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He glanced left and right, watching for the watcher He searched deep to identify the strange sensation he felt, wondering whether his own thoughts were perpetuating the belief that unseen eyes were upon him But then he remembered Merritt’s observation that this was a spooky place, and the screas he could never understand
They followed the canyon deeper into wilderness, riding the wildest stretch of the river, which had been named the Mane of the Horse And the river bucked like an unta it froh it wereJack wondered at the weight being thrown around, and it was beyond his calculation Ji uess at what he saw A ht Sprayed with the river, battered by the boat Is the gleaold still in my eyes? Or is there the look of a watchedthen, and his voice was stolen by the river’s roar He glanced back at Jack, eyes wide, jaw hanging open, and Jack looked beyond his friend, at the rolling back of the river funneled between two banks of rock ahead of theinal width in the space of a dozen feet, and the pressures and energies forcing the water through that narrow gap were iht, and he leaned on the tiller
The boat sailed through, al torrent below and around it And on the other side, drifting down into a comparatively cal and co the boat like the boatbuilder and sailor he was The next e left the sideways down the river, cresting each ith a sickening sway, i thump Wood creaked and cracked, and Ji as his arm broke froher and Jim would have lost both eyes
"Jack!" Merritt called, but Jack would not look his way He was too annoyed at hi the craft back under his control The river had them clasped in its torrential hand, and it was only a s into the water or dashed theed banks Either ould be the end of them, and as the water splashed his eyes, Jack saw hisover the final o with you was the last thing she’d said as he’d left,as affection Yet as he reh the river-water spray
Jack glanced about There above, on a cliff under which the river tore itself apart, stood a wolf It was the largest wolf he had ever seen, its gray fur mottled with streaks of dark brown, muzzle shorter and stumpier than usual Its ears were pricked up and forward, and all its attention was focused on Jack
Only on Jack
"You…?" he whispered, leaning toward the ith his right arainst and shifted the tiller, the boat creaked and rolled, and with a rush they were reconnected with the river, going with the flow rather than fighting against it
Jack glanced at Merritt and Ji at hi in praise of Jack’s boatain, back upriver at the rock they had now passed by The as gone He scanned the bank, but the creature was nowhere to be seen, and already Jack doubted himself The canyon here was narrow, the cliff walls sheer Where there were banks, they consisted of boulders tumbled down from above over time, abraded by the river to suit its own shape From what he could see, there really was no way down here for an aniest wolf he had ever seen
They sailed on, shootingfarther toward the Thirty Mile River Jack no longer feared the waters So his way, and he could not shake the idea that seeing the wolf had caused hiht h he tried to smile at the men’s praise None of that was me
The farther they moved from the deadly rapids that should have killed them, the more unsettled Jack became
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DEATH OF HIM
WHEN THEY CAMPED THAT EVENING, Jack was quiet and withdrawn The wolf preyed on his h the sensation seemed to have passed, he could still sense that lupine influence in the land around theether wild place, and while he had it in his s, the idea that the opposite le of man versus nature, he felt sure, man--a man of determination and conviction such as himself--would be victorious Now his certainty wavered
Merritt and Ji around a fire and drying their soaked clothes, Jack’s two companions made jokes and talked of the journey to coht places, and now and then he mustered a smile, but he stared into the fire’s insides and tried to shake the idea that things were changing
Perhaps it was the cold, and the winter bearing down on them faster than ever Merritt and Jim still doubted Jack’s observations--surely they had weeks yet--but he felt things winding down There had been ice on the Thirty Mile River when they reached the end of this leg of the great Yukon, and though thin and brittle, its presence had troubled Jack They still had a long way to go, and he knew very well how their journey could be disrupted if and when the river froze
"Why so glum, Jack?" Merritt asked "We did well today Rode the beast and tamed it, eh?"
"Tamed the wild horse!" Jim said, and the men chuckled They had their mittened hands wrapped around rant in the air Their breaths hung also, clouding the still atmosphere with every exhalation, every word spoken
"You knohy," Jack said "I’m worried about that ice" He stood and paced around the fire "I’m worried about how cold it is now Worried about the frost in our beards, the cold in my toes, the numbness in my hands We don’t reach Dawson before the first freeze, we ht just be stuck for months And I don’t like our chances without shelter"
"Jack--," Jihis fears, perhaps, orother than that wolf
"If we are stuck, where e stay? We won’t be able to caear we have will become our tombs So maybe we find an old cabin in the forest and ht last through a winter, but barely, and that’ll leave nothing for afterward"
"This doesn’t sound like you, Jack," Merritt said quietly
Jack thought angrily, You’ve only known est a them at seventeen, his friends seetrue And Jack knew that there was no better way of forging close bonds than by tackling hardship together