First came the courier and the
half-breed who had hauled him out from Bennett; then mail-carriers
for Circle City, two sleds of them, and a mixed following of
ingoing Klondikers. Dogs and men were fresh and fat, while
Rasmunsen and his brutes were jaded and worn down to the skin and
bone. They of the smoke wreath had travelled one day in three,
resting and reserving their strength for the dash to come when
broken trail was met with; while each day he had plunged and
floundered forward, breaking the spirit of his dogs and robbing
them of their mettle.
As for himself, he was unbreakable. They thanked him kindly for
his efforts in their behalf, those fat, fresh men,--thanked him
kindly, with broad grins and ribald laughter; and now, when he
understood, he made no answer. Nor did he cherish silent
bitterness. It was immaterial. The idea--the fact behind the
idea--was not changed. Here he was and his thousand dozen; there
was Dawson; the problem was unaltered.
At the Little Salmon, being short of dog food, the dogs got into
his grub, and from there to Selkirk he lived on beans--coarse,
brown beans, big beans, grossly nutritive, which griped his stomach
and doubled him up at two-hour intervals. But the Factor at
Selkirk had a notice on the door of the Post to the effect that no
steamer had been up the Yukon for two years, and in consequence
grub was beyond price.
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