The Faith of Men E-Book

Jack London

• Herausgeber: ShadowPOET
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

I wash my hands of him at the start. I cannot father his tales, nor will I be responsible for them. I make these preliminary reservations, observe, as a guard upon my own integrity. I possess a certain definite position in a small way, also a wife; and for the good name of the community that honours my existence with its approval, and for the sake of her posterity and mine, I cannot take the chances I once did, nor foster probabilities with the careless improvidence of youth. So, I repeat, I wash my hands of him, this Nimrod, this mighty hunter, this homely, blue-eyed, freckle-faced Thomas Stevens.

Leseprobe

TheFaithofMen

ByJackLondon

Publisher: ShadowPOET

THEFAITHOFMEN

ARELICOFTHEPLIOCENE

I wash my hands of him at the start. I cannot father his tales, nor will I beresponsible for them. I make these preliminary reservations, observe, as aguard upon my own integrity. I possess a certain definite position in a smallway, also a wife; and for the good name of the community that honours myexistencewithitsapproval,andforthesakeofherposterityandmine,IcannottakethechancesIoncedid,norfosterprobabilitieswiththecarelessimprovidenceofyouth.So,Irepeat,Iwashmyhandsofhim,thisNimrod,thismightyhunter,thishomely,blue-eyed,freckle-facedThomasStevens.

Having been honest to myself, and to whatever prospective olive branches mywife may be pleased to tender me, I can now afford to be generous. I shall notcriticizethetalestoldmebyThomasStevens,and,further,Ishallwithholdmyjudgment.Ifitbeaskedwhy,IcanonlyaddthatjudgmentIhavenone.Longhave I pondered, weighed, and balanced, but never have my conclusions beentwice the same—forsooth! because Thomas Stevens is a greater man than I. Ifhe have told truths, well and good; if untruths, still well and good.For whocanprove?orwhodisprove?Ieliminatemyselffromtheproposition,while

thoseoflittlefaithmaydoasIhavedone—gofindthesameThomasStevens,and discuss to his face the various matters which, if fortune serve, I shallrelate.As to where he may be found?The directions are simple: anywherebetween 53 north latitude and the Pole, on the one hand; and, on the other, thelikeliest hunting grounds that lie between the east coast of Siberia andfarthermostLabrador.Thatheisthere,somewhere,withinthatclearlydefinedterritory, I pledge the word of an honourable man whose expectations entailstraightspeakingandrightliving.

Thomas Stevens may have toyed prodigiously with truth, but when we firstmet (it were well to mark this point), he wandered into my camp when Ithought myself a thousand miles beyond the outermost post of civilization. Atthesightofhishumanface,thefirstinwearymonths,Icouldhavesprungforwardandfoldedhiminmyarms(andIamnotbyanymeansademonstrativeman);buttohimhisvisitseemedthemostcasualthingunderthe sun. He just strolled into the light of my camp, passed the time of day afterthecustomofmenonbeatentrails,threwmysnowshoestheonewayandacoupleofdogstheother,andsomaderoomforhimselfbythefire.Saidhe’djustdroppedintoborrowapinchofsodaandtoseeifIhadanydecenttobacco.Hepluckedforthanancientpipe,loadeditwithpainstakingcare,and, without as much as by your leave, whacked half the tobacco of my pouchintohis.Yes,thestuffwasfairlygood.Hesighedwiththecontentmentofthejust,andliterallyabsorbedthesmokefromthecrispingyellowflakes,anditdidmysmoker’sheartgoodtobeholdhim.

Hunter? Trapper? Prospector? He shrugged his shoulders No; just sort ofknocking round a bit. Had come up from the Great Slave some time since, andwas thinking of trapsing over into the Yukon country. The factor of KoshimhadspokenaboutthediscoveriesontheKlondike,andhewasofamindtorunoverforapeep.InoticedthathespokeoftheKlondikeinthearchaicvernacular, calling it the Reindeer River—a conceited custom that the OldTimers employ against the che-chaquas and all tenderfeet in general. But hedid it so naively and as such a matter of course, that there was no sting, and Iforgave him. He also had it in view, he said, before he crossed the divide intotheYukon,tomakealittlerunupForto’GoodHopeway.

NowForto’GoodHopeisafarjourneytothenorth,overandbeyondtheCircle,inaplacewherethefeetoffewmenhavetrod;andwhenanondescriptragamuffin comes in out of the night, from nowhere in particular, to sit byone’s fire and discourse on such in terms of “trapsing” and “a little run,” it isfair time to rouse up and shake off the dream. Wherefore I looked about me;saw the fly and, underneath, the pine boughs spread for the sleeping furs; sawthe grub sacks, the camera, the frosty breaths of the dogs circling on the edgeofthelight;and,above,agreatstreameroftheaurora,bridgingthezenith

from south-east to north-west.I shivered.There is a magic in the Northlandnight,thatstealsinononelikefeversfrommalarialmarshes.Youareclutchedanddownedbeforeyouareaware.ThenIlookedtothesnowshoes,lyingproneandcrossedwherehehadflungthem.AlsoIhadaneyetomytobaccopouch.Half,atleast,ofitsgoodlystorehadvamosed.Thatsettledit.Fancyhadnottrickedmeafterall.

Crazed with suffering, I thought, looking steadfastly at the man—one of thosewild stampeders, strayed far from his bearings and wandering like a lost soulthrough great vastnesses and unknown deeps. Oh, well, let his moods slip on,until, mayhap, he gathers his tangled wits together. Who knows?—the meresoundofafellow-creature’svoicemaybringallstraightagain.

So I led him on in talk, and soon I marvelled, for he talked of game and theways thereof. He had killed the Siberian wolf of westernmost Alaska, and thechamois in the secret Rockies. He averred he knew the haunts where the lastbuffalo still roamed; that he had hung on the flanks of the caribou when theyran by the hundred thousand, and slept in the Great Barrens on the musk-ox’swintertrail.

And I shifted my judgment accordingly (the first revision, but by no accountthe last), and deemed him a monumental effigy of truth. Why it was I knownot, but the spirit moved me to repeat a tale told to me by a man who haddwelt in the land too long to know better. It was of the great bear that hugs thesteep slopes of St Elias, never descending to the levels of the gentler inclines.NowGodsoconstitutedthiscreatureforitshillsidehabitatthatthelegsofoneside are all of a foot longer than those of the other. This is mighty convenient,as will be reality admitted. So I hunted this rare beast in my own name, told itin the first person, present tense, painted the requisite locale, gave it thenecessarygarnishingsandtouchesofverisimilitude,andlookedtoseethemanstunnedbytherecital.

Nothe.Hadhedoubted,Icouldhaveforgivenhim.Hadheobjected,denying the dangers of such a hunt by virtue of the animal’s inability to turnabout and go the other way—had he done this, I say, I could have taken himby the hand for the true sportsman that he was.Not he.He sniffed, looked onme,andsniffedagain;thengavemytobaccoduepraise,thrustonefootintomylap,andbademeexaminethegear.ItwasamuclucoftheInnuitpattern,sewedtogetherwithsinewthreads,anddevoidofbeadsorfurbelows.Butitwastheskinitselfthatwasremarkable.Inthatitwasallofhalfaninchthick,itremindedmeofwalrus-hide;buttheretheresemblanceceased,fornowalruseverboresomarvellousagrowthofhair.Onthesideandanklesthishairwaswell-nighwornaway,whatoffrictionwithunderbrushandsnow;butaroundthetopanddownthemoreshelteredbackitwascoarse,dirtyblack,andverythick.Iparteditwithdifficultyandlookedbeneathforthefinefur

that is common with northern animals, but found it in this case to be absent.This, however, was compensated for by the length. Indeed, the tufts that hadsurvivedwearandtearmeasuredallofsevenoreightinches.

I looked up into the man’s face, and he pulled his foot down and asked, “FindhidelikethatonyourStEliasbear?”

I shook my head. “Nor on any other creature of land or sea,” I answeredcandidly.Thethicknessofit,andthelengthofthehair,puzzledme.

“That,” he said, and said without the slightest hint of impressiveness, “thatcamefromamammoth.”

“Nonsense!” I exclaimed, for I could not forbear the protest of my unbelief.“The mammoth, my dear sir, long ago vanished from the earth. We know itonce existed by the fossil remains that we have unearthed, and by a frozencarcase that the Siberian sun saw fit to melt from out the bosom of a glacier;butwealsoknowthatnolivingspecimenexists.Ourexplorers—”

At this word he broke in impatiently. “Your explorers? Pish! A weakly breed.Let us hear no more of them. But tell me, O man, what you may know of themammothandhisways.”

Beyond contradiction, this was leading to a yarn; so I baited my hook byransacking my memory for whatever data I possessed on the subject in hand.To begin with, I emphasized that the animal was prehistoric, and marshalledall my facts in support of this.I mentioned the Siberian sand-bars thatabounded with ancient mammoth bones; spoke of the large quantities of fossilivorypurchasedfromtheInnuitsbytheAlaskaCommercialCompany;andacknowledgedhavingmyselfminedsix-andeight-foottusksfromthepaygraveloftheKlondikecreeks.“Allfossils,”Iconcluded,“foundinthemidstofdébrisdepositedthroughcountlessages.”

“I remember when I was a kid,” Thomas Stevens sniffed (he had a mostconfounded way of sniffing), “that I saw a petrified water-melon. Hence,though mistaken persons sometimes delude themselves into thinking that theyare really raising or eating them, there are no such things as extant water-melons?”

“But the question of food,” I objected, ignoring his point, which was puerileandwithoutbearing.“Thesoilmustbringforthvegetablelifeinlavishabundance to support so monstrous creations. Nowhere in the North is the soilsoprolific.Ergo,themammothcannotexist.”

“I pardon your ignorance concerning many matters of this Northland, for youare a young man and have travelled little; but, at the same time, I am inclinedto agree with you on one thing. The mammoth no longer exists. How do Iknow?Ikilledthelastonewithmyownrightarm.”

ThusspakeNimrod,themightyHunter.Ithrewastickoffirewoodatthedogsand bade them quit their unholy howling, and waited. Undoubtedly this liar ofsingularfelicitywouldopenhismouthandrequitemeformySt.Eliasbear.

“Itwasthisway,”heatlastbegan,aftertheappropriatesilencehadintervened.“Iwasincamponeday—”

“Where?”Iinterrupted.

He waved his hand vaguely in the direction ofthe north-east, where stretcheda terra incognita into which vastness few men have strayed and feweremerged.“I was in camp one day with Klooch.Klooch was as handsome alittle kamooks as ever whined betwixt the traces or shoved nose into a campkettle. Her father was a full-blood Malemute from Russian Pastilik on BeringSea, and I bred her, and with understanding, out of a clean-legged bitch of theHudson Bay stock.I tell you, O man, she was a corker combination.Andnow,onthisdayIhaveinmind,shewasbroughttopupthroughapurewildwolfofthewoods—grey,andlongoflimb,withbiglungsandnoendofstaying powers. Say!Wasthereeverthelike?ItwasanewbreedofdogIhadstarted,andIcouldlookforwardtobigthings.

“As I have said, she was brought neatly to pup, and safely delivered. I wassquattingonmyhamsoverthelitter—sevensturdy,blindlittlebeggars—whenfrombehindcameabrayoftrumpetsandcrashofbrass.Therewasarush,likethe wind-squall that kicks the heels of the rain, and I was midway to my feetwhen knocked flat on my face. At the same instant I heard Klooch sigh, verymuch as a man does when you’ve planted your fist in his belly. You can stakeyour sack I lay quiet, but I twisted my head around and saw a huge bulkswayingaboveme.ThentheblueskyflashedintoviewandIgottomyfeet.Ahairy mountain of flesh was just disappearing in the underbrush on the edge ofthe open. I caught a rear-end glimpse, with a stiff tail, as big in girth as mybody, standing out straight behind. The next second only a tremendous holeremained in the thicket, though I could still hear the sounds as of a tornadodying quickly away, underbrush ripping and tearing, and trees snapping andcrashing.

“I cast about for my rifle. It had been lying on the ground with the muzzleagainst a log; but now the stock was smashed, the barrel out of line, and theworking-gear in a thousand bits. Then I looked for the slut, and—and what doyousuppose?”

Ishookmyhead.

“Maymysoulburninathousandhellsiftherewasanythingleftofher!Klooch, the seven sturdy, blind little beggars—gone, all gone. Where she hadstretched was a slimy, bloody depression in the soft earth, all of a yard indiameter,andaroundtheedgesafewscatteredhairs.”

Imeasuredthreefeetonthesnow,threwaboutitacircle,andglancedatNimrod.

“The beast was thirty long and twenty high,” he answered, “and its tusksscaled over six times three feet. I couldn’t believe, myself, at the time, for allthat it had just happened.But if my senses had played me, there was thebrokengunandtheholeinthebrush.Andtherewas—or,rather,therewasnot

—Klooch and the pups. O man, it makes me hot all over now when I think ofit Klooch! Another Eve! The mother of a new race! And a rampaging, ranting,old bull mammoth, like a second flood, wiping them, root and branch, off theface of the earth! Do you wonder that the blood-soaked earth cried out to highGod?OrthatIgrabbedthehand-axeandtookthetrail?”

“Thehand-axe?”Iexclaimed,startledoutofmyselfbythepicture.“Thehand-axe,andabigbullmammoth,thirtyfeetlong,twentyfeet—”

Nimrod joined me in my merriment, chuckling gleefully. “Wouldn’t it killyou?” he cried. “Wasn’t it a beaver’s dream? Many’s the time I’ve laughedabout it since, but at the time it was no laughing matter, I was that dangedmad,whatofthegunandKlooch.Thinkofit,Oman!Abrand-new,unclassified,uncopyrightedbreed,andwipedoutbeforeeveritopeneditseyesortookoutitsintentionpapers!Well,sobeit.Life’sfullofdisappointments, and rightly so. Meat is best after a famine, and a bed softafterahardtrail.

“As I was saying, I took out after the beast with the hand-axe, and hung to itsheels down the valley; but when he circled back toward the head, I was leftwinded at the lower end. Speaking of grub, I might as well stop long enoughto explain a couple of points. Up thereabouts, in the midst of the mountains, isan almighty curious formation. There is no end of little valleys, each like theother much as peas in a pod, and all neatly tucked away with straight, rockywalls rising on all sides.And at the lower ends are always small openingswhere the drainage or glaciers must have broken out.The only way in isthroughthesemouths,andtheyareallsmall,andsomesmallerthanothers.

As to grub—you’ve slushed around on the rain-soaked islands of the AlaskancoastdownSitkaway,mostlikely,seeingasyou’reatraveller.Andyouknowhow stuff grows there—big, and juicy, and jungly. Well, that’s the way it waswith those valleys. Thick, rich soil, with ferns and grasses and such things inpatches higher than your head. Rain three days out of four during the summermonths;andfoodinthemforathousandmammoths,tosaynothingofsmallgameforman.

“But to get back. Down at the lower end of the valley I got winded and gaveover.Ibegantospeculate,forwhenmywindleftmemydandergothotterandhotter, and I knew I’d never know peace of mind till I dined on roastedmammoth-foot.AndIknew,also,thatthatstoodforskookummamook

pukapuk—excuse Chinook, I mean there was a big fight coming. Now themouthofmyvalleywasverynarrow,andthewallssteep.Highup onone sidewas one of those big pivot rocks, or balancing rocks, as some call them,weighing all of a couple of hundred tons. Just the thing. I hit back for camp,keeping an eye open so the bull couldn’t slip past, and got my ammunition. Itwasn’t worth anything with the rifle smashed; so I opened the shells, plantedthe powder under the rock, and touched it off with slow fuse. Wasn’t much ofacharge,buttheoldbouldertilteduplazilyanddroppeddownintoplace,withjustspaceenoughtoletthecreekdrainnicely.NowIhadhim.”

“But how did you have him?” I queried. “Who ever heard of a man killing amammothwithahand-axe?And,forthatmatter,withanythingelse?”

“O man, have I not told you I was mad?” Nimrod replied, with a slightmanifestation of sensitiveness. “Mad clean through, what of Klooch and thegun. Also, was I not a hunter? And was this not new and most unusual game?A hand-axe? Pish! I did not need it. Listen, and you shall hear of a hunt, suchas might have happened in the youth of the world when cavemen rounded upthe kill with hand-axe of stone. Such would have served me as well. Now is itnot a fact that man can outwalk the dog or horse? That he can wear them outwiththeintelligenceofhisendurance?”

I nodded.“Well?”

Thelightbrokeinonme,andIbadehimcontinue.

“My valley was perhaps five miles around. The mouth was closed. There wasno way to get out.A timid beast was that bull mammoth, and I had him at my mercy. I got on his heels again hollered like a fiend, pelted him with cobbles,and raced him around the valley three times before I knocked off for supper.Don’t you see? A race-course! A man and a mammoth! A hippodrome, withsun,moon,andstarstoreferee!

“It took me two months to do it, but I did it. And that’s no beaver dream.Round and round I ran him, me travelling on the inner circle, eating jerkedmeat and salmon berries on the run, and snatching winks of sleep between. Ofcourse, he’d get desperate at times and turn. Then I’d head for soft groundwhere the creek spread out, and lay anathema upon him and his ancestry, anddare him to come on. But he was too wise to bog in a mud puddle. Once hepinned me in against the walls, and I crawled back into a deep crevice andwaited. Whenever he felt for me with his trunk, I’d belt him with the hand-axetill he pulled out, shrieking fit to split my ear drums, he was that mad. Heknew he had me and didn’t have me, and it near drove him wild. But he wasno man’s fool. He knew he was safe as long as I stayed in the crevice, and hemadeuphismindtokeepmethere.Andhewasdeadright,onlyhehadn’t

figuredonthecommissary.Therewasneithergrubnorwateraroundthatspot,so on the face of it he couldn’t keep up the siege. He’d stand before theopening for hours, keeping an eye on me and flapping mosquitoes away withhis big blanket ears. Then the thirst would come on him and he’d ramp roundand roar till the earth shook, calling me every name he could lay tongue to.This was to frighten me, of course; and when he thought I was sufficientlyimpressed, he’d back away softly and try to make a sneak for the creek.Sometimes I’d let him get almost there—only a couple of hundred yards awayit was—when out I’d pop and back he’d come, lumbering along like the oldlandslide he was. After I’d done this a few times, and he’d figured it out, hechanged his tactics. Grasped the time element, you see. Without a word ofwarning, away he’d go, tearing for the water like mad, scheming to get thereand back before I ran away. Finally, after cursing me most horribly, he raisedthesiegeanddeliberatelystalkedofftothewater-hole.

“That was the only time he penned me,—three days of it,—but after that thehippodromeneverstopped.Round,andround,andround,likeasixdays’go-as-I-please,forheneverpleased.Myclotheswenttoragsandtatters,butIneverstoppedtomend,tillatlastIrannakedasasonofearth,withnothingbuttheoldhand-axeinonehandandacobbleintheother.Infact,Ineverstopped,saveforpeepsofsleepinthecranniesandledgesofthecliffs.Asforthe bull, he got perceptibly thinner and thinner—must have lost several tons atleast—andasnervousasaschoolmarmonthewrongsideofmatrimony.WhenI’dcomeupwithhimandyell,orlainhimwitharockatlongrange,he’djumplikeaskittishcoltandtrembleallover.Thenhe’dpulloutontherun,tailandtrunkwavingstiff,headoveroneshoulderandwickedeyesblazing,andthewayhe’dswearatmewassomethingdreadful.A mostimmoralbeasthewas,amurderer,andablasphemer.

“But towards the end he quit all this, and fell to whimpering and crying like ababy. His spirit broke and he became a quivering jelly-mountain of misery.He’d get attacks of palpitation of the heart, and stagger around like a drunkenman, and fall down and bark his shins. And then he’d cry, but always on therun. O man, the gods themselves would have wept with him, and you yourselfor any other man. It was pitiful, and there was so I much of it, but I onlyhardenedmyheartandhitupthepace.AtlastIworehimcleanout,andhelaydown, broken-winded, broken-hearted, hungry, and thirsty. When I found hewouldn’t budge, I hamstrung him, and spent the better part of the day wadinginto him with the hand-axe, he a-sniffing and sobbing till I worked in farenough to shut him off. Thirty feet long he was, and twenty high, and a mancould sling a hammock between his tusks and sleep comfortably. Barring thefact that I had run most of the juices out of him, he was fair eating, and hisfour feet, alone, roasted whole, would have lasted a man a twelvemonth. Ispentthewintertheremyself.”

“Andwhereisthisvalley?”Iasked

He waved his hand in the direction of the north-east, and said: “Your tobaccois very good.I carry a fair share of it in my pouch, but I shall carry therecollection of it until I die. In token of my appreciation, and in return for themoccasins on your own feet, I will present to you these muclucs.TheycommemorateKloochandthesevenblindlittlebeggars.Theyarealsosouvenirsofanunparalleledeventinhistory,namely,thedestructionoftheoldestbreedofanimalonearth,andtheyoungest.Andtheirchiefvirtueliesinthattheywillneverwearout.”

Havingeffectedtheexchange,heknockedtheashesfromhispipe,grippedmyhandgood-night,andwanderedoffthroughthesnow.Concerningthistale,forwhich I have already disclaimed responsibility, I would recommend those oflittle faith to make a visit to the Smithsonian Institute. If they bring therequisite credentials and do not come in vacation time, they will undoubtedlygain an audience with Professor Dolvidson. The muclucsare in his possession,and he will verify, not the manner in which they were obtained, but thematerial of which they are composed. When he states that they are made fromthe skin of the mammoth, the scientific world accepts his verdict. What morewouldyouhave?

AHYPERBOREANBREW

[The story of a scheming white man among the strange people who live on therimoftheArcticsea]

Thomas Stevens’s veracity may have been indeterminate as x, and hisimagination the imagination of ordinary men increased to the nth power, butthis, at least, must be said: never did he deliver himself of word nor deed thatcouldbebrandedasalieoutright...Hemayhaveplayedwithprobability,andverged on the extremest edge of possibility, but in his tales the machinerynevercreaked.ThatheknewtheNorthlandlikeabook,notasoulcandeny.

That he was a great traveller, and had set foot on countless unknown trails,many evidences affirm. Outside of my own personal knowledge, I knew menthathadmethimeverywhere,butprincipallyontheconfinesofNowhere.

TherewasJohnson,theex-HudsonBayCompanyfactor,whohadhousedhimin a Labrador factory until his dogs rested up a bit, and he was able to strikeoutagain.TherewasMcMahon,agentfortheAlaskaCommercialCompany,whohadrunacrosshiminDutchHarbour,andlateron,amongtheoutlyingislandsoftheAleutiangroup.ItwasindisputablethathehadguidedoneoftheearlierUnitedStatessurveys,andhistorystatespositivelythatinasimilarcapacityheservedtheWesternUnionwhenitattemptedtoputthroughits

trans-AlaskanandSiberiantelegraphtoEurope.Further,therewasJoeLamson, the whaling captain, who, when ice-bound off the mouth of theMackenzie, had had him come aboard after tobacco. This last touch provesThomas Stevens’s identity conclusively. His quest for tobacco was perennialand untiring. Ere we became fairly acquainted, I learned to greet him with onehand, and pass the pouch with the other. But the night I met him in JohnO’Brien’s Dawson saloon, his head was wreathed in a nimbus of fifty-centcigarsmoke,andinsteadofmypouchhedemandedmysack.Wewerestanding by a faro table, and forthwith he tossed it upon the “high card.”“Fifty,” he said, and the game-keeper nodded. The “high card” turned, and hehanded back my sack, called for a “tab,” and drew me over to the scales,wheretheweighernonchalantlycashedhimoutfiftydollarsindust.

“And now we’ll drink,” he said; and later, at the bar, when he lowered hisglass: “Reminds me of a little brew I had up Tattarat way. No, you have noknowledge of the place, nor is it down on the charts. But it’s up by the rim ofthe Arctic Sea, not so many hundred miles from the American line, and all ofhalf a thousand God-forsaken souls live there, giving and taking in marriage,and starving and dying in-between-whiles. Explorers have overlooked them,and you will not find them in the census of 1890. A whale-ship was pinchedthere once, but the men, who had made shore over the ice, pulled out for thesouthandwereneverheardof.

“Butitwasagreatbrewwehad,MoosuandI,”headdedamomentlater,withjusttheslightestsuspicionofasigh.