The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Daughter of the Snows, by Jack London

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Title: A Daughter of the Snows

Author: Jack London

Release Date: January 10, 2005 [eBook #14654]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS

by

JACK LONDON

Author of _The Son of The Wolf_, _The Call of the Wild_,
_The People of the Abyss_, etc.

With Illustrations by Frederick C. Yohn

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers--New York

1902

CHAPTER I

"All ready, Miss Welse, though I'm sorry we can't spare one of the
steamer's boats."

Frona Welse arose with alacrity and came to the first officer's side.

"We're so busy," he explained, "and gold-rushers are such perishable
freight, at least--"

"I understand," she interrupted, "and I, too, am behaving as though I
were perishable. And I am sorry for the trouble I am giving you,
but--but--" She turned quickly and pointed to the shore. "Do you
see that big log-house? Between the clump of pines and the river? I
was born there."

"Guess I'd be in a hurry myself," he muttered, sympathetically, as he
piloted her along the crowded deck.

Everybody was in everybody else's way; nor was there one who failed to
proclaim it at the top of his lungs. A thousand gold-seekers were
clamoring for the immediate landing of their outfits. Each hatchway
gaped wide open, and from the lower depths the shrieking donkey-engines
were hurrying the misassorted outfits skyward. On either side of the
steamer, rows of scows received the flying cargo, and on each of these
scows a sweating mob of men charged the descending slings and heaved
bales and boxes about in frantic search. Men waved shipping receipts
and shouted over the steamer-rails to them. Sometimes two and three
identified the same article, and war arose. The "two-circle" and the
"circle-and-dot" brands caused endless jangling, while every whipsaw
discovered a dozen claimants.

"The purser insists that he is going mad," the first officer said, as
he helped Frona Welse down the gangway to the landing stage, "and the
f