"London, Jack - TO BUILD A FIRE" - читать интересную книгу автора (London Jack)

of the old sled trail was plainly visible, but a dozen inches of
snow covered the marks of the last runners. In a month no man had
come up or down that silent creek. The man held steadily on. He
was not much given to thinking, and just then particularly he had
nothing to think about save that he would eat lunch at the forks
and that at six o'clock he would be in camp with the boys. There
was nobody to talk to; and, had there been, speech would have
been impossible because of the ice muzzle on his mouth. so he
continued monotonously to chew tobacco and to increase the length
of his amber beard.

Once in a while the thought reiterated itself that it was
very cold and that he had never experienced such cold. As he
walked along he rubbed his cheekbones and nose with the back of
his mittened hand. He did this automatically, now and again
changing hands. But, rub as he would, the instant he stopped his
cheekbones went numb, and the following instant the end of his
nose went numb. He was sure to frost his cheeks; he knew that,
and experienced a pang of regret that he had not devised a nose
strap of the sort Bud wore in cold snaps. Such a strap passed
across the cheeks, as well, and saved them. But it didn't matter
much, after all. What were frosted cheeks? a bit painful, that
was all; they were never serious.

Empty as the man's mind was of thoughts, he was keenly
observant, and he noticed the changes in the creek, the curves
and bends and timber jams, and always he sharply noted where he
placed his feet. Once, coming around a bend, he shied abruptly,
like a startled horse, curved away from the place where he had
been walking, and retreated several paces back along the trail.
The creek he knew was frozen clear to the bottom---no creek could
contain water in that arctic winter--but he knew also that there
were springs that bubbled out from the hillsides and ran along
under the snow and on top the ice of the creek. He knew that the
coldest snaps never froze these springs, and he knew likewise
their danger. They were traps. They hid pools of water under the
snow that might be three inches deep, or three feet. Sometimes a
skin of ice half an inch thick covered them, and in turn was
covered by the snow. Sometimes there were alternate layers of
water and ice skin, so that when one broke through he kept on
breaking through for a while, sometimes wetting himself to the
waist.

That was why he had shied in such panic. He had felt the
give under his feet and heard the crackle of a snow-hidden ice
skin. And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant trouble
and danger. At the very least it meant delay, for he would be
forced to stop and build a fire, and under its protection to bare
his feet while he dried his socks and moccasins. He stood and
studied the creek bed and its banks, and decided that the flow of