@Buck's first day on the beach was like a nightmare. Every hour was filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of the wilderness. This was no lazy, sun-kissed life, with nothing to do but loaf around and be bored. There was no peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment his life and limb were in peril. He had to be constantly alert, for these dogs and men were not town dogs and men. They were savages, all of them, savages who knew no law but the law of club and fang.
He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experience taught him an unforgettable lesson. It is true, it was not his own experience, or else he would not have lived to profit by it. @Curly was the victim. They were camped near the log store. She, in her friendly way, made advances to a husky dog the size of a full-grown wolf, though not half so large as she. There was no warning, only a leap forward like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, then a leap back, equally swift, and Curly's face was ripped open from eye to jaw.
That was the way wolves fought, striking and leaping away. But there was more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and surrounded the fighters in an intent and silent circle. Buck did not understand that silent intentness, nor the eager way with which they were licking their chops. Curly rushed her enemy, who struck again and leaped aside. He met her next rush with his chest, and tumbled her off her feet. She never regained them, This was what the other huskies had waited for. They closed in upon her, snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming with agony, beneath the mass of bodies.
It happened so suddenly, and so unexpectedly, that Buck was taken aback. He saw @Spitz run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing. He saw @Francois, swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Three men with clubs were helping him to scatter them. It did not take long. Two minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her assailants were clubbed off. But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces. The scene often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the way. No fair play. Once down, that was the end of you. Well, he would see to it that he never went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again, and from that moment Buck hated him with a bitter and undying hatred.
Before he had recovered from the shock of Curly's death, he received another shock. Francois fastened an arrangement of straps and buckles on his back. It was a harness, such as he had seen the grooms put on the horses at home. And as he had seen horses work, so he was set to work, hauling Francois on a sled to the forest that circled the valley, and returning with a load of firewood. Though his dignity was hurt by thus being made a work animal, he was too wise to rebel. He buckled down with a will and did his best, even though it was all new and strange. Francois was the stem of the group, demanding instant obedience. And with the crack of his whip, he received that obedience. @Dave, on the other hand, was an experienced wheeler, and he nipped Buck's hind quarters whenever he did something wrong. Spitz was the leader, also experienced, and while he could not always get at Buck, he growled sharply now and then, or cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck into the way he should go. Buck learned easily, and under the combined efforts of his two mates and Francois, he made remarkable progress. By the time they returned to camp, he knew enough to stop at "ho," to go ahead at "mush," to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear of the wheeler when the loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.
"They're good dogs," Francois told @Perrault. "That Buck, he pulls like hell. I teach him quick as anything."
By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail, returned with two more dogs. @Billee and @Joe, he called them, two brothers and true huskies both. But even though they were sons of the one mother, they were as different as day and night. Billee's one fault was his excessive good nature, while Joe was the very opposite, sour and introspective, with a perpetual snarl. Buck received them in a friendly fashion, Dave ignored them, and Spitz proceeded to thrash first one and then the other. Billee wagged his tail submissively, turned to run when he saw that it wouldn't work, and cried (still submissively) when Spitz's sharp teeth scored his flank. But no matter how Spitz circled, Joe whirled around on his heels to face him, mane bristling, ears laid back, lips writhing and snarling, jaws clipping together as fast as he could snap, and eyes diabolically gleaming -- the incarnation of aggressive fear. So terrible was Joe's appearance that Spitz was forced to give up trying to discipline him. But to cover his own embarrassment, he turned upon the inoffensive and wailing Billee and drove him to the confines of the camp.
By evening Perrault secured another dog, an old husky, long and lean and gaunt, with a battle-scarred face and a single eye which flashed a warning of skill and courage that commanded respect. He was called @Sol-leks, which means the Angry One. Like Dave, he asked nothing, gave nothing, expected nothing; and when he marched slowly and deliberately into their midst, even Spitz left him alone. He had one peculiarity which Buck was unlucky enough to discover. He did not like to be approached on his blind side. Buck's first knowledge of this was when Sol-leks whirled upon him and slashed his shoulder to the bone for three inches up and down. Forever after Buck avoided his blind side, and to the last of their friendship had no more trouble. His only apparent ambition, like Dave's, was to be left alone; though, as Buck was afterward to learn, each of them had one other and even more vital ambition.
That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent, illumined by a candle, glowed warmly in the midst of the cold, white outdoors. But when he, as a matter of course, entered it, both Perrault and Francois assaulted him with curses and cooking utensils; he fled back into the cold. A chill wind was blowing, and it bit into his wounded shoulder quite sharply. He lay down on the snow and attempted to sleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to his feet. Miserable and alone, he wandered about among the many tents, only to find that one place was as cold as another. Here and there savage dogs rushed up to him, but he bristled his neck-hair and snarled (for he was learning fast), and they let him go his way unharmed.
Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own teammates were making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared. Again he wandered about through the great camp,
looking for them, and again he returned. Were they in the tent? No, that could not be, or else he wouldn't have been driven out. Then where could they possibly be? With his tail drooping and his body shivering, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave way beneath his forelegs and he sank down. Something wriggled under his feet. He sprang back, snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to investigate. A whiff of warm air made his nostrils tingle. There, curled up under the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. He whined, squirmed and wriggled to show his good will and intentions, and even chanced, as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck's face with his warm wet tongue.
Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buck confidently selected a spot, and with much fuss and wasted effort proceeded to dig a hole for himself. In a few seconds the heat from his body filled the small space, and he fell asleep. The day had been long and difficult, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growled and barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
He didn't open his eyes until he was roused by the noises of the waking camp. At first he did not know where he was. It had snowed during the night, and he was completely buried. The snow walls pressed him on every side, and a great surge of fear swept through him -- the fear of the wild thing caught in a trap. It was an instinct, pure and simple. He was a civilized dog, an unduly civilized dog, and he had never experienced a trap himself, so he shouldn't fear it. But the muscles of his whole body contracted, the hair on his neck and shoulders stood on end, and with a ferocious snarl he bounded straight up into the blinding day, the snow flying about him in a flashing cloud. When he landed on his feet, though, he saw the white camp spread out before him and knew where he was. He remembered all that had passed from the time he went for a stroll with @Manuel to the hole he had dug for himself the night before.
A shout from Francois greeted him. "What I say?" the dog-driver cried to Perrault. "That Buck for sure learn quick as anything."
Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the @Canadian government, bearing important documents, he was anxious to secure the best dogs. He was particularly glad to have gotten Buck.
Three more huskies were added to the team inside an hour, making a total of nine, and before another quarter of an hour had passed they were in harness and swinging up the trail toward the @Dyea Canon. Buck was glad to be gone, and though the work was hard he found he did not particularly hate it. He was surprised at the eagerness which drove the whole team and which they communicated to him. Still more surprising, though, was the change in Dave and Sol-leks. They were new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness they had shown before was gone. They were alert and active, anxious that the work should go well, and fiercely irritable with whatever delayed that work. The harness seemed to be all that they lived for and the only thing in which they took delight.
