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

01Love of Life by Jack London Part 1 The two men moved painfully down the bank and fell among the rocks that were scattered everywhere.

02They were tired and weak.

03Their faces showed the patient appearance that results from difficulty long endured.

04They were heavily burdened with blanket packs which were tied to their shoulders.

05Each man carried a gun.

06They walked in a leaning position, their shoulders forward and their head farther forward, the eyes fixed upon the ground.

07I wish we had a couple of those cartridges that are lying in our cache, said the second man.

08His voice was completely without expression.

09And the first man, walking into the milky stream that flowed over the rocks, made no reply.

10He seemed faint and stretched one hand forward seeking support against the air.

11When he had steadied himself, he stepped forward.

12But he slipped again and nearly fell.

13Then he stood still and looked at the other man, who had never turned his head.

14The man stood still for fully a minute, as if he were deciding something.

15Then he called out, I say, I say, Bill, I hurt my foot.

16Bill struggled ahead through the milky water.

17He did not look around.

18The man watched him go, and although his face lacked expression as before, his eyes had the look of a wounded animal.

19The other man climbed the farther bank of the stream and continued straight ahead, without looking back.

20The man in the stream watched him.

21His lips trembled a little.

22Bill!

23He cried.

24It was the despairing cry of a strong man in trouble.

25But Bill's head did not turn.

26The man watched him go, struggling forward up the hill toward the skyline.

27He watched him go until he passed over the hilltop and disappeared.

28Then he turned his gaze and slowly examined the circle of the world that remained to him, now that Bill was gone.

29The sun was low in the sky, almost hidden by a cover of clouds.

30The man looked at his watch while supporting his weight on one leg.

31It was four o'clock in the afternoon.

32The season was near the end of July or the first of August.

33He did not know the exact date within a week or two.

34But that was enough to know that the sun marked the northwest.

35He looked to the south and decided that somewhere beyond those hills lay the Great Bear Lake.

36Also, he knew that behind the same hills, the Arctic Circle cut its way across the plains of northern Canada, called the Barrens.

37This stream in which he stood flowed into the Copper Mine River, which in turn flowed north and emptied into the Arctic Ocean.

38He had never been there, but he had seen it once on a map.

39Again, his gaze completed the circle of the world about him.

40It was not a cheerful sight.

41Everywhere was soft skyline.

42The hills were all low-lying.

43There were no trees, no grasses.

44There was nothing but a vast emptiness that brought fear into his eyes.

45Bill!

46He whispered once and twice.

47Bill!

48He stood trembling in the milky water, feeling the vastness pressing in upon him with great force.

49He began to shake as with a disease, until the gun falling from his hand into the stream brought him back to reality.

50He fought with his fear and regained his self-control.

51He recovered the gun from the water.

52He pushed his pack more toward his left shoulder.

53This helped to take a portion of its weight off the foot he had hurt.

54Then he proceeded slowly and carefully, in great pain, to the bank of the stream.

55He did not stop.

56With a worry that was madness, unmindful of the pain, he hurried up the hill to the top over which his companion had disappeared.

57But at the top he saw a valley empty of life.

58He fought with his fear again and won.

59Then, once more, he moved the pack farther toward his left shoulder and struggled down the hill.

60The bottom of the valley was very wet.

61Thick plant life held the moisture close to the surface, and the water flowed from under his feet at every step.

62He picked his way carefully across the valley and followed the other man's footsteps along the rocks, which made small islands in the sea of wet plant life.

63Although alone, he was not lost.

64Farther on, he knew, he would come to where dead pine trees bordered the shore of a little lake.

65In the language of that country, it was called The Land of Little Sticks.

66Into that lake flowed a small stream, the water of which was not milky.

67There was grass along that stream, but no trees.

68He would follow the stream until it divided.

69He would cross this place of dividing to another stream, flowing to the west.

70This he would follow, until it emptied into the River Dees.

71Here he would find a cache under an upturned boat, covered with many rocks.

72In this cache there would be cartridges for his empty gun, and fishhooks, and lines.

73Everything he needed for catching food would be there.

74Also he would find flour, a little meat, and some beans.

75Bill would be waiting for him there, and they would find a boat, and row south down the Dees to the Great Bear Lake.

76And south across the lake they would go, ever south, until they came to the Mackenzie River.

77And south, always south they would go, while the winter raced after them, and the ice formed in the streams, and the days grew cold.

78South they would go, to some warm place where the trees grew tall and full, and there was food without end.

79These were the thoughts of the man as he struggled forward.

80But as strongly as he struggled with his body, he struggled equally with his mind.

81He tried to believe that Bill had not deserted him.

82Surely Bill would wait for him at the cache.

83He was forced to think this thought.

84Otherwise, there would not be any reason to continue.

85And he would lie down and die.

86As the ball of the sun sank slowly into the northwest, he recalled every inch of his and Bill's flight south ahead of the oncoming winter, and he thought again and again of the food in the cache.

87It had been two days since he had anything to eat.

88It was a far longer time since he had had enough to eat.

89Often he picked muskeg berries, put them into his mouth, and ate them.

90A muskeg berry is a small seed in a drop of water.

91In the mouth, the water melts away and the seed tastes bitter.

92The man knew there was no real food value in the berries, but he ate them, patiently, with a hope greater than his experience.

93At nine o'clock that night, he hit his toe on a rocky surface, and from weakness and tiredness, he fell to the ground.

94He lay for some time without movement on his side.

95He took his pack from his back and dragged himself into a sitting position.

96It was not yet dark.

97While some light remained, he felt among the rocks for pieces of dried plants.

98When he had gathered a pile, he built a fire and put a tin pot of water on it to boil.

99He unwrapped his pack.

100The first thing he did was to count his matches.

101There were sixty-seven.

102He counted them three times, to be sure.

103He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in paper.

104He put one portion in his empty tobacco pack, another in the inside band of his hat, and a third under his shirt against his flesh.

105This accomplished, he began to worry whether he had counted correctly.

106He unwrapped them all and counted them again.

107Yes, there were sixty-seven.

108He dried his wet shoes and socks by the fire.

109The moccasins were badly torn.

110His socks were worn through in places and his feet were bleeding.

111The area between his foot and leg, the ankle, was very painful.

112He examined it.

113It had swelled until it was as large as his knee.

114He cut a long strip from one of his two blankets and bound the ankle tightly.

115He cut other strips and bound them about his feet to serve both for moccasins and socks.

116Then he drank the pot of hot water, wound his watch, and pulled his blankets around him.

117He slept like a dead man.

118The brief darkness at midnight came and went.

119Then the sun rose in the northeast.

120It can be better said that day dawned in that quarter of the sky because the sun was hidden by gray clouds.

121At six o'clock in the morning, he waked, quietly, lying on his back.

122He gazed straight up into the gray sky and knew that he was hungry.

123As he lifted himself on his elbow, he was frightened by a loud noise.

124There was a caribou looking at him curiously.

125The animal was not more than fifty feet away, and instantly into the man's mind came the picture of caribou meat cooking over a fire.

126From habit, he reached for the empty gun and aimed it.

127The caribou leaped away and disappeared across the rocks.

128The caribou leaped away and disappeared.

129The caribou leaped away and disappeared.

130The caribou leaped away and disappeared.