A thousand deaths by Jack London

milkman. Steve went north to Seattle, I learned, that very morning. I didn’t

put on any more weight. My wife made me buy him a collar and tag, and

within an hour he showed his gratitude by killing her pet Persian cat.

There is no getting rid of that Spot. He will be with me until I die, for he’ll

never die. My appetite is not so good since he arrived, and my wife says I

am looking peaked. Last night that Spot got into Mr. Harvey’s hen-house

(Harvey is my next door neighbor) and killed nineteen of his fancy-bred

chickens. I shall have to pay for them. My neighbors on the other side

quarrelled with my wife and then moved out. Spot was the cause of it. And

that is why I am disappointed in Stephen Mackaye. I had no idea he was

so mean a man.

FLUSH OF GOLD

LON McFANE was a bit grumpy, what of losing his tobacco pouch, or

else he might have told me, before we got to it, something about the cabin

at Surprise Lake. All day, turn and turn about, we had spelled each other at

going to the fore and breaking trail for the dogs. It was heavy snow-shoe

work, and did not tend to make a man voluble, yet Lon McFane might

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45

have found breath enough at noon, when we stopped to boil coffee, with

which to tell me. But he didn’t. Surprise Lake?–it was Surprise Cabin to

me. I had never heard of it before. I confess I was a bit tired. I had been

looking for Lon to stop and make camp any time for an hour; but I had too

much pride to suggest making camp or to ask him his intentions; and yet

he was my man, hired at a handsome wage to mush my dogs for me and to

obey my commands. I guess I was a bit grumpy myself. He said nothing,

and I was resolved to ask nothing, even if we tramped on all night.

We came upon the cabin abruptly. For a week of trail we had met no one,

and, in my mind, there had been little likelihood of meeting any one for a

week to come. And yet there it was, right before my eyes, a cabin, with a

dim light in the window and smoke curling up from the chimney.

“Why didn’t you tell me–” I began, but was interrupted by Lon, who

muttered:–

“Surprise Lake–it lies up a small feeder half a mile on. It’s only a pond.”

“Yes, but the cabin–who lives in it?”

“A woman,” was the answer, and the next moment Lon had rapped on the

door, and a woman’s voice bade him enter.

“Have you seen Dave recently?” she asked.

“Nope,” Lon answered carelessly. “I’ve been in the other direction, down

Circle City way. Dave’s up Dawson way, ain’t he?”

The woman nodded, and Lon fell to unharnessing the dogs, while I

unlashed the sled and carried the camp outfit into the cabin. The cabin was

a large, one-room affair, and the woman was evidently alone in it. She

pointed to the stove, where water was already boiling, and Lon set about

the preparation of supper, while I opened the fish-bag and fed the dogs. I

looked for Lon to introduce us, and was vexed that he did not, for they

were evidently old friends.

“You are Lon McFane, aren’t you?” I heard her ask him. “Why, I

remember you now. The last time I saw you it was on a steamboat, wasn’t

it? I remember . . .”

Her speech seemed suddenly to be frozen by the spectacle of dread which,

I knew, from the terror I saw mounting in her eyes, must be on her inner

vision. To my astonishment, Lon was affected by her words and manner.

His face showed desperate, for all his voice sounded hearty and genial, as

he said:–

LOST FACE

46

“The last time we met was at Dawson, Queen’s Jubilee, or Birthday, or

something–don’t you remember?–the canoe races in the river, and the

obstacle races down the main street?”

The terror faded out of her eyes and her whole body relaxed. “Oh, yes, I

do remember,” she said. “And you won one of the canoe races.” “How’s

Dave been makin’ it lately? Strikin’ it as rich as ever, I suppose?” Lon

asked, with apparent irrelevance.

She smiled and nodded, and then, noticing that I had unlashed the bed roll,

she indicated the end of the cabin where I might spread it. Her own bunk, I

noticed, was made up at the opposite end.

“I thought it was Dave coming when I heard your dogs,” she said.

After that she said nothing, contenting herself with watching Lon’s

cooking operations, and listening the while as for the sound of dogs along

the trail. I lay back on the blankets and smoked and watched. Here was

mystery; I could make that much out, but no more could I make out. Why

in the deuce hadn’t Lon given me the tip before we arrived? I looked at her

face, unnoticed by her, and the longer I looked the harder it was to take

my eyes away. It was a wonderfully beautiful face, un- earthly, I may say,

with a light in it or an expression or something that was never on land or

sea. Fear and terror had completely vanished, and it was a placidly

beautiful face–if by “placid” one can characterize that intangible and

occult something that I cannot say was a radiance or a light any more than

I can say it was an expression.

Abruptly, as if for the first time, she became aware of my presence.

“Have you seen Dave recently?” she asked me. It was on the tip of my

tongue to say “Dave who?” when Lon coughed in the smoke that arose

from the sizzling bacon. The bacon might have caused that cough, but I

took it as a hint and left my question unasked. “No, I haven’t,” I answered.

“I’m new in this part of the country–”

“But you don’t mean to say,” she interrupted, “that you’ve never heard of

Dave–of Big Dave Walsh?”

“You see,” I apologized, “I’m new in the country. I’ve put in most of| my

time in the Lower Country, down Nome way.”

“Tell him about Dave,” she said to Lon.

Lon seemed put out, but he began in that hearty, genial manner that I had

noticed before. It seemed a shade too hearty and genial, and it irritated me.

LOST FACE

47

“Oh, Dave is a fine man,” he said. “He’s a man, every inch of him, and he

stands six feet four in his socks. His word is as good as his bond. The man

lies who ever says Dave told a lie, and that man will have to. fight with

me, too, as well–if there’s anything left of him when Dave gets done with

him. For Dave is a fighter. Oh, yes, he’s a scrapper from way back. He got

a grizzly with a ’38 popgun. He got clawed some, but he knew what he

was coin’. He went into the cave on purpose to get that grizzly. ‘Fraid of

nothing. Free an’ easy with his money, or his last shirt an’ match when out

of money. Why, he drained Surprise Lake here in three weeks an’ took out

ninety thousand, didn’t he?” She flushed and nodded her head proudly.

Through his recital she had followed every word with keenest interest.

“An’ I must say,” Lon went on, “that I was disappointed sore on not

meeting Dave here to-night.”

Lon served supper at one end of the table of whip-sawed spruce, and we

fell to eating. A howling of the dogs took the woman to the door. She

opened it an inch and listened.

“Where is Dave Walsh?” I asked, in an undertone. “Dead,” Lon answered.

“In hell, maybe. I don’t know. Shut up.”

“But you just said that you expected to meet him here to-night,” I

challenged.

“Oh, shut up’ can’t you,” was Lon’s reply, in the same cautious undertone.

The woman had closed the door and was returning, and I sat and meditated

upon the fact that this man who told me to shut up received from me a

salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month and his board.

Lon washed the dishes, while I smoked and watched the woman. She

seemed more beautiful than ever–strangely and weirdly beautiful, it is

true. After looking at her steadfastly for five minutes, I was compelled to

come back to the real world and to glance at Lon McFane. This enabled

me to know, without discussion, that the woman, too, was real. At first I

had taken her for the wife of Dave Walsh; but if Dave Walsh were dead,

as Lon had said, then she could be only his widow.

It was early to bed, for we faced a long day on the morrow; and as Lon