A thousand deaths by Jack London

measure her in gold-dust, nor in dogs, and tents, and furs.”

The old men debated among themselves and mumbled in undertones.

“These old men are ice,” Akoon said in English. “I will not listen to their

judgment, Porportuk. If you take El-Soo, I will surely kill you.”

The old men ceased and regarded him suspiciously. “We do not know the

speech you make,” one said.

“He but said that he would kill me,” Porportuk volunteered. “So it were

well to take from him his rifle, and to have some of your young men sit by

LOST FACE

88

him, that he may not do me hurt. He is a young man, and what are broken

bones to youth!”

Akoon, lying helpless, had rifle and knife taken from him, and to either

side of his shoulders sat young men of the Mackenzies. The one-eyed old

man arose and stood upright. “We marvel at the price paid for one mere

woman,” he began; “but the wisdom of the price is no concern of ours. We

are here to give judgment, and judgment we give. We have no doubt. It is

known to all that Porportuk paid a heavy price for the woman El-Soo.

Wherefore does the woman El-Soo belong to Porportuk and none other.”

He sat down heavily, and coughed. The old men nodded and coughed.

“I will kill you,” Akoon cried in English.

Porportuk smiled and stood up. “You have given true judgment,” he said

to the council, “and my young men will give to you much tobacco. Now

let the woman be brought to me.”

Akoon gritted his teeth. The young men took El-Soo by the arms. She did

not resist, and was led, her face a sullen flame, to Porportuk.

“Sit there at my feet till I have made my talk,” he commanded. He paused

a moment. “It is true,” he said, “I am an old man. Yet can understand the

ways of youth. The fire has not all gone out of me. Yet am I no longer

young, nor am I minded to run these old legs of mine through all the years

that remain to me. El-Soo can run fast and well. She is a deer. This I

know, for I have seen and run after her. It is not good that a wife should

run so fast. I paid for her a heavy price, yet does she run away from me.

Akoon paid no price at all, yet does she run to him.

“When I came among you people of the Mackenzie, I was of one mind. As

I listened in the council and thought of the swift legs of El-Soo, I was of

many minds. Now am I of one mind again, but it is a different mind from

the one I brought to the council. Let me tell you my mind. When a dog

runs once away from a master, it will run away again. No matter how

many times it is brought back, each time it will run away again. When we

have such dogs, we sell them. El-Soo is like a dog that runs away. I will

sell her. Is there any man of the council that will buy?”

The old men coughed and remained silent.

“Akoon would buy,” Porportuk went on, “but he has no money. Wherefore

I will give El-Soo to him, as he said, without price. Even now will I give

her to him.”

LOST FACE

89

Reaching down, he took El-Soo by the hand and led her across the space

to where Akoon lay on his back.

“She has a bad habit, Akoon,” he said, seating her at Akoon’s feet. “As she

has run away from me in the past, in the days to come she may run away

from you. But there is no need to fear that she will ever run away, Akoon.

I shall see to that. Never will she run away from you — this the word of

Porportuk. She has great wit. I know, for often has it bitten into me. Yet

am I minded myself to give my wit play for once. And by my wit will I

secure her to you, Akoon.”

Stooping, Porportuk crossed El-Soo’s feet, so that the instep of one lay

over that of the other; and then, before his purpose could be divined, he

discharged his rifle through the two ankles. As Akoon struggled to rise

against the weight of the young men, there was heard the crunch of the

broken bone rebroken. “It is just,” said the old men, one to another.

El-Soo made no sound. She sat and looked at her shattered ankles, on

which she would never walk again.

“My legs are strong, El-Soo,” Akoon said. “But never will they bear me

away from you.”

El-Soo looked at him, and for the first time in all the time he had known

her, Akoon saw tears in her eyes.

“Your eyes are like deer’s eyes, El-Soo,” he said.

“Is it just?” Porportuk asked, and grinned from the edge of the smoke as

he prepared to depart.

“It is just,” the old men said. And they sat on in the silence.

DUTCH COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES

1

Dutch Courage and Other Stories

By Jack London

DUTCH COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES

2

Dutch Courage

(Published posthumously by Macmillan, 1922)

[ Go to London’s Writings ]

Contents

· Preface (by Charmian London)

· Dutch Courage

· Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan

· The Lost Poacher

· The Banks of the Sacramento

· Chris Farrington, Able Seaman

· To Repel Boarders

· An Adventure in the Upper Sea

· Bald-Face

· In Yeddo Bay

· Whose Business Is To Live

DUTCH COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES

3

Preface

“I’ve never written a line that I’d be ashamed for my young daughters to read, and

I never shall write such a line!”

Thus Jack London, well along in his career. And thus almost any collection of his

adventure stories is acceptable to young readers as well as to their elders. So, in

sorting over the few manuscripts still unpublished in book form, while most of

them were written primarily for boys and girls, I do not hesitate to include as

appropriate a tale such as “Whose Business Is to Live.”

Number two of the present group, “Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan,” is the first

story ever written by Jack London for publication. At the age of seventeen he had

returned from his deep-water voyage in the sealing schooner Sophie Sutherland,

and was working thirteen hours a day for forty dollars a month in an Oakland,

California, jute mill. The San Francisco Call offered a prize of twenty-five dollars

for the best written descriptive article. Jack’s mother, Flora London, remembering

that he had excelled in his school “compositions,” urged him to enter the contest

by recalling some happening of his travels. Grammar school, years earlier, had

been his sole disciplined education. But his wide reading, worldly experience, and

extraordinary powers of observation and correlation, enabled him to command

first prize. It is notable that the second and third awards went to students at

California and Stanford universities.

Jack never took the trouble to hunt up that old San Francisco Call of November

12, 1893; but when I came to write his biography, “The Book of Jack London,” I

unearthed the issue, and the tale appears intact in my English edition, published in

1921. And now, gathering material for what will be the final Jack London

collections, I cannot but think that his first printed story will have unusual interest

for his readers of all ages.

The boy Jack’s unexpected success in that virgin venture naturally spurred him to

further effort. It was, for one thing, the pleasantest way he had ever earned so

much money, even if it lacked the element of physical prowess and danger that

had marked those purple days with the oyster pirates, and, later, equally exciting

passages with the Fish Patrol. He only waited to catch up on sleep lost while

hammering out “Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan,” before applying himself to

new fiction. That was what was the matter with it: it was sheer fiction in place of

the white-hot realism of the “true story” that had brought him distinction. This

second venture he afterward termed “gush.” It was promptly rejected by the editor

of the Call. Lacking experience in such matters, Jack could not know why. And it

DUTCH COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES

4

did not occur to him to submit his manuscript elsewhere. His fire was dampened;

he gave over writing and continued with the jute mill and innocent social

diversion in company with Louis Shattuck and his friends, who had superseded

Jack’s wilder comrades and hazards of bay- and sea-faring. This period, following

the publication of `Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan,” is touched upon in his book

“John Barleycorn.”

The next that one hears of attempts at writing is when, during his tramping