The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scarlet Plague, by Jack London

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Scarlet Plague

Author: Jack London

Illustrator: Gordon Grant

Release Date: June 29, 2007 [EBook #21970]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCARLET PLAGUE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE SCARLET PLAGUE

By Jack London

Illustrated By Gordon Grant

1915

THE SCARLET PLAGUE

I

THE way led along upon what had once been the embankment of a railroad.
But no train had run upon it for many years. The forest on either side
swelled up the slopes of the embankment and crested across it in a green
wave of trees and bushes. The trail was as narrow as a man's body, and
was no more than a wild-animal runway. Occasionally, a piece of rusty
iron, showing through the forest-mould, advertised that the rail and the
ties still remained. In one place, a ten-inch tree, bursting through at
a connection, had lifted the end of a rail clearly into view. The tie
had evidently followed the rail, held to it by the spike long enough
for its bed to be filled with gravel and rotten leaves, so that now the
crumbling, rotten timber thrust itself up at a curious slant. Old as the
road was, it was manifest that it had been of the mono-rail type.

An old man and a boy travelled along this runway. They moved slowly, for
the old man was very old, a touch of palsy made his movements tremulous,
and he leaned heavily upon his staff. A rude skull-cap of goat-skin
protected his head from the sun. From beneath this fell a scant fringe
of stained and dirty-white hair. A visor, ingeniously made from a large
leaf, shielded his eyes, and from under this he peered at the way of
his feet on the trail. His beard, which should have been snow-white
but which showed the same weather-wear and camp-stain as his hair,
fell nearly to his waist in a great tangled mass. About his chest and
shoulders hung a single, mangy garment of goat-skin. His arms and legs,
withered and skinny, betokened extreme age, as well as did their sunburn
and scars and scratches betoken long years of exposure to the elements.

The boy, who led the way, checking