Call of the wild Chapter 5

On the next day Koona went, and but five of them remained: Joe, too far gone to be malignant; Pike, crippled and limping, only half-conscious and not conscious enough longer to malinger; Sol-leks, the one-eyed, still faithful to the toil of trace and trail, and mournful in that he had so little strength with which to pull; Teek, who had not traveled so far that winter and who was now beaten more than the others because he was fresher; and Buck, still at the head of the team, but no longer enforc

They did not know how to do anything, and as the days went by it became apparent that they could not learn.

Pike, the malingerer, who, in his lifetime of deceit, had often successfully feigned a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest.

The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.

That Hal's views on art, or the sort of society plays his mother's brother wrote, should have anything to do with the chopping of a few sticks of firewood, passes comprehension; nevertheless the quarrel was as likely to tend in that direction as in the direction of Charles's political prejudices.

But they hastened it by overfeeding, bringing the day nearer when underfeeding would commence.

Mercedes screamed, cried, laughed, and manifested the chaotic abandonment of hysteria.

"Oh, that's all right, that's all right," the man hastened meekly to say.

They were in a wretched state, worn out and worn down.

That Hal's views on art, or the sort of society plays his mother's brother wrote, should have anything to do with the chopping of a few sticks of firewood, passes comprehension; nevertheless the quarrel was as likely to tend in that direction as in the direction of Charles's political prejudices.

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.

And in her zeal, when she had finished with her own, she attacked the belongings of her men and went through them like a tornado.

It was the cherished belief of each that he did more than his share of the work, and neither forbore to speak this belief at every opportunity.

"Undreamed of!" cried Mercedes, throwing up her hands in dainty dismay.

This accomplished, the outfit, though cut in half, was still a formidable bulk.

And that Charles's sister's tale-bearing tongue should be relevant to the building of a Yukon fire, was apparent only to Mercedes, who disburdened herself of copious opinions upon that topic, and incidentally upon a few other traits unpleasantly peculiar to her husband's family.

John Thornton stood over Buck, struggling to control himself, too convulsed with rage to speak.

The whip flashed out, here and there, on its merciless errands.

Charles and Hal begged her to get off and walk, pleaded with her, entreated, the while she wept and importuned Heaven with a recital of their brutality.

It was not the dead tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort, from which recovery is a matter of hours; but it was the dead tiredness that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of months of toil.

And when, in addition to this, the worn-out huskies pulled weakly, Hal decided that the orthodox ration was too small.

Mercedes nursed a special grievance--the grievance of sex.

And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the superfluous.

And then, suddenly, without warning, uttering a cry that was inarticulate and more like the cry of an animal, John Thornton sprang upon the man who wielded the club.

The Outsider dogs whose digestions had not been trained by chronic famine to make the most of little, had voracious appetites.

Shrubs and vines were putting on fresh garbs of green.

Upon which impeachment of what to her was her most essential sex prerogative, she made their lives unendurable.

And that Charles's sister's tale-bearing tongue should be relevant to the building of a Yukon fire, was apparent only to Mercedes, who disburdened herself of copious opinions upon that topic, and incidentally upon a few other traits unpleasantly peculiar to her husband's family.

Pike, the malingerer, who, in his lifetime of deceit, had often successfully feigned a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest.

And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the superfluous.

But the present treatment by her husband and brother was everything save chivalrous.

Air-holes formed, fissures sprang and spread apart, while thin sections of ice fell through bodily into the river.

This belt was the most salient thing about him.

Mercedes looked at them imploringly, untold repugnances at sight of pain written in her pretty face.

Mercedes screamed, cried, laughed, and manifested the chaotic abandonment of hysteria.

And then, suddenly, without warning, uttering a cry that was inarticulate and more like the cry of an animal, John Thornton sprang upon the man who wielded the club.

He whittled and listened, gave monosyllabic replies, and when it was asked, terse advice.

They could barely keep the traces taut, and on the down grades just managed to keep out of the way of the sled.

And to cap it all, when Mercedes, with tears in her pretty eyes and a quaver in her throat, could not cajole him into giving the dogs still more, she stole from the fish-sacks and fed them slyly.

Four times he had covered the distance between Salt Water and Dawson, and the knowledge that, jaded and tired, he was facing the same trail once more, made him bitter.

They had no inkling of such a patience.

The Outsider dogs whose digestions had not been trained by chronic famine to make the most of little, had voracious appetites.

By this time all the amenities and gentleness of the Southland had fallen away from the three people.

His sister and brother-in-law seconded him; but they were frustrated by their heavy outfit and their own incompetence.

Mercedes looked at them imploringly, untold repugnances at sight of pain written in her pretty face.

But so many were the men who had rushed into the Klondike, and so many were the sweethearts, wives, and kin that had not rushed in, that the congested mail was taking on Alpine proportions; also, there were official orders.

Three were short-haired pointers, one was a Newfoundland, and the other two were mongrels of indeterminate breed.

With the dogs falling, Mercedes weeping and riding, Hal swearing innocuously, and Charles eyes wistfully watering, they staggered into John Thornton's camp at the mouth of the White River.

"And of course the dogs can hike along all day with that contraption behind them," affirmed a second of the men.