{"id":27881,"date":"2026-05-12T20:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=27881"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:30:13","slug":"jack-london-batard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/jack-london-batard\/27881\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack London: B\u00e2tard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis:<\/strong> \u201cB\u00e2tard\u201d is a short story by American writer Jack London, published in June 1902 in The Cosmopolitan magazine. Black Lecl\u00e8re is a cruel and brutal man who, upon seeing a fierce mixed-breed puppy\u2014a cross between a wolf and a husky\u2014decides to acquire it not because he wants it, but because he despises it. Lecl\u00e8re names the dog B\u00e2tard, \u201cBastard,\u201d and from the very first moment, man and animal are bound together by hatred. For five years, they travel together through the Canadian North. Amid hunger and abuse, B\u00e2tard grows, becomes strong, fiercely dominates the other dogs, and harbors a deep grudge against his master. Both are trapped in a battle of wills, bound by a savage enmity in which each waits for the moment to destroy the other.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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\"Jack<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jack London
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard was a devil.  This was recognized throughout the Northland.  \u201cHell\u2019s Spawn\u201d he was called by many men, but his master, Black Lecl\u00e8re, chose for him the shameful name \u201cB\u00e2tard.\u201d  Now Black Lecl\u00e8re was also a devil, and the twain were well matched.  There is a saying that when two devils come together, hell is to pay.  This is to be expected, and this certainly was to be expected when B\u00e2tard and Black Lecl\u00e8re came together.  The first time they met, B\u00e2tard was a part-grown puppy, lean and hungry, with bitter eyes; and they met with snap and snarl, and wicked looks, for Lecl\u00e8re\u2019s upper lip had a wolfish way of lifting and showing the white, cruel teeth.  And it lifted then, and his eyes glinted viciously, as he reached for B\u00e2tard and dragged him out from the squirming litter.  It was certain that they divined each other, for on the instant B\u00e2tard had buried his puppy fangs in Lecl\u00e8re\u2019s hand, and Lecl\u00e8re, thumb and finger, was coolly choking his young life out of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSacredam<\/em>,\u201d the Frenchman said softly, flirting the quick blood from his bitten hand and gazing down on the little puppy choking and gasping in the snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lecl\u00e8re turned to John Hamlin, storekeeper of the Sixty Mile Post.  \u201cDat fo\u2019 w\u2019at Ah lak heem.  \u2018Ow moch, eh, you, M\u2019sieu<\/em>\u2019?  \u2018Ow moch?  Ah buy heem, now; Ah buy heem queek.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because he hated him with an exceeding bitter hate, Lecl\u00e8re bought B\u00e2tard and gave him his shameful name.  And for five years the twain adventured across the Northland, from St. Michael\u2019s and the Yukon delta to the head-reaches of the Pelly and even so far as the Peace River, Athabasca, and the Great Slave.  And they acquired a reputation for uncompromising wickedness, the like of which never before attached itself to man and dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard did not know his father\u2014hence his name\u2014but, as John Hamlin knew, his father was a great grey timber wolf.  But the mother of B\u00e2tard, as he dimly remembered her, was snarling, bickering, obscene, husky, full-fronted and heavy-chested, with a malign eye, a cat-like grip on life, and a genius for trickery and evil.  There was neither faith nor trust in her.  Her treachery alone could be relied upon, and her wild-wood amours attested her general depravity.  Much of evil and much of strength were there in these, B\u00e2tard\u2019s progenitors, and, bone and flesh of their bone and flesh, he had inherited it all.  And then came Black Lecl\u00e8re, to lay his heavy hand on the bit of pulsating puppy life, to press and prod and mould till it became a big bristling beast, acute in knavery, overspilling with hate, sinister, malignant, diabolical.  With a proper master B\u00e2tard might have made an ordinary, fairly efficient sled-dog.  He never got the chance: Lecl\u00e8re but confirmed him in his congenital iniquity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of B\u00e2tard and Lecl\u00e8re is a history of war\u2014of five cruel, relentless years, of which their first meeting is fit summary.  To begin with, it was Lecl\u00e8re\u2019s fault, for he hated with understanding and intelligence, while the long-legged, ungainly puppy hated only blindly, instinctively, without reason or method.  At first there were no refinements of cruelty (these were to come later), but simple beatings and crude brutalities.  In one of these B\u00e2tard had an ear injured.  He never regained control of the riven muscles, and ever after the ear drooped limply down to keep keen the memory of his tormentor.  And he never forgot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His puppyhood was a period of foolish rebellion.  He was always worsted, but he fought back because it was his nature to fight back.  And he was unconquerable.  Yelping shrilly from the pain of lash and club, he none the less contrived always to throw in the defiant snarl, the bitter vindictive menace of his soul which fetched without fail more blows and beatings.  But his was his mother\u2019s tenacious grip on life.  Nothing could kill him.  He flourished under misfortune, grew fat with famine, and out of his terrible struggle for life developed a preternatural intelligence.  His were the stealth and cunning of the husky, his mother, and the fierceness and valour of the wolf, his father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Possibly it was because of his father that he never wailed.  His puppy yelps passed with his lanky legs, so that he became grim and taciturn, quick to strike, slow to warn.  He answered curse with snarl, and blow with snap, grinning the while his implacable hatred; but never again, under the extremest agony, did Lecl\u00e8re bring from him the cry of fear nor of pain.  This unconquerableness but fanned Lecl\u00e8re\u2019s wrath and stirred him to greater deviltries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Lecl\u00e8re give B\u00e2tard half a fish and to his mates whole ones, B\u00e2tard went forth to rob other dogs of their fish.  Also he robbed caches and expressed himself in a thousand rogueries, till he became a terror to all dogs and masters of dogs.  Did Lecl\u00e8re beat B\u00e2tard and fondle Babette\u2014Babette who was not half the worker he was\u2014why, B\u00e2tard threw her down in the snow and broke her hind leg in his heavy jaws, so that Lecl\u00e8re was forced to shoot her.  Likewise, in bloody battles, B\u00e2tard mastered all his team-mates, set them the law of trail and forage, and made them live to the law he set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In five years he heard but one kind word, received but one soft stroke of a hand, and then he did not know what manner of things they were.  He leaped like the untamed thing he was, and his jaws were together in a flash.  It was the missionary at Sunrise, a newcomer in the country, who spoke the kind word and gave the soft stroke of the hand.  And for six months after, he wrote no letters home to the States, and the surgeon at McQuestion travelled two hundred miles on the ice to save him from blood-poisoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men and dogs looked askance at B\u00e2tard when he drifted into their camps and posts.  The men greeted him with feet threateningly lifted for the kick, the dogs with bristling manes and bared fangs.  Once a man did kick B\u00e2tard, and B\u00e2tard, with quick wolf snap, closed his jaws like a steel trap on the man\u2019s calf and crunched down to the bone.  Whereat the man was determined to have his life, only Black Lecl\u00e8re, with ominous eyes and naked hunting-knife, stepped in between.  The killing of B\u00e2tard\u2014ah, sacredam<\/em>, that<\/em> was a pleasure Lecl\u00e8re reserved for himself.  Some day it would happen, or else\u2014bah! who was to know?  Anyway, the problem would be solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For they had become problems to each other.  The very breath each drew was a challenge and a menace to the other.  Their hate bound them together as love could never bind.  Lecl\u00e8re was bent on the coming of the day when B\u00e2tard should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet.  And B\u00e2tard\u2014Lecl\u00e8re knew what was in B\u00e2tard\u2019s mind, and more than once had read it in B\u00e2tard\u2019s eyes.  And so clearly had he read, that when B\u00e2tard was at his back, he made it a point to glance often over his shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men marvelled when Lecl\u00e8re refused large money for the dog.  \u201cSome day you\u2019ll kill him and be out his price,\u201d said John Hamlin once, when B\u00e2tard lay panting in the snow where Lecl\u00e8re had kicked him, and no one knew whether his ribs were broken, and no one dared look to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDat,\u201d said Lecl\u00e8re, dryly, \u201cdat is my biz\u2019ness, M\u2019sieu<\/em>\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the men marvelled that B\u00e2tard did not run away.  They did not understand.  But Lecl\u00e8re understood.  He was a man who lived much in the open, beyond the sound of human tongue, and he had learned the voices of wind and storm, the sigh of night, the whisper of dawn, the clash of day.  In a dim way he could hear the green things growing, the running of the sap, the bursting of the bud.  And he knew the subtle speech of the things that moved, of the rabbit in the snare, the moody raven beating the air with hollow wing, the baldface shuffling under the moon, the wolf like a grey shadow gliding betwixt the twilight and the dark.  And to him B\u00e2tard spoke clear and direct.  Full well he understood why B\u00e2tard did not run away, and he looked more often over his shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When in anger, B\u00e2tard was not nice to look upon, and more than once had he leapt for Lecl\u00e8re\u2019s throat, to be stretched quivering and senseless in the snow, by the butt of the ever ready dogwhip.  And so B\u00e2tard learned to bide his time.  When he reached his full strength and prime of youth, he thought the time had come.  He was broad-chested, powerfully muscled, of far more than ordinary size, and his neck from head to shoulders was a mass of bristling hair\u2014to all appearances a full-blooded wolf.  Lecl\u00e8re was lying asleep in his furs when B\u00e2tard deemed the time to be ripe.  He crept upon him stealthily, head low to earth and lone ear laid back, with a feline softness of tread.  B\u00e2tard breathed gently, very gently, and not till he was close at hand did he raise his head.  He paused for a moment and looked at the bronzed bull throat, naked and knotty, and swelling to a deep steady pulse.  The slaver dripped down his fangs and slid off his tongue at the sight, and in that moment he remembered his drooping ear, his uncounted blows and prodigious wrongs, and without a sound sprang on the sleeping man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lecl\u00e8re awoke to the pang of the fangs in his throat, and, perfect animal that he was, he awoke clear-headed and with full comprehension.  He closed on B\u00e2tard\u2019s windpipe with both his hands, and rolled out of his furs to get his weight uppermost.  But the thousands of B\u00e2tard\u2019s ancestors had clung at the throats of unnumbered moose and caribou and dragged them down, and the wisdom of those ancestors was his.  When Lecl\u00e8re\u2019s weight came on top of him, he drove his hind legs upwards and in, and clawed down chest and abdomen, ripping and tearing through skin and muscle.  And when he felt the man\u2019s body wince above him and lift, he worried and shook at the man\u2019s throat.  His team-mates closed around in a snarling circle, and B\u00e2tard, with failing breath and fading sense, knew that their jaws were hungry for him.  But that did not matter\u2014it was the man, the man above him, and he ripped and clawed, and shook and worried, to the last ounce of his strength.  But Lecl\u00e8re choked him with both his hands, till B\u00e2tard\u2019s chest heaved and writhed for the air denied, and his eyes glazed and set, and his jaws slowly loosened, and his tongue protruded black and swollen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEh?  Bon<\/em>, you devil!\u201d Lecl\u00e8re gurgled mouth and throat clogged with his own blood, as he shoved the dizzy dog from him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then Lecl\u00e8re cursed the other dogs off as they fell upon B\u00e2tard.  They drew back into a wider circle, squatting alertly on their haunches and licking their chops, the hair on every neck bristling and erect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard recovered quickly, and at sound of Lecl\u00e8re\u2019s voice, tottered to his feet and swayed weakly back and forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA-h-ah!  You beeg devil!\u201d Lecl\u00e8re spluttered.  \u201cAh fix you; Ah fix you plentee, by Gar<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard, the air biting into his exhausted lungs like wine, flashed full into the man\u2019s face, his jaws missing and coming together with a metallic clip.  They rolled over and over on the snow, Lecl\u00e8re striking madly with his fists.  Then they separated, face to face, and circled back and forth before each other.  Lecl\u00e8re could have drawn his knife.  His rifle was at his feet.  But the beast in him was up and raging.  He would do the thing with his hands\u2014and his teeth.  B\u00e2tard sprang in, but Lecl\u00e8re knocked him over with a blow of the fist, fell upon him, and buried his teeth to the bone in the dog\u2019s shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a primordial setting and a primordial scene, such as might have been in the savage youth of the world.  An open space in a dark forest, a ring of grinning wolf-dogs, and in the centre two beasts, locked in combat, snapping and snarling raging madly about panting, sobbing, cursing, straining, wild with passion, in a fury of murder, ripping and tearing and clawing in elemental brutishness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Lecl\u00e8re caught B\u00e2tard behind the ear with a blow from his fist, knocking him over, and, for the instant, stunning him.  Then Lecl\u00e8re leaped upon him with his feet, and sprang up and down, striving to grind him into the earth.  Both B\u00e2tard\u2019s hind legs were broken ere Lecl\u00e8re ceased that he might catch breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA-a-ah!  A-a-ah!\u201d he screamed, incapable of speech, shaking his fist, through sheer impotence of throat and larynx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But B\u00e2tard was indomitable.  He lay there in a helpless welter, his lip feebly lifting and writhing to the snarl he had not the strength to utter.  Lecl\u00e8re kicked him, and the tired jaws closed on the ankle, but could not break the skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Lecl\u00e8re picked up the whip and proceeded almost to cut him to pieces, at each stroke of the lash crying: \u201cDis taim Ah break you!  Eh?  By Gar<\/em>!  Ah break you!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, exhausted, fainting from loss of blood, he crumpled up and fell by his victim, and when the wolf-dogs closed in to take their vengeance, with his last consciousness dragged his body on top of B\u00e2tard to shield him from their fangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This occurred not far from Sunrise, and the missionary, opening the door to Lecl\u00e8re a few hours later, was surprised to note the absence of B\u00e2tard from the team.  Nor did his surprise lessen when Lecl\u00e8re threw back the robes from the sled, gathered B\u00e2tard into his arms and staggered across the threshold.  It happened that the surgeon of McQuestion, who was something of a gadabout, was up on a gossip, and between them they proceeded to repair Lecl\u00e8re,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMerci<\/em>, non<\/em>,\u201d said he.  \u201cDo you fix firs\u2019 de dog.  To die?  Non<\/em>.  Eet is not good.  Becos\u2019 heem Ah mus\u2019 yet break.  Dat fo\u2019 w\u2019at he mus\u2019 not die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The surgeon called it a marvel, the missionary a miracle, that Lecl\u00e8re pulled through at all; and so weakened was he, that in the spring the fever got him, and he went on his back again.  B\u00e2tard had been in even worse plight, but his grip on life prevailed, and the bones of his hind legs knit, and his organs righted themselves, during the several weeks he lay strapped to the floor.  And by the time Lecl\u00e8re, finally convalescent, sallow and shaky, took the sun by the cabin door, B\u00e2tard had reasserted his supremacy among his kind, and brought not only his own team-mates but the missionary\u2019s dogs into subjection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He moved never a muscle, nor twitched a hair, when, for the first time, Lecl\u00e8re tottered out on the missionary\u2019s arm, and sank down slowly and with infinite caution on the three-legged stool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBon<\/em>!\u201d he said.  \u201cBon<\/em>!  De good sun!\u201d  And he stretched out his wasted hands and washed them in the warmth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then his gaze fell on the dog, and the old light blazed back in his eyes.  He touched the missionary lightly on the arm.  \u201cMon<\/em> p\u00e8re<\/em>, dat is one beeg devil, dat B\u00e2tard.  You will bring me one pistol, so, dat Ah drink de sun in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And thenceforth for many days he sat in the sun before the cabin door.  He never dozed, and the pistol lay always across his knees.  B\u00e2tard had a way, the first thing each day, of looking for the weapon in its wonted place.  At sight of it he would lift his lip faintly in token that he understood, and Lecl\u00e8re would lift his own lip in an answering grin.  One day the missionary took note of the trick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBless me!\u201d he said.  \u201cI really believe the brute comprehends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lecl\u00e8re laughed softly.  \u201cLook you, mon<\/em> p\u00e8re<\/em>.  Dat w\u2019at Ah now spik, to dat does he lissen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if in confirmation, B\u00e2tard just perceptibly wriggled his lone ear up to catch the sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh say \u2018keel\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard growled deep down in his throat, the hair bristled along his neck, and every muscle went tense and expectant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh lift de gun, so, like dat.\u201d  And suiting action to word, he sighted the pistol at B\u00e2tard.  B\u00e2tard, with a single leap, sideways, landed around the corner of the cabin out of sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBless me!\u201d he repeated at intervals.  Lecl\u00e8re grinned proudly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut why does he not run away?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Frenchman\u2019s shoulders went up in the racial shrug that means all things from total ignorance to infinite understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen why do you not kill him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again the shoulders went up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMon<\/em> p\u00e8re<\/em>,\u201d he said after a pause, \u201cde taim is not yet.  He is one beeg devil.  Some taim Ah break heem, so an\u2019 so, all to leetle bits.  Hey? some taim.  Bon<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A day came when Lecl\u00e8re gathered his dogs together and floated down in a bateau to Forty Mile, and on to the Porcupine, where he took a commission from the P. C. Company, and went exploring for the better part of a year.  After that he poled up the Koyokuk to deserted Arctic City, and later came drifting back, from camp to camp, along the Yukon.  And during the long months B\u00e2tard was well lessoned.  He learned many tortures, and, notably, the torture of hunger, the torture of thirst, the torture of fire, and, worst of all, the torture of music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the rest of his kind, he did not enjoy music.  It gave him exquisite anguish, racking him nerve by nerve, and ripping apart every fibre of his being.  It made him howl, long and wolf-like, as when the wolves bay the stars on frosty nights.  He could not help howling.  It was his one weakness in the contest with Lecl\u00e8re, and it was his shame.  Lecl\u00e8re, on the other hand, passionately loved music\u2014as passionately as he loved strong drink.  And when his soul clamoured for expression, it usually uttered itself in one or the other of the two ways, and more usually in both ways.  And when he had drunk, his brain a-lilt with unsung song and the devil in him aroused and rampant, his soul found its supreme utterance in torturing B\u00e2tard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow we will haf a leetle museek,\u201d he would say.  \u201cEh?  W\u2019at you t\u2019ink, B\u00e2tard?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only an old and battered harmonica, tenderly treasured and patiently repaired; but it was the best that money could buy, and out of its silver reeds he drew weird vagrant airs that men had never heard before.  Then B\u00e2tard, dumb of throat, with teeth tight clenched, would back away, inch by inch, to the farthest cabin corner.  And Lecl\u00e8re, playing, playing, a stout club tucked under his arm, followed the animal up, inch by inch, step by step, till there was no further retreat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first B\u00e2tard would crowd himself into the smallest possible space, grovelling close to the floor; but as the music came nearer and nearer, he was forced to uprear, his back jammed into the logs, his fore legs fanning the air as though to beat off the rippling waves of sound.  He still kept his teeth together, but severe muscular contractions attacked his body, strange twitchings and jerkings, till he was all a-quiver and writhing in silent torment.  As he lost control, his jaws spasmodically wrenched apart, and deep throaty vibrations issued forth, too low in the register of sound for human ear to catch.  And then, nostrils distended, eyes dilated, hair bristling in helpless rage, arose the long wolf howl.  It came with a slurring rush upwards, swelling to a great heart-breaking burst of sound, and dying away in sadly cadenced woe\u2014then the next rush upward, octave upon octave; the bursting heart; and the infinite sorrow and misery, fainting, fading, falling, and dying slowly away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was fit for hell.  And Lecl\u00e8re, with fiendish ken, seemed to divine each particular nerve and heartstring, and with long wails and tremblings and sobbing minors to make it yield up its last shred of grief.  It was frightful, and for twenty-four hours after, B\u00e2tard was nervous and unstrung, starting at common sounds, tripping over his own shadow, but, withal, vicious and masterful with his team-mates.  Nor did he show signs of a breaking spirit.  Rather did he grow more grim and taciturn, biding his time with an inscrutable patience that began to puzzle and weigh upon Lecl\u00e8re.  The dog would lie in the firelight, motionless, for hours, gazing straight before him at Lecl\u00e8re, and hating him with his bitter eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often the man felt that he had bucked against the very essence of life\u2014the unconquerable essence that swept the hawk down out of the sky like a feathered thunderbolt, that drove the great grey goose across the zones, that hurled the spawning salmon through two thousand miles of boiling Yukon flood.  At such times he felt impelled to\u2014express his own unconquerable essence; and with strong drink, wild music, and B\u00e2tard, he indulged in vast orgies, wherein he pitted his puny strength in the face of things, and challenged all that was, and had been, and was yet to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDere is somet\u2019ing dere,\u201d he affirmed, when the rhythmed vagaries of his mind touched the secret chords of B\u00e2tard\u2019s being and brought forth the long lugubrious howl.  \u201cAh pool eet out wid bot\u2019 my han\u2019s, so, an\u2019 so.  Ha! ha!  Eet is fonee!  Eet is ver\u2019 fonee!  De priest chant, de womans pray, de mans swear, de leetle bird go peep<\/em>–peep<\/em>, B\u00e2tard, heem go yow<\/em>–yow<\/em>\u2014an\u2019 eet is all de ver\u2019 same t\u2019ing.  Ha! ha!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father Gautier, a worthy priest, once reproved him with instances of concrete perdition.  He never reproved him again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEet may be so, mon<\/em> p\u00e8re<\/em>,\u201d he made answer.  \u201cAn\u2019 Ah t\u2019ink Ah go troo hell a-snappin\u2019, lak de hemlock troo de fire.  Eh, mon<\/em> p\u00e8re<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all bad things come to an end as well as good, and so with Black Lecl\u00e8re.  On the summer low water, in a poling boat, he left McDougall for Sunrise.  He left McDougall in company with Timothy Brown, and arrived at Sunrise by himself.  Further, it was known that they had quarrelled just previous to pulling out; for the Lizzie<\/em>, a wheezy ten-ton stern-wheeler, twenty-four hours behind, beat Lecl\u00e8re in by three days.  And when he did get in, it was with a clean-drilled bullet-hole through his shoulder muscle, and a tale of ambush and murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A strike had been made at Sunrise, and things had changed considerably.  With the infusion of several hundred gold-seekers, a deal of whisky, and half-a-dozen equipped gamblers, the missionary had seen the page of his years of labour with the Indians wiped clean.  When the squaws became preoccupied with cooking beans and keeping the fire going for the wifeless miners, and the bucks with swapping their warm furs for black bottles and broken time-pieces, he took to his bed, said \u201cBless me\u201d several times, and departed to his final accounting in a rough-hewn, oblong box.  Whereupon the gamblers moved their roulette and faro tables into the mission house, and the click of chips and clink of glasses went up from dawn till dark and to dawn again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Timothy Brown was well beloved among these adventurers of the North.  The one thing against him was his quick temper and ready fist\u2014a little thing, for which his kind heart and forgiving hand more than atoned.  On the other hand, there was nothing to atone for Black Lecl\u00e8re.  He was \u201cblack,\u201d as more than one remembered deed bore witness, while he was as well hated as the other was beloved.  So the men of Sunrise put an antiseptic dressing on his shoulder and haled him before Judge Lynch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a simple affair.  He had quarrelled with Timothy Brown at McDougall.  With Timothy Brown he had left McDougall.  Without Timothy Brown he had arrived at Sunrise.  Considered in the light of his evilness, the unanimous conclusion was that he had killed Timothy Brown.  On the other hand, Lecl\u00e8re acknowledged their facts, but challenged their conclusion, and gave his own explanation.  Twenty miles out of Sunrise he and Timothy Brown were poling the boat along the rocky shore.  From that shore two rifle-shots rang out.  Timothy Brown pitched out of the boat and went down bubbling red, and that was the last of Timothy Brown.  He, Lecl\u00e8re, pitched into the bottom of the boat with a stinging shoulder.  He lay very quiet, peeping at the shore.  After a time two Indians stuck up their heads and came out to the water\u2019s edge, carrying between them a birch-bark canoe.  As they launched it, Lecl\u00e8re let fly.  He potted one, who went over the side after the manner of Timothy Brown.  The other dropped into the bottom of the canoe, and then canoe and poling boat went down the stream in a drifting battle.  After that they hung up on a split current, and the canoe passed on one side of an island, the poling boat on the other.  That was the last of the canoe, and he came on into Sunrise.  Yes, from the way the Indian in the canoe jumped, he was sure he had potted him.  That was all.  This explanation was not deemed adequate.  They gave him ten hours\u2019 grace while the Lizzie<\/em> steamed down to investigate.  Ten hours later she came wheezing back to Sunrise.  There had been nothing to investigate.  No evidence had been found to back up his statements.  They told him to make his will, for he possessed a fifty-thousand dollar Sunrise claim, and they were a law-abiding as well as a law-giving breed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lecl\u00e8re shrugged his shoulders.  \u201cBot one t\u2019ing,\u201d he said; \u201ca leetle, w\u2019at you call, favour\u2014a leetle favour, dat is eet.  I gif my feefty t\u2019ousan\u2019 dollair to de church.  I gif my husky dog, B\u00e2tard, to de devil.  De leetle favour?  Firs\u2019 you hang heem, an\u2019 den you hang me.  Eet is good, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good it was, they agreed, that Hell\u2019s Spawn should break trail for his master across the last divide, and the court was adjourned down to the river bank, where a big spruce tree stood by itself.  Slackwater Charley put a hangman\u2019s knot in the end of a hauling-line, and the noose was slipped over Lecl\u00e8re\u2019s head and pulled tight around his neck.  His hands were tied behind his back, and he was assisted to the top of a cracker box.  Then the running end of the line was passed over an over-hanging branch, drawn taut, and made fast.  To kick the box out from under would leave him dancing on the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow for the dog,\u201d said Webster Shaw, sometime mining engineer.  \u201cYou\u2019ll have to rope him, Slackwater.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lecl\u00e8re grinned.  Slackwater took a chew of tobacco, rove a running noose, and proceeded leisurely to coil a few turns in his hand.  He paused once or twice to brush particularly offensive mosquitoes from off his face.  Everybody was brushing mosquitoes, except Lecl\u00e8re, about whose head a small cloud was visible.  Even B\u00e2tard, lying full-stretched on the ground with his fore paws rubbed the pests away from eyes and mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But while Slackwater waited for B\u00e2tard to lift his head, a faint call came from the quiet air, and a man was seen waving his arms and running across the flat from Sunrise.  It was the storekeeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cC-call \u2019er off, boys,\u201d he panted, as he came in among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLittle Sandy and Bernadotte\u2019s jes\u2019 got in,\u201d he explained with returning breath.  \u201cLanded down below an\u2019 come up by the short cut.  Got the Beaver with \u2019m.  Picked \u2019m up in his canoe, stuck in a back channel, with a couple of bullet-holes in \u2019m.  Other buck was Klok Kutz, the one that knocked spots out of his squaw and dusted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEh?  W\u2019at Ah say?  Eh?\u201d Lecl\u00e8re cried exultantly.  \u201cDat de one fo\u2019 sure!  Ah know.  Ah spik true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe thing to do is to teach these damned Siwashes a little manners,\u201d spoke Webster Shaw.  \u201cThey\u2019re getting fat and sassy, and we\u2019ll have to bring them down a peg.  Round in all the bucks and string up the Beaver for an object lesson.  That\u2019s the programme.  Come on and let\u2019s see what he\u2019s got to say for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHeh, M\u2019sieu<\/em>!\u201d Lecl\u00e8re called, as the crowd began to melt away through the twilight in the direction of Sunrise.  \u201cAh lak ver\u2019 moch to see de fon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, we\u2019ll turn you loose when we come back,\u201d Webster Shaw shouted over his shoulder.  \u201cIn the meantime meditate on your sins and the ways of Providence.  It will do you good, so be grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is the way with men who are accustomed to great hazards, whose nerves are healthy and trained in patience, so it was with Lecl\u00e8re who settled himself to the long wait\u2014which is to say that he reconciled his mind to it.  There was no settling of the body, for the taut rope forced him to stand rigidly erect.  The least relaxation of the leg muscles pressed the rough-fibred noose into his neck, while the upright position caused him much pain in his wounded shoulder.  He projected his under lip and expelled his breath upwards along his face to blow the mosquitoes away from his eyes.  But the situation had its compensation.  To be snatched from the maw of death was well worth a little bodily suffering, only it was unfortunate that he should miss the hanging of the Beaver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so he mused, till his eyes chanced to fall upon B\u00e2tard, head between fore paws and stretched on the ground asleep.  And then Lecl\u00e8re ceased to muse.  He studied the animal closely, striving to sense if the sleep were real or feigned.  B\u00e2tard\u2019s sides were heaving regularly, but Lecl\u00e8re felt that the breath came and went a shade too quickly; also he felt that there was a vigilance or alertness to every hair that belied unshackling sleep.  He would have given his Sunrise claim to be assured that the dog was not awake, and once, when one of his joints cracked, he looked quickly and guiltily at B\u00e2tard to see if he roused.  He did not rouse then but a few minutes later he got up slowly and lazily, stretched, and looked carefully about him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSacredam<\/em>,\u201d said Lecl\u00e8re under his breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assured that no one was in sight or hearing, B\u00e2tard sat down, curled his upper lip almost into a smile, looked up at Lecl\u00e8re, and licked his chops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh see my feenish,\u201d the man said, and laughed sardonically aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard came nearer, the useless ear wabbling, the good ear cocked forward with devilish comprehension.  He thrust his head on one side quizzically, and advanced with mincing, playful steps.  He rubbed his body gently against the box till it shook and shook again.  Lecl\u00e8re teetered carefully to maintain his equilibrium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cB\u00e2tard,\u201d he said calmly, \u201clook out.  Ah keel you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard snarled at the word and shook the box with greater force.  Then he upreared, and with his fore paws threw his weight against it higher up.  Lecl\u00e8re kicked out with one foot, but the rope bit into his neck and checked so abruptly as nearly to overbalance him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi, ya!  Chook<\/em>!  Mush<\/em>–on<\/em>!\u201d he screamed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e2tard retreated, for twenty feet or so, with a fiendish levity in his bearing that Lecl\u00e8re could not mistake.  He remembered the dog often breaking the scum of ice on the water hole by lifting up and throwing his weight upon it; and remembering, he understood what he now had in mind.  B\u00e2tard faced about and paused.  He showed his white teeth in a grin, which Lecl\u00e8re answered; and then hurled his body through the air, in full charge, straight for the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifteen minutes later, Slackwater Charley and Webster Shaw returning, caught a glimpse of a ghostly pendulum swinging back and forth in the dim light.  As they hurriedly drew in closer, they made out the man\u2019s inert body, and a live thing that clung to it, and shook and worried, and gave to it the swaying motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi, ya!  Chook<\/em>! you Spawn of Hell!\u201d yelled Webster Shaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But B\u00e2tard glared at him, and snarled threateningly, without loosing his jaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slackwater Charley got out his revolver, but his hand was shaking, as with a chill, and he fumbled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere you take it,\u201d he said, passing the weapon over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Webster Shaw laughed shortly, drew a sight between the gleaming eyes, and pressed the trigger.  B\u00e2tard\u2019s body twitched with the shock, threshed the ground spasmodically for a moment, and went suddenly limp.  But his teeth still held fast locked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cB\u00e2tard\u201d is a short story by American writer Jack London, published in June 1902 in The Cosmopolitan magazine. Black Lecl\u00e8re is a cruel and brutal man who, upon seeing a fierce mixed-breed puppy\u2014a cross between a wolf and a husky\u2014decides to acquire it not because he wants it, but because he despises it. Lecl\u00e8re names the dog B\u00e2tard, \u201cBastard,\u201d and from the very first moment, man and animal are bound together by hatred. For five years, they travel together through the Canadian North. Amid hunger and abuse, B\u00e2tard grows, becomes strong, fiercely dominates the other dogs, and harbors a deep grudge against his master. Both are trapped in a battle of wills, bound by a savage enmity in which each waits for the moment to destroy the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[814,600,630,570],"class_list":["post-27881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-16-en","tag-jack-london-en","tag-realism","tag-united-states","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":814,"label":"+16"},{"value":600,"label":"Jack London"},{"value":630,"label":"Realism"},{"value":570,"label":"United States"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jack-London-Batard.webp",768,768,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":427,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":427,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":814,"name":"+16","slug":"16-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":814,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":600,"name":"Jack London","slug":"jack-london-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":600,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":12,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":630,"name":"Realism","slug":"realism","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":630,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":53,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":570,"name":"United States","slug":"united-states","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":570,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":299,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27882,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27881\/revisions\/27882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}