PHHH #1082.9

Date: Sunday, February 26, 2006

Weather: Canine Chilly

Hare: Kilent Knight

Hounds: Oliver, Speed Bumps, Pyroman, Lil Blue Butt, Charles  Snellings, Hey YO! Paully, 
Nuttin Stuck, OuiPee, Bjorn Dork, Delicate Psyche, Hand Solo, Claire

Seen at the on in:  Safe Sweats the Cyber Hasher

Time: <1hr if you ran the canal, 1.5hr if you ran the trail, dug for varmints, chewed a dead 
deer carcass and generally had a dog gone good time.

Well, we saved the day for Solo by calling his wireless blackberry and letting him know that 
the start was not really at the Quaker Bridge Mall at all, and he should not drive around there 
for days, but instead cross the great highway to the land of Babies 4 Sale.  Silly Ivy Leaguers; 
if it's not in Princeton, it can't really matter!  Hey, I'm just a dog and I know the difference 
between Quaker Bridge Road and Province Line Road!  Luckily Nutin' Stuck flys modern jet 
airplanes for a living, so with the help of technology and meals at mealtimes, he was able to 
find the start eventually, as well.

Off we run towards the towpath.  On to the towpath, then into the field.  To quote Geezer... 
booooooriiiinnnggg!  While the silly hounds looked for flour and marks that didn't exist I dug 
for field mice; man, I love those things!    Solo found flour a good half mile away...
oh, boy... chase Solo... no stop and smell a dead animal... no chase Solo... uh-oh.  Huh here 
comes Bumps, I'd better hash!

Hey... why are we back on the towpath?  Boooooriiingggg!

OK, back into the the woods again.  What's that guy doing showing us his butt from across the 
stream?  Woah, that thing's bright!  Off we go up along the canal, again with the towpath.  Ack, 
big swim to get to the towpath?  Not us, a quick run leads to Alexander road and the On In.

Only 12 beers, no cars to drive us back, and my muddy dingleberries are frozen to my butt!  God, 
I hope the cars get here before my dingles freeze off...


And This . . . 

A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This fear quickly became poignant 
as he realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of 
losing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances against 
him. This threw him into a panic, and he turned and ran up the canal along the dim  poorly marked 
trail. The dog joined in behind and kept up with him. He ran blindly, without intention, in fear 
such as he had never known in his life. Slowly, as he ploughed and floundered through the cold, 
he began to see things again, -- the banks of the creek, the old timber-jams, the leafless oaks, 
and the sky. The running made him feel better. He did not shiver. Maybe, if he ran on, his feet 
would thaw out; and, anyway, if he ran far enough, he would reach on in and the boys. Without 
doubt he would lose some fingers and toes and some of his face; but the boys would take care of 
him, and save the rest of him when he got there. And at the same time there was another thought 
in his mind that said he would never get to the out and the boys; that it was too many miles away, 
that the freezing had too great a start on him, and that he would soon be stiff and dead. This 
thought he kept in the background and refused to consider. Sometimes it pushed itself forward and 
demanded to be heard, but he thrust it back and strove to think of other things. 

It struck him as curious that he could run at all on feet so frozen that he could not feel them 
when they struck the earth and took the weight of his body. He seemed to himself to skim along 
above the surface, and to have no connection with the earth. Somewhere he had once seen a winged 
Mercury, and he wondered if Mercury felt as he felt when skimming over the earth. 

His theory of running until he reached camp and the boys had one flaw in it: he lacked the 
endurance. Several times he stumbled, and finally he tottered, crumpled up, and fell. When he 
tried to rise, he failed. He must sit and rest, he decided, and next time he would merely walk 
and keep on going. As he sat and regained his breath, he noted that he was feeling quite warm 
and comfortable. He was not shivering, and it even seemed that a warm glow had come to his chest 
and trunk. And yet, when he touched his nose or cheeks, there was no sensation. Running would not 
thaw them out. Nor would it thaw out his hands and feet. Then the thought came to him that the 
frozen portions of his body must be extending. He tried to keep this thought down, to forget it, 
to think of something else; he was aware of the panicky feeling that it caused, and he was afraid 
of the panic. But the thought asserted itself, and persisted, until it produced a vision of his 
body totally frozen. This was too much, and he made another wild run along the tow-path. Once he 
slowed down to a walk, but the thought of the freezing extending itself made him run again. 

And all the time the dog ran with him, at his heels. When he fell down a second time, it curled 
its tail over its forefeet and sat in front of him, facing him, curiously eager and intent. The 
warmth and security of the animal angered him, and he cursed it till it flattened down its ears 
appeasingly. This time the shivering came more quickly upon the man. He was losing in his battle 
with the frost. It was creeping into his body from all sides. The thought of it drove him on, but 
he ran no more than a hundred feet, when he staggered and pitched headlong. It was his last panic. 
When he had recovered his breath and control, he sat up and entertained in his mind the conception 
of meeting death with dignity. However, the conception did not come to him in such terms. His idea 
of it was that he had been making a fool of himself, running around like a chicken with its head 
cut off -- such was the simile that occurred to him. Well, he was bound to freeze anyway, and he 
might as well take it decently. With this new-found peace of mind came the first glimmerings of 
drowsiness. A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death. It was like taking an anaesthetic. 
Freezing was not so bad as people thought. There were lots worse ways to die. 

He pictured the boys finding his body next day. Suddenly he found himself with them, coming along 
the trail and looking for himself. And, still with them, he came around a turn in the trail and 
found himself lying in the dirt. He did not belong with himself any more, for even then he was 
out of himself, standing with the boys and looking at himself in the dirt.  It certainly was cold, 
was his thought. When he got back to the pubs he could tell the folks what real cold was. He 
drifted on from this to a vision of the old-timer on Triumph. He could see him quite clearly, warm 
and comfortable, and smoking a pipe. 

"You were right, old hoss; you were right," the man mumbled to the old-timer of Triumph. 

Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the most comfortable and satisfying sleep he had 
ever known. The dog sat facing him and waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slow 
twilight. There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides, never in the dog's experience 
had it known a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the twilight drew on, its 
eager yearning for the fire mastered it, and with a great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it 
whined softly, then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the 
man remained silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and 
caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, 
howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned 
and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers,
fire-providers and beer-providers.