Lost Face

J >> Jack London >> Lost Face


"Dave Walsh was a bull for strength. And yet he was soft and
easy-natured. Anybody could do him, the latest short-horn in camp could
lie his last dollar out of him. 'But it doesn't worry me,' he had a way
of laughing off his softness; 'it doesn't keep me awake nights.' Now
don't get the idea that he had no backbone. You remember about the bear
he went after with the popgun. When it came to fighting Dave was the
blamedest ever. He was the limit, if by that I may describe his
unlimitedness when he got into action, he was easy and kind with the
weak, but the strong had to give trail when he went by. And he was a man
that men liked, which is the finest word of all, a man's man.

"Dave never took part in the big stampede to Dawson when Carmack made the
Bonanza strike. You see, Dave was just then over on Mammon Creek
strikin' it himself. He discovered Mammon Creek. Cleaned eighty-four
thousand up that winter, and opened up the claim so that it promised a
couple of hundred thousand for the next winter. Then, summer bein' on
and the ground sloshy, he took a trip up the Yukon to Dawson to see what
Carmack's strike looked like. And there he saw Flush of Gold. I
remember the night. I shall always remember. It was something sudden,
and it makes one shiver to think of a strong man with all the strength
withered out of him by one glance from the soft eyes of a weak, blond,
female creature like Flush of Gold. It was at her dad's cabin, old
Victor Chauvet's. Some friend had brought Dave along to talk over town
sites on Mammon Creek. But little talking did he do, and what he did was
mostly gibberish. I tell you the sight of Flush of Gold had sent Dave
clean daffy. Old Victor Chauvet insisted after Dave left that he had
been drunk. And so he had. He was drunk, but Flush of Gold was the
strong drink that made him so.

"That settled it, that first glimpse he caught of her. He did not start
back down the Yukon in a week, as he had intended. He lingered on a
month, two months, all summer. And we who had suffered understood, and
wondered what the outcome would be. Undoubtedly, in our minds, it seemed
that Flush of Gold had met her master. And why not? There was romance
sprinkled all over Dave Walsh. He was a Mammon King, he had made the
Mammon Creek strike; he was an old sour dough, one of the oldest pioneers
in the land--men turned to look at him when he went by, and said to one
another in awed undertones, 'There goes Dave Walsh.' And why not? He
stood six feet four; he had yellow hair himself that curled on his neck;
and he was a bull--a yellow-maned bull just turned thirty-one.

"And Flush of Gold loved him, and, having danced him through a whole
summer's courtship, at the end their engagement was made known. The fall
of the year was at hand, Dave had to be back for the winter's work on
Mammon Creek, and Flush of Gold refused to be married right away. Dave
put Dusky Burns in charge of the Mammon Creek claim, and himself lingered
on in Dawson. Little use. She wanted her freedom a while longer; she
must have it, and she would not marry until next year. And so, on the
first ice, Dave Walsh went alone down the Yukon behind his dogs, with the
understanding that the marriage would take place when he arrived on the
first steamboat of the next year.

"Now Dave was as true as the Pole Star, and she was as false as a
magnetic needle in a cargo of loadstone. Dave was as steady and solid as
she was fickle and fly-away, and in some way Dave, who never doubted
anybody, doubted her. It was the jealousy of his love, perhaps, and
maybe it was the message ticked off from her soul to his; but at any rate
Dave was worried by fear of her inconstancy. He was afraid to trust her
till the next year, he had so to trust her, and he was pretty well beside
himself. Some of it I got from old Victor Chauvet afterwards, and from
all that I have pieced together I conclude that there was something of a
scene before Dave pulled north with his dogs. He stood up before the old
Frenchman, with Flush of Gold beside him, and announced that they were
plighted to each other. He was very dramatic, with fire in his eyes, old
Victor said. He talked something about 'until death do us part'; and old
Victor especially remembered that at one place Dave took her by the
shoulder with his great paw and almost shook her as he said: 'Even unto
death are you mine, and I would rise from the grave to claim you.' Old
Victor distinctly remembered those words 'Even unto death are you mine,
and I would rise from the grave to claim you.' And he told me afterwards
that Flush of Gold was pretty badly frightened, and that he afterwards
took Dave to one side privately and told him that that wasn't the way to
hold Flush of Gold--that he must humour her and gentle her if he wanted
to keep her.

"There is no discussion in my mind but that Flush of Gold was frightened.
She was a savage herself in her treatment of men, while men had always
treated her as a soft and tender and too utterly-utter something that
must not be hurt. She didn't know what harshness was . . . until Dave
Walsh, standing his six feet four, a big bull, gripped her and pawed her
and assured her that she was his until death, and then some. And
besides, in Dawson, that winter, was a music-player--one of those
macaroni-eating, greasy-tenor-Eye-talian-dago propositions--and Flush of
Gold lost her heart to him. Maybe it was only fascination--I don't know.
Sometimes it seems to me that she really did love Dave Walsh. Perhaps it
was because he had frightened her with that even-unto-death, rise-from-
the-grave stunt of his that she in the end inclined to the dago music-
player. But it is all guesswork, and the facts are, sufficient. He
wasn't a dago; he was a Russian count--this was straight; and he wasn't a
professional piano-player or anything of the sort. He played the violin
and the piano, and he sang--sang well--but it was for his own pleasure
and for the pleasure of those he sang for. He had money, too--and right
here let me say that Flush of Gold never cared a rap for money. She was
fickle, but she was never sordid.

"But to be getting along. She was plighted to Dave, and Dave was coming
up on the first steamboat to get her--that was the summer of '98, and the
first steamboat was to be expected the middle of June. And Flush of Gold
was afraid to throw Dave down and face him afterwards. It was all
planned suddenly. The Russian music-player, the Count, was her obedient
slave. She planned it, I know. I learned as much from old Victor
afterwards. The Count took his orders from her, and caught that first
steamboat down. It was the _Golden Rocket_. And so did Flush of Gold
catch it. And so did I. I was going to Circle City, and I was
flabbergasted when I found Flush of Gold on board. I didn't see her name
down on the passenger list. She was with the Count fellow all the time,
happy and smiling, and I noticed that the Count fellow was down on the
list as having his wife along. There it was, state-room, number, and
all. The first I knew that he was married, only I didn't see anything of
the wife . . . unless Flush of Gold was so counted. I wondered if they'd
got married ashore before starting. There'd been talk about them in
Dawson, you see, and bets had been laid that the Count fellow had cut
Dave out.

"I talked with the purser. He didn't know anything more about it than I
did; he didn't know Flush of Gold, anyway, and besides, he was almost
rushed to death. You know what a Yukon steamboat is, but you can't guess
what the _Golden Rocket_ was when it left Dawson that June of 1898. She
was a hummer. Being the first steamer out, she carried all the scurvy
patients and hospital wrecks. Then she must have carried a couple of
millions of Klondike dust and nuggets, to say nothing of a packed and
jammed passenger list, deck passengers galore, and bucks and squaws and
dogs without end. And she was loaded down to the guards with freight and
baggage. There was a mountain of the same on the fore-lower-deck, and
each little stop along the way added to it. I saw the box come aboard at
Teelee Portage, and I knew it for what it was, though I little guessed
the joker that was in it. And they piled it on top of everything else on
the fore-lower-deck, and they didn't pile it any too securely either. The
mate expected to come back to it again, and then forgot about it. I
thought at the time that there was something familiar about the big husky
dog that climbed over the baggage and freight and lay down next to the
box. And then we passed the _Glendale_, bound up for Dawson. As she
saluted us, I thought of Dave on board of her and hurrying to Dawson to
Flush of Gold. I turned and looked at her where she stood by the rail.
Her eyes were bright, but she looked a bit frightened by the sight of the
other steamer, and she was leaning closely to the Count fellow as for
protection. She needn't have leaned so safely against him, and I needn't
have been so sure of a disappointed Dave Walsh arriving at Dawson. For
Dave Walsh wasn't on the _Glendale_. There were a lot of things I didn't
know, but was soon to know--for instance, that the pair were not yet
married. Inside half an hour preparations for the marriage took place.
What of the sick men in the main cabin, and of the crowded condition of
the _Golden Rocket_, the likeliest place for the ceremony was found
forward, on the lower deck, in an open space next to the rail and gang-
plank and shaded by the mountain of freight with the big box on top and
the sleeping dog beside it. There was a missionary on board, getting off
at Eagle City, which was the next step, so they had to use him quick.
That's what they'd planned to do, get married on the boat.

"But I've run ahead of the facts. The reason Dave Walsh wasn't on the
_Glendale_ was because he was on the _Golden Rocket_. It was this way.
After loiterin' in Dawson on account of Flush of Gold, he went down to
Mammon Creek on the ice. And there he found Dusky Burns doing so well
with the claim, there was no need for him to be around. So he put some
grub on the sled, harnessed the dogs, took an Indian along, and pulled
out for Surprise Lake. He always had a liking for that section. Maybe
you don't know how the creek turned out to be a four-flusher; but the
prospects were good at the time, and Dave proceeded to build his cabin
and hers. That's the cabin we slept in. After he finished it, he went
off on a moose hunt to the forks of the Teelee, takin' the Indian along.

"And this is what happened. Came on a cold snap. The juice went down
forty, fifty, sixty below zero. I remember that snap--I was at Forty
Mile; and I remember the very day. At eleven o'clock in the morning the
spirit thermometer at the N. A. T. & T. Company's store went down to
seventy-five below zero. And that morning, near the forks of the Teelee,
Dave Walsh was out after moose with that blessed Indian of his. I got it
all from the Indian afterwards--we made a trip over the ice together to
Dyea. That morning Mr. Indian broke through the ice and wet himself to
the waist. Of course he began to freeze right away. The proper thing
was to build a fire. But Dave Walsh was a bull. It was only half a mile
to camp, where a fire was already burning. What was the good of building
another? He threw Mr. Indian over his shoulder--and ran with him--half a
mile--with the thermometer at seventy-five below. You know what that
means. Suicide. There's no other name for it. Why, that buck Indian
weighed over two hundred himself, and Dave ran half a mile with him. Of
course he froze his lungs. Must have frozen them near solid. It was a
tomfool trick for any man to do. And anyway, after lingering horribly
for several weeks, Dave Walsh died.

"The Indian didn't know what to do with the corpse. Ordinarily he'd have
buried him and let it go at that. But he knew that Dave Walsh was a big
man, worth lots of money, a _hi-yu skookum_ chief. Likewise he'd seen
the bodies of other _hi-yu skookums_ carted around the country like they
were worth something. So he decided to take Dave's body to Forty Mile,
which was Dave's headquarters. You know how the ice is on the grass
roots in this country--well, the Indian planted Dave under a foot of
soil--in short, he put Dave on ice. Dave could have stayed there a
thousand years and still been the same old Dave. You understand--just
the same as a refrigerator. Then the Indian brings over a whipsaw from
the cabin at Surprise Lake and makes lumber enough for the box. Also,
waiting for the thaw, he goes out and shoots about ten thousand pounds of
moose. This he keeps on ice, too. Came the thaw. The Teelee broke. He
built a raft and loaded it with the meat, the big box with Dave inside,
and Dave's team of dogs, and away they went down the Teelee.

"The raft got caught on a timber jam and hung up two days. It was
scorching hot weather, and Mr. Indian nearly lost his moose meat. So
when he got to Teelee Portage he figured a steamboat would get to Forty
Mile quicker than his raft. He transferred his cargo, and there you are,
fore-lower deck of the _Golden Rocket_, Flush of Gold being married, and
Dave Walsh in his big box casting the shade for her. And there's one
thing I clean forgot. No wonder I thought the husky dog that came aboard
at Teelee Portage was familiar. It was Pee-lat, Dave Walsh's lead-dog
and favourite--a terrible fighter, too. He was lying down beside the
box.

"Flush of Gold caught sight of me, called me over, shook hands with me,
and introduced me to the Count. She was beautiful. I was as mad for her
then as ever. She smiled into my eyes and said I must sign as one of the
witnesses. And there was no refusing her. She was ever a child, cruel
as children are cruel. Also, she told me she was in possession of the
only two bottles of champagne in Dawson--or that had been in Dawson the
night before; and before I knew it I was scheduled to drink her and the
Count's health. Everybody crowded round, the captain of the steamboat,
very prominent, trying to ring in on the wine, I guess. It was a funny
wedding. On the upper deck the hospital wrecks, with various feet in the
grave, gathered and looked down to see. There were Indians all jammed in
the circle, too, big bucks, and their squaws and kids, to say nothing of
about twenty-five snarling wolf-dogs. The missionary lined the two of
them up and started in with the service. And just then a dog-fight
started, high up on the pile of freight--Pee-lat lying beside the big
box, and a white-haired brute belonging to one of the Indians. The fight
wasn't explosive at all. The brutes just snarled at each other from a
distance--tapping at each other long-distance, you know, saying dast and
dassent, dast and dassent. The noise was rather disturbing, but you
could hear the missionary's voice above it.

"There was no particularly easy way of getting at the two dogs, except
from the other side of the pile. But nobody was on that side--everybody
watching the ceremony, you see. Even then everything might have been all
right if the captain hadn't thrown a club at the dogs. That was what
precipitated everything. As I say, if the captain hadn't thrown that
club, nothing might have happened.

"The missionary had just reached the point where he was saying 'In
sickness and in health,' and 'Till death us do part.' And just then the
captain threw the club. I saw the whole thing. It landed on Pee-lat,
and at that instant the white brute jumped him. The club caused it.
Their two bodies struck the box, and it began to slide, its lower end
tilting down. It was a long oblong box, and it slid down slowly until it
reached the perpendicular, when it came down on the run. The onlookers
on that side the circle had time to get out from under. Flush of Gold
and the Count, on the opposite side of the circle, were facing the box;
the missionary had his back to it. The box must have fallen ten feet
straight up and down, and it hit end on.

"Now mind you, not one of us knew that Dave Walsh was dead. We thought
he was on the _Glendale_, bound for Dawson. The missionary had edged off
to one side, and so Flush of Gold faced the box when it struck. It was
like in a play. It couldn't have been better planned. It struck on end,
and on the right end; the whole front of the box came off; and out swept
Dave Walsh on his feet, partly wrapped in a blanket, his yellow hair
flying and showing bright in the sun. Right out of the box, on his feet,
he swept upon Flush of Gold. She didn't know he was dead, but it was
unmistakable, after hanging up two days on a timber jam, that he was
rising all right from the dead to claim her. Possibly that is what she
thought. At any rate, the sight froze her. She couldn't move. She just
sort of wilted and watched Dave Walsh coming for her! And he got her. It
looked almost as though he threw his arms around her, but whether or not
this happened, down to the deck they went together. We had to drag Dave
Walsh's body clear before we could get hold of her. She was in a faint,
but it would have been just as well if she had never come out of that
faint; for when she did, she fell to screaming the way insane people do.
She kept it up for hours, till she was exhausted. Oh, yes, she
recovered. You saw her last night, and know how much recovered she is.
She is not violent, it is true, but she lives in darkness. She believes
that she is waiting for Dave Walsh, and so she waits in the cabin he
built for her. She is no longer fickle. It is nine years now that she
has been faithful to Dave Walsh, and the outlook is that she'll be
faithful to him to the end."

Lon McFane pulled down the top of the blankets and prepared to crawl in.

"We have her grub hauled to her each year," he added, "and in general
keep an eye on her. Last night was the first time she ever recognized
me, though."

"Who are the we?" I asked.

"Oh," was the answer, "the Count and old Victor Chauvet and me. Do you
know, I think the Count is the one to be really sorry for. Dave Walsh
never did know that she was false to him. And she does not suffer. Her
darkness is merciful to her."

I lay silently under the blankets for the space of a minute.

"Is the Count still in the country?" I asked.

But there was a gentle sound of heavy breathing, and I knew Lon McFane
was asleep.




THE PASSING OF MARCUS O'BRIEN


"It is the judgment of this court that you vamose the camp . . . in the
customary way, sir, in the customary way."

Judge Marcus O'Brien was absent-minded, and Mucluc Charley nudged him in
the ribs. Marcus O'Brien cleared his throat and went on--

"Weighing the gravity of the offence, sir, and the extenuating
circumstances, it is the opinion of this court, and its verdict, that you
be outfitted with three days' grub. That will do, I think."

Arizona Jack cast a bleak glance out over the Yukon. It was a swollen,
chocolate flood, running a mile wide and nobody knew how deep. The earth-
bank on which he stood was ordinarily a dozen feet above the water, but
the river was now growling at the top of the bank, devouring, instant by
instant, tiny portions of the top-standing soil. These portions went
into the gaping mouths of the endless army of brown swirls and vanished
away. Several inches more, and Red Cow would be flooded.

"It won't do," Arizona Jack said bitterly. "Three days' grub ain't
enough."

"There was Manchester," Marcus O'Brien replied gravely. "He didn't get
any grub."

"And they found his remains grounded on the Lower River an' half eaten by
huskies," was Arizona Jack's retort. "And his killin' was without
provocation. Joe Deeves never did nothin', never warbled once, an' jes'
because his stomach was out of order, Manchester ups an' plugs him. You
ain't givin' me a square deal, O'Brien, I tell you that straight. Give
me a week's grub, and I play even to win out. Three days' grub, an' I
cash in."

"What for did you kill Ferguson?" O'Brien demanded. "I haven't any
patience for these unprovoked killings. And they've got to stop. Red
Cow's none so populous. It's a good camp, and there never used to be any
killings. Now they're epidemic. I'm sorry for you, Jack, but you've got
to be made an example of. Ferguson didn't provoke enough for a killing."

"Provoke!" Arizona Jack snorted. "I tell you, O'Brien, you don't savve.
You ain't got no artistic sensibilities. What for did I kill Ferguson?
What for did Ferguson sing 'Then I wisht I was a little bird'? That's
what I want to know. Answer me that. What for did he sing 'little bird,
little bird'? One little bird was enough. I could a-stood one little
bird. But no, he must sing two little birds. I gave 'm a chanst. I
went to him almighty polite and requested him kindly to discard one
little bird. I pleaded with him. There was witnesses that testified to
that.

"An' Ferguson was no jay-throated songster," some one spoke up from the
crowd.

O'Brien betrayed indecision.

"Ain't a man got a right to his artistic feelin's?" Arizona Jack
demanded. "I gave Ferguson warnin'. It was violatin' my own nature to
go on listening to his little birds. Why, there's music sharps that fine-
strung an' keyed-up they'd kill for heaps less'n I did. I'm willin' to
pay for havin' artistic feelin's. I can take my medicine an' lick the
spoon, but three days' grub is drawin' it a shade fine, that's all, an' I
hereby register my kick. Go on with the funeral."

O'Brien was still wavering. He glanced inquiringly at Mucluc Charley.

"I should say, Judge, that three days' grub was a mite severe," the
latter suggested; "but you're runnin' the show. When we elected you
judge of this here trial court, we agreed to abide by your decisions, an'
we've done it, too, b'gosh, an' we're goin' to keep on doin' it."

"Mebbe I've been a trifle harsh, Jack," O'Brien said apologetically--"I'm
that worked up over those killings; an' I'm willing to make it a week's
grub." He cleared his throat magisterially and looked briskly about him.
"And now we might as well get along and finish up the business. The
boat's ready. You go and get the grub, Leclaire. We'll settle for it
afterward."

Arizona Jack looked grateful, and, muttering something about "damned
little birds," stepped aboard the open boat that rubbed restlessly
against the bank. It was a large skiff, built of rough pine planks that
had been sawed by hand from the standing timber of Lake Linderman, a few
hundred miles above, at the foot of Chilcoot. In the boat were a pair of
oars and Arizona Jack's blankets. Leclaire brought the grub, tied up in
a flour-sack, and put it on board. As he did so, he whispered--"I gave
you good measure, Jack. You done it with provocation."

"Cast her off!" Arizona Jack cried.

Somebody untied the painter and threw it in. The current gripped the
boat and whirled it away. The murderer did not bother with the oars,
contenting himself with sitting in the stern-sheets and rolling a
cigarette. Completing it, he struck a match and lighted up. Those that
watched on the bank could see the tiny puffs of smoke. They remained on
the bank till the boat swung out of sight around the bend half a mile
below. Justice had been done.

The denizens of Red Cow imposed the law and executed sentences without
the delays that mark the softness of civilization. There was no law on
the Yukon save what they made for themselves. They were compelled to
make it for themselves. It was in an early day that Red Cow flourished
on the Yukon--1887--and the Klondike and its populous stampedes lay in
the unguessed future. The men of Red Cow did not even know whether their
camp was situated in Alaska or in the North-west Territory, whether they
drew breath under the stars and stripes or under the British flag. No
surveyor had ever happened along to give them their latitude and
longitude. Red Cow was situated somewhere along the Yukon, and that was
sufficient for them. So far as flags were concerned, they were beyond
all jurisdiction. So far as the law was concerned, they were in No-Man's
land.

They made their own law, and it was very simple. The Yukon executed
their decrees. Some two thousand miles below Red Cow the Yukon flowed
into Bering Sea through a delta a hundred miles wide. Every mile of
those two thousand miles was savage wilderness. It was true, where the
Porcupine flowed into the Yukon inside the Arctic Circle there was a
Hudson Bay Company trading post. But that was many hundreds of miles
away. Also, it was rumoured that many hundreds of miles farther on there
were missions. This last, however, was merely rumour; the men of Red Cow
had never been there. They had entered the lone land by way of Chilcoot
and the head-waters of the Yukon.

The men of Red Cow ignored all minor offences. To be drunk and
disorderly and to use vulgar language were looked upon as natural and
inalienable rights. The men of Red Cow were individualists, and
recognized as sacred but two things, property and life. There were no
women present to complicate their simple morality. There were only three
log-cabins in Red Cow--the majority of the population of forty men living
in tents or brush shacks; and there was no jail in which to confine
malefactors, while the inhabitants were too busy digging gold or seeking
gold to take a day off and build a jail. Besides, the paramount question
of grub negatived such a procedure. Wherefore, when a man violated the
rights of property or life, he was thrown into an open boat and started
down the Yukon. The quantity of grub he received was proportioned to the
gravity of the offence. Thus, a common thief might get as much as two
weeks' grub; an uncommon thief might get no more than half of that. A
murderer got no grub at all. A man found guilty of manslaughter would
receive grub for from three days to a week. And Marcus O'Brien had been
elected judge, and it was he who apportioned the grub. A man who broke
the law took his chances. The Yukon swept him away, and he might or
might not win to Bering Sea. A few days' grub gave him a fighting
chance. No grub meant practically capital punishment, though there was a
slim chance, all depending on the season of the year.