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To Win or to Die: A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 40. The Solid Reality |
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_ CHAPTER FORTY. THE SOLID REALITY A strange feeling of stiffness and cold so painful that for some moments Dallas could not move, but lay gazing straight before him at the heap of ashes, which gave forth a dull glow, just sufficient at times to show the curled-up form of the great dog, and beyond him, rolled up like a mummy and perfectly still, Abel, just as he had last seen him before he closed his eyes. It was so dark that he could not see Tregelly, and he lay trying in vain to make him out. His head was dull and confused, as if he had slept for a great length of time, and his thoughts would not run straight; but every train of thought he started darted off into some side track which he could not follow, and he always had to come back to where he had made his start. There it was--some time ago, when they had piled up the fire to a great height so that it might burn long and well while they all sank painlessly and without more trouble into the sleep of death. And now by slow degrees he began to grasp what seemed to be the fact, that while his companions, even the dog, had passed away, he was once more unfortunate, and had come back, as it were, to life, to go alone through more misery, weariness, and despair. He shivered, and strangely inconsistent worldly thoughts began to crawl in upon him. He felt he must thrust the unburned pieces of pine-wood closer together, so that they might catch fire and burn and radiate some more heat. It was so dark, too, that he shuddered, and then lay staring at the perpendicular wall beyond the fire--the wall that looked so icy and cruel over-night, but now dim, black, and heavy, as if about to lean over and crush them all out of sight. Yes, he ought, he knew, to thrust the unburned embers together and put on more wood, so as to make a cheerful blaze; but he had not the energy to stir. He wanted another rug over him; but to get it he would have had to crawl to the sledge, and he was too much numbed to move. Besides, he shuddered at the idea of casting a bright light upon his surroundings, for he felt that it would only reveal the features of his poor comrades hardened into death. And so it was that he lay for long enough in the darkness, till the numb sensation began to give way to acute pain, which made him moan with anguish and mentally ask what he had done that he should have been chosen to remain there and go through all that horror and despair again. The natural self is stronger than the educated man in times of crisis. A despairing wretch tells himself that all is over, and plunges into a river or pool to end his weary life; but the next moment the nature within him begins to struggle hard to preserve the life the trained being has tried to throw away. It was so here. Dallas made a quick movement at last, turned over, and picked up a half-burned, still smouldering piece of pine, painfully raked others together with it, and threw it on the top, glad to cower over the warm embers, for the heat thrown out was pleasant. As he sat there after raking the ashes more together, and getting closer, it was to feel the warmth strike up into his chilled limbs, and fill the rug he had drawn round his shoulders with a gentle glow. Soon after, the collected embers began to burn, and a faint tongue of flame flickered, danced, went out, and flickered up again, illuminating the darkness sufficiently to let him make out that the banked up snow had largely melted, and that Tregelly had crawled away from where he had lain, and come over to his, Dallas's, side, apparently to place his heavy bulk as a shelter to keep off the bitter wind from his young companion. There was something else, too, which he did not recognise as having seen before he lay down--something dark where the bank of snow had been, which had wonderfully melted away in the fierce glow of the fire; for that sheltering bank had been so big before. What did it matter to one who was suffering now the agonising pangs of hunger to augment those of cold? But the sight of the big motionless figure dimly seen by the bluish flickering light appealed strongly to the sufferer, and something like a sob rose to his throat as he thought of Tregelly's brave, patient ways, and the honest truth of his nature. These feelings were sufficient to urge him forward from where he crouched, to go and lean over the recumbent figure and lay a hand upon the big clenched fist drawn across the breast of the dead. It was a hand of ice, and with a piteous sigh Dallas drew back and crept to where Abel lay rolled in his rugs. Just then the dancing flame died out, and it was in the pitchy darkness that Dallas felt for his cousin's face. The next moment he uttered a cry, and there was a quick rustling sound as of something leaping to its feet. Then the dog's cold nose touched his cheek, and there was a low whine of satisfaction, followed by a panting and scuffling as the dog transferred his attentions to Abel. "And we're both left alive," half groaned Dallas; but the dog uttered a joyous bark, and he sprang painfully to his feet, for a familiar gruff voice growled: "Now, then, what's the matter with you, my son?" And then: "Fire out? How gashly dark!" "Bob!" faltered Dallas. "You, Master Dallas? Wait a bit, my son, and I'll get the fire going. How's Mr Wray?" There was a weary groan, and Abel said dreamily: "Don't--don't wake me. How cold! How cold!" Tregelly sighed, but said nothing for the moment, exerting himself the while in trying to fan the flickering flame into a stronger glow, and with such success that the horrible feeling of unreality began to pass away, with its accompanying confusion, and Dallas began to realise the truth. "I--I thought you were lying there dead," he said at last. "Oh, no, my son; I'm 'live enough," said Tregelly, who still bent over the fire; "but I never thought to open my eyes again. Shall I melt some snow over the fire? There is a scrap or two more to eat, and when it's light we might p'r'aps shoot something. But I say, we must have slept for an awful long time, for we made a tremendous fire, and the snow's melted all about wonderful." "Yes, wonderfully," said Dallas, who crouched there gazing at the figure where the bank of snow had been. "It's my belief that we've slept a good four-and-twenty hours, and that it's night again." "Think so?" "I do, my son, and it's to-morrow night, I believe. I say, how the snow has melted away. Why, hullo!" he shouted, as the flames leapt up merrily now, "who's that?" "I don't know," faltered Dallas; "I thought at first it was you." "Not a dead 'un?" whispered Tregelly in an awestruck tone. "Yes; and whoever it was must have been buried in that bank of snow, so that we did not see him last night." Tregelly drew a burning brand from the fire, gave it a wave in the air to make it blaze fiercely, and stepped towards the recumbent figure lying there. "Hi! Look here, my son," he cried. "No wonder we didn't see him come back." Dallas grasped the fact now, and the next moment he too was gazing down at the fierce face, icily sealed in death, the light playing upon the huge red beard, while the eyes were fixed in a wild stare. "Hah!" ejaculated Tregelly. "He'll do no more mischief now, my son. But what was he doing here? Rather a chilly place for a man to choose for his lair. Thought he was safe, I suppose. Only look." For a few moments Dallas could not drag his eyes from the horrible features of their enemy, about which the dog was sniffing in a puzzled way. But at last he turned to where Tregelly was waving the great firebrand, which shed a bright light around. "It was his den, Master Dallas," growled Tregelly. "Look here, this was all covered with snow last night when we lit the fire, and it's all melted away. Why, only look, my son; he spent all his time trying to do for us, and what's he done?--he's saved all our lives. Flour, bacon, coffee. What's in that bag? Sugar. Why, this is all his plunder as he's robbed from fellows' huts. There's his gun, too, and his pistol. But what a place to choose to live in all alone! You'd ha' thought he'd have had a shelter. Here, I'm not _going_ to die just yet." A wave of energy seemed to inspire the great fellow, who picked up the rug that had sheltered him during the night, and gave Dallas a nod. "When a man dies," he said solemnly, "he wipes out all his debts. We don't owe him nothing neither now." As Tregelly spoke he drew the rug carefully over the figure lying there, and the next minute set to work to make the fire blaze higher, while Dallas, with half-numbed hands, tried to help him by filling the billy with pieces of ice, setting it in the glowing embers, and refilling it as the solid pieces rapidly melted down. They were both too busy and eager to prepare a meal from the life-saving provender they had so strangely found, to pay any heed to Abel. "Let him rest, my son, till breakfast's ready; he's terribly weak, poor lad. Mind, too, when we do rouse him up, not to say a word about what's lying under that rug. I'll pitch some wood across it so as he shan't notice before we wake him up." Dallas nodded, and with a strange feeling of renewed hope for which he could not account, he worked away; for it seemed the while that the store of provisions they had found would do no more for them than prolong their weary existence in the wild for two or three weeks. Tregelly brought forward more wood from the shelter they had formed; the fire burned more brightly; bacon was frying, and the fragrance of coffee and hot cake was being diffused, when, just as Dallas was thinking of awakening his cousin to the change in their state of affairs, a hoarse cry aroused him and made him look sharply at where, unnoticed, Abel had risen to his knees; and there, in the full light of the fire, he could be seen pointing. "We're too late, my son," growled Tregelly; "he has seen it. Meant to have covered it before he woke." "No, no; he is not pointing there." "Look! Look!" cried Abel. "Poor lad, he's off his head," whispered Tregelly. "Do you hear me, you two?" cried Abel hoarsely. "Look! Can't you see?" "What is it, Bel?" said Dallas soothingly, as he stepped round to the other side of the fire; and then, following the direction of his cousin's pointing finger, he too uttered a wild cry, which brought Tregelly to their side, to gaze in speechless astonishment at the sight before them. For the thick glazing of ice had been melted from the perpendicular wall of rock at the back of their fire, and there, glistening and sparkling in the face of the cliff, were veins, nuggets, and time-worn fragments of rich red gold in such profusion, that, far up as they could see, the cliff seemed to be one mass of gold-bearing rock, richer than their wildest imagination had ever painted. The effect upon the adventurers was as strange as it was marked. Abel bowed down his face in his hands to hide its spasmodic contractions; while Dallas rose, stepped slowly towards it, and reached over the glowing flame to touch a projecting nugget--bright, glowing in hue, and quite warm from the reflection of the fire. "Ah!" he sighed softly, as if convinced at last; "it is real, and not a dream." Tregelly turned his back, began to whistle softly an old tune in a minor key, and drew the coffee, the bacon pan, and the bread a little farther away. "Ahoy there, my sons!" he cried cheerily; "breakfast! Fellows must eat even if they are millionaires." It was too much for Dallas, before whose eyes was rising, not the gold, for he seemed to be looking right through that, but the wistful, deeply-lined face of a grey-haired woman at a window, watching ever for the lost ones' return. At Tregelly's words he burst into a strangely harsh, hysterical laugh, and then, too, he sank upon his knees and buried his face in his hands, remaining there motionless till a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he started to find it was Abel who was gazing in his eyes. "Dal," he cried, in a voice that did not sound like his own, "we shall pay the old uncle now." At that moment the dismal tune Tregelly was whistling came to an end, and they saw that he was sitting with his back to them, looking straight away. They stepped quickly to his side, and he started up to hold a hand to each. "To win or to die, didn't you say, my sons?" he cried cheerily. "Yes, something like that," replied Dallas huskily. "Well, it means winning, my sons," cried Tregelly, "for we won't die now." _ |
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