Dutch Courage and Other Stories

by Jack London

  DUTCH COURAGE

  "Just our luck!"

  Gus Lafee finished wiping his hands and sullenly threw the towel uponthe rocks. His attitude was one of deep dejection. The light seemed goneout of the day and the glory from the golden sun. Even the keen mountainair was devoid of relish, and the early morning no longer yielded itscustomary zest.

  "Just our luck!" Gus repeated, this time avowedly for the edification ofanother young fellow who was busily engaged in sousing his head in thewater of the lake.

  "What are you grumbling about, anyway?" Hazard Van Dorn lifted asoap-rimmed face questioningly. His eyes were shut. "What's our luck?"

  "Look there!" Gus threw a moody glance skyward. "Some duffer's got aheadof us. We've been scooped, that's all!"

  Hazard opened his eyes, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a white flagwaving arrogantly on the edge of a wall of rock nearly a mile above hishead. Then his eyes closed with a snap, and his face wrinkledspasmodically. Gus threw him the towel, and uncommiseratingly watchedhim wipe out the offending soap. He felt too blue himself to take stockin trivialities.

  Hazard groaned.

  "Does it hurt--much?" Gus queried, coldly, without interest, as if itwere no more than his duty to ask after the welfare of his comrade.

  "I guess it does," responded the suffering one.

  "Soap's pretty strong, eh?--Noticed it myself."

  "'Tisn't the soap. It's--it's _that!_" He opened his reddened eyesand pointed toward the innocent white little flag. "That's what hurts."

  Gus Lafee did not reply, but turned away to start the fire and begincooking breakfast. His disappointment and grief were too deep foranything but silence, and Hazard, who felt likewise, never opened hismouth as he fed the horses, nor once laid his head against their archingnecks or passed caressing fingers through their manes. The two boys wereblind, also, to the manifold glories of Mirror Lake which reposed attheir very feet. Nine times, had they chosen to move along its marginthe short distance of a hundred yards, could they have seen the sunriserepeated; nine times, from behind as many successive peaks, could theyhave seen the great orb rear his blazing rim; and nine times, had theybut looked into the waters of the lake, could they have seen thephenomena reflected faithfully and vividly. But all the Titanic grandeurof the scene was lost to them. They had been robbed of the chiefpleasure of their trip to Yosemite Valley. They had been frustrated intheir long-cherished design upon Half Dome, and hence were rendereddisconsolate and blind to the beauties and the wonders of the place.

  Half Dome rears its ice-scarred head fully five thousand feet above thelevel floor of Yosemite Valley. In the name itself of this great rocklies an accurate and complete description. Nothing more nor less is itthan a cyclopean, rounded dome, split in half as cleanly as an applethat is divided by a knife. It is, perhaps, quite needless to state thatbut one-half remains, hence its name, the other half having been carriedaway by the great ice-river in the stormy time of the Glacial Period. Inthat dim day one of those frigid rivers gouged a mighty channel from outthe solid rock. This channel to-day is Yosemite Valley. But to return tothe Half Dome. On its northeastern side, by circuitous trails and stiffclimbing, one may gain the Saddle. Against the slope of the Dome theSaddle leans like a gigantic slab, and from the top of this slab, onethousand feet in length, curves the great circle to the summit of theDome. A few degrees too steep for unaided climbing, these one thousandfeet defied for years the adventurous spirits who fixed yearning eyesupon the crest above.

  One day, a couple of clear-headed mountaineers had proceeded to insertiron eye-bolts into holes which they drilled into the rock every fewfeet apart. But when they found themselves three hundred feet above theSaddle, clinging like flies to the precarious wall with on either hand ayawning abyss, their nerves failed them and they abandoned theenterprise. So it remained for an indomitable Scotchman, one GeorgeAnderson, finally to achieve the feat. Beginning where they had leftoff, drilling and climbing for a week, he had at last set foot upon thatawful summit and gazed down into the depths where Mirror Lake reposed,nearly a mile beneath.

  In the years which followed, many bold men took advantage of the hugerope ladder which he had put in place; but one winter ladder, cables andall were carried away by the snow and ice. True, most of the eye-bolts,twisted and bent, remained. But few men had since essayed the hazardousundertaking, and of those few more than one gave up his life on thetreacherous heights, and not one succeeded.

  But Gus Lafee and Hazard Van Dorn had left the smiling valley-land ofCalifornia and journeyed into the high Sierras, intent on the greatadventure. And thus it was that their disappointment was deep andgrievous when they awoke on this morning to receive the forestallingmessage of the little white flag.

  "Camped at the foot of the Saddle last night and went up at the firstpeep of day," Hazard ventured, long after the silent breakfast had beentucked away and the dishes washed.

  Gus nodded. It was not in the nature of things that a youth's spiritsshould long remain at low ebb, and his tongue was beginning to loosen.

  "Guess he's down by now, lying in camp and feeling as big as Alexander,"the other went on. "And I don't blame him, either; only I wish it werewe."

  "You can be sure he's down," Gus spoke up at last. "It's mighty warm onthat naked rock with the sun beating down on it at this time of year.That was our plan, you know, to go up early and come down early. And anyman, sensible enough to get to the top, is bound to have sense enough todo it before the rock gets hot and his hands sweaty."

  "And you can be sure he didn't take his shoes with, him." Hazard rolledover on his back and lazily regarded the speck of flag flutteringbriskly on the sheer edge of the precipice. "Say!" He sat up with astart. "What's that?"

  A metallic ray of light flashed out from the summit of Half Dome, then asecond and a third. The heads of both boys were craned backward on theinstant, agog with excitement.

  "What a duffer!" Gus cried. "Why didn't he come down when it was cool?"

  Hazard shook his head slowly, as if the question were too deep forimmediate answer and they had better defer judgment.

  The flashes continued, and as the boys soon noted, at irregularintervals of duration and disappearance. Now they were long, now short;and again they came and went with great rapidity, or ceased altogetherfor several moments at a time.

  "I have it!" Hazard's face lighted up with the coming of understanding."I have it! That fellow up there is trying to talk to us. He's flashingthe sunlight down to us on a pocket-mirror--dot, dash; dot, dash; don'tyou see?"

  The light also began to break in Gus's face. "Ah, I know! It's what theydo in war-time--signaling. They call it heliographing, don't they? Samething as telegraphing, only it's done without wires. And they use thesame dots and dashes, too."

  "Yes, the Morse alphabet. Wish I knew it."

  "Same here. He surely must have something to say to us, or he wouldn'tbe kicking up all that rumpus."

  Still the flashes came and went persistently, till Gus exclaimed: "Thatchap's in trouble, that's what's the matter with him! Most likely he'shurt himself or something or other."

  "Go on!" Hazard scouted.

  Gus got out the shotgun and fired both barrels three times in rapidsuccession. A perfect flutter of flashes came back before the echoes hadceased their antics. So unmistakable was the message that even doubtingHazard was convinced that the man who had forestalled them stood in somegrave danger.

  "Quick, Gus," he cried, "and pack! I'll see to the horses. Our triphasn't come to nothing, after all. We've got to go right up Half Domeand rescue him. Where's the map? How do we get to the Saddle?"

  "'Taking the horse-trail below the Vernal Falls,'" Gus read from theguide-book, "'one mile of brisk traveling brings the tourist to theworld-famed Nevada Fall. Close by, rising up in all its pomp and glory,the Cap of Liberty stands guard----"

  "Skip all that!" Hazard impatiently interrupted. "The trail's what wewant."

  "Oh, here it is! 'Following the trail up the side
of the fall will bringyou to the forks. The left one leads to Little Yosemite Valley, Cloud'sRest, and other points.'"

  "Hold on; that'll do! I've got it on the map now," again interruptedHazard. "From the Cloud's Rest trail a dotted line leads off to HalfDome. That shows the trail's abandoned. We'll have to look sharp to findit. It's a day's journey."

  "And to think of all that traveling, when right here we're at the bottomof the Dome!" Gus complained, staring up wistfully at the goal.

  "That's because this is Yosemite, and all the more reason for us tohurry. Come on! Be lively, now!"

  Well used as they were to trail life, but few minutes sufficed to seethe camp equipage on the backs of the packhorses and the boys in thesaddle. In the late twilight of that evening they hobbled their animalsin a tiny mountain meadow, and cooked coffee and bacon for themselves atthe very base of the Saddle. Here, also, before they turned into theirblankets, they found the camp of the unlucky stranger who was destinedto spend the night on the naked roof of the Dome.

  Dawn was brightening into day when the panting lads threw themselvesdown at the summit of the Saddle and began taking off their shoes.Looking down from the great height, they seemed perched upon theridgepole of the world, and even the snow-crowned Sierra peaks seemedbeneath them. Directly below, on the one hand, lay Little YosemiteValley, half a mile deep; on the other hand, Big Yosemite, a mile.Already the sun's rays were striking about the adventurers, but thedarkness of night still shrouded the two great gulfs into which theypeered. And above them, bathed in the full day, rose only the majesticcurve of the Dome.

  "What's that for?" Gus asked, pointing to a leather-shielded flask whichHazard was securely fastening in his shirt pocket.

  "Dutch courage, of course," was the reply. "We'll need all our nerve inthis undertaking, and a little bit more, and," he tapped the flasksignificantly, "here's the little bit more."

  "Good idea," Gus commented.

  How they had ever come possessed of this erroneous idea, it would behard to discover; but they were young yet, and there remained for themmany uncut pages of life. Believers, also, in the efficacy of whisky asa remedy for snake-bite, they had brought with them a fair supply ofmedicine-chest liquor. As yet they had not touched it.

  "Have some before we start?" Hazard asked.

  Gus looked into the gulf and shook his head. "Better wait till we get uphigher and the climbing is more ticklish."

  Some seventy feet above them projected the first eye-bolt. The winteraccumulations of ice had twisted and bent it down till it did not standmore than a bare inch and a half above the rock--a most difficult objectto lasso as such a distance. Time and again Hazard coiled his lariat intrue cowboy fashion and made the cast, and time and again was he baffledby the elusive peg. Nor could Gus do better. Taking advantage ofinequalities in the surface, they scrambled twenty feet up the Dome andfound they could rest in a shallow crevice. The cleft side of the Domewas so near that they could look over its edge from the crevice and gazedown the smooth, vertical wall for nearly two thousand feet. It was yettoo dark down below for them to see farther.

  The peg was now fifty feet away, but the path they must cover toget to it was quite smooth, and ran at an inclination of nearly fiftydegrees. It seemed impossible, in that intervening space, to find aresting-place. Either the climber must keep going up, or he must slidedown; he could not stop. But just here rose the danger. The Dome wassphere-shaped, and if he should begin to slide, his course would be, notto the point from which he had started and where the Saddle would catchhim, but off to the south toward Little Yosemite. This meant a plunge ofhalf a mile.

  "I'll try it," Gus said simply.

  They knotted the two lariats together, so that they had over a hundredfeet of rope between them; and then each boy tied an end to his waist.

  "If I slide," Gus cautioned, "come in on the slack and brace yourself.If you don't, you'll follow me, that's all!"

  "Ay, ay!" was the confident response. "Better take a nip before youstart?"

  Gus glanced at the proffered bottle. He knew himself and of what he wascapable. "Wait till I make the peg and you join me. All ready?"

  "Ay."

  He struck out like a cat, on all fours, clawing energetically as heurged his upward progress, his comrade paying out the rope carefully. Atfirst his speed was good, but gradually it dwindled. Now he was fifteenfeet from the peg, now ten, now eight--but going, oh, so slowly! Hazard,looking up from his crevice, felt a contempt for him and disappointmentin him. It did look easy. Now Gus was five feet away, and after apainful effort, four feet. But when only a yard intervened, he came to astandstill--not exactly a standstill, for, like a squirrel in a wheel,he maintained his position on the face of the Dome by the most desperateclawing.

  He had failed, that was evident. The question now was, how to savehimself. With a sudden, catlike movement he whirled over on his back,caught his heel in a tiny, saucer-shaped depression and sat up. Then hiscourage failed him. Day had at last penetrated to the floor of thevalley, and he was appalled at the frightful distance.

  "Go ahead and make it!" Hazard ordered; but Gus merely shook his head.

  "Then come down!"

  Again he shook his head. This was his ordeal, to sit, nerveless andinsecure, on the brink of the precipice. But Hazard, lying safely in hiscrevice, now had to face his own ordeal, but one of a different nature.When Gus began to slide--as he soon must--would he, Hazard, be able totake in the slack and then meet the shock as the other tautened the ropeand darted toward the plunge? It seemed doubtful. And there he lay,apparently safe, but in reality harnessed to death. Then rose thetemptation. Why not cast off the rope about his waist? He would be safeat all events. It was a simple way out of the difficulty. There was noneed that two should perish. But it was impossible for such temptationto overcome his pride of race, and his own pride in himself and in hishonor. So the rope remained about him.

  "Come down!" he ordered; but Gus seemed to have become petrified.

  "Come down," he threatened, "or I'll drag you down!" He pulled on therope to show he was in earnest.

  "Don't you dare!" Gus articulated through his clenched teeth.

  "Sure, I will, if you don't come!" Again he jerked the rope.

  With a despairing gurgle Gus started, doing his best to work sidewaysfrom the plunge. Hazard, every sense on the alert, almost exulting inhis perfect coolness, took in the slack with deft rapidity. Then, as therope began to tighten, he braced himself. The shock drew him half out ofthe crevice; but he held firm and served as the center of the circle,while Gus, with the rope as a radius, described the circumference andended up on the extreme southern edge of the Saddle. A few moments laterHazard was offering him the flask.

  "Take some yourself," Gus said.

  "No; you. I don't need it."

  "And I'm past needing it." Evidently Gus was dubious of the bottle andits contents.

  Hazard put it away in his pocket. "Are you game," he asked, "or are yougoing to give it up?"

  "Never!" Gus protested. "I _am_ game. No Lafee ever showed thewhite feather yet. And if I did lose my grit up there, it was only forthe moment--sort of like seasickness. I'm all right now, and I'm goingto the top."

  "Good!" encouraged Hazard. "You lie in the crevice this time, and I'llshow you how easy it is."

  But Gus refused. He held that it was easier and safer for him to tryagain, arguing that it was less difficult for his one hundred andsixteen pounds to cling to the smooth rock than for Hazard's one hundredand sixty-five; also that it was easier for one hundred and sixty-fivepounds to bring a sliding one hundred and sixteen to a stop than _viceversa_. And further, that he had the benefit of his previousexperience. Hazard saw the justice of this, although it was with greatreluctance that he gave in.

  Success vindicated Gus's contention. The second time, just as it seemedas if his slide would be repeated, he made a last supreme effort andgripped the coveted peg. By means of the rope, Hazard quickly joinedhim. The next peg was nearly sixty
feet away; but for nearly half thatdistance the base of some glacier in the forgotten past had ground ashallow furrow. Taking advantage of this, it was easy for Gus to lassothe eye-bolt. And it seemed, as was really the case, that the hardestpart of the task was over. True, the curve steepened to nearly sixtydegrees above them, but a comparatively unbroken line of eye-bolts, sixfeet apart, awaited the lads. They no longer had even to use the lasso.Standing on one peg it was child's play to throw the bight of the ropeover the next and to draw themselves up to it.

  A bronzed and bearded man met them at the top and gripped their hands inhearty fellowship.

  "Talk about your Mont Blancs!" he exclaimed, pausing in the midst ofgreeting them to survey the mighty panorama. "But there's nothing on allthe earth, nor over it, nor under it, to compare with this!" Then herecollected himself and thanked them for coming to his aid. No, he wasnot hurt or injured in any way. Simply because of his own carelessness,just as he had arrived at the top the previous day, he had dropped hisclimbing rope. Of course it was impossible to descend without it. Didthey understand heliographing? No? That was strange! How did they----

  "Oh, we knew something was the matter," Gus interrupted, "from the wayyou flashed when we fired off the shotgun."

  "Find it pretty cold last night without blankets?" Hazard queried.

  "I should say so. I've hardly thawed out yet."

  "Have some of this." Hazard shoved the flask over to him.

  The stranger regarded him quite seriously for a moment, then said,"My dear fellow, do you see that row of pegs? Since it is my honestintention to climb down them very shortly, I am forced to decline.No, I don't think I'll have any, though I thank you just the same."

  Hazard glanced at Gus and then put the flask back in his pocket. Butwhen they pulled the doubled rope through the last eye-bolt and set footon the Saddle, he again drew out the bottle.

  "Now that we're down, we don't need it," he remarked, pithily. "And I'veabout come to the conclusion that there isn't very much in Dutchcourage, after all." He gazed up the great curve of the Dome. "Look atwhat we've done without it!"

  Several seconds thereafter a party of tourists, gathered at the marginof Mirror Lake, were astounded at the unwonted phenomenon of a whiskyflask descending upon them like a comet out of a clear sky; and all theway back to the hotel they marveled greatly at the wonders of nature,especially meteorites.