hysteria. Thornton rapped Hal s knuckles with the axe-handle, knocking
the knife to the ground. He rapped his knuckles again as he tried to
pick it up. Then he stooped, picked it up himself, and with two strokes
cut Buck s traces.
Hal had no fight left in him. Besides, his hands were full with his
sister, or his arms, rather; while Buck was too near dead to be of
further use in hauling the sled. A few minutes later they pulled out
from the bank and down the river. Buck heard them go and raised his
head to see, Pike was leading, Sol-leks was at the wheel, and between
were Joe and Teek. They were limping and staggering. Mercedes was
riding the loaded sled. Hal guided at the gee-pole, and Charles
stumbled along in the rear.
As Buck watched them, Thornton knelt beside him and with rough, kindly
hands searched for broken bones. By the time his search had disclosed
nothing more than many bruises and a state of terrible starvation, the
sled was a quarter of a mile away. Dog and man watched it crawling
along over the ice. Suddenly, they saw its back end drop down, as into
a rut, and the gee-pole, with Hal clinging to it, jerk into the air.
Mercedes s scream came to their ears. They saw Charles turn and make
one step to run back, and then a whole section of ice give way and dogs
and humans disappear. A yawning hole was all that was to be seen. The
bottom had dropped out of the trail.
John Thornton and Buck looked at each other.
You poor devil, said John Thornton, and Buck licked his hand.
Chapter VI. For the Love of a Man
When John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December his partners
had made him comfortable and left him to get well, going on themselves
up the river to get out a raft of saw-logs for Dawson. He was still
limping slightly at the time he rescued Buck, but with the continued
warm weather even the slight limp left him. And here, lying by the
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