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The King of Mazy MayJack LondonWalt Masters is not a very large boy, but there ismanliness in his make-up, and he himself, althoughhe does not know a great deal that most boys know,knows much that other boys do not know. He hasnever seen a train of cars nor an elevator in his life,and for that matter he has never once looked upon acornfield, a plow, a cow, or even a chicken. He hasnever had a pair of shoes on his feet, nor gone to apicnic or a party, nor talked to a girl. But he hasseen the sun at midnight, watched the ice jams onone of the mightiest of rivers, and played beneath thenorthern lights,1 the one white child in thousands ofsquare miles of frozen wilderness.Walt has walked all the fourteen years of his life insuntanned, moose-hide moccasins, and he can go tothe Indian camps and “talk big” with the men, andtrade calico and beads with them for their preciousfurs. He can make bread without baking powder,yeast, or hops, shoot a moose at three hundredyards, and drive the wild wolf dogs fifty miles a dayon the packed trail.Last of all, he has a good heart, and is not afraidof the darkness and loneliness, of man or beast orthing. His father is a good man, strong and brave,and Walt is growing up like him.Walt was born a thousand miles or so down theYukon,2 in a trading post below the Ramparts. Afterhis mother died, his father and he came up on theriver, step by step, from camp to camp, till now theyare settled down on the Mazy May Creek in theKlondike country. Last year they and several othershad spent much toil and time on the Mazy May, andendured great hardships; the creek, in turn, was justbeginning to show up its richness and to rewardthem for their heavy labor. But with the news of theirdiscoveries, strange men began to come and gothrough the short days and long nights, and manyWhat do you already knowabout what it is like to live in acold climate?Read the underlined passage.Drawing conclusions meansmaking decisions or formingopinions about what hashappened in a literary work.Think about where you can finda cornfield, plow, cow, andchicken. Draw a conclusionabout where Walt has neverbeen.The setting of a story is the timeand place of the action.Describe the setting of thisstory.How old is WaltMasters? Circlethe answer.1. northern lights glowing bands or streamers of light, sometimes appearing in thenight sky of the Northern Hemisphere.2. Yukon (YOO kahn) river flowing through the Yukon Territory of northwest Canada. Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.The King of Mazy May123
Walt is able to look after himselfwhile his father is away. Draw aconclusion about Walt based onthis detail.Characters’ actions depend onthe setting. What travel choiceswere available during the timein which the story is set?How did people find out aboutLoren’s accident?How does the time of thestory affect travel andcommunications?Why is Walt worried?Underline theanswer in thetext.unjust things they did to the men who had workedso long upon the creek.Si Hartman had gone away on a moose hunt, toreturn and find new stakes driven and his claimjumped.3 George Lukens and his brother had losttheir claims in a like manner, having delayed too longon the way to Dawson to record them. In short, itwas the old story, and quite a number of the earnest,industrious prospectors had suffered similar losses.But Walt Masters’s father had recorded his claim atthe start, so Walt had nothing to fear now that hisfather had gone on a short trip up the White Riverprospecting for quartz. Walt was well able to stay byhimself in the cabin, cook his three meals a day, andlook after things. Not only did he look after hisfather’s claim, but he had agreed to keep an eye onthe adjoining one of Loren Hall, who had started forDawson to record it.Loren Hall was an old man, and he had no dogs,so he had to travel very slowly. After he had beengone some time, word came up the river that he hadbroken through the ice at Rosebud Creek and frozenhis feet so badly that he would not be able to travelfor a couple of weeks. Then Walt Masters received thenews that old Loren was nearly all right again, andabout to move on afoot for Dawson as fast as aweakened man could.Walt was worried, however; the claim was liable tobe jumped at any moment because of this delay, anda fresh stampede had started in on the Mazy May. Hedid not like the looks of the newcomers, and one day,when five of them came by with crack dog teams andthe lightest of camping outfits, he could see that theywere prepared to make speed, and resolved to keep aneye on them. So he locked up the cabin and followedthem, being at the same time careful to remain hidden.He had not watched them long before he was surethat they were professional stampeders, bent onVocabulary Development: liable (LY uh buhl) adj. likely to dosomething or to happen3. claim jumped A claim is a piece of land marked by a miner with stakes to showwhere the borders are. A claim that is jumped is stolen by someone else.124Reader’s Notebook Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.
jumping all the claims in sight. Walt crept along thesnow at the rim of the creek and saw them changemany stakes, destroy old ones, and set up new ones.In the afternoon, with Walt always trailing on theirheels, they came back down the creek, unharnessedtheir dogs, and went into camp within two claims ofhis cabin. When he saw them make preparations tocook, he hurried home to get something to eathimself, and then hurried back. He crept so closethat he could hear them talking quite plainly, andby pushing the underbrush aside he could catchoccasional glimpses of them. They had finishedeating and were smoking around the fire.“The creek is all right, boys,” a large, black-beardedman, evidently the leader, said, “and I think the bestthing we can do is to pull out tonight. The dogs canfollow the trail; besides, it’s going to be moonlight.What say you?”“But it’s going to be beastly cold,” objected one ofthe party. “It’s forty below zero now.”“An’ sure, can’t ye keep warm by jumpin’ off thesleds an’ runnin’ after the dogs?” cried an Irishman.“An’ who wouldn’t? The creek’s as rich as a UnitedStates mint! Faith, it’s an ilegant chanst to be gettin’a run fer yer money! An’ if ye don’t run, it’s mebbeyou’ll not get the money at all, at all.”“That’s it,” said the leader. “If we can get to Dawsonand record, we’re rich men; and there’s no tellingwho’s been sneaking along in our tracks, watchingus, and perhaps now off to give the alarm. The thingfor us to do is to rest the dogs a bit, and then hit thetrail as hard as we can. What do you say?”Evidently the men had agreed with their leader,for Walt Masters could hear nothing but the rattle ofthe tin dishes which were being washed. Peering outcautiously, he could see the leader studying a piece ofpaper. Walt knew what it was at a glance—a list of allthe unrecorded claims on Mazy May. Any man couldget these lists by applying to the gold commissionerat Dawson.“Thirty-two,” the leader said, lifting his face to themen. “Thirty-two isn’t recorded, and this is thirtythree. Come on; let’s take a look at it. I saw somebodyhad been working on it when we came up thismorning.” Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.Why does Walt keep watch onthe men?Read the bracketed passage.Draw a conclusion about Walt’sfeelings. What does Walt’sbehavior tell you about hisattitude toward the men?Study the setting ofthis story.During whattime of year does the story takeplace?Put a star next to two detailsthat support your answer.What can a sled driver do tokeep warm, according tothe Irishman?Underline theanswer.The King of Mazy May125
Read the bracketed paragraph.What do the men find on Loren’sclaim?Draw a conclusion about whythe leader is interested in theunrecorded claim.Walt decides to steal thethieves’ dogs in order to stopthe thieves from stealing Loren’sclaim. Do you agree with hisdecision? Explain.How many miles is it toDawson? Circlethe answer.126Reader’s NotebookThree of the men went with him, leaving one toremain in camp. Walt crept carefully after them tillthey came to Loren Hall’s shaft. One of the men wentdown and built a fire on the bottom to thaw out thefrozen gravel, while the others built another fire onthe dump and melted water in a couple of gold pans.This they poured into a piece of canvas stretchedbetween two logs, used by Loren Hall in which towash his gold.In a short time a couple of buckets of dirt weresent up by the man in the shaft, and Walt could seethe others grouped anxiously about their leader as heproceeded to wash it. When this was finished, theystared at the broad streak of black sand and yellowgold grains on the bottom of the pan, and one ofthem called excitedly for the man who had remainedin camp to come. Loren Hall had struck it rich andhis claim was not yet recorded. It was plain that theywere going to jump it.Walt lay in the snow, thinking rapidly. He wasonly a boy, but in the face of the threatened injusticeto old lame Loren Hall he felt that he must dosomething. He waited and watched, with his mindmade up, till he saw the men begin to square upnew stakes. Then he crawled away till out of hearing,and broke into a run for the camp of the stampeders.Walt’s father had taken their own dogs with himprospecting, and the boy knew how impossible it wasfor him to undertake the seventy miles to Dawsonwithout the aid of dogs.Gaining the camp, he picked out, with anexperienced eye, the easiest running sled and startedto harness up the stampeders’ dogs. There werethree teams of six each, and from these he choseten of the best. Realizing how necessary it was tohave a good head dog, he strove to discover a leaderamongst them; but he had little time in which to doit, for he could hear the voices of the returning men.By the time the team was in shape and everythingready, the claim-jumpers came into sight in an openplace not more than a hundred yards from the trail,which ran down the bed of the creek. They cried outto Walt, but instead of giving heed to them hegrabbed up one of their fur sleeping robes, which layloosely in the snow, and leaped upon the sled. Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.
“Mush! Hi! Mush on!” he cried to the animals,snapping the keen-lashed whip among them.The dogs sprang against the yoke straps, and thesled jerked under way so suddenly as to almostthrow him off. Then it curved into the creek, poisingperilously on the runner. He was almost breathlesswith suspense, when it finally righted with a boundand sprang ahead again. The creek bank was highand he could not see the men, although he couldhear their cries and knew they were running to cuthim off. He did not dare to think what would happenif they caught him; he just clung to the sled, hisheart beating wildly, and watched the snow rim ofthe bank above him.Suddenly, over this snow rim came the flying bodyof the Irishman, who had leaped straight for the sledin a desperate attempt to capture it; but he was aninstant too late. Striking on the very rear of it, hewas thrown from his feet, backward, into the snow.Yet, with the quickness of a cat, he had clutched theend of the sled with one hand, turned over, and wasdragging behind on his breast, swearing at the boyand threatening all kinds of terrible things if he didnot stop the dogs; but Walt cracked him sharplyacross the knuckles with the butt of the dog whip tillhe let go.It was eight miles from Walt’s claim to the Yukon—eight very crooked miles, for the creek wound backand forth like a snake, “tying knots in itself,” asGeorge Lukens said. And because it was so crookedthe dogs could not get up their best speed, while thesled ground heavily on its side against the curves,now to the right, now to the left.Travelers who had come up and down the MazyMay on foot, with packs on their backs, had declinedto go round all the bends, and instead had madeshortcuts across the narrow necks of creek bottom.Two of his pursuers had gone back to harness theremaining dogs, but the others took advantage ofthese shortcuts, running on foot, and before he knewit they had almost overtaken him.Read the first bracketedparagraph. Whatalmost happenswhen Walt’ssled curves into the creek?Underline the answer in thetext. What conditions of thesetting make it difficult for Waltto get to Dawson?Reread the second bracketedparagraph. What is Walt’s heartdoing?Given your prior knowledge,what conclusion can you drawabout the way Walt feels?How far is it from Walt’sclaim to the Yukon?Underline theanswer.Vocabulary Development: declined (di KLYND) v. refused Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.The King of Mazy May127
The landscape that is describedin the bracketed paragraphhelps Walt escape from themen. Describe the setting.What does Walt dowhen he seesthat the stampeders havegiven up the chase? Underlinethe answer in the text. Do youagree with Walt? Explain.Why is the trail “hard andglassy”? Underline theanswer.“Halt!” they cried after him. “Stop, or we’ll shoot!”But Walt only yelled the harder at the dogs, anddashed around the bend with a couple of revolverbullets singing after him. At the next bend theyhad drawn up closer still, and the bullets struckuncomfortably near him but at this point the MazyMay straightened out and ran for half a mile as thecrow flies. Here the dogs stretched out in their longwolf swing, and the stampeders, quickly winded,slowed down and waited for their own sled to come up.Looking over his shoulder, Walt reasoned that theyhad not given up the chase for good, and that theywould soon be after him again. So he wrapped thefur robe about him to shut out the stinging air, andlay flat on the empty sled, encouraging the dogs, ashe well knew how.At last, twisting abruptly between two river islands,he came upon the mighty Yukon sweeping grandly tothe north. He could not see from bank to bank, andin the quick-falling twilight it loomed a great whitesea of frozen stillness. There was not a sound, savethe breathing of the dogs, and the churn of the steelshod sled.No snow had fallen for several weeks, and thetraffic had packed the main river trail till it was hardand glassy as glare ice. Over this the sled flew along,and the dogs kept the trail fairly well, although Waltquickly discovered that he had made a mistake inchoosing the leader. As they were driven in single file,without reins, he had to guide them by his voice, andit was evident the head dog had never learned themeaning of “gee” and “haw.”4 He hugged the insideof the curves too closely, often forcing his comradesbehind him into the soft snow, while several times hethus capsized5 the sled.There was no wind, but the speed at which hetraveled created a bitter blast, and with thethermometer down to forty below, this bit throughfur and flesh to the very bones. Aware that if heremained constantly upon the sled he would freeze todeath, and knowing the practice of Arctic travelers,4. “gee” and “haw” (jee) and (haw) commands used to tell an animal to turn to theright or the left.5. capsized (KAP syzd) v. overturned.128Reader’s Notebook Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.
Walt shortened up one of the lashing thongs, andwhenever he felt chilled, seized hold of it, jumpedoff, and ran behind till warmth was restored. Thenhe would climb on and rest till the process had tobe repeated.Looking back he could see the sled of his pursuers,drawn by eight dogs, rising and falling over the icehummocks like a boat in a seaway. The Irishmanand the black-bearded leader were with it, takingturns in running and riding.Night fell, and in the blackness of the first hour orso Walt toiled desperately with his dogs. On accountof the poor lead dog, they were continually flounderingoff the beaten track into the soft snow, and the sledwas as often riding on its side or top as it was in theproper way. This work and strain tried his strengthsorely. Had he not been in such haste he could haveavoided much of it, but he feared the stampederswould creep up in the darkness and overtake him.However, he could hear them yelling to their dogs,and knew from the sounds they were coming upvery slowly.When the moon rose he was off Sixty Mile, andDawson was only fifty miles away. He was almostexhausted, and breathed a sigh of relief as heclimbed on the sled again. Looking back, he saw hisenemies had crawled up within four hundred yards.At this space they remained, a black speck of motionon the white river breast. Strive as they would, theycould not shorten this distance, and strive as hewould, he could not increase it.Walt had now discovered the proper lead dog, andhe knew he could easily run away from them if hecould only change the bad leader for the good one.But this was impossible, for a moment’s delay, atthe speed they were running, would bring the menbehind upon him.When he was off the mouth of Rosebud Creek, justas he was topping a rise, the report of a gun and theping of a bullet on the ice beside him told him thatthey were this time shooting at him with a rifle. Andfrom then on, as he cleared the summit of each iceRead the bracketed paragraph.Why does Walt not fix theproblem with the dogs?What conclusion can you drawabout how close Walt believesthe men to be?How has the setting changed bythis point in the story?Underline details thatsupport youranswer.Draw a conclusion about Walt’sdogs. How would having theproper lead dog help Walt?Vocabulary Development: summit (SUM it) n. highest part Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.The King of Mazy May129
Read the first bracketed paragraphs. Whydo the menstop shooting at Walt so often?Whom do the men shoot?Underline the answer. Whatconclusion can you draw aboutwhat or whom the men hoped toshoot? Explain.Read the bracketed paragraphs.How has the setting changed?What does Walt do when hisenemies pull up besidehim? Draw a boxaround theanswer.jam, he stretched flat on the leaping sled till the rifleshot from the rear warned him that he was safe tillthe next ice jam was reached.Now it is very hard to lie on a moving sled, jumpingand plunging and yawing6 like a boat before thewind, and to shoot through the deceiving moonlightat an object four hundred yards away on anothermoving sled performing equally wild antics. So it isnot to be wondered at that the black-bearded leaderdid not hit him.After several hours of this, during which, perhaps,a score of bullets had struck about him, theirammunition began to give out and their fire slackened.They took greater care, and shot at him at the mostfavorable opportunities. He was also leaving thembehind, the distance slowly increasing to six hundredyards.Lifting clear on the crest of a great jam off IndianRiver, Walt Masters met with his first accident. Abullet sang past his ears, and struck the bad lead dog.The poor brute plunged in a heap, with the rest ofthe team on top of him.Like a flash Walt was by the leader. Cutting thetraces with his hunting knife, he dragged the dyinganimal to one side and straightened out the team.He glanced back. The other sled was coming uplike an express train. With half the dogs still overtheir traces, he cried “Mush on!” and leaped uponthe sled just as the pursuers dashed abreast7 of him.The Irishman was preparing to spring for him—they were so sure they had him that they did notshoot—when Walt turned fiercely upon them withhis whip.He struck at their faces, and men must save theirfaces with their hands. So there was no shooting justthen. Before they could recover from the hot rain ofblows, Walt reached out from his sled, catching theirwheel dog by the forelegs in midspring, and throwinghim heavily. This snarled the team, capsizing thesled and tangling his enemies up beautifully.Away Walt flew, the runners of his sled fairlyscreaming as they bounded over the frozen surface.6. yawing (YAW ing) adj. swinging from side to side.7. abreast (uh BREST) adv. alongside.130Reader’s Notebook Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.
And what had seemed an accident proved to be ablessing in disguise. The proper lead dog was now tothe fore, and he stretched low and whined with joyas he jerked his comrades along.By the time he reached Ainslie’s Creek, seventeenmiles from Dawson, Walt had left his pursuers, a tinyspeck, far behind. At Monte Cristo Island he could nolonger see them. And at Swede Creek, just as daylightwas silvering the pines, he ran plump into the campof old Loren Hall.Almost as quick as it takes to tell it, Loren had hissleeping furs rolled up, and had joined Walt on thesled. They permitted the dogs to travel more slowly,as there was no sign of the chase in the rear, andjust as they pulled up at the gold commissioner’soffice in Dawson, Walt, who had kept his eyes opento the last, fell asleep.And because of what Walt Masters did on thisnight, the men of the Yukon have become proud ofhim, and speak of him now as the King of Mazy May.Read the bracketed paragraph.Draw conclusions about whyWalt falls asleep when the sledpulls into Dawson.Why would people call Walt“The King of Mazy May”?Reader’s Response: Would you enjoy Walt’s way of life? Whyor why not?Where is Loren Hall’scamp? Circlethe answer. Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall.The King of Mazy May131
return and find new stakes driven and his claim jumped.3 George Lukens and his brother had lost their claims in a like manner, having delayed too long on the way to Dawson to record them. In
