It was in Alaska--the field of “The Forerunner,” the Kipling poem that
was for so many years lost and entirely forgotten by its author, the
field of Robert W. Service’s “Songs of a Sourdough,” the field of so
many of the tales of Jack London and Stewart Edward White, that Rex
Beach first found literary expression. He did not set out in life to be
a literary man. He was a husky youth, full of vitality and, even in his
teens, a giant in strength. He was born in Atwood, Michigan, September
1, 1877, and he left his native place for the city of Chicago when he
was eighteen years of age. He meant to study law, but, as he said, he
“had no money--therefore had to find a place to eat.” In those days
the athletic associations of several of the large cities maintained
football teams of giant gladiators to entertain the multitude. Young
Beach had seen just one game of football, but when he presented
himself, his physical architecture was so imposing that he was engaged
without hesitation, as tackle, by the athletic association football
manager. The college teams used to play an annual series with these
huge professionals. Later they gave it up, because the “truck-horse
professionals” hired by the athletic associations could not be hurt
by anything short of an ax, while the college players, as Beach said,
were apt to “tear under the wing.” Beach played through the season,
taking part in the games by which his team won the championship of
America. Then, being desirous of eating regularly, he attached himself
to the athletic association’s swimming team and broke an indoor record
at water polo. That was in 1897, when the Klondike excitement broke
out. He stampeded with the rest. It was the spirit of adventure and no
thought of finding material for fiction that took him to the Yukon.
With two partners from Chicago, Beach was dumped off the boat at
Rampart, on the Yukon, one rainy night. The three hadn’t a dollar
amongst them, but they had plenty of goods. Then things began to
happen. “We prepared to become exorbitantly rich,” in the words of
Beach, “but it was a bad winter. There were fifteen hundred rough-necks
in town, very little food and plenty of scurvy. I soon found that my
strength was my legs. I could stampede with anybody. So I stampeded
faithfully whenever I heard of a gold strike, all that winter.” He
became dissatisfied with his two Chicago partners, because they
preferred to sit around the cabin cooking tasty messes to tearing
through blizzards at the tail of a dog team. They wanted to wait for
their million dollars until spring, but Beach wanted his by Christmas
at the latest. And so he set off, and quickly fell under the spell
of the Yukon. The glare of the white Arctic night, the toil of the
long trail, the complicated struggle for existence, the reversion to
primitive passions inevitable in a new civilization in process of
formation, made an imperative call to him, and held him fascinated.
The life about him moved him to write, and before long he was embarked
on a literary career. “Pardners,” his first story, appeared in 1904,
and this was followed by the novel that gave him reputation--“The
Spoilers,” which appeared in 1906. Then came “The Barrier” in 1907,
and “The Silver Horde” in 1909. They are all virile stories of Alaskan
life that have stirred many thousands of readers. Some have gone into
dramatic form, “The Barrier” having attained a new and distinguished
success as a film picture. In “The Ne’er Do Well” and in “The Net”
Beach sought Southern scenes, the former novel having Panama as its
background, and “The Net” New Orleans during the Mafia days. “The
Auction Block,” published in 1914, deals with the favorite activities
of modern Metropolitan life, and the sale of young girls into the
marriage tie.
Mr. Beach was christened “Rex E. Beach,” and he retained the middle
initial for some time, but when correspondents who had read his books
sent letters to him in which they addressed him as “_Rev._ E. Beach,”
he dropped the middle initial. He lives in New York City and has a
summer residence at Landing, Lake Hopatcong, N. J.
[Illustration: STEWART EDWARD WHITE]
_Stewart Edward White_