Smoke Bellew(史沫克·贝罗)

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Smoke Bellew

by Jack London

Smoke Bellew

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

letter from Gillet Bellamy.

"I have just seen a copy of the Billow," Gillet wrote from Paris. "Of

course O'Hara will succeed with it. But he's missing some plays."

(Here followed details in the improvement of the budding society weekly.)

"Go down and see him. Let him think they're your own suggestions.

Don't let him know they're from me. If he does, he'll make me Paris

correspondent, which I can't afford, because I'm getting real money for my

stuff from the big magazines. Above all, don't forget to make him fire

that dub who's doing the musical and art criticism. Another thing, San

Francisco has always had a literature of her own. But she hasn't any now.

Tell him to kick around and get some gink to turn out a live serial, and to

put into it the real romance and glamour and colour of San Francisco."

And down to the office of the Billow went Kit Bellew faithfully to

instruct. O'Hara listened. O'Hara debated. O'Hara agreed. O'Hara

fired the dub who wrote criticism. Further, O'Hara had a way with him--

the very way that was feared by Gillet in distant Paris. When O'Hara

wanted anything, no friend could deny him. He was sweetly and

compellingly irresistible. Before Kit Bellew could escape from the office

he had become an associate editor, had agreed to write weekly columns of

criticism till some decent pen was found, and had pledged himself to write

a weekly instalment of ten thousand words on the San Francisco serial--

and all this without pay. The Billow wasn't paying yet, O'Hara explained;

Smoke Bellew

and just as convincingly had he exposited that there was only one man in

San Francisco capable of writing the serial, and that man Kit Bellew.

"Oh, Lord, I'm the gink!" Kit had groaned to himself afterwards on the

narrow stairway.

And thereat had begun his servitude to O'Hara and the insatiable

columns of the Billow. Week after week he held down an office chair,

stood off creditors, wrangled with printers, and turned out twenty-five

thousand words of all sorts weekly. Nor did his labours lighten. The

Billow was ambitious. It went in for illustration. The processes were

expensive. It never had any money to pay Kit Bellew, and by the same

token it was unable to pay for any additions to the office staff.

"This is what comes of being a good fellow," Kit grumbled one day.

"Thank God for good fellows then," O'Hara cried, with tears in his

eyes as he gripped Kit's hand. "You're all that's saved me, Kit. But for

you I'd have gone bust. Just a little longer, old man, and things will be

easier."

"Never," was Kit's plaint. "I see my fate clearly. I shall be here

always."

A little later he thought he saw his way out. Watching his chance, in

O'Hara's presence, he fell over a chair. A few minutes afterwards he

bumped into the corner of the desk, and, with fumbling fingers, capsized a

paste pot.

"Out late?" O'Hara queried.

Kit brushed his eyes with his hands and peered about him anxiously

before replying.

"No, it's not that. It's my eyes. They seem to be going back on me,

that's all."

For several days he continued to fall over and bump into the office

furniture. But O'Hara's heart was not softened.

"I tell you what, Kit," he said one day, "you've got to see an oculist.

There's Doctor Hassdapple. He's a crackerjack. And it won't cost you

anything. We can get it for advertizing. I'll see him myself."

And, true to his word, he dispatched Kit to the oculist.

"There's nothing the matter with your eyes," was the doctor's verdict,

Smoke Bellew

after a lengthy examination. "In fact, your eyes are magnificent--a pair

in a million."

"Don't tell O'Hara," Kit pleaded. "And give me a pair of black

glasses."

The result of this was that O'Hara sympathized and talked glowingly

of the time when the Billow would be on its feet.

Luckily for Kit Bellew, he had his own income. Small it was,

compared with some, yet it was large enough to enable him to belong to

several clubs and maintain a studio in the Latin Quarter. In point of fact,

since his associate editorship, his expenses had decreased prodigiously.

He had no time to spend money. He never saw the studio any more, nor

entertained the local Bohemians with his famous chafing-dish suppers.

Yet he was always broke, for the Billow, in perennial distress, absorbed his

cash as well as his brains. There were the illustrators who periodically

refused to illustrate, the printers who periodically refused to print, and the

office boy who frequently refused to officiate. At such times O'Hara

looked at Kit, and Kit did the rest.

When the steamship Excelsior arrived from Alaska, bringing the news

of the Klondike strike that set the country mad, Kit made a purely

frivolous proposition.

"Look here, O'Hara," he said. "This gold rush is going to be big-- the

days of '49 over again. Suppose I cover it for the Billow? I'll pay my

own expenses."

O'Hara shook his head.

"Can't spare you from the office, Kit. Then there's that serial. Besides,

I saw Jackson not an hour ago. He's starting for the Klondike to-morrow,

and he's agreed to send a weekly letter and photos. I wouldn't let him get

away till he promised. And the beauty of it is, that it doesn't cost us

anything."

The next Kit heard of the Klondike was when he dropped into the club

that afternoon, and, in an alcove off the library, encountered his uncle.

"Hello, avuncular relative," Kit greeted, sliding into a leather chair and

spreading out his legs. "Won't you join me?"

He ordered a cocktail, but the uncle contented himself with the thin

Smoke Bellew

native claret he invariably drank. He glanced with irritated disapproval

at the cocktail, and on to his nephew's face. Kit saw a lecture gathering.

"I've only a minute," he announced hastily. "I've got to run and take

in that Keith exhibition at Ellery's and do half a column on it."

"What's the matter with you?" the other demanded. "You're pale.

You're a wreck."

Kit's only answer was a groan.

"I'll have the pleasure of burying you, I can see that."

Kit shook his head sadly.

"No destroying worm, thank you. Cremation for mine."

John Bellew came of the old hard and hardy stock that had crossed the

plains by ox-team in the fifties, and in him was this same hardness and the

hardness of a childhood spent in the conquering of a new land.

"You're not living right, Christopher. I'm ashamed of you."

"Primrose path, eh?" Kit chuckled.

The older man shrugged his shoulders.

"Shake not your gory locks at me, avuncular. I wish it were the

primrose path. But that's all cut out. I have no time."

"Then what in-?"

"Overwork."

John Bellew laughed harshly and incredulously.

"Honest?"

Again came the laughter.

"Men are the products of their environment," Kit proclaimed, pointing

at the other's glass. "Your mirth is thin and bitter as your drink."

"Overwork!" was the sneer. "You never earned a cent in your life."

"You bet I have--only I never got it. I'm earning five hundred a week

right now, and doing four men's work."

"Pictures that won't sell? Or--er--fancy work of some sort? Can

you swim?"

"I used to."

"Sit a horse?"

"I have essayed that adventure."

John Bellew snorted his disgust.

Smoke Bellew

"I'm glad your father didn't live to see you in all the glory of your

gracelessness," he said. "Your father was a man, every inch of him. Do

you get it? A Man. I think he'd have whaled all this musical and artistic

tomfoolery out of you."

"Alas! these degenerate days," Kit sighed.

"I could understand it, and tolerate it," the other went on savagely, "if

you succeeded at it. You've never earned a cent in your life, nor done a

tap of man's work."

"Etchings, and pictures, and fans," Kit contributed unsoothingly.

"You're a dabbler and a failure. What pictures have you painted?

Dinky water-colours and nightmare posters. You've never had one

exhibited, even here in San Francisco-"

"Ah, you forget. There is one in the jinks room of this very club."

"A gross cartoon. Music? Your dear fool of a mother spent

hundreds on lessons. You've dabbled and failed. You've never even

earned a five-dollar piece by accompanying some one at a concert. Your

songs?--rag-time rot that's never printed and that's sung only by a pack of

fake Bohemians."

"I had a book published once--those sonnets, you remember," Kit

interposed meekly.

"What did it cost you?"

"Only a couple of hundred."

"Any other achievements?"

"I had a forest play acted at the summer jinks."

"What did you get for it?"

"Glory."

"And you used to swim, and you have essayed to sit a horse!" John

Bellew set his glass down with unnecessary violence. "What earthly

good are you anyway? You were well put up, yet even at university you

didn't play football. You didn't row. You didn't-" "I boxed and

fenced--some."

"When did you last box?"

"Not since; but I was considered an excellent judge of time and

distance, only I was--er-"

Smoke Bellew

"Go on."

"Considered desultory."

"Lazy, you mean."

"I always imagined it was an euphemism."

"My father, sir, your grandfather, old Isaac Bellew, killed a man with a

blow of his fist when he was sixty-nine years old."

"The man?"

"No, your--you graceless scamp! But you'll never kill a mosquito at

sixty-nine."

"The times have changed, oh, my avuncular. They send men to state

prisons for homicide now."

"Your father rode one hundred and eighty-five miles, without sleeping,

and killed three horses."

"Had he lived to-day, he'd have snored over the course in a Pullman."

The older man was on the verge of choking with wrath, but swallowed

it down and managed to articulate:

"How old are you?"

"I have reason to believe-"

"I know. Twenty-seven. You finished college at twenty-two.

You've dabbled and played and frilled for five years. Before God and

man, of what use are you? When I was your age I had one suit of

underclothes. I was riding with the cattle in Colusa. I was hard as

rocks, and I could sleep on a rock. I lived on jerked beef and bear-meat.

I am a better man physically right now than you are. You weigh about one

hundred and sixty-five. I can throw you right now, or thrash you with my

fists."

"It doesn't take a physical prodigy to mop up cocktails or pink tea," Kit

murmured deprecatingly. "Don't you see, my avuncular, the times have

changed. Besides, I wasn't brought up right. My dear fool of a mother-

John Bellew started angrily.

"-As you described her, was too good to me; kept me in cotton wool

and all the rest. Now, if when I was a youngster I had taken some of

those intensely masculine vacations you go in for--I wonder why you

Smoke Bellew

didn't invite me sometimes? You took Hal and Robbie all over the

Sierras and on that Mexico trip."

"I guess you were too Lord Fauntleroyish."

"Your fault, avuncular, and my dear--er--mother's. How was I to

know the hard? I was only a chee-ild. What was there left but etchings

and pictures and fans? Was it my fault that I never had to sweat?"

The older man looked at his nephew with unconcealed disgust. He

had no patience with levity from the lips of softness.

"Well, I'm going to take another one of those what-you-call masculine

vacations. Suppose I asked you to come along?"

"Rather belated, I must say. Where is it?"

"Hal and Robert are going in to Klondike, and I'm going to see them

across the Pass and down to the Lakes, then return-"

He got no further, for the young man had sprung forward and gripped

his hand.

"My preserver!"

John Bellew was immediately suspicious. He had not dreamed the

invitation would be accepted.

"You don't mean it," he said.

"When do we start?"

"It will be a hard trip. You'll be in the way."

"No, I won't. I'll work. I've learned to work since I went on the

Billow."

"Each man has to take a year's supplies in with him. There'll be such

a jam the Indian packers won't be able to handle it. Hal and Robert will

have to pack their outfits across themselves. That's what I'm going along

for--to help them pack. It you come you'll have to do the same."

"Watch me."

"You can't pack," was the objection.

"When do we start?"

"To-morrow."

"You needn't take it to yourself that your lecture on the hard has done

it," Kit said, at parting. "I just had to get away, somewhere, anywhere,

from O'Hara."

Smoke Bellew

"Who is O'Hara? A Jap?"

"No; he's an Irishman, and a slave-driver, and my best friend. He's

the editor and proprietor and all-around big squeeze of the Billow. What

he says goes. He can make ghosts walk."

That night Kit Bellew wrote a note to O'Hara.

"It's only a several weeks' vacation," he explained. "You'll have to

get some gink to dope out instalments for that serial. Sorry, old man, but

my health demands it. I'll kick in twice as hard when I get back."

II.

Kit Bellew landed through the madness of the Dyea beach, congested

with thousand-pound outfits of thousands of men. This immense mass of

luggage and food, flung ashore in mountains by the steamers, was

beginning slowly to dribble up the Dyea valley and across Chilcoot. It was

a portage of twenty-eight miles, and could be accomplished only on the

backs of men. Despite the fact that the Indian packers had jumped the

freight from eight cents a pound to forty, they were swamped with the

work, and it was plain that winter would catch the major portion of the

outfits on the wrong side of the divide.

Tenderest of the tender-feet was Kit. Like many hundreds of others

he carried a big revolver swung on a cartridge-belt. Of this, his uncle,

filled with memories of old lawless days, was likewise guilty. But Kit

Bellew was romantic. He was fascinated by the froth and sparkle of the

gold rush, and viewed its life and movement with an artist's eye. He did

not take it seriously. As he said on the steamer, it was not his funeral.

He was merely on a vacation, and intended to peep over the top of the pass

for a 'look see' and then to return.

Leaving his party on the sand to wait for the putting ashore of the

freight, he strolled up the beach toward the old trading post. He did not

swagger, though he noticed that many of the be-revolvered individuals did.

A strapping, six-foot Indian passed him, carrying an unusually large pack.

Kit swung in behind, admiring the splendid calves of the man, and the

grace and ease with which he moved along under his burden. The Indian

Smoke Bellew

dropped his pack on the scales in front of the post, and Kit joined the

group of admiring gold-rushers who surrounded him. The pack weighed

one hundred and twenty pounds, which fact was uttered back and forth in

tones of awe. It was going some, Kit decided, and he wondered if he

could lift such a weight, much less walk off with it.

"Going to Lake Linderman with it, old man?" he asked.

The Indian, swelling with pride, grunted an affirmative.

"How much you make that one pack?"

"Fifty dollar."

Here Kit slid out of the conversation. A young woman, standing in

the doorway, had caught his eye. Unlike other women landing from the

steamers, she was neither short-skirted nor bloomer-clad. She was

dressed as any woman travelling anywhere would be dressed. What

struck him was the justness of her being there, a feeling that somehow she

belonged. Moreover, she was young and pretty. The bright beauty and

colour of her oval face held him, and he looked over-long--looked till she

resented, and her own eyes, long-lashed and dark, met his in cool survey.

From his face they travelled in evident amusement down to the big

revolver at his thigh. Then her eyes came back to his, and in them was

amused contempt. It struck him like a blow. She turned to the man

beside her and indicated Kit. The man glanced him over with the same

amused contempt.

"Chechaquo," the girl said.

The man, who looked like a tramp in his cheap overalls and

dilapidated woollen jacket, grinned dryly, and Kit felt withered though he

knew not why. But anyway she was an unusually pretty girl, he decided,

as the two moved off. He noted the way of her walk, and recorded the

judgment that he would recognize it after the lapse of a thousand years.

"Did you see that man with the girl?" Kit's neighbour asked him

excitedly. "Know who he is?"

Kit shook his head.

"Cariboo Charley. He was just pointed out to me. He struck it big

on Klondike. Old timer. Been on the Yukon a dozen years. He's just

come out."

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摘要：

SmokeBellew1SmokeBellewbyJackLondonSmokeBellew2THETASTEOFTHEMEAT.I.InthebeginninghewasChristopherBellew.BythetimehewasatcollegehehadbecomeChrisBellew.Later,intheBohemiancrowdofSanFrancisco,hewascalledKitBellew.AndintheendhewasknownbynoothernamethanSmokeBellew.Andthishistoryoftheevolutionofhisnameist...

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Smoke Bellew(史沫克·贝罗)

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