A FROST-BITTEN ROMANCE

Ladies' Mirror, Volume I, Issue 4, 2 October 1922, Page 24

A FROST-BITTEN ROMANCE

by Desmond Carter

TN a review of a book which deals with the Frozen North I have found this: “It is almost impossible for a man to write convincingly of Alaska if he has never been there.” Indeed ? Indeed! Wait a minute while I take off my coat. X>IG Bill Clutterbuck was up against _ it. For three weeks he had been toiling across the apparently limitless waste of snow, and he was very nearly at his last gasp. A week had passed since his Indian guide had basely deserted him by dropping dead in his tracks; but, with that grim fortitude which is only to be found in these stories, Clutterbuck had pushed on, guiding himself by the stars at night, and by the empty Maconochie tins of a previous traveller by day. All his food was gone. For three days he had been supporting himself on half _ a bar of chewing-gum (he had divided the other half amongst his famished dogs), and it was only his indomitable will and a fondness

for walking that kept him going. His limbs ached, his snow-shoes needed heeling, and he staggered like a drunken man; but still he battled on. “Mush on!” he croaked, and the lash of his whip cracked a great lump out of the frozen atmosphere. The huskies mushed.

At intervals Clutterbuck pushed the caked snow from his face, and eagerly scanned the horizon for some sign of a human habitation—a curl of smoke, the waving branches of a roof-tree, or a dust-bin—but he scanned in vain. Snow—the limitless expanse of snow—was all that met his tired gaze. He began to fear that he might go snow-blind. And the oppressiveness of the Great White Silence descended like a weight on his massive shoulders. Anything else he might have borne, but the G.W.S. was putting years on him. A passing chipmunk snarled peevishly at the huskies as they went by, but Clutterbuck was too far gone to protest. “Mush on!”

His cracked lips framed the words, but no sound came. Luckily, however, one of the huskies was looking round at the moment and understood. They mushed.

Hours dragged by, and Clutterbuck’s strength, his snow-shoes, his courage, and his chewing-gum were all wearing thin. A silver fox barked derisively as he staggered on. A platinum rabbit laughed openly. A bull moose looked out from its burrow and sniffed. But Clutterbuck gave no sign of having heard. He had lost all sense of time and direction. In fact, he had lost all sense. He must have done, or else he would never have started on such a fool journey.

More hours dragged by, and, with the passing of every minute, Clutterbuck grew weaker. It was getting colder, too. The bottom had already fallen out of his wrist thermometer, and as he breathed his breath froze and fell to the ground in great lumps. He knew that he could not last much longer. Bang! It was only the crack of a Winchester, but coming on top of so much Great White Silence, it sounded like the crack of doom in Clutterbuck’s frost-bitten ears. He and the huskies fell flat on their respective faces, just as a wounded ptarmigan trotted along the trail. For an instant he lay perfectly still, but at the sound of footsteps he looked up, and saw a figure standing beside him. It was a girl. Say, pard,” she said, “what’re you all doin’ down there?” Clutterbuck pulled himself together. “Jest dyin’,” he said. “Well, I can’t have you dyin’ around here. Dead folks attract the wolves, an’ I gotta shack jest over the bluff. Give us your arm, pard.” With some difficulty Clutterbuck staggered to his frozen feet, and leaned heavily on the girl. It was a slow and painful journey, but at last they reached the rough-hewn shack that was her home. It was a regular woman’s shack, thought Clutterbuck half an hour later,.as he sat before a roaring fire, drinking a pannikin of steaming tea. The spotless tablecloth spread on the rough-hewn table, the old copy of Vogue lying on the even rougherhewn settee, the home-made clock ticking cheerily on the rude mantelpiece, the rough bearskin curtains, and the very rough set of opossum spoons, a «F ave the shack a homely look. “You gotta nice place here,” he ventured. I should smile,” said the girl, as she loaded up a rough-hewn plate with moose steak, Alaskan potatoes, and Arctic onions. “But don’t you talk Jest you get a holt on this.” CL.4.4. U 1_ ate ravenously, while die idvciiGUbiy, wane outside the huskies snarled and fought over the carcase of a freshly-killed chmook that the girl had thrown to them. Say,’ said Clutterbuck, when at last he had finished his meal, “it’s

half after ten. Guess I’d better get a move on.

The girl laughed. “Don’t you be more of a bonehead than you can help,” she said. “You’ll -go when you're fit to travel. Not before.” “But I can’t stay here. ’Twouldn’t be right.” “Right nothin’. I sleep in the inside room. You can have a shakedown here. Don’t argue. This is my shack, an’ what I says goes. You jest keep that fire goin’ while I go out an’ set the moose-traps. Get me.''” Clutterbuck got clumsily to his feet and took her by the hand. “Say,’ ’he said, “you’re a White Woman —an’ then some.” “Aw! cut it out!” said the girl, and she strode out into the Great White Silence. “Gee!” muttered Clutterbuck, as he tore a rough-hewn leg from the rude table and cast it on the fire. “Some peach!” A MONTH had passed. The tenJrx der nursing and good feeding he had received at the hands of the girl had made a big difference in Big Bill Clutterbuck. The colour had come back into his cheeks, a new light burned in his eyes, and he glowed with bodily health. In fact, he made the Aurora Borealis look like ten cents. Life seemed good to him. Even his huskies weren’t anything like as husky as they had been. “Say, Little White Woman,” he said to the girl one night (he always called her that) : “now I come to think of it, you ain’t never told me what you’re doin’ out here.” “Haven’t I. Great Big Man?” she said (she always called him that). “Well, there’s not much to tell. I came out here ’cause Popper wanted to marry me to one o’ the guys in his office. I never saw him, but I know the sort of sissy-boy that works for Popper. So I said, ‘Nix on the cityfeller. I’ll pull out for Alaska and find the husband I want.’ An’ I pulled out.” “Say,” he said, and his voice shook, “what’s your father’s name?” “Silas P. Hinks. You know‘Hinks’ Union Suits For The Men Who Know.’ ” “An’—an’ what was the other guy’s name?” “Clutterbuck.” Big Bill rose unsteadily to his feet. “Well, now,” he said. “If that ain’t jest curious.” “Whadday’mean ?” “I’m him,”, he said. “This chap, ‘Clutterbuck.’ He’s me. Can you beat it?” The girl gasped. You? You’re Clutterbuck she said. “Yes.” —there’s no need for us to go on talking like this?” “Not the slightest, my dear girl.” A joyous cry escaped her. “Thank Heavens she said. It’s been an awful strain to keep it up.” “It has,” he agreed, mopping the frozen perspiration from his brow. “But I say—how soon can you be ready to come home?” “As soon as you like. I’m fed to the teeth with this rotten hole.” “So am I,” he said. “But, by the way—what about a small portion of wedding?” The girl smiled. “There’s a clergyman at Nome,” she said. The next instant Clutterbuck was crushing her to his breast. For a moment he slipped back into the old way of speaking. “Little White Woman,” he said tenderly.” “Great Big Man,” she whispered. And the Great White Moon looked down on them standing there in the Great White Silence, and smiled a Great White Smile. It knew this sort of stuff by heart. Far away a wolf howled dismally; a distant chipmunk raised its mournful voice and hooted, and the plaintive note of an Arctic woodpecker came floating across the limitless expanse of snow. The Wild knew. I think that wipes the floor with the jolly old reviewer. What?