Part 12

Ahead of the dogs ploughed Clancy, haloed by steaming breath; Through peril of open water, through ache of insensate cold; Up rivers wantonly winding in a land affianced to death, Till he came to a cowering cabin on the banks of the Nordenscold.

Then Clancy loosed his revolver, and he strode through the open door; And there was the man he sought for, crouching beside the fire; The hair of his beard was singeing, the frost on his back was hoar, And ever he crooned and chanted as if he never would tire:--

"I panned and I panned in the shiny sand, and I sniped on the river bar; But I know, I know, that it's down below that the golden treasures are; So I'll wait and wait till the floods abate, and I'll sink a shaft once more, And I'd like to bet that I'll go home yet with a brass band playing before."

He was nigh as thin as a sliver, and he whined like a Moose-hide cur; So Clancy clothed him and nursed him as a mother nurses a child; Lifted him on the toboggan, wrapped him in robes of fur, Then with the dogs sore straining started to face the Wild.

Said the Wild, "I will crush this Clancy, so fearless and insolent; For him will I loose my fury, and blind and buffet and beat; Pile up my snows to stay him; then when his strength is spent, Leap on him from my ambush and crush him under my feet.

"Him will I ring with my silence, compass him with my cold; Closer and closer clutch him unto mine icy breast; Buffet him with my blizzards, deep in my snows enfold, Claiming his life as my tribute, giving my wolves the rest."

Clancy crawled through the vastness; o'er him the hate of the Wild; Full on his face fell the blizzard; cheering his huskies he ran; Fighting, fierce-hearted and tireless, snows that drifted and piled, With ever and ever behind him singing the crazy man.

"Sing hey, sing ho, for the ice and snow, And a heart that's ever merry; Let us trim and square with a lover's care (For why should a man be sorry?) A grave deep, deep, with the moon a-peep, A grave in the frozen mould. Sing hey, sing ho, for the winds that blow, And a grave deep down in the ice and snow, A grave in the land of gold."

Day after day of darkness, the whirl of the seething snows; Day after day of blindness, the swoop of the stinging blast; On through a blur of fury the swing of staggering blows; On through a world of turmoil, empty, inane and vast.

Night with its writhing storm-whirl, night despairingly black; Night with its hours of terror, numb and endlessly long; Night with its weary waiting, fighting the shadows back, And ever the crouching madman singing his crazy song.

Cold with its creeping terror, cold with its sudden clinch; Cold so utter you wonder if 'twill ever again be warm; Clancy grinned as he shuddered, "Surely it isn't a cinch Being wet-nurse to a looney in the teeth of an arctic storm."

The blizzard passed and the dawn broke, knife-edged and crystal clear; The sky was a blue-domed iceberg, sunshine outlawed away; Ever by snowslide and ice-rip haunted and hovered the Fear; Ever the Wild malignant poised and panted to slay.

The lead-dog freezes in harness--cut him out of the team! The lung of the wheel-dog's bleeding--shoot him and let him lie! On and on with the others--lash them until they scream! "Pull for your lives, you devils! On! To halt is to die."

There in the frozen vastness Clancy fought with his foes; The ache of the stiffened fingers, the cut of the snowshoe thong; Cheeks black-raw through the hood-flap, eyes that tingled and closed, And ever to urge and cheer him quavered the madman's song.

Colder it grew and colder, till the last heat left the earth, And there in the great stark stillness the bale fires glinted and gleamed, And the Wild all around exulted and shook with a devilish mirth, And life was far and forgotten, the ghost of a joy once dreamed.

Death! And one who defied it, a man of the Mounted Police; Fought it there to a standstill long after hope was gone; Grinned through his bitter anguish, fought without let or cease, Suffering, straining, striving, stumbling, struggling on.

Till the dogs lay down in their traces, and rose and staggered and fell; Till the eyes of him dimmed with shadows, and the trail was so hard to see; Till the Wild howled out triumphant, and the world was a frozen hell-- Then said Constable Clancy: "I guess that it's up to me."

Far down the trail they saw him, and his hands they were blanched like bone; His face was a blackened horror, from his eyelids the salt rheum ran; His feet he was lifting strangely, as if they were made of stone, But safe in his arms and sleeping he carried the crazy man.

So Clancy got into Barracks, and the boys made rather a scene; And the O. C. called him a hero, and was nice as a man could be; But Clancy gazed down his trousers at the place where his toes had been, And then he howled like a husky, and sang in a shaky key:

"When I go back to the old love that's true to the finger-tips, I'll say: `Here's bushels of gold, love,' and I'll kiss my girl on the lips; `It's yours to have and to hold, love.' It's the proud, proud boy I'll be, When I go back to the old love that's waited so long for me."

Lost

"Black is the sky, but the land is white-- (O the wind, the snow and the storm!)-- Father, where is our boy to-night? Pray to God he is safe and warm."

"Mother, mother, why should you fear? Safe is he, and the Arctic moon Over his cabin shines so clear-- Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

"It's getting dark awful sudden. Say, this is mighty queer! Where in the world have I got to? It's still and black as a tomb. I reckoned the camp was yonder, I figured the trail was here-- Nothing! Just draw and valley packed with quiet and gloom; Snow that comes down like feathers, thick and gobby and gray; Night that looks spiteful ugly--seems that I've lost my way.

"The cold's got an edge like a jackknife--it must be forty below; Leastways that's what it seems like--it cuts so fierce to the bone. The wind's getting real ferocious; it's heaving and whirling the snow; It shrieks with a howl of fury, it dies away to a moan; Its arms sweep round like a banshee's, swift and icily white, And buffet and blind and beat me. Lord! it's a hell of a night.

"I'm all tangled up in a blizzard. There's only one thing to do-- Keep on moving and moving; it's death, it's death if I rest. Oh, God! if I see the morning, if only I struggle through, I'll say the prayers I've forgotten since I lay on my mother's breast. I seem going round in a circle; maybe the camp is near. Say! did somebody holler? Was it a light I saw? Or was it only a notion? I'll shout, and maybe they'll hear-- No! the wind only drowns me--shout till my throat is raw.

"The boys are all round the camp-fire wondering when I'll be back. They'll soon be starting to seek me; they'll scarcely wait for the light. What will they find, I wonder, when they come to the end of my track-- A hand stuck out of a snowdrift, frozen and stiff and white. That's what they'll strike, I reckon; that's how they'll find their pard, A pie-faced corpse in a snowbank--curse you, don't be a fool! Play the game to the finish; bet on your very last card; Nerve yourself for the struggle. Oh, you coward, keep cool!

"I'm going to lick this blizzard; I'm going to live the night. It can't down me with its bluster--I'm not the kind to be beat. On hands and knees will I buck it; with every breath will I fight; It's life, it's life that I fight for--never it seemed so sweet. I know that my face is frozen; my hands are numblike and dead; But oh, my feet keep a-moving, heavy and hard and slow; They're trying to kill me, kill me, the night that's black overhead, The wind that cuts like a razor, the whipcord lash of the snow. Keep a-moving, a-moving; don't, don't stumble, you fool! Curse this snow that's a-piling a-purpose to block my way. It's heavy as gold in the rocker, it's white and fleecy as wool; It's soft as a bed of feathers, it's warm as a stack of hay. Curse on my feet that slip so, my poor tired, stumbling feet-- I guess they're a job for the surgeon, they feel so queerlike to lift-- I'll rest them just for a moment--oh, but to rest is sweet! The awful wind cannot get me, deep, deep down in the drift."