[Stickeen, etc.], [ca.1887], Image 18

31 What makes you take that thing I said, He knows more than you think. I liked ds [dogs] for comps [companions] on my excursions but could seldom have them for unable to carry food for them, didn’t hunt Neither good nor bad. A complete nobody His glum ways monotonous & melancholy Solemn paced & slow about the camp holding on the even tenor of his life in comfortable mental torpor Moved by some wild urgent charm overcoming warm comfort that cold morning & care for breakfast # Death seemed to be brooding forever in the gloom of the chasm On most mountains one skilled mountaineer might walk blindfold feeling a way with his feet, but it is never quite so on glaciers where a 1,000 crevasses lie in wait to engulf him The weather was not in that unsettled state when a downright storm would [was] be better than unstable calm, war than peace The beauty of the ice world was not seen amid so great dread & as the distinctions of rank are naturally set aside in presence of danger so also are those of species between men & animals & of course Stick & I were friends in distress & equal 32 How puny our efforts [seemed man’s power] in presence of such a danger such a scene of terror & sublimity The whole ray wilderness was disconsolate offering no shelter at all from the blast for man or beast & the voice of the storm was abroad trees along the bank stood bruised & peeled in stubborn [delotion/dilution] The bloom of light in colored beams of crystals the gl [glacier] streams in channels of clear blue ice sped on without form or function With indescribable grace & any gladness singing & swirling X Here then was left no room for vacillation [of] no infirmity of purpose inexorable necessity stood forth like a fire that could not be hid, thus far to the brink of gulf & no farther Frantic enthusiasm of terror, then followed by a burst of triumphant joy Hundreds of streams born of the lavish rains came in white cascades from the mountain on [either] hand of the inlet sounding like the sea We were precious little indebted to that & for the pleasure of the voyage should be left under a [so…] only in have a silly thing to care for # [□] Icy mist tangled in rugged masses in the black tops of the spruce trees of the shore seen dimly through the gloom # The gray fateful gloom of the stormy night was settling down. All the birds were driven from the sea & the sky to seek shelter where they might. Not a wing was seen all were folded. Nor any of the multitude of wee [cow’rin] sleekit [tim’rous] beasties that [even] in these hills found rooms & food – the roaring storm had all the sky to itself. Yet not sullen or destructive – fullness of joy rather with life & gladness only infinitely earnest 06474https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn-st1/1017/thumbnail.jp