Learn English with a Short Story: To Build a Fire

Reading short stories is a great way to improve your English because they introduce new vocabulary, reinforce proper grammar, and provide consistent language practice.

Jack London's To Build a Fire is a story that reveals how unforgiving nature can be and the impact of the choices we make when facing extreme challenges. This story’s main character is on a life-or-death journey through the bitter cold, where every decision he makes becomes a battle against nature itself.

In the video above, I read the story aloud, allowing you to immerse yourself in the narrative and improve your listening comprehension. Then, the video provides a concise summary of the story and I talk about our story's significance, ensuring you understand its key plot points and the lessons it presents. To help in your English language learning journey, I reread the story and highlight useful vocabulary and give explanations along the way during the second half of the video. This practical approach will help you not only appreciate the story but also expand your English vocabulary and comprehension skills.

This story is an abridged version. I have changed some of the words to make it easier to understand for English learners (the original story can be found here). Below is the full text of the version I read in the video:

To Build a Fire by Jack London (abridged)

The day was cold and gray when the man left the main Yukon trail and climbed a steep bank. He stopped to catch his breath and check the time; it was nine o'clock. Despite the clear sky without any clouds, there was no sun, making the day feel dark and gloomy. The man wasn't bothered by this since he was used to not seeing the sun for days. He knew it would be a few more days before the sun would appear on the southern horizon.

The man looked back at the way he had come and saw that the Yukon River was hidden beneath three feet of ice, covered by as many feet of snow. Everything was white, except for a dark trail that stretched from south to north, disappearing behind spruce-covered islands.

But none of this—the strange, distant trail, the lack of sun, the extreme cold, or the overall strangeness of the situation—affected the man. It wasn't because he was accustomed to it; in fact, he was a newcomer to this land experiencing his first winter here. The issue with him was his lack of imagination. He was quick and alert when it came to practical matters but didn't ponder the deeper meanings. When the temperature dropped to fifty degrees below zero, he simply saw it as very cold and uncomfortable, nothing more. It didn't lead him to think about human vulnerability in the face of temperature extremes or the larger questions of immortality and humanity's place in the universe. To him, fifty degrees below zero meant just that, and nothing else crossed his mind.

He continued walking, he spat on the ground. To his surprise, there was a sharp crackle. He spat again and once more. Before it hit the snow, the spittle crackled in the air. He knew that at fifty below zero, spittle would crackle on the snow, but this was different—it crackled in the air. It was undoubtedly colder than fifty below, but he didn't know how much colder. However, the exact temperature didn't concern him. He was headed to an old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys were already waiting. They had come over from the Indian Creek area, while he had taken a longer route to explore the possibility of harvesting logs from the Yukon islands in the spring. He expected to reach camp by six o'clock, slightly after dark. He knew the boys would be there, a fire would be burning, and a hot dinner would be ready. As for lunch, he patted the bundle beneath his jacket, which was also pressed against his shirt and resting against his bare skin. This was the only way to keep the biscuits from freezing. He smiled at the thought of those biscuits, each one split open and soaked in bacon grease, with a generous slice of fried bacon inside.

He entered the dense spruce tree forest. The trail was barely visible because a foot of snow had fallen since the last sled had passed through. He was relieved to be traveling without a sled, keeping his load light. In fact, all he carried was his lunch wrapped in a handkerchief. However, he couldn't help but notice the intense cold. It was undeniably frigid, he thought, as he rubbed his numb nose and cheekbones with his mittened hand. Although he had a warm beard, it didn't shield his high cheekbones or his nose, which were exposed to the frosty air.

A big husky dog followed closely behind the man. It had a gray coat and no visible or temperamental differences from its wild wolf cousins. The dog was upset by the extreme cold; it instinctively knew that this was not a good time for travel. Its instincts told it a more accurate story than the man's judgment. In reality, it was not merely fifty degrees below zero; it was even colder, perhaps sixty below, or even seventy-five below zero. Since the freezing point is at thirty-two degrees above zero, this meant there were one hundred and seven degrees of frost. The dog didn't understand temperature scales or thermometers, but it had its instincts. It felt a sense of danger that made it follow cautiously behind the man. The dog seemed to expect the man to stop and make camp or seek shelter to build a fire. It had learned about fire and yearned for its warmth or the option to burrow under the snow to escape the biting cold air.

The dog's breath had frozen on its fur, forming a delicate frosty powder, especially on its jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes. The same icy effect had settled on the man's beard and mustache, but in a more solid form, resembling ice. This icy deposit increased with every warm breath he exhaled. In addition to this, the man was chewing tobacco, and the icy muzzle held his lips so tightly that he couldn't clear his chin when he spat. As a result, a crystal beard, the color and hardness of amber, was growing on his chin. If he were to fall, it would shatter like glass into brittle pieces. However, he paid no mind to this frozen beard; it was the price all tobacco-chewers paid in that cold region, and he had experienced cold weather before. While it might not have been as frigid as this, he knew from the thermometer at Sixty Mile that it had dropped to fifty-five below in the past.

He continued his journey through the woods for several miles, traveled across a wide flat covered in frozen bushes, and walked down a slope to the frozen bed of a small stream. This was Henderson Creek, and he estimated that he was ten miles from the fork in the trail. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was ten o'clock. He was making good time, covering four miles per hour, and he calculated that he would reach the fork around half-past twelve. He decided to celebrate this milestone by having lunch there.

The dog lagged behind, its tail hanging low in discouragement, as the man continued along the creek-bed. While the old sled trail was still visible, about a foot of snow had covered the tracks left by the last sled that had passed through a month ago. No one had ventured up or down this quiet creek for a while. The man kept walking steadily. He wasn't much of a thinker, and at that moment, he had nothing to think about except that he would have lunch at the fork in the trail and would join the boys at camp by six o'clock. There was no one to chat with, and even if there were, speaking was impossible due to the icy muzzle covering his mouth. So, he walked on, chewing tobacco and allowing his amber beard to grow longer.

Occasionally, the thought crossed his mind that it was incredibly cold, unlike anything he had ever experienced. As he walked, he rubbed his cheekbones and nose with the back of his mittened hand. He did this instinctively, switching hands from time to time. However, no matter how much he rubbed, as soon as he stopped, his cheekbones and then the tip of his nose would go numb again. He knew he was likely to get frostbite on his cheeks, and he briefly regretted not having a nose-strap like Bud used to wear during cold snaps. Such a strap covered the cheeks as well, preventing frostbite. But in the end, it didn't matter much. What were frosted cheeks anyway? Just a bit painful; nothing too serious.

Though the man's mind was empty of thoughts, he remained acutely observant of his surroundings. He noted the changes in the creek's path, the curves, bends, and the obstructions formed by fallen timber. He always paid close attention to where he stepped. At one point, while rounding a bend, he suddenly veered away, startled like a spooked horse, moving back several paces along the trail he had just walked. He knew the creek was frozen solid to the bottom—no creek could hold water in the harsh Arctic winter. But he also knew about the springs that bubbled out from the hillsides, running beneath the snow and atop the creek's ice. These springs, he was aware, never froze during even the coldest snaps, and he understood the danger they posed. They were hidden traps that had pools of water beneath the snow, ranging from a few inches to several feet deep. Sometimes, a thin layer of ice, half an inch thick, covered them, hidden under the snow. In other instances, there were layers of water and ice, causing a person to keep breaking through for a while when they stepped on them, soaking themselves up to the waist.

This was why he had reacted with such panic. He had felt the ground give way under his feet and heard the telltale crackling of a hidden layer of ice beneath the snow. Getting his feet wet in such frigid temperatures meant serious trouble and danger. At the very least, it would result in a delay, as he'd have to stop and build a fire to thaw his frozen feet and dry his socks and moccasins. He stood there, examining the creek bed and its bank, and concluded that the flow of water came from the right side. After some thought, while rubbing his nose and cheeks, he carefully moved to the left, taking cautious steps and testing the footing with each step. Once he was clear of the danger, he took a fresh pinch of tobacco and continued his steady pace at four miles per hour.

Over the next two hours, he encountered several more of these hidden traps. Usually, the snow above the hidden pools had a sunken appearance that signaled the danger. Once again, he had a close call. On one occasion, suspecting the danger, he forced the dog to go ahead of him. The dog hesitated and stayed back until the man pushed it forward. It quickly crossed the pristine, unbroken surface but suddenly broke through, struggled to one side, and reached solid ground. Its front and hind legs were wet, and the water quickly turned to ice. The dog immediately began to lick the ice from its legs and bite out the ice that had formed between its toes. This was an instinctual response; the dog didn't know the consequences, it just obeyed its instincts. The man, however, understood the potential danger and removed the mitten from his right hand to help remove the ice. He exposed his fingers for no more than a minute and was surprised by how quickly they became numb. It was undeniably frigid. He hastily pulled on the mitten and vigorously beat his hand across his chest to regain feeling.

At noon, the day was at its brightest, but the sun was too low in the southern sky on its winter journey to clear the horizon. The curvature of the Earth blocked the direct rays from reaching Henderson Creek, where the man walked beneath a clear sky at noon without casting a shadow. Exactly at half-past twelve, he reached the fork in the creek. He was satisfied with the speed of his progress. If he kept it up, he would certainly reach the boys by six o'clock. He unbuttoned his jacket and shirt and retrieved his lunch. The action took no more than a quarter of a minute, yet in that brief moment, numbness gripped his exposed fingers. Instead of putting on his mitten, he repeatedly struck his fingers against his leg a dozen times. Then he sat down on a snow-covered log to eat. The stinging sensation that followed the blows against his leg subsided so quickly that it startled him. He hadn't even had the chance to take a bite of his biscuit. He struck his fingers repeatedly and returned them to the mitten, uncovering the other hand to eat. He tried to take a mouthful, but the icy muzzle prevented him. He had forgotten to build a fire and thaw out his fingers. He chuckled at his own foolishness, and as he chuckled, he noticed the numbness spreading into the exposed fingers. He also observed that the stinging sensation, which had initially struck his toes when he sat down, was already fading. He wondered whether his toes were now warm or numb. He moved them inside his moccasins and concluded that they were numb.

He hurriedly pulled on his mitten and stood up, feeling a bit frightened. He stamped his feet up and down vigorously until the stinging sensation returned to his toes. "It certainly was cold," he thought to himself. That man from Sulphur Creek had been right about how cold it could get in this country. He had laughed at the old man's warning at the time, but now he knew not to be too sure about things. There was no doubt about it; it was bitterly cold. He walked back and forth, stomping his feet and flailing his arms until the returning warmth reassured him. Then he took out some matches and set about making a fire. He found firewood from the undergrowth, where the high water from the previous spring had left a supply of dry twigs. Starting with a small fire, he quickly had a roaring blaze. He used it to thaw the ice from his face and enjoyed the protection it provided as he ate his biscuits. For the moment, the biting cold was kept at bay. The dog found comfort in the fire's warmth, lying down close enough to feel the heat but far enough to avoid being singed.

After finishing his meal, the man filled his pipe and leisurely enjoyed a smoke. Then he put on his mittens, secured the ear-flaps of his cap snugly around his ears, and continued along the trail up the left fork. The dog was disappointed and longed to return to the fire. This man did not understand the severity of the cold. Perhaps none of his ancestors had ever experienced real cold, not the cold that was one hundred and seven degrees below freezing point. But the dog knew; it had inherited this knowledge from generations of its kind. It understood that it was not wise to go out in such extreme cold; it was a time to find shelter in a snow hole and wait until warmth returned.

There was no strong bond between the dog and the man. The dog was merely the laborer, subjected to the man's commands, receiving no affection except for the harsh caresses of the whip and the menacing sounds that accompanied it. So, the dog didn't attempt to convey its apprehension to the man. Its desire to return to the fire was for survival. But when the man whistled and spoke to it in the language of the whip, the dog reluctantly fell in line behind him and followed obediently.

The man took a pinch of tobacco and started to grow a fresh amber beard. His moist breath quickly frosted his mustache, eyebrows, and eyelashes, turning them white. For a while, he didn't come across any springs on the left fork of the Henderson Creek, and he saw no signs of them. Then, it happened. In a spot where there were no indications, where the soft, unbroken snow appeared to suggest firmness beneath, the man broke through. It wasn't very deep, but he ended up getting wet up to his knees before struggling out onto the solid crust.

He was angry and he cursed his bad luck out loud. He had hoped to get to camp and meet the boys by six o'clock, and this would set him back an hour. He'd have to make a fire and dry his footwear; it was crucial in such low temperatures, he knew that much. He turned toward the bank and climbed up. On top, he found dry firewood tangled in the underbrush around the trunks of a few small spruce trees. There were sticks, twigs, and larger pieces of branches, along with fine, dry grasses from the previous year. He tossed several large pieces onto the snow, making a foundation that would keep the young flame from extinguishing itself in the snow it would otherwise melt. To start the fire, he lit a match and touched it to a small piece of birch bark he'd taken from his pocket. It ignited even more readily than paper. Placing it on the pile, he fed the young flame with bits of dry grass and the smallest dry twigs.

He worked slowly and carefully. He was aware of the danger he was in. As the flame grew stronger, he began feeding it larger twigs, squatting in the snow to get the twigs from the brush and placing them directly into the fire. He knew he couldn’t fail. When it's seventy-five degrees below zero, a man must not fail in his first attempt to build a fire, especially if his feet are wet. If a man's feet are dry and he fails, he can run along the trail for half a mile to restore circulation. However, the circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored by running when it's seventy-five below zero. No matter how fast he runs, the wet feet will only freeze harder.

All of this knowledge the man knew. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek had shared this wisdom with him the previous fall, and now he truly appreciated the advice. Already, all sensation had left his feet. To build the fire, he had to remove his mittens, and his fingers had rapidly gone numb. His previous pace of four miles an hour had kept his heart pumping blood to the surface of his body and extremities. However, the moment he stopped moving, his heart slowed down. As long as he walked at four miles an hour, he pumped that blood to the surface, but now it sank into the inner depths of his body. His extremities were the first to sense the absence of warmth. His wet feet froze more rapidly, and his exposed fingers numbed quickly, although they hadn't begun to freeze yet. His nose and cheeks were already freezing, and the skin all over his body was chilling as it lost its blood.

But he was safe now. His toes, nose, and cheeks had only been lightly touched by the frost, because the fire was gaining strength. He fed it with twigs the size of his fingers. In another minute, he would be able to add branches the size of his wrist to the fire. Then, he could remove his wet footgear and keep his bare feet warm by the fire while his gear dried. The fire was a success, and he felt secure. He remembered the advice of the old-timer on Sulphur Creek and couldn't help but smile. The old-timer had been quite serious when he insisted that no man should travel alone in the Klondike when it’s colder than fifty below. Yet here he was, alone and having survived his mishap. Some of those old-timers seemed a bit too cautious, he thought. All a man needed to do was stay level-headed, and he'd be fine. Any real man could travel alone.

However, he was surprised by how quickly his cheeks and nose were freezing, and he hadn't expected his fingers to grow lifeless in such a short time. But now they were nearly lifeless; he could barely grasp a twig. His fingers felt distant, as if they belonged to someone else. When he touched a twig, he had to look to confirm whether he had actually picked it up.

Yet all of these concerns paled in comparison to the importance of the fire, crackling and promising warmth with every flicker of flame. He began untying his ice-coated moccasins. The thick German socks felt as rigid as iron halfway to his knees, and the moccasin strings were twisted and knotted. He tugged at them briefly with his numb fingers but then realized the folly of the effort and took out his knife.

Just as he was about to cut the strings, disaster struck. It was his own fault, or rather, his error in judgment. He should not have built the fire beneath the spruce tree; he should have chosen an open spot. It had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly onto the fire. But the tree under which he had done this carried a heavy load of snow on its branches. There hadn't been any wind for weeks, so each branch was loaded with snow. Each time he had pulled a twig, he had unwittingly sent a slight disturbance through the tree—an imperceptible disturbance to him, but enough to set off the disaster. High up in the tree, one branch suddenly dropped its load of snow, which fell onto the branches below, causing them to tip as well. This process continued, spreading throughout the entire tree. It resembled an avalanche, and it fell without warning onto the man and the fire, extinguishing the fire completely. Where the fire had burned, there was now a fresh blanket of snow.

The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard his own death sentence. He sat there for a moment, staring at the spot where the fire had once burned. Then, he regained his composure. Maybe the old-timer from Sulphur Creek was right. If only he had a trail-mate on the trail, he wouldn't be in this situation. A trail-mate could have rebuilt the fire. But now it was up to him to start the fire again, and this time, there could be no failure. Even if he succeeded, he knew he'd likely lose some toes. His feet must be severely frozen by now, and it would take some time before the second fire was ready.

These were his thoughts, but he didn't sit to think about them. He stayed busy. He built a new fire foundation, this time in the open where no snow could fall off of a tree on top of it. He then gathered dry grasses and tiny twigs. He couldn't bring his fingers together to pick them up individually, but he managed to gather them by the handful. He got some bits of green moss, which were less than ideal, but it was the best he could do. He even collected an armful of larger branches to be used later when the fire grew stronger. As he worked, the dog watched him with a yearning in its eyes, as it saw him as the fire-bringer, and the fire was taking its time to reappear.

When everything was ready, the man reached into his pocket for a second piece of birch bark. He knew it was there, and although he couldn't feel it with his fingers, he could hear the crisp rustling sound as he fumbled for it. Despite his efforts, he couldn't grasp it. Meanwhile, the knowledge that his feet were freezing with every passing second weighed heavily on his consciousness. This thought threatened to make him panic, but he fought against it and remained calm. He used his teeth to put on his mittens, and he flailed his arms back and forth, beating his hands vigorously against his sides. He did this while sitting down and stood up to continue, all the while the dog sat in the snow, its wolf-like tail wrapped around its front paws for warmth, its sharp ears perked forward, watching the man. As the man beat and thrashed his arms and hands, he couldn't help but feel envy toward the dog that was naturally warm and safe in its fur coat.

After a while, the man began to sense sensation returning to his fingers. The faint tingling gradually intensified into a stinging ache that was excruciating, but the man welcomed it eagerly. He removed the mitten from his right hand and retrieved the birch bark. However, his exposed fingers were quickly growing numb once more. He then took out a bunch of matches from his pocket. But the extreme cold had already made his fingers lifeless. As he tried to separate one match from the others, the entire bunch fell into the snow. He attempted to pick it up from the snow, but he failed. His lifeless fingers could neither touch nor grab. He concentrated, stopped thinking about his freezing feet, nose, and cheeks, and put his entire focus on picking up the matches. He relied on his sense of vision instead of his sense of touch. When he saw his fingers on both sides of the bunch, he tried to close them, but his fingers did not obey. He slammed the mitten back on his right hand and pounded it against his knee. Then, using both mittened hands, he scooped up the matches, along with a lot of snow, into his lap.

Through some careful manipulation, he managed to position the bunch between the heels of his mittened hands. Like this, he carried it toward his mouth. As he made an effort to open his mouth, the ice crackled and snapped. He opened his lower jaw, pushed his upper lip aside, and scraped the bunch with his upper teeth to separate a single match. After a struggle, he succeeded in picking one, which he then dropped onto his lap. But he couldn't pick it up. He made a new plan; he held it in his teeth and scratched it against his leg. He scraped it twenty times before it finally lit up. As the match burst into flame, he held it between his teeth and touched it to the birch bark. The burning fumes shot up his nose and into his lungs, causing him to cough uncontrollably. The match dropped into the snow and went out.

The old-timer at Sulphur Creek was right, he thought. A man should travel with a partner. He tried beating his hands together, but it failed to bring back any feeling. Then, in a sudden burst of determination, he removed both mittens using his teeth. Clutching the entire bunch of matches between the heels of his hands, his unfrozen arm muscles allowed him to press them firmly against the matches. He scraped the bunch along his leg, and all seventy matches burst into flame at once. Without wind to extinguish them, they blazed brightly. To avoid inhaling the fumes, he kept his head turned to one side and held the blazing bundle to the birch bark. As he did so, he began to feel sensation in his hand. He could smell his own flesh burning, and the sensation turned into pain. Yet he endured, clumsily holding the matches against the birch bark, despite the flames being mostly absorbed by his own burning hands.

When he could endure it no longer, he pulled his hands apart, and the flaming matches fell, sizzling, into the snow. However, the birch bark had caught fire. He began placing dry grass and the tiniest twigs onto the flame, having no choice but to lift them up between the heels of his hands. Small bits of rotten wood and green moss clung to the twigs, and he used his teeth to bite them off as best he could. He carefully and awkwardly nurtured the flame. It meant life, and he couldn't let it die. The withdrawal of blood from his skin now made him shiver, causing him to become even more clumsy. A large piece of green moss accidentally fell directly onto the small fire. He attempted to poke it away with his fingers, but his shivering caused him to poke too forcefully, and he disrupted the fire, scattering the burning grasses and tiny twigs. As he tried to bring them back together, his shivering scattered everything. Each twig let off a puff of smoke and went out. The fire-maker had failed. As he looked around, his eyes looked at the dog, sitting across from him in front of the ruins of the fire. The dog made restless, hunching movements, shifting its weight between its forefeet with a hope that the fire would return.

The sight of the dog put a wild idea in the man's head. He remembered the story of a man caught in a blizzard who had killed a steer and crawled inside the body to survive. He thought about killing the dog and burying his freezing hands within the dog's warm body until the feeling returned, allowing him to build another fire. He called to the dog, but his voice frightened the animal. The dog, never having heard the man speak in such a way before, sensed something was wrong. The dog lowered its ears upon hearing the man's voice. However, it didn’t approach the man. The man dropped onto his hands and knees, and began crawling toward the dog. This unusual movement only made the dog more suspicious and it backed away in fear.

Realizing he needed to regain control, the man struggled to compose himself. He used his teeth to put on his mittens and then got back on his feet. He first looked down to confirm that he was standing, as the absence of sensation in his feet left him feeling disconnected from the earth. Just standing up began to make the dog less suspicious. When he spoke firmly, commanding the dog, the dog approached him.

As the dog came within reach, the man lost control of his hands. His arms moved to grab the dog, but he was surprised to find that his hands could not grasp. His fingers had no sensation left; they were frozen. All of this happened quickly, and before the dog could escape, the man managed to hold the animal's body with his arms and the dog like this, even as it snarled, whined, and struggled.

The man could do nothing more than hold the dog's body in his arms and sit there. He realized that he couldn't kill the dog, even if he wanted to. His hands were too helpless; he couldn't take out or hold his knife. With a heavy heart, he released the dog, which immediately ran away wildly, its tail between its legs and still snarling. It stopped about forty feet away and looked at the man curiously, its ears perked forward.

The man’s eyes looked down to locate his hands and found them hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him as curious that he had to use his eyes to determine where his hands were. In an attempt to get some sensation, he began to wave his arms back and forth, beating his mittened hands against his sides. He continued this for five minutes, and as a result, his heart pumped enough blood to the surface to stop shivering. However, the hands remained without any feeling. The man thought his hands dangled like weights at the ends of his arms, but he could not get any feeling in them.

A fear of death came to him. This fear intensified as he grasped that it was no longer just a matter of freezing his toes or fingers; it had become a matter of life and death with the odds stacked against him. Panic overtook him, and he abruptly turned, fleeing up the creek-bed along the old, faint trail. The dog followed closely behind, keeping pace with him. He ran consumed by a fear unlike any he had ever experienced before. As he plowed through the snow, he began to see familiar surroundings again—the creek banks, the old timber-jams, the leafless aspens, and the sky. The act of running made him feel better; he stopped shivering. Perhaps if he ran long enough, his feet might thaw out. In any case, he believed that by reaching the camp where the boys were, he would be saved. He knew he would lose some fingers, toes, and parts of his face, but the boys would tend to him and save his life. Meanwhile, he had another thought that he might never reach the camp and the boys. It was too many miles away, and the cold had taken too great a toll, and that he would soon become stiff and dead. He kept pushing this thought aside. Occasionally, it came forward and demanded to be heard but he pushed it away and tried to focus on other thoughts.

He marveled at the fact that he could run at all with feet so frozen that he couldn't feel them making contact with the ground as he took each step. It seemed to him as if he were gliding above the surface, completely disconnected from the earth. He recalled having seen an image of winged Mercury in the past and wondered if Mercury felt the same way when soaring over the earth.

However, his plan of running until he reached camp and the boys had one flaw: he didn’t have endurance. He stumbled many times, and eventually, he crumpled to the ground, and fell. When he tried to stand again, he failed. He decided he needed to sit and rest for a while, and next time, he would simply walk and keep moving forward. As he sat and caught his breath, he noticed that he was beginning to feel strangely warm and comfortable. There was no shivering, and it even seemed as though a warm glow had come to his chest. Yet, when he touched his nose or cheeks, there was no sensation. Running wouldn't thaw them, nor would it do anything for his frozen hands and feet.

Then the thought crossed his mind that the frozen areas of his body might be spreading. He tried to suppress this thought, to push it away and focus on something else, fearing the panic it caused. But it kept coming back, giving him a vision of his entire body becoming completely frozen. This was too much for him to bear, and he broke into another wild run along the trail. At one point, he slowed to a walk, but the thought of the freezing made him run again.

The dog continued to run alongside the man as he stumbled and fell a second time. It sat down in front of him, curled its tail over its front paws, and looked at him curiously. The man, overwhelmed by the warmth and security the dog represented, grew angry and cursed at it until it flattened its ears in a plea to be forgiven. Shivering came more quickly upon him this time, and he realized that he was losing the battle against the cold. It was creeping into his body from all directions. The thought made him get up and keep moving, but he managed to run only about a hundred feet before he staggered and fell again.

After catching his breath and regaining control, he sat up and thought about facing death with dignity. He felt that he had been acting foolishly, running around like a headless chicken, and decided to accept his fate more calmly. With this newfound peace of mind came the first hints of drowsiness. He considered that it might be a good idea to drift off to death, like taking a soothing anesthetic. Freezing, he concluded, wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. There were far worse ways to die.

He pictured the boys discovering his body the next day. Suddenly, he found himself with them, walking along the trail and searching for himself. And then, still with them, he turned a corner and saw himself lying in the snow. He no longer felt a part of his own self, as he watched himself from the eyes of the boys. "It certainly was cold," he thought. When he returned to the States, he could tell people what real cold was like. His thoughts drifted to the old-timer on Sulphur Creek, whom he could now clearly see, warm and comfortable, smoking a pipe.

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

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, it felt a yearning for a fire. The dog whined softly, then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being scolded 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 back away. A little longer it waited, howling under the stars that danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it where it knew were the other food-providers and fire-providers.

To Build a Fire Summary

A man, who's not named, is out in the freezing cold with his dog. It's extremely cold, -75 degrees Fahrenheit. He's alone except for his dog, and they're going to meet his friends at a camp. He's carrying his lunch and looks forward to reuniting with his friends.

His dog senses the cold is dangerous, but the man doesn't seem to care.

While walking, he notices spots where the ice could be weak, but he's not too worried. He makes his dog walk on risky ice, and the dog falls in but gets out. They keep going, and the man eats lunch but can't feel his hands or mouth. He remembers a warning from an old man at Sulphur Creek about the cold, but he didn't take it seriously. He builds a fire but then has to move on after eating lunch, and the dog doesn't want to leave the warmth of the fire.

As they walk, the man falls into icy water, making his feet wet. He knows he needs to make another fire to dry his socks and shoes. He struggles to build a fire with numb hands and feet. He remembers the warning from the old man at Sulphur Creek but laughs it off, thinking he saved himself.

But then, snow falls from the tree branches, putting out his fire. He starts to panic. He thinks about how it would be easier if he were traveling with a companion who could help make another fire, but he's on his own. He gathers dry grass and sticks to build a new fire. His hands are so numb, and his feet are freezing. Lighting a match is difficult, and he burns all of them at once. He finally gets a fire going but burns his hands.

He attempts to warm up, but the fire goes out. He thinks about killing his dog for warmth but can't because his hands are too frozen. He realizes he's in big trouble. He runs, falls, and runs again, but he's getting colder. He falls once more, understands that he’ll never make it to the boys at the camp. He has a vision of his friends finding his dead body. Then he falls asleep and slowly freezes to death. The dog stays for a while, but when it understands the man is dead, it leaves.

To Build a Fire Significance

To build a Fire by Jack London holds significance because it shows the power of nature. The story emphasizes that nature is indifferent to human existence. It doesn’t care who you are, it is stronger than you. It serves as a warning against being too confident, as the main character, doesn’t listen to the advice of the old man at Sulphur Creek. The main character doesn’t understand until it is too late the limits of self-reliance, that a journey like the one he is on in such conditions is foolish without a companion.