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Old 08-10-2018, 08:56 AM
d3r14k d3r14k is offline
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Again Hal's whip fell upon the dogs. They threw
themselves against the breast-bands, dug their feet into the
packed snow, got down low to it, and put forth all their
strength. The sled held as though it were an anchor. After
two efforts, they stood still, panting. The whip was whistling
savagely, when once more Mercedes interfered. She dropped
on her knees before Buck, with tears in her eyes, and put her
arms around his neck.

"You poor, poor dears," she cried sympathetically,
"why don't you pull hard?--then you wouldn't be whipped."
Buck did not like her, but he was feeling too miserable to
resist her, taking it as part of the day's miserable work.

One of the onlookers, who had been clenching his
teeth to suppress hot speech, now spoke up:--

"It's not that I care a whoop what becomes of you,
but for the dogs' sakes I just want to tell you, you can help
them a mighty lot by breaking out that sled. The runners are
froze fast. Throw your weight against the gee-pole, right and
left, and break it out."

A third time the attempt was made, but this time,
following the advice, Hal broke out the runners which had
been frozen to the snow. The overloaded and unwieldy sled
forged ahead, Buck and his mates struggling frantically under
the rain of blows. A hundred yards ahead the path turned and
sloped steeply into the main street. It would have required an
experienced man to keep the top-heavy sled upright, and Hal
was not such a man. As they swung on the turn the sled went
over, spilling half its load through the loose lashings. The dogs
never stopped. The lightened sled bounded on its side behind
them. They were angry because of the ill treatment they had
received and the unjust load. Buck was raging. He broke into
a run, the team following his lead. Hal cried "Whoa! whoa!"
but they gave no heed. He tripped and was pulled off his feet.
The capsized sled ground over him, and the dogs dashed on
up the street, adding to the gayety of Skaguay as they
scattered the remainder of the outfit along its chief
thoroughfare.

Kind-hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered
up the scattered belongings. Also, they gave advice. Half the
load and twice the dogs, if they ever expected to reach
Dawson, was what was said. Hal and his sister and brother-inlaw
listened unwillingly, pitched tent, and overhauled the
outfit. Canned goods were turned out that made men laugh,
for canned goods on the Long Trail is a thing to dream about.
"Blankets for a hotel" quoth one of the men who laughed and
helped. "Half as many is too much; get rid of them. Throw
away that tent, and all those dishes,--who's going to wash
them, anyway? Good Lord, do you think you're travelling on a
Pullman?"

And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the
superfluous. Mercedes cried when her clothes-bags were
dumped on the ground and article after article was thrown
out. She cried in general, and she cried in particular over each
discarded thing. She clasped hands about knees, rocking back
and forth broken-heartedly. She averred she would not go an
inch, not for a dozen Charleses. She appealed to everybody
and to everything, finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to
cast out even articles of apparel that were imperative
necessaries. And in her zeal, when she had finished with her
own, she attacked the belongings of her men and went
through them like a tornado.

This accomplished, the outfit, though cut in half, was
still a formidable bulk. Charles and Hal went out in the
evening and bought six Outside dogs. These, added to the six
of the original team, and Teek and Koona, the huskies
obtained at the Rink Rapids on the record trip, brought the
team up to fourteen. But the Outside dogs, though practically
broken in since their landing, did not amount to much. Three
were short-haired pointers, one was a Newfoundland, and
the other two were mongrels of indeterminate breed. They
did not seem to know anything, these newcomers. Buck and
his comrades looked upon them with disgust, and though he
speedily taught them their places and what not to do, he
could not teach them what to do. They did not take kindly to
trace and trail. With the exception of the two mongrels, they
were bewildered and spirit-broken by the strange savage
environment in which they found themselves and by the ill
treatment they had received. The two mongrels were without
spirit at all; bones were the only things breakable about
them.

With the newcomers hopeless and forlorn, and the
old team worn out by twenty-five hundred miles of
continuous trail, the outlook was anything but bright. The
two men, however, were quite cheerful. And they were
proud, too. They were doing the thing in style, with fourteen
dogs. They had seen other sleds depart over the Pass for
Dawson, or come in from Dawson, but never had they seen a
sled with so many as fourteen dogs. In the nature of Arctic
travel there was a reason why fourteen dogs should not drag
one sled, and that was that one sled could not carry the food
for fourteen dogs. But Charles and Hal did not know this.
They had worked the trip out with a pencil, so much to a dog,
so many dogs, so many days, Q.E.D. Mercedes looked over
their shoulders and nodded comprehensively, it was all so
very simple.
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