Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1916 — The SEA WOLF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The SEA WOLF

/“THE STORY OY> ( 1 A MAN WH6 \IN HIS OWN ' Tittle world/ WAS A LAW Hli^\SELr^r:

/T^TthistyjleN ( 1 JACK LON-i I DON'S SEA EX- j \PERIENCE IS NjSED WITH ALL -HIS-VIRILE^PENt

by JACK LONDON

'synopsis. Humphrey Van Weydan, critic and dtletUunta. la thrown Into tha water by the •Inking of a ferryboat In a tog In San Francisco bay, and become# unconaclous before help reaches him. On coming to Ma senses he find# himself aboard the sealing schooner Ohoat. Captain Wolf Taman, bound to Japan waters, witnesses the death of the first mate and hears the captain curse the dead man (or presuming te die. The oaptaln refuses to put Humphrey ashore and makes him cabin soy “for ths good of his soul." He begins to learn potato pealing and dish washing hwfiar ths cockney cook, kfugrldge. Is naught by a heavy sea shipped over the gaarter as be la carrying tea aft and his knee la seriously hurt, but no one pays any attention to his injury. Hump’s quartan are changed aft. M ugridge steals his money and chases him when eocused of ft. Later he listens to Wolf give hie Idea of Ilfs— "Hke yeast, s ferment . . . the big nett the tittle . . ." Cooky te jealous of Rsap end bases him. Wolf hases a seaman and makes It the basis for another philosophic discussion with Hump. Wolf aatsrtalae Mugrldgs in his cabin, wins from him at cards tbs money he etole from Hump, and then telle Hump It Is hlB. WotTa by right of might. Cooky and Hump whet kntvee at each other. Hump's latimaey with Wolf Increase*, and Wolf sketches the story of his Ufs to Hump. Wolf discusses the Bible, and Omar with Htop and Illustrates the Inetlnctlve love of life by choking Hump nearly to death. A carnival of brutality breaks loose In the ship and Wolf proves himself the master Brute.

CHAPTER XII. Several dajm more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and went about hte work In a half-hearted way. Ha waa still a sick man. and I more than once obeerred him creeping painfolly aloft to a topsail, or drooping wearily as ho stood at the wheel. But. •till worse, It seemed that his spirit was broken. He was abject before 'Wolf Larsen and almost groveled t 6 Johansen. Not so was the conduct of Xaaeh. He went aboot the deck like a tiger cub, glaring his hatred openly at Wolf Larsen and Johansen. *TII do for you yet, you slab-footed Swede," I heard him say to Johansen ene night on deck. The mate cursed him in the darkness, and the next moment some missile struck the galley a sharp rap. There waa more cursing, and a mocking laugh, and when all was quiet I stole outside and found a heavy knife Imbedded over an inch in the solid wood. ▲ few minutes later the mate came fumbling about in search of it, bat I returned it privily to Leach next day. He grinned when I handed it over, yet it waa a grin that contained more sincere thanks than a multitude of the verbosities of speech common to the members of my own class. Unlike 1 anyone else in the ship’s company, I now found myself with no quarrels on my hands and in the good graces of aIL The hunters possibly no more than tolerated me, though none of them disliked me; while :Bmoke and Henderson, convalescent under a deck awning and swinging day and night in their hammocks, assured me that I was better than any hospital nurse and that they would not forget me at the end of the voyage when they were paid off. (As though I stood -In need of their money! I, who could 'have bought them out, bag and baggage, and the schooner and its equipment, a score of times over!) But upon me had devolved the task of tending their wounds, and palling them through, and 1 did my best by them. Wolf Larsen underwent another bad Attack of headache which lasted two -days. He must have suffered severely, tar he called me in, and obeyed my •commands like a sick child. But I could do seemed to relieve yiiTn At my suggestion, however, he gave np smoking and drinking; though why auch a magnificent animal as he should hare headaches at all puzzles

I talked with Johansen last night—the first superfluous words with which has favored me since the voyage began. He left Sweden when he was eighteen, is now thirty-eight, and in all the intervening time has not been home once. He had met a townsman, a couple of years before, in some sailor boarding house in Chile, so that he knew his mother to be still alive. “She must be a pretty old woman now,” he said, staring meditatively Into the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison, who was steering a point ofT the course. “But does she work? now? How old Is she?" "About seventy," he answered. And then, boastlngly, "-We work from the time we are born until we die, in my oountry. That’s why we live so long. I will live to a hundred." I shall never forget this conversation. The words were the laßt 1 ever heard him utter. Pdrbaps they were the last ho did utter, too. For, going down into the cabin to turn in, I decided that It was too stuffy to sleep below. It was a calm night. We were out of thb trades, And the Ghoet was forging ahead barely a knot an hour. 80 I tucked a blanket and pillow under my arm and went up on deck. As I passed between Harrison and the binnacle, which was built into the top of the cabin. I noticed that he was this time fully three points off. His (wyes were' wide and staring. He seemed greatly perturbed. “What’s the matter r I asked. "Are ye« sick?" He shook his bead, and with a deep sigh, as of awakening, caught his

“You’d better get on your course, then,” I chided. He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass card swing slowly to NNW and steady Itself with slight oscillations. I took a fresh hold on my bedclothes and was preparing to start on, when some movement caught my eye and I looked astern to the rail. A sinewy hand, dripping with water, was clutching the rail. A second hand took form In the darknesß beside it. I watched, fascinated. What visitant from the gloom of the deep was I to behold 7 Whatever it was, I knew that it was climbing aboard by the logline. I saw a bead, the hair wet and straight, shape itself, and then the unmistakable eyes and face of Wolf Larsen. His right cheek was red with blood, which flowed from some wound In the head. He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and arose to his feet, glancing swiftly, as he at the man at the wheel, as though to assure himself of.his identity and that there was nothing to fear from him. The sea water was streaming from him. It made little audible gurgles which distracted me. As he stepped toward me I shrank back Instinctively, for I saw that In his eyes which spelled death. “All right, Hump," he said in a low voice. “Where’s the mate?" I shook my head. “Johansen!" he called softly. “Johansen!" “Where is he?” he demanded of Harrison. The young fellow seemed to have recovered his composure, for he answered steadily enough, “I don’t know, sir. I saw him go forward*a little while ago."

“So did I go for’ard. But I didn’t come back the way I went. Can you explain it?” “You must have been overboard, sir.” “Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir?” I asked. Wolf Larsen shook his head. “You wouldn’t find him, Hump. But you’ll do. Come on. Never mind your bedding. Leave it where it is.” I followed at hls heels. There was nothing stirring amidships. “Those cursed hunters," was his comment. “Too damijed fat and lazy to stand a four-hour wktch.” But on the forecastle head we found three sailors asleep. He turned them over and looked at their faces. They composed the watch on deck, and it was the ship’s custom, in good weather, to let the watch sleep with the exception of the officer, the helmsman and the lookout. “Who’s the lookout?” he demanded. “Me, sir,” answered Holyoak, one of the deep-w r ater sailors, a slight tremor in hls voice. “I winked off just this very minute, sir. I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.” “Did you hear or see anything on deck?” . “No, sir, I—” But Wolf Larsen had turned away with a snort of disgust, leaving the sailor rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let off so easily. ’’’Softly, now,” Wolf Larsen warned me In a whisper, as he doubled hls body into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend.

I followed with a quaking heart. What was to happen I knew no more than did I know what had happened. But blood had been shed, and it was through no whim of Wolf Larsen that he had gone over the side with his scalp laid open. Besides, Johansen was missing. It was my first descent into the forecastle, and I shall not soon forget my impression of it. It smelled sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swinging sea-lamp I saw every bit of available wall space hung deep with sea-boots, oilskins and garments, clean and dirty, of various sorts. Though it was a mild night on the sea, there was a continual chorus of the creaking, timbers and bulkheads and of abysmal noises beneath the flooring. ‘ i The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them—the two watches below —and the air was thick with the. warmth and odor of their breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their snoring and of their sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of the rest of the animal-man. But were they sleeping? all of them? Or had they been sleeping? This was evidently Wolf Larsen’s quest —to find the men who appeared to be asleep and who were not asleep or who had not been asleep very recently. And he went about it In a way that reminded me of a story out of Boccaccio. He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed It to me. He began at the first bunks forward on the starboard' side. Ip the top of one lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and splendid iaatnan. so pained by his mates. He was asleep on hlB back and breathing as placidly as a woman. One arm was under his head, the other lay on top of the blankets. Wolf Larsen put thumb and forefinger to the wrist cod counted the pulse. In

the midst of It the Kanaka roused. He awoke as gently as he slept. There was no movement of the body Whatever. The eyes, only, moved. They flushed wide open, big and black, and stared, unblinking, into our faces. Wolf Larsen put his finger to his lips as a sign for silence, and the eyes closed again. In the lower bunk lay Louis, grossly fat and warm and sweaty, asleep unfelgnedly and sleeping laboriously. While Wolf Larsen held his wrist he stirred uneasily. Satisfied with the honesty of his and the Kanaka’s sleep, Wolf Larsen passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side, occupied top and bottom, as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp, by Leach and Johnson. As Wolf Larsen bent down to the lower bunk to take Johnson's pulse, I, standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach’s head raise stealthily as he peered over the side of the bunk to see what was going on. He must have divined Wolf Larsen’s trick and the sureness of detection, for tha light was at once dashed from my hand and the forecastle left in darkness. He must have leaped, also, at the same Instant, straight down on Wolf Larsen. The first sounds were those of a conflict between a bull and a wolf. I heard a great. Infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen, and from Leach a snarling that was desperate and blood-curdling. Johnson must have joined him immediately, so that his abject and groveling conduct on deck the past few days had been no more than planned deception. I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leaned against the ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. And upon me was that old sickness at the pit of the stomach, caused always by the spectacle of physical violence. In this instance I could not see but I could hear the impact of the blows—the soft, crushing sound made by flesh striking forcibly against flesh. Then there was the crashing about of the entwined bodies, the labored breathing, the short, quick gasps of sudden pain. There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the captain and mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and Johnson had been quickly re-enforced by some of their mates. “Get a knife, somebody!” Leach was shouting. “Pound him on the head! Mash . his brains out!" was Johnson’s cry. But after his first bellow, Wolf Larsen made no noise. He was fighting grimly and silently for his life. He was sore beset. Down at the very

first, he had been unable to gain his feet, and for all of his tremendous strength I felt that there was no hope for him. The force with which they struggled was vividly impressed on me; for I was knocked down by their surging bodies and badly bruised. But in the confusion I managed to crawl into an empty lower bunk out of the way. "All hands! We’ve got him! VVe’ve got him!” I could hear Leach crying. "Who?" demanded those who had been really asleep, and who had wakened to they knew not what. “It’s the bloody mate!" was Leach’s crafty answer, strained from him in a smothered sort of way. This was greeted with whoops of joy, and from then on Wolf Larsen had seven strong men on top of him,' 1 Louis, I believe, taking no part in it. The forecastle was like an angry hive of bees aroused, by some -marauder, "What ho! below there!" I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle, - too cautious to- descend into the inferno of passion-he could hear raging beneath him in the darkness. "Won’t somebody get a knife?” Leach pleaded in the first interval of comparative silence. The number of the assailants was a

cause of confusion. They blocked their own efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a single purpose, achieved his. This was to fight his way across the floor to the ladder. Though In total darkness. 1 followed his progress by its sound. No man less than a giant could have done what he did, once he had gained the foot of the ladder. Step by step, by the might of his armß. the whole pack of men striving to drag him back and down, he drew hls body up from the floor till he stood erect. And then, step by step, band and fodt, he slowly struggled up the ladder. The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone for a lantern. held It so that Its light shone down the scuttle. Wolf Larsen was nearly to the top, though I could not see him. All that was visible was the mass of men fastened upon him. It squirmed about, like some huge manylegged spider, and swayed back and forth to the regular roll of the vessel. And still, step by step, with long intervals between, the mass ascended. Once It tottered, about to fall back, but the broken hold was regained and it still went up. "Who is it?” Latimer cried. In the rays of the lantern I could see his perplexed face peering down. “Larsen,” I heard a muffled voice from within the mass. Latimer reached down with his free hand. I saw a hand shoot up to clasp his. Latimer pulled, and the next couple of steps were made with a rush. Then Wolf Larsen’s other hand reached up and clutched the edge of the scuttle. The mass swung olear of the ladder, the men still clinging to thep: escaping foe. They began to drop off, to be brushed off against the sharp edge of the scuttle, to bs knocked off by tho legs which were now kicking powerfully. Leach was the last to go, falling sheer back from the top of the scuttle and striking on head and shoulders upon hls sprawling mates beneath. Wolf Larsen and the lantern disappeared, and we were left in darkness. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Wolf Larsen Put Finger to the Wrist and Counted the Pulse.