Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1916 — The SEA WOLF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The SEA WOLF

by JACK LONDON

IT/t*HE STORY Of\ 1 A MAN WHO i \IN HIS OWN Tittle world/ WAS A LAW

SYNOPSIS. Humphrey Van Weyden, critic and dilettante, thrown into the water by the sinking of a ferryboat, on coming to nls senses, finds himself aboard the sealing schooner Ghost, Captain Wolf Larsen, bound to Japan waters. The captain refuse* to put Humphrey ashore and makes him cabin boy “for the good of his soul. He begins under the cockney cook. Mugridge. who steals his money and chases him whan accused of It Cooky is jealous of Hump and hazes Mm. Wolf .hazes a seaman and, makes it the basis for a, philosophic discussion with Hump. Wolf entertains Mugridge In his cabin, wins from him at cards the money he stole from Hump. Cooky and Hump whet knives at each other. Hump's Intimacy with Wolf Increases. Wolf sketches the story of his life, discusses the Bible, and Omar, and Illustrates the instinctive 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. Wolf is knocked overboard at night, comes back aboard by the iogllne and wins clear In a fight In the forecastle. Hump dresses Wolf’s wounds and, despite his protest, is made mate on the hell-ship. Mr. Van Weyden tries to learn his duties as mate. Wolf hazes the men who tried to kill him. Van Weyden proves by his conduct in a blow, with all hands out in the boats among the. seal herd, that he has learned “to stand on his own legs.

CHAPTER XVll—Continued. Then they were gone astern. The spritsail filled with the wind, suddenly, careening the frail open craft till it seemed it would surely capsize. A whitecap foamed above it and broke across in a snow-white smother. Then the boat emerged, half swamped, Leach flinging the water out and Johnson clinging to the steering-oar, his face white and anxious. Wolf Larsen laughed, at the same time beckoning them with his arm to follow. It was evidently his intention to play with them, a lesson, I took it, in lieu of a beating, though a dangerous lesson, for the trail craft stood in momentary danger of being overwhelmed. Johnson squared away promptly and ran after us. There was nothing else for him to do. Still we Increased our lead, and when the boat had dropped astern several miles we hove to and waited. All eyes watched it coming, even Wolf Larsen’s; but he was the only unperturbed man aboard. Louis, gazing fixedly, betrayed a trouble in hia face he was not quite able to hide. The boat drew closer and closer, hurling along through the seething green like a thing alive, lifting and sending and uptosslng across the hugebacked breakers, or disappearing behind them only to rush into sight again and shoot skyward. It seemed impossible that it could continue to live, yet with each dizzying sweep it did achieve the impossible. A rain squall drove past, and out of the flying wet the boat emerged, almost upon us. “Hard up, there!" Wolf Larsen shouted, himself springing to the wheel and whirling it over. Again the Ghost sprang away and raced before the wind, and for two hours Johnson and Leach pursued us. We hove to and ran away, hove to and ran away, and ever r.stern the struggling patch of sail tossed skyward and fell into the rushing valleys. It ivas a quarter of a mile away when a thick squall of rain veiled it from view. It never emerged. The wind blew the air clear again, but no patch of sail broke the troubled surface. I thought I saw. for an instant, the boat’s bot-

tom show black In a breaking crest. At the best, that was aIL For Johnson and Leach the travail of existence had ceased. The men remained grouped amidships. No one had gone below, and no one was speaking. Nor were any looks being exchanged. Each man seemed stunned —deeply contemplative, as it were, and not quite sure, trying to realise just what had taken place. Wolf Larsen gavethemllttle time for thought. He at once put the Ghost upon her course —a course which meant the seal herd and not Yokohama harbor.' Put the men were no longer eager as they pulled and hauled, and I heard curses amongst them, which left their lips smothered

and as- heavy and lifeless as were they. Not so was it with the hunters. Smoke the irrepressible related a story, and they descended into the steerage, bellowing with laughter. As 1 passed to leeward of the galley on my way aft, I was approached by the engineer we had rescued. His face was white, his lips were trembling. “Good God! sir, what kind of a craft is this?" he cried. “You have 6yes, you have seen,’’ I answered, almost brutally, what of the pain and fear at my own heart “Your promise?” I said to Wolf Larsen. “I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that promise,” he answered. “And anyway, you’ll agree I’ve not laid my hands upon them.” "Far from it, far from it,” he laughed a moment later. I made no reply. I was incapable of speaking, my mind was too confused. I must have time to think, I knew. This woman, sleeping esan now in the spare cabin, was a responsibility which I must consider, and the only rational thought that flickered through my mind was that I must do nothing hastily if I were to be any help to her at all.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. Miss Brewster, we had learned her name from the engineer, slept on and on. At supper I requested the hunters to lower their voices, so she was not disturbed; and It was not till next morning that she made her appearance. It had been my intention to have her meals served apart, but Wolf Larsen put down his foot. Who was she that she should be too good for cabin table and cabin society? had been his demand. Wolf Larsen had little to say at first, doing no more than reply when he was addressed. Not that he was abashed. Far from it. His was the perfect poise, the supreme confidence in self, which nothing could shake; and he was no more timid of a woman than he was of storm and battle. “And when shall we arrive at Yokohama?” she asked, turning to him and loking him squarely in the eyes. There it was, the question flat. The jaws stopped working, the ears ceased wobbling, and though eyes remained glued on plates, each man listened greedily for the answer. “In four months, possibly three If the season closes early,” Wolf Larsen said. She caught her breath, and stammered, “I—l thought—l was given to understand that Yokohama was only a day’s sail away. It —” Here she paused and looked about the table at the circle of unsympathetic faces staring hard at the plates. “It is not right,” she concluded. “That is a question you must settle with Mr. Van W’eyden there,” he replied, nodding to me with a mischievous twinkle. “Mr. Van Weyden Is what you may call an authority on such things as rights. Now I, who am only a sailor, would look upon the sltuatinn somewhat differently. It may possibly be your misfortune that you have to remain with us, but it Is certainly our good fortune.” "I may be taken off by some passing vessel, perhaps,” she suggested. “There will be no passing vessels, except other sealing schooners,” Wolf Larsen nujde answer. “I haveno clothes, nothing,” she objected. “You hardly realize, sir, that I am not a man, or that I am unaccustomed to the vagrant, careless life which you and your men seem to lead.”

"I suppose you’re like Mr. Van Wey-| den there, accustomed to having things done for ycu. Well, I think doing a few things yourself will hardly dislocate any joints. By the way, what do you do for a living?” She regarded him with amazement unconcealed. "I mean no otFensd, believe me. People eat, therefore they must procure the wherewithal. These men here shoot seals in order to live; for the same reason I sail this schooner; and Mr. Van Weyden, for the present at any rate, earns his salty grub by assisting me. Now what do you do?” She shrugged her shoulders.. “At present,” she said, after slight pause. “I earn about eighteen hundred dollars a year.” With one accord, all Ayes left the plates and settled on her. A woman who earned eighteen hundred dollars a year was worth looking at. Wolf Larsen was undisguised in his admiration. ‘‘Salary or piecework?” he asked. “Piecework,” she answered promptly. “Eighteen hundred," he calculated. “That’s a hundred and fifty dollars a month. Well, Miss Brewster, there is nothing small about the Ghost. Consider yourself on salary during the time You remain with us.” She made no acknowledgment She was too unused as yet to the whims of the man to accept them with equanimity. —r- 'nr . "I forgot to inquire,” he went on

suavely, “as to the nature of your occupation. What commodities do you turn out? What tools and material do you require?” “Paper and ink,” she laughed. “And, oh! also a typewriter? 1 “You are Maud Brewster,” I said slowly and with almost as though I were charging her with a crime. Her eyes lifted curiously to mine. “How do you know?” “Aren’t you?” I demanded. She acknowledged her identity with a nod. It was Wolf Larsen’s turn to be puzzled. The name and its magic signified nothing to him. 1 was proud that it did mean something to me, and for the first time in a weary while I was convincingly conscious of a superiority over him. “I remember writing a review of a thin little volume—” I had begun carelessly, when she Interrupted me. “You!” she cried. “You are—” She was now staring at me in wideeyed wonder. I nodded my Identity, in turn. “Humphrey Van Weyden,” she concluded; then added with a sigh of relief, and unaware that she had glanced that relief at Wolf Larsen, "I am so glad.”

“I remember the review,” she went on hastily, becoming aware of the awkwardness of her remark; "that too, too flattering review.” “Not at all,” I denied valiantly. “You impeach my sober judgment and make my canons of little worth. Besides, all my brother critics were with me. Didn’t Lang include your ‘Kiss Endured’ among the four supreme sonnets by women in the English language?” “You are very kind, I am sure,” she murmured; and the very conventionality of her tones and words, with the host of associations it aroused of the old life on the other side of the world, gave me a quick thrill —rich with remembrance but stinging sharp with homesickness.

“And you are Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, gazing back at me with equal solemnity and awe. “How unusual! I don’t understand. We surely are not to expect some wildly romantic sea story from your sober pen?” “No, I am not gathering material, I assure you,” was my answer. “I have neither aptitude nor inclination for fiction.” "Tell me, why have you always buried yourself in California?" she next asked. “It has not been kind of you. We of the East have seen so very little of you—too little, Indeed, of the Dean of American Letters, the Second." I bowed to, and disclaimed, the compliment. “I nearly met you, once, in Philadelphia, some Browning affair or other —you were to lecture, you know. My train was four hours late.” And then we quite forgot where we were, leaving Wolf Larsen stranded and silent in the midst of our flood of gossip. The hunters left the table and went on deck, and still we talked. Wolf Larsen alone, remained. Suddenly I became aware of him, leaning back from.the table and listening curiously to our alien speech of a world he did not know. I broke short oft in the middle of a sentence. The present, with all ita perils and anxieties, rushed upon me with stunning force. It smote Miss Brewster likewise, a vague and nameless terror rushing into her eyes as she regarded o Wolf Larsen. He rose to his feet and laughed awkwardly. The sound of It was metallic. “Oh, don’t mind me," he said, with a self-depreciatory wave of his hand. “I don’t count. Go on, go on, I pray you.” But the gates of speech were closed, and we, too, rose from the table and laughed awkwardly.

CHAPTER X-IX. The chagrin Wolf Larsen felt from being ignored by Maud Brewster and me in the conversation at table had to express itself In some fashion, and it fell to Thomas Mugridge to be the victim. He had not mended his ways nor his shirt, though the latter he dontended he had changed. The garment itself did not bear out the assertion, nor did the accumulations of grease on stove and pot and pan attest a general cleanliness. “I’ve given you warning, Cooky,” Wolf Larsen said, “and now you’ve got to take your medicine.” Mugridge’s face turned white under Its sooty veneer, and when Wolf Larsen called for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable cockney fled wildly out of the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck with the grinning crew in pursuit Few things could have been more to their liking than to give him a tow over the side, Tor to the forecastle he —had — sent messes and concoctions of the vilest order. • As usual, the wrtches below and the hunters turned out for what promised sport Mugridge exhibited a nimbleness and speed we did not dream he possessed. Straight aft he raced, to

the poop aad along the poop to the stern. So great was his' speed that as be curved past the corner of the cabin he slipped and fell. Nilson was standing at the wheel, and the cockney’s hurtling body struck his legs. Both went down together,but Mugridge alone arose. By some freak of pressures, his frail body had snapped the strong man’s leg like a pipestem. Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and round the decks they went. Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing and shouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing encouragement and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch under three men; he emerged from the mass, bleeding at the mouth. The battle was over, and Wolf Larsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it under his shoulders. Then he was carried aft and flung into the sea. Forty, fifty, sixty feet of line ran out, when Wolf Larsey cried “Belay!” Oofty-Oofty took a turn on a bitt, the rope tautened, and the Ghost, lunging onward, Jerked ths cook to the surface. I had forgotten the existence of Maud Brewster, and I remembered her with a start aa she stepped lightly

beside me. It was her first time on deck since she had come aboard. A dead silence greeted her appearance. Her eyes lighted on Oofty-Oofty, immediately before her, his body instinct with alertness and grace as he held the turn of the rope, _ "Are "you fishing?” she asked him. He made no reply. His eyes, fixed intently on the sea astern, suddenly flashed. “Shark ho, sir!” he cried. “Heave in! Lively! All hands tail on!” Wolf Larsen shouted, springing himself to the rope in advance of the quickest. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

"Good God, Sir, What Kind of a Craft Is This?”

He Was Carried Aft and Flung Into the Sea.