The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 129, December, 1908Various
History
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 129, December, 1908
Various
Adventure stories -- Periodicals; English periodicals; History, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Voyages and travels -- Periodicals
Still I kept on, hoping against hope that I should soon see the light in
the Faith Creek cabin. I kept shouting, but all the answer I got was a
mocking echo. Blundering through snow-drifts, with the wind-blown snow
driving against my face like particles of glass, the dogs panting with
exertion or moaning from the pain of their lacerated feet, without a sign
of a trail or landmark, and with my feet in a peculiar condition of
insensibility, still I staggered blindly but persistently towards my goal.
At eight o’clock I was still on the trail; but somehow a doubt began to
take possession of me that perhaps I had missed the cabin altogether and
was wandering towards the Twelve-mile Divide.
[Illustration: “I SAW TWO MEN APPROACHING ME, AND AT ONCE STRUGGLED TO MY
FEET.”]
All at once the dogs stopped, and on stepping ahead to see what was the
matter I found they were tangled in their harness. I tried to bend over to
release them, but my clothes were so stiff that I found it impossible, and
I lurched over, falling head-foremost into a drift.
I tried to raise myself to a sitting position, only to fall back weakly. A
new sensation seemed to be taking possession of me. I no longer desired to
struggle; a mysterious warmth appeared to surround me, and a drowsiness
stole over my senses. My only wish was to be left alone to sleep. I was
just dozing off when Nellie, my leading dog, lifted up her nose and gave
vent to a weird, wolf-like howl, which she repeated after a few seconds’
interval. I gazed at her with an almost ludicrous amazement, wondering
stupidly why she was making such a noise. Almost simultaneously with her
second howl I heard a shout and, to my amazement, saw a lantern shining
through the trees. I at once realised that help was at hand, and
immediately the desire for sleep left me. A wild longing for life, for
warmth, for food, asserted itself instead, and I gave a yell that must
have sounded like the war-whoop of an Apache Indian. A moment later I saw
two men approaching me, and at once struggled to my feet. Through the
trees came the shouted query, “Are you all right?” “I’m all right,” I
answered. “Where’s the cabin?” By this time the two men had reached me,
and one of them, looking hard into my face, exclaimed, “Why, your nose is
frozen!”
He put his arm round me and helped me to the cabin, while the other man
took charge of my dogs. I found that the cabin was only about a hundred
yards from the place where I had lain down to sleep, but, owing to the
fact that it was built in a grove of trees, it was impossible to see it
until one was close to it. It seems almost ironical that had it not been
for the howl of a dog I would surely have died within a hundred yards of
warmth and shelter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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