第16章 WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP(3)

It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy work wore them down.They were short of weight and in poor condition when they made Dawson, and should have had a ten days' or a week's rest at least.But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukon bank from the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside.The dogs were tired, the drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed every day.This meant a soft trail, greater friction on the runners, and heavier pulling for the dogs; yet the drivers were fair through it all, and did their best for the animals.

Each night the dogs were attended to first.They ate before the drivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seen to the feet of the dogs he drove.Still, their strength went down.Since the beginning of the winter they had traveled eighteen hundred miles, dragging sleds the whole weary distance; and eighteen hundred miles will tell upon life of the toughest.Buck stood it, keeping his mates up to their work and maintaining discipline, though he too was very tired.Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep each night.Joe was sourer than ever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.

But it was Dave who suffered most of all.Something had gone wrong with him.He became more morose and irritable, and when camp was pitched at once made his nest, where his driver fed him.Once out of the harness and down, he did not get on his feet again till harness-up time in the morning.

Sometimes, in the traces, when jerked by a sudden stoppage of the sled, or by straining to start it, he would cry out with pain.The driver examined him, but could find nothing.All the drivers became interested in his case.

They talked it over at meal-time, and over their last pipes before going to bed, and one night they held a consultation.He was brought from his nest to the fire and was pressed and prodded till he cried out many times.

Something was wrong inside, but they could locate no broken bones, could not make it out.

By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he was falling repeatedly in the traces.The Scotch half-breed called a halt and took him out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast to the sled.His intention was to rest Dave, letting him run free behind the sled.Sick as he was, Dave resented being taken out, grunting and growling while the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken-heartedly when he saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served so long.For the pride of trace and trail was his, and, sick unto death, he could not bear that another dog should do his work.

When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside the beaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him and trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, striving to leap inside his traces and get between him and the sled, and all the while whining and yelping and crying with grief and pain.The half-breed tried to drive him away with the whip; but he paid no heed to the stinging lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder.Dave refused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going was easy, but continued to flounder alongside in the soft snow, where the going was most difficult, till exhausted.Then he fell, and lay where he fell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by.

With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger along behind till the train made another stop, when he floundered past the sleds to his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks.His driver lingered a moment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind.Then he returned and started his dogs.They swung out on the trail with remarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped in surprise.The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved.He called his comrades to witness the sight.

Dave had bitten through both of Sol-lek's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in his proper place.

He pleaded with his eyes to remain there.The driver was perplexed.

His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut out of the traces.Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content.So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt.Several times fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once the sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter on one of his hind legs.

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.