Page:The Pacific Monthly vol. 14.djvu/135

PARDNEES, by Rex. E. Beach. Pub- lished by McClure, Phillips & Co., New York. This collection of Mr. Beach's fascinating stories of Alaska will be hailed with pleas- ure by those who have become familiar with "Big George" and "Cap." That these stories have been published, separatelv, in a magazine, will not in the least detract from, but will rather add to, tue interest with which they will now be read in book form. The rough mixture of ungrammatical Eng- lish and picturesque slang used by the pio- neers of the far A'orth is delightful. As an illustration, take the opening paragraph from "Pardners," the first story in the col- lection and the one from which the book is named:

"Most all the old quotations need fixing" said Joyce in tones forbidding dispute "For instance, the guy that alluded to marriages germinating in heaven certainly got off on the wrong foot. He meant pardnerships. The same works ain't got capacity for both no mor n you can build a split-second stop-watch in a stone quarry. No, sir! A true pardnership is the sanctifiedest relation that grows is and has its beans, while any two folks of oppposite sect the game out some way. Course, all pardnerships ain't divine. To ever one that's heaven borned there's a thousand made in— There goes them cussed dogs again."

The title of the book, "Pardners," is pe- culiarly appropriate, aside from its being the name of the first story of the collection; for that curious tie which so often exists between two prospectors or miners, known as a 'Pardnership," is treated of in nearly all of the stories.

Most of the tales are of Alaska, but a few are not. "The Mule Driver and the Garrulous Mute" is one of the exceptions, the Mute" is playing the game in order to save his "pardner," who, after having killed an Indian, is making tracks for the Mexican border. The one who remains is naturally suspected of the crime, and by refusing to talk, or to understand what is said to him, he gains time for his fleeing mate. The "Mute," who is an ex-mule driver, is able to hold out until he sees a mule team being ill treated and then—but let him tell it:

"Now a good mule driver is the littlest or neriest speck in the human line that's known to the microscope when you get a poor one, he'd spoil one of them cholera germs you read about just by contact. The leader of this bunch was worse than the worst; strong on whip-arm, but surprising weak on judgment. He tried to make the turn, run plump into the corner of the building, stopped, backed, swung, and proceeded to get into grief ****** "Now, one mule can cause a heap of tribula- tion, annd six mules can break a man's heart, but theer wasn't no excuse for that driver to stand up on his hind legs, close his eves and throw thirty foot of lash into that plungin' bucklin, white-eyed mess. When he did it, all the little words inside me began to foam and fizzle like sedlitz; out they came, biling, in mouthfuls, and streams, and squirts, back- wards, sideways, and through my nose

"Here! you infernal half-spiled, dog-rob- bing Walloper I says; 'you don't know enough to drive puddle ducks to a pond. You quit heaving that quirt or I'll harm you past heal- ing.'

"* * * I skipped over the wheels * * * Then I gave him a toss gathered up the line. * * &

"I just intimated things over them with that whip, and talked to them like they was my own flesh and blood. I starts at the worst words the English langwidge and the range had pro- duced, to date, and got steadily and rapidly worse as long as I talked.

"Arizona may be slow in the matter of stand- ing collars and rag-time, but she leads the world in profanity. Without being swelled on myself, I'll say, too that I once had more'n a local reputation in that line, having origi- nated some quaint and feeling conceits which has won modest attention, and this day I was certainly trained to the minute

"I addressed them brutes fast and earnest tor five minutes steady, and never crossed my trail or repeated a thought."

In the last three stories of the book "Big George" and "Cap" are the principal char- acters.

Humor and pathos abound in this most interesting collection of tales. Mr. Beach has struck the right chord. "Pardners" is a distinct addition to American literature.

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" CHESS— HUMANICS, " a philosophy of chess, a sociological allegory, by Wallace E. Nevill. Published by the Whitaker & Rav Company, San Francisco. This peculiar book is little more than a collection of thoughts from many great minds, ancient and modern. Just what these extracts have to do with the game of chess is not always clear. It would seem as though checkers, or any other game, would have served as well.

In chapter III we read, "Chess is played with 'white' men versus 'black' men." Then follows a series of articles and para- graphs bearing on the race problem.

Again, under the caption of "The Kiug." we find the questions of "Monarchies." "Despotism," and the like discussed bv Gid- ding, Spencer, Cicero, Shakespeare, Thack- eray, Zenophon, David Starr Jordan, Aris- totle, Carlyle, Pope, John Adams, Horace, Garfield, and many others.. The book is a curiositv.