Jack London
Smoke Bellew
I. THE TASTE OF THE MEAT
In the beginning he was Christopher Bellew. By the time he was at college he had become Chris Bellew. Later, in the Bohemian crowd of San Francisco, he was called Kit Bellew. And in the end he was known by no other name than Smoke Bellew. And this history of the evolution of his name is the history of his evolution. Nor would it have happened had he not had a fond mother and an iron uncle, and had he not received a letter from Gillet Bellamy.
I have just seen a copy of The Billow, Gillet wrote from Paris. Of course OHara will succeed with it. But hes missing some tricks. Here followed details in the improvement of the budding society weekly. Go down and see him. Let him think theyre your own suggestions. Dont let him know theyre from me. If you do, hell make me Paris correspondent, which I cant afford, because Im getting real money for my stuff from the big magazines. Above all, dont forget to make him fire that dub whos doing the musical and art criticism. Another thing. San Francisco has always had a literature of her own. But she hasnt any now. Tell him to kick around and get some gink to turn out a live serial, and to put into it the real romance and glamour and colour of San Francisco.
And down to the office of The Billow went Kit Bellew faithfully to instruct. OHara listened. OHara debated. OHara agreed. OHara fired the dub who wrote criticisms. Further, OHara had a way with him the very way that was feared by Gillet in distant Paris. When OHara wanted anything, no friend could deny him. He was sweetly and compellingly irresistible. Before Kit Bellew could escape from the office, he had become an associate editor, had agreed to write weekly columns of criticism till some decent pen was found, and had pledged himself to write a weekly instalment of ten thousand words on the San Francisco serial and all this without pay. The Billow wasnt paying yet, OHara explained; and just as convincingly had he exposited that there was only one man in San Francisco capable of writing the serial and that man Kit Bellew.
Oh, Lord, Im the gink! Kit had groaned to himself afterward on the narrow stairway.
And thereat had begun his servitude to OHara and the insatiable columns of The Billow. Week after week he held down an office chair, stood off creditors, wrangled with printers, and turned out twenty-five thousand words of all sorts. Nor did his labours lighten. The Billow was ambitious. It went in for illustration. The processes were expensive. It never had any money to pay Kit Bellew, and by the same token it was unable to pay for any additions to the office staff.
This is what comes of being a good fellow, Kit grumbled one day.
Thank God for good fellows then, OHara cried, with tears in his eyes as he gripped Kits hand. Youre all thats saved me, Kit. But for you Id have gone bust. Just a little longer, old man, and things will be easier.
Never, was Kits plaint. I see my fate clearly. I shall be here always.
A little later he thought he saw his way out. Watching his chance, in OHaras presence, he fell over a chair. A few minutes afterwards he bumped into the corner of the desk, and, with fumbling fingers, capsized a paste pot.
Out late? OHara queried.
Kit brushed his eyes with his hands and peered about him anxiously before replying.
No, its not that. Its my eyes. They seem to be going back on me, thats all.
For several days he continued to fall over and bump into the office furniture. But OHaras heart was not softened.
I tell you what, Kit, he said one day, youve got to see an oculist. Theres Doctor Hassdapple. Hes a crackerjack. And it wont cost you anything. We can get it for advertizing. Ill see him myself.
And, true to his word, he dispatched Kit to the oculist.
Theres nothing the matter with your eyes, was the doctors verdict, after a lengthy examination. In fact, your eyes are magnificent a pair in a million.
Dont tell OHara, Kit pleaded. And give me a pair of black glasses.
The result of this was that OHara sympathized and talked glowingly of the time when The Billow would be on its feet.
Luckily for Kit Bellew, he had his own income. Small it was, compared with some, yet it was large enough to enable him to belong to several clubs and maintain a studio in the Latin Quarter. In point of fact, since his associate-editorship, his expenses had decreased prodigiously. He had no time to spend money. He never saw the studio any more, nor entertained the local Bohemians with his famous chafing-dish suppers. Yet he was always broke, for The Billow, in perennial distress, absorbed his cash as well as his brains. There were the illustrators, who periodically refused to illustrate, the printers, who periodically refused to print, and the office-boy, who frequently refused to officiate. At such times OHara looked at Kit, and Kit did the rest.
When the steamship Excelsior arrived from Alaska, bringing the news of the Klondike strike that set the country mad, Kit made a purely frivolous proposition.
Look here, OHara, he said. This gold rush is going to be big the days of 49 over again. Suppose I cover it for The Billow? Ill pay my own expenses.
OHara shook his head.
Cant spare you from the office, Kit. Then theres that serial. Besides, I saw Jackson not an hour ago. Hes starting for the Klondike to-morrow, and hes agreed to send a weekly letter and photos. I wouldnt let him get away till he promised. And the beauty of it is, that it doesnt cost us anything.
The next Kit heard of the Klondike was when he dropped into the club that afternoon, and, in an alcove off the library, encountered his uncle.
Hello, avuncular relative, Kit greeted, sliding into a leather chair and spreading out his legs. Wont you join me?
He ordered a cocktail, but the uncle contented himself with the thin native claret he invariably drank. He glanced with irritated disapproval at the cocktail, and on to his nephews face. Kit saw a lecture gathering.
Ive only a minute, he announced hastily. Ive got to run and take in that Keith exhibition at Ellerys and do half a column on it.
Whats the matter with you? the other demanded. Youre pale. Youre a wreck.
Kits only answer was a groan.
Ill have the pleasure of burying you, I can see that.
Kit shook his head sadly.
No destroying worm, thank you. Cremation for mine.
John Bellew came of the old hard and hardy stock that had crossed the plains by ox-team in the fifties, and in him was this same hardness and the hardness of a childhood spent in the conquering of a new land.
Youre not living right, Christopher. Im ashamed of you.
Primrose path, eh? Kit chuckled.
The older man shrugged his shoulders.
Shake not your gory locks at me, avuncular. I wish it were the primrose path. But thats all cut out. I have no time.
Then what in ?
Overwork.
John Bellew laughed harshly and incredulously.
Honest.
Again came the laughter.
Men are the products of their environment, Kit proclaimed, pointing at the others glass. Your mirth is thin and bitter as your drink.
Overwork! was the sneer. You never earned a cent in your life.
You bet I have only I never got it. Im earning five hundred a week right now, and doing four mens work.
Pictures that wont sell? Or er fancy work of some sort? Can you swim?
I used to.
Sit a horse?
I have essayed that adventure.
John Bellew snorted his disgust. Im glad your father didnt live to see you in all the glory of your gracelessness, he said. Your father was a man, every inch of him. Do you get it? A man. I think hed have whaled all this musical and artistic tom foolery out of you.
Alas! these degenerate days, Kit sighed.
I could understand it, and tolerate it, the other went on savagely, if you succeeded at it. Youve never earned a cent in your life, nor done a tap of mans work.
Etchings, and pictures, and fans, Kit contributed unsoothingly.
Youre a dabbler and a failure. What pictures have you painted? Dinky water-colours and nightmare posters. Youve never had one exhibited, even here in San Francisco
Ah, you forget. There is one in the jinks room of this very club.
A gross cartoon. Music? Your dear fool of a mother spent hundreds on lessons. Youve dabbled and failed. Youve never even earned a five-dollar piece by accompanying some one at a concert. Your songs? rag-time rot thats never printed and thats sung only by a pack of fake Bohemians.
I had a book published once those sonnets, you remember, Kit interposed meekly.
What did it cost you?
Only a couple of hundred.
Any other achievements?
I had a forest play acted at the summer jinks.
What did you get for it?
Glory.
And you used to swim, and you have essayed to sit a horse! John Bellew set his glass down with unnecessary violence. What earthly good are you anyway? You were well put up, yet even at university you didnt play football. You didnt row. You didnt
I boxed and fenced some.
When did you box last?
Not since, but I was considered an excellent judge of time and distance, only I was er
Go on.
Considered desultory.
Lazy, you mean.
I always imagined it was an euphemism.
My father, sir, your grandfather, old Isaac Bellew, killed a man with a blow of his fist when he was sixty-nine years old.
The man?
No, your you graceless scamp! But youll never kill a mosquito at sixty-nine.
The times have changed, oh, my avuncular! They send men to prison for homicide now.
Your father rode one hundred and eighty-five miles, without sleeping, and killed three horses.
Had he lived to-day, hed have snored over the course in a Pullman.
The older man was on the verge of choking with wrath, but swallowed it down and managed to articulate:
How old are you?
I have reason to believe
I know. Twenty-seven. You finished college at twenty-two. Youve dabbled and played and frilled for five years. Before God and man, of what use are you? When I was your age I had one suit of underclothes. I was riding with the cattle in Coluso. I was hard as rocks, and I could sleep on a rock. I lived on jerked beef and bear-meat. I am a better man physically right now than you are. You weigh about one hundred and sixty-five. I can throw you right now, or thrash you with my fists.
It doesnt take a physical prodigy to mop up cocktails or pink tea, Kit murmured deprecatingly. Dont you see, my avuncular, the times have changed. Besides, I wasnt brought up right. My dear fool of a mother
John Bellew started angrily.
As you described her, was too good to me; kept me in cotton wool and all the rest. Now, if when I was a youngster I had taken some of those intensely masculine vacations you go in for I wonder why you didnt invite me sometimes? You took Hal and Robbie all over the Sierras and on that Mexico trip.
I guess you were too Lord-Fauntleroyish.
Your fault, avuncular, and my dear er mothers. How was I to know the hard? I was only a chee-ild. What was there left but etchings and pictures and fans? Was it my fault that I never had to sweat?
The older man looked at his nephew with unconcealed disgust. He had no patience with levity from the lips of softness.
Well, Im going to take another one of those what-you-call masculine vacations. Suppose I asked you to come along?
Rather belated, I must say. Where is it?
Hal and Robert are going in to Klondike, and Im going to see them across the Pass and down to the Lakes, then return
He got no further, for the young man had sprung forward and gripped his hand.
My preserver!
John Bellew was immediately suspicious. He had not dreamed the invitation would be accepted.
You dont mean it? he said.
When do we start?
It will be a hard trip. Youll be in the way.
No, I wont. Ill work. Ive learned to work since I went on The Billow.
Each man has to take a years supplies in with him. Therell be such a jam the Indian packers wont be able to handle it. Hal and Robert will have to pack their outfits across themselves. Thats what Im going along for to help them pack. If you come youll have to do the same.
Watch me.
You cant pack, was the objection.
When do we start?
To-morrow.
You neednt take it to yourself that your lecture on the hard has done it, Kit said, at parting. I just had to get away, somewhere, anywhere, from OHara.
Who is OHara? A Jap?
No; hes an Irishman, and a slave-driver, and my best friend. Hes the editor and proprietor and all-round big squeeze of The Billow. What he says goes. He can make ghosts walk.
That night Kit Bellew wrote a note to OHara. Its only a several weeks vacation, he explained. Youll have to get some gink to dope out instalments for that serial. Sorry, old man, but my health demands it. Ill kick in twice as hard when I get back.
Kit Bellew landed through the madness of the Dyea beach, congested with thousand-pound outfits of thousands of men. This immense mass of luggage and food, flung ashore in mountains by the steamers, was beginning slowly to dribble up the Dyea Valley and across Chilkoot. It was a portage of twenty-eight miles, and could be accomplished only on the backs of men. Despite the fact that the Indian packers had jumped the freight from eight cents a pound to forty, they were swamped with the work, and it was plain that winter would catch the major portion of the outfits on the wrong side of the divide.
Tenderest of the tenderfeet was Kit. Like many hundreds of others he carried a big revolver swung on a cartridge-belt. Of this, his uncle, filled with memories of old lawless days, was likewise guilty. But Kit Bellew was romantic. He was fascinated by the froth and sparkle of the gold rush, and viewed its life and movement with an artists eye. He did not take it seriously. As he said on the steamer, it was not his funeral. He was merely on a vacation, and intended to peep over the top of the pass for a look see and then to return.
Leaving his party on the sand to wait for the putting ashore of the freight, he strolled up the beach toward the old trading-post. He did not swagger, though he noticed that many of the be-revolvered individuals did. A strapping, six-foot Indian passed him, carrying an unusually large pack. Kit swung in behind, admiring the splendid calves of the man, and the grace and ease with which he moved along under his burden. The Indian dropped his pack on the scales in front of the post, and Kit joined the group of admiring gold-rushers who surrounded him. The pack weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds, which fact was uttered back and forth in tones of awe. It was going some, Kit decided, and he wondered if he could lift such a weight, much less walk off with it.