it off." "Heavens! you're a cold-blooded butcher. You're going to kill me, between you all. You're in a

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plot leagued against me, and that long-faced fool over there's at the bottom of it. Damn you, then, go on and do what you want." "You're not very grateful," said the Halfbreed. "All right, lie there and rot." At his words Locasto changed his tune. He became alarmed to the point of terror. He knew the hand was doomed. He

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lay staring at it, staring, staring. Then he sighed, and thrust its loathsomeness into our faces. "Come on," he growled. "Do something for me, you devils, or I'll do it myself." * * * * * The hour of the operation was at hand. The Halfbreed got his jack-knife ready. He had filed the edge till it was like a

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rough saw. He cut the skin of the wrist just above the gangrene line, and raised it up an inch or so. It was here Locasto showed wonderful nerve. He took a large bite of tobacco and chewed steadily, while his keen black eyes watched every move of the knife. "Hurry up and get the cursed thing off," he snarled.

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The Halfbreed nicked the flesh down to the bone, then with the ragged jack-knife he began to saw. I could not bear to look. It made me deathly sick. I heard the grit, grit of the jagged blade. I will remember the sound to my dying day. How long it seemed to take! No man could stand such torture. A

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groan burst from Locasto's lips. He fell back on the bed. His jaws no longer worked, and a thin stream of brown saliva trickled down his chin. He had fainted. Quickly the Halfbreed finished his work. The hand dropped on the floor. He pulled down the flaps of skin and sewed them together. "How's that for home-made surgery?" he chuckled.

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