It was the end.  Subienkow had travelled a long trail of bitterness and horror, homing like a dove for the capitals of Europe, and here, farther away than ever, in Russian America, the trail ceased.  He sat in the snow, arms tied behind him, waiting the torture.  He stared curiously before him at a huge Cossack, prone in the snow, moaning in his pain.  The men had finished handling the giant and... more...

CHAPTER I It all came to me one election day. It was on a warm California afternoon, and I had ridden down into the Valley of the Moon from the ranch to the little village to vote Yes and No to a host of proposed amendments to the Constitution of the State of California. Because of the warmth of the day I had had several drinks before casting my ballot, and divers drinks after casting it. Then I had... more...

CHAPTER I Not until Mister Haggin abruptly picked him up under one arm and stepped into the sternsheets of the waiting whaleboat, did Jerry dream that anything untoward was to happen to him.  Mister Haggin was Jerry’s beloved master, and had been his beloved master for the six months of Jerry’s life.  Jerry did not know Mister Haggin as “master,” for “master” had no place in Jerry’s... more...

DUTCH COURAGE "Just our luck!" Gus Lafee finished wiping his hands and sullenly threw the towel upon the rocks. His attitude was one of deep dejection. The light seemed gone out of the day and the glory from the golden sun. Even the keen mountain air was devoid of relish, and the early morning no longer yielded its customary zest. "Just our luck!" Gus repeated, this time avowedly for... more...

THE DEATH OF LIGOUN Blood for blood, rank for rank. —Thlinket Code. "Hear now the death of Ligoun—" The speaker ceased, or rather suspended utterance, and gazed upon me with an eye of understanding. I held the bottle between our eyes and the fire, indicated with my thumb the depth of the draught, and shoved it over to him; for was he not Palitlum, the Drinker? Many tales had he told me, and... more...

CHAPTER I It was a quiet night in the Shovel. At the bar, which ranged along one side of the large chinked-log room, leaned half a dozen men, two of whom were discussing the relative merits of spruce-tea and lime-juice as remedies for scurvy. They argued with an air of depression and with intervals of morose silence. The other men scarcely heeded them. In a row, against the opposite wall, were the... more...

BROWN WOLF She had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on her overshoes, and when she emerged from the house found her waiting husband absorbed in the wonder of a bursting almond-bud. She sent a questing glance across the tall grass and in and out among the orchard trees. "Where's Wolf?" she asked. "He was here a moment ago." Walt Irvine drew himself away with a... more...

CHAPTER I Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! Often, before I learned, did I wonder whence came the multitudes of pictures that thronged my dreams; for they were pictures the like of which I had never seen in real wake-a-day life. They tormented my childhood, making of my dreams a procession of nightmares and a little later convincing me that I was different from my kind, a creature unnatural and accursed.... more...

CHAPTER I—SOMETHING TO BE DONE He was a very sick white man.  He rode pick-a-back on a woolly-headed, black-skinned savage, the lobes of whose ears had been pierced and stretched until one had torn out, while the other carried a circular block of carved wood three inches in diameter.  The torn ear had been pierced again, but this time not so ambitiously, for the hole accommodated no more than a... more...

The Willi-Waw lay in the passage between the shore-reef and the outer-reef. From the latter came the low murmur of a lazy surf, but the sheltered stretch of water, not more than a hundred yards across to the white beach of pounded coral sand, was of glass-like smoothness. Narrow as was the passage, and anchored as she was in the shoalest place that gave room to swing, the Willi-Waw's chain rode... more...