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LOST FACE
The fi rst rise of the divide from Crater Lake was across
a small glacier. Here was a well-defi ned trail. But above
the glacier, which was also above timber-line, was naught
but a chaos of naked rock and enormous boulders. There was
no way of seeing the trail in the darkness, and he blundered
on, paying thrice the ordinary exertion for all that he accomplished. He won the summit in the thick of howling wind and
driving snow, providentially stumbling upon a small, deserted
tent, into which he crawled. There he found and bolted some
ancient fried potatoes and half a dozen raw eggs.
When the snow ceased and the wind eased down, he began the almost impossible descent. There was no trail, and he
stumbled and blundered, often fi nding himself, at the last moment, on the edge of rocky walls and steep slopes the depth of
which he had no way of judging. Part way down, the stars
clouded over again, and in the consequent obscurity he slipped
and rolled and slid for a hundred feet, landing bruised and
bleeding on the bottom of a large shallow hole. From all about
him arose the stench of dead horses. The hole was handy to
the trail, and the packers had made a practice of tumbling into
it their broken and dying animals. The stench overpowered
him, making him deadly sick, and as in a nightmare he scrambled out. Half-way up, he recollected Bondell’s gripsack. It had
fallen into the hole with him; the pack-strap had evidently
broken, and he had forgotten it. Back he went into the pestilential charnel-pit, where he crawled around on hands and
knees and groped for half an hour. Altogether he encountered
and counted seventeen dead horses (and one horse still alive
that he shot with his revolver) before he found Bondell’s grip.
Looking back upon a life that had not been without valour
and achievement, he unhesitatingly declared to himself that
31
JACK LONDON
this return after the grip was the most heroic act he had ever
performed. So heroic was it that he was twice on the verge of
fainting before he crawled out of the hole.
By the time he had descended to the Scales, the steep
pitch of Chilcoot was past, and the way became easier. Not that
it was an easy way, however, in the best of places; but it became
a really possible trail, along which he could have made good
time if he had not been worn out, if he had had light with
which to pick his steps, and if it had not been for Bondell’s
gripsack. To him, in his exhausted condition, it was the last
straw. Having barely strength to carry himself along, the additional weight of the grip was suffi cient to throw him nearly
every time he tripped or stumbled. And when he escaped tripping, branches reached out in the darkness, hooked the grip
between his shoulders, and held him back.
His mind was made up that if he missed the Athenian it
would be the fault of the gripsack. In fact, only two things remained in his consciousness – Bondell’s grip and the steamer.
He knew only those two things, and they became identifi ed, in
a way, with some stern mission upon which he had journeyed
and toiled for centuries. He walked and struggled on as in
a dream. As part of the dream was his arrival at Sheep Camp.
He stumbled into a saloon, slid his shoulders out of the straps,
and started to deposit the grip at his feet. But it slipped from
his fi ngers and struck the fl oor with a heavy thud that was not
unnoticed by two men who were just leaving. Churchill drank
a glass of whisky, told the barkeeper to call him in ten minutes,
and sat down, his feet on the grip, his head on his knees.
So badly did his misused body stiffen, that when he was
called it required another ten minutes and a second glass of
whisky to unbend his joints and limber up the muscles.
32
LOST FACE
“Hey not that way!” the barkeeper shouted, and then went
after him and started him through the darkness toward Canyon
City. Some little husk of inner consciousness told Churchill that
the direction was right, and, still as in a dream, he took the canon
trail. He did not know what warned him, but after what seemed
several centuries of travelling, he sensed danger and drew his
revolver. Still in the dream, he saw two men step out and heard
them halt him. His revolver went off four times, and he saw
the fl ashes and heard the explosions of their revolvers. Also, he
was aware that he had been hit in the thigh. He saw one man go
down, and, as the other came for him, he smashed him a straight
blow with the heavy revolver full in the face. Then he turned and
ran. He came from the dream shortly afterward, to fi nd himself
plunging down the trail at a limping lope. His fi rst thought was
for the gripsack. It was still on his back. He was convinced that
what had happened was a dream till he felt for his revolver and
found it gone. Next he became aware of a sharp stinging of his
thigh, and after investigating, he found his hand warm with blood.
It was a superfi cial wound, but it was incontestable. He became
wider awake, and kept up the lumbering run to Canyon City.
He found a man, with a team of horses and a wagon, who
got out of bed and harnessed up for twenty dollars. Churchill
crawled in on the wagon-bed and slept, the gripsack still on
his back. It was a rough ride, over water-washed boulders
down the Dyea Valley; but he roused only when the wagon
hit the highest places. Any altitude of his body above the wagon-bed of less than a foot did not faze him. The last mile was
smooth going, and he slept soundly.
He came to in the grey dawn, the driver shaking him savagely and howling into his ear that the Athenian was gone.
Churchill looked blankly at the deserted harbour.
33
JACK LONDON
“There’s a smoke over at Skaguay,” the man said.
Churchill’s eyes were too swollen to see that far, but he
said: “It’s she. Get me a boat.”
The driver was obliging and found a skiff, and a man to row
it for ten dollars, payment in advance. Churchill paid, and was
helped into the skiff. It was beyond him to get in by himself.
It was six miles to Skaguay, and he had a blissful thought of
sleeping those six miles. But the man did not know how to row,
and Churchill took the oars and toiled for a few more centuries. He never knew six longer and more excruciating miles.
A snappy little breeze blew up the inlet and held him back.
He had a gone feeling at the pit of the stomach, and suffered
from faintness and numbness. At his command, the man took
the baler and threw salt water into his face.
The Athenian’s anchor was up-and-down when they came
alongside, and Churchill was at the end of his last remnant of
strength.
“Stop her! Stop her!” he shouted hoarsely.
“Important message! Stop her!”
Then he dropped his chin on his chest and slept. When half
a dozen men started to carry him up the gang-plank, he awoke,
reached for the grip, and clung to it like a drowning man.
On deck he became a centre of horror and curiosity.
The clothing in which he had left White Horse was represented by a few rags, and he was as frayed as his clothing. He had
travelled for fi fty-fi ve hours at the top notch of endurance.
He had slept six hours in that time, and he was twenty pounds
lighter than when he started. Face and hands and body were
scratched and bruised, and he could scarcely see. He tried to
stand up, but failed, sprawling out on the deck, hanging on to
the gripsack, and delivering his message.
34
LOST FACE
“Now, put me to bed,” he fi nished; “I’ll eat when
I wake up.”
They did him honour, carrying him down in his rags and
dirt and depositing him and Bondell’s grip in the bridal chamber, which was the biggest and most luxurious state-room in
the ship. Twice he slept the clock around, and he had bathed
and shaved and eaten and was leaning over the rail smoking
a cigar when the two hundred pilgrims from White Horse
came alongside.
By the time the Athenian arrived in Seattle, Churchill had
fully recuperated, and he went ashore with Bondell’s grip in
his hand. He felt proud of that grip. To him it stood for achievement and integrity and trust. “I’ve delivered the goods,” was
the way he expressed these various high terms to himself.
It was early in the evening, and he went straight to Bondell’s
home. Louis Bondell was glad to see him, shaking hands with
both hands at the same time and dragging him into the house.
“Oh, thanks, old man; it was good of you to bring it out,”
Bondell said when he received the gripsack.
He tossed it carelessly upon a couch, and Churchill noted with an appreciative eye the rebound of its weight from
the springs. Bondell was volleying him with questions.
“How did you make out? How’re the boys? What became of
Bill Smithers? Is Del Bishop still with Pierce? Did he sell my
dogs? How did Sulphur Bottom show up? You’re looking fi ne.
What steamer did you come out on?”
To all of which Churchill gave answer, till half an hour
had gone by and the fi rst lull in the conversation had arrived.
“Hadn’t you better take a look at it?” he suggested, nodding
his head at the gripsack.
35
JACK LONDON
“Oh, it’s all right,” Bondell answered. “Did Mitchell’s dump
turn out as much as he expected?”
“I think you’d better look at it,” Churchill insisted. “When
I deliver a thing, I want to be satisfi ed that it’s all right. There’s
always the chance that somebody might have got into it when
I was asleep, or something.”
“It’s nothing important, old man,” Bondell answered, with
a laugh.
“Nothing important,” Churchill echoed in a faint, small
voice. Then he spoke with decision: “Louis, what’s in that bag?
I want to know.”
Louis looked at him curiously, then left the room and returned with a bunch of keys. He inserted his hand and drew
out a heavy Colt’s revolver. Next came out a few boxes of ammunition for the revolver and several boxes of Winchester
cartridges.
Churchill took the gripsack and looked into it. Then he
turned it upside down and shook it gently.
“The gun’s all rusted,” Bondell said. “Must have been out in
the rain.”
“Yes,” Churchill answered. “Too bad it got wet. I guess
I was a bit careless.”
He got up and went outside. Ten minutes later Louis Bondell went out and found him on the steps, sitting down, elbows on knees and chin on hands, gazing steadfastly out into
the darkness.
TO BUILD A FIRE
Day had broken cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey,
when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and
climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little-travelled
trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was
a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing
the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o’clock.
There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not
a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed
an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that
made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun.
This fact did not worry the man. He was used to the lack of
sun. It had been days since he had seen the sun, and he knew
that a few more days must pass before that cheerful orb, due
south, would just peep above the sky-line and dip immediately from view.
The man fl ung a look back along the way he had come.
The Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice.
On top of this ice were as many feet of snow. It was all pure
white, rolling in gentle undulations where the ice-jams of
the freeze-up had formed. North and south, as far as his eye
could see, it was unbroken white, save for a dark hair-line that
curved and twisted from around the spruce-covered island to
the south, and that curved and twisted away into the north,
where it disappeared behind another spruce-covered island.
37
JACK LONDON
This dark hair-line was the trail – the main trail – that led
south fi ve hundred miles to the Chilcoot Pass, Dyea, and
salt water; and that led north seventy miles to Dawson, and
still on to the north a thousand miles to Nulato, and fi nally to
St. Michael on Bering Sea, a thousand miles and half a thousand more.
But all this – the mysterious, far-reaching hairline trail,
the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and
the strangeness and weirdness of it all – made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it.
He was a new-comer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was
his fi rst winter. The trouble with him was that he was without
imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but
only in the things, and not in the signifi cances. Fifty degrees
below zero meant eighty odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was
all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general, able
only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and
from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural fi eld of immortality and man’s place in the universe. Fifty degrees below
zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear-fl aps, warm moccasins,
and thick socks. Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fi fty degrees below zero. That there should be anything
more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head.
As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was
a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him. He spat again.
And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle crackled. He knew that at fi fty below spittle crackled on
the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubt-
38
LOST FACE
edly it was colder than fi fty below – how much colder he did
not know. But the temperature did not matter. He was bound
for the old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where
the boys were already. They had come over across the divide
from the Indian Creek country, while he had come the roundabout way to take a look at the possibilities of getting out
logs in the spring from the islands in the Yukon. He would
be in to camp by six o’clock; a bit after dark, it was true, but
the boys would be there, a fi re would be going, and a hot supper would be ready. As for lunch, he pressed his hand against
the protruding bundle under his jacket. It was also under his
shirt, wrapped up in a handkerchief and lying against the naked skin. It was the only way to keep the biscuits from freezing.
He smiled agreeably to himself as he thought of those biscuits,
each cut open and sopped in bacon grease, and each enclosing
a generous slice of fried bacon.
He plunged in among the big spruce trees. The trail was
faint. A foot of snow had fallen since the last sled had passed
over, and he was glad he was without a sled, travelling light.
In fact, he carried nothing but the lunch wrapped in the handkerchief. He was surprised, however, at the cold. It certainly
was cold, he concluded, as he rubbed his numbed nose and
cheek-bones with his mittened hand. He was a warm-whiskered man, but the hair on his face did not protect the high
cheek-bones and the eager nose that thrust itself aggressively
into the frosty air.
At the man’s heels trotted a dog, a big native husky,
the proper wolf-dog, grey-coated and without any visible or
temperamental difference from its brother, the wild wolf.
The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew
that it was no time for travelling. Its instinct told it a truer tale
39
JACK LONDON
than was told to the man by the man’s judgment. In reality, it
was not merely colder than fi fty below zero; it was colder than
sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-fi ve below zero.
Since the freezing-point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that
one hundred and seven degrees of frost obtained. The dog
did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its
brain there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very
cold such as was in the man’s brain. But the brute had its instinct. It experienced a vague but menacing apprehension that
subdued it and made it slink along at the man’s heels, and
that made it question eagerly every unwonted movement of
the man as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter
somewhere and build a fi re. The dog had learned fi re, and it
wanted fi re, or else to burrow under the snow and cuddle its
warmth away from the air.
The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in
a fi ne powder of frost, and especially were its jowls, muzzle,
and eyelashes whitened by its crystalled breath. The man’s red
beard and moustache were likewise frosted, but more solidly,
the deposit taking the form of ice and increasing with every
warm, moist breath he exhaled. Also, the man was chewing tobacco, and the muzzle of ice held his lips so rigidly that he was
unable to clear his chin when he expelled the juice. The result
was that a crystal beard of the colour and solidity of amber was
increasing its length on his chin. If he fell down it would shatter itself, like glass, into brittle fragments. But he did not mind
the appendage. It was the penalty all tobacco-chewers paid in
that country, and he had been out before in two cold snaps.
They had not been so cold as this, he knew, but by the spirit
thermometer at Sixty Mile he knew they had been registered
at fi fty below and at fi fty-fi ve.
40
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