Our
harness is good, for I have hung it in trees each night. At eleven
o'clock the man is half a mile away. At one o'clock he is a
quarter of a mile away. He is very weak. We see him fall down
many times in the snow. One of his dogs can no longer travel, and
he cuts it out of the harness. But he does not kill it. I kill it
with the axe as I go by, as I kill one of my dogs which loses its
legs and can travel no more.
"Now we are three hundred yards away. We go very slow. Maybe in
two, three hours we go one mile. We do not walk. All the time we
fall down. We stand up and stagger two steps, maybe three steps,
then we fall down again. And all the time I must help up the man
and woman. Sometimes they rise to their knees and fall forward,
maybe four or five times before they can get to their feet again
and stagger two or three steps and fall. But always do they fall
forward. Standing or kneeling, always do they fall forward,
gaining on the trail each time by the length of their bodies.
"Sometimes they crawl on hands and knees like animals that live in
the forest.
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