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Jack London

In the Forests of the North

Śród lasów Północy

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In the Forests of the North

A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the

Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny the Earth, are to be found great sweeps of

forests and stretches of smiling land. But this the world is just beginning to know. The world's

explorers have known it, from time to time, but hitherto they have never returned 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-ox and the lean plains wolf. So Avery Van Brunt found

them, treeless and cheerless, sparsely clothed with moss and lichens, and altogether uninviting.

At least so he found them till he penetrated to the white blank spaces on the map, and came

upon undreamed-of rich spruce forests and unrecorded Eskimo tribes. It had been his intention,

(and his bid for fame), to break up these white blank spaces and diversify them with the black

markings of mountain-chains, sinks and basins, and sinuous river courses; and it was with added

delight that he came to speculate upon the possibilities of timber belts and native villages.

Avery Van Brunt, or, in full distinction, Professor A. Van Brunt of the Geological Survey, was

second in command of the expedition, and first in command of the sub-expedition which he had

led on a side tour of some half a thousand miles up one of the branches of the Thelon and which

he was now leading into one of his unrecorded villages. At his back plodded eight men, two of

them French-Canadian voyageurs, and the remainder strapping Crees from Manitoba-way. He,

alone, was full-blooded Saxon, and his blood was pounding fiercely through his veins to the

traditions of his race. Clive and Hastings, Drake and Raleigh, Hengest and Horsa, walked with

him. First of all men of his breed was he to enter this lone Northland village, and at the thought

an exultancy came upon him, an exaltation, and his followers noted that his leg-weariness fell

from him and that he insensibly quickened the pace.

The village emptied itself, and a motley crowd trooped out to meet him, men in the forefront,

with bows and spears clutched menacingly, and women and children faltering timidly in the

rear. Van Brunt lifted his right arm and made the universal peace sign, a sign which all peoples

know, and the villagers answered in peace. But to his chagrin, a skin-clad man ran forward and

thrust out his hand with a familiar "Hello." He was a bearded man, with cheeks and brow

bronzed to copper-brown, and in him Van Brunt knew his kind.

"Who are you?" he asked, gripping the extended hand. "André?"

"Who's André?" the man asked back.

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