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‘And the youngster–it’s drawn us closer, Kid. I only hope it is a boy. Think of it!–flesh of my flesh, Kid. He mustn’t stop in this country. And if it’s a girl, why, she can’t. Sell my furs; they’ll fetch at least five thousand, and I’ve got as much more with the company. And handle my interests with yours. I think that bench claim will show up. See that he gets a good schooling; and Kid, above all, don’t let him come back. This country was not made for white men.

‘I’m a gone man, Kid. Three or four sleeps at the best. You’ve got to go on. You must go on! Remember, it’s my wife, it’s my boy–O God! I hope it’s a boy! You can’t stay by me–and I charge you, a dying man, to pull on.’

‘Give me three days,’ pleaded Malemute Kid.’You may change for the better; something may turn up.’

‘No.’

‘Just three days.’

‘You must pull on.’

‘Two days.’

‘It’s my wife and my boy, Kid. You would not ask it.’

‘One day.’

‘No, no! I charge-‘

‘Only one day. We can shave it through on the grub, and I might knock over a moose.’

‘No–all right; one day, but not a minute more. And, Kid, don’t–don’t leave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on the trigger. You understand. Think of it! Think of it! Flesh of my flesh, and I’ll never live to see him!

‘Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by and tell her that she must think of the boy and not wait till I’m dead. She might refuse to go with you if I didn’t. Goodby, old man; good-by.

‘Kid! I say–a–sink a hole above the pup, next to the slide. I panned out forty cents on my shovel there.

‘And, Kid!’ He stooped lower to catch the last faint words, the dying man’s surrender of his pride.’I’m sorry–for–you know–Carmen.’ Leaving the girl crying softly over her man, Malemute Kid slipped into his parka and snowshoes, tucked his rifle under his arm, and crept away into the forest. He was no tyro in the stern sorrows of the Northland, but never had he faced so stiff a problem as this. In the abstract, it was a plain, mathematical propositionthree possible lives as against one
doomed one. But now he hesitated. For five years, shoulder to shoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and mines, facing death by field and flood and famine, had they knitted the bonds of their comradeship. So close was the tie that he had often been conscious of a vague jealousy of Ruth, from the first time she had come between. And now it must be severed by his own hand.

Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose, all game seemed to have deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling into camp, lighthanded, heavyhearted. An uproar from the dogs and shrill cries from Ruth hastened him.

Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in the midst of the snarling pack, laying about her with an ax. The dogs had broken the iron rule of their masters and were rushing the grub.

He joined the issue with his rifle reversed, and the hoary game of natural selection was played out with all the ruthlessness of its primeval environment. Rifle and ax went up and down, hit or missed with monotonous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, with wild eyes and dripping fangs; and man and beast fought for supremacy to the bitterest conclusion. Then the beaten brutes crept to the edge of the firelight, licking their wounds, voicing their misery to the stars.