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  CHILDREN OF THE FROST

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  CHILDREN OF THE

  FROST (1902)

  By Jack London

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  CHILDREN OF THE FROST

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  Contents

  · In the Forests of the

  North

  · The Law of Life

  · Nam-Bok the

  Unveracious

  · The Master of Mystery

  · The Sunlanders

  · The Sickness of Lone

  Chief

  · Keesh, Son of Keesh

  · The Death of Ligoun

  · Li-Wan, the Fair

  · The League of Old Men

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  IN THE FORESTS OF THE NORTH

  (First published in Pearson's Magazine, Sept, 1902)

  A WEARY journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses,

  into the heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny

  the Earth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches of smiling

  land. But this the world is just beginning to know. The world's explorers

  have known it, from time to time, but hitherto they have never returned to

  tell the world.

  The Barrens-well, they are the Barrens, the bad lands of the Arctic, the

  deserts of the Circle, the bleak and bitter home of the musk-ox and the

  lean plains wolf. So Avery Van Brunt found them, treeless and cheerless,

  sparsely clothed with moss and lichens, and altogether uninviting. At least

  so he found them till he penetrated to the white blank spaces on the map,

  and came upon undreamed-of rich spruce forests and unrecorded Eskimo

  tribes. It had been his intention, (and his bid for fame), to break up these

  white blank spaces and diversify them with the black markings of

  mountain-chains, sinks and basins, and sinuous river courses; and it was

  with added delight that he came to speculate upon the possibilities of

  timber belts and native villages.

  Avery Van Brunt, or, in full distinction, Professor A. Van Brunt of the

  Geological Survey, was second in command of the expedition, and first in

  command of the sub-expedition which he had led on a side tour of some

  half a thousand miles up one of the branches of the Thelon and which he

  was now leading into one of his unrecorded villages. At his back plodded

  eight men, two of them French- Canadian voyageurs, and the remainder

  strapping Crees from Manitoba-way. He, alone, was fullblooded Saxon,

  and his blood was pounding fiercely through his veins to the traditions of

  his race. Clive and Hastings, Drake and Raleigh, Hengest and Horsa,

  walked with him. First of all men of his breed was he to enter this lone

  Northland village, and at the thought an exultancy came upon him, an

  exaltation, and his followers noted that his leg-weariness fell from him and

  that he insensibly quickened the pace.

  The village emptied itself, and a motley crowd trooped out to meet him,

  men in the forefront, with bows and spears clutched menacingly, and

  women and children faltering timidly in the rear. Van Brunt lifted his right

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  arm and made the universal peace sign, a sign which all peoples know,

  and the villagers answered in peace. But to his chagrin, a skinclad man ran

  forward and thrust out his hand with a familiar "Hello." He was a bearded

  man, with cheeks and brow bronzed to copper-brown, and in him Van

  Brunt knew his kind.

  "Who are you?" he asked, gripping the extended hand. "Andree?"

  "Who's Andree?" the man asked back.

  Van Brunt looked at him more sharply. "By George, you've been here

  some time."

  "Five years," the man answered, a dim flicker of pride in his eyes. "But

  come on, let's talk."

  "Let them camp alongside of me," he answered Van Brunt's glance at his

  party. "Old Tantlatch will take care of them. Come on."

  He swung off in a long stride, Van Brunt following at his heels through

  the village. In irregular fashion, wherever the ground favored, the lodges

  of moose hide were pitched. Van Brunt ran his practicedeye over them and

  calculated.

  "Two hundred, not counting the young ones," he summed up.

  The man nodded. "Pretty close to it. But here's where I live, out of the

  thick of it, you know-more privacy and all that. Sit down. I'll eat with you

  when your men get something cooked up. I've forgotten what tea tastes

  like.... Five years and never a taste or smell.... Any tobacco? . . . A-h,

  thanks, and a pipe? Good. Now for a fire-stick and we'll see if the weed

  has lost its cunning."

  He scratched the match with the painstaking care of the woodsman,

  cherished its young flame as though there were never another in all the

  world, and drew in the first mouthful of smoke. This he retained

  meditatively for a time, and blew out through his pursed lips slowly and

  caressingly. Then his face seemed to soften as he leaned back, and a soft

  blur to film his eyes. He sighed heavily, happily, with immeasurable

  content, and then said suddenly:

  "God! But that tastes good!"

  Van Brunt nodded sympathetically. "Five years, you say?"

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  "Five years." The man sighed again. "And you, I presume, wish to know

  about it, being naturally curious, and this a sufficiently strange situation,

  and all that. But it's not much. I came in from Edmonton after musk-ox,

  and like Pike and the rest of them, had my mischances, only I lost my

  party and outfit. Starvation, hardship, the regular tale, you know, sole

  survivor and all that, till I crawled into Tantlatch's, here, on hand and

  knee."

  "Five years," Van Brunt murmured retrospectively, as though turning

  things over in his mind.

  "Five years on February last. I crossed the Great Slave early in May-"

  "And you are . . . Fairfax?" Van Brunt interjected.

  The man nodded.

  "Let me see . . . John, I think it is, John Fairfax."

  "How did you know?" Fairfax queried lazily, half-absorbed in curling

  smoke-spirals upward in the quiet air.

  "The papers were full of it at the time. Prevanche-"

  "Prevanche!" Fairfax sat up, suddenly alert. "He was lost in the Smoke

  Mountains."

  "Yes, but he pulled through and came out."

  Fairfax settled back again and resumed his smoke-spirals. "I am glad to

  hear it," he remarked reflectively. "Prevanche was a bully fellow if he i did

  have ideas about head-straps, the beggar. And he pulled through? Well,

  I'm glad. "

  Five years . . . the phrase drifted recurrently through Van Brunt's thought,

  and somehow the face of Emily Southwaithe se
emed to rise up and take

  form before him. Five years . . . A wedge of wild-fowl honked low

  overhead and at sight of the encampment veered swiftly to the north into

  the smouldering sun. Van Brunt could not follow them He pulled out his

  watch. It was an hour past midnight. The northward clouds flushed

  bloodily, and rays of sombre-red shot southward, firing the gloomy woods

  with a lurid radiance. The air was in breathless calm, not a needle

  quivered, and the least sounds of the camp were distinct and clear as

  trumpet calls. The Crees and voyageurs felt the spirit of it and mumbled in

  dreamy undertones, and the cook unconsciously subdued the clatter of pot

  and pan. Somewhere a child was crying, and from the depths of the forest,

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  like a silver thread, rose a woman's voice in mournful chant: "O-o-o-o-oo-

  a-haa-ha-a-ha-aa-a-a, O-o-o-o-oo-a-ha-a-ha-a."

  Van Brunt shivered and rubbed the backs of his hands briskly.

  "And they gave me up for dead?" his companion asked slowly.

  "Well, you never came back, so your friends—"

  "Promptly forgot." Fairfax laughed harshly, defiantly.

  "Why didn't you come out?"

  "Partly disinclination, I suppose, and partly because of circumstances over

  which I had no control. You see, Tantlatch, here, was down with a broken

  leg when I made his acquaintance,—a nasty fracture,—and I set it for him

  and got him into shape. I stayed some time, getting my strength back. I

  was the first white man he had seen, and of course I seemed very wise and

  showed his people no end of things. Coached them up in military tactics,

  among other things, so that they conquered the four other tribal villages,

  (which you have not yet seen), and came to rule the land. And they

  naturally grew to think a good deal of me, so much so that when I was

  ready to go they wouldn't hear of it. Were most hospitable, in fact. Put a

  couple of guards over me and watched me day and night. And then

  Tantlatch offered me inducements,—in a sense, inducements,—so to say,

  and as it didn't matter much one way or the other, I reconciled myself to

  remaining."

  "I knew your brother at Freiburg. I am Van Brunt."

  Fairfax reached forward impulsively and shook his hand. "You were

  Billy's friend, eh ? Poor Billy ! He spoke of you often. "

  "Rum meeting place, though," he added, casting an embracing glance over

  the primordial landscape and listening for a moment to the woman's

  mournful notes. "Her man was clawed by a bear, and she's taking it hard."

  "Beastly life!" Van Brunt grimaced his disgust. "I suppose, after five years

  of it, civilization will be sweet? What do you say?"

  Fairfax's face took on a stolid expression. "Oh, I don't know. At least

  they're honest folk and live according to their lights. And then they are

  amazingly simple. No complexity about them, no thousand and one subtle

  ramifications to every single emotion they experience. They love, fear,

  hate, are angered, or made happy, in common, ordinary, and unmistakable

  terms. It may be a beastly life, but at least it is easy to live. No

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  philandering, no dallying. If a woman likes you, she'll not be backward in

  telling you so. If she hates you, she'll tell you so, and then, if you feel

  inclined, you can beat her, but the thing is, she knows precisely what you

  mean, and you know precisely what she means. No mistakes, no

  misunderstandings. It has its charm, after civilization's fitful fever.

  Comprehend?"

  "No, it's a pretty good life," he continued, after a pause; "good enough for

  me, and I intend to stay with it."

  Van Brunt lowered his head in a musing manner, and an imperceptible

  smile played on his mouth. No philandering, no dallying, no

  misunderstanding. Fairfax also was taking it hard, he thought, just because

  Emily Southwaithe had been mistakenly clawed by a bear. And not a bad

  sort of a bear, either, was Carlton Southwaithe.

  "But you are coming along with me," Van Brunt said deliberately.

  "No, I'm not."

  "Yes, you are."

  "Life's too easy here, I tell you." Fairfax spoke with decision. "I

  understand everything, and I am understood. Summer and winter alternate

  like the sun flashing through the palings of a fence, the seasons are a blur

  of light and shade, and time slips by, and life slips by, and then . . . a

  wailing in the forest, and the dark. Listen!"

  He held up his hand, and the silver thread of the woman's sorrow rose

  through the silence and the calm. Fairfax joined in softly.

  "O-o-o-o-o-o-a-haa-ha-a-ha-aa-a-a, O-o-o-o-o-o-a-ha-a-ha-a," he sang.

  "Can't you hear it? Can't you see it? The women mourning? the funeral

  chant? my hair white-locked and patriarchal? my skins wrapped in rude

  splendor about me? my hunting-spear by my side? And who shall say it is

  not well?"

  Van Brunt looked at him coolly. "Fairfax, you are a damned fool. Five

  years of this is enough to knock any man, and you are in an unhealthy,

  morbid condition. Further, Carlton Southwaithe is dead."

  Van Brunt filled his pipe and lighted it, the while watching slyly and with

  almost professional interest. Fairfax's eyes flashed on the instant, his fists

  clenched, he half rose up, then his muscles relaxed and he seemed to

  brood. Michael, the cook, signalled that the meal was ready, but Van

  Brunt motioned back to delay. The silence hung heavy, and he fell to

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  analyzing the forest scents, the odors of mould and rotting vegetation, the

  resiny smells of pine cones and needles, the aromatic savors of many

  camp-smokes. Twice Fairfax looked up, but said nothing, and then:

  "And. . . Emily. . . ?"

  "Three years a widow; still a widow."

  Another long silence settled down, to be broken by Fairfax finally with a

  naive smile. "I guess you're right, Van Brunt. I'll go along."

  "I knew you would." Van Brunt laid his hand on Fairfax's shoulder. "Of

  course, one cannot know, but I imagine—for one in her position— she has

  had offers—"

  "When do you start?" Fairfax interrupted.

  "After the men have had some sleep. Which reminds me, Michael is

  getting angry, so come and eat."

  After supper, when the Crees and voyageurs had rolled into their blankets,

  snoring, the two men lingered by the dying fire. There was much to talk

  about,—wars and politics and explorations, the doings of men and the

  happening of things, mutual friends, marriages, deaths,— five years of

  history for which Fairfax clamored.

  "So the Spanish fleet was bottled up in Santiago," Van Brunt was saying,

  when a young woman stepped lightly before him and stood by Fairfax's

  side. She looked swiftly into his face, then turned a troubled gaze upon

  Van Brunt.

  "Chief Tantlatch's daughter, sort of princess," Fairfax explained, with an

  honest flush. "One of the inducements, in short, to make me stay
. Thom,

  this is Van Brunt, friend of mine."

  Van Brunt held out his hand, but the woman maintained a rigid repose

  quite in keeping with her general appearance. Not a line of her face

  softened, not a feature unbent. She looked him straight in the eyes, her

  own piercing, questioning, searching.

  "Precious lot she understands," Fairfax laughed. "Her first introduction,

  you know. But as you were saying, with the Spanish fleet bottled up in

  Santiago?"

  Thom crouched down by her husband's side, motionless as a bronze statue,

  only her eyes flashing from face to face in ceaseless search. And Avery

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  Van Brunt, as he talked on and on, felt a nervousness under the dumb

  gaze. In the midst of his most graphic battle descriptions, he would

  become suddenly conscious of the black eyes burning into him, and would

  stumble and flounder till he could catch the gait and go again. Fairfax,

  hands clasped round knees, pipe out, absorbed, spurred him on when he

  lagged, and repictured the world he thought he had forgotten.

  One hour passed, and two, and Fairfax rose reluctantly to his feet. "And

  Cronje was cornered, eh? Well, just wait a moment till I run over to

  Tantlatch. He'll be expecting you, and I'll arrange for you to see him after

  breakfast. That will be all right, won't it ?" He went off between the pines,

  and Van Brunt found himself staring into Thom's warm eyes. Five years,

  he mused, and she can't be more than twenty now. A most remarkable

  creature. Being Eskimo, she should have a little flat excuse for a nose, and

  lo, it is neither broad nor flat, but aquiline, with nostrils delicately and

  sensitively formed as any fine lady's of a whiter breed—the Indian strain

  somewhere, be assured, Avery Van Brunt. And, Avery Van Brunt, don't

  be nervous, she won't eat you; she's only a woman, and not a bad-looking

  one at that. Oriental rather than aborigine. Eyes large and fairly wide

  apart, with just the faintest hint of Mongol obliquity. Thom, you're an

  anomaly. You're out of place here among these Eskimos, even if your

  father is one. Where did your mother come from? or your grandmother?

  And Thom, my dear, you're a beauty, a frigid, frozen little beauty with

  Alaskan lava in your blood, and please don't look at me that way.

  He laughed and stood up. Her insistent stare disconcerted him. A dog was

  prowling among the grub-sacks. He would drive it away and place them