A Daughter of the Snows
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Title: A Daughter of the Snows
Author: Jack London
Release Date: January 10, 2005 [eBook #14654]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT BookishMall.com EBOOK A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS***
E-text prepared by Al Haines
A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS
by
JACK LONDON
Author of The Son of The Wolf, The Call of the Wild,
The People of the Abyss, etc.
With Illustrations by Frederick C. Yohn
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers—New York
1902
CHAPTER I
"All ready, Miss Welse, though I'm sorry we can't spare one of the
steamer's boats."
Frona Welse arose with alacrity and came to the first officer's side.
"We're so busy," he explained, "and gold-rushers are such perishable
freight, at least—"
"I understand," she interrupted, "and I, too, am behaving as though I
were perishable. And I am sorry for the trouble I am giving you,
but—but—" She turned quickly and pointed to the shore. "Do you
see that big log-house? Between the clump of pines and the river? I
was born there."
"Guess I'd be in a hurry myself," he muttered, sympathetically, as he
piloted her along the crowded deck.
Everybody was in everybody else's way; nor was there one who failed to
proclaim it at the top of his lungs. A thousand gold-seekers were
clamoring for the immediate landing of their outfits. Each hatchway
gaped wide open, and from the lower depths the shrieking donkey-engines
were hurrying the misassorted outfits skyward. On either side of the
steamer, rows of scows received the flying cargo, and on each of these
scows a sweating mob of men charged the descending slings and heaved
bales and boxes about in frantic search. Men waved shipping receipts
and shouted over the steamer-rails to them. Sometimes two and three
identified the same article, and war arose. The "two-circle" and the
"circle-and-dot" brands caused endless jangling, while every whipsaw
discovered a dozen claimants.
"The purser insists that he is going mad," the first officer said, as
he helped Frona Welse down the gangway to the landing stage, "and the
freight clerks have turned the cargo over to the passengers and quit
work. But we're not so unlucky as the Star of Bethlehem," he reassured
her, pointing to a steamship at anchor a quarter of a mile away. "Half
of her passengers have pack-horses for Skaguay and White Pass, and the
other half are bound over the Chilcoot. So they've mutinied and
everything's at a standstill."
"Hey, you!" he cried, beckoning to a Whitehall which hovered discreetly
on the outer rim of the floating confusion.
A tiny launch, pulling heroically at a huge tow-barge, attempted to
pass between; but the boatman shot nervily across her bow, and just as
he was clear, unfortunately, caught a crab. This slewed the boat
around and brought it to a stop.
"Watch out!" the first officer shouted.
A pair of seventy-foot canoes, loaded with outfits, gold-rushers, and
Indians, and under full sail, drove down from the counter direction.
One of them veered sharply towards the landing stage, but the other
pinched the Whitehall against the barge. The boatman had unshipped his
oars in time, but his small craft groaned under the pressure and
threatened to collapse. Whereat he came to his feet, and in short,
nervous phrases consigned all canoe-men and launch-captains to eternal
perdition. A man on the barge leaned over from above and baptized him
with crisp and crackling oaths, while the whites and Indians in the
canoe laughed derisively.
"Aw, g'wan!" one of them shouted. "Why don't yeh learn to row?"
The boatman's fist landed on the point of his critic's jaw and dropped
him stunned upon the heaped merchandise. Not content with this summary
act he proceeded to follow his fist into the other craft. The miner
nearest him tugged vigorously at a revolver which had jammed in its
shiny leather holster, while his brother argonauts, laughing, waited
the outcome. But the canoe was under way again, and the Indian
helmsman drove the point of his paddle into the boatman's chest and
hurled him backward into the bottom of the Whitehall.
When the flood of oaths and blasphemy was at full tide, and violent
assault and quick death seemed most imminent, the first officer had
stolen a glance at the girl by his side. He had expected to find a
shocked and frightened maiden countenance, and was not at all prepared
for the flushed and deeply interested face which met his eyes.
"I am sorry," he began.
But she broke in, as though annoyed by the interruption, "No, no; not
at all. I am enjoying it every bit. Though I am glad that man's
revolver stuck. If it had not—"
"We might have been delayed in getting ashore." The first officer
laughed, and therein displayed his tact.
"That man is a robber," he went on, indicating the boatman, who had now
shoved his oars into the water and was pulling alongside. "He agreed
to charge only twenty dollars for putting you ashore. Said he'd have
made it twenty-five had it been a man. He's a pirate, mark me, and he
will surely hang some day. Twenty dollars for a half-hour's work!
Think of it!"
"Easy, sport! Easy!" cautioned the fellow in question, at the same
time making an awkward landing and dropping one of his oars over-side.
"You've no call to be flingin' names about," he added, defiantly,
wringing out his shirt-sleeve, wet from rescue of the oar.
"You've got good ears, my man," began the first officer.
"And a quick fist," the other snapped in.
"And a ready tongue."
"Need it in my business.
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