'Love of Life,' by Jack London, Part Four

01Love of Life by Jack London, Part 4 In the afternoon the man came to a track.

02It was that of another man who did not walk, but who dragged himself on his hands and knees.

03The man thought it might be Bill, but he thought about it without any interest.

04He had no curiosity.

05Feeling and emotion had left him.

06He was no longer able to feel pain, yet the life that was in him drove him ahead.

07He was very tired, but it refused to die.

08It was because it refused to die that he still ate muskug berries and small fish, drank his hot water, and kept a careful eye on the sick wolf.

09He followed the track of the other man who dragged himself along.

10Soon he came to the end of it.

11There were a few freshly cleaned bones where the grass was marked by the footprints of many wolves.

12He saw a moose-skin bag, exactly like his own.

13It had been torn by sharp teeth.

14He picked it up, although its weight was almost too much for his weak fingers.

15Bill had carried it to the end.

16Now he would have the last laugh.

17He would live and carry it to the ship in the shining sea.

18He laughed aloud, making an inhuman sound, and the sick wolf howled with him.

19The man ceased suddenly.

20How could he laugh at Bill, if that were Bill?

21If those bones so pinky-white and clean were Bill?

22He turned away.

23Bill had deserted him, but he would not take the gold, nor would he eat Bill's bones.

24Bill would have done so, however, had their situations been exchanged.

25He came to a pool of water.

26Bending over it in search of fish, he threw his head back as if he had been struck.

27He had caught sight of his face in the water.

28So awful was it that his feelings were stirred long enough to be shocked.

29There were three fish in the pool, which was too large to empty.

30After several attempts to catch them in his tin container, he stopped.

31He was afraid because of his great weakness that he might fall and sink into the water.

32It was for this reason, too, that he did not trust himself to ride down the river atop one of the many logs to be found along its banks.

33That day he lessened the distance between him and the ship by three miles.

34The next day he traveled only two miles, because he was now dragging himself on his hands and knees, as Bill had done.

35At the end of the fifth day, the ship was still seven miles away.

36He was unable to travel as much as a mile a day.

37However, the summer weather continued, and he continued to move toward the ship.

38And always the sick wolf coughed at his heels.

39His knees had become red meat like his feet.

40Although he bound them with the shirt from his back, it was a red track he left behind him on the grass and stones.

41Once, glancing back, he saw the wolf licking his bloody track hungrily.

42He saw clearly what his own end might be, unless he could kill the wolf.

43Then began as awful an event as has ever been told.

44Two sick creatures, dragging their dying bodies across a wasteland and hunting each other's lives.

45Had it been a well wolf, it would not have mattered so much to the man.

46But the thought of feeding the mouth of that nearly dead thing was hateful.

47His mind had begun to wander again, and he was troubled by hallucinations.

48His reasonable moments grew shorter.

49He was awakened once from a faint sleep by a cough close to his ear.

50The wolf leaped back, losing its footing and falling in its weakness.

51It was a funny sight, but he could not laugh.

52Nor was he afraid.

53He was too far gone for that.

54But his mind was for the moment clear, and he lay and considered.

55The ship was no more than four miles away.

56He could see it quite well when he rubbed his eyes.

57He could also see the white sail of a small boat cutting the water of the shining sea.

58But he could never drag himself those four miles.

59He knew that, and was very calm about the fact.

60He knew that he could not travel another half a mile.

61And yet, he wanted to live.

62It was unreasonable that he should die after all he had been through.

63Fate asked too much of him.

64And dying, he could not accept death.

65It was madness, perhaps.

66But in the very grasp of death, he refused to die.

67He closed his eyes and tried to keep himself calm.

68He struggled against the awful desire for sleep that threatened him.

69It was much like a sea, this deadly sleepiness.

70It rose and rose, mastering his entire self bit by bit.

71Sometimes he was almost lost, swimming through its waters with a weakening effort.

72Then, by some strange power of the soul, his will would strike out more strongly against it.

73Without movement, he lay on his back.

74He could hear, slowly drawing nearer and nearer, the sound of the sick wolf's breathing.

75It came closer, always closer, and he did not move.

76It was beside his ear.

77The dry tongue moved across his face.

78His hands struck out.

79Actually, he had willed them to strike out.

80The fingers were curved, but they closed on empty air.

81Quickness requires strength, and the man had not his strength.

82The quiet waiting of the wolf was awful.

83The man's waiting was no less awful.

84For half a day, he lay without motion, fighting off sleep.

85He waited for the thing that was to feed upon him, and upon which he wished to feed.

86Sometimes the sea of sleep rose over him, and he dreamed long dreams.

87But always through it all, waking and dreaming, he waited for the noisy breath and the feel of the tongue.

88This time he did not hear the breath.

89He slipped slowly from some dream to feel the tongue along his hand.

90He waited.

91The teeth pressed softly.

92Then more firmly.

93The wolf was using its last strength in an effort to sink its teeth into the food for which it had waited so long.

94But the man, too, had waited long.

95The hand closed on the wolf's mouth.

96Slowly, while the wolf struggled weakly, the other hand moved across the wolf's body.

97Five minutes later, the whole weight of the man's body was on top of the wolf.

98The hands had not sufficient strength to grasp the wolf about the throat until it died.

99But the face of the man was pressed close to the throat of the wolf, and the mouth of the man was full of hair.

100At the end of half an hour, the man felt some warm drops of blood in his throat.

101It was not pleasant.

102It was like hot, melted metal being forced into his stomach, and it was forced by his will alone.

103Later, the man rolled on his back and slept.

104There were some scientists traveling on the fishing ship Bedford.

105From where they stood on the ship, they could see a strange object on the shore.

106It was moving down the beach toward the water.

107They were unable to decide what it was.

108Being men of science, they climbed into a smaller boat and went ashore to examine it.

109And they saw something that was alive, but which could hardly be called a man.

110It was blind and did not know what it was doing.

111Its movements produced little effect.

112But still, it continued to drag itself across the ground at the rate of about 20 feet an hour.

113Three weeks later, the man lay in a bed on the fishing boat.

114With tears streaming down his face, he told who he was and what he had experienced.

115He also talked without meaning about his mother and a home in California among the flowers.

116The days were not many after that, when he sat at table with the scientists and the ship's officers.

117He delighted in the sight of so much food and watched it carefully as it went into the mouths of others.

118With the disappearance of each mouthful an expression of sorrow came into his eyes.

119He was not mad, however.

120He hated those men at mealtimes.

121He was afraid that there would not be enough food.

122He inquired of the cook, the cabin boy, the captain concerning the food supply.

123They reassured him numerous times.

124But he would not believe them and went into the kitchen to see with his own eyes.

125It was noticed that the man was getting fat.

126He grew bigger with each day.

127The scientists shook their heads and gave their opinions on the problem.

128They limited the amount of food given to the man at his meals.

129But still, his weight increased.

130The seamen smiled.

131They knew.

132And when the scientists decided to observe the man, they learned the reason.

133They saw him walk about the ship after breakfast.

134Like a man begging with an outstretched hand, he approached a seaman.

135The seaman smiled and gave him a piece of bread.

136He grasped it and looked at it as a greedy man looks at gold.

137Then, he put it inside his shirt.

138He received similar gifts from other smiling seamen.

139The scientists were careful.

140They allowed him to continue.

141But they secretly examined his bed.

142It was lined with bread.

143Every inch of space was filled with bread.

144Yet, he was not mad.

145He was preparing for another possible famine.

146That was all.

147He would recover from it, the scientists said.

148And he did, even before the Bedford sailed into San Francisco Bay.

149He was preparing for the and he was preparing for the and he was preparing for the and he was preparing for the and he was preparing for the and he was preparing for the and he was preparing for the and he was preparing for and he was preparing for and he was preparing for