To the Man on the Trail

Jack London

'Dump it in!.' 'But I say, Kid, isn't that going it a little too strong' Whisky and alcohol's bad

enough; but when it comes to brandy and pepper sauce and-' 'Dump it in. Who's making this

punch, anyway?' And Malemute Kid smiled benignantly through the clouds of steam. 'By

the time you've been in this country as long as I have, my son, and lived on rabbit tracks and

salmon belly, you'll learn that Christmas comes only once per annum.

And a Christmas without punch is sinking a hole to bedrock with nary a pay streak.'

'Stack up on that fer a high cyard,' approved Big Jim Belden, who had come down from his

claim on Mazy May to spend Christmas, and who, as everyone knew, had been living the

the tribe. Stiff? Why, I used my last pound of sugar; finest work in that line I ever did in my

life. You should have seen the chase, down the river and across the portage.' 'But the

squaw?' asked Louis Savoy, the tall French Canadian, becoming interested; for he had heard

of this wild deed when at Forty Mile the preceding winter.

Then Malemute Kid, who was a born raconteur, told the unvarnished tale of the Northland

Lochinvar. More than one rough adventurer of the North felt his heartstrings draw closer

and experienced vague yearnings for the sunnier pastures of the Southland, where life

promised something more than a barren struggle with cold and death.

'We struck the Yukon just behind the first ice run,' he concluded, 'and the tribe only a

quarter of an hour behind. But that saved us; for the second run broke the jam above and

the Unquenchable sprang to his feet and struck up his favorite drinking song: 'There's Henry

Ward Beecher And Sunday-school teachers, All drink of the sassafras root; But you bet all

the same, If it had its right name, It's the juice of the forbidden fruit.'

'Oh, the juice of the forbidden fruit,' roared out the bacchanalian chorus, 'Oh, the juice of

the forbidden fruit; But you bet all the same, If it had its right name, It's the juice of the

forbidden fruit.'

Milhares de livros grátis para download.

Malemute Kid's frightful concoction did its work; the men of the camps and trails unbent in

its genial glow, and jest and song and tales of past adventure went round the board.

Aliens from a dozen lands, they toasted each and all. It was the Englishman, Prince, who

pledged 'Uncle Sam, the precocious infant of the New World'; the Yankee, Bettles, who

drank to 'The Queen, God bless her'; and together, Savoy and Meyers, the German trader,

clanged their cups to Alsace and Lorraine.

Then Malemute Kid arose, cup in hand, and glanced at the greased-paper window, where

the frost stood full three inches thick. 'A health to the man on trail this night; may his grub

proclaimed to their practiced ears that the stranger was beating back their dogs while he fed

his own.

Then came the expected knock, sharp and confident, and the stranger entered.

Dazzled by the light, he hesitated a moment at the door, giving to all a chance for scrutiny.

He was a striking personage, and a most picturesque one, in his Arctic dress of wool and

fur. Standing six foot two or three, with proportionate breadth of shoulders and depth of

chest, his smooth-shaven face nipped by the cold to a gleaming pink, his long lashes and

eyebrows white with ice, and the ear and neck flaps of his great wolfskin cap loosely raised,

he seemed, of a verity, the Frost King, just stepped in out of the night.

Clasped outside his Mackinaw jacket, a beaded belt held two large Colt's revolvers and a

and a mug of punch were forced upon him before he could explain his errand.

How long since that basket sled, with three men and eight dogs, passed?' he asked.

'An even two days ahead. Are you after them?' 'Yes; my team. Run them off under my very

nose, the cusses. I've gained two days on them already--pick them up on the next run.'

'Reckon they'll show spunk?' asked Belden, in order to keep up the conversation, for

Malemute Kid already had the coffeepot on and was busily frying bacon and moose meat.

The stranger significantly tapped his revolvers.

'When'd yeh leave Dawson?' 'Twelve o'clock.' 'Last night?'--as a matter of course.

'Today.' A murmur of surprise passed round the circle. And well it might; for it was just

midnight, and seventy-five miles of rough river trail was not to be sneered at for a twelve

hours' run.

The talk soon became impersonal, however, harking back to the trails of childhood. As the

young stranger ate of the rude fare Malemute Kid attentively studied his face. Nor was he

long in deciding that it was fair, honest, and open, and that he liked it. Still youthful, the

lines had been firmly traced by toil and hardship.

his courtship. '"Here we be, Dad," sez she. "An' may yeh be damned," sez he to her, an' then

to me, ''Jim, yeh-yeh git outen them good duds o' yourn; I want a right peart slice o' thet

pipe, which had failed to go out, and then brightened up with, 'How 'bout yerself, stranger--

married man?' For reply, he opened his watch, slipped it from the thong which served for a

chain, and passed it over. Belden picked up the slush lamp, surveyed the inside of the case

critically, and, swearing admiringly to himself, handed it over to Louis Savoy. With

numerous 'By gars!' he finally surrendered it to Prince, and they noticed that his hands

trembled and his eyes took on a peculiar softness. And so it passed from horny hand to

horny hand--the pasted photograph of a woman, the clinging kind that such men fancy, with

a babe at the breast. Those who had not yet seen the wonder were keen with curiosity; those

who had became silent and retrospective. They could face the pinch of famine, the grip of

scurvy, or the quick death by field or flood; but the pictured semblance of a stranger woman

breathing in the heaviness of exhausted sleep.

'By Jove! He's a plucky chap,' commented Prince. 'Three hours' sleep after seventy-five

miles with the dogs, and then the trail again. Who is he, Kid?' 'Jack Westondale. Been in

going on three years, with nothing but the name of working like a horse, and any amount of

bad luck to his credit. I never knew him, but Sitka Charley told me about him.' 'It seems

hard that a man with a sweet young wife like his should be putting in his years in this

Godforsaken hole, where every year counts two on the outside.' 'The trouble with him is

clean grit and stubbornness. He's cleaned up twice with a stake, but lost it both times.' Here

the conversation was broken off by an uproar from Bettles, for the effect had begun to wear

away. And soon the bleak years of monotonous grub and deadening toil were being

forgotten in rough merriment. Malemute Kid alone seemed unable to lose himself, and cast

many an anxious look at his watch. Once he put on his mittens and beaver-skin cap, and,

for it is not good to face seventy-four degrees below zero with naked ears and hands.

Malemute Kid saw him to the main trail, and there, gripping his hand heartily, gave him

advice.

'You'll find a hundred pounds of salmon eggs on the sled,' he said. 'The dogs will go as far

on that as with one hundred and fifty of fish, and you can't get dog food at Pelly, as you

probably expected.' The stranger started, and his eyes flashed, but he did not interrupt. 'You

can't get an ounce of food for dog or man till you reach Five Fingers, and that's a stiff two

hundred miles. Watch out for open water on the Thirty Mile River, and be sure you take the

big cutoff above Le Barge.' 'How did you know it? Surely the news can't be ahead of me

already?' 'I don't know it; and what's more, I don't want to know it.

But he sized you up to me as square once, and I believe him. I've seen your face; I like it.

think they're cheap at ten dollars a pound. You can get them at Five Fingers, Little Salmon,

to twenty-five, but if it gets below that, build a fire and change your socks.'

Fifteen minutes had barely elapsed when the jingle of bells announced new arrivals. The

door opened, and a mounted policeman of the Northwest Territory entered, followed by two

half-breed dog drivers. Like Westondale, they were heavily armed and showed signs of

fatigue. The half-breeds had been borne to the trail and bore it easily; but the young

policeman was badly exhausted. Still, the dogged obstinacy of his race held him to the pace

he had set, and would hold him till he dropped in his tracks.

'When did Westondale pull out?' he asked. 'He stopped here, didn't he?' This was

supererogatory, for the tracks told their own tale too well.

Malemute Kid had caught Belden's eye, and he, scenting the wind, replied evasively, 'A

right peart while back.' 'Come, my man; speak up,' the policeman admonished.

'Yeh seem to want him right smart. Hez he ben gittin' cantankerous down Dawson way?'

'Held up Harry McFarland's for forty thousand; exchanged it at the P.C. store for a check on

Seattle; and who's to stop the cashing of it if we don't overtake him? When did he pull out?'

Every eye suppressed its excitement, for Malemute Kid had given the cue, and the young

The young officer--and it required his whole will--walked steadily to the door, exhibiting a

freshness he did not possess. But they all knew and appreciated his proud effort; nor could

he veil the twinges of agony that shot across his face. Covered with frost, the dogs were

curled up in the snow, and it was almost impossible to get them to their feet. The poor

brutes whined under the stinging lash, for the dog drivers were angry and cruel; nor till

Babette, the leader, was cut from the traces, could they break out the sled and get under

way.

'You've all traveled trail, and know what that stands for. Don't jump a dog when he's down.

You've only heard one side. A whiter man than Jack Westondale never ate from the same

drops the whole sack. Found him dead in the snow the next day. And poor Jack laying his

plans to go out this winter to his wife and the boy he's never seen. You'll notice he took

exactly what his partner lostforty thousand. Well, he's gone out; and what are you going to

do about it?' The Kid glanced round the circle of his judges, noted the softening of their

faces, then raised his mug aloft. 'So a health to the man on trail this night; may his grub

hold out; may his dogs keep their legs; may his matches never miss fire.