not know that tiny sensitive creature, all nerves and weaknesses, whom men call Jack London, and who himself thinks he is all right and quite a superior being.

"In the maze and chaos of the conflict of these vast and draughty Titans, it is for me to thread my precarious way. The bit of life that is I will exult over them."

And again:

"Being alive, I want to see, and all the world is a bigger thing to see than one small town or valley. We have done little outlining of the voyage. Only one thing is definite, and that is that our first port of call will be Honolulu. Beyond a few general ideas, we have no thought of our next port after Hawaii. We shall make up our minds as we get nearer. In a general way, we know that we shall wander through the South Seas, take in Samoa, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, New Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra, and go on up through the Philippines to Japan. Then will come Korea, China, India, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean. After that the voyage becomes too vague to describe, though we know a number of things we shall surely do, and we expect to spend from one to several months in every country in Europe."

The article in the magazine, which had first drawn my attention to the proposed trip, had given me little knowledge of the man with whom in all probability p011 I was to spend the next seven years of my life. The nearer I came to Oakland, the California city in which the Londons were then living, the more intense grew my curiosity. Worst of all, I was haunted by a fear that if I didn't hustle and get there, Jack London would have changed his mind, and I should be obliged to come back in humiliation to Independence.

It was about nine o'clock in the evening when I arrived in Oakland. As soon as I was off the train, I hunted a telephone and called up Jack London. It was London himself who came to the 'phone. When I told him who I was, I heard a pleasant voice say: "Hello, boy; come right along up," and then followed instructions as to how to find the house.

They lived in a splendid section of the town. I had no difficulty in finding them. When I rapped at the door, a neat little woman opened it, and grabbing my hand, almost wrung it off.

"Come right in," cried Mrs. London. "Jack's waiting for you."

At that moment a striking young man of thirty, with very broad shoulders, a mass of wavy auburn hair, and a general atmosphere of boyishness, appeared at the doorway, and shot a quick, inquisitive look at me from his wide grey eyes. Inside, I could see all manner of oars, odd assortments of clothing, books, papers, charts, guns, cameras, and folding canoes, piled in great stacks upon the floor.

"Hello, Martin," he said, stretching out his hand. p012

"Hello, Jack," I answered. We gripped.

And that is how I met Jack London, traveller, novelist, and social reformer; and that is how, for the first time, I really ran shoulder to shoulder with Adventure, which I had been pursuing all my days. p013

CHAPTER II
THE BUILDING OF THE "SNARK"

TOC

The morning after my arrival in Oakland, I met the other members of the Snark crew—the Snarkites, as Mrs. London called them. Stolz certainly lived up to his description. He was then about twenty-one years of age, and a stronger fellow for his years I have never seen anywhere, nor one so possessed of energy. Paul H. Tochigi, the Japanese cabin-boy, was a manly little fellow of twenty, who had only been in America one year. Captain Eames was a fine, kindly old man, the architect and superintendent of construction of the Snark, and was booked to be her navigator.

At the time of my coming to California, the Snark had already been several months in the building. And her growth promised to be a slow one. Everything went wrong. More than once, Jack shook his head and sighed: "She was born unfortunately."

Planned to cost seven thousand dollars, by the time she was finished she cost thirty thousand. To a ship-wise man, this will seem an impossible amount to spend on so small a craft. But everything was of the highest quality on the Snark; labour and materials the very best that money could buy. I really believe she was the strongest boat ever built.

The idea of the trip had first come to Jack and p014 Captain Eames up at Jack's ranch near Glen Ellen. While in the swimming pool one day, their conversation turned to boats. Jack cited the case of Captain Joshua Slocum, who left Boston one fair day in a little thirty-foot boat, Spray, went round the world, by himself, and came back on another fair day, three years later, and made fast to the identical post from which he had cast loose on the day of his start. This led to some speculation; and out of it all, the idea of a forty-foot yacht emerged. Later, of course, the idea took on tangible dimensions, and a few more feet, evolving at last into the Snark. At one time, Jack had thought of calling the yacht the Wolf—a nickname applied to him by his friends—but afterward found the name Snark in one of Lewis Carroll's nonsense books, and forthwith adopted it.

The start had originally been planned for October 1, 1906. But she did not sail on October 1, because she was not yet finished. She was promised on November 1; again she was delayed—because not finished. It was then deemed advisable to postpone sailing until November 15; but when that date rolled around and the Snark was still in the process of construction, December 1 was decided on as the auspicious time for a start. And still the Snark grew and grew, and was never ready. In his letter to me, Jack had set December 15 as the sailing-date; but on December 15 we did not sail.

During the next three months, I lived at the London p015 home, and my principal occupation was watching the building of the Snark at Anderson's Ways, in San Francisco, right across the bay from Oakland. Anderson's Ways was about one mile from the Union Iron Works, where the big battleships for the American navy are built. There were several reasons for the trouble experienced in getting the Snark ready for her long sea-bath. To begin with, San Francisco was just beginning to rise anew from wreck and ashes, and the demand for workmen was urgent. Wages soared skyward; it was almost impossible to hire carpenters, or workmen of any sort. And things that Jack ordinarily could have bought in San Francisco, he was obliged to order from New York. Then, too, so many freight-cars were heading for the ruined city that a terrible tangle resulted, and it was difficult to find the consignments of goods needed for the Snark. One freight-car, containing oak ribs for the boat, had arrived the day after the earthquake, but it had taken a full month to find it. Nothing went right. To cap matters, the big strike closed down the shipbuilding plants that furnished us with supplies. The Snark seemed indeed born into trouble!

All this time, Jack was toiling continually at his desk, earning money; and all this time Roscoe Eames was spending money freely to make the Snark come up to their idea of what a boat should be. Jack was obliged to borrow in the neighbourhood of ten thousand dollars, for the Snark's bills came pouring p016 in faster than he could earn money to pay them. He was determined to make of the Snark a thing of beauty and strength—something unique in the history of ocean-going vessels.

Some hundreds of persons wrote to Jack, begging him to let them go with him on the cruise. Every mail contained such