The Trail of a Sourdough: Life in AlaskaSullivan, May Kellogg
History
The Trail of a Sourdough: Life in Alaska
Sullivan, May Kellogg
Alaska -- Fiction
"In our new camp we had many Eskimos and all kinds of people. Among
others there was a little blue-eyed woman perhaps thirty years of age;
maybe more--maybe less. She was also evidently not where she had
intended to be, just like ourselves, but was a teacher, left over from
some stranded expedition, probably. Anyhow, there she was, and there we
were. We a-livin' in the tents, and the thermometer forty degrees below
zero. The teacher was stayin' with some of the Missionary folks only a
quarter of a mile away, and she was all right.
"In December the dogs of the camp began to go mad. Every few days one or
two had to be killed. Some men, you know, don't water their dogs once in
six weeks, if at all, and as everything is froze hard in winter, the
poor brutes go mad, exactly as in summer in the States, from heat.
"One night, Long and I smoked in the little road-house close by, but
Hartley went to his bunk in the tent and turned in. He had not slept,
but lay with closed eyes, he said, tryin' hard to get warm under his fur
robe; when the tent flap was brushed aside, and in rushed a mad dog,
snapping and foaming. At the first movement Hartley supposed we had
returned to go to bed, but was instantly undeceived as the crazy brute
made directly for him.
"Hartley threw out his hands and leaped from his bunk, seizing an axe
that lay upon the floor. With that he made for the dog, and finally
drove him from the tent; but only after he had been badly bitten in
several places.
"The first we knew he rushed in, half dressed, where we were. He was
pale with fright, covered with blood, and his eyes seemed starting from
their sockets.
"Whiskey, for God's sake!' he pleaded, panting for breath. 'Hydrophobia,
and so far from home. This is hard lines, ain't it, boys?' between
gulps, the blood dripping from the hand that tremblingly held the glass.
"With that he broke down utterly and cried like a baby. We washed and
dressed his wounds as best we could, and put him to bed in the
road-house as it was then past midnight, while three of the boys rigged
themselves in their furs and hunted the blasted brute that had done the
mischief. They found him gnashing his teeth alongside an outhouse, and a
good dose of cold pills settled him forever.
"Next mornin' we sent a man to the little teacher to ask for medicine
for Hartley, and immediately she and another woman came over. They
brought lint bandages, carbolic acid, and other things and bathed the
wounds; but, best of all, they cheered up the poor fellow by telling him
that he need have no fear of hydrophobia, as the bite of the Eskimo dogs
in winter does not have the same effect that the bite of other dogs has
in hot weather. By the repeated visits and ministrations of the women,
poor Hartley, in a few weeks, recovered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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