About the Author
Dick North has worked as a seaman, a fisheries officer, and a newspaper editor in Alaska and Canada's Yukon. He is the author of The Mad Trapper of Rat River, Trackdown and The Lost Patrol. He is currently the curator of the Jack London Exhibit and Interpretation Center in Dawson City, Yukon.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Johnny Johnson sensed tidal-like currents were sweeping him forward in a surge
which he could not swim against. Fate had one course for him and its heavy-handed inevitability prodded him on. He could not, would not deny the adventurous strains of his ancestral past. The hot blood of Viking warriors raced through John's veins, and he was constantly conscious of this legacy of his forefathers, who terrorized the people of Europe with their exciting, bloody raids. Johnny had played the part of a Viking in games of childhood. It was the warrior's dream, and like thousands of youngsters before and since, he relived all of the glory in his make-believe world. But Johnny had other heroes, much closer, thus more ominous than the Vikings of so many centuries past.
These were the adventurers of the new world, who trod the very soil his family now
tilled, and sailed the rivers, and hunted the endless plains where he, too, hunted, and fought imaginary battles over ground they walked upon. Johnny's mind, as he rode toward Bainville, was an overlay of images of giants of the western frontier. Now he, too, was embarking on the danger trail, and he silently vowed to live up to the hand-me-downs they had left behind.
which he could not swim against. Fate had one course for him and its heavy-handed inevitability prodded him on. He could not, would not deny the adventurous strains of his ancestral past. The hot blood of Viking warriors raced through John's veins, and he was constantly conscious of this legacy of his forefathers, who terrorized the people of Europe with their exciting, bloody raids. Johnny had played the part of a Viking in games of childhood. It was the warrior's dream, and like thousands of youngsters before and since, he relived all of the glory in his make-believe world. But Johnny had other heroes, much closer, thus more ominous than the Vikings of so many centuries past.
These were the adventurers of the new world, who trod the very soil his family now
tilled, and sailed the rivers, and hunted the endless plains where he, too, hunted, and fought imaginary battles over ground they walked upon. Johnny's mind, as he rode toward Bainville, was an overlay of images of giants of the western frontier. Now he, too, was embarking on the danger trail, and he silently vowed to live up to the hand-me-downs they had left behind.
