Smoke Bellew by Jack London (best books to read in life TXT) 📕

“We don’t want lots,” a young miner cried out. “We don’t want what’s on top of the ground. We’ve come for what’s under the ground.”

“We don’t know what we’ve got under the ground,” Smoke answered. “But we do know we’ve got a fine town-site on top of it.”

“Sure,” Shorty added. “Grand for scenery an’ solitude. Folks lovin’ solitude come a-flockin’ here by thousands. Most popular solitude on the Yukon.”

Again the impatient cries arose, and Saltman, who had been talking with the later comers, came to the front.

“We’re here to stake claims,” he opened. “We know what you’ve did—filed a string of five quartz claims on end, and there they are over there running across the town-site on the line of the slide and the canyon. Only you misplayed. Two of them entries is fake. Who is Seth Bierce? No one ever heard of him. You filed a claim this mornin’ in his name. An’ you filed a claim in the name of Harry Maxwell. Now Harry Maxwell ain’t in the country. He’s down in Seattle. Went out last fall. Them two claims is open to relocation.”

“Suppose I have his power of attorney?” Smoke queried.

“You ain’t,” Saltman answered. “An’ if you have you got to show it. Anyway, here’s where we relocate. Come on, fellows.”

Saltman, stepping across the dead-line, had turned to encourage a following, when the police lieutenant’s voice rang out and stopped the forward surge of the great mass.

“Hold on there! You can’t do that, you know!”

“Can’t, eh?” said Bill Saltman. “The law says a fake location can be relocated, don’t it?”

“Thet’s right, Bill! Stay with it!” the crowd cheered from the safe side of the line.

“It’s the law, ain’t it?” Saltman demanded truculently of the lieutenant.

“It may be the law,” came the steady answer. “But I can’t and won’t allow a mob of five thousand men to attempt to jump two claims. It would be a dangerous riot, and we’re here to see there is no riot. Here, now, on this spot, the Northwest police constitute the law. The next man who crosses that line will be shot. You, Bill Saltman, step back across it.”

Saltman obeyed reluctantly. But an ominous restlessness became apparent in the mass of men, irregularly packed and scattered as it was over a landscape that was mostly up-and-down.

“Heavens,” the lieutenant whispered to Smoke. “Look at them like flies on the edge of the cliff there. Any disorder in that mass would force hundreds of them over.”

Smoke shuddered and got up. “I’m willing to play fair, fellows. If you insist on town lots, I’ll sell them to you, one hundred apiece, and you can raffle locations when the survey is made.” With raised hand he stilled the movement of disgust. “Don’t move, anybody. If you do, there’ll be hundreds of you shoved over the bluff. The situation is dangerous.”

“Just the same, you can’t hog it,” a voice went up. “We don’t want lots. We want to relocate.”

“But there are only two disputed claims,” Smoke argued. “When they’re relocated where will the rest of you be?”

He mopped his forehead with his shirt-sleeve, and another voice cried out:

“Let us all in, share and share alike!”

Nor did those who roared their approbation dream that the suggestion had been made by a man primed to make it when he saw Smoke mop his forehead.

“Take your feet out of the trough an’ pool the town-site,” the man went on. “Pool the mineral rights with the town-site, too.”

“But there isn’t anything in the mineral rights, I tell you,” Smoke objected.

“Then pool them with the rest. We’ll take our chances on it.”

“Fellows, you’re forcing me,” Smoke said. “I wish you’d stayed on your side of the river.”

But wavering indecision was so manifest that with a mighty roar the crowd swept him on to agreement. Saltman and others in the front rank demurred.

“Bill Saltman, here, and Wild Water don’t want you all in,” Smoke informed the crowd. “Who’s hogging it now?”

And thereat Saltman and Wild Water became profoundly unpopular.

“Now how are we going to do it?” Smoke asked. “Shorty and I ought to keep control. We discovered this town-site.”

“That’s right!” many cried. “A square deal!” “It’s only fair!”

“Three-fifths to us,” Smoke suggested, “and you fellows come in for two-fifths. And you’ve got to pay for your shares.”

“Ten cents on the dollar!” was a cry. “And non-assessable!”

“And the president of the company to come around personally and pay you your dividends on a silver platter,” Smoke sneered. “No, sir. You fellows have got to be reasonable. Ten cents on the dollar will help start things. You buy two-fifths of the stock, hundred dollars par, at ten dollars. That’s the best I can do. And if you don’t like it, just start jumping the claims. I can’t stand more than a two-fifths gouge.”

“No big capitalization!” a voice called, and it was this voice that crystallized the collective mind of the crowd into consent.

“There’s about five thousand of you, which will make five thousand shares,” Smoke worked the problem aloud. “And five thousand is two-fifths of twelve thousand, five hundred. Therefore The Tra-Lee Town-Site Company is capitalized for one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, there being twelve thousand, five hundred shares, hundred par, you fellows buying five thousand of them at ten dollars apiece. And I don’t care a whoop whether you accept it or not. And I call you all to witness that you’re forcing me against my will.”

With the assurance of the crowd that they had caught him with the goods on him, in the shape of the two fake locations, a committee was formed and the rough organization of the Tra-Lee Town-Site Company effected. Scorning the proposal of delivering the shares next day in Dawson, and scorning it because of the objection that the portion of Dawson that had not engaged in the stampede would ring in for shares, the committee, by a fire on the ice at the foot of the slide, issued a receipt to each stampeder in return for ten dollars in dust duly weighed on two dozen gold-scales which were obtained from Dawson.

By twilight the work was accomplished and Tra-Lee was deserted, save for Smoke and Shorty, who ate supper in the cabin and chuckled at the list of shareholders, four thousand eight hundred and seventy-four strong, and at the gold-sacks, which they knew contained approximately forty-eight thousand seven hundred and forty dollars.

“But you ain’t swung it yet,” Shorty objected.

“He’ll be here,” Smoke asserted with conviction. “He’s a born gambler, and when Breck whispers the tip to him not even heart disease would stop him.”

Within the hour came a knock at the door, and Wild Water entered, followed by Bill Saltman. Their eyes swept the cabin eagerly, coming to rest on the windlass elaborately concealed by blankets.

“But suppose I did want to vote twelve hundred shares,” Wild Water was arguing half an hour later. “With the other five thousand sold to-day it’d make only sixty-two hundred shares. That’d leave you and Shorty with sixty-three hundred. You’d still control.”

“But what d’ you want with all that of a town-site?” Shorty queried.

“You can answer that better ‘n me,” Wild Water replied. “An’ between you an’ me,” his gaze drifted over the blanket-draped windlass, “it’s a pretty good-looking town-site.”

“But Bill wants some,” Smoke said grudgingly, “and we simply won’t part with more than five hundred shares.”

“How much you got to invest?” Wild Water asked Saltman.

“Oh, say five thousand. It was all I could scare up.”

“Wild Water,” Smoke went on, in the same grudging, complaining voice, “if I didn’t know you so well, I wouldn’t sell you a single besotted share. And, anyway, Shorty and I won’t part with more than five hundred, and they’ll cost you fifty dollars apiece. That’s the last word, and if you don’t like it, good-night. Bill can take a hundred and you can have the other four hundred.”

Next day Dawson began its laugh. It started early in the morning, just after daylight, when Smoke went to the bulletin-board outside the A. C. Company store and tacked up a notice. Men gathered and were reading and snickering over his shoulder ere he had driven the last tack. Soon the bulletin-board was crowded by hundreds who could not get near enough to read. Then a reader was appointed by acclamation, and thereafter, throughout the day, many men were acclaimed to read in loud voice the notice Smoke Bellew had nailed up. And there were numbers of men who stood in the snow and heard it read several times in order to memorize the succulent items that appeared in the following order:

The Tra-Lee Town-Site Company keeps its accounts on the wall. This is its first account and its last.

Any shareholder who objects to donating ten dollars to the Dawson General Hospital may obtain his ten dollars on personal application to Wild Water Charley, or, failing that, will absolutely obtain it on application to Smoke Bellew.

MONEYS RECEIVED AND DISBURSED

From 4874 shares at $10.00………………………….$48,740.00 To Dwight Sanderson for Town-Site of Tra-Lee…………..10,000.00 To incidental expenses, to wit: powder, drills, windlass, gold commissioner’s office, etc………….1,000.00 To Dawson General Hospital…………………………..37,740.00

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Total……………………………………$48,740.00

From Bill Saltman, for 100 shares privately purchased at $50.00……………………………$ 5,000.00 From Wild Water Charley, for 400 shares privately purchased at $50.00…………………………….20,000.00 To Bill Saltman, in recognition of services as volunteer stampede promoter………………………5,000.00 To Dawson General Hospital……………………………3,000.00 To Smoke Bellew and Jack Short, balance in full on egg deal and morally owing………………………17,000.00

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Total……………………………………$25,000.00

Shares remaining to account for 7126. These shares, held by Smoke Bellew and Jack Short, value nil, may be obtained gratis, for the asking, by any and all residents of Dawson desiring change of domicile to the peace and solitude of the town of Tra-Lee.

(Note: Peace and solitude always and perpetually guaranteed in town of Tra-Lee)

(Signed) SMOKE BELLEW, President. (Signed) JACK SHORT, Secretary.

XII. Wonder of Woman

“Just the same, I notice you ain’t tumbled over yourself to get married,” Shorty remarked, continuing a conversation that had lapsed some few minutes before.

Smoke, sitting on the edge of the sleeping-robe and examining the feet of a dog he had rolled snarling on its back in the snow, did not answer. And Shorty, turning a steaming moccasin propped on a stick before the fire, studied his partner’s face keenly.

“Cock your eye up at that there aurora borealis,” Shorty went on. “Some frivolous, eh? Just like any shilly-shallyin’, shirt-dancing woman. The best of them is frivolous, when they ain’t foolish. And they’s cats, all of ‘em, the littlest an’ the biggest, the nicest and the otherwise. They’re sure devourin’ lions an’ roarin’ hyenas when they get on the trail of a man they’ve cottoned to.”

Again the monologue languished. Smoke cuffed the dog when it attempted to snap his hand, and went on examining its bruised and bleeding pads.

“Huh!” pursued Shorty. “Mebbe I couldn’t ‘a’ married if I’d a mind to! An’ mebbe I wouldn’t ‘a’ been married without a mind to, if I hadn’t hiked for tall timber. Smoke, d’you want to know what saved me? I’ll tell you. My wind. I just kept a-runnin’. I’d like to see any skirt run me outa breath.”

Smoke released the animal and turned his own steaming, stick-propped moccasins. “We’ve got to rest over to-morrow and make moccasins,” he vouchsafed. “That little crust is playing the devil with their feet.”

“We oughta keep goin’ somehow,” Shorty objected. “We ain’t got grub enough to turn back with, and we gotta strike that run of caribou or them white Indians almighty soon or we’ll be eatin’ the dogs, sore feet an’ all. Now who ever seen them white Indians anyway? Nothin’ but hearsay.