



Produced by Espen Ore, Steve Henshaw, and Andrew Sly









MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES

By Jack London



CONTENTS

     MOON-FACE
     THE LEOPARD MAN'S STORY
     LOCAL COLOR
     AMATEUR NIGHT
     THE MINIONS OF MIDAS
     THE SHADOW AND THE FLASH
     ALL GOLD CANYON
     PLANCHETTE




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 presence. Perhaps my mother may have been
superstitious of the moon and looked upon it over the wrong shoulder at
the wrong time.

Be that as it may, I hated John Claverhouse. Not that he had done me
what society would consider a wrong or an ill turn. Far from it. The
evil was of a deeper, subtler sort; so elusive, so intangible, as to
defy clear, definite analysis in words. We all experience such things
at some period in our lives. For the first time we see a certain
individual, one who the very instant before we did not dream existed;
and yet, at the first moment of meeting, we say: "I do not like that
man." Why do we not like him? Ah, we do not know why; we know only that
we do not. We have taken a dislike, that is all. And so I with John
Claverhouse.

What right had such a man to be happy? Yet he was an optimist. He was
always gleeful and laughing. All things were always all right, curse
him! Ah I how it grated on my soul that he should be so happy! Other
men could laugh, and it did not bother me. I even used to laugh
myself--before I met John Claverhouse.

But his laugh! It irritated me, maddened me, as nothing else under the
sun could irritate or madden me. It haunted me, gripped hold of me, and
would not let me go. It was a huge, Gargantuan laugh. Waking or sleeping
it was always with me, whirring and jarring across my heart-strings like
an enormous rasp. At break of day it came whooping across the fields to
spoil my pleasant morning revery. Under the aching noonday glare, when
the green things drooped and the birds withdrew to the depths of the
forest, and all nature drowsed, his great "Ha! ha!" and "Ho! ho!" rose
up to the sky and challenged the sun. And at black midnight, from the
lonely cross-roads where he turned from town into his own place, came
his plaguey cachinnations to rouse me from my sleep and make me writhe
and clench my nails into my palms.

I went forth privily in the night-time, and turned his cattle into his
fields, and in the morning heard his whooping laugh as he drove them out
again. "It is nothing," he said; "the poor, dumb beasties are not to be
blamed for straying into fatter pastures."

He had a dog he called "Mars," a big, splendid brute, part deer-hound
and part blood-hound, and resembling both. Mars was a great delight to
him, and they were always together. But I bided my time, and one day,
when opportunity was ripe, lured the animal away and settled for him
with strychnine and beefsteak. It made positively no impression on John
Claverhouse. His laugh was as hearty and frequent as ever, and his face
as much like the full moon as it always had been.

Then I set fire to his haystacks and his barn. But the next morning,
being Sunday, he went forth blithe and cheerful.

"Where are you going?" I asked him, as he went by the cross-roads.

"Trout," he said, and his face beamed like a full moon. "I just dote on
trout."

Was there ever such an impossible man! His whole harvest had gone up in
his haystacks and barn. It was uninsured, I knew. And yet, in the face
of famine and the rigorous winter, he went out gayly in quest of a mess
of trout, forsooth, because he "doted" on them! Had gloom but rested,
no matter how lightly, on his brow, or had his bovine countenance grown
long and serious and less like the moon, or had he removed that smile
but once from off his face, I am sure I could have forgiven him for
existing. But no, he grew only more cheerful under misfortune.

I insulted him. He looked at me in slow and smiling surprise.

"I fight you? Why?" he asked slowly. And then he laughed. "You are so
funny! Ho! ho! You'll be the death of me! He! he! he! Oh! Ho! ho! ho!"

What would you? It was past endurance. By the blood of Judas, how I
hated him! Then there was that name--Claverhouse! What a name! Wasn't it
absurd? Claverhouse! Merciful heaven, WHY Claverhouse? Again and again I
asked myself that question. I should not have minded Smith, or Brown,
or Jones--but CLAVERHOUSE! I leave it to you. Repeat it to
yourself--Claverhouse. Just listen to the ridiculous sound of
it--Claverhouse! Should a man live with such a name? I ask of you. "No,"
you say. And "No" said I.

But I bethought me of his mortgage. What of his crops and barn
destroyed, I knew he would be unable to meet it. So I got a shrewd,
close-mouthed, tight-fisted money-lender to get the mortgage
transferred to him. I did not appear but through this agent I forced
the foreclosure, and but few days (no more, believe me, than the law
allowed) were given John Claverhouse to remove his goods and chattels
from the premises. Then I strolled down to see how he took it, for
he had lived there upward of twenty years. But he met me with his
saucer-eyes twinkling, and the light glowing and spreading in his face
till it was as a full-risen moon.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "The funniest tike, that youngster of mine!
Did you ever hear the like? Let me tell you. He was down playing by the
edge of the river when a piece of the bank caved in and splashed him. 'O
papa!' he cried; 'a great big puddle flewed up and hit me.'"

He stopped and waited for me to join him in his infernal glee.

"I don't see any laugh in it," I said shortly, and I know my face went
sour.

He regarded me with wonderment, and then came the damnable light,
glowing and spreading, as I have described it, till his face shone soft
and warm, like the summer moon, and then the laugh--"Ha! ha! That's
funny! You don't see it, eh? He! he! Ho! ho! ho! He doesn't see it! Why,
look here. You know a puddle--"

But I turned on my heel and left him. That was the last. I could stand
it no longer. The thing must end right there, I thought, curse him! The
earth should be quit of him. And as I went over the hill, I could hear
his monstrous laugh reverberating against the sky.

Now, I pride myself on doing things neatly, and when I resolved to kill
John Claverhouse I had it in mind to do so in such fashion that I should
not look back upon it and feel ashamed. I hate bungling, and I hate
brutality. To me there is something repugnant in merely striking a man
with one's naked fist--faugh! it is sickening! So, to shoot, or stab,
or club John Claverhouse (oh, that name!) did not appeal to me. And not
only was I impelled to do it neatly and artistically, but also in such
manner that not the slightest possible suspicion could be directed
against me.

To this end I bent my intellect, and, after a week of profound
incubation, I hatched the scheme. Then I set to work. I bought a water
spaniel bitch, five months old, and devoted my whole attention to her
training. Had any one spied upon me, they would have remarked that this
training consisted entirely of one thing--RETRIEVING. I taught the dog,
which I called "Bellona," to fetch sticks I threw into the water, and
not only to fetch, but to fetch at once, without mouthing or playing
with them. The point was that she was to stop for nothing, but to
deliver the stick in all haste. I made a practice of running away and
leaving her to chase me, with the stick in her mouth, till she caught
me. She was a bright animal, and took to the game with such eagerness
that I was soon content.

After that, at the first casual opportunity, I presented Bellona to
John Claverhouse. I knew what I was about, for I was aware of a little
weakness of his, and of a little private sinning of which he was
regularly and inveterately guilty.

"No," he said, when I placed the end of the rope in his hand. "No, you
don't mean it." And his mouth opened wide and he grinned all over his
damnable moon-face.

"I--I kind of thought, somehow, you didn't like me," he explained.
"Wasn't it funny for me to make such a mistake?" And at the thought he
held his sides with laughter.

"What is her name?" he managed to ask between paroxysms.

"Bellona," I said.

"He! he!" he tittered. "What a funny name."

I gritted my teeth, for his mirth put them on edge, and snapped out
between them, "She was the wife of Mars, you know."

Then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face, until he
exploded with: "That was my other dog. Well, I guess she's a widow now.
Oh! Ho! ho! E! he! he! Ho!" he whooped after me, and I turned and fled
swiftly over the hill.

The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him, "You go away
Monday, don't you?"

He nodded his head and grinned.

"Then you won't have another chance to get a mess of those trout you
just 'dote' on."

But he did not notice the sneer. "Oh, I don't know," he chuckled. "I'm
going up to-morrow to try pretty hard."

Thus was assurance made doubly sure, and I went back to my house hugging
myself with rapture.

Early next morning I saw him go by with a dip-net and gunnysack, and
Bellona trotting at his heels. I knew where he was bound, and cut out
by the back pasture and climbed through the underbrush to the top of the
mountain. Keeping carefully out of sight, I followed the crest along
for a couple of miles to a natural amphitheatre in the hills, where the
little river raced down out of a gorge and stopped for breath in a large
and placid rock-bound pool. That was the spot! I sat down on the croup
of the mountain, where I could see all that occurred, and lighted my
pipe.

Ere many minutes had passed, John Claverhouse came plodding up the bed
of the stream. Bellona was ambling about him, and they were in high
feather, her short, snappy barks mingling with his deeper chest-notes.
Arrived at the pool, he threw down the dip-net and sack, and drew from
his hip-pocket what looked like a large, fat candle. But I knew it to
be a stick of "giant"; for such was his method of catching trout. He
dynamited them. He attached the fuse by wrapping the "giant" tightly
in a piece of cotton. Then he ignited the fuse and tossed the explosive
into the pool.

Like a flash, Bellona was into the pool after it. I could have shrieked
aloud for joy. Claverhouse yelled at her, but without avail. He pelted
her with clods and rocks, but she swam steadily on till she got the
stick of "giant" in her mouth, when she whirled about and headed for
shore. Then, for the first time, he realized his danger, and started to
run. As foreseen and planned by me, she made the bank and took out after
him. Oh, I tell you, it was great! As I have said, the pool lay in a
sort of amphitheatre. Above and below, the stream could be crossed
on stepping-stones. And around and around, up and down and across the
stones, raced Claverhouse and Bellona. I could never have believed
that such an ungainly man could run so fast. But run he did, Bellona
hot-footed after him, and gaining. And then, just as she caught up,
he in full stride, and she leaping with nose at his knee, there was a
sudden flash, a burst of smoke, a terrific detonation, and where man and
dog had been the instant before there was naught to be seen but a big
hole in the ground.

"Death from accident while engaged in illegal fishing." That was the
verdict of the coroner's jury; and that is why I pride myself on the
neat and artistic way in which I finished off John Claverhouse. There
was no bungling, no brutality; nothing of which to be ashamed in
the whole transaction, as I am sure you will agree. No more does his
infernal laugh go echoing among the hills, and no more does his fat
moon-face rise up to vex me. My days are peaceful now, and my night's
sleep deep.




THE LEOPARD MAN'S STORY


He had a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, and his sad, insistent
voice, gentle-spoken as a maid's, seemed the placid embodiment of some
deep-seated melancholy. He was the Leopard Man, but he did not look
it. His business in life, whereby he lived, was to appear in a cage of
performing leopards before vast audiences, and to thrill those audiences
by certain exhibitions of nerve for which his employers rewarded him on
a scale commensurate with the thrills he produced.

As I say, he did not look it. He was narrow-hipped, narrow-shouldered,
and anaemic, while he seemed not so much oppressed by gloom as by a
sweet and gentle sadness, the weight of which was as sweetly and gently
borne. For an hour I had been trying to get a story out of him, but
he appeared to lack imagination. To him there was no romance in his
gorgeous career, no deeds of daring, no thrills--nothing but a gray
sameness and infinite boredom.

Lions? Oh, yes! he had fought with them. It was nothing. All you had to
do was to stay sober. Anybody could whip a lion to a standstill with an
ordinary stick. He had fought one for half an hour once. Just hit him
on the nose every time he rushed, and when he got artful and rushed with
his head down, why, the thing to do was to stick out your leg. When he
grabbed at the leg you drew it back and hit hint on the nose again. That
was all.

With the far-away look in his eyes and his soft flow of words he showed
me his scars. There were many of them, and one recent one where a
tigress had reached for his shoulder and gone down to the bone. I could
see the neatly mended rents in the coat he had on. His right arm,
from the elbow down, looked as though it had gone through a threshing
machine, what of the ravage wrought by claws and fangs. But it was
nothing, he said, only the old wounds bothered him somewhat when rainy
weather came on.

Suddenly his face brightened with a recollection, for he was really as
anxious to give me a story as I was to get it.

"I suppose you've heard of the lion-tamer who was hated by another man?"
he asked.

He paused and looked pensively at a sick lion in the cage opposite.

"Got the toothache," he explained. "Well, the lion-tamer's big play to
the audience was putting his head in a lion's mouth. The man who hated
him attended every performance in the hope sometime of seeing that lion
crunch down. He followed the show about all over the country. The years
went by and he grew old, and the lion-tamer grew old, and the lion grew
old. And at last one day, sitting in a front seat, he saw what he had
waited for. The lion crunched down, and there wasn't any need to call a
doctor."

The Leopard Man glanced casually over his finger nails in a manner which
would have been critical had it not been so sad.

"Now, that's what I call patience," he continued, "and it's my style.
But it was not the style of a fellow I knew. He was a little, thin,
sawed-off, sword-swallowing and juggling Frenchman. De Ville, he called
himself, and he had a nice wife. She did trapeze work and used to dive
from under the roof into a net, turning over once on the way as nice as
you please.

"De Ville had a quick temper, as quick as his hand, and his hand was as
quick as the paw of a tiger. One day, because the ring-master called him
a frog-eater, or something like that and maybe a little worse, he shoved
him against the soft pine background he used in his knife-throwing act,
so quick the ring