A Daughter of the Snows

  E-text prepared by Al Haines

  A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS

  by

  JACK LONDON

  Author of _The Son of The Wolf_, _The Call of the Wild_,_The People of the Abyss_, etc.

  With Illustrations by Frederick C. Yohn

  Grosset & DunlapPublishers--New York

  1902

  CHAPTER I

  "All ready, Miss Welse, though I'm sorry we can't spare one of thesteamer's boats."

  Frona Welse arose with alacrity and came to the first officer's side.

  "We're so busy," he explained, "and gold-rushers are such perishablefreight, at least--"

  "I understand," she interrupted, "and I, too, am behaving as though Iwere perishable. And I am sorry for the trouble I am giving you,but--but--" She turned quickly and pointed to the shore. "Do yousee that big log-house? Between the clump of pines and the river? Iwas born there."

  "Guess I'd be in a hurry myself," he muttered, sympathetically, as hepiloted her along the crowded deck.

  Everybody was in everybody else's way; nor was there one who failed toproclaim it at the top of his lungs. A thousand gold-seekers wereclamoring for the immediate landing of their outfits. Each hatchwaygaped wide open, and from the lower depths the shrieking donkey-engineswere hurrying the misassorted outfits skyward. On either side of thesteamer, rows of scows received the flying cargo, and on each of thesescows a sweating mob of men charged the descending slings and heavedbales and boxes about in frantic search. Men waved shipping receiptsand shouted over the steamer-rails to them. Sometimes two and threeidentified the same article, and war arose. The "two-circle" and the"circle-and-dot" brands caused endless jangling, while every whipsawdiscovered a dozen claimants.

  "The purser insists that he is going mad," the first officer said, ashe helped Frona Welse down the gangway to the landing stage, "and thefreight clerks have turned the cargo over to the passengers and quitwork. But we're not so unlucky as the Star of Bethlehem," he reassuredher, pointing to a steamship at anchor a quarter of a mile away. "Halfof her passengers have pack-horses for Skaguay and White Pass, and theother half are bound over the Chilcoot. So they've mutinied andeverything's at a standstill."

  "Hey, you!" he cried, beckoning to a Whitehall which hovered discreetlyon the outer rim of the floating confusion.

  A tiny launch, pulling heroically at a huge tow-barge, attempted topass between; but the boatman shot nervily across her bow, and just ashe was clear, unfortunately, caught a crab. This slewed the boataround and brought it to a stop.

  "Watch out!" the first officer shouted.

  A pair of seventy-foot canoes, loaded with outfits, gold-rushers, andIndians, and under full sail, drove down from the counter direction.One of them veered sharply towards the landing stage, but the otherpinched the Whitehall against the barge. The boatman had unshipped hisoars in time, but his small craft groaned under the pressure andthreatened to collapse. Whereat he came to his feet, and in short,nervous phrases consigned all canoe-men and launch-captains to eternalperdition. A man on the barge leaned over from above and baptized himwith crisp and crackling oaths, while the whites and Indians in thecanoe laughed derisively.

  "Aw, g'wan!" one of them shouted. "Why don't yeh learn to row?"

  The boatman's fist landed on the point of his critic's jaw and droppedhim stunned upon the heaped merchandise. Not content with this summaryact he proceeded to follow his fist into the other craft. The minernearest him tugged vigorously at a revolver which had jammed in itsshiny leather holster, while his brother argonauts, laughing, waitedthe outcome. But the canoe was under way again, and the Indianhelmsman drove the point of his paddle into the boatman's chest andhurled him backward into the bottom of the Whitehall.

  When the flood of oaths and blasphemy was at full tide, and violentassault and quick death seemed most imminent, the first officer hadstolen a glance at the girl by his side. He had expected to find ashocked and frightened maiden countenance, and was not at all preparedfor the flushed and deeply interested face which met his eyes.

  "I am sorry," he began.

  But she broke in, as though annoyed by the interruption, "No, no; notat all. I am enjoying it every bit. Though I am glad that man'srevolver stuck. If it had not--"

  "We might have been delayed in getting ashore." The first officerlaughed, and therein displayed his tact.

  "That man is a robber," he went on, indicating the boatman, who had nowshoved his oars into the water and was pulling alongside. "He agreedto charge only twenty dollars for putting you ashore. Said he'd havemade it twenty-five had it been a man. He's a pirate, mark me, and hewill surely hang some day. Twenty dollars for a half-hour's work!Think of it!"

  "Easy, sport! Easy!" cautioned the fellow in question, at the sametime making an awkward landing and dropping one of his oars over-side."You've no call to be flingin' names about," he added, defiantly,wringing out his shirt-sleeve, wet from rescue of the oar.

  "You've got good ears, my man," began the first officer.

  "And a quick fist," the other snapped in.

  "And a ready tongue."

  "Need it in my business. No gettin' 'long without it among yousea-sharks. Pirate, am I? And you with a thousand passengers packedlike sardines! Charge 'em double first-class passage, feed 'emsteerage grub, and bunk 'em worse 'n pigs! Pirate, eh! Me?"

  A red-faced man thrust his head over the rail above and began to bellowlustily.

  "I want my stock landed! Come up here, Mr. Thurston! Now! Rightaway! Fifty cayuses of | mine eating their heads off in this dirtykennel of yours, and it'll be a sick time you'll have if you don'thustle them ashore as fast as God'll let you! I'm losing a thousanddollars a day, and I won't stand it! Do you hear? I won't stand it!You've robbed me right and left from the time you cleared dock inSeattle, and by the hinges of hell I won't stand it any more! I'llbreak this company as sure as my name's Thad Ferguson! D'ye hear myspiel? I'm Thad Ferguson, and you can't come and see me any too quickfor your health! D'ye hear?"

  "Pirate; eh?" the boatman soliloquized. "Who? Me?"

  Mr. Thurston waved his hand appeasingly at the red-faced man, andturned to the girl. "I'd like to go ashore with you, and as far as thestore, but you see how busy we are. Good-by, and a lucky trip to you.I'll tell off a couple of men at once and break out your baggage. Haveit up at the store to-morrow morning, sharp."

  She took his hand lightly and stepped aboard. Her weight gave theleaky boat a sudden lurch, and the water hurtled across the bottomboards to her shoe-tops: but she took it coolly enough, settlingherself in the stern-sheets and tucking her feet under her.

  "Hold on!" the officer cried. "This will never do, Miss Welse. Comeon back, and I'll get one of our boats over as soon as I can."

  "I'll see you in--in heaven first," retorted the boatman, shoving off."Let go!" he threatened.

  Mr. Thurston gripped tight hold of the gunwale, and as reward for hischivalry had his knuckles rapped sharply by the oar-blade. Then heforgot himself, and Miss Welse also, and swore, and swore fervently.

  "I dare say our farewell might have been more dignified," she calledback to him, her laughter rippling across the water.

  "Jove!" he muttered, doffing his cap gallantly. "There is a _woman_!"And a sudden hunger seized him, and a yearning to see himself mirroredalways in the gray eyes of Frona Welse. He was not analytical; he didnot know why; but he knew that with her he could travel to the end ofthe earth. He felt a distaste for his profession, and a temptation tothrow it all over and strike out for the Klondike whither she wasgoing; then he glanced up the beetling side of the ship, saw the redface of Thad Ferguson, and forgot the dream he had for an instantdreamed.

 
Splash! A handful of water from his strenuous oar struck her full inthe face. "Hope you don't mind it, miss," he apologized. "I'm doin'the best I know how, which ain't much."

  "So it seems," she answered, good-naturedly.

  "Not that I love the sea," bitterly; "but I've got to turn a few honestdollars somehow, and this seemed the likeliest way. I oughter 'a benin Klondike by now, if I'd had any luck at all. Tell you how it was.I lost my outfit on Windy Arm, half-way in, after packin' it cleanacross the Pass--"

  Zip! Splash! She shook the water from her eyes, squirming the whileas some of it ran down her warm back.

  "You'll do," he encouraged her. "You're the right stuff for thiscountry. Goin' all the way in?"

  She nodded cheerfully.

  "Then you'll do. But as I was sayin', after I lost my outfit I hitback for the coast, bein' broke, to hustle up another one. That's whyI'm chargin' high-pressure rates. And I hope you don't feel sore atwhat I made you pay. I'm no worse than the rest, miss, sure. I had todig up a hundred for this old tub, which ain't worth ten down in theStates. Same kind of prices everywhere. Over on the Skaguay Trailhorseshoe nails is just as good as a quarter any day. A man goes up tothe bar and calls for a whiskey. Whiskey's half a dollar. Well, hedrinks his whiskey, plunks down two horseshoe nails, and it's O.K. Nokick comin' on horseshoe nails. They use 'em to make change."

  "You must be a brave man to venture into the country again after suchan experience. Won't you tell me your name? We may meet on theInside."

  "Who? Me? Oh, I'm Del Bishop, pocket-miner; and if ever we run acrosseach other, remember I'd give you the last shirt--I mean, remember mylast bit of grub is yours."

  "Thank you," she answered with a sweet smile; for she was a woman wholoved the things which rose straight from the heart.

  He stopped rowing long enough to fish about in the water around hisfeet for an old cornbeef can.

  "You'd better do some bailin'," he ordered, tossing her the can."She's leakin' worse since that squeeze."

  Frona smiled mentally, tucked up her skirts, and bent to the work. Atevery dip, like great billows heaving along the sky-line, theglacier-fretted mountains rose and fell. Sometimes she rested her backand watched the teeming beach towards which they were heading, andagain, the land-locked arm of the sea in which a score or so of greatsteamships lay at anchor. From each of these, to the shore and backagain, flowed a steady stream of scows, launches, canoes, and all sortsof smaller craft. Man, the mighty toiler, reacting upon a hostileenvironment, she thought, going back in memory to the masters whosewisdom she had shared in lecture-room and midnight study. She was aripened child of the age, and fairly understood the physical world andthe workings thereof. And she had a love for the world, and a deeprespect.

  For some time Del Bishop had only punctuated the silence with splashesfrom his oars; but a thought struck him.

  "You haven't told me your name," he suggested, with complacent delicacy.

  "My name is Welse," she answered. "Frona Welse."

  A great awe manifested itself in his face, and grew to a greater andgreater awe. "You--are--Frona--Welse?" he enunciated slowly. "JacobWelse ain't your old man, is he?"

  "Yes; I am Jacob Welse's daughter, at your service."

  He puckered his lips in a long low whistle of understanding and stoppedrowing. "Just you climb back into the stern and take your feet out ofthat water," he commanded. "And gimme holt that can."

  "Am I not bailing satisfactorily?" she demanded, indignantly.

  "Yep. You're doin' all right; but, but, you are--are--"

  "Just what I was before you knew who I was. Now you go onrowing,--that's your share of the work; and I'll take care of mine."

  "Oh, you'll do!" he murmured ecstatically, bending afresh to the oars."And Jacob Welse is your old man? I oughter 'a known it, sure!"

  When they reached the sand-spit, crowded with heterogeneous piles ofmerchandise and buzzing with men, she stopped long enough to shakehands with her ferryman. And though such a proceeding on the part ofhis feminine patrons was certainly unusual, Del Bishop squared iteasily with the fact that she was Jacob Welse's daughter.

  "Remember, my last bit of grub is yours," he reassured her, stillholding her hand.

  "And your last shirt, too; don't forget."

  "Well, you're a--a--a crackerjack!" he exploded with a final squeeze."Sure!"

  Her short skirt did not block the free movement of her limbs, and shediscovered with pleasurable surprise that the quick tripping step ofthe city pavement had departed from her, and that she was swinging offin the long easy stride which is born of the trail and which comes onlyafter much travail and endeavor. More than one gold-rusher, shootingkeen glances at her ankles and gray-gaitered calves, affirmed DelBishop's judgment. And more than one glanced up at her face, andglanced again; for her gaze was frank, with the frankness ofcomradeship; and in her eyes there was always a smiling light, justtrembling on the verge of dawn; and did the onlooker smile, her eyessmiled also. And the smiling light was protean-mooded,--merry,sympathetic, joyous, quizzical,--the complement of whatsoever kindledit. And sometimes the light spread over all her face, till the smileprefigured by it was realized. But it was always in frank and opencomradeship.

  And there was much to cause her to smile as she hurried through thecrowd, across the sand-spit, and over the flat towards the log-buildingshe had pointed out to Mr. Thurston. Time had rolled back, andlocomotion and transportation were once again in the most primitivestages. Men who had never carried more than parcels in all their liveshad now become bearers of burdens. They no longer walked upright underthe sun, but stooped the body forward and bowed the head to the earth.Every back had become a pack-saddle, and the strap-galls were beginningto form. They staggered beneath the unwonted effort, and legs becamedrunken with weariness and titubated in divers directions till thesunlight darkened and bearer and burden fell by the way. Other men,exulting secretly, piled their goods on two-wheeled go-carts and pulledout blithely enough, only to stall at the first spot where the greatround boulders invaded the trail. Whereat they generalized anew uponthe principles of Alaskan travel, discarded the go-cart, or trundled itback to the beach and sold it at fabulous price to the last man landed.Tenderfeet, with ten pounds of Colt's revolvers, cartridges, andhunting-knives belted about them, wandered valiantly up the trail, andcrept back softly, shedding revolvers, cartridges, and knives indespairing showers. And so, in gasping and bitter sweat, these sons ofAdam suffered for Adam's sin.

  Frona felt vaguely disturbed by this great throbbing rush of gold-madmen, and the old scene with its clustering associations seemed blottedout by these toiling aliens. Even the old landmarks appeared strangelyunfamiliar. It was the same, yet not the same. Here, on the grassyflat, where she had played as a child and shrunk back at the sound ofher voice echoing from glacier to glacier, ten thousand men trampedceaselessly up and down, grinding the tender herbage into the soil andmocking the stony silence. And just up the trail were ten thousand menwho had passed by, and over the Chilcoot were ten thousand more. Andbehind, all down the island-studded Alaskan coast, even to the Horn,were yet ten thousand more, harnessers of wind and steam, hastenersfrom the ends of the earth. The Dyea River as of old roaredturbulently down to the sea; but its ancient banks were gored by thefeet of many men, and these men labored in surging rows at the drippingtow-lines, and the deep-laden boats followed them as they fought theirupward way. And the will of man strove with the will of the water, andthe men laughed at the old Dyea River and gored its banks deeper forthe men who were to follow.

  The doorway of the store, through which she had once run out and in,and where she had looked with awe at the unusual sight of a straytrapper or fur-trader, was now packed with a clamorous throng of men.Where of old one letter waiting a claimant was a thing of wonder, shenow saw, by peering through the window, the mail heaped up from floorto ceiling. And it was for this mail the men were clamoring soinsistently. Before the st
ore, by the scales, was another crowd. AnIndian threw his pack upon the scales, the white owner jotted down theweight in a note-book, and another pack was thrown on. Each pack wasin the straps, ready for the packer's back and the precarious journeyover the Chilcoot. Frona edged in closer. She was interested infreights. She remembered in her day when the solitary prospector ortrader had his outfit packed over for six cents,--one hundred andtwenty dollars a ton.

  The tenderfoot who was weighing up consulted his guide-book. "Eightcents," he said to the Indian. Whereupon the Indians laughedscornfully and chorused, "Forty cents!" A pained expression came intohis face, and he looked about him anxiously. The sympathetic light inFrona's eyes caught him, and he regarded her with intent blankness. Inreality he was busy reducing a three-ton outfit to terms of cash atforty dollars per hundred-weight. "Twenty-four hundred dollars forthirty miles!" he cried. "What can I do?"

  Frona shrugged her shoulders. "You'd better pay them the forty cents,"she advised, "else they will take off their straps."

  The man thanked her, but instead of taking heed went on with hishaggling. One of the Indians stepped up and proceeded to unfasten hispack-straps. The tenderfoot wavered, but just as he was about to givein, the packers jumped the price on him to forty-five cents. He smiledafter a sickly fashion, and nodded his head in token of surrender. Butanother Indian joined the group and began whispering excitedly. Acheer went up, and before the man could realize it they had jerked offtheir straps and departed, spreading the news as they went that freightto Lake Linderman was fifty cents.

  Of a sudden, the crowd before the store was perceptibly agitated. Itsmembers whispered excitedly one to another, and all their eyes werefocussed upon three men approaching from up the trail. The trio wereordinary-looking creatures, ill-clad and even ragged. In a more stablecommunity their apprehension by the village constable and arrest forvagrancy would have been immediate. "French Louis," the tenderfeetwhispered and passed the word along. "Owns three Eldorado claims in ablock," the man next to Frona confided to her. "Worth ten millions atthe very least." French Louis, striding a little in advance of hiscompanions, did not look it. He had parted company with his hatsomewhere along the route, and a frayed silk kerchief was wrappedcarelessly about his head. And for all his ten millions, he carriedhis own travelling pack on his broad shoulders. "And that one, the onewith the beard, that's Swiftwater Bill, another of the Eldorado kings."

  "How do you know?" Frona asked, doubtingly.

  "Know!" the man exclaimed. "Know! Why his picture has been in all thepapers for the last six weeks. See!" He unfolded a newspaper. "And apretty good likeness, too. I've looked at it so much I'd know his mugamong a thousand."

  "Then who is the third one?" she queried, tacitly accepting him as afount of authority.

  Her informant lifted himself on his toes to see better. "I don'tknow," he confessed sorrowfully, then tapped the shoulder of the mannext to him. "Who is the lean, smooth-faced one? The one with theblue shirt and the patch on his knee?"

  Just then Frona uttered a glad little cry and darted forward. "Matt!"she cried. "Matt McCarthy!"

  The man with the patch shook her hand heartily, though he did not knowher and distrust was plain in his eyes.

  "Oh, you don't remember me!" she chattered. "And don't you dare sayyou do! If there weren't so many looking, I'd hug you, you old bear!

  "And so Big Bear went home to the Little Bears," she recited, solemnly."And the Little Bears were very hungry. And Big Bear said, 'Guess whatI have got, my children.' And one Little Bear guessed berries, and oneLittle Bear guessed salmon, and t'other Little Bear guessed porcupine.Then Big Bear laughed 'Whoof! Whoof!' and said, '_A Nice Big FatMan_!'"

  As he listened, recollection avowed itself in his face, and, when shehad finished, his eyes wrinkled up and he laughed a peculiar, laughablesilent laugh.

  "Sure, an' it's well I know ye," he explained; "but for the life iv meI can't put me finger on ye."

  She pointed into the store and watched him anxiously.

  "Now I have ye!" He drew back and looked her up and down, and hisexpression changed to disappointment. "It cuddent be. I mistook ye.Ye cud niver a-lived in that shanty," thrusting a thumb in thedirection of the store.

  Frona nodded her head vigorously.

  "Thin it's yer ownself afther all? The little motherless darlin', withthe goold hair I combed the knots out iv many's the time? The littlewitch that run barefoot an' barelegged over all the place?"

  "Yes, yes," she corroborated, gleefully.

  "The little divil that stole the dog-team an' wint over the Pass in thedead o' winter for to see where the world come to an ind on the itherside, just because old Matt McCarthy was afther tellin' her fairystories?"

  "O Matt, dear old Matt! Remember the time I went swimming with theSiwash girls from the Indian camp?"

  "An' I dragged ye out by the hair o' yer head?"

  "And lost one of your new rubber boots?"

  "Ah, an' sure an' I do. And a most shockin' an' immodest affair itwas! An' the boots was worth tin dollars over yer father's counter."

  "And then you went away, over the Pass, to the Inside, and we neverheard a word of you. Everybody thought you dead."

  "Well I recollect the day. An' ye cried in me arms an' wuddent kissyer old Matt good-by. But ye did in the ind," he exclaimed,triumphantly, "whin ye saw I was goin' to lave ye for sure. What a weething ye were!"

  "I was only eight."

  "An' 'tis twelve year agone. Twelve year I've spint on the Inside,with niver a trip out. Ye must be twinty now?"

  "And almost as big as you," Frona affirmed.

  "A likely woman ye've grown into, tall, an' shapely, an' all that." Helooked her over critically. "But ye cud 'a' stood a bit more flesh,I'm thinkin'."

  "No, no," she denied. "Not at twenty, Matt, not at twenty. Feel myarm, you'll see." She doubled that member till the biceps knotted.

  "'Tis muscle," he admitted, passing his hand admiringly over theswelling bunch; "just as though ye'd been workin' hard for yer livin'."

  "Oh, I can swing clubs, and box, and fence," she cried, successivelystriking the typical postures; "and swim, and make high dives, chin abar twenty times, and--and walk on my hands. There!"

  "Is that what ye've been doin'? I thought ye wint away forbook-larnin'," he commented, dryly.

  "But they have new ways of teaching, now, Matt, and they don't turn youout with your head crammed--"

  "An' yer legs that spindly they can't carry it all! Well, an' Iforgive ye yer muscle."

  "But how about yourself, Matt?" Frona asked. "How has the world beento you these twelve years?"

  "Behold!" He spread his legs apart, threw his head back, and his chestout. "Ye now behold Mister Matthew McCarthy, a king iv the nobleEldorado Dynasty by the strength iv his own right arm. Me possessionsis limitless. I have more dust in wan minute than iver I saw in all melife before. Me intintion for makin' this trip to the States is tolook up me ancestors. I have a firm belafe that they wance existed.Ye may find nuggets in the Klondike, but niver good whiskey. 'Tislikewise me intintion to have wan drink iv the rate stuff before I die.Afther that 'tis me sworn resolve to return to the superveeshion iv meKlondike properties. Indade, and I'm an Eldorado king; an' if ye'll bewantin' the lind iv a tidy bit, it's meself that'll loan it ye."

  "The same old, old Matt, who never grows old," Frona laughed.

  "An' it's yerself is the thrue Welse, for all yer prize-fighter'smuscles an' yer philosopher's brains. But let's wander inside on theheels of Louis an' Swiftwater. Andy's still tindin' store, I'm told,an' we'll see if I still linger in the pages iv his mimory."

  "And I, also." Frona seized him by the hand. It was a bad habit shehad of seizing the hands of those she loved. "It's ten years since Iwent away."

  The Irishman forged his way through the crowd like a pile-driver, andFrona followed easily in the lee of his bulk. The tenderfeet watchedthem reverentl
y, for to them they were as Northland divinities. Thebuzz of conversation rose again.

  "Who's the girl?" somebody asked. And just as Frona passed inside thedoor she caught the opening of the answer: "Jacob Welse's daughter.Never heard of Jacob Welse? Where have you been keeping yourself?"