We go like snails, like snails that are dying we go so
slow. And yet we go faster than the man who is before us. For he,
too, falls all the time, and there is no Sitka Charley to lift him
up. Now he is two hundred yards away. After a long time he is one
hundred yards away.
"It is a funny sight. I want to laugh out loud, Ha! ha! just like
that, it is so funny. It is a race of dead men and dead dogs. It
is like in a dream when you have a nightmare and run away very fast
for your life and go very slow. The man who is with me is mad.
The woman is mad. I am mad. All the world is mad, and I want to
laugh, it is so funny.
"The stranger-man who is before us leaves his dogs behind and goes
on alone across the snow. After a long time we come to the dogs.
They lie helpless in the snow, their harness of blanket and canvas
on them, the sled behind them, and as we pass them they whine to us
and cry like babies that are hungry.
"Then we, too, leave our dogs and go on alone across the snow. The
man and the woman are nearly gone, and they moan and groan and sob,
but they go on.
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