It was in the old days of the Russian occupancy of Alaska, when the nineteenth century had run but half its course, that Negore fled after his fleeing tribe and came upon it this summer night by the head waters of the Pee-lat. Though near the midnight hour, it was bright day as he passed through the weary camp.

He had followed the trail of his fleeing people for eleven days, and his pursuit had been in itself a flight; for behind him he knew full well were the dreaded Russians, toiling through the swampy lowlands and over the steep divides, bent on no less than the extermination of all his people. He was travelling light. A rabbit-skin sleeping-robe, a muzzle-loading rifle, and a few pounds of sun-dried salmon constituted his outfit. He would have marvelled that a whole people—women and children and aged—could travel so swiftly, had he not known the terror that drove them on.

Under this title the author has grouped eight short stories. The tale which gives the book its name is a description of a man dying in the wilds of the Northwest by slow starvation. The concluding story, "Negore, the Coward," relates to the old days of the Russian occupancy of Alaska, and shows what a man will do to retain a woman's love and wipe from his name an undeserved affix.

Jack London was an American novelist, journalist and social activist. Pioneering the genre of magazine fiction and prototyping science fiction, he became one of the first writers, who gained worldwide fame and a large fortune. "The Game" is a story about a twenty-year-old boxer Joe, who meets his death in the ring. Since London was a sports reporter, he based the novel on his personal observations. In "The Abysmal Brute" story, a successful boxer, who was brought up in a log cabin and knows little of the real world, begins to realize the corrupt practices in the game of boxing. "Love of Life" is a collection of short stories, written mostly during author's “Klondike” period.

Near the horizon the sun was smouldering dimly, almost obscured by formless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass and density without outline or tangibility. The man pulled out his watch, the while resting his weight on one leg. It was four o’clock, and as the season was near the last of July or first of August, — he did not know the precise date within a week or two, — he knew that the sun roughly marked the northwest. He looked to the south and knew that somewhere beyond those bleak hills lay the Great Bear Lake; also, he knew that in that direction the Arctic Circle cut its forbidding way across the Canadian Barrens. This stream in which he stood was a feeder to the Coppermine River, which in turn flowed north and emptied into Coronation Gulf and the Arctic Ocean. He had never been there, but he had seen it, once, on a Hudson Bay Company chart...FROM THE BOOK.