What of it? They were dead, and dead long since.
They weren't bothering about it.
They weren't lying on their bellies across a boat and waiting to die.
Death was easy—easier than he had ever imagined; and, now that it was near, the thought of it made him glad.
A new vision came to him.
He saw the feverish city of his dream—the gold metropolis of the North, perched above the Yukon on a high earth-bank and far-spreading across the flat.
He saw the river steamers tied to the bank and lined against it three deep; he saw the sawmills working and the long dog-teams, with double sleds behind, freighting supplies to the diggings.
And he saw, further, the gambling-houses, banks, stock-exchanges, and all the gear and chips and markers, the chances and opportunities, of a vastly bigger gambling game than any he had ever seen.
It was sure hell, he thought, with the hunch a-working and that big strike coming, to be out of it all.
Life thrilled and stirred at the thought and once more began uttering his ancient lies.
Daylight rolled over and off the boat, leaning against it as he sat on the ice.
He wanted to be in on that strike.
And why shouldn't he?
Somewhere in all those wasted muscles of his was enough strength, if he could gather it all at once, to up-end the boat and launch it.
Quite irrelevantly the idea suggested itself of buying a share in the Klondike town site from Harper and Joe Ladue.
They would surely sell a third interest cheap.
Then, if the strike came on the Stewart, he would be well in on it with the Elam Harnish town site; if on the Klondike, he would not be quite out of it.
In the meantime, he would gather strength.
He stretched out on the ice full length, face downward, and for half an hour he lay and rested.
Then he arose, shook the flashing blindness from his eyes, and took hold of the boat.
He knew his condition accurately.
If the first effort failed, the following efforts were doomed to fail.
He must pull all his rallied strength into the one effort, and so thoroughly must he put all of it in that there would be none left for other attempts.
He lifted, and he lifted with the soul of him as well as with the body, consuming himself, body and spirit, in the effort.
The boat rose.
He thought he was going to faint, but he continued to lift.
He felt the boat give, as it started on its downward slide. With the last shred of his strength he precipitated himself into it, landing in a sick heap on Elijah's legs.
He was beyond attempting to rise, and as he lay he heard and felt the boat take the water.
By watching the tree-tops he knew it was whirling.
A smashing shock and flying fragments of ice told him that it had struck the bank.
A dozen times it whirled and struck, and then it floated easily and free.
Daylight came to, and decided he had been asleep. The sun denoted that several hours had passed.
It was early afternoon.
He dragged himself into the stern and sat up.
The boat was in the middle of the stream.
The wooded banks, with their base-lines of flashing ice, were slipping by.
Near him floated a huge, uprooted pine.
A freak of the current brought the boat against it.
Crawling forward, he fastened the painter to a root.
The tree, deeper in the water, was travelling faster, and the painter tautened as the boat took the tow.
Then, with a last giddy look around, wherein he saw the banks tilting and swaying and the sun swinging in pendulum-sweep across the sky, Daylight wrapped himself in his rabbit-skin robe, lay down in the bottom, and fell asleep.
When he awoke, it was dark night.
He was lying on his back, and he could see the stars shining.
A subdued murmur of swollen waters could be heard.
A sharp jerk informed him that the boat, swerving slack into the painter, had been straightened out by the swifter-moving pine tree.
A piece of stray drift-ice thumped against the boat and grated along its side.
Well, the following jam hadn't caught him yet, was his thought, as he closed his eyes and slept again.
It was bright day when next he opened his eyes.
The sun showed it to be midday.
A glance around at the far-away banks, and he knew that he was on the mighty Yukon.