Northland Stories by Jack London Page A

good to see that whole tribe fighting drunk—and all because of a glorious ferment of sugar and sour dough. That was before your time,” Malemute Kid said as he turned to Stanley Prince, a young mining expert who had been in two years. “No white women in the country then, and Mason wanted to get married. Ruth’s father was chief of the Tananas, and objected, like the rest of 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.”
    â€œBut 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.
    â€œWe 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 shut them out. When they finally got into Nuklukyeto, the whole Post was ready for them. And as to the foregathering, ask Father Roubeau here: he performed the ceremony.”
    The Jesuit took the pipe from his lips, but could only express his gratification with patriarchal smiles, while Protestant and Catholic vigorously applauded.
    â€œBy gar!” ejaculated Louis Savoy, who seemed overcome by the romance of it. “La petite squaw; mon Mason brav. By gar!”
    Then, as the first tin cups of punch went round, Bettles the Unquenchable sprang to his feet and struck up his favorite drinking song:—
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    â€œThere’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. ”
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    â€œOh the juice of the forbidden fruit, ”
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    roared out the Bacchanalian chorus,—
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    â€œOh 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. ”
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    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 hold out; may his dogs keep their legs; may his matches never miss fire.”
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    Crack! Crack!—they heard the familiar music of the dogwhip, the whining howl of the Malemutes, and the crunch of a sled as it drew up to the cabin. Conversation languished while they waited the issue.
    â€œAn old-timer; cares for his dogs and then himself,” whispered Malemute Kid to Prince, as they listened to the snapping jaws and the wolfish snarls and yelps of pain which 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