she stole from the fish-sacks and fed them slyly. But it was not food
that Buck and the huskies needed, but rest. And though they were making
poor time, the heavy load they dragged sapped their strength severely.
Then came the underfeeding. Hal awoke one day to the fact that his
dog-food was half gone and the distance only quarter covered; further,
that for love or money no additional dog-food was to be obtained. So he
cut down even the orthodox ration and tried to increase the day s
travel. His sister and brother-in-law seconded him; but they were
frustrated by their heavy outfit and their own incompetence. It was a
simple matter to give the dogs less food; but it was impossible to make
the dogs travel faster, while their own inability to get under way
earlier in the morning prevented them from travelling longer hours. Not
only did they not know how to work dogs, but they did not know how to
work themselves.
The first to go was Dub. Poor blundering thief that he was, always
getting caught and punished, he had none the less been a faithful
worker. His wrenched shoulder-blade, untreated and unrested, went from
bad to worse, till finally Hal shot him with the big Colt s revolver.
It is a saying of the country that an Outside dog starves to death on
the ration of the husky, so the six Outside dogs under Buck could do no
less than die on half the ration of the husky. The Newfoundland went
first, followed by the three short-haired pointers, the two mongrels
hanging more grittily on to life, but going in the end.
By this time all the amenities and gentlenesses of the Southland had
fallen away from the three people. Shorn of its glamour and romance,
Arctic travel became to them a reality too harsh for their manhood and
womanhood. Mercedes ceased weeping over the dogs, being too occupied
with weeping over herself and with quarrelling with her husband and
brother. To quarrel was the one thing they were never too weary to do.
Their irritability arose out of their misery, increased with it,
doubled upon it, outdistanced it. The wonderful patience of the trail
which comes to men who toil hard and suffer sore, and remain sweet of
speech and kindly, did not come to these two men and the woman. They
had no inkling of such a patience. They were stiff and in pain; their
muscles ached, their bones ached, their very hearts ached; and because
of this they became sharp of speech, and hard words were first on their
lips in the morning and last at night.
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