\u2018Carmen won\u2019t last more than a couple of days.\u2019 Mason spat out a chunk of ice and surveyed the poor animal ruefully, then put her foot in his mouth and proceeded to bite out the ice which clustered cruelly between the toes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I never saw a dog with a highfalutin\u2019 name that ever was worth a rap,\u2019 he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside. \u2018They just fade away and die under the responsibility. Did ye ever see one go wrong with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash, or Husky? No, sir! Take a look at Shookum here, he\u2019s\u2014\u2019 Snap! The lean brute flashed up, the white teeth just missing Mason\u2019s throat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Ye will, will ye?\u2019 A shrewd clout behind the ear with the butt of the dog whip stretched the animal in the snow, quivering softly, a yellow slaver dripping from its fangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018As I was saying, just look at Shookum here\u2014he\u2019s got the spirit. Bet ye he eats Carmen before the week\u2019s out.\u2019 \u2018I\u2019ll bank another proposition against that,\u2019 replied Malemute Kid, reversing the frozen bread placed before the fire to thaw. \u2018We\u2019ll eat Shookum before the trip is over. What d\u2019ye say, Ruth?\u2019 The Indian woman settled the coffee with a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kid to her husband, then at the dogs, but vouchsafed no reply. It was such a palpable truism that none was necessary. Two hundred miles of unbroken trail in prospect, with a scant six days\u2019 grub for themselves and none for the dogs, could admit no other alternative. The two men and the woman grouped about the fire and began their meager meal. The dogs lay in their harnesses for it was a midday halt, and watched each mouthful enviously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018No more lunches after today,\u2019 said Malemute Kid. \u2018And we\u2019ve got to keep a close eye on the dogs\u2014they\u2019re getting vicious. They\u2019d just as soon pull a fellow down as not, if they get a chance.\u2019 \u2018And I was president of an Epworth once, and taught in the Sunday school.\u2019 Having irrelevantly delivered himself of this, Mason fell into a dreamy contemplation of his steaming moccasins, but was aroused by Ruth filling his cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Thank God, we\u2019ve got slathers of tea! I\u2019ve seen it growing, down in Tennessee. What wouldn\u2019t I give for a hot corn pone just now! Never mind, Ruth; you won\u2019t starve much longer, nor wear moccasins either.\u2019 The woman threw off her gloom at this, and in her eyes welled up a great love for her white lord\u2014the first white man she had ever seen\u2014the first man whom she had known to treat a woman as something better than a mere animal or beast of burden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes, Ruth,\u2019 continued her husband, having recourse to the macaronic jargon in which it was alone possible for them to understand each other; \u2018wait till we clean up and pull for the Outside. We\u2019ll take the White Man\u2019s canoe and go to the Salt Water. Yes, bad water, rough water\u2014great mountains dance up and down all the time. And so big, so far, so far away\u2014you travel ten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep\u2019\u2014he graphically enumerated the days on his fingers\u2014\u2019all the time water, bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the same mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high\u2014ten, twenty pines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Hi-yu skookum!\u2019 He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at Malemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end, by sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but Ruth\u2019s eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half believed he was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018And then you step into a\u2014a box, and pouf! up you go.\u2019 He tossed his empty cup in the air by way of illustration and, as he deftly caught it, cried: \u2018And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine men! You go Fort Yukon. I go Arctic City\u2014twenty-five sleep\u2014big string, all the time\u2014I catch him string\u2014I say, \u201cHello, Ruth! How are ye?\u201d\u2014and you say, \u201cIs that my good husband?\u201d\u2014and I say, \u201cYes\u201d\u2014and you say, \u201cNo can bake good bread, no more soda\u201d\u2014then I say, \u201cLook in cache, under flour; good-by.\u201d You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you Fort Yukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine man!\u2019 Ruth smiled so ingenuously at the fairy story that both men burst into laughter. A row among the dogs cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling combatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready for the trail.\u2014\u2019Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!\u2019 Mason worked his whip smartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sled with the gee pole. Ruth followed with the second team, leaving Malemute Kid, who had helped her start, to bring up the rear. Strong man, brute that he was, capable of felling an ox at a blow, he could not bear to beat the poor animals, but humored them as a dog driver rarely does\u2014nay, almost wept with them in their misery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!\u2019 he murmured, after several ineffectual attempts to start the load. But his patience was at last rewarded, and though whimpering with pain, they hastened to join their fellows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit such extravagance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is the worst. Happy is the man who can weather a day\u2019s travel at the price of silence, and that on a beaten track. And of all heartbreaking labors, that of breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbed shoe sinks till the snow is level with the knee. Then up, straight up, the deviation of a fraction of an inch being a certain precursor of disaster, the snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is cleared; then forward, down, and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the matter of half a yard. He who tries this for the first time, if haply he avoids bringing his shoes in dangerous propinquity and measures not his length on the treacherous footing, will give up exhausted at the end of a hundred yards; he who can keep out of the way of the dogs for a whole day may well crawl into his sleeping bag with a clear conscience and a pride which passeth all understanding; and he who travels twenty sleeps on the Long Trail is a man whom the gods may envy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The afternoon wore on, and with the awe, born of the White Silence, the voiceless travelers bent to their work. Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity\u2014the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven\u2019s artillery\u2014but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggot\u2019s life, nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him\u2014the hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence\u2014it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So wore the day away. The river took a great bend, and Mason headed his team for the cutoff across the narrow neck of land. But the dogs balked at the high bank. Again and again, though Ruth and Malemute Kid were shoving on the sled, they slipped back. Then came the concerted effort. The miserable creatures, weak from hunger, exerted their last strength. Up\u2014up\u2014the sled poised on the top of the bank; but the leader swung the string of dogs behind him to the right, fouling Mason\u2019s snowshoes. The result was grievous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mason was whipped off his feet; one of the dogs fell in the traces; and the sled toppled back, dragging everything to the bottom again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Slash! the whip fell among the dogs savagely, especially upon the one which had fallen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t,\u2014Mason,\u2019 entreated Malemute Kid; \u2018the poor devil\u2019s on its last legs. Wait and we\u2019ll put my team on.\u2019 Mason deliberately withheld the whip till the last word had fallen, then out flashed the long lash, completely curling about the offending creature\u2019s body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carmen\u2014for it was Carmen\u2014cowered in the snow, cried piteously, then rolled over on her side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a tragic moment, a pitiful incident of the trail\u2014a dying dog, two comrades in anger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ruth glanced solicitously from man to man. But Malemute Kid restrained himself, though there was a world of reproach in his eyes, and, bending over the dog, cut the traces. No word was spoken. The teams were doublespanned and the difficulty overcome; the sleds were under way again, the dying dog dragging herself along in the rear. As long as an animal can travel, it is not shot, and this last chance is accorded it\u2014the crawling into camp, if it can, in the hope of a moose being killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Already penitent for his angry action, but too stubborn to make amends, Mason toiled on at the head of the cavalcade, little dreaming that danger hovered in the air. The timber clustered thick in the sheltered bottom, and through this they threaded their way. Fifty feet or more from the trail towered a lofty pine. For generations it had stood there, and for generations destiny had had this one end in view\u2014perhaps the same had been decreed of Mason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stooped to fasten the loosened thong of his moccasin. The sleds came to a halt, and the dogs lay down in the snow without a whimper. The stillness was weird; not a breath rustled the frost-encrusted forest; the cold and silence of outer space had chilled the heart and smote the trembling lips of nature. A sigh pulsed through the air\u2014they did not seem to actually hear it, but rather felt it, like the premonition of movement in a motionless void. Then the great tree, burdened with its weight of years and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life. He heard the warning crash and attempted to spring up but, almost erect, caught the blow squarely on the shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sudden danger, the quick death\u2014how often had Malemute Kid faced it! The pine needles were still quivering as he gave his commands and sprang into action. Nor did the Indian girl faint or raise her voice in idle wailing, as might many of her white sisters. At his order, she threw her weight on the end of a quickly extemporized handspike, easing the pressure and listening to her husband\u2019s groans, while Malemute Kid attacked the tree with his ax. The steel rang merrily as it bit into the frozen trunk, each stroke being accompanied by a forced, audible respiration, the \u2018Huh!\u2019 \u2018Huh!\u2019 of the woodsman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At last the Kid laid the pitiable thing that was once a man in the snow. But worse than his comrade\u2019s pain was the dumb anguish in the woman\u2019s face, the blended look of hopeful, hopeless query. Little was said; those of the Northland are early taught the futility of words and the inestimable value of deeds. With the temperature at sixty-five below zero, a man cannot lie many minutes in the snow and live. So the sled lashings were cut, and the sufferer, rolled in furs, laid on a couch of boughs. Before him roared a fire, built of the very wood which wrought the mishap. Behind and partially over him was stretched the primitive fly\u2014a piece of canvas, which caught the radiating heat and threw it back and down upon him\u2014a trick which men may know who study physics at the fount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And men who have shared their bed with death know when the call is sounded. Mason was terribly crushed. The most cursory examination revealed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His right arm, leg, and back were broken; his limbs were paralyzed from the hips; and the likelihood of internal injuries was large. An occasional moan was his only sign of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No hope; nothing to be done. The pitiless night crept slowly by\u2014Ruth\u2019s portion, the despairing stoicism of her race, and Malemute Kid adding new lines to his face of bronze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, Mason suffered least of all, for he spent his time in eastern Tennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains, living over the scenes of his childhood. And most pathetic was the melody of his long-forgotten Southern vernacular, as he raved of swimming holes and coon hunts and watermelon raids. It was as Greek to Ruth, but the Kid understood and felt\u2014felt as only one can feel who has been shut out for years from all that civilization means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morning brought consciousness to the stricken man, and Malemute Kid bent closer to catch his whispers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You remember when we foregathered on the Tanana, four years come next ice run? I didn\u2019t care so much for her then. It was more like she was pretty, and there was a smack of excitement about it, I think. But d\u2019ye know, I\u2019ve come to think a heap of her. She\u2019s been a good wife to me, always at my shoulder in the pinch. And when it comes to trading, you know there isn\u2019t her equal. D\u2019ye recollect the time she shot the Moosehorn Rapids to pull you and me off that rock, the bullets whipping the water like hailstones?\u2014and the time of the famine at Nuklukyeto?\u2014when she raced the ice run to bring the news?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes, she\u2019s been a good wife to me, better\u2019n that other one. Didn\u2019t know I\u2019d been there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Never told you, eh? Well, I tried it once, down in the States. That\u2019s why I\u2019m here. Been raised together, too. I came away to give her a chance for divorce. She got it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018But that\u2019s got nothing to do with Ruth. I had thought of cleaning up and pulling for the Outside next year\u2014her and I\u2014but it\u2019s too late. Don\u2019t send her back to her people, Kid. It\u2019s beastly hard for a woman to go back. Think of it!\u2014nearly four years on our bacon and beans and flour and dried fruit, and then to go back to her fish and caribou. It\u2019s not good for her to have tried our ways, to come to know they\u2019re better\u2019n her people\u2019s, and then return to them. Take care of her, Kid, why don\u2019t you\u2014but no, you always fought shy of them\u2014and you never told me why you came to this country. Be kind to her, and send her back to the States as soon as you can. But fix it so she can come back\u2014liable to get homesick, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018And the youngster\u2014it\u2019s drawn us closer, Kid. I only hope it is a boy. Think of it!\u2014flesh of my flesh, Kid. He mustn\u2019t stop in this country. And if it\u2019s a girl, why, she can\u2019t. Sell my furs; they\u2019ll fetch at least five thousand, and I\u2019ve got as much more with the company. And handle my interests with yours. I think that bench claim will show up. See that he gets a good schooling; and Kid, above all, don\u2019t let him come back. This country was not made for white men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I\u2019m a gone man, Kid. Three or four sleeps at the best. You\u2019ve got to go on. You must go on! Remember, it\u2019s my wife, it\u2019s my boy\u2014O God! I hope it\u2019s a boy! You can\u2019t stay by me\u2014and I charge you, a dying man, to pull on.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Give me three days,\u2019 pleaded Malemute Kid. \u2018You may change for the better; something may turn up.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018No.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Just three days.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You must pull on.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Two days.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It\u2019s my wife and my boy, Kid. You would not ask it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018One day.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018No, no! I charge\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Only one day. We can shave it through on the grub, and I might knock over a moose.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018No\u2014all right; one day, but not a minute more. And, Kid, don\u2019t\u2014don\u2019t leave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on the trigger. You understand. Think of it! Think of it! Flesh of my flesh, and I\u2019ll never live to see him!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by and tell her that she must think of the boy and not wait till I\u2019m dead. She might refuse to go with you if I didn\u2019t. Goodby, old man; good-by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Kid! I say\u2014a\u2014sink a hole above the pup, next to the slide. I panned out forty cents on my shovel there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018And, Kid!\u2019 He stooped lower to catch the last faint words, the dying man\u2019s surrender of his pride. \u2018I\u2019m sorry\u2014for\u2014you know\u2014Carmen.\u2019 Leaving the girl crying softly over her man, Malemute Kid slipped into his parka and snowshoes, tucked his rifle under his arm, and crept away into the forest. He was no tyro in the stern sorrows of the Northland, but never had he faced so stiff a problem as this. In the abstract, it was a plain, mathematical proposition\u2014three possible lives as against one doomed one. But now he hesitated. For five years, shoulder to shoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and mines, facing death by field and flood and famine, had they knitted the bonds of their comradeship. So close was the tie that he had often been conscious of a vague jealousy of Ruth, from the first time she had come between. And now it must be severed by his own hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose, all game seemed to have deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling into camp, lighthanded, heavyhearted. An uproar from the dogs and shrill cries from Ruth hastened him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in the midst of the snarling pack, laying about her with an ax. The dogs had broken the iron rule of their masters and were rushing the grub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He joined the issue with his rifle reversed, and the hoary game of natural selection was played out with all the ruthlessness of its primeval environment. Rifle and ax went up and down, hit or missed with monotonous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, with wild eyes and dripping fangs; and man and beast fought for supremacy to the bitterest conclusion. Then the beaten brutes crept to the edge of the firelight, licking their wounds, voicing their misery to the stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The whole stock of dried salmon had been devoured, and perhaps five pounds of flour remained to tide them over two hundred miles of wilderness. Ruth returned to her husband, while Malemute Kid cut up the warm body of one of the dogs, the skull of which had been crushed by the ax. Every portion was carefully put away, save the hide and offal, which were cast to his fellows of the moment before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morning brought fresh trouble. The animals were turning on each other. Carmen, who still clung to her slender thread of life, was downed by the pack. The lash fell among them unheeded. They cringed and cried under the blows, but refused to scatter till the last wretched bit had disappeared\u2014bones, hide, hair, everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malemute Kid went about his work, listening to Mason, who was back in Tennessee, delivering tangled discourses and wild exhortations to his brethren of other days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taking advantage of neighboring pines, he worked rapidly, and Ruth watched him make a cache similar to those sometimes used by hunters to preserve their meat from the wolverines and dogs. One after the other, he bent the tops of two small pines toward each other and nearly to the ground, making them fast with thongs of moosehide. Then he beat the dogs into submission and harnessed them to two of the sleds, loading the same with everything but the furs which enveloped Mason. These he wrapped and lashed tightly about him, fastening either end of the robes to the bent pines. A single stroke of his hunting knife would release them and send the body high in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ruth had received her husband\u2019s last wishes and made no struggle. Poor girl, she had learned the lesson of obedience well. From a child, she had bowed, and seen all women bow, to the lords of creation, and it did not seem in the nature of things for woman to resist. The Kid permitted her one outburst of grief, as she kissed her husband\u2014her own people had no such custom\u2014then led her to the foremost sled and helped her into her snowshoes. Blindly, instinctively, she took the gee pole and whip, and \u2018mushed\u2019 the dogs out on the trail. Then he returned to Mason, who had fallen into a coma, and long after she was out of sight crouched by the fire, waiting, hoping, praying for his comrade to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not pleasant to be alone with painful thoughts in the White Silence. The silence of gloom is merciful, shrouding one as with protection and breathing a thousand intangible sympathies; but the bright White Silence, clear and cold, under steely skies, is pitiless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An hour passed\u2014two hours\u2014but the man would not die. At high noon the sun, without raising its rim above the southern horizon, threw a suggestion of fire athwart the heavens, then quickly drew it back. Malemute Kid roused and dragged himself to his comrade\u2019s side. He cast one glance about him. The White Silence seemed to sneer, and a great fear came upon him. There was a sharp report; Mason swung into his aerial sepulcher, and Malemute Kid lashed the dogs into a wild gallop as he fled across the snow.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/divider2.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAuthor: Jack London [Full text]<\/p>\n\n\n
Title: The White Silence
Published in: Overland Monthly (February 1899)
Appears in: The Son of the Wolf: Tales of the Far North (1900)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n![\"Jack](\"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Jack-London-150x150.jpg\")
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