She cannot gather wood nor carry the meat of the hunters. Did the Wolves choose her?’

“‘There is Moyri, whose eyes are crossed by the Evil Spirit. Even the babes are affrighted when they gaze upon her, and it is said that the bald-face gives her the trail. Was she chosen?’”

Since “bald-face” means grizzly bear, I can’t help but think that London was just amusing himself. In a little different setting we could be at a fraternity house complaining about blind dates. What did you mean by this, Jack? Are you just tweaking our noses, or have you seen these women?

But I would be remiss if I led you to believe that all of London’s stories feature cross-eyed Indians and incapable adventurers.

One of my favorite stories is “The League of the Old Men,” where London makes me emphathize with an old chief, Imber, who is on trial for countless, cold-blooded murders, yet London paints a sympathetic portrait, because the old man’s killing is really a confused lashing out at the loss of his world; the young braves of his culture have been compromised, the young women lured. One particularly poignant moment comes when the reader realizes that Imber not only does n’t understand the language of English, he cannot even comprehend the concept of the written word, that words can be transferred not only to the ear, but also to the eye.

The final paragraph I especially admire for its grace, its tone, and its twist. “But Imber was dreaming. The square-browed judge likewise dreamed, and all his race rose up before him in a mighty phantasmagoria—his steel-shod, mail-clad race, the lawgiver and world-maker among the families of men. He saw it dawn red-flickering across the dark forests and sullen seas; he saw it blaze, bloody and red, to full and triumphant noon; and down the shaded slope he saw the blood-red sands dropping into night. And through it all he observed the Law, pitiless and potent, ever unswerving and ever ordaining, greater than the motes of men who fulfilled it or were crushed by it, even as it was greater than he, his heart speaking for softness.”

I have many favorites. At one point, I remember thinking, Each story just gets better than the one before. One technique that particularly intrigues me is London’s setting a scene where someone is about to tell a story, and the story becomes the focus, a story within a story, and the story within a story leaps from a masterful imagination, as though London himself sits in the outer circle, listening along with us. He is so good, I find myself thinking that the interior story came to life by itself, that it surprises London as much as it does me.

Mostly, I find pleasure in reading him just for the richness of his observations, for sentences like, “Frost after frost had bitten deeply, each depositing its stratum of scab upon the half-healed scar that went before.” Or, “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 color and solidity of amber was increasing its length on his chin. If he fell down it would shatter itself, like glass into brittle fragments.” Only someone who’s been there could write those words.

they ’re from “To Build a Fire,” which has to rank with the best short stories ever written. Here, London blends simplicity, authenticity, philosophy, and suspense with perfection. He sets his scene of severe and subtle cold so convincingly, that by the time the fire crackles, you can almost feel its warmth. But what elevates this story above those by other writers is London’s observations of the fire builder. “The trouble with him,” writes London, “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 significances. 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 field of immortality and man’s place in the universe.”

I like that London even thinks to mention this. I like it even more that the man’s inability to contemplate other than the physical and the immediate leads to his fatal mistake. He knows the importance of fire, the warning signs of frostbite, the seriousness of wet feet at seventy-five below. At several points his preparedness allows him to outwit the hidden dangers of the landscape, but ultimately he outwits only himself. His biggest mistake is being there, outside and alone.

I have two friends, Warren and Pete, who both possess an enviable knack for creating texture in their lives. Both practice law in big cities, but they make time to fish in Alaska, run white water in Idaho, ski from helicopters in Canada. Warren was a river guide out west for seven summers in college and law school.