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- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
This Excellent Collection brings together Jack London's longer, major books and a fine selection of shorter pieces and Fiction Books. These Books created and collected in Jack London's Most important Works illuminate the life and work of one of the most individual writers of the XX century - a man who elevated political writing to an art.John Griffith London (born John Griffith Chaney; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.His most famous works include "The Call of the Wild" and "White Fang", both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay", and "The Heathen".London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, workers' rights, socialism, and eugenics. He wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé "The People of the Abyss", "War of the Classes", and "Before Adam".This Collection included:1. A Daughter of the Snows2. The Call of the Wild3. The Sea-Wolf4. The Game5. White Fang6. The Iron Heel7. Martin Eden8. Burning Daylight9. Adventure10. The Scarlet Plague11. A Son of the Sun12. The Valley of the Moon13. The Mutiny of the Elsinore14. The Jacket (The Star-Rover)15. The Little Lady of the Big House16. Jerry of the Islands17. Michael, Brother of Jerry18. Before Adam19. The Son of the Wolf20. Children of the Frost21. Tales of the Fish Patrol22. Lost Face23. South Sea Tales24. The House of Pride and Other Tales of Hawaii25. Smoke Bellew26. The Turtles of Tasman27. On the Makaloa Mat28. The Road29. John Barleycorn30. When God Laughs and Other Stories31. Dutch Courage and Other Stories32. The Human Drift and Other Stories33. The God of His Fathers: Tales of the Klondyke34. Love of Life and Other Stories35. The Red One36. The Night-Born37. War of the Classes38. The Faith of Men39. The Strength of the Strong40. Moon-Face and Other Stories41. A Thousand Deaths42. Up The Slide43. The Sundog Trail44. The Acorn-Planter45. Theft46. The People of the Abyss47. Revolution and Other Essays48. The Cruise of the Snark
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Table of Contents
About the Book & Author
A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
THE CALL OF THE WILD
CHAPTER 1 - INTO THE PRIMITIVE
CHAPTER 2 - THE LAW OF CLUB AND FANG
CHAPTER 3 - THE DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST
CHAPTER 4 - WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP
CHAPTER 5 - THE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL
CHAPTER 6 - FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN
CHAPTER 7 - THE SOUNDING OF THE CALL
THE SEA-WOLF
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE GAME
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
WHITE FANG
PART 1
CHAPTER 1 - THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT
CHAPTER 2 - THE SHE-WOLF
CHAPTER 3 - THE HUNGER CRY
PART 2
CHAPTER 1 - THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS
CHAPTER 2 - THE LAIR
CHAPTER 3 - THE GREY CUB
CHAPTER 4 - THE WALL OF THE WORLD
CHAPTER 5 - THE LAW OF MEAT
PART 3
CHAPTER 1 - THE MAKERS OF FIRE
CHAPTER 2 - THE BONDAGE
CHAPTER 3 - THE OUTCAST
CHAPTER 4 - THE TRAIL OF THE GODS
CHAPTER 5 - THE COVENANT
CHAPTER 6 - THE FAMINE
PART 4
CHAPTER 1 - THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND
CHAPTER 2 - THE MAD GOD
CHAPTER 3 - THE REIGN OF HATE
CHAPTER 4 - THE CLINGING DEATH
CHAPTER 5 - THE INDOMITABLE
CHAPTER 6 - THE LOVE-MASTER
PART 5
CHAPTER 1 - THE LONG TRAIL
CHAPTER 2 - THE SOUTHLAND
CHAPTER 3 - THE GOD’S DOMAIN
CHAPTER 4 - THE CALL OF KIND
CHAPTER 5 - THE SLEEPING WOLF
THE IRON HEEL
FOREWORD
CHAPTER I: MY EAGLE
CHAPTER II: CHALLENGES.
CHAPTER III: JACKSON’S ARM.
CHAPTER IV: SLAVES OF THE MACHINE
CHAPTER V: THE PHILOMATHS
CHAPTER VI: ADUMBRATIONS
CHAPTER VII: THE BISHOP’S VISION
CHAPTER VIII: THE MACHINE BREAKERS
CHAPTER IX: THE MATHEMATICS OF A DREAM
CHAPTER X: THE VORTEX
CHAPTER XI: THE GREAT ADVENTURE
CHAPTER XII: THE BISHOP
CHAPTER XIII: THE GENERAL STRIKE
CHAPTER XIV: THE BEGINNING OF THE END
CHAPTER XV: LAST DAYS
CHAPTER XVI: THE END
CHAPTER XVII: THE SCARLET LIVERY
CHAPTER XVIII: IN THE SHADOW OF SONOMA
CHAPTER XIX: TRANSFORMATION
CHAPTER XX: A LOST OLIGARCH
CHAPTER XXI: THE ROARING ABYSMAL BEAST
CHAPTER XXII: THE CHICAGO COMMUNE
CHAPTER XXIII: THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS
CHAPTER XXIV: NIGHTMARE
CHAPTER XXV: THE TERRORISTS
MARTIN EDEN
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLII
CHAPTER XLIII
CHAPTER XLIV
CHAPTER XLV
CHAPTER XLVI
BURNING DAYLIGHT
PART I
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
PART II
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
ADVENTURE
CHAPTER I—SOMETHING TO BE DONE
CHAPTER II—SOMETHING IS DONE
CHAPTER III—THE JESSIE
CHAPTER IV—JOAN LACKLAND
CHAPTER V—SHE WOULD A PLANTER BE
CHAPTER VI—TEMPEST
CHAPTER VII—A HARD-BITTEN GANG
CHAPTER VIII—LOCAL COLOUR
CHAPTER IX—AS BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN
CHAPTER X—A MESSAGE FROM BOUCHER
CHAPTER XI—THE PORT ADAMS CROWD
CHAPTER XII—MR. MORGAN AND MR. RAFF
CHAPTER XIII—THE LOGIC OF YOUTH
CHAPTER XIV—THE MARTHA
CHAPTER XV—A DISCOURSE ON MANNERS
CHAPTER XVI—THE GIRL WHO HAD NOT GROWN UP
CHAPTER XVII—“YOUR” MISS LACKLAND
CHAPTER XVIII—MAKING THE BOOKS COME TRUE
CHAPTER XIX—THE LOST TOY
CHAPTER XX—A MAN-TALK
CHAPTER XXI—CONTRABAND
CHAPTER XXII—GOGOOMY FINISHES ALONG KWAQUE ALTOGETHER
CHAPTER XXIII—A MESSAGE FROM THE BUSH
CHAPTER XXIV—IN THE BUSH
CHAPTER XXV—THE HEAD-HUNTERS
CHAPTER XXVI—BURNING DAYLIGHT
CHAPTER XXVII—MODERN DUELLING
CHAPTER XXVIII—CAPITULATION
THE SCARLET PLAGUE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
A SON OF THE SUN
CHAPTER ONE—A SON OF THE SUN
CHAPTER TWO—THE PROUD GOAT OF ALOYSIUS PANKBURN
CHAPTER THREE—THE DEVILS OF FUATINO
CHAPTER FOUR—THE JOKERS OF NEW GIBBON
CHAPTER FIVE—A LITTLE ACCOUNT WITH SWITHIN HALL
CHAPTER SIX—A GOBOTO NIGHT
CHAPTER SEVEN—THE FEATHERS OF THE SUN
CHAPTER EIGHT—THE PEARLS OF PARLAY
THE VALLEY OF THE MOON
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
THE MUTINY OF THE ELSINORE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLII
CHAPTER XLIII
CHAPTER XLIV
CHAPTER XLV
CHAPTER XLVI
CHAPTER XLVII
CHAPTER XLVIII
CHAPTER XLIX
CHAPTER L
THE JACKET (THE STAR-ROVER)
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
THE LITTLE LADY OF THE BIG HOUSE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
JERRY OF THE ISLANDS
FOREWORD
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
MICHAEL, BROTHER OF JERRY
FOREWORD
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
BEFORE ADAM
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SON OF THE WOLF
THE WHITE SILENCE
THE SON OF THE WOLF
THE MEN OF FORTY MILE
IN A FAR COUNTRY
TO THE MAN ON THE TRAIL
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL
THE WIFE OF A KING
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
IN THE FORESTS OF THE NORTH
THE LAW OF LIFE
NAM-BOK THE UNVERACIOUS
THE MASTER OF MYSTERY
THE SUNLANDERS
THE SICKNESS OF LONE CHIEF
KEESH, THE SON OF KEESH
THE DEATH OF LIGOUN
LI WAN, THE FAIR
THE LEAGUE OF THE OLD MEN
TALES OF THE FISH PATROL
I: WHITE AND YELLOW
II: THE KING OF THE GREEKS
III: A RAID ON THE OYSTER PIRATES
IV: THE SIEGE OF THE “LANCASHIRE QUEEN”
V: CHARLEY’S COUP
VI: DEMETRIOS CONTOS
VII: YELLOW HANDKERCHIEF
LOST FACE
TRUST
TO BUILD A FIRE
THE WIT OF PORPORTUK
SOUTH SEA TALES
THE HOUSE OF MAPUHI
THE WHALE TOOTH
MAUKI
“YAH! YAH! YAH!”
THE HEATHEN
THE TERRIBLE SOLOMONS
THE INEVITABLE WHITE MAN
THE SEED OF MCCOY
THE HOUSE OF PRIDE, AND OTHER TALES OF HAWAII
THE HOUSE OF PRIDE
KOOLAU THE LEPER
GOOD-BYE, JACK
ALOHA OE
CHUN AH CHUN
THE SHERIFF OF KONA
JACK LONDON BY HIMSELF
SMOKE BELLEW
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT.
THE MEAT.
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK.
SHORTY DREAMS.
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK.
THE RACE FOR NUMBER ONE.
THE TURTLES OF TASMAN
BY THE TURTLES OF TASMAN
THE ETERNITY OF FORMS
TOLD IN THE DROOLING WARD
THE HOBO AND THE FAIRY
THE PRODIGAL FATHER
THE FIRST POET
FINIS
THE END OF THE STORY
ON THE MAKALOA MAT
THE BONES OF KAHEKILI
WHEN ALICE TOLD HER SOUL
SHIN-BONES
THE WATER BABY
THE TEARS OF AH KIM
THE KANAKA SURF
THE ROAD
CONFESSION
HOLDING HER DOWN
PICTURES
“PINCHED”
THE PEN
HOBOES THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT
ROAD-KIDS AND GAY-CATS
TWO THOUSAND STIFFS
BULLS
JOHN BARLEYCORN
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
WHEN GOD LAUGHS, AND OTHER STORIES
WHEN GOD LAUGHS (WITH COMPLIMENTS TO HARRY COWELL)
THE APOSTATE
A WICKED WOMAN
JUST MEAT
CREATED HE THEM
THE CHINAGO
MAKE WESTING
SEMPER IDEM
A NOSE FOR THE KING
THE “FRANCIS SPAIGHT”
A CURIOUS FRAGMENT
A PIECE OF STEAK
DUTCH COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES
PREFACE
DUTCH COURAGE
TYPHOON OFF THE COAST OF JAPAN
THE LOST POACHER
THE BANKS OF THE SACRAMENTO
CHRIS FARRINGTON: ABLE SEAMAN
TO REPEL BOARDERS
AN ADVENTURE IN THE UPPER SEA
BALD-FACE
IN YEDDO BAY
WHOSE BUSINESS IS TO LIVE
BROWN WOLF
THAT SPOT
TRUST
ALL GOLD CANYON
THE STORY OF KEESH
NAM-BOK THE UNVERACIOUS
YELLOW HANDKERCHIEF
MAKE WESTING
THE HEATHEN
THE HOBO AND THE FAIRY
“JUST MEAT”
A NOSE FOR THE KING
THE HUMAN DRIFT AND OTHER STORIES
THE HUMAN DRIFT
SMALL-BOAT SAILING
FOUR HORSES AND A SAILOR
NOTHING THAT EVER CAME TO ANYTHING
THAT DEAD MEN RISE UP NEVER
A CLASSIC OF THE SEA
A WICKED WOMAN
THE BIRTH MARK
THE GOD OF HIS FATHERS: TALES OF THE KLONDYKE
THE GOD OF HIS FATHERS
THE GREAT INTERROGATION
WHICH MAKE MEN REMEMBER
SIWASH
THE MAN WITH THE GASH
JAN, THE UNREPENTANT
GRIT OF WOMEN
WHERE THE TRAIL FORKS
A DAUGHTER OF THE AURORA
AT THE RAINBOW’S END
THE SCORN OF WOMEN
LOVE OF LIFE, AND OTHER STORIES
LOVE OF LIFE
A DAY’S LODGING
THE WHITE MAN’S WAY
THE STORY OF KEESH
THE UNEXPECTED
BROWN WOLF
THE SUN-DOG TRAIL
NEGORE, THE COWARD
THE RED ONE
THE HUSSY
LIKE ARGUS OF THE ANCIENT TIMES
THE PRINCESS
THE NIGHT-BORN
THE MADNESS OF JOHN HARNED
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG
THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
WINGED BLACKMAIL
BUNCHES OF KNUCKLES
WAR
UNDER THE DECK AWNINGS
TO KILL A MAN
THE MEXICAN
WAR OF THE CLASSES
PREFACE
THE CLASS STRUGGLE
THE TRAMP
THE SCAB
THE QUESTION OF THE MAXIMUM
A REVIEW
WANTED: A NEW LAW OF DEVELOPMENT
HOW I BECAME A SOCIALIST
THE FAITH OF MEN
A RELIC OF THE PLIOCENE
A HYPERBOREAN BREW
THE FAITH OF MEN
TOO MUCH GOLD
THE ONE THOUSAND DOZEN
THE MARRIAGE OF LIT-LIT
BÂTARD
THE STORY OF JEES UCK
THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG
THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG
SOUTH OF THE SLOT
THE UNPARALLELED INVASION
THE ENEMY OF ALL THE WORLD
THE SEA-FARMER
SAMUEL
MOON-FACE, AND OTHER STORIES
MOON-FACE
THE LEOPARD MAN’S STORY
LOCAL COLOR
AMATEUR NIGHT
THE MINIONS OF MIDAS
THE SHADOW AND THE FLASH
ALL GOLD CANYON
PLANCHETTE
A THOUSAND DEATHS
UP THE SLIDE
THE SUNDOG TRAIL
THE ACORN-PLANTER
ARGUMENT
PROLOGUE
ACT I.
ACT II
EPILOGUE
THEFT
CHARACTERS
ACTORS’ DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS
ACT I: A ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF SENATOR CHALMERS
ACT II: ROOMS OF HOWARD KNOX AT HOTEL WALTHAM
ACT III: A ROOM IN THE WASHINGTON HOUSE OF ANTHONY STARKWEATHER
ACT IV: A ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF SENATOR CHALMERS
THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I—THE DESCENT
CHAPTER II—JOHNNY UPRIGHT
CHAPTER III—MY LODGING AND SOME OTHERS
CHAPTER IV—A MAN AND THE ABYSS
CHAPTER V—THOSE ON THE EDGE
CHAPTER VI—FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO
CHAPTER VII—A WINNER OF THE VICTORIA CROSS
CHAPTER VIII—THE CARTER AND THE CARPENTER
CHAPTER IX—THE SPIKE
CHAPTER X—CARRYING THE BANNER
CHAPTER XI—THE PEG
CHAPTER XII—CORONATION DAY
CHAPTER XIII—DAN CULLEN, DOCKER
CHAPTER XIV—HOPS AND HOPPERS
CHAPTER XV—THE SEA WIFE
CHAPTER XVI—PROPERTY VERSUS PERSON
CHAPTER XVII—INEFFICIENCY
CHAPTER XVIII—WAGES
CHAPTER XIX—THE GHETTO
CHAPTER XX—COFFEE-HOUSES AND DOSS-HOUSES
CHAPTER XXI—THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE
CHAPTER XXII—SUICIDE
CHAPTER XXIII—THE CHILDREN
CHAPTER XXIV—A VISION OF THE NIGHT
CHAPTER XXV—THE HUNGER WAIL
CHAPTER XXVI—DRINK, TEMPERANCE, AND THRIFT
CHAPTER XXVII—THE MANAGEMENT
REVOLUTION, AND OTHER ESSAYS
REVOLUTION
THE SOMNAMBULISTS
THE DIGNITY OF DOLLARS
GOLIAH
THE GOLDEN POPPY
THE SHRINKAGE OF THE PLANET
THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
THE GOLD HUNTERS OF THE NORTH
FOMÁ GORDYÉEFF
THESE BONES SHALL RISE AGAIN
THE OTHER ANIMALS
THE YELLOW PERIL
WHAT LIFE MEANS TO ME
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
CHAPTER I: FOREWORD
CHAPTER II: THE INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS
CHAPTER III: ADVENTURE
CHAPTER IV: FINDING ONE’S WAY ABOUT
CHAPTER V: THE FIRST LANDFALL
CHAPTER VI: A ROYAL SPORT
CHAPTER VII: THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI
CHAPTER VIII: THE HOUSE OF THE SUN
CHAPTER IX: A PACIFIC TRAVERSE
CHAPTER X: TYPEE
CHAPTER XI: THE NATURE MAN
CHAPTER XII: THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE
CHAPTER XIII: THE STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA
CHAPTER XIV: THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR
CHAPTER XV: CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS
CHAPTER XVI: BÊCHE DE MER ENGLISH
CHAPTER XVII: THE AMATEUR M.D.
BACKWORD
About the Book & Author
§
This Excellent Collection brings together Jack London's longer, major books and a fine selection of shorter pieces and Fiction Books. These Books created and collected in JackLondon's Most important Works illuminate the life and work of one of the most individual writers of the XX century - a man who elevated political writing to an art.
John Griffith London (born John Griffith Chaney; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.
His most famous works include “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang”, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay", and "The Heathen".
London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, workers' rights, socialism, and eugenics.He wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé “The People of the Abyss”, “War of the Classes”, and “Before Adam”.
This Collection included:
1.A Daughter of the Snows
2.The Call of the Wild
3.The Sea-Wolf
4.The Game
5.White Fang
6.The Iron Heel
7.Martin Eden
8.Burning Daylight
9.Adventure
10.The Scarlet Plague
11.A Son of the Sun
12.The Valley of the Moon
13.The Mutiny of the Elsinore
14.The Jacket (The Star-Rover)
15.The Little Lady of the Big House
16.Jerry of the Islands
17.Michael, Brother of Jerry
18.Before Adam
19.The Son of the Wolf
20.Children of the Frost
21.Tales of the Fish Patrol
22.Lost Face
23.South Sea Tales
24.The House of Pride and Other Tales of Hawaii
25.Smoke Bellew
26.The Turtles of Tasman
27.On the Makaloa Mat
28.The Road
29.John Barleycorn
30.When God Laughs and Other Stories
31.Dutch Courage and Other Stories
32.The Human Drift and Other Stories
33.The God of His Fathers: Tales of the Klondyke
34.Love of Life and Other Stories
35.The Red One
36.The Night-Born
37.War of the Classes
38.The Faith of Men
39.The Strength of the Strong
40.Moon-Face and Other Stories
41.A Thousand Deaths
42.Up The Slide
43.The Sundog Trail
44.The Acorn-Planter
45.Theft
46.The People of the Abyss
47.Revolution and Other Essays
48.The Cruise of the Snark
* * *
Who Was JackLondon?
After working in the Klondike, Jack London returned home and began publishing stories. His novels, including The Call of the Wild, White Fang and Martin Eden, placed London among the most popular American authors of his time. London, who was also a journalist and an outspoken socialist, died in 1916.
Early Years
John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was born on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco, California. Jack, as he came to call himself as a boy, was the son of Flora Wellman, an unwed mother, and William Chaney, an attorney, journalist and pioneering leader in the new field of American astrology.His father was never part of his life, and his mother ended up marrying John London, a Civil War veteran, who moved his new family around the Bay Area before settling in Oakland.London grew up working-class. He carved out his own hardscrabble life as a teen. He rode trains, pirated oysters, shoveled coal, worked on a sealing ship on the Pacific and found employment in a cannery. In his free time he hunkered down at libraries, soaking up novels and travel books.
The Young Writer
His life as a writer essentially began in 1893. That year he had weathered a harrowing sealing voyage, one in which a typhoon had nearly taken out London and his crew. The 17-year-old adventurer had made it home and regaled his mother with his tales of what had happened to him. When she saw an announcement in one of the local papers for a writing contest, she pushed her son to write down and submit his story.Armed with just an eighth-grade education, London captured the $25 first prize, beating out college students from Berkeley and Stanford.For London, the contest was an eye-opening experience, and he decided to dedicate his life to writing short stories. But he had trouble finding willing publishers. After trying to make a go of it on the East Coast, he returned to California and briefly enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, before heading north to Canada to seek at least a small fortune in the gold rush happening in the Yukon.By the age of 22, however, London still hadn't put together much of a living. He had once again returned to California and was still determined to carve out a living as a writer. His experience in the Yukon had convinced him he had stories he could tell. In addition, his own poverty and that of the struggling men and women he encountered pushed him to embrace socialism.In 1899 he began publishing stories in the Overland Monthly. The experience of writing and getting published greatly disciplined London as a writer. From that time forward, London made it a practice to write at least a thousand words a day.
Commercial Success
London found fame and some fortune at the age of 27 with his novel The Call of the Wild (1903), which told the story of a dog that finds its place in the world as a sled dog in the Yukon.The success did little to soften London's hard-driving lifestyle. A prolific writer, he published more than 50 books over the last 16 years of his life. The titles included The People of the Abyss (1903), which offered a scathing critique of capitalism; White Fang (1906), a popular tale about a wild wolf dog becoming domesticated; and John Barleycorn (1913), a memoir of sorts that detailed his lifelong battle with alcohol.He charged forth in other ways, too. He covered the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 for Hearst papers, introduced American readers to Hawaii and the sport of surfing, and frequently lectured about the problems associated with capitalism.
Final Years and Death
In 1900 London married Bess Maddern. The couple had two daughters together, Joan and Bess. By some accounts Bess and London's relationship was constructed less around love and more around the idea that they could have strong, healthy children together. It's not surprising, then, that their marriage lasted just a few years. In 1905, following his divorce from Bess, London married Charmian Kittredge, whom he would be with for the rest of his life.For much of the last decade of his life, London faced a number of health issues. This included kidney disease, which ended up taking his life. He died at his California ranch, which he shared with Kittredge, on November 22, 1916.
JackLondonCollection
“The Complete Works”
by
Dedication to Universe
I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
~Jack London~
A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS
§
CHAPTER I
“ALL READY, MISS WELSE, THOUGH I’M SORRY WE CAN’T SPARE ONE OF THE STEAMER’S BOATS.”
Frona Welse arose with alacrity and came to the first officer’s side.
“We’re so busy,” he explained, “and gold-rushers are such perishable freight, at least—”
“I understand,” she interrupted, “and I, too, am behaving as though I were perishable. And I am sorry for the trouble I am giving you, but—but—” She turned quickly and pointed to the shore. “Do you see that big log-house? Between the clump of pines and the river? I was born there.”
“Guess I’d be in a hurry myself,” he muttered, sympathetically, as he piloted her along the crowded deck.
Everybody was in everybody else’s way; nor was there one who failed to proclaim it at the top of his lungs. A thousand gold-seekers were clamoring for the immediate landing of their outfits. Each hatchway gaped wide open, and from the lower depths the shrieking donkey-engines were hurrying the misassorted outfits skyward. On either side of the steamer, rows of scows received the flying cargo, and on each of these scows a sweating mob of men charged the descending slings and heaved bales and boxes about in frantic search. Men waved shipping receipts and shouted over the steamer-rails to them. Sometimes two and three identified the same article, and war arose. The “two-circle” and the “circle-and-dot” brands caused endless jangling, while every whipsaw discovered a dozen claimants.
“The purser insists that he is going mad,” the first officer said, as he helped Frona Welse down the gangway to the landing stage, “and the freight clerks have turned the cargo over to the passengers and quit work. But we’re not so unlucky as the Star of Bethlehem,” he reassured her, pointing to a steamship at anchor a quarter of a mile away. “Half of her passengers have pack-horses for Skaguay and White Pass, and the other half are bound over the Chilcoot. So they’ve mutinied and everything’s at a standstill.”
“Hey, you!” he cried, beckoning to a Whitehall which hovered discreetly on the outer rim of the floating confusion.
A tiny launch, pulling heroically at a huge tow-barge, attempted to pass between; but the boatman shot nervily across her bow, and just as he was clear, unfortunately, caught a crab. This slewed the boat around and brought it to a stop.
“Watch out!” the first officer shouted.
A pair of seventy-foot canoes, loaded with outfits, gold-rushers, and Indians, and under full sail, drove down from the counter direction. One of them veered sharply towards the landing stage, but the other pinched the Whitehall against the barge. The boatman had unshipped his oars in time, but his small craft groaned under the pressure and threatened to collapse. Whereat he came to his feet, and in short, nervous phrases consigned all canoe-men and launch-captains to eternal perdition. A man on the barge leaned over from above and baptized him with crisp and crackling oaths, while the whites and Indians in the canoe laughed derisively.
“Aw, g’wan!” one of them shouted. “Why don’t yeh learn to row?”
The boatman’s fist landed on the point of his critic’s jaw and dropped him stunned upon the heaped merchandise. Not content with this summary act he proceeded to follow his fist into the other craft. The miner nearest him tugged vigorously at a revolver which had jammed in its shiny leather holster, while his brother argonauts, laughing, waited the outcome. But the canoe was under way again, and the Indian helmsman drove the point of his paddle into the boatman’s chest and hurled him backward into the bottom of the Whitehall.
When the flood of oaths and blasphemy was at full tide, and violent assault and quick death seemed most imminent, the first officer had stolen a glance at the girl by his side. He had expected to find a shocked and frightened maiden countenance, and was not at all prepared for the flushed and deeply interested face which met his eyes.
“I am sorry,” he began.
But she broke in, as though annoyed by the interruption, “No, no; not at all. I am enjoying it every bit. Though I am glad that man’s revolver stuck. If it had not—”
“We might have been delayed in getting ashore.” The first officer laughed, and therein displayed his tact.
“That man is a robber,” he went on, indicating the boatman, who had now shoved his oars into the water and was pulling alongside. “He agreed to charge only twenty dollars for putting you ashore. Said he’d have made it twenty-five had it been a man. He’s a pirate, mark me, and he will surely hang some day. Twenty dollars for a half-hour’s work! Think of it!”
“Easy, sport! Easy!” cautioned the fellow in question, at the same time making an awkward landing and dropping one of his oars over-side. “You’ve no call to be flingin’ names about,” he added, defiantly, wringing out his shirt-sleeve, wet from rescue of the oar.
“You’ve got good ears, my man,” began the first officer.
“And a quick fist,” the other snapped in.
“And a ready tongue.”
“Need it in my business. No gettin’ ‘long without it among you sea-sharks. Pirate, am I? And you with a thousand passengers packed like sardines! Charge ‘em double first-class passage, feed ‘em steerage grub, and bunk ‘em worse ‘n pigs! Pirate, eh! Me?”
A red-faced man thrust his head over the rail above and began to bellow lustily.
“I want my stock landed! Come up here, Mr. Thurston! Now! Right away! Fifty cayuses of | mine eating their heads off in this dirty kennel of yours, and it’ll be a sick time you’ll have if you don’t hustle them ashore as fast as God’ll let you! I’m losing a thousand dollars a day, and I won’t stand it! Do you hear? I won’t stand it! You’ve robbed me right and left from the time you cleared dock in Seattle, and by the hinges of hell I won’t stand it any more! I’ll break this company as sure as my name’s Thad Ferguson! D’ye hear my spiel? I’m Thad Ferguson, and you can’t come and see me any too quick for your health! D’ye hear?”
“Pirate; eh?” the boatman soliloquized. “Who? Me?”
Mr. Thurston waved his hand appeasingly at the red-faced man, and turned to the girl. “I’d like to go ashore with you, and as far as the store, but you see how busy we are. Good-by, and a lucky trip to you. I’ll tell off a couple of men at once and break out your baggage. Have it up at the store to-morrow morning, sharp.”
She took his hand lightly and stepped aboard. Her weight gave the leaky boat a sudden lurch, and the water hurtled across the bottom boards to her shoe-tops: but she took it coolly enough, settling herself in the stern-sheets and tucking her feet under her.
“Hold on!” the officer cried. “This will never do, Miss Welse. Come on back, and I’ll get one of our boats over as soon as I can.”
“I’ll see you in—in heaven first,” retorted the boatman, shoving off.
“Let go!” he threatened.
Mr. Thurston gripped tight hold of the gunwale, and as reward for his chivalry had his knuckles rapped sharply by the oar-blade. Then he forgot himself, and Miss Welse also, and swore, and swore fervently.
“I dare say our farewell might have been more dignified,” she called back to him, her laughter rippling across the water.
“Jove!” he muttered, doffing his cap gallantly. “There is a woman!” And a sudden hunger seized him, and a yearning to see himself mirrored always in the gray eyes of Frona Welse. He was not analytical; he did not know why; but he knew that with her he could travel to the end of the earth. He felt a distaste for his profession, and a temptation to throw it all over and strike out for the Klondike whither she was going; then he glanced up the beetling side of the ship, saw the red face of Thad Ferguson, and forgot the dream he had for an instant dreamed.
Splash! A handful of water from his strenuous oar struck her full in the face. “Hope you don’t mind it, miss,” he apologized. “I’m doin’ the best I know how, which ain’t much.”
“So it seems,” she answered, good-naturedly.
“Not that I love the sea,” bitterly; “but I’ve got to turn a few honest dollars somehow, and this seemed the likeliest way. I oughter ‘a ben in Klondike by now, if I’d had any luck at all. Tell you how it was. I lost my outfit on Windy Arm, half-way in, after packin’ it clean across the Pass—”
Zip! Splash! She shook the water from her eyes, squirming the while as some of it ran down her warm back.
“You’ll do,” he encouraged her. “You’re the right stuff for this country. Goin’ all the way in?”
She nodded cheerfully.
“Then you’ll do. But as I was sayin’, after I lost my outfit I hit back for the coast, bein’ broke, to hustle up another one. That’s why I’m chargin’ high-pressure rates. And I hope you don’t feel sore at what I made you pay. I’m no worse than the rest, miss, sure. I had to dig up a hundred for this old tub, which ain’t worth ten down in the States. Same kind of prices everywhere. Over on the Skaguay Trail horseshoe nails is just as good as a quarter any day. A man goes up to the bar and calls for a whiskey. Whiskey’s half a dollar. Well, he drinks his whiskey, plunks down two horseshoe nails, and it’s O.K. No kick comin’ on horseshoe nails. They use ‘em to make change.”
“You must be a brave man to venture into the country again after such an experience. Won’t you tell me your name? We may meet on the Inside.”
“Who? Me? Oh, I’m Del Bishop, pocket-miner; and if ever we run across each other, remember I’d give you the last shirt—I mean, remember my last bit of grub is yours.”
“Thank you,” she answered with a sweet smile; for she was a woman who loved the things which rose straight from the heart.
He stopped rowing long enough to fish about in the water around his feet for an old cornbeef can.
“You’d better do some bailin’,” he ordered, tossing her the can.
“She’s leakin’ worse since that squeeze.”
Frona smiled mentally, tucked up her skirts, and bent to the work. At every dip, like great billows heaving along the sky-line, the glacier-fretted mountains rose and fell. Sometimes she rested her back and watched the teeming beach towards which they were heading, and again, the land-locked arm of the sea in which a score or so of great steamships lay at anchor. From each of these, to the shore and back again, flowed a steady stream of scows, launches, canoes, and all sorts of smaller craft. Man, the mighty toiler, reacting upon a hostile environment, she thought, going back in memory to the masters whose wisdom she had shared in lecture-room and midnight study. She was a ripened child of the age, and fairly understood the physical world and the workings thereof. And she had a love for the world, and a deep respect.
For some time Del Bishop had only punctuated the silence with splashes from his oars; but a thought struck him.
“You haven’t told me your name,” he suggested, with complacent delicacy.
“My name is Welse,” she answered. “Frona Welse.”
A great awe manifested itself in his face, and grew to a greater and greater awe. “You—are—Frona—Welse?” he enunciated slowly. “Jacob Welse ain’t your old man, is he?”
“Yes; I am Jacob Welse’s daughter, at your service.”
He puckered his lips in a long low whistle of understanding and stopped rowing. “Just you climb back into the stern and take your feet out of that water,” he commanded. “And gimme holt that can.”
“Am I not bailing satisfactorily?” she demanded, indignantly.
“Yep. You’re doin’ all right; but, but, you are—are—”
“Just what I was before you knew who I was. Now you go on rowing,—that’s your share of the work; and I’ll take care of mine.”
“Oh, you’ll do!” he murmured ecstatically, bending afresh to the oars.
“And Jacob Welse is your old man? I oughter ‘a known it, sure!”
When they reached the sand-spit, crowded with heterogeneous piles of merchandise and buzzing with men, she stopped long enough to shake hands with her ferryman. And though such a proceeding on the part of his feminine patrons was certainly unusual, Del Bishop squared it easily with the fact that she was Jacob Welse’s daughter.
“Remember, my last bit of grub is yours,” he reassured her, still holding her hand.
“And your last shirt, too; don’t forget.”
“Well, you’re a—a—a crackerjack!” he exploded with a final squeeze.
“Sure!”
Her short skirt did not block the free movement of her limbs, and she discovered with pleasurable surprise that the quick tripping step of the city pavement had departed from her, and that she was swinging off in the long easy stride which is born of the trail and which comes only after much travail and endeavor. More than one gold-rusher, shooting keen glances at her ankles and gray-gaitered calves, affirmed Del Bishop’s judgment. And more than one glanced up at her face, and glanced again; for her gaze was frank, with the frankness of comradeship; and in her eyes there was always a smiling light, just trembling on the verge of dawn; and did the onlooker smile, her eyes smiled also. And the smiling light was protean-mooded,—merry, sympathetic, joyous, quizzical,—the complement of whatsoever kindled it. And sometimes the light spread over all her face, till the smile prefigured by it was realized. But it was always in frank and open comradeship.
And there was much to cause her to smile as she hurried through the crowd, across the sand-spit, and over the flat towards the log-building she had pointed out to Mr. Thurston. Time had rolled back, and locomotion and transportation were once again in the most primitive stages. Men who had never carried more than parcels in all their lives had now become bearers of burdens. They no longer walked upright under the sun, but stooped the body forward and bowed the head to the earth. Every back had become a pack-saddle, and the strap-galls were beginning to form. They staggered beneath the unwonted effort, and legs became drunken with weariness and titubated in divers directions till the sunlight darkened and bearer and burden fell by the way. Other men, exulting secretly, piled their goods on two-wheeled go-carts and pulled out blithely enough, only to stall at the first spot where the great round boulders invaded the trail. Whereat they generalized anew upon the principles of Alaskan travel, discarded the go-cart, or trundled it back to the beach and sold it at fabulous price to the last man landed. Tenderfeet, with ten pounds of Colt’s revolvers, cartridges, and hunting-knives belted about them, wandered valiantly up the trail, and crept back softly, shedding revolvers, cartridges, and knives in despairing showers. And so, in gasping and bitter sweat, these sons of Adam suffered for Adam’s sin.
Frona felt vaguely disturbed by this great throbbing rush of gold-mad men, and the old scene with its clustering associations seemed blotted out by these toiling aliens. Even the old landmarks appeared strangely unfamiliar. It was the same, yet not the same. Here, on the grassy flat, where she had played as a child and shrunk back at the sound of her voice echoing from glacier to glacier, ten thousand men tramped ceaselessly up and down, grinding the tender herbage into the soil and mocking the stony silence. And just up the trail were ten thousand men who had passed by, and over the Chilcoot were ten thousand more. And behind, all down the island-studded Alaskan coast, even to the Horn, were yet ten thousand more, harnessers of wind and steam, hasteners from the ends of the earth. The Dyea River as of old roared turbulently down to the sea; but its ancient banks were gored by the feet of many men, and these men labored in surging rows at the dripping tow-lines, and the deep-laden boats followed them as they fought their upward way. And the will of man strove with the will of the water, and the men laughed at the old Dyea River and gored its banks deeper for the men who were to follow.
The doorway of the store, through which she had once run out and in, and where she had looked with awe at the unusual sight of a stray trapper or fur-trader, was now packed with a clamorous throng of men. Where of old one letter waiting a claimant was a thing of wonder, she now saw, by peering through the window, the mail heaped up from floor to ceiling. And it was for this mail the men were clamoring so insistently. Before the store, by the scales, was another crowd. An Indian threw his pack upon the scales, the white owner jotted down the weight in a note-book, and another pack was thrown on. Each pack was in the straps, ready for the packer’s back and the precarious journey over the Chilcoot. Frona edged in closer. She was interested in freights. She remembered in her day when the solitary prospector or trader had his outfit packed over for six cents,—one hundred and twenty dollars a ton.
The tenderfoot who was weighing up consulted his guide-book. “Eight cents,” he said to the Indian. Whereupon the Indians laughed scornfully and chorused, “Forty cents!” A pained expression came into his face, and he looked about him anxiously. The sympathetic light in Frona’s eyes caught him, and he regarded her with intent blankness. In reality he was busy reducing a three-ton outfit to terms of cash at forty dollars per hundred-weight. “Twenty-four hundred dollars for thirty miles!” he cried. “What can I do?”
Frona shrugged her shoulders. “You’d better pay them the forty cents,” she advised, “else they will take off their straps.”
The man thanked her, but instead of taking heed went on with his haggling. One of the Indians stepped up and proceeded to unfasten his pack-straps. The tenderfoot wavered, but just as he was about to give in, the packers jumped the price on him to forty-five cents. He smiled after a sickly fashion, and nodded his head in token of surrender. But another Indian joined the group and began whispering excitedly. A cheer went up, and before the man could realize it they had jerked off their straps and departed, spreading the news as they went that freight to Lake Linderman was fifty cents.
Of a sudden, the crowd before the store was perceptibly agitated. Its members whispered excitedly one to another, and all their eyes were focussed upon three men approaching from up the trail. The trio were ordinary-looking creatures, ill-clad and even ragged. In a more stable community their apprehension by the village constable and arrest for vagrancy would have been immediate. “French Louis,” the tenderfeet whispered and passed the word along. “Owns three Eldorado claims in a block,” the man next to Frona confided to her. “Worth ten millions at the very least.” French Louis, striding a little in advance of his companions, did not look it. He had parted company with his hat somewhere along the route, and a frayed silk kerchief was wrapped carelessly about his head. And for all his ten millions, he carried his own travelling pack on his broad shoulders. “And that one, the one with the beard, that’s Swiftwater Bill, another of the Eldorado kings.”
“How do you know?” Frona asked, doubtingly.
“Know!” the man exclaimed. “Know! Why his picture has been in all the papers for the last six weeks. See!” He unfolded a newspaper. “And a pretty good likeness, too. I’ve looked at it so much I’d know his mug among a thousand.”
“Then who is the third one?” she queried, tacitly accepting him as a fount of authority.
Her informant lifted himself on his toes to see better. “I don’t know,” he confessed sorrowfully, then tapped the shoulder of the man next to him. “Who is the lean, smooth-faced one? The one with the blue shirt and the patch on his knee?”
Just then Frona uttered a glad little cry and darted forward. “Matt!” she cried. “Matt McCarthy!”
The man with the patch shook her hand heartily, though he did not know her and distrust was plain in his eyes.
“Oh, you don’t remember me!” she chattered. “And don’t you dare say you do! If there weren’t so many looking, I’d hug you, you old bear!
“And so Big Bear went home to the Little Bears,” she recited, solemnly.
“And the Little Bears were very hungry. And Big Bear said, ‘Guess what
I have got, my children.’ And one Little Bear guessed berries, and one
Little Bear guessed salmon, and t’other Little Bear guessed porcupine.
Then Big Bear laughed ‘Whoof! Whoof!’ and said, ‘A Nice Big Fat
Man!’”
As he listened, recollection avowed itself in his face, and, when she had finished, his eyes wrinkled up and he laughed a peculiar, laughable silent laugh.
“Sure, an’ it’s well I know ye,” he explained; “but for the life iv me
I can’t put me finger on ye.”
She pointed into the store and watched him anxiously.
“Now I have ye!” He drew back and looked her up and down, and his expression changed to disappointment. “It cuddent be. I mistook ye. Ye cud niver a-lived in that shanty,” thrusting a thumb in the direction of the store.
Frona nodded her head vigorously.
“Thin it’s yer ownself afther all? The little motherless darlin’, with the goold hair I combed the knots out iv many’s the time? The little witch that run barefoot an’ barelegged over all the place?”
“Yes, yes,” she corroborated, gleefully.
“The little divil that stole the dog-team an’ wint over the Pass in the dead o’ winter for to see where the world come to an ind on the ither side, just because old Matt McCarthy was afther tellin’ her fairy stories?”
“O Matt, dear old Matt! Remember the time I went swimming with the
Siwash girls from the Indian camp?”
“An’ I dragged ye out by the hair o’ yer head?”
“And lost one of your new rubber boots?”
“Ah, an’ sure an’ I do. And a most shockin’ an’ immodest affair it was! An’ the boots was worth tin dollars over yer father’s counter.”
“And then you went away, over the Pass, to the Inside, and we never heard a word of you. Everybody thought you dead.”
“Well I recollect the day. An’ ye cried in me arms an’ wuddent kiss yer old Matt good-by. But ye did in the ind,” he exclaimed, triumphantly, “whin ye saw I was goin’ to lave ye for sure. What a wee thing ye were!”
“I was only eight.”
“An’ ‘tis twelve year agone. Twelve year I’ve spint on the Inside, with niver a trip out. Ye must be twinty now?”
“And almost as big as you,” Frona affirmed.
“A likely woman ye’ve grown into, tall, an’ shapely, an’ all that.” He looked her over critically. “But ye cud ‘a’ stood a bit more flesh, I’m thinkin’.”
“No, no,” she denied. “Not at twenty, Matt, not at twenty. Feel my arm, you’ll see.” She doubled that member till the biceps knotted.
“‘Tis muscle,” he admitted, passing his hand admiringly over the swelling bunch; “just as though ye’d been workin’ hard for yer livin’.”
“Oh, I can swing clubs, and box, and fence,” she cried, successively striking the typical postures; “and swim, and make high dives, chin a bar twenty times, and—and walk on my hands. There!”
“Is that what ye’ve been doin’? I thought ye wint away for book-larnin’,” he commented, dryly.
“But they have new ways of teaching, now, Matt, and they don’t turn you out with your head crammed—”
“An’ yer legs that spindly they can’t carry it all! Well, an’ I forgive ye yer muscle.”
“But how about yourself, Matt?” Frona asked. “How has the world been to you these twelve years?”
“Behold!” He spread his legs apart, threw his head back, and his chest out. “Ye now behold Mister Matthew McCarthy, a king iv the noble Eldorado Dynasty by the strength iv his own right arm. Me possessions is limitless. I have more dust in wan minute than iver I saw in all me life before. Me intintion for makin’ this trip to the States is to look up me ancestors. I have a firm belafe that they wance existed. Ye may find nuggets in the Klondike, but niver good whiskey. ‘Tis likewise me intintion to have wan drink iv the rate stuff before I die. Afther that ‘tis me sworn resolve to return to the superveeshion iv me Klondike properties. Indade, and I’m an Eldorado king; an’ if ye’ll be wantin’ the lind iv a tidy bit, it’s meself that’ll loan it ye.”
“The same old, old Matt, who never grows old,” Frona laughed.
“An’ it’s yerself is the thrue Welse, for all yer prize-fighter’s muscles an’ yer philosopher’s brains. But let’s wander inside on the heels of Louis an’ Swiftwater. Andy’s still tindin’ store, I’m told, an’ we’ll see if I still linger in the pages iv his mimory.”
“And I, also.” Frona seized him by the hand. It was a bad habit she had of seizing the hands of those she loved. “It’s ten years since I went away.”
The Irishman forged his way through the crowd like a pile-driver, and Frona followed easily in the lee of his bulk. The tenderfeet watched them reverently, for to them they were as Northland divinities. The buzz of conversation rose again.
“Who’s the girl?” somebody asked. And just as Frona passed inside the door she caught the opening of the answer: “Jacob Welse’s daughter. Never heard of Jacob Welse? Where have you been keeping yourself?”
CHAPTER II
SHE CAME OUT OF THE wood of glistening birch, and with the first fires of the sun blazoning her unbound hair raced lightly across the dew-dripping meadow. The earth was fat with excessive moisture and soft to her feet, while the dank vegetation slapped against her knees and cast off flashing sprays of liquid diamonds. The flush of the morning was in her cheek, and its fire in her eyes, and she was aglow with youth and love. For she had nursed at the breast of nature,—in forfeit of a mother,—and she loved the old trees and the creeping green things with a passionate love; and the dim murmur of growing life was a gladness to her ears, and the damp earth-smells were sweet to her nostrils.
Where the upper-reach of the meadow vanished in a dark and narrow forest aisle, amid clean-stemmed dandelions and color-bursting buttercups, she came upon a bunch of great Alaskan violets. Throwing herself at full length, she buried her face in the fragrant coolness, and with her hands drew the purple heads in circling splendor about her own. And she was not ashamed. She had wandered away amid the complexities and smirch and withering heats of the great world, and she had returned, simple, and clean, and wholesome. And she was glad of it, as she lay there, slipping back to the old days, when the universe began and ended at the sky-line, and when she journeyed over the Pass to behold the Abyss.
It was a primitive life, that of her childhood, with few conventions, but such as there were, stern ones. And they might be epitomized, as she had read somewhere in her later years, as “the faith of food and blanket.” This faith had her father kept, she thought, remembering that his name sounded well on the lips of men. And this was the faith she had learned,—the faith she had carried with her across the Abyss and into the world, where men had wandered away from the old truths and made themselves selfish dogmas and casuistries of the subtlest kinds; the faith she had brought back with her, still fresh, and young, and joyous. And it was all so simple, she had contended; why should not their faith be as her faith—the faith of food and blanket? The faith of trail and hunting camp? The faith with which strong clean men faced the quick danger and sudden death by field and flood? Why not? The faith of Jacob Welse? Of Matt McCarthy? Of the Indian boys she had played with? Of the Indian girls she had led to Amazonian war? Of the very wolf-dogs straining in the harnesses and running with her across the snow? It was healthy, it was real, it was good, she thought, and she was glad.
The rich notes of a robin saluted her from the birch wood, and opened her ears to the day. A partridge boomed afar in the forest, and a tree-squirrel launched unerringly into space above her head, and went on, from limb to limb and tree to tree, scolding graciously the while. From the hidden river rose the shouts of the toiling adventurers, already parted from sleep and fighting their way towards the Pole.
Frona arose, shook back her hair, and took instinctively the old path between the trees to the camp of Chief George and the Dyea tribesmen. She came upon a boy, breech-clouted and bare, like a copper god. He was gathering wood, and looked at her keenly over his bronze shoulder. She bade him good-morning, blithely, in the Dyea tongue; but he shook his head, and laughed insultingly, and paused in his work to hurl shameful words after her. She did not understand, for this was not the old way, and when she passed a great and glowering Sitkan buck she kept her tongue between her teeth. At the fringe of the forest, the camp confronted her. And she was startled. It was not the old camp of a score or more of lodges clustering and huddling together in the open as though for company, but a mighty camp. It began at the very forest, and flowed in and out among the scattered tree-clumps on the flat, and spilled over and down to the river bank where the long canoes were lined up ten and twelve deep. It was a gathering of the tribes, like unto none in all the past, and a thousand miles of coast made up the tally. They were all strange Indians, with wives and chattels and dogs. She rubbed shoulders with Juneau and Wrangel men, and was jostled by wild-eyed Sticks from over the Passes, fierce Chilcats, and Queen Charlotte Islanders. And the looks they cast upon her were black and frowning, save—and far worse—where the merrier souls leered patronizingly into her face and chuckled unmentionable things.
She was not frightened by this insolence, but angered; for it hurt her, and embittered the pleasurable home-coming. Yet she quickly grasped the significance of it: the old patriarchal status of her father’s time had passed away, and civilization, in a scorching blast, had swept down upon this people in a day. Glancing under the raised flaps of a tent, she saw haggard-faced bucks squatting in a circle on the floor. By the door a heap of broken bottles advertised the vigils of the night. A white man, low of visage and shrewd, was dealing cards about, and gold and silver coins leaped into heaping bets upon the blanket board. A few steps farther on she heard the cluttering whirl of a wheel of fortune, and saw the Indians, men and women, chancing eagerly their sweat-earned wages for the gaudy prizes of the game. And from tepee and lodge rose the cracked and crazy strains of cheap music-boxes.
An old squaw, peeling a willow pole in the sunshine of an open doorway, raised her head and uttered a shrill cry.
“Hee-Hee! Tenas Hee-Hee!” she muttered as well and as excitedly as her toothless gums would permit.
Frona thrilled at the cry. Tenas Hee-Hee! Little Laughter! Her name of the long gone Indian past! She turned and went over to the old woman.
“And hast thou so soon forgotten, Tenas Hee-Hee?” she mumbled. “And thine eyes so young and sharp! Not so soon does Neepoosa forget.”
“It is thou, Neepoosa?” Frona cried, her tongue halting from the disuse of years.
“Ay, it is Neepoosa,” the old woman replied, drawing her inside the tent, and despatching a boy, hot-footed, on some errand. They sat down together on the floor, and she patted Frona’s hand lovingly, peering, meanwhile, blear-eyed and misty, into her face. “Ay, it is Neepoosa, grown old quickly after the manner of our women. Neepoosa, who dandled thee in her arms when thou wast a child. Neepoosa, who gave thee thy name, Tenas Hee-Hee. Who fought for thee with Death when thou wast ailing; and gathered growing things from the woods and grasses of the earth and made of them tea, and gave thee to drink. But I mark little change, for I knew thee at once. It was thy very shadow on the ground that made me lift my head. A little change, mayhap. Tall thou art, and like a slender willow in thy grace, and the sun has kissed thy cheeks more lightly of the years; but there is the old hair, flying wild and of the color of the brown seaweed floating on the tide, and the mouth, quick to laugh and loth to cry. And the eyes are as clear and true as in the days when Neepoosa chid thee for wrong-doing, and thou wouldst not put false words upon thy tongue. Ai! Ai! Not as thou art the other women who come now into the land!”
“And why is a white woman without honor among you?” Frona demanded. “Your men say evil things to me in the camp, and as I came through the woods, even the boys. Not in the old days, when I played with them, was this shame so.”
“Ai! Ai!” Neepoosa made answer. “It is so. But do not blame them. Pour not thine anger upon their heads. For it is true it is the fault of thy women who come into the land these days. They can point to no man and say, ‘That is my man.’ And it is not good that women should he thus. And they look upon all men, bold-eyed and shameless, and their tongues are unclean, and their hearts bad. Wherefore are thy women without honor among us. As for the boys, they are but boys. And the men; how should they know?”
The tent-flaps were poked aside and an old man came in. He grunted to Frona and sat down. Only a certain eager alertness showed the delight he took in her presence.
“So Tenas Hee-Hee has come back in these bad days,” he vouchsafed in a shrill, quavering voice.
“And why bad days, Muskim?” Frona asked. “Do not the women wear brighter colors? Are not the bellies fuller with flour and bacon and white man’s grub? Do not the young men contrive great wealth what of their pack-straps and paddles? And art thou not remembered with the ancient offerings of meat and fish and blanket? Why bad days, Muskim?”
