But he held out till camp was reached, when his driver made a place for
him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. At harness-up
time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts he got on
his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way forward slowly
toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates. He would
advance his fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitching
movement, when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead again for
a few more inches. His strength left him, and the last his mates saw of
him he lay gasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But they could
hear him mournfully howling till they passed out of sight behind a belt
of river timber.
Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced his
steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A
revolver-shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips snapped,
the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail; but Buck
knew, and every dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt of river
trees.
Chapter V. The Toil of Trace and Trail
Thirty days from the time it left Dawson, the Salt Water Mail, with
Buck and his mates at the fore, arrived at Skaguay. They were in a
wretched state, worn out and worn down. Buck s one hundred and forty
pounds had dwindled to one hundred and fifteen. The rest of his mates,
though lighter dogs, had relatively lost more weight than he. Pike, the
malingerer, who, in his lifetime of deceit, had often successfully
feigned a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest. Sol-leks was limping,
and Dub was suffering from a wrenched shoulder-blade.
They were all terribly footsore. No spring or rebound was left in them.
Their feet fell heavily on the trail, jarring their bodies and doubling
the fatigue of a day s travel. There was nothing the matter with them
except that they were dead tired. It was not the dead-tiredness that
comes through brief and excessive effort, from which recovery is a
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