A thousand deaths by Jack London

imperilling his own immortal soul, and, especially, feeling an

ominous attraction himself for Lit-lit, he was sombrely 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 thawed in the sunshine of Lit-lit’s eyes. She was

pretty, and slender, and willowy; without the massive face and

temperamental stolidity 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

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exception of marriage. John Fox had come particularly to talk of

marriage; Snettishane knew it, and John Fox knew he knew it,

wherefore 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 a 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, Fox and

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 Lit-lit, divining the Factor’s

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

sky-line, 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

Snettishane, 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. Snettishane 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 mete 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 toward 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, Snettishane,” he said, “I want a squaw to wash for

me and mend my clothes.”

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Snettishane grunted and suggested Wanidani, who was an old woman

and toothless.

“No, no,” interposed the Factor. “What I want is a wife. I’ve

been kind of thinking about it, and the thought just struck me that

you might know of some one that would suit.”

Snettishane looked interested, whereupon the Factor retraced his

steps, casually and carelessly to linger and discuss this new and

incidental topic.

“Kattou?” suggested Snettishane.

“She has but one eye,” objected the Factor.

“Laska?”

“Her knees be wide apart when she stands upright. Kips, your

biggest dog, can leap between her knees when she stands upright.”

“Senatee?” went on the imperturbable Snettishane.

But John Fox feigned anger, crying: “What foolishness is this? Am

I old, that thou shouldst mate 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 favour upon me? Behold! I am the Factor, both rich

and great, a power in the land, whose speech makes men tremble and

is obeyed!”

Snettishane 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, Snettishane 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.

Snettishane 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. Snettishane

watched him go, making no effort to stop him, but seeing him, in

the end, stop himself.

“Come to think of it,” the Factor remarked, “we both of us forgot

Lit-lit. Now I wonder if she’ll suit me?”

Snettishane 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 Snettishane

would himself have mentioned the name of Lit-lit, but–the Factor

had not gone that one step farther.

The chief was non-committal concerning Lit-lit’s suitability, till

he drove the white man into taking the next step in order of

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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 Lit-

lit ten blankets and three pounds of tobacco which is good

tobacco.”

Snettishane 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 Lit-lit 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 good-will 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 Lit-lit Snettishane 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 sma’ hours, the three-o’clock sun blazing in the

due north-east, he was unpleasantly aware that Snettishane had

bested him over the bargain.

Snettishane, tired and victorious, sought his bed, and discovered

Lit-lit before she could escape from the lodge.

He grunted knowingly: “Thou hast seen. Thou has heard. Wherefore

it be plain to thee thy father’s very great wisdom and

understanding. I have made for thee a great match. Heed 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