The Son of the Wolf Read online

  The Son of the Wolf

  Jack London

  1900

  Contains

  The White Silence The Son of the Wolf The Men of Forty Mile In a Far Country To the Man on the Trail The Priestly Prerogative The Wisdom of the Trail The Wife of a King An Odyssey of the North

  The White Silence

  'Carmen won't last more than a couple of days.' Mason spat out a chunkof ice and surveyed the poor animal ruefully, then put her foot in hismouth and proceeded to bite out the ice which clustered cruelly betweenthe toes.

  'I never saw a dog with a highfalutin' name that ever was worth a rap,'he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside. 'They just fadeaway and die under the responsibility. Did ye ever see one go wrongwith a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash, or Husky? No, sir! Take alook at Shookum here, he's--' Snap! The lean brute flashed up, thewhite teeth just missing Mason's throat.

  'Ye will, will ye?' A shrewd clout behind the ear with the butt of thedog whip stretched the animal in the snow, quivering softly, a yellowslaver dripping from its fangs.

  'As I was saying, just look at Shookum here--he's got the spirit. Betye he eats Carmen before the week's out.' 'I'll bank anotherproposition against that,' replied Malemute Kid, reversing the frozenbread placed before the fire to thaw. 'We'll eat Shookum before thetrip is over. What d'ye say, Ruth?' The Indian woman settled the coffeewith a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kid to her husband, then atthe dogs, but vouchsafed no reply. It was such a palpable truism thatnone was necessary. Two hundred miles of unbroken trail in prospect,with a scant six days' grub for themselves and none for the dogs, couldadmit no other alternative. The two men and the woman grouped about thefire and began their meager meal. The dogs lay in their harnesses forit was a midday halt, and watched each mouthful enviously.

  'No more lunches after today,' said Malemute Kid. 'And we've got tokeep a close eye on the dogs--they're getting vicious. They'd just assoon pull a fellow down as not, if they get a chance.' 'And I waspresident of an Epworth once, and taught in the Sunday school.' Havingirrelevantly delivered himself of this, Mason fell into a dreamycontemplation of his steaming moccasins, but was aroused by Ruthfilling his cup.

  'Thank God, we've got slathers of tea! I've seen it growing, down inTennessee. What wouldn't I give for a hot corn pone just now! Nevermind, Ruth; you won't starve much longer, nor wear moccasins either.'The woman threw off her gloom at this, and in her eyes welled up agreat love for her white lord--the first white man she had everseen--the first man whom she had known to treat a woman as somethingbetter than a mere animal or beast of burden.

  'Yes, Ruth,' continued her husband, having recourse to the macaronicjargon in which it was alone possible for them to understand eachother; 'wait till we clean up and pull for the Outside. We'll take theWhite Man's canoe and go to the Salt Water. Yes, bad water, roughwater--great mountains dance up and down all the time. And so big, sofar, so far away--you travel ten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep'--hegraphically enumerated the days on his fingers--'all the time water,bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the samemosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high--ten, twenty pines.

  'Hi-yu skookum!' He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance atMalemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end, bysign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but Ruth'seyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half believed hewas joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman's heart.

  'And then you step into a--a box, and pouf! up you go.' He tossed hisempty cup in the air by way of illustration and, as he deftly caughtit, cried: 'And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine men! You goFort Yukon. I go Arctic City--twenty-five sleep--big string, all thetime--I catch him string--I say, "Hello, Ruth! How are ye?"--and yousay, "Is that my good husband?"--and I say, "Yes"--and you say, "No canbake good bread, no more soda"--then I say, "Look in cache, underflour; good-by." You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you FortYukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine man!' Ruth smiled so ingenuouslyat the fairy story that both men burst into laughter. A row among thedogs cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarlingcombatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was readyfor the trail.--'Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!' Mason worked his whipsmartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sledwith the gee pole. Ruth followed with the second team, leaving MalemuteKid, who had helped her start, to bring up the rear. Strong man, brutethat he was, capable of felling an ox at a blow, he could not bear tobeat the poor animals, but humored them as a dog driver rarelydoes--nay, almost wept with them in their misery.

  'Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!' he murmured, afterseveral ineffectual attempts to start the load. But his patience was atlast rewarded, and though whimpering with pain, they hastened to jointheir fellows.

  No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit suchextravagance.

  And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is the worst.Happy is the man who can weather a day's travel at the price ofsilence, and that on a beaten track. And of all heartbreaking labors,that of breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbedshoe sinks till the snow is level with the knee. Then up, straight up,the deviation of a fraction of an inch being a certain precursor ofdisaster, the snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is cleared; thenforward, down, and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for thematter of half a yard. He who tries this for the first time, if haplyhe avoids bringing his shoes in dangerous propinquity and measures nothis length on the treacherous footing, will give up exhausted at theend of a hundred yards; he who can keep out of the way of the dogs fora whole day may well crawl into his sleeping bag with a clearconscience and a pride which passeth all understanding; and he whotravels twenty sleeps on the Long Trail is a man whom the gods may envy.

  The afternoon wore on, and with the awe, born of the White Silence, thevoiceless travelers bent to their work. Nature has many trickswherewith she convinces man of his finity--the ceaseless flow of thetides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the longroll of heaven's artillery--but the most tremendous, the moststupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. Allmovement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; theslightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted atthe sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across theghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizesthat his is a maggot's life, nothing more.

  Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all thingsstrives for utterance.

  And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him--thehope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for immortality,the vain striving of the imprisoned essence--it is then, if ever, manwalks alone with God.

  So wore the day away. The river took a great bend, and Mason headed histeam for the cutoff across the narrow neck of land. But the dogs balkedat the high bank. Again and again, though Ruth and Malemute Kid wereshoving on the sled, they slipped back. Then came the concerted effort.The miserable creatures, weak from hunger, exerted their last strength.Up--up--the sled poised on the top of the bank; but the leader swungthe string of dogs behind him to the right, fouling Mason's snowshoes.The result was grievous.

  Mason was whipped off his feet; one of the dogs fell in the traces; andthe sled toppled back, dragging everything to the bottom again.

  Slash! the whip fell among the dogs savagely, especially upon the onewhich had fallen.

  'Don't,--Mason,' entreated Malemute Kid; 'the poor devil's on its lastlegs. Wait and we'll put my team on.' Mason deliberately withheld thewhip till the last word had fallen, then out flashed the long lash,complete
ly curling about the offending creature's body.

  Carmen--for it was Carmen--cowered in the snow, cried piteously, thenrolled over on her side.

  It was a tragic moment, a pitiful incident of the trail--a dying dog,two comrades in anger.

  Ruth glanced solicitously from man to man. But Malemute Kid restrainedhimself, though there was a world of reproach in his eyes, and, bendingover the dog, cut the traces. No word was spoken. The teams weredoublespanned and the difficulty overcome; the sleds were under wayagain, the dying dog dragging herself along in the rear. As long as ananimal can travel, it is not shot, and this last chance is accordedit--the crawling into camp, if it can, in the hope of a moose beingkilled.

  Already penitent for his angry action, but too stubborn to make amends,Mason toiled on at the head of the cavalcade, little dreaming thatdanger hovered in the air. The timber clustered thick in the shelteredbottom, and through this they threaded their way. Fifty feet or morefrom the trail towered a lofty pine. For generations it had stoodthere, and for generations destiny had had this one end inview--perhaps the same had been decreed of Mason.

  He stooped to fasten the loosened thong of his moccasin. The sleds cameto a halt, and the dogs lay down in the snow without a whimper. Thestillness was weird; not a breath rustled the frost-encrusted forest;the cold and silence of outer space had chilled the heart and smote thetrembling lips of nature. A sigh pulsed through the air--they did notseem to actually hear it, but rather felt it, like the premonition ofmovement in a motionless void. Then the great tree, burdened with itsweight of years and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life.He heard the warning crash and attempted to spring up but, almosterect, caught the blow squarely on the shoulder.

  The sudden danger, the quick death--how often had Malemute Kid facedit! The pine needles were still quivering as he gave his commands andsprang into action. Nor did the Indian girl faint or raise her voice inidle wailing, as might many of her white sisters. At his order, shethrew her weight on the end of a quickly extemporized handspike, easingthe pressure and listening to her husband's groans, while Malemute Kidattacked the tree with his ax. The steel rang merrily as it bit intothe frozen trunk, each stroke being accompanied by a forced, audiblerespiration, the 'Huh!' 'Huh!' of the woodsman.

  At last the Kid laid the pitiable thing that was once a man in thesnow. But worse than his comrade's pain was the dumb anguish in thewoman's face, the blended look of hopeful, hopeless query. Little wassaid; those of the Northland are early taught the futility of words andthe inestimable value of deeds. With the temperature at sixty-fivebelow zero, a man cannot lie many minutes in the snow and live. So thesled lashings were cut, and the sufferer, rolled in furs, laid on acouch of boughs. Before him roared a fire, built of the very wood whichwrought the mishap. Behind and partially over him was stretched theprimitive fly--a piece of canvas, which caught the radiating heat andthrew it back and down upon him--a trick which men may know who studyphysics at the fount.

  And men who have shared their bed with death know when the call issounded. Mason was terribly crushed. The most cursory examinationrevealed it.

  His right arm, leg, and back were broken; his limbs were paralyzed fromthe hips; and the likelihood of internal injuries was large. Anoccasional moan was his only sign of life.

  No hope; nothing to be done. The pitiless night crept slowly by--Ruth'sportion, the despairing stoicism of her race, and Malemute Kid addingnew lines to his face of bronze.

  In fact, Mason suffered least of all, for he spent his time in easternTennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains, living over the scenes of hischildhood. And most pathetic was the melody of his long-forgottenSouthern vernacular, as he raved of swimming holes and coon hunts andwatermelon raids. It was as Greek to Ruth, but the Kid understood andfelt--felt as only one can feel who has been shut out for years fromall that civilization means.

  Morning brought consciousness to the stricken man, and Malemute Kidbent closer to catch his whispers.

  'You remember when we foregathered on the Tanana, four years come nextice run? I didn't care so much for her then. It was more like she waspretty, and there was a smack of excitement about it, I think. But d'yeknow, I've come to think a heap of her. She's been a good wife to me,always at my shoulder in the pinch. And when it comes to trading, youknow there isn't her equal. D'ye recollect the time she shot theMoosehorn Rapids to pull you and me off that rock, the bullets whippingthe water like hailstones?--and the time of the famine atNuklukyeto?--when she raced the ice run to bring the news?

  'Yes, she's been a good wife to me, better'n that other one. Didn'tknow I'd been there?

  'Never told you, eh? Well, I tried it once, down in the States. That'swhy I'm here. Been raised together, too. I came away to give her achance for divorce. She got it.

  'But that's got nothing to do with Ruth. I had thought of cleaning upand pulling for the Outside next year--her and I--but it's too late.Don't send her back to her people, Kid. It's beastly hard for a womanto go back. Think of it!--nearly four years on our bacon and beans andflour and dried fruit, and then to go back to her fish and caribou.It's not good for her to have tried our ways, to come to know they'rebetter'n her people's, and then return to them. Take care of her, Kid,why don't you--but no, you always fought shy of them--and you nevertold me why you came to this country. Be kind to her, and send her backto the States as soon as you can. But fix it so she can comeback--liable to get homesick, you know.

  'And the youngster--it's drawn us closer, Kid. I only hope it is a boy.Think of it!--flesh of my flesh, Kid. He mustn't stop in this country.And if it's a girl, why, she can't. Sell my furs; they'll fetch atleast five thousand, and I've got as much more with the company. Andhandle my interests with yours. I think that bench claim will show up.See that he gets a good schooling; and Kid, above all, don't let himcome back. This country was not made for white men.

  'I'm a gone man, Kid. Three or four sleeps at the best. You've got togo on. You must go on! Remember, it's my wife, it's my boy--O God! Ihope it's a boy! You can't stay by me--and I charge you, a dying man,to pull on.'

  'Give me three days,' pleaded Malemute Kid. 'You may change for thebetter; something may turn up.'

  'No.'

  'Just three days.'

  'You must pull on.'

  'Two days.'

  'It's my wife and my boy, Kid. You would not ask it.'

  'One day.'

  'No, no! I charge--'

  'Only one day. We can shave it through on the grub, and I might knockover a moose.'

  'No--all right; one day, but not a minute more. And, Kid, don't--don'tleave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on the trigger. Youunderstand. Think of it! Think of it! Flesh of my flesh, and I'll neverlive to see him!

  'Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by and tell her that she must thinkof the boy and not wait till I'm dead. She might refuse to go with youif I didn't. Goodby, old man; good-by.

  'Kid! I say--a--sink a hole above the pup, next to the slide. I pannedout forty cents on my shovel there.

  'And, Kid!' He stooped lower to catch the last faint words, the dyingman's surrender of his pride. 'I'm sorry--for--you know--Carmen.'Leaving the girl crying softly over her man, Malemute Kid slipped intohis parka and snowshoes, tucked his rifle under his arm, and crept awayinto the forest. He was no tyro in the stern sorrows of the Northland,but never had he faced so stiff a problem as this. In the abstract, itwas a plain, mathematical proposition--three possible lives as againstone doomed one. But now he hesitated. For five years, shoulder toshoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and mines, facingdeath by field and flood and famine, had they knitted the bonds oftheir comradeship. So close was the tie that he had often beenconscious of a vague jealousy of Ruth, from the first time she had comebetween. And now it must be severed by his own hand.

  Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose, all game seemed to havedeserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling intocamp, lighthanded, heavyhearted. An uproar
from the dogs and shrillcries from Ruth hastened him.

  Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in the midst of the snarlingpack, laying about her with an ax. The dogs had broken the iron rule oftheir masters and were rushing the grub.

  He joined the issue with his rifle reversed, and the hoary game ofnatural selection was played out with all the ruthlessness of itsprimeval environment. Rifle and ax went up and down, hit or missed withmonotonous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, with wild eyes anddripping fangs; and man and beast fought for supremacy to the bitterestconclusion. Then the beaten brutes crept to the edge of the firelight,licking their wounds, voicing their misery to the stars.

  The whole stock of dried salmon had been devoured, and perhaps fivepounds of flour remained to tide them over two hundred miles ofwilderness. Ruth returned to her husband, while Malemute Kid cut up thewarm body of one of the dogs, the skull of which had been crushed bythe ax. Every portion was carefully put away, save the hide and offal,which were cast to his fellows of the moment before.

  Morning brought fresh trouble. The animals were turning on each other.Carmen, who still clung to her slender thread of life, was downed bythe pack. The lash fell among them unheeded. They cringed and criedunder the blows, but refused to scatter till the last wretched bit haddisappeared--bones, hide, hair, everything.

  Malemute Kid went about his work, listening to Mason, who was back inTennessee, delivering tangled discourses and wild exhortations to hisbrethren of other days.

  Taking advantage of neighboring pines, he worked rapidly, and Ruthwatched him make a cache similar to those sometimes used by hunters topreserve their meat from the wolverines and dogs. One after the other,he bent the tops of two small pines toward each other and nearly to theground, making them fast with thongs of moosehide. Then he beat thedogs into submission and harnessed them to two of the sleds, loadingthe same with everything but the furs which enveloped Mason. These hewrapped and lashed tightly about him, fastening either end of the robesto the bent pines. A single stroke of his hunting knife would releasethem and send the body high in the air.

  Ruth had received her husband's last wishes and made no struggle. Poorgirl, she had learned the lesson of obedience well. From a child, shehad bowed, and seen all women bow, to the lords of creation, and it didnot seem in the nature of things for woman to resist. The Kid permittedher one outburst of grief, as she kissed her husband--her own peoplehad no such custom--then led her to the foremost sled and helped herinto her snowshoes. Blindly, instinctively, she took the gee pole andwhip, and 'mushed' the dogs out on the trail. Then he returned toMason, who had fallen into a coma, and long after she was out of sightcrouched by the fire, waiting, hoping, praying for his comrade to die.

  It is not pleasant to be alone with painful thoughts in the WhiteSilence. The silence of gloom is merciful, shrouding one as withprotection and breathing a thousand intangible sympathies; but thebright White Silence, clear and cold, under steely skies, is pitiless.

  An hour passed--two hours--but the man would not die. At high noon thesun, without raising its rim above the southern horizon, threw asuggestion of fire athwart the heavens, then quickly drew it back.Malemute Kid roused and dragged himself to his comrade's side. He castone glance about him. The White Silence seemed to sneer, and a greatfear came upon him. There was a sharp report; Mason swung into hisaerial sepulcher, and Malemute Kid lashed the dogs into a wild gallopas he fled across the snow.