The contest between nature and the individual is a favorite London theme. He lays out the keys for survival: determination, ingenuity, courage. And his work became like the men and women of whom he wrote--violent, bold, primitive.

The nine stories in this collection include: "The White Silence," "The Son of the Wolf," "The Men of Forty Mile," "In a Far Country," "To the Man on Trail," "The Priestly Prerogative," "The Wisdom of the Trail," "The Wife of a King" and "An Odyssey of the North."