Just Meat Page #3

"Just Meat" is a collection of short stories by Jack London that explores themes of survival, human experience, and the primal instincts inherent within both man and nature. The stories reflect London's keen observations of life, often drawing on his own experiences in the Alaskan wilderness. Through vivid prose and compelling characters, the collection delves into the raw aspects of life, presenting both the struggles and triumphs of resilience and the instinctual drive for survival in the face of adversity. Each narrative encapsulates London's profound understanding of the human condition and the natural world.

								

of the treachery already whispering in him.

"It don't cost nothin', bein' square in hard times," Matt retorted.
"It's bein' square in prosperity that counts. When we ain't got nothin',
we can't help bein' square. We're prosperous now, an' we've got to be
business men--honest business men. Understand?"

"That's the talk for me," Jim approved, but deep down in the meagre soul
of him,--and in spite of him,--wanton and lawless thoughts were stirring
like chained beasts.

Matt stepped to the food shelf behind the two-burner kerosene cooking
stove. He emptied the tea from a paper bag, and from a second bag
emptied some red peppers. Returning to the table with the bags, he put
into them the two sizes of small diamonds. Then he counted the large
gems and wrapped them in their tissue paper and chamois skin.

"Hundred an' forty-seven good-sized ones," was his inventory; "twenty
real big ones; two big boys and one whopper; an' a couple of fistfuls of
teeny ones an' dust."

He looked at Jim.

"Correct," was the response.

He wrote the count out on a slip of memorandum paper, and made a copy of
it, giving one slip to his partner and retaining the other.

"Just for reference," he said.

Again he had recourse to the food shelf, where he emptied the sugar from
a large paper bag. Into this he thrust the diamonds, large and small,
wrapped it up in a bandana handkerchief, and stowed it away under his
pillow. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes.

"An' you think they're worth a hundred thousan'?" Jim asked, pausing and
looking up from the unlacing of his shoe.

"Sure," was the answer. "I seen a dancer down in Arizona once, with some
big sparklers on her. They wasn't real. She said if they was she
wouldn't be dancin'. Said they'd be worth all of fifty thousan', an'
she didn't have a dozen of 'em all told."

"Who'd work for a livin'?" Jim triumphantly demanded. "Pick an' shovel
work!" he sneered. "Work like a dog all my life, an' save all my wages,
an' I wouldn't have half as much as we got to-night."

"Dish washin's about your measure, an' you couldn't get more'n twenty a
month an' board. Your figgers is 'way off, but your point is well taken.
Let them that likes it, work. I rode range for thirty a month when I was
young an' foolish. Well, I'm older, an' I ain't ridin' range."

He got into bed on one side. Jim put out the light and followed him in
on the other side.

"How's your arm feel?" Jim queried amiably.

Such concern was unusual, and Matt noted it, and replied:--

"I guess there's no danger of hydrophoby. What made you ask?"

Jim felt in himself a guilty stir, and under his breath he cursed the
other's way of asking disagreeable questions; but aloud he answered:
"Nothin', only you seemed scared of it at first. What are you goin' to
do with your share, Matt?"

"Buy a cattle ranch in Arizona an' set down an' pay other men to ride
range for me. There's some several I'd like to see askin' a job from me,
blast them! An' now you shut your face, Jim. It'll be some time before I
buy that ranch. Just now I'm goin' to sleep."

But Jim lay long awake, nervous and twitching, rolling about restlessly
and rolling himself wide awake every time he dozed. The diamonds still
blazed under his eyelids, and the fire of them hurt. Matt, in spite of
his heavy nature, slept lightly, like a wild animal alert in its sleep;
and Jim noticed, every time he moved, that his partner's body moved
sufficiently to show that it had received the impression and that it was
trembling on the verge of awakening. For that matter, Jim did not know
whether or not, frequently, the other was awake. Once, quietly,
betokening complete consciousness, Matt said to him: "Aw, go to sleep,
Jim. Don't worry about them jools. They'll keep." And Jim had thought
that at that particular moment Matt had been surely asleep.

In the late morning Matt was awake with Jim's first movement, and
thereafter he awoke and dozed with him until midday, when they got up
together and began dressing.

"I'm goin' out to get a paper an' some bread," Matt said. "You boil the
coffee."

As Jim listened, unconsciously his gaze left Matt's face and roved to
the pillow, beneath which was the bundle wrapped in the bandana
handkerchief. On the instant Matt's face became like a wild beast's.

"Look here, Jim," he snarled. "You've got to play square. If you do me
dirt, I'll fix you. Understand? I'd eat you, Jim. You know that. I'd
bite right into your throat an' eat you like that much beefsteak."

His sunburned skin was black with the surge of blood in it, and his
tobacco-stained teeth were exposed by the snarling lips. Jim shivered
and involuntarily cowered. There was death in the man he looked at. Only
the night before that black-faced man had killed another with his hands,
and it had not hurt his sleep. And in his own heart Jim was aware of a
sneaking guilt, of a train of thought that merited all that was
threatened.

Matt passed out, leaving him still shivering. Then a hatred twisted his
own face, and he softly hurled savage threats at the door. He remembered
the jewels, and hastened to the bed, feeling under the pillow for the
bandana bundle. He crushed it with his fingers to make certain that it
still contained the diamonds. Assured that Matt had not carried them
away, he looked toward the kerosene stove with a guilty start. Then he
hurriedly lighted it, filled the coffee pot at the sink, and put it over
the flame.

The coffee was boiling when Matt returned, and while the latter cut the
bread and put a slice of butter on the table, Jim poured out the coffee.
It was not until he sat down and had taken a few sips of the coffee,
that Matt pulled out the morning paper from his pocket.

"We was way off," he said. "I told you I didn't dast figger out how fat
it was. Look at that."

He pointed to the head lines on the first page. "SWIFT NEMESIS ON
BUJANNOFF'S TRACK," they read. "MURDERED IN HIS SLEEP AFTER ROBBING HIS
PARTNER."

"There you have it!" Matt cried. "He robbed his partner--robbed him
like a dirty thief."

"Half a million of jewels missin'," Jim read aloud. He put the paper
down and stared at Matt.

"That's what I told you," the latter said. "What in thunder do we know
about jools? Half a million!--an' the best I could figger it was a
hundred thousan'. Go on an' read the rest of it."

They read on silently, their heads side by side, the untouched coffee
growing cold; and ever and anon one or the other burst forth with some
salient printed fact.

"I'd like to seen Metzner's face when he opened the safe at the store
this mornin'," Jim gloated.

"He hit the high places right away for Bujannoff's house," Matt
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