CHAPTER I BROTHER AND SISTER They ran across the shining sand, the Pacific thundering its long surge at their backs, and when they gained the roadway leaped upon bicycles and dived at faster pace into the green avenues of the park. There were three of them, three boys, in as many bright-colored sweaters, and they "scorched" along the cycle-path as dangerously near the speed-limit as is the custom of boys in bright-colored sweaters to go. They... more...

Chapter I. Into the Primitive "Old longings nomadic leap,Chafing at custom's chain;Again from its brumal sleepWakens the ferine strain." Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and... more...

ARGUMENT In the morning of the world, while his tribemakes its camp for the night in a grove, RedCloud, the first man of men, and the first manof the Nishinam, save in war, sings of the dutyof life, which duty is to make life more abundant.The Shaman, or medicine man, sings offoreboding and prophecy. The War Chief, whocommands in war, sings that war is the onlyway to life. This Red Cloud denies, affirmingthat the way of life is the way of the... more...

San Francisco Bay is so large that often its storms are more disastrous to ocean-going craft than is the ocean itself in its violent moments. The waters of the bay contain all manner of fish, wherefore its surface is ploughed by the keels of all manner of fishing boats manned by all manner of fishermen. To protect the fish from this motley floating population many wise laws have been passed, and there is a fish patrol to see that these laws are... more...

THE HOUSE OF MAPUHI Despite the heavy clumsiness of her lines, the Aorai handled easily in the light breeze, and her captain ran her well in before he hove to just outside the suck of the surf. The atoll of Hikueru lay low on the water, a circle of pounded coral sand a hundred yards wide, twenty miles in circumference, and from three to five feet above high-water mark. On the bottom of the huge and glassy lagoon was much pearl shell, and from... more...

I. THE TASTE OF THE MEAT In the beginning he was Christopher Bellew. By the time he was at college he had become Chris Bellew. Later, in the Bohemian crowd of San Francisco, he was called Kit Bellew. And in the end he was known by no other name than Smoke Bellew. And this history of the evolution of his name is the history of his evolution. Nor would it have happened had he not had a fond mother and an iron uncle, and had he not received a... more...

REVOLUTION “The present is enough for common souls,Who, never looking forward, are indeedMere clay, wherein the footprints of their ageAre petrified for ever.” I received a letter the other day.  It was from a man in Arizona.  It began, “Dear Comrade.”  It ended, “Yours for the Revolution.”  I replied to the letter, and my letter began, “Dear Comrade.”  It ended,... more...

MOON-FACE John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks to complete the perfect round, and the nose, broad and pudgy, equidistant from the circumference, flattened against the very centre of the face like a dough-ball upon the ceiling. Perhaps that is why I hated him, for truly he had become an offense to my eyes, and I believed the earth to be cumbered with his... more...

CHAPTER I But Michael never sailed out of Tulagi, nigger-chaser on the Eugénie.  Once in five weeks the steamer Makambo made Tulagi its port of call on the way from New Guinea and the Shortlands to Australia.  And on the night of her belated arrival Captain Kellar forgot Michael on the beach.  In itself, this was nothing, for, at midnight, Captain Kellar was back on the beach, himself climbing the high hill to the... more...

CHAPTER I The one opened the door with a latch-key and went in, followed by a young fellow who awkwardly removed his cap.  He wore rough clothes that smacked of the sea, and he was manifestly out of place in the spacious hall in which he found himself.  He did not know what to do with his cap, and was stuffing it into his coat pocket when the other took it from him.  The act was done quietly and naturally, and the awkward young... more...