The Faith of Men & Other Stories/The Faith of Men - Wikisource, the free online library (2024)

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A Hyperborean Brew

The Faith of Men(1903)
byJack London

Too Much Gold

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137334The Faith of MenJack London

The Faith of Men

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"Tell you what we'll do; we'll shake for it."

"That suits me," said the second man, turning, as he spoke, to theIndian that was mending snow-shoes in a corner of the cabin."Here, you Billebedam, take a run down to Oleson's cabin like agood fellow, and tell him we want to borrow his dice box."

This sudden request in the midst of a council on wages of men,wood, and grub surprised Billebedam. Besides, it was early in theday, and he had never known white men of the calibre of Pentfieldand Hutchinson to dice and play till the day's work was done. Buthis face was impassive as a Yukon Indian's should be, as he pulledon his mittens and went out the door.

Though eight o'clock, it was still dark outside, and the cabin waslighted by a tallow candle thrust into an empty whisky bottle. Itstood on the pine-board table in the middle of a disarray of dirtytin dishes. Tallow from innumerable candles had dripped down thelong neck of the bottle and hardened into a miniature glacier. Thesmall room, which composed the entire cabin, was as badly litteredas the table; while at one end, against the wall, were two bunks,one above the other, with the blankets turned down just as the twomen had crawled out in the morning.

Lawrence Pentfield and Corry Hutchinson were millionaires, thoughthey did not look it. There seemed nothing unusual about them,while they would have passed muster as fair specimens of lumbermenin any Michigan camp. But outside, in the darkness, where holesyawned in the ground, were many men engaged in windlassing muck andgravel and gold from the bottoms of the holes where other menreceived fifteen dollars per day for scraping it from off thebedrock. Each day thousands of dollars' worth of gold were scrapedfrom bedrock and windlassed to the surface, and it all belonged toPentfield and Hutchinson, who took their rank among the richestkings of Bonanza.

Pentfield broke the silence that followed on Billebedam's departureby heaping the dirty plates higher on the table and drumming atattoo on the cleared space with his knuckles. Hutchinson snuffedthe smoky candle and reflectively rubbed the soot from the wickbetween thumb and forefinger.

"By Jove, I wish we could both go out!" he abruptly exclaimed."That would settle it all."

Pentfield looked at him darkly.

"If it weren't for your cursed obstinacy, it'd be settled anyway.All you have to do is get up and go. I'll look after things, andnext year I can go out."

"Why should I go? I've no one waiting for me--"

"Your people," Pentfield broke in roughly.

"Like you have," Hutchinson went on. "A girl, I mean, and you knowit."

Pentfield shrugged his shoulders gloomily. "She can wait, Iguess."

"But she's been waiting two years now."

"And another won't age her beyond recognition."

"That'd be three years. Think of it, old man, three years in thisend of the earth, this falling-off place for the damned!"Hutchinson threw up his arm in an almost articulate groan.

He was several years younger than his partner, not more thantwenty-six, and there was a certain wistfulness in his face thatcomes into the faces of men when they yearn vainly for the thingsthey have been long denied. This same wistfulness was inPentfield's face, and the groan of it was articulate in the heaveof his shoulders.

"I dreamed last night I was in Zinkand's," he said. "The musicplaying, glasses clinking, voices humming, women laughing, and Iwas ordering eggs--yes, sir, eggs, fried and boiled and poached andscrambled, and in all sorts of ways, and downing them as fast asthey arrived."

"I'd have ordered salads and green things," Hutchinson criticizedhungrily, "with a big, rare, Porterhouse, and young onions andradishes,--the kind your teeth sink into with a crunch."

"I'd have followed the eggs with them, I guess, if I hadn'tawakened," Pentfield replied.

He picked up a trail-scarred banjo from the floor and began tostrum a few wandering notes. Hutchinson winced and breathedheavily.

"Quit it!" he burst out with sudden fury, as the other struck intoa gaily lifting swing. "It drives me mad. I can't stand it"

Pentfield tossed the banjo into a bunk and quoted:-

"Oh, he'll do it for me--and for his sister," Pentfield replied."You see, he's tenderfoot, and I wouldn't trust her with him alone.But with you along it will be an easy trip and a safe one. As soonas you get out, you'll go to her and prepare her. Then you cantake your run east to your own people, and in the spring she andher brother'll be ready to start with you. You'll like her, Iknow, right from the jump; and from that, you'll know her as soonas you lay eyes on her."

So saying he opened the back of his watch and exposed a girl'sphotograph pasted on the inside of the case. Corry Hutchinsongazed at it with admiration welling up in his eyes.

"Mabel is her name," Pentfield went on. "And it's just as well youshould know how to find the house. Soon as you strike 'Frisco,take a cab, and just say, 'Holmes's place, Myrdon Avenue'--I doubtif the Myrdon Avenue is necessary. The cabby'll know where JudgeHolmes lives.

"And say," Pentfield continued, after a pause, "it won't be a badidea for you to get me a few little things which a--er--"

"A married man should have in his business," Hutchinson blurted outwith a grin.

Pentfield grinned back.

"Sure, napkins and tablecloths and sheets and pillowslips, and suchthings. And you might get a good set of china. You know it'llcome hard for her to settle down to this sort of thing. You canfreight them in by steamer around by Bering Sea. And, I say,what's the matter with a piano?"

Hutchinson seconded the idea heartily. His reluctance hadvanished, and he was warming up to his mission.

"By Jove! Lawrence," he said at the conclusion of the council, asthey both rose to their feet, "I'll bring back that girl of yoursin style. I'll do the cooking and take care of the dogs, and allthat brother'll have to do will be to see to her comfort and do forher whatever I've forgotten. And I'll forget damn little, I cantell you."

The next day Lawrence Pentfield shook hands with him for the lasttime and watched him, running with his dogs, disappear up thefrozen Yukon on his way to salt water and the world. Pentfieldwent back to his Bonanza mine, which was many times more drearythan before, and faced resolutely into the long winter. There waswork to be done, men to superintend, and operations to direct inburrowing after the erratic pay streak; but his heart was not inthe work. Nor was his heart in any work till the tiered logs of anew cabin began to rise on the hill behind the mine. It was agrand cabin, warmly built and divided into three comfortable rooms.Each log was hand-hewed and squared--an expensive whim when theaxemen received a daily wage of fifteen dollars; but to him nothingcould be too costly for the home in which Mabel Holmes was to live.

So he went about with the building of the cabin, singing, "And oh,my fair, would I somewhere might house my heart with thee!" Also,he had a calendar pinned on the wall above the table, and his firstact each morning was to check off the day and to count the daysthat were left ere his partner would come booming down the Yukonice in the spring. Another whim of his was to permit no one tosleep in the new cabin on the hill. It must be as fresh for heroccupancy as the square-hewed wood was fresh; and when it stoodcomplete, he put a padlock on the door. No one entered savehimself, and he was wont to spend long hours there, and to comeforth with his face strangely radiant and in his eyes a glad, warmlight.

In December he received a letter from Corry Hutchinson. He hadjust seen Mabel Holmes. She was all she ought to be, to beLawrence Pentfield's wife, he wrote. He was enthusiastic, and hisletter sent the blood tingling through Pentfield's veins. Otherletters followed, one on the heels of another, and sometimes two orthree together when the mail lumped up. And they were all in thesame tenor. Corry had just come from Myrdon Avenue; Corry was justgoing to Myrdon Avenue; or Corry was at Myrdon Avenue. And helingered on and on in San Francisco, nor even mentioned his trip toDetroit.

Lawrence Pentfield began to think that his partner was a great dealin the company of Mabel Holmes for a fellow who was going east tosee his people. He even caught himself worrying about it at times,though he would have worried more had he not known Mabel and Corryso well. Mabel's letters, on the other hand, had a great deal tosay about Corry. Also, a thread of timidity that was near todisinclination ran through them concerning the trip in over the iceand the Dawson marriage. Pentfield wrote back heartily, laughingat her fears, which he took to be the mere physical ones of dangerand hardship rather than those bred of maidenly reserve.

But the long winter and tedious wait, following upon the twoprevious long winters, were telling upon him. The superintendenceof the men and the pursuit of the pay streak could not break theirk of the daily round, and the end of January found him makingoccasional trips to Dawson, where he could forget his identity fora space at the gambling tables. Because he could afford to lose,he won, and "Pentfield's luck" became a stock phrase among the faroplayers.

His luck ran with him till the second week in February. How muchfarther it might have run is conjectural; for, after one big game,he never played again.

It was in the Opera House that it occurred, and for an hour it hadseemed that he could not place his money on a card without makingthe card a winner. In the lull at the end of a deal, while thegame-keeper was shuffling the deck, Nick Inwood the owner of thegame, remarked, apropos of nothing:-

"I say, Pentfield, I see that partner of yours has been cutting upmonkey-shines on the outside."

"Trust Corry to have a good time," Pentfield had answered;"especially when he has earned it."

"Every man to his taste," Nick Inwood laughed; "but I shouldscarcely call getting married a good time."

"Corry married!" Pentfield cried, incredulous and yet surprised outof himself for the moment.

'Sure," Inwood said. "I saw it in the 'Frisco paper that came inover the ice this morning."

"Well, and who's the girl?" Pentfield demanded, somewhat with theair of patient fortitude with which one takes the bait of a catchand is aware at the time of the large laugh bound to follow at hisexpense.

Nick Inwood pulled the newspaper from his pocket and began lookingit over, saying:-

"I haven't a remarkable memory for names, but it seems to me it'ssomething like Mabel--Mabel--oh yes, here it--'Mabel Holmes,daughter of Judge Holmes,'--whoever he is."

Lawrence Pentfield never turned a hair, though he wondered how anyman in the North could know her name. He glanced coolly from faceto face to note any vagrant signs of the game that was being playedupon him, but beyond a healthy curiosity the faces betrayednothing. Then he turned to the gambler and said in cold, eventones:-

"Inwood, I've got an even five hundred here that says the print ofwhat you have just said is not in that paper."

The gambler looked at him in quizzical surprise. "Go 'way, child.I don't want your money."

"I thought so," Pentfield sneered, returning to the game and layinga couple of bets.

Nick Inwood's face flushed, and, as though doubting his senses, heran careful eyes over the print of a quarter of a column. Then beturned on Lawrence Pentfield.

"Look here, Pentfield," he said, in a quiet, nervous manner; "Ican't allow that, you know."

"Allow what?" Pentfield demanded brutally.

"You implied that I lied."

"Nothing of the sort," came the reply. "I merely implied that youwere trying to be clumsily witty."

"Make your bets, gentlemen," the dealer protested.

"But I tell you it's true," Nick Inwood insisted.

"And I have told you I've five hundred that says it's not in thatpaper," Pentfield answered, at the same time throwing a heavy sackof dust on the table.

"I am sorry to take your money," was the retort, as Inwood thrustthe newspaper into Pentfield's hand.

Pentfield saw, though he could not quite bring himself to believe.Glancing through the headline, "Young Lochinvar came out of theNorth," and skimming the article until the names of Mabel Holmesand Corry Hutchinson, coupled together, leaped squarely before hiseyes, he turned to the top of the page. It was a San Franciscopaper.

"The money's yours, Inwood," he remarked, with a short laugh."There's no telling what that partner of mine will do when he getsstarted."

Then he returned to the article and read it word for word, veryslowly and very carefully. He could no longer doubt. Beyonddispute, Corry Hutchinson had married Mabel Holmes. "One of theBonanza kings," it described him, "a partner with LawrencePentfield (whom San Francisco society has not yet forgotten), andinterested with that gentleman in other rich, Klondike properties."Further, and at the end, he read, "It is whispered that Mr. andMrs. Hutchinson will, after a brief trip east to Detroit, maketheir real honeymoon journey into the fascinating Klondikecountry."

"I'll be back again; keep my place for me," Pentfield said, risingto his feet and taking his sack, which meantime had hit the blowerand came back lighter by five hundred dollars.

He went down the street and bought a Seattle paper. It containedthe same facts, though somewhat condensed. Corry and Mabel wereindubitably married. Pentfield returned to the Opera House andresumed his seat in the game. He asked to have the limit removed.

"Trying to get action," Nick Inwood laughed, as he nodded assent tothe dealer. "I was going down to the A. C. store, but now I guessI'll stay and watch you do your worst."

This Lawrence Pentfield did at the end of two hours' plunging, whenthe dealer bit the end off a fresh cigar and struck a match as heannounced that the bank was broken. Pentfield cashed in for fortythousand, shook hands with Nick Inwood, and stated that it was thelast time he would ever play at his game or at anybody's else's.

No one knew nor guessed that he had been hit, much less hit hard.There was no apparent change in his manner. For a week he wentabout his work much as he had always done, when he read an accountof the marriage in a Portland paper. Then he called in a friend totake charge of his mine and departed up the Yukon behind his dogs.He held to the Salt Water trail till White River was reached, intowhich he turned. Five days later he came upon a hunting camp ofthe White River Indians. In the evening there was a feast, and hesat in honour beside the chief; and next morning he headed his dogsback toward the Yukon. But he no longer travelled alone. A youngsquaw fed his dogs for him that night and helped to pitch camp.She had been mauled by a bear in her childhood and suffered from aslight limp. Her name was Lashka, and she was diffident at firstwith the strange white man that had come out of the Unknown,married her with scarcely a look or word, and now was carrying herback with him into the Unknown.

But Lashka's was better fortune than falls to most Indian girlsthat mate with white men in the Northland. No sooner was Dawsonreached than the barbaric marriage that had joined them was re-solemnized, in the white man's fashion, before a priest. FromDawson, which to her was all a marvel and a dream, she was takendirectly to the Bonanza claim and installed in the square-hewedcabin on the hill.

The nine days' wonder that followed arose not so much out of thefact of the squaw whom Lawrence Pentfield had taken to bed andboard as out of the ceremony that had legalized the tie. Theproperly sanctioned marriage was the one thing that passed thecommunity's comprehension. But no one bothered Pentfield about it.So long as a man's vagaries did no special hurt to the community,the community let the man alone, nor was Pentfield barred from thecabins of men who possessed white wives. The marriage ceremonyremoved him from the status of squaw-man and placed him beyondmoral reproach, though there were men that challenged his tastewhere women were concerned.

No more letters arrived from the outside. Six sledloads of mailshad been lost at the Big Salmon. Besides, Pentfield knew thatCorry and his bride must by that time have started in over thetrail. They were even then on their honeymoon trip--the honeymoontrip he had dreamed of for himself through two dreary years. Hislip curled with bitterness at the thought; but beyond being kinderto Lashka he gave no sign.

March had passed and April was nearing its end, when, one springmorning, Lashka asked permission to go down the creek several milesto Siwash Pete's cabin. Pete's wife, a Stewart River woman, hadsent up word that something was wrong with her baby, and Lashka,who was pre-eminently a mother-woman and who held herself to betruly wise in the matter of infantile troubles, missed noopportunity of nursing the children of other women as yet morefortunate than she.

Pentfield harnessed his dogs, and with Lashka behind took the traildown the creek bed of Bonanza. Spring was in the air. Thesharpness had gone out of the bite of the frost and though snowstill covered the land, the murmur and trickling of water told thatthe iron grip of winter was relaxing. The bottom was dropping outof the trail, and here and there a new trail had been broken aroundopen holes. At such a place, where there was not room for twosleds to pass, Pentfield heard the jingle of approaching bells andstopped his dogs.

A team of tired-looking dogs appeared around the narrow bend,followed by a heavily-loaded sled. At the gee-pole was a man whosteered in a manner familiar to Pentfield, and behind the sledwalked two women. His glance returned to the man at the gee-pole.It was Corry. Pentfield got on his feet and waited. He was gladthat Lashka was with him. The meeting could not have come aboutbetter had it been planned, he thought. And as he waited hewondered what they would say, what they would be able to say. Asfor himself there was no need to say anything. The explaining wasall on their side, and he was ready to listen to them.

As they drew in abreast, Corry recognized him and halted the dogs.With a "Hello, old man," he held out his hand.

Pentfield shook it, but without warmth or speech. By this time thetwo women had come up, and he noticed that the second one was DoraHolmes. He doffed his fur cap, the flaps of which were flying,shook hands with her, and turned toward Mabel. She swayed forward,splendid and radiant, but faltered before his outstretched hand.He had intended to say, "How do you do, Mrs. Hutchinson?"--butsomehow, the Mrs. Hutchinson had choked him, and all he had managedto articulate was the "How do you do?"

There was all the constraint and awkwardness in the situation hecould have wished. Mabel betrayed the agitation appropriate to herposition, while Dora, evidently brought along as some sort ofpeacemaker, was saying:-

"Why, what is the matter, Lawrence?"

Before he could answer, Corry plucked him by the sleeve and drewhim aside.

"See here, old man, what's this mean?" Corry demanded in a lowtone, indicating Lashka with his eyes.

"I can hardly see, Corry, where you can have any concern in thematter," Pentfield answered mockingly.

But Corry drove straight to the point.

"What is that squaw doing on your sled? A nasty job you've givenme to explain all this away. I only hope it can be explained away.Who is she? Whose squaw is she?"

Then Lawrence Pentfield delivered his stroke, and he delivered itwith a certain calm elation of spirit that seemed somewhat tocompensate for the wrong that had been done him.

"She is my squaw," he said; "Mrs. Pentfield, if you please."

Corry Hutchinson gasped, and Pentfield left him and returned to thetwo women. Mabel, with a worried expression on her face, seemedholding herself aloof. He turned to Dora and asked, quitegenially, as though all the world was sunshine:- "How did you standthe trip, anyway? Have any trouble to sleep warm?"

"And, how did Mrs. Hutchinson stand it?" he asked next, his eyes onMabel.

"Oh, you dear ninny!" Dora cried, throwing her arms around him andhugging him. "Then you saw it, too! I thought something was thematter, you were acting so strangely."

"I--I hardly understand," he stammered.

"It was corrected in next day's paper," Dora chattered on. "We didnot dream you would see it. All the other papers had it correctly,and of course that one miserable paper was the very one you saw!"

"Wait a moment! What do you mean?" Pentfield demanded, a suddenfear at his heart, for he felt himself on the verge of a greatgulf.

But Dora swept volubly on.

"Why, when it became known that Mabel and I were going to Klondike,EVERY OTHER WEEK said that when we were gone, it would be lovely onMyrdon Avenue, meaning, of course, lonely."

"Then--"

"I am Mrs. Hutchinson," Dora answered. "And you thought it wasMabel all the time--"

"Precisely the way of it," Pentfield replied slowly. "But I cansee now. The reporter got the names mixed. The Seattle andPortland paper copied."

He stood silently for a minute. Mabel's face was turned toward himagain, and he could see the glow of expectancy in it. Corry wasdeeply interested in the ragged toe of one of his moccasins, whileDora was stealing sidelong glances at the immobile face of Lashkasitting on the sled. Lawrence Pentfield stared straight out beforehim into a dreary future, through the grey vistas of which he sawhimself riding on a sled behind running dogs with lame Lashka byhis side.

Then he spoke, quite simply, looking Mabel in the eyes.

"I am very sorry. I did not dream it. I thought you had marriedCorry. That is Mrs. Pentfield sitting on the sled over there."

Mabel Holmes turned weakly toward her sister, as though all thefatigue of her great journey had suddenly descended on her. Doracaught her around the waist. Corry Hutchinson was still occupiedwith his moccasins. Pentfield glanced quickly from face to face,then turned to his sled.

"Can't stop here all day, with Pete's baby waiting," he said toLashka.

The long whip-lash hissed out, the dogs sprang against the breastbands, and the sled lurched and jerked ahead.

"Oh, I say, Corry," Pentfield called back, "you'd better occupy theold cabin. It's not been used for some time. I've built a new oneon the hill."