E-text prepared by Wilelmina Mallière
and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
BY JACK LONDON
1902
CONTENTS
IN THE FORESTS OF THE NORTH
A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses,intothe heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to denytheEarth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches of smilingland. But this the world is just beginning to know. The world'sexplorers have known it, from time to time, but hitherto they haveneverreturned 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-oxand the lean plains wolf. So Avery Van Brunt found them, treeless andcheerless, sparsely clothed with moss and lichens, and altogetheruninviting. At least so he found them till he penetrated to the whiteblank spaces on the map, and came upon undreamed-of rich spruce forestsand unrecorded Eskimo tribes. It had been his intention, (and his bidfor fame), to break up these white blank spaces and diversify them withthe black markings of mountain-chains, sinks and basins, and sinuousriver courses; and it was with added delight that he came to speculateupon the possibilities of timber belts and native villages.
Avery Van Brunt, or, in full distinction, Professor A. Van Brunt oftheGeological Survey, was second in command of the expedition, and firstincommand of the sub-expedition which he had led on a side tour of somehalf a thousand miles up one of the branches of the Thelon and which hewas now leading into one of his unrecorded villages. At his backploddedeight men, two of them French-Canadian voyageurs, and theremainder strapping Crees from Manitoba-way. He, alone, wasfull-bloodedSaxon, and his blood was pounding fiercely through his veins to thetraditions of his race. Clive and Hastings, Drake and Raleigh, Hengestand Horsa, walked with him. First of all men of his breed was he toenter this lone Northland village, and at the thought an exultancy cameupon him, an exaltation, and his followers noted that his leg-wearinessfell from him and that he insensibly quickened the pace.
The vil