A thousand deaths by Jack London

water, and great forests. And the cold came, with much snow on the ground, and no man

knew the way. Weary months we journeyed through the endless forest,–I do not

remember,

now, for there was little food and often we lay down to die. But at last we came to the cold

sea, and but three were left to look upon it. One had shipped from Yeddo as captain, and

he

knew in his head the lay of the great lands, and of the place where men may cross from

one

to the other on the ice. And he led us,–I do not know, it was so long,–till there were but

two. When we came to that place we found five of the strange people which live in that

country, and they had dogs and skins, and we were very poor. We fought in the snow till

they died, and the captain died, and the dogs and skins were mine. Then I crossed on the

ice, which was broken, and once drifted till a gale from the west put me upon the shore.

And

after that, Golovin Bay, Pastilik, and the priest. Then south, south, to the warm sunlands

where first I wandered.

AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH

20

“But the sea was no longer fruitful, and those who went upon it after the seal went to little

profit and great risk. The fleets scattered, and the captains and the men had no word of

those I sought. So I turned away from the ocean which never rests, and went among the

lands, where the trees, the houses, and the mountains sit always in one place and do not

move. I journeyed far, and came to learn many things, even to the way of reading and

writing from books. It was well I should do this, for it came upon me that Unga must know

these things, and that some day, when the time was met–we–you understand, when the

time was met.

“So I drifted, like those little fish which raise a sail to the wind, but cannot steer. But my

eyes and my ears were open always, and went among men who traveled much, for I knew

they had but to see those sought, to remember. At last there came a man, fresh from the

mountains, with pieces of rock in which the free gold stood to the size of peas, and he had

heard, he had met, he knew them. They were rich, he said, and lived in the place where

they drew the gold from the ground.

“It was in a wild country, and very far away; but in time came to the camp, hidden

between

the mountains, where men worked night and day, out of the sight of the sun. Yet the time

was not come. listened to the talk of the people. He had gone away,–they had gone

away,–to England, it was said, in the matter of bringing men with much money together to

form companies. I saw the house they had lived in; more like a palace, such as one sees in

the old countries. In the nighttime I crept in through a window that I might see in what

manner he treated her. I went from room to room, and in such way thought kings and

queens must live, it was all so very good. And they all said he treated her like a queen, and

many marveled as to what breed of woman she was; for there was other blood in her veins,

and she was different from the women of Akatan, and no one knew her for what she was.

Ay, she was a queen; but I was a chief, and the son of a chief, and had paid for her an

untold price of skin and boat and bead.

“But why so many words? I was a sailorman, and knew the way of the ships on the seas. I

followed to England, and then to other countries. Sometimes I heard of them by word of

mouth, sometimes I read of them in the papers; yet never once could I come by them, for

they had much money, and traveled fast, while I was a poor man. Then came trouble upon

them, and their wealth slipped away, one day, like a curl of smoke. The papers were full of

it at the time; but after that nothing was said, and I knew they had gone back where more

gold could be got from the ground.

“They had dropped out of the world, being now poor; and so wandered from camp to

camp,

even north to the Kootenay Country, where picked up the cold scent. They had come and

gone, some said this way, and some that, and still others that they had gone to the Country

of the Yukon. And I went this way, and I went that, ever journeying from place to place,

till

it seemed I must grow weary of the world which was so large. But in the Kootenay I

AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH

21

traveled a bad trail, and a long trail, with a ‘breed’ of the Northwest, who saw fit to die

when

the famine pinched. He had been to the Yukon by an unknown way over the mountains,

and

when he knew his time was near gave me the map and the secret of a place where he swore

by his gods there was much gold.

“After that all the world began to flock into the north. I was a poor man; I sold myself to

be

a driver of dogs. The rest you know. I met him and her in Dawson. She did not know me,

for

I was only a stripling, and her life had been large, so she had no time to remember the one

who had paid for her an untold price.

“So? You bought me from my term of service. I went back to bring things about in my

own

way; for I had waited long, and now that had my hand upon him was in no hurry. As I say,

I

had it in mind to do my own way; for I read back in my life, through all I had seen and

suffered, and remembered the cold and hunger of the endless forest by the Russian Seas.

As you know, I led him into the east,–him and Unga,–into the east where many have gone

and few returned. I led them to the spot where the bones and the curses of men lie with the

gold which they may not have.

“The way was long and the trail unpacked. Our dogs were many and ate much; nor could

our sleds carry till the break of spring. We must come back before the river ran free. So

here and there we cached grub, that our sleds might be lightened and there be no chance of

famine on the back trip. At the McQuestion there were three men, and near them we built a

cache, as also did we at the Mayo, where was a hunting-camp of a dozen Pellys which had

crossed the divide from the south. After that, as we went on into the east, we saw no men;

only the sleeping river, the moveless forest, and the White Silence of the North. As say,

the way was long and the trail unpacked. Sometimes, in a day’s toil, we made no more than

eight miles, or ten, and at night we slept like dead men. And never once did they dream

that

I was Naass, head man of Akatan, the righter of wrongs.

“We now made smaller caches, and in the nighttime it was a small matter to go back on the

trail we had broken, and change them in such way that one might deem the wolverines the

thieves. Again, there be places where there is a fall to the river, and the water is unruly,

and the ice makes above and is eaten away beneath. In such a spot the sled I drove broke

through, and the dogs; and to him and Unga it was ill luck, but no more. And there was

much grub on that sled, and the dogs the strongest. But he laughed, for he was strong of

life, and gave the dogs that were left little grub till we cut them from the harnesses, one by

one, and fed them to their mates. We would go home light, he said, traveling and eating

from cache to cache, with neither dogs nor sleds; which was true, for our grub was very

short, and the last dog died in the traces the night we came to the gold and the bones and

AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH

22

the curses of men.

“To reach that place,–and the map spoke true,–in the heart of the great mountains, we cut

ice steps against the wall of a divide. One looked for a valley beyond, but there was no