Children of the Frost

Children of the Frost

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Title: Children of the Frost
Author: Jack London
Release Date: January 17, 2004 [eBook #10736]
Language: English
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FROST***
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CHILDREN OF THE FROST
BY JACK LONDON
1902

[Illustration: "And the girl, Kasaan, crept in, very timid and quiet, and dropped a little bag
upon the things for my journey."

CONTENTS
IN THE FORESTS OF THE NORTH
THE LAW OF LIFE

NAM-BOK THE UNVERACIOUS
THE MASTER OF MYSTERY
THE SUNLANDERS
THE SICKNESS OF LONE CHIEF
KEESH, THE SON OF KEESH
THE DEATH OF LIGOUN
LI WAN, THE FAIR
THE LEAGUE OF THE OLD MEN

IN THE FORESTS OF THE NORTH
A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the
Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny the Earth, are to be found great
sweeps of forests and stretches of smiling land. But this the world is just beginning to
know. The world's explorers have known it, from time to time, but hitherto they have
never returned to tell the world.
The Barrens--well, they are the Barrens, the bad lands of the Arctic, the deserts of the
Circle, the bleak and bitter home of the musk-ox and the lean plains wolf. So Avery Van
Brunt found them, treeless and cheerless, sparsely clothed with moss and lichens, and
altogether uninviting. At least so he found them till he penetrated to the white blank
spaces on the map, and came upon undreamed-of rich spruce forests and unrecorded
Eskimo tribes. It had been his intention, (and his bid for fame), to break up these white
blank spaces and diversify them with the black markings of mountain-chains, sinks and
basins, and sinuous river courses; and it was with added delight that he came to speculate
upon the possibilities of timber belts and native villages.
Avery Van Brunt, or, in full distinction, Professor A. Van Brunt of the Geological Survey,
was second in command of the expedition, and first in command of the sub-expedition
which he had led on a side tour of some half a thousand miles up one of the branches of
the Thelon and which he was now leading into one of his unrecorded villages. At his
back plodded eight men, two of them French-Canadian voyageurs, and the remainder
strapping Crees from Manitoba-way. He, alone, was full-blooded Saxon, and his blood
was pounding fiercely through his veins to the traditions of his race. Clive and Hastings,
Drake and Raleigh, Hengest and Horsa, walked with him. First of all men of his breed
was he to enter this lone Northland village, and at the thought an exultancy came upon
him, an exaltation, and his followers noted that his leg-weariness fell from him and that
he insensibly quickened the pace.
The village emptied itself, and a motley crowd trooped out to meet him, men in the

forefront, with bows and spears clutched menacingly, and women and children faltering
timidly in the rear. Van Brunt lifted his right arm and made the universal peace sign, a
sign which all peoples know, and the villagers answered in peace. But to his chagrin, a
skin-clad man ran forward and thrust out his hand with a familiar "Hello." He was a
bearded man, with cheeks and brow bronzed to copper-brown, and in him Van Brunt
knew his kind.
"Who are you?" he asked, gripping the extended hand. "Andrée?"
"Who's Andrée?" the man asked back.
Van Brunt looked at him more sharply. "By George, you've been here some time."
"Five years," the man answered, a dim flicker of pride in his eyes. "But come on, let's
talk."
"Let them camp alongside of me," he answered Van Brunt's glance at his party. "Old
Tantlatch will take care of them. Come on."
He swung off in a long stride, Van Brunt following at his heels through the village. In
irregular fashion, wherever the ground favored, the lodges of moose hide were pitched.
Van Brunt ran his practised eye over them and calculated.
"Two hundred, not counting the young ones," he summed up.
The man nodded. "Pretty close to it. But here's where I live, out of the thick of it, you
know--more privacy and all that. Sit down. I'll eat with you when your men get
something cooked up. I've forgotten what tea tastes like.... Five years and never