 Section four of the Faith of Men. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Brian Ackerman. Too Much Gold by Jack London This being a story, and a truer one than it may appear, of a mining country, it is quite to be expected that it will be a hard luck story. But that depends on the point of view. Hard luck is a mild way of terming it, so far as King Mitchell and Huchinu Bill are concerned, and that they have a decided opinion in the subject is a matter of common knowledge in the Yukon country. It was in the fall of 1896 that the two partners came down to the east bank of the Yukon and drew a Peterborough canoe from a moss-covered cache. They were not particularly pleasant-looking objects. A summer's prospecting, filled to repletion with hardship and rather empty of grub, had left their clothes and tatters, and themselves worn and cadaverous. A nimbus of mosquitoes buzzed about each man's head. The faces were coated with blue clay. Each carried a lump of this damp clay, and whenever it dried and fell from their faces, more was dobbed on in its place. There was a querulous plaint in their voices, an irritability of movement and gesture that told of broken sleep and a losing struggle with the little-winged pests. Them skeeters will be the death of me yet, King Mitchell whimpered, as the canoe felt the current on her nose and leapt out from the bank. Cheer up, cheer up, we're about done, Huchinu Bill answered, with an attempted hardiness and his funereal tones that was ghastly. We'll be in forty mile and forty minutes, and then, cursed little devil, one hand left his paddle and landed on the back of his neck with a sharp slap. He put a fresh dob of clay on the injured part, swearing sulfurously the while. King Mitchell was not the least amused. He merely improved the opportunity by putting a thicker coating of clay on his own neck. They crossed the Yukon to its west bank, shot downstream with easy stroke, and at the end of forty minutes swung in close to the left around the tail of an island. Forty miles spread itself suddenly before them. Both men straightened their backs and gazed at the site. They gazed long and carefully, drifting with the current, and their faces an expression of mingled surprise and consternation slowly gathering. Not a threat of smoke was rising from the hundreds of log cabins. There was no sound of axes biting sharply into wood, of hammering and sawing. Neither dogs nor men loitered before the big wood store. No steamboats lay at the bank, no canoes, nor scows, nor polling boats. The river was as bare of craft as the town was of life. Kind of looks like Gabriel's tutored his little horn, and you and me has turned up missing," remark Huchinu Bell. His remark was casual, as though there was nothing unusual about the occurrence. King Mitchell's reply was just as casual, as though he, too, were unaware of any strange perturbation of spirit. Looks as though they were all Baptists, then, and took the boats to go by water was his conclusion. My old dad was a Baptist, Huchinu Bell supplemented, and he always did hold. It was forty thousand miles nearer that way. This was the end of their levity. They ran the canoe in and climbed the high earth bank. A feeling of awe descended upon them as they walked the deserted streets. The sunlight streamed placidly over the town. A gentle wind tapped the halyards against the flagpole before the closed doors of the Caledonia dance hall. Mosquitoes buzzed, robins sang, and the moosebirds tripped hungrily among the cabins. But there was no human life nor sign of human life. I'm just dying for a drink, Huchinu Bell said, and unconsciously his voice sank to a hoarse whisper. His partner nodded his head, loathed to hear his own voice break the stillness. They trudged on in uneasy silence till surprised by an open door. Above this door, and stretching the width of the building, a rude sign announced the same as the Monte Carlo. But beside the door, hat over eyes, chair tilted back, a man sat sunning himself. He was an old man. Beard and hair were long and white and patriarchal. If it ain't old Jim Cummins turned up like us, too late for resurrection, said King Cummichael. Most like he didn't hear Gabriel Tootin was Huchinu Bell's suggestion. Hello, Jim! Wake up! he shouted. The old man unlimbered lamely, blinking his eyes and murmuring automatically. What do you have, gents? What do you have? They followed him inside, and ranged up against the long bar whereof your half a dozen nimble barkeepers found little time to loaf. The great room, ordinarily a roar with life, was still and gloomy as a tomb. There's no rattling of chips, no warring of ivory balls. Roulette and pharaoh tables were like gravestones under their canvas covers. No women's voices drifted merrily from the dance room behind. Old Jim Cummings wiped a glass with palsy hands, and King Cummichael scrawled his initials on the dust-covered bar. Where's the girls, Huchinu Bell shouted, with affected geniality. Gone was the ancient barkeeper's reply, in a voice thin and aged as himself, and as unsteady as his hand. Where's Bidwell and Barlow? Gone. And Sweetwater Charlie? Gone. And his sister, too? Gone, too. Your daughter Sally, then, and her little kid? Gone. All gone. The old man shook his head sadly, rummaging in an absent way among the dusty bottles. Great Sardinopolis, where, King Cummichael exploded, unable longer to restrain himself, you don't say you've had the plague. Why, ain't you here? The old man chuckled quietly. They all's gone to Dawson. What like is that, Bill demanded? A creek, or a bar, or a place. Ain't never here to Dawson, eh? The old man chuckled exasperatingly. Why, Dawson's a town, a city, bigger than forty mile. Yes, sir, bigger than forty mile. I've been in this land seven years, Bill announced emphatically, and I make free to say I never heard tell of that bird before. Hold on, let's have some more of that whiskey. Your information's flabbergasted me, that it has. Now, just whereabouts is this Dawson place you was mentioning? On the big flat, just below in the mouth of the Klondike, old Jim answered, but where has you all been this summer? Never mind where we all's been, was Kink Mitchell's testy reply. We all's been where the skeeters is that think you got to throw a stick into the air so as to see the sun until the time of day. Ain't I right, Bill? Right you are, said Bill, but speaking of this Dawson place, how like did it happen to be, Jim? Aunts to the pan on a creek called Bonanza, and they ain't got to bedrock yet. Who struck it? Carmack. At mention of the discoverer's name, the partners stared at each other disgustedly. Then they winked with great solemnity. See-wash George sniffed Hooch a new bill. That squaw-man sneered Kink Mitchell. I wouldn't put on my moccasins to Sampeet after anything he'd ever find, said Bill. Same here, announced his partner. A cuss that's too plum-lazy to fish his own salmon. That's why he took up with the Indians. Suppose that black brother-in-law of his—let me see—skook'em Jim, eh? Suppose he's in on it? The old barkeeper nodded. Sure. And what's more, all forty-mile, except in me and a few cripples, and drunks—had a Kink Mitchell. No sir-ee, the old man shouted emphatically. I bet you the drinks Honkin's ain't in on it, Hooch knew Bill cried with certitude. Old Jim's face lighted up. I takes you, Bill, and you loses. However did that old soak budge out of forty-mile, Mitchell demanded. The ties him down and throws him the bottom of a polling-boat, old Jim explained. Come right in here, they did, and takes him out of that there chair there in the corner. And three more drunks they find under the peony. I tell y'alls, the whole camp hits the Yukon for Dawson, just like Sam Scratch was after them—women, children, babes in arms, the whole shebang. Goodwill comes to me and says, says he, Jim, I want you to keep tab on the Monte Carlo. I'm going. Where's Barlow, says I? Gone, says he. And I'm a-fallin' with a load of whiskey. And with that, never waitin' for me to decline, he makes a run for his boat, and away he goes, pullin' up river-like mad. So here I be. And these is the first drinks I've passed out in three days. The partners looked at each other. Gosh, darn my buttons, said Hooch and new Bill. Seems like you and me kink as the kind of folks always caught out with forks when it rains soup. I'm going to take the salaradis out of your dough now, said kink, a stampede of tin horns, drunks and loafers. And Squawman, added Bill, not a genuine minor in the whole caboodle. Genuine minors, like you and me kink, he went on academically, is all out and sweatin' hard over Birch Creekway. Not a genuine minor in this whole crazy Dawson outfit, and I say right here, not a step do I budge for any Carmack strike. I've got to see the color of the dust first. Came here, Mitchell agreed. Let's have another drink. Having wet this resolution, they beached the canoe, transferred its contents to the cabin, and cooked dinner. But as the afternoon wore along, they grew restive. They were men used to the silence of the great wilderness, but this grave-like silence of a town worried them. They caught themselves listening for familiar sounds, waitin' for somethin' to make a noise which ain't goin' to make a noise, as Bill put it. They strolled through the deserted streets to the Monte Carlo for kinks, and wandered along the riverbank to the steamer landing, where only water gurgled as the eddy filled and emptied, and an occasional salmon leapt flashing into the sun. They sat down in the shade in front of the store, and talked with the consumptive storekeeper, whose liability to hemorrhage accounted for his presence. Bill and kink told him how they intended loafing in their cabin and resting up after the hard summer's work. They told him, with a certain insistence that was half appeal for belief, half challenge for contradiction, how much they were going to enjoy their idleness, but the storekeeper was uninterested. He switched the conversation back to the strike on Klondike, and they could not keep him away from it. He could think of nothing else, talk of nothing else, till Huchinou Bill rose up in anger and disgust. "'Gosh, darn Dawson,' I say. "'Same here,' said Kink Mitchell, with brightening face, wanted to think something was doin' up there, instead of being a mare stampede of greenhorns and tinhorns. But a boat came into view from downstream. It was long and slim. It hugged the bank closely, and its three occupants, standing upright, propelled it against the stiff current by means of long poles. "'Circle City outfit,' said the storekeeper. "'I was lookin' for him along by afternoon. Forty mile had the start of them by a hundred and seventy miles. But gee, they ain't losin' any time.' "'We'll just sit here quiet like and watch them string by,' said complacently. As he spoke, another boat appeared in sight, followed after a brief interval by two others. By this time the first boat was abreast of the men on the bank. Its occupants did not cease polling while greetings were exchanged, and, though its progress was slow, a half hour saw it out of sight up the river. Still they came from below. Boat after boat in endless procession. The uneasiness of Bill and Kink increased. They stole speculative, tentative glances at each other, and when their eyes met looked away in embarrassment. Finally, however, their eyes met, and neither looked away. Kink opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him, and his mouth remained open while he continued to gaze at his partner. "'Just what I was thinkin', Kink,' said Bill. They grinned sheepishly at each other, and by tacit consent started to walk away. Their pace quickened, and by the time they arrived at their cabin they were on the run. Can't lose no time with all that multitude to rush him by, Kink spluttered, as he jabbed the sourdough can into the beanpot with one hand, and with the other gathered in the frying pan and coffee pot. "'Should say not,' gasped Bill, his head and shoulders buried in a closed sack, wherein were stored winter socks and underwear. I say, Kink, don't forget the Salateris on the corner shelf back of the stove.' Half an hour later they were launching the canoe and loading up, while the storekeeper made jocular remarks about poor weak mortals and the contagiousness of stampedon fever. But when Bill and Kink thrust their long poles to the bottom, and started the canoe against the current he called after them, "'Well, so long, good luck, and don't forget to blaze a steak or two for me.' They nodded their heads vigorously, and felt sorry for the poor rich who remained perforce behind. Kink and Bill were sweating hard. According to the revised Northland scripture the stampede is to the swift, the blazing of steaks to the strong, and the crown and royalties gathers to itself the fullness thereof. Kink and Bill were both swift and strong. They took the soggy trail at a long swinging gate that broke the hearts of a couple of tender feet who tried to keep up with them. Behind, strung out between them and Dawson, where the boats were discarded and land travel began, was the vanguard of the Circle City outfit. In the race from Forty Mile the partners had passed every boat, winning from the leading boat by a length in the Dawson eddy, and leaving its occupant sadly behind the moment their feet struck the trail. Ha! couldn't see us for smoke, Hoochinoo Bill chuckled, flirting the stinging sweat from his brow and glancing swiftly back along the way they had come. Three men emerged from where the trail broke through the trees. Two followed close at their heels, and then a man and woman shot into view. Come on, you kink. Hit her up. Hit her up! Bill quickened his pace. Mitchell glanced back in leisurely fashion. I declare if they ain't lopin. And here's one that's loped himself out, said Bill, pointing to the side of the trail. A man was lying on his back, panting, in the culminating stages of violent exhaustion. His face was ghastly, his eyes bloodshot and glazed, for all the world like a dying man. Chachakwo, kink Mitchell grunted, and it was the grunt of the old sourdough for the greenhorn, for the man who outfitted with self-rise and flour, and used water in his biscuits. The partners, true to the old timer custom, had intended to stake downstream from the strike, but when they saw claim eighty-one below blazed on a tree, which meant fully eight miles below discovery, they changed their minds. The eight miles were covered in less than two hours. It was a killing pace over so rough trail, and they passed scores of exhausted men that had fallen by the wayside. At discovery little was to be learned of the upper creek. Cormac's Indian brother-in-law, Skukum Jim, had a hazy notion that the creek was staked as high as the thirties, but when Kink and Bill looked at the cornerstakes of seventy-nine above, they threw their stampeding packs off their backs and sat down to smoke. All their efforts had been in vain. Bonanza was staked from mouth to source. Out of sight and across the next divide, Bill complained that night as they fried their bacon and boiled their coffee, over Cormac's fire at discovery. Try that pup, Cormac suggested next morning. That pup was a broad creek that flowed into Bonanza at seven above. The partners received his advice with the magnificent contempt of the sourdough for a Squaw-man, and instead spent a day on Adam's Creek, another and more likely-looking tributary of Bonanza, but it was the old story over again, staked to the skyline. For three days Cormac repeated his advice, and for three days they received it contemptuously. But on the fourth day, there being nowhere else to go, they went up with that pup. They knew that it was practically unstaked, but they had no intention of staking. The trip was made more for the purpose of giving vent to their ill-humor than for anything else. They had become quite cynical, skeptical. They jeered and scoffed at everything, and insulted every Chaco they met along the way. At number twenty-three the stakes ceased. The remainder of the creek was open for location. Moose pasture sneered Kink Mitchell, but Bill gravely paced off five-hundred feet up the creek and blazed the corner stakes. He had picked up the bottom of a candle-box, and on the smooth side he wrote the notice for his center-steak. This moose pasture is reserved for the Swedes and Chachakwos, Bill Rader. Kink read it over with approval, saying, as them's my sentiments, I reckon I might as well subscribe, so the name of Charles Mitchell was added to the notice, and many an old sourdough's face relaxed that day at the sight of the handiwork of a kindred spirit. How's the pup? Carmack inquired when they strobe back into camp. To hell with pups, was Hoochinoo Bill's reply. Me and Kink's going a-looking for too much gold when we get rested up. Too much gold was the fabled creek of which all sourdoughs dreamed. Whereof it was said the gold was so thick that in order to wash it gravel must first be shoveled into the boxes. But the several days' rest, preliminary to the quest for too much gold, brought a slight change in their plan, in as much as it brought one Anse Handerson, a swede. Anse Handerson had been working for wages all summer at Miller Creek, over on the Sixty Mile, and, the summer done, had straight-up bonanza like many another wave helplessly adrift on the gold tides that swept willy-nilly across the land. He was tall and lanky. His arms were long, like pre-historic hands. His hands were like soup-plates, twisted and gnarled, and big-knuckled from toil. He was slow of utterance and movement and his eyes, pale blue as his hair was pale yellow, seemed filled with an immortal dreaming. The stuff of which no man knew, and himself least of all. Perhaps this appearance of immortal dreaming was due to a supreme and vacuous innocence. At any rate this was the valuation men of ordinary clay put upon him. There was nothing extraordinary about the composition of Huchnoo Bill and Kink Mitchell. The partners had spent a day of visiting and gossip, and in the evening met in the temporary quarters of the Monte Carlo, a large tent where stampeters rested their weary bones and bad whiskey sold at a dollar a drink. Since the only money in circulation was dust, and since the house took the down-weight on the scales, a drink cost something more than a dollar. Bill and Kink were not drinking, principally for the reason that their one and common sack was not strong enough to stand many excursions to the scales. Say, Bill, I've got a chachacoa on the string for a sack of flour, Mitchell announced jubilantly. Bill looked interested and pleased. Grubba was scarce, and they were not over-plentifully supplied for the quest after too much gold. Flowers worth a dollar a pound, he answered. How like do you calculate to get him a half interest in that claim of Arne? Kink answered. What claim? Bill was surprised. Then he remembered the reservation he had staked off for the Swedes and said, oh, I wouldn't be so close to about it, though. He added, give him the whole thing while you're about it, and in a right free-handed way. Bill shook his head. If I did, he'd get clean scared and prance off. I'm letting on as how the ground is believed to be valuable, and that we're letting go just because we're monsters short on Grub. After the dicker, we can make him present to the whole shebang. If someone ain't disregarded our notice, Bill objected, though he was plainly pleased at the prospect of exchanging the claim for a sack of flour. She ain't jumped, Kink assured him. It's number twenty-four, and it stands. The Chachakos took it serious, and they've begun staking where you left off. Stake clean over the divide, too. I was gassing with one of them, which had just got in with cramps in his legs. I was groping utterance of Ants Handerson. I liked the looks, he was saying to the barkkeeper. I tank I got a claim. The partners winked at each other, and a few minutes later a surprised and grateful swede was drinking bad whiskey with two hard-hearted strangers. But he was as hard-headed as they were hard-hearted. The sack made frequent journeys to the scales, followed solicitously each time by Kink Mitchell's eyes, and still Ants Handerson did not loosen up. His pale blue eyes, as in summer seas, immortal dreams swam up and burned. But the swimming and the burning were due to the tails of gold and prospect pants he heard, rather than to the whiskey he slid so easily down his throat. The partners were in despair, though they appeared boisterous and jovial of speech and action. Don't mind me, my friend, who Chinou Bill hiccupped. His hand upon Ants Handerson's shoulder. Have another drink. We're just celebrating Kink's birthday here. Kink Mitchell. And what might your name be? This learned. His hand descended resoundingly on Kink's back, and Kink simulated clumsy self-consciousness in that he was, for the time being, the center of the rejoicing, while Ants Handerson looked pleased and asked them to have a drink with him. It was the first and last time he treated, until the plate changed and his canny soul was roused to unwanted prodigality. But he paid for the liquor from a fairly healthy-looking sack, not an eight-hundred in it calculated the Linkside Kink, and on the strength of it he took the first opportunity of a privy conversation with Bidwell, the proprietor of the bad whiskey in the tent. Here's my sack, Bidwell, Kink said, with the intimacy and surety of one old time or two another. Just weigh fifty dollars into it for a day or so, more or less, and we'll be yours truly, Bill and me. Thereafter the journeys of the sack to the scales were more bold and bold, and the old-day waxed hilarious. He even assayed to sing the old timer's classic, the juice of the forbidden fruit, but broke down and drowned his embarrassment in another round of drinks. Even Bidwell honored him with a round or two on the house, and he and Bill were decently drunk by the time Ants Handerson's eyelids began to droop and his tongue gave promise of loosening. Bill grew affectionate, then with Ants Handerson in particular. He required no histrionic powers to act the part the bad whiskey attended to that. He worked himself into great sorrow for himself and Bill, and his tears were sincere when he told how he and his partner were thinking of selling half-interest in good ground just because they were short of grub. Even Kink listened and believed. Ants Handerson's eyes were shining unholily as he asked, How much you tank you take? Bill and Kink did not hear him, and he was compelled to repeat his query. They appeared reluctant. He grew keener, and he swayed back and forward, holding on to the bar and listened with all his ears while they conferred together on one side and wrangled as to whether they should or not, and disagreed in stage whispers over the price they should set. 250 Bill finally announced, but we reckon as we won't sell, which is monstrous wise if I might chip in my little say, second at Bidwell. Yes, indeed he added Kink. We ain't in no charity business and a disgorge in free and generous to Swedes and white men. I tank we have another drink, hiccuped Ants Handerson, craftily changing the subject against a more propituous time, and thereafter to bring about that propituous time his own sack began to seesaw between his hip pocket and the scales. Bill and Kink were coy, but they finally yielded to his whereupon he grew shy and drew Bidwell to one side. He staggered exceedingly and held on to Bidwell for support as he asked. They ban. All right, then, men, you tank so? Sure, Bidwell answered heartily, known them for years, hold sourdose. When they sell a claim, they sell a claim. They ain't no heir-dealers. I tank I buy, Ants Handerson announced, tottering back to the two men, but by now he was dreaming deeply, and he claimed that he would have the whole claim or nothing. This was the cause of great pain to Hooch new Bill. He orated grandly against the hoggishness of Chachakwos and Swedes, albeit he dosed between periods his great voice dying away to a gurgle and his head sinking forward on his breast, but whenever roused by a nudge from Kink or Bidwell he never failed to explode another volley of abuse and insult. Ants Handerson was calm under it all. Each insult added to the value of the claim. Such unamiable reluctance to sell advertised but one thing to him, and he was aware of the great relief when Hooch new Bill sank snoring to the floor, and he was free to turn his attention to the less intractable partner. Kink Mitchell was persuadable, though a poor mathematician. He wept dofully, but was willing to sell a half interest for two hundred and fifty dollars, or the whole claim for seven hundred and fifty. Ants Handerson and Bidwell labored to clear away his erroneous ideas concerning fractions, but their labor was vain. He spilled tears and regrets all over the bar and on their shoulders, which tears, however, did not wash away his opinion that if one half was worth two hundred and fifty, two halves were worth three times as much. In the end, and even Bidwell retained no more than hazy recollections of how the night terminated, a bill of sale was drawn up wherein Bill Rader and Charles Mitchell yielded up all right title to the claim known as twenty-four El Dorado, the same being the name the creek had received from some optimistic Chachaco. When Kink had signed, it took the united efforts of the three to arouse Bill. Pen in hand he swayed long over the document, and each time he rocked back and forth in Ants Handerson's eyes flashed and faded a wondrous golden vision. When the precious signature was at last appended, and the dust paid over, he breathed a great sigh and sank to sleep under a table where he dreamed immortally until morning. But the day was chill and grey. He felt bad. His first act, unconscious and automatic, was to feel for his sack. Its lightness startled him. Then, slowly, memories of the night thronged into his brain. Rough voices disturbed him. He opened his eyes and peered out from under the table. A couple of early risers, or rather, men who had been out on trail all night, were vociferating their opinions concerning the other and loathsome worthlessness of El Dorado Creek. He grew frightened, felt in his pocket, and found the deed to twenty-four El Dorado. Ten minutes later, Huchnu, Bill, and Kink Mitchell were roused from their blankets by a wild-eyed swede that strove to force upon them an ink-scrawled and very blotty piece of paper. I tank I take my money back. He gibbered, I take my money back. Tears were in his eyes and throat. They ran down his cheeks as he knelt before them and pleaded and implored. But Bill and Kink did not laugh. They might have been harder-hearted. First time I ever met a man squeal over a mine-in-deal, Bill said, and I make free to say to his too unusual for me to savvy. Same here, Kink Mitchell remarked, mine-in-deals is like horse-traden. They were honest in their wonderment. They could not conceive of themselves on the trail over a business transaction, so they could not understand it in another man. The poor ornery chachakwa murmured Huchnu, Bill, as they watched the sorrowing swede disappear up the trail. But this ain't too much gold, Kink Mitchell said cheerfully. And ere the day was out they purchased flour and bacon at exorbitant prices with aunts Henderson's dust and crossed over the divide in the direction of the creeks that lie between the hills. Three months later they came back to the divide in the midst of a snowstorm and dropped down the trail to twenty-four El Dorado. It merely chanced that the trail led them that way. They were not looking for the claim, nor could they see much through the driving white till they set foot upon the claim itself. And then the air lightened and they beheld a dump capped by a windless that a man was turning. They saw him draw a bucket of gravel from the hole and tilted to the ground. Otherwise they saw another man, strangely familiar, filling a pan with the fresh gravel. His hands were large, his hair wets pale yellow. But before they reached him he turned with the pan and fled toward a cabin. He wore no hat and the snow falling down his neck accounted for his haste. Bill and Kink ran after him and came upon him in the cabin, kneeling by the stove and washing the pan of gravel in a tub of water. He was too deeply entered the cabin. They stood at his shoulder and looked on. He imparted to the pan a deft circular motion pausing once or twice to rake out the larger particles of gravel with his fingers. The water was muddy and with the pan buried in it they could see nothing of its contents. Suddenly he lifted the pan clear and sent the water out of it with a flirt. A mass of yellow, like butter and churn, showed across the bottom. Huchinu Bill swallowed. Never in his life had he dreamed of so rich a test pan. "'Kind of thick, my friend,' he said huskily. "'How much might you reckon that all to be?' Ansh Anderson did not look up as he replied. "'I tank fifty ounces.' "'You must be scrumptious rich then, eh?' Still Ansh Anderson kept his head down, absorbed in putting in the fine touches which wash out the last particles of dross, though he answered. "'I tank I've been worth five hundred thousand dollars.' "'Gosh,' said Huchinu Bill, and he said it reverently. "'Yes, Bill, gosh,' said Kink Mitchell, and they went out softly and closed the door. "'End of too much gold.'" Recording by Brian Ackerman. Section 5 The One Thousand Dozen of the Faith of Men This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mary Anderson. The One Thousand Dozen by Jack London. David Rasmussen was a hustler, and like many a greater man, a man of the one idea. Wherefore, when the Clarion call of the North rang on his ear, he conceived an adventure in eggs, and bent all his energy to its achievement. He figured briefly and to the point, and the adventure became iridescent huge, splendid, that eggs would sell at Dawson for five dollars a dozen was a safe working premise. Whence it was incontrovertible that one thousand dozen would bring in, in the Golden Metropolis, five thousand dollars. On the other hand, expense was to be considered, and he considered it well, for he was a careful man, keenly practical, with a hard head, and a heart that imagination never warmed. At fifteen cents a dozen the initial cost of his thousand dozen would be one hundred and fifty dollars, a mere bagatelle in face of the enormous profit. And suppose, just suppose, to be wildly extravagant for once, that transportation for himself and eggs should run up eight hundred and fifty more. He would still have four thousand clear cash, and clean, when the last egg was disposed of, and the last dust had rippled into his sack. You see, Alma, he figured it over with his wife, the cozy dining-room submerged in the sea of maps, government surveys, guidebooks, and Alaskan itineraries. You see, expenses don't really begin until you make Daya. Fifty dollars will cover it with a first-class passage thrown in. Now from Daya to Lake Lindermen, Indian Packers take your goods over for twelve cents a pound, twelve dollars a hundred, or one hundred and fifty. Say I have fifteen hundred pounds, it'll cost one hundred and eighty dollars. Call it two hundred and be safe. I am credibly informed by a Klondiker, just come out, that I can buy a boat for three hundred. But the same man says I'm sure to get a couple of passengers for one hundred and fifty each, which will give me the boat for nothing. And further they can help me manage it. And that's all. I put my eggs ashore from the boat at Dawson. Now let me see how much is that. Fifty dollars from San Francisco to Daya, two hundred from Daya to Lindermen. Passengers pay for the boat two hundred and fifty, all told, she summed up swiftly. And a hundred for my clothes and personal outfit, he went unhappily. That leaves a margin of five hundred for these. And what possible emergencies can arise? Alma shrugged her shoulders and elevated her brows. If that vast Northland was capable of swallowing up a man and a thousand dozen eggs, surely there is room and despair for whatever else he might happen to possess. So she thought, but she said nothing. She knew David Rasmussen too well to say anything. Doubling the time because of chance delays, I should make the trip in two months. Think of it Alma, four thousand in two months. Beats the paltry hundred a month I'm getting now. Why, we'll build further out, where we'll have more space, gas in every room, and a view, and the rent of the cottage will pay taxes and insurance and water and leave something over. And then there's always a chance of my striking it and coming out a millionaire. Now tell me Alma, don't you think I'm very moderate? And Alma could hardly think otherwise. Besides, had not her own cousin, though a remote and distant one to be sure, the black sheep, the harem scarum, the ne'er-do-well, had not he come down out of that weird North Country with a hundred thousand in yellow dust to say nothing of a half-ownership in the hole from which it came? David Rasmussen's grocer was surprised when he found him weighing eggs in the scales at the end of the counter. And Rasmussen himself was more surprised when he found that a dozen eggs weighed a pound and a half, fifteen hundred pounds for his thousand dozen. There would be no weight left for his clothes, blankets, and cooking utensils to say the rub he must necessarily consume by the way. His calculations were all thrown out and he was just proceeding to recast them when he hit upon the idea of weighing small eggs. For whether they be large or small, a dozen eggs is a dozen eggs, he observed sagely to himself, and a dozen small ones he found to weigh but a pound and a quarter. There at the city of San Francisco was overrun by anxious-eyed emissaries and commission houses and dairy associations were startled by a sudden demand for eggs running not more than twenty ounces to the dozen. Rasmussen mortgaged Little Cottage for a thousand dollars, arranged for his wife to make a prolonged stay among her own people, threw up his job and started north. To keep within his schedule he compromised on a second class passage, which because of the rush was worse than steerage. And in the late summer, a pale and wobbly man, he disembarked with his eggs on the Daiya beach. But it did not take him long to recover his land-legs and appetite. His first interview with the chili-coot packers straightened him up and stiffened his backbone. Forty cents a pound they demanded for the twenty-eight mile and while he caught his breath and swallowed the price went up to forty-three. Fifteen Husky Indians put the straps on his packs at forty-five, but took them off at an offer of forty-seven from a Skagway Croesus in dirty shirt and ragged overalls who had lost his horses on the white-pass trail and was now making a last desperate drive at the country by way of chili-coot. But Rasmussen was clean grit and at fifty cents found takers who two days later set his eggs down intact at Lindermen. But fifty cents a pound is a thousand dollars a ton, and his fifteen hundred pounds had exhausted his emergency fund and left him stranded at the tantalus point where each day he saw the fresh whipsawed boats departing for Dawson. Further a great anxiety brooded over the camp where the boats were built. Men worked frantically early and late at the height of their endurance caulking, nailing, and pitching in a frenzy of haste for which adequate explanation was not far to seek. Each day the snowline crept farther down the bleak rock-shouldered peaks and gale followed gale with sleet and slush and snow. And in the eddies and quiet places young ice formed and thickened through the fleeting hours. And each morn toil-stiffened men turned wan faces across the lake to see if the freeze-up had come. For the freeze-up heralded the death of their hope, the hope that they would be floating down the swift river, ear navigation closed on the chain of lakes. To harrow Rasmussen's soul further he discovered three competitors in the egg business. It was true that one, a little German, had gone broke and was himself forlornly back-tripping the last pack of the portage. But the other two had boats nearly completed and were daily supplicating the god of merchants and traders to stay the iron hand of winter for just another day. But the iron hand closed down over the land. Men were being frozen in the blizzard which swept Chilkut and Rasmussen frosted his toes ere he was aware. He found a chance to go passenger with his freight in a boat just shoving off through the rubble. But two hundred hard cash was required and he had no money. I tank you used weight eat little while said the Swedish boat-builder who had struck his Klondike right there and was wise enough to know it. One little while and I make you a Tom Fine boat, sure Pete. With this unpledged word to go on, Rasmussen hit the back-trail to Crater Lake where he fell in with two press correspondence whose tangled baggage was strewn from Stonehouse over across the pass and as far as Happy Camp. Yes, he said with consequence I have a thousand dozen eggs at Lindermen and my boats just about got the last seam culled. Consider myself in luck to get it. Boats are at a premium, you know, and none to be had. Whereupon and almost with bodily violence the correspondence clamored to go with him fluttered green-backs before his eyes and spilled yellow twenties from hand to hand. He could not hear of it but they over-persuaded him and he reluctantly consented to take them at three hundred apiece. Also they pressed upon him the passage money in advance and while they wrote to their respective journals concerning the Good Samaritan with the thousand dozen eggs the Good Samaritan was hurrying back to the Swede at Lindermen. Here you, give me that boat with his salutation, his hand jingling the correspondence gold pieces and his eyes hungrily bent upon the finished craft. The Swede regarded him stolidly and shook his head. How much is the other fellow paying? One hundred? Well here's four, take it. He tried to press it upon him but the man backed away. I tank not. I say him, give Dervis' gift boat. You just wait. Here's six hundred. Last call, take it or leave it. Tell him it's a mistake. The Swede wavered. I tank, yes, he finally said. And the last rasmus and saw of him his vocabulary was going to wreck in a vain effort to explain the mistake to the other fellows. The Germans slipped and broke his ankle on the steep hogback above Deep Lake, sold out his stock for a dollar a dozen and with the proceeds hired Indian Packers to carry him back to Daya. But on the morning Rasmussen shoved off with his correspondence his two rivals followed suit. How many you got one of them a lean little New Englander called out? One thousand dozen Rasmussen answered proudly. Huh, I'll go you even steaks I beat you in with my eight hundred. The correspondence offered to lend him the money but Rasmussen declined and the Yankee closed with the remaining rival a brawny son of the sea and sailor of ships and things who promised to show them all a wrinkler to when it came to cracking on. In crack on he did. With a large tarpaulin square sail which pressed the bow half under at every jump he was the first to run out of Lindermen but disdaining the portage piled his loaded boat on the rocks in the boiling rapids. Rasmussen and the Yankee who likewise had two passengers portage across on their backs and then lined their empty boats down through the bad water to Bennett. Bennett was a twenty-five mile lake narrow and deep a funnel between the mountains through which storms ever romped. Rasmussen camped on the sandpit at its head where were many men and boats bound north in the teeth of the Arctic winter. He awoke in the morning to find a piping gale from the south which caught the chill from the whited peaks and glacial valleys and blew as cold as north wind ever blew. But it was fair and he also found the Yankee staggering past the first bold headland with all sail set. Boat after boat was getting under way and the correspondence fell too with enthusiasm. We'll catch him before caribou crossing, they assured Rasmussen as they ran up to sail and the Alma took the first icy spray over her bow. Now Rasmussen, all his life had been prone to cowardice on water but he clung to the kicking steering oar with set face and determined jaw. His thousand dozen were there in the boat before his eyes safely secured beneath the correspondence baggage and somehow before his eyes were the little cottage and the mortgage for a thousand dollars. It was bitter cold. Now and again he hauled in the steering sweep and put out a fresh one while his passengers chopped the ice from the blade. Wherever the spray struck it turned instantly to a frost and the dipping boom of the spirit sail was quickly fringed with icicles. The Alma strained and hammered through the big seas till the seams and butts began to spread. But in lieu of bailing the correspondence chopped ice and flung it overboard. There was no let up. The mad race with winter was on and the boats tore along in a desperate string. We—we—we can't stop to save our souls one of the correspondence chattered from cold not fright. That's right, keep her down the middle old man, the other encouraged. Rasmussen replied with an idiotic grin. The iron-bound shores were in a lather of foam and even down the middle the only hope was to keep running away from the big seas. To lower sail was to be overtaken and swamped. Time and again they passed boats pounding among the rocks and once they saw one on the edge of the breakers about to strike. A little craft behind them with two men jibbed over and turned bottom up. Watch out, old man, cried he of the chattering teeth. Rasmussen grinned and tightened his aching grip on the sweep. Scores of times had the sand of the sea caught the big square stern of the Alma and thrown her off from dead before it till the afterleach of the spirit sail fluttered hollily. And each time and only with all his strength had he forced her back. His grin by then had become fixed and it disturbed the correspondence to look at him. They roared down past an isolated rock a hundred yards from shore. From its wave-drenched top a man shrieked wildly for the instant cutting the storm with his voice. But the next instant the Alma was by and the rock growing a black speck in the troubled froth. That settles the Yankee. Where's the sailor shot at one of his passengers? Rasmussen shot a glance over his shoulder at a black square sail. He had seen it leap up out of the gray to windward and for an hour off and on had been watching it grow. The sailor had evidently repaired damages and was making it for lost time. Look at him come! Both passengers stopped chopping the watch. Twenty miles of Bennett were behind them. Room and despair for the seed toss up its mountains toward the sky. Sinking and soaring like a storm god the sailor drove by them. The huge sail seemed to grip the boat from the crest of the waves to tear it bodily out of the water and fling it crashing and smothering down into the yawning troughs. The sail never catch him. But he'll run her nose under. Even as they spoke the black tarpaulin swooped from sight behind a big coma. The next wave rolled over the spot and the next but the boat did not reappear. The Alma rushed by the place a little riff-raff of oats and boxes was seen. An arm thrust up and a shaggy head broke surface a score of yards away. For a time there was silence. As the end of the lake came in sight the waves began to leap aboard with such steady recurrence that the correspondence no longer chopped ice but flung the water out with buckets. Even this would not do. And after a shouted conference with Rasmussen they attacked the baggage flour, bacon, beans, blankets, cooking stove, ropes, odds and ends everything they could get hands on flew overboard. The boat acknowledged it at once taking less water and rising more buoyantly. That'll do, Rasmussen called sternly, as they applied themselves to the top layer of eggs. The hell it will! answered the shivering one savagely. With the exception of their notes, films and cameras they had sacrificed their outfit. He bent over, laid hold of an egg-box and began to turn from under the lashing. Drop it! Drop it, I say! Rasmussen had managed to draw his revolver and with the crook of his arm over the sweep-head was taking aim. The correspondence stood up on the thwart, balancing back and forth his face twisted with menace and speechless anger. My God! So cried his brother correspondent hurling himself face downward into the boat. The Alma under the divided attention of Rasmussen had been caught by a great mass of water and whirled around. The after-leach hollowed, the sail emptied and jibbed and the boom sweeping with terrific force across the boat carried the angry correspondent overboard with a broken back. Mast and sail had gone over the side as well. A drenching sea followed as the boat lost headway and Rasmussen sprang to the bailing-bucket. Several boats hurled past them in the next half-hour, small boats, boats of their own size, boats afraid, unable to do out but run madly on. Then a ten-ton barge at imminent risk of destruction lowered sail to windward and lumbered down upon them. Keep off! Keep off! Rasmussen screamed, but his low gun-well ground against the heavy craft and the remaining correspondent clambered aboard. Rasmussen was over the eggs like a cat and in the bow of the Alma, striving with numb fingers to bend the hauling-lines together. Come on, a red-whiskered man yelled at him. A thousand dozen eggs here he shouted back, give me a howled-in course. A big white cat broke just beyond, washing over the barge and leaving the Alma half-swamped. The men cast off, cursing him as they ran up their sail. Rasmussen cursed back and fell to bailing. The mast and sail like a sea anchor still fast by the halyards held the boat head on to wind and sea and gave him a chance to fight the water numbed, exhausted, blathering like a lunatic but still bailing, he went ashore on an ice-struined beach near Caribou crossing. Two men, a government courier and a half-breed voyager, dragged him out of the surf, saved his cargo, and beached the Alma. They were paddling out of the country in a Peterborough and gave him shelter for the night in their storm-bound camp. He was a very good man, and he was a very good man, but he was very hard-hearted but he elected to stay by his eggs. And thereafter the name and fame of the man with a thousand dozen eggs began to spread through the land. Gold seekers who made in before the freeze-up carried the news of his coming. Grisled old-timers of forty-mile in circle city sourdose with leather daean Skagway took an interest in his being and questioned his progress from every man who came over the passes, while Dawson, golden omelette-less Dawson, fretted and worried and way-laid every chance arrival for word of him. But of this Rasmussen knew nothing. The day after the wreck he patched up the Alma and pulled out. A cruel east wind blew in his teeth from but he got the oars over the side and bucked manfully into it though half the time he was drifting backward and chopping ice from the blades. According to the custom of the country he was driven ashore at Windy Arm. Three times on Taggish saw him swamped and beached and Lake Marsh held him at the freeze-up. The Alma was crushed in the jamming of the flows but the eggs were intact. These he back-tripped two miles across the ice to the shore where he built a cache which stood for years after and was pointed out by men who knew half a thousand frozen miles stretched between him and Dawson and the waterway was closed. But Rasmussen, with a peculiar tense look in his face struck back up the lakes on foot. What he suffered on that loan-trip with not but a single blanket, an axe, and a handful of beans is not given to ordinary mortals to know. Only the arctic adventurer may understand. Suffice that he was caught in a blizzard on Chilkut and left two of his toes with the surgeon at Sheep Camp. Yet he stood on his feet and washed dishes in the scullery of the Pawona to the Puget Sound and from there passed coal on a P.S. boat in San Francisco. It was a haggard, unkempt man who limped across the shining office floor to raise a second mortgage from the bank people. His hollow cheeks betrayed themselves through the scraggy beard and his eyes seemed to have retired into deep caverns where they burned with cold fires. His hands were grained from exposure and hard work and the nails were rimmed with blood. He spoke vaguely of eggs and ice-packs, winds and tides, but when they declined to let him have more than a second thousand his talk became incoherent concerning itself chiefly with the price of dogs and dog food and such things as snowshoes and moccasins and winter trails. They let him have fifteen hundred, which was more than the cottage warranted and breathed easier when he passed out the door. Two weeks later he went over Chilcoute with three dog sleds of five dogs each. One team he drove, the two Indians with him driving the others. At Lake Marsh they broke out the cache and loaded up, but there was no trail. He was the first in over the ice and to him fell the task of packing the snow and hammering away through the rough river jams. During campfire he often observed a campfire smoke trickling thinly up through the quiet air and he wondered why the people did not overtake him, for he was a stranger to the land and did not understand. Nor could he understand his Indians when they tried to explain. This they conceived to be a hardship, but when they bulked and refused to break camp of mornings he drove them to their work at Pistol Point. On Ice Bridge near the White Horse and Froze's foot, tender yet and oversensitive from the previous freezing, the Indians looked for him to lie up. But he sacrificed a blanket and with his foot encased in an enormous moccasin, big as a water bucket, continued to take his regular turn with the front sled. Here was the cruelest work and they respected him. Though on the side they wrapped their foreheads with their heels and significantly shook their heads. One night they tried to run away but the zip-zip of his bullets in the snow brought them back, snarling but convinced. Whereupon, being only savage, chill-cut men, they put their heads together to kill him. But he slept like a cat and waking or sleeping the chance never came. Often they tried to tell him to smoke wreath in the rear but he could not comprehend and grew suspicious of them. And when they sulked or shirked he was quick to let drive at them between the eyes and quick to cool their heated soles with the sight of his ready revolver. And so it went with mutinous men, wild dogs and a trail that broke the heart. He fought the men to stay with him, fought the dogs to keep them away from the eggs, fought the ice, the cold and the pain of his foot which would not heal. As fast as the young tissue renewed it was bitten and scarred by the frost so that a running sore developed into which he could almost shove his fist. In the mornings when he first put his weight upon it his head went dizzy and he was near to fainting from the pain. Today it usually grew numb to recommence when he crawled into his blankets and tried to sleep. Yet he who had been a clerk and sat at a desk all his days toiled till the Indians were exhausted and even outworked the dogs. How hard he worked how much he suffered he did not know. Being a man of the one idea now that the idea had come it mastered him. In the foreground of his consciousness was Dawson. In the background his thousand dozen eggs and midway between the two his ego fluttered striving always to draw them together to a glittering golden point. This golden point was the five thousand dollars the consummation of the idea and the point of departure for whatever new idea might present itself. For the rest he was a mere automaton he was unaware of other things seeing them as through a glass darkly and giving them no thought. The work of his hands he did with machine like wisdom likewise the work of his head. So the look on his face grew very tense till even the Indians were afraid of it and marveled at the strange white man who had made them slaves and forced them to toil with such foolishness. Then came a snap on Lake Labarge when the cold of the outer space smote the tip of the planet and the force ranged 60 and odd degrees below zero. Here, laboring with open mouth that he might breathe more freely he chilled his lungs and for the rest of the trip he was troubled with a dry hacking cough especially irritable in smoke of camp or under stress of undue exertion. On the 30 mile river he found much open water spanned by precarious ice bridges and fringed with narrow rim ice tricky and uncertain. The rim ice was impossible to reckon on and he dared it without reckoning falling back in his revolver when his drivers demurred but on the ice bridges covered with snow though they were precautions could be taken. These they crossed on their snow shoes and poles held crosswise in their hands to which to cling in case of accident. Once over the dogs were called to follow and on such a bridge where the absence of the center ice was masked by the snow one of the Indians met his end. He went through as quickly and neatly as a knife through thin cream and the current swept him from view down into the stream ice. That night his mate fled away overnight. Rasmussen futilely punctuated the silence with his revolver a thing that he handled with more celerity than cleverness. Thirty-six hours later the Indian made a police camp on the big salmon. Um, um, um, funny man's what you call? Top him head all loose. The interpreter explained to the puzzled captain. A? Yep, crazy. Much crazy man's eggs, eggs, all the time eggs. Savvy? Come bimby. It was several days before Rasmussen arrived. The three sleds lashed together and all the dogs in a single team. It was awkward. And where the going was bad he was compelled to back-trip it sled by sled, though he managed most of the time through herculean efforts to bring all along on the one hall. One of the police told him his man was hitting the high places for Dawson and was by that time probably half-way between Selkirk and Stewart. Nor did he appear interested when informed that the police had broken the trail as far as Pelley. For he had attained to a fatalistic acceptance of all natural dispensations good or ill. But when they told him that Dawson was in the bitter clutch of famine he smiled through the harness of his dogs and pulled out. But it was at his next halt that the mystery of the smoke was explained. With the word at Big Salmon that the trail was broken to Pelley there was no longer any need for the smoke wreath to linger in his wake. And Rasmussen, crouching over lonely fire, saw a motley string of sleds go by. First came the courier and the half-breed who had hauled him out from Bennett. Then he brought the two carriers for Circle City, two sleds of them, and a mixed following of ingoing clondikers. Dogs and men were fresh and fat while Rasmussen and his brutes were jaded and worn down to the skin and bone. They of the smoke wreath had travelled one day in three resting and reserving their strength for the dash to come when broken trail was met with. While each day he had plunged forward, breaking the spirit of his dogs and robbing them of their metal. As for himself he was unbreakable. They thanked him kindly for his efforts on their behalf, those fat, fresh men, thanked him kindly with broad grims and ribbled laughter. And now when he understood he made no answer. Nor did he cherish silent bitterness. It was immaterial. The idea, the fact behind the idea was not changed. Here he was, and his thousand dozen, there was Dawson, the problem was unaltered. At the little salmon, being short of dog food, the dogs got into his grub, and from there to Selkirk he lived on beans, coarse brown beans, big beans, grossly nutritive, which gripped his stomach and doubled him up at two hour intervals. But the factor at Selkirk noticed on the door of the post to the effect that no steamer had been up the Yukon for two years, and in consequence grub was beyond price. He offered to swap flour, however, at the rate of a cup full of each egg. But Rasmussen shook his head and hit the trail. Below the post he managed to buy frozen horse hide for the dogs, the horses having been slain by the Chilket cattlemen, and the scraps and ruffle preserved by the Indians. He tackled the hide himself, but the hare worked into the beansores of his mouth and was beyond endurance. Here at Selkirk he met the forerunners of the hungry exodus of Dawson, and from there on they crept over the trail a dismal throng. No grub was the song they sang, no grub and had to go. Everybody holding candles for a rise in the spring. Flour, dollar and a half were found and no cellars. Eggs, one of them answered, dollar or piece, but there ain't none. Rasmussen made a rapid calculation. Twelve thousand dollars, he said aloud. Hey! the man asked. Nothing, he answered, and mushed the dogs along. When he arrived at Stewart River, seventy from Dawson, five of his dogs were gone and the remainder were falling in the traces. He also was in the traces, hauling with what little strength was left in him. Even then he was barely crawling along ten miles a day. His cheekbones and nose frostbitten again and again were turning bloody black and hideous. The thumb which was separated from the fingers by the G-pull had likewise been nipped and gave him great pain. The monstrous moccasins whose pains were beginning to rack the leg. At sixty mile the last beans which he had been rationing for some time were finished, yet he steadfastly refused to touch the eggs. He could not reconcile his mind to the legitimacy of it and staggered and fell along the way to Indian River. Here a fresh-killed moose and an open-handed old-timer gave him in his dog's new strength. Ainsley's, he felt repaid for it when a stampede right from Dawson in five hours was sure he'd get a dollar and a quarter for every egg he possessed. He came up the steep bank by the Dawson barracks with fluttering heart and shaking knees. The dogs were so weak that he was forced to rest them and waiting he leaned limply against the G-pull. A man, an imminently decorous-looking man came sauntering by in a great bear-skin coat. He glanced at Rasmussen curiously, then stopped and ran a speculative eye over the dogs and the three lash sleds. What you got, he asked. Eggs, Rasmussen answered huskily, hardly able to pitch his voice above a whisper. Eggs! Whoopee! Whoopee! He sprang up into the air, gyrated madly and finished with a half a dozen war-steps. You don't say, all of them? All of them. So you must be the egg-man. He walked around and viewed Rasmussen from the other side. Come now, ain't you the egg-man? Rasmussen didn't know, but supposed he was and the man sobered down a bit. What do you expect to get for him, he asked cautiously. Rasmussen became audacious. Dollar and a half he said. Done! the man came back promptly. Give me a dozen. I mean a dollar and a half a piece. Rasmussen hesitatingly explained. Sure, I heard you. Make it two dozen. Here's the dust. The man pulled out a healthy gold sack, the size of a small sausage, and knocked it negligently against the G-pull. Rasmussen felt a strange trembling in the pit of his stomach. A tickling of the nostrils and an almost overwhelming desire to sit down and cry. But a curious wide-eyed crowd was beginning to collect and man after man was calling out for eggs. He was without scales, but the man with the bare-skinned coat fetched a pair and obligingly weighed in the dust while Rasmussen passed out the goods. Soon there was a pushing and shoving and shouldering and a great clamor. Everybody wanted to buy and to be served first, and as the excitement grew Rasmussen cooled down. This would never do. There must be something behind the fact of their buying so eagerly. It would be wiser if he rested first and sized up the market. Perhaps eggs were worth two dollars a piece. Anyway, whenever he wished to sell he was sure of a dollar and a half. Stop! he cried when a couple of hundred had been sold. No more now, I'm played out. I've got to get a cabin and then you can come and see me. A groan went up at this, but the man with the bare-skinned coat approved. Twenty-four of the frozen eggs went rattling in his capacious pockets and he didn't care whether the rest of the town ate or not. Besides he could see Rasmussen was on his last legs. There's a cabin right around the second corner from the Monte Carlo, he told him. The one with the soda bottle window? It ain't mine, but I've got charge of it. Rents for ten a day and cheap for the money. You move right in and I'll see you later. Don't forget the soda bottle window. Tralaloo! he called back a moment later. I'm going up the hill to eat eggs and dream of home. On his way to the cabin, Rasmussen recollected he was hungry and had a few portions at the N, A, T, and T store. Also a beef steak at the butcher's shop and dried salmon for the dogs. He found the cabin without difficulty and left the dogs in the harness while he started the fire and got the coffee underway. A dollar and a half a piece! One thousand dozen! Eighteenth thousand dollars he kept muttering it to himself over and over as he went about his work. As he flopped the steak the door opened. He turned. It was the man with the bare skin coat. He seemed to come in with determination as though bound on some explicit errand. But as he looked at Rasmussen an expression of perplexity came into his face. I say I say he began then halted. Rasmussen wondered if he wanted the rent. I say, dammit, you know them eggs is bad. Rasmussen staggered. He felt as though someone had struck him in an astounding blow between the eyes. The walls of the cabin reeled and tilted up. He put his hand to steady himself and rested it on the stove. The sharp pain and the smell of the burning flesh brought him back to himself. I see he said slowly fumbling in his pocket for the sack. You want your money back? It ain't the money, the man said. But ain't you got any eggs good? Rasmussen shook his head. You'd better take the money. But the man refused and backed away. I'll come back, he said when you've taken stock and get what's coming. Rasmussen rolled the chopping block into the cabin and carried in the eggs. He went about it quite calmly. He took up the hand-axe and one by one chopped the eggs in half. These halfs he examined carefully and let fall to the floor. At first he sampled from the different cases then deliberately emptied one case at a time. The heap on the floor grew larger. The coffee boiled over and the smoke of the burning beef steak filled the cabin. He chopped steadfastly and monotonously till the last case was finished. Somebody knocked at the door. Knocked again and let himself in. What a mess he remarked as he paused and surveyed the scene. The severed eggs were beginning to thaw in the heat of the stove and a miserable odor was growing stronger. Must have happened on the steamer, he suggested. Rasmussen looked at him long and blankly. I'm Murray, Big Jim Murray, everybody knows me, the man volunteered. I'm just hearing your eggs is rotten and I'm offering you two hundred for the batch. They ain't good as salmon but still they're fair scoffins for dogs. Rasmussen seemed turned to stone. He did not move. You go to hell, he said passionlessly. Now just consider I pride myself it's a decent price for a mess like that and it's better or nothing. Two hundred, what do you say? You go to hell, Rasmussen repeated softly and get out of here. Murray gaited with a great awe then went out carefully backward with his eyes fixed on the other's face. Rasmussen followed him out and turned the dogs loose. He threw them all the salmon he had bought and coiled a sled lashing up in his hand. Then he re-entered the cabin and drew the latch in after him. The smoke from the cindered steak made his eyes smart. He stood on the bunk, passed the lashing over the ridge pole and measured the swing off with his eye. It did not seem to satisfy for he put the stool on the bunk and climbed upon the stool. He drove a noose in the end of the lashing and slipped his head through. The other end he made fast. Then he kicked the stool out from under end of the one thousand dozen. Section 6 The Marriage of Lit Lit Of the Faith of Men This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Zachary Brewstergeis The Marriage of Lit Lit by Jack London When John Fox came into a country where whiskey freezes solid and may be used as a paperweight for a large part of the year, he came without the ideals and illusions that usually hamper the progress of more delicately nurtured adventures. Born and reared on the frontier fringe of the United States, he took with him into Canada a primitive cast of mind, an elemental simplicity and grip on things as it were that ensured him immediate success in his new career. From a mere servant of the Hudson Bay Company, driving a paddle with the voyagers and carrying goods on his back across the portages, he swiftly rose to a factorship and took charge of a trading post at Fort Angeles. Here, because of his elemental simplicity, he took to himself a native wife, and, by reason of the cannubial bliss that followed, he escaped the unrest and vain longings that cursed the days of more fastidious men, spoiled their work and conquered them in the end. He lived contentedly, was at single purposes with the business he was set there to do, and achieved a brilliant record in the service of the company. About this time his wife died, was claimed by her people, and buried with savage circumstance in a tin trunk in the top of a tree. To son she had borne him, and when the company promoted him he journeyed with them still deeper into the vastness of the northwest territory to a place called Sin Rock where he took charge of a new post in a more important fur-field. Here he spent several lonely and depressing months eminently disgusted with the unpre-presessing appearance of the Indian maidens and greatly worried by his growing sons who stood in need of a mother's care. Then his eyes chanced upon Lit Lit. Lit Lit, well, she is Lit Lit, was the fashion in which he despairingly described her to his chief clerk, Alexander McLean. McLean was too fresh from his Scottish upbringing, not dry behind the ears yet, John Fox put it, to take to the marriage customs of the country. Nevertheless he was not averse to the factors imperiling his own immortal soul, and especially feeling an ominous attraction himself for Lit Lit, he was somberly content to clinch his own soul's safety by seeing her married to the factor. Nor is it to be wondered that McLean's austere Scotch soul stood in danger of being thought in the sunshine of Lit Lit's eyes. She was pretty and slender and willowy, without the massive face and temperamental stilidity of the average squaw. Lit Lit, so called from her fashion even as a child of being fluttery, of darting about from place to place like a butterfly, of being inconsequent and merry and of laughing as lightly as she darted and danced about. Lit Lit was the daughter of Snettishane, a prominent chief in the tribe by a half-breed mother, and to him the factor fared casually one summer day to open negotiations of marriage. He sat with the chief in the smoke of a mosquito smudge before his lodge, and together they talked about everything under the sun, or at least everything that in the Northland is under the sun, with the sole exception of marriage. John Fox had come particularly to talk of marriage. Snettishane knew it, and John Fox knew he knew it, and the subject was religiously avoided. This is alleged to be Indian subtlety. In reality it is transparent simplicity. The hours slipped by and Fox and Snettishane smoked interminable pipes, looking each other in the eyes with the guilelessness superbly histrionic. In the mid-afternoon, McLean and his brother Clerk McTavish strolled past innocently uninterested on their way to the river. When they strolled back again an hour later, Snettishane had attained to a ceremonious discussion of the condition and quality of the gunpowder and bacon which the company was offering in trade. Meanwhile Lytlit, divining the factors errand, had crept in under the rear wall of the lodge, and through the front flap was peeping out at the two logomachists by the mosquito smudge. She was flushed and happy-eyed, proud that no less a man than the factor, who stood next to God in the Northland hierarchy, had singled her out, femininely curious to see at close range what manner of man he was. Sunglare on the ice, camp smoke and weather-beat had burned his face to a copper-brown so that her father was as fair as he while she was fairer. She was remotely glad of this and more immediately glad that he was large and strong, though his great black beard half frightened her it was so strange. Being very young, she was unversed in the ways of men. Seventeen times she had seen the sun travel south and lose itself beyond the skyline, and seventeen times she had seen it travel back again and ride the sky day and night till there was no night at all. And through these years she had been cherished jealously by Snetoshane, who stood between her and all suitors, listening disdainfully to the young hunters as they bid for her hand and turning them away as though she were beyond price. Snetoshane was mercenary. Lit Lit was to him an investment. She represented so much capital from which he expected to receive not a certain definite interest but an incalculable interest. And having thus been reared in a manner as near to that of the nunnery as tribal conditions would permit it was with a great and maidenly anxiety that she peeped out at the man who had surely come for her at the husband who was to teach her all that was yet unlearned of life at the masterful being whose word was to be her law and who was to meet and bound her actions and comportment for the rest of her days. But peeping through the front flap of the lodge flushed and thrilling at the strange destiny reaching out for her she grew disappointed as the day wore along and the factor and her father still talked pompously of matters concerning other things and not pertaining to marriage things at all. As the sun sank lower and lower towards the north and midnight approached the factor began making unmistakable preparations for departure. As he turned to stride away Lit Lit's heart sank but it rose again as he halted half turning on one heel. Oh, by the way, Snetoshane, he said, I want a squaw to wash for me and mend my clothes. Snetoshane grunted and suggested Wannadani who was an old woman and toothless. No, no, interposed the factor. What I want as a wife I've been kind of thinking about it and the thought just struck me that you might know of someone that would suit. Snetoshane looked interested whereupon the factor retraced his steps casually and carelessly to linger and discuss this new and incidental topic. Ketu suggested Snetoshane she has but one eye objected the factor. Lasker, her knees can be wide apart when she stands upright Kips, your biggest dog can leap between her knees when she stands upright. Sanity went on the imperturbable Snetoshane. But John Fox feigned anger crying What foolishness is this? Am I old that thou shouldst make me with old women? Am I toothless, lame of leg, blind of eye? Or am I poor that no bright-eyed maiden may look with favor upon me? Behold, I am the factor both rich and great, a power in the land whose speech makes men tremble and is obeyed. Snetoshane was inwardly pleased though his sphinx-like visage never relaxed. He was drawing the factor and making him break ground. Being a creature so elemental as to have room for but one idea at a time, Snetoshane could pursue that one idea a greater distance than could John Fox. For John Fox, elemental as he was, was still complex enough to entertain several glimmering ideas at a time which debarred him from pursuing the one as single-heartedly or as far as did the chief. Snetoshane calmly continued calling the roster of eligible maidens which, name by name as fast as uttered, were stamped ineligible by John Fox with specified objections appended. Again he gave it up and started to return to the fort. Snetoshane watched him go, making no effort to stop him, seeing him in the end stop himself. Come to think of it, the factor remarked, we both of us forgot Lytlit. Now I wonder if she'll suit me. Snetoshane met the suggestion with a mirthless face behind the mask of which his soul grinned wide. It was a distinct victory. Had the factor gone but one step farther perforce Snetoshane would himself have mentioned the name of Lytlit the factor had not gone that one step farther. The chief was non-committal concerning Lytlit's suitability till he drove the white man into taking the next step in order of procedure. Well, the factor meditated aloud, the only way to find out is to make a try of it. He raised his voice so I will give for Lytlit ten blankets and three pounds of tobacco which is good tobacco. Snetoshane replied with a gesture which seemed to say that all the blankets and tobacco in all the world could not compensate him for the loss of Lytlit and her manifold virtues. When pressed by the factor to set a price, he coolly placed it at five hundred blankets, ten guns, fifty pounds of tobacco, twenty scarlet cloths, ten bottles of rum, a music box, and lastly the goodwill and best offices of the factor with a place by his fire. The factor apparently suffered a stroke of apoplexy, which stroke was successful in reducing the blankets to two hundred and in cutting out the place by the fire, an unheard of condition in the marriages of white men with the daughters of the soil. In the end, after three hours more of chaffering they came to an agreement. For Lytlit Snetoshane was to receive one hundred blankets, five pounds of tobacco, three guns, and a bottle of rum, goodwill and best offices included, which according to John Fox was ten blankets and a gun more than she was worth. And as he went home through the wee small hours, the three o'clock sun blazing in the dew northeast, he was unpleasantly aware that Snetoshane had bested him over the bargain. Snetoshane, tired and victorious, sought his bed and discovered Lytlit before she could escape from the lodge. He grunted knowingly, Thou hast seen, thou hast heard, wherefore it be plain to thee thy father's very great wisdom and understanding. I have made for thee a great match. Eat my words and walk in the way of my words. Go when I say go, come when I bid thee come, and we shall grow fat with the wealth of this big white man who is a fool according to his bigness. The next day no trading was done at the store. The factor opened whiskey before breakfast to the delight of McClane and McTavish, gave his dogs double rations and wore his best moccasins. Outside the fort preparations were a potlatch. Potlatch means a giving, and John Fox's intention was to signalize his marriage with Lytlit by a potlatch as generous as she was good-looking. In the afternoon the whole tribe gathered to the feast, men, women, children and dogs gorged to repletion, nor was there one person, even among the chance visitors and stray hunters from other tribes who failed to receive some token of the bridegroom's largesse. Lytlit, tearfully shy and frightened, was bedecked by her bearded husband with a new calico dress, splendidly beaded moccasins, a gorgeous silk handkerchief over her raven hair, a purple scarf about her throat, brass ear-rings and finger-rings, and a whole pint of pinch-beck jewelry, including a water-burry watch. Snitcheshane could scarce contain himself at the spectacle, but watching his chance drew her aside from the feast. Not this night, nor the next night, he began ponderously, but in the nights to come when I shall call like a raven by the river-bank, it is for thee to rise up from thy big husband who is a fool and come to me. Nay, nay, he went on hastily at sight of the dismay in her face at turning her back upon her wonderful new life. For no sooner shall this happen than thy big husband who is a fool will come wailing to my lodge. Then it is for thee to wail likewise, claiming that this thing is not well and that the other thing thou dost not like, and that to be the wife of the factor is more than thou dost bargain for, only wilt thou be content with more blankets and more tobacco and more wealth of various sorts for thy poor old father's snitcheshane. Remember well when I call in the night like a raven from the river-bank. Lit lit nodded, for to disobey her father was apparel she knew well, and furthermore it was a little thing he asked, a short separation from the factor who would know only greater gladness at having her back. She returned to the feast and, midnight being well at hand, the factor sought her out and led her away to the fort amid joking and outcry in which the squaws were especially conspicuous. Lit lit quickly found that married life with the headman of a fort was even better than she had dreamed. No longer did she have to fetch wood and water upon cantankerous menfolk. For the first time in her life she could lie a bed till breakfast was on the table. And what a bed! Clean and soft and comfortable as no bed she had ever known! And such food! Flour cooked into biscuits, hot cakes and bread, three times a day and every day, and all one wanted. Such prodigality was hardly believable. To add to her contentment the factor was cunningly kind. He had buried one wife, and he knew how to drive a black rain that went firm only on occasion and then went very firm. Lit lit is boss of this place. He announced significantly at the table the morning after the wedding what she says goes, understand? And McClain and McTavish understood. Also they knew that the factor had a heavy hand. But Lit lit did not take advantage. Taking a leaf from the book of her husband she had once assumed charge of his own growing sons, giving them added comforts and a measure of freedom like to that which he gave her. The two sons were loud in the praise of their new mother. McClain and McTavish lifted their voices and the factor bragged of the joys of matrimony till the story of her good behavior and her husband's satisfaction became the property of all the dwellers in the Sinrock District. Whereupon Snetoshane with visions of his incalculable interest keeping him awake of nights thought it time to besture himself. On the tenth night of her wedded life Lit lit was awakened by the croaking of a raven and she knew that Snetoshane was waiting for her by the river bank. In her great happiness she had forgotten her pact and now it came back to her with behind it all the childish terror of her father. For a time she lay in fear and trembling loath to go afraid to stay. But in the end the factor won the silent victory and his kindness, plus his great muscles and square jaw, nerved her to disregard Snetoshane's small. But in the morning she arose very much afraid and went about her duties in momentary fear of her father's coming. As the day wore along however she began to recover her spirits. John Fox, soundly berating McLean and McTavish for some petty dereliction of duty, helped her to pluck up courage. She tried not to let him go out of her sight and when she followed him into the huge cash and saw him twirling and tossing around as though they were feather-pillows she felt strengthened in her disobedience to her father. Also it was her first visit to the warehouse and Sin Rock was the chief distributing point to several chains of lesser posts. She was astounded at the endlessness of the wealth there stored away. This sight and the picture in her mind's eye of the bear lords of Snetoshane put all doubts at rest. Yet she capped her conviction by a brief word with one of her step-sons. White Daddy Good was what she asked and the boy answered that his father was the best man he had ever known. That night the raven croaked again. On the night following the croaking was more persistent. It awoke the factor who tossed restlessly for a while. Then he said aloud damn that raven and Lit Lit laughed quietly under the blankets. In the morning, bright and early, Snetoshane put in an ominous appearance and was set to breakfast in the kitchen with wanadani. He refused squaw food and a little later bearded his son-in-law in the store where the trading was done. Having learned, he said, that his daughter was such a jewel he had come for more blankets, more tobacco, and more guns, especially more guns. He had certainly been cheated in her price, he held, and he had come for justice. But the factor had neither blankets whereupon he was informed that Snetoshane had seen the missionary at Three Forks who had notified him that such marriages were not made in heaven and that it was his father's duty to demand his daughter back. I am good Christian man now, Snetoshane concluded. I want my Lit Lit to go to heaven. The factor's reply was short and to the point, for he directed his father-in-law to go to the heavenly antipodes where the scruff of the neck and the slack of the blanket propelled him on that trail as far as the door. But Snetoshane sneaked around and in by the kitchen, cornering Lit Lit in the great living-room of the fort. May have thou did sleep over sound last night when I called by the river-bank? He began, glowering darkly. Nay, I was awakened heard. Her heart was beating as though it would choke her, but she went on steadily. Night before I was awakened heard and yet again the night before. And there at, out of her great happiness and out of the fear that it might be taken from her, she launched into an original and glowing address upon the status and rights of woman, the first new woman lecture delivered north of fifty-three. But it fell on unheeding ears. Snetoshane was still in the dark ages. As she paused for breath, he said threateningly, tonight I shall call again like the raven. At this moment the factor entered the room and again helped Snetoshane on his way to the heavenly Antibodies. That night the raven croaked more persistently than ever. Lit Lit, who was a light sleeper, heard and smiled. John Fox tossed restlessly. Then he awoke and tossed about with greater restlessness. He grumbled and snorted, swore under his breath and over his breath, and finally flung out of bed. He groped his way to the great living-room, and from the rack took down a loaded shotgun, loaded with bird-shot, left therein by the careless MacTavish. The factor crept carefully out of the fort and down to the river. The croaking had ceased, but he stretched out in the long grass and waited. The air seemed a chilly balm, and the earth, after the heat of the day, now and again breathed soothingly against him. The factor, gathered into the rhythm of it all, dozed off, with his head upon his arm, and slept. Fifty yards away, head resting on knees, and with his back to John Fox, snet a shame likewise slept, gently conquered by the quietude of the night. An hour slipped by, and then he awoke, and without lifting his head, set the night vibrating with the horse-gutterls of the raven-call. The factor roused, not with the abrupt start of civilized man, but with the swift and comprehensive glide from sleep to waking of the savage. In the nightlight he made out a dark object in the midst of the grass and brought his gun to bear upon it. A second croak began to rise, and he pulled the trigger. The cricket ceased from their singsong chant, the wild fowl from their squabbling, and the raven croak broke midmost and died away in gasping silence. John Fox ran to the spot and reached for the thing he had killed, but his fingers closed on a coarse mop of hair, and he turned snet a shame's face upward to the starlight. He knew how a shotgun scattered at fifty yards, and he knew that he had peppered snet a shame across the shoulders and in the small of the back, and snet a shame knew that he knew, but neither referred to it. What dost thou here? the factor demanded. It were time old bone should be in bed. But snet a shame was stately in spite of the bird-shot burning under his skin. Old bones will not sleep, he said solemnly. I weep for my daughter, for my daughter Lit Lit, who liveth and who yet is dead, and who goeth without doubt to the white man's hell. Weep henceforth on the far bank beyond earshot of the fort, said John Fox, turning on his heel, for the noise of thy weeping is exceeding great, and sleep of nights. My heart is sore, snet a shame answered, and my days and nights be black with sorrow. As the raven is black, said John Fox, as the raven is black, snet a shame said. Never again was the voice of the raven heard by the river bank. Lit Lit grows maternly day by day and is very happy. Also there are sisters to the sons of John Fox's first wife buried in a tree. Old snet a shame is no longer a visitor at the fort and spends long hours raising a thin aged voice against the filial ingratitude of children in general and of his daughter Lit Lit in particular. His declining years are embittered by the knowledge that he was cheated and even John Fox has withdrawn the assertion that the price for Lit Lit was too much by ten blankets and a gun. End of The Marriage of Lit Lit Recording by Zachary Brewstergeis Greenbelt Maryland July 2007