Young, bringing a gift of
porpoise meat and wild strawberries, and Hunter Joe had brought in a
wild goat. But we lay down, too tired to eat much, and soon fell into a
troubled sleep. The man who said, "The harder the toil, the sweeter the
rest," never was profoundly tired. Stickeen kept springing up and
muttering in his sleep, no doubt dreaming that he was still on the brink
of the crevasse; and so did I, that night and many others long
afterward, when I was overtired.
Thereafter Stickeen was a changed dog. During the rest of the trip,
instead of holding aloof, he always lay by my side, tried to keep me
constantly in sight, and would hardly accept a morsel of food, however
tempting, from any hand but mine. At night, when all was quiet about the
camp-fire, he would come to me and rest his head on my knee with a look
of devotion as if I were his god. And often as he caught my eye he
seemed to be trying to say, "Wasn't that an awful time we had together
on the glacier?"
* * * * *
Nothing in after years has dimmed that Alaska storm-day.
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