CD-ROM Today - The Disc! 2/CD-ROM_Today_-_The_Disc_2_June-July_1994.iso/books/callwild.txt

Text File | 1994-04-24 | 179KB | 2,780 lines

                                      1903
                              THE CALL OF THE WILD
                                 by Jack London
                        CHAPTER ONE.
                     Into the Primitive.

                 Old longings nomadic leap,
                   Chafing at custom's chain;
                 Again from its brumal sleep
                   Wakens the ferine strain.

  BUCK DID NOT READ THE newspapers, or he would have known that
trouble was brewing not alone for himself, but for every tide-water
dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to
San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a
yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies
were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the
Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were
heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil and furry coats to
protect them from the frost.
  Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley.
Judge Miller's place, it was called. It stood back from the road, half
hidden among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of
the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was
approached by gravelled driveways which wound about through
widespreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall
poplars. At the rear things were on even a more spacious scale than at
the front. There were great stables, where a dozen grooms and boys
held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages, an endless and
orderly array of out-houses, long grape arbours, green pastures,
orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant for
the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller's boys
took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon.
  And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here
he had lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were other
dogs. There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they
did not count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or
lived obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of
Toots, the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless- strange
creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground.
On the other hand, there were the fox terriers, a score of them at
least, who yelped fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out
of the windows at them and protected by a legion of housemaids armed
with brooms and mops.
  But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realm was
his. He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the
Judge's sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's daughters,
on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay
at the Judge's feet before the roaring library fire; he carried the
Judge's grandsons on his back, or rolled them in the grass, and
guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain
in the stable yard, and even beyond, where the paddocks were, and
the berry patches. Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and
Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for he was king- king over all
the creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's place,
humans included.
  His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge's
inseparable companion and Buck did fair to follow in the way of his
father. He was not so large- he weighed only one hundred and forty
pounds- for his mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog.
Nevertheless, one hundred and forty pounds, to which was added the
dignity that comes of good living and universal respect, enabled him
to carry himself in right royal fashion. During the four years since
his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat; he had a
fine pride in himself, was ever a trifle egotistical, as country
gentlemen sometimes become because of their insular situation. But
he had saved himself by not becoming a mere pampered house-dog.
Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat and
hardened his muscles; and to him, as to the cold-tubbing races, the
love of water had been a tonic and a health preserver.
  And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when
the Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozen
North. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know
that Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable
acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese
lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness- faith
in a system; and this made his damnation certain. For to play a system
requires money, while the wages of a gardener's helper do not lap over
the needs of a wife and numerous progeny.
  The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, and
the boys were busy organising an athletic club, on the memorable night
of Manuel's treachery. No one saw him and Buck go off through the
orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll. And with the
exception of a solitary man, no one saw them arrive at the little flag
station known as College Park. This man talked with Manuel, and
money clinked between them.
  'You might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'm,' the stranger
said gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around Buck's
neck under the collar.
  'Twist it, an' you'll choke 'm plentee,' said Manuel, and the
stranger grunted a ready affirmative.
  Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an
unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew,
and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own. But when
the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger's hands, he growled
menacingly. He had merely intimated his displeasure, in his pride
believing that to intimate was to command. But to his surprise the
rope tightened around his neck, shutting off his breath. In quick rage
he sprang at the man, who met him halfway, grappled him close by the
throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Then the
rope tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue
lolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never
in all his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his
life had he been so angry. But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed,
and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two men threw
him into the baggage car.
  The next he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting and
that he was being jolted along in some kind of conveyance. The
hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing told him where he
was. He had travelled too often with the Judge not to know the
sensation of riding in a baggage car. He opened his eyes, and into
them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king. The man sprang
for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him. His jaws closed on the
hand; nor did they relax till his senses were choked out of him once
more.
  'Yep, has fits,' the man said, hiding his mangled hand from the
baggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle. 'I'm
takin' 'im up for the boss to 'Frisco. A crack dog-doctor there thinks
that he can cure 'im.'
  Concerning that night's ride the man spoke most eloquently for
himself, in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco
water front.
  'All I get is fifty for it,' he grumbled; 'an' I wouldn't do it over
for a thousand, cold cash.'
  His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right trouser
leg was ripped from knee to ankle.
  'How much did the other mug get?' the saloon-keeper demanded.
  'A hundred,' was the reply. 'Wouldn't take a sou less, so help me.'
  'That makes a hundred and fifty,' the saloon-keeper calculated, 'and
he's worth it, or I'm a squarehead.'
  The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his lacerated
hand. 'If I don't get the hydrophoby-'
  'It'll be because you were born to hang,' laughed the saloon-keeper.
'Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight,' he added.
  Dazed, suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with the
life half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors.
But he was thrown down and choked repeatedly, till they succeeded in
filing the heavy brass collar from off his neck. Then the rope was
removed, and he was flung into a cage-like crate.
  There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his wrath
and wounded pride. He could not understand what it all meant. What did
they want with him, these strange men? Why were they keeping him
pent up in this narrow crate? He did not know why, but he felt
oppressed by the vague sense of impending calamity. Several times
during the night he sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled
open, expecting to see the Judge, or the boys at least. But each
time it was the bulging face of the saloon-keeper that peered in at
him by the sickly light of a tallow candle. And each time the joyful
bark that trembled in Buck's throat was twisted into a savage growl.
  But the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four men
entered and picked up the crate. More tormentors, Buck decided, for
they were evil-looking creatures, ragged and unkempt; and he stormed
and raged at them through the bars. They only laughed and poked sticks
at him, which he promptly assailed with his teeth till he realised
that that was what they wanted. Whereupon he lay down sullenly and
allowed the crate to be lifted into a waggon. Then he, and the crate
in which he was imprisoned, began a passage through many hands. Clerks
in the express office took charge of him; he was carted about in
another waggon; a truck carried him, with an assortment of boxes and
parcels, upon a ferry steamer; he was trucked off the steamer into a
great railway depot, and finally he was deposited in an express car.
  For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the
tail of shrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buck
neither ate nor drank. In his anger he had met the first advances of
the express messengers with growls, and they had retaliated by teasing
him. When he flung himself against the bars, quivering and frothing,
they laughed at him and taunted him. They growled and barked like
detestable dogs, mewed, and flapped their arms and crowed. It was
all very silly, he knew; but therefore the more outrage to his
dignity, and his anger waxed and waxed. He did not mind the hunger
so much, but the lack of water caused him severe suffering and
fanned his wrath to fever-pitch. For that matter, high-strung and
finely sensitive, the ill treatment had flung him into a fever,
which was fed by the inflammation of his parched and swollen throat
and tongue.
  He was glad for one thing: the rope was off his neck. That had given
them an unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would show them.
They would never get another rope around his neck. Upon that he was
resolved. For two days and nights he neither ate nor drank, and during
those two days and nights of torment, he accumulated a fund of wrath
that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him. His eyes turned
bloodshot, and he was metamorphosed into a raging fiend. So changed
was he that the Judge himself would not have recognised him; and the
express messengers breathed with relief when they bundled him off
the train at Seattle.
  Four men gingerly carried the crate from the waggon into a small,
high-walled backyard. A stout man, with a red sweater that sagged
generously at the neck, came out and signed the book for the driver.
That was the man, Buck divined, the next tormentor, and he hurled
himself savagely against the bars. The man smiled grimly, and
brought a hatchet and a club.
  'You ain't going to take him out now?' the driver asked.
  'Sure,' the man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for a
pry.
  There was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who had
carried it in, and from safe perches on top the wall they prepared
to watch the performance.
  Buck rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it,
surging and wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on the
outside, he was there on the inside, snarling and growling, as
furiously anxious to get out as the man in the red sweater was
calmly intent on getting him out.
  'Now, you red-eyed devil,' he said, when he had made an opening
sufficient for the passage of Buck's body. At the same time he dropped
the hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand.
  And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together for
the spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter in his
bloodshot eyes. Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and
forty pounds of fury, surcharged with the pent passion of two days and
nights. In mid-air, just as his jaws were about to close on the man,
he received a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth
together with an agonising clip. He whirled over, fetching the
ground on his back and side. He had never been struck by a club in his
life, and did not understand. With a snarl that was part bark and more
scream he was again on his feet and launched into the air. And again
the shock came and he was brought crushingly to the ground. This
time he was aware that it was the club, but his madness knew no
caution. A dozen times he charged, and as often the club broke the
charge and smashed him down.
  After a particularly fierce blow, he crawled to his feet, too
dazed to rush. He staggered limply about, the blood flowing from
nose and mouth and ears, his beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with
bloody slaver. Then the man advanced and deliberately dealt him a
frightful blow on the nose. All the pain he had endured was as nothing
compared with the exquisite agony of this. With a roar that was almost
lionlike in its ferocity, he again hurled himself at the man. But
the man, shifting the club from right to left, coolly caught him by
the under jaw, at the same time wrenching downward and backward.
Buck described a complete circle in the air, and half of another, then
crashed to the ground on his head and chest.
  For the last time he rushed. The man struck the shrewd blow he had
purposely withheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up and went down,
knocked utterly senseless.
  'He's no slouch at dog-breakin', that's wot I say,' one of the men
on the wall cried enthusiastically.
  'Druther break cayuses any day, and twice on Sundays,' was the reply
of the driver, as he climbed on the waggon and started the horses.
  Buck's senses came back to him, but not his strength. He lay where
he had fallen, and from there he watched the man in the red sweater.
  '"Answers to the name of Buck,"' the man soliloquised, quoting
from the saloon-keeper's letter which had announced the consignment of
the crate and contents. 'Well, Buck, my boy,' he went on in a genial
voice, 'we've had our little ruction, and the best thing we can do
is to let it go at that. You've learned your place, and I know mine.
Be a good dog, and all 'll go well and the goose hang high. Be a bad
dog, and I'll whale the stuffin' outa you. Understand?'
  As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilessly
pounded, and though Buck's hair involuntarily bristled at touch of the
hand, he endured it without protest. When the man brought water he
drank eagerly, and later bolted a generous meal of raw meat, chunk
by chunk, from the man's hand.
  He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once
for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had
learned the lesson, and in all his afterlife he never forgot it.
That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of
primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. The facts of
life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed,
he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused. As
the days went by, other dogs came in crates and at the ends of
ropes, some docilely, and some raging and roaring as he had come; and,
one and all, he watched them pass under the dominion of the man in the
red sweater. Again and again, as he looked at each brutal performance,
the lesson was driven home to Buck: a man with a club was a
lawgiver, a master to be obeyed, though not necessarily conciliated.
Of this last Buck was never guilty, though he did see beaten dogs that
fawned upon the man, and wagged their tails, and licked his hand. Also
he saw one dog, that would neither conciliate nor obey, finally killed
in the struggle for mastery.
  Now and again men came, strangers, who talked excitedly,
wheedlingly, and in all kinds of fashions to the man in the red
sweater. And at such times that money passed between them the
strangers took one or more of the dogs away with them. Buck wondered
where they went, for they never came back; but the fear of the
future was strong upon him, and he was glad each time when he was
not selected.
  Yet his time came, in the end, in the form of a little weazened
man who spat broken English and many strange and uncouth
exclamations which Buck could not understand.
  'Sacredam!' he cried, when his eyes lit upon Buck. 'Dat one dam
bully dog! Eh? How much?'
  'Three hundred, and a present at that,' was the prompt reply of
the man in the red sweater. 'And seein' it's government money, you
ain't got no kick coming; eh, Perrault?'
  Perrault grinned. Considering that the price of dogs had been boomed
skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum for so fine
an animal. The Canadian Government would be no loser, nor would its
despatches travel the slower. Perrault knew dogs, and when he looked
at Buck he knew that he was one in a thousand- 'One in ten
t'ousand,' he commented mentally.
  Buck saw money pass between them, and was not surprised when
Curly, a good-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the little
weazened man. That was the last he saw of the man in the red
sweater, and as Curly and he looked at receding Seattle from the
deck of the Narwhal, it was the last he saw of the warm Southland.
Curly and he were taken below by Perrault and turned over to a
black-faced giant called Francois. Perrault was a French-Canadian, and
swarthy; but Francois was a French-Canadian half-breed, and twice as
swarthy. They were a new kind of men to Buck (of which he was destined
to see many more), and while he developed no affection for them, he
none the less grew honestly to respect them. He speedily learned
that Perrault and Francois were fair men, calm and impartial in
administering justice, and too wise in the way of dogs to be ever
fooled by dogs.
  In the 'tween-decks of the Narwhal, Buck and Curly joined two
other dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from
Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who
had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens.
  He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's
face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance,
when he stole from Buck's food at the first meal. As Buck sprang to
punish him, the lash of Francois whip sang through the air, reaching
the culprit first; and nothing remained to Buck but to recover the
bone. That was fair of Francois, he decided, and the half-breed
began to rise in Buck's estimation.
  The other dog made no advance, nor received any; also, he did not
attempt to steal from the newcomers. He was a gloomy, morose fellow,
and he showed Curly plainly that all he desired was to be left
alone, and further, that there would be trouble if he were not left
alone. 'Dave' he was called, and he ate and slept, or yawned between
times, and took interest in nothing, not even when the Narwhal crossed
Queen Charlotte Sound and rolled and pitched and bucked like a thing
possessed. When Buck and Curly grew excited, half wild with fear, he
raised his head as though annoyed, favoured them with an incurious
glance, yawned, and went to sleep again.
  Day and night the ship throbbed to the tireless pulse of the
propeller, and though one day was very like another, it was apparent
to Buck that the weather was steadily growing colder. At last, one
morning, the propeller was quiet, and the Narwhal was pervaded with an
atmosphere of excitement. He felt it, as did the other dogs, and
knew that a change was at hand. Francois leashed them and brought them
on deck. At the first step upon the cold surface, Buck's feet sank
into a white mushy something very like mud. He sprang back with a
snort. More of this white stuff was falling through the air. He
shook himself, but more of it fell upon him. He sniffed it
curiously, then licked some up on his tongue. It bit like fire, and
the next instant was gone. This puzzled him. He tried it again, with
the same result. The onlookers laughed uproariously, and he felt
ashamed, he knew not why, for it was his first snow.
                        CHAPTER TWO.
                  The Law of Club and Fang.

  BUCK'S FIRST DAY ON THE Dyea bach was like a nightmare. Every hour
was filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked from
the heart of civilisation and flung into the heart of things
primordial. No lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do
but loaf and be bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a
moment's safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life
and limb were in peril. There was imperative need to be constantly
alert; for these dogs and men were not town dogs and men. They were
savages, all of them; 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 a vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to
profit by it. Curly was the victim. They were camped near the log
store, where she, in her friendly way, made advances to a husky dog
the size of a full-grown wolf, though not half so large she. There was
no warning, only a leap in like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, a
leap out equally swift, and Curly's face was ripped open from eye to
jaw.
  It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away; but
there was more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the
spot and surrounded the combatants in an intent and silent circle.
Buck did not comprehend that silent intentness, nor the eager way with
which they were licking their chops. Curly rushed her antagonist,
who struck again and leaped aside. He met her next rush with his
chest, in a peculiar fashion that tumbled her off her feet. She
never regained them. This was what the onlooking huskies had waited
for. They closed in upon her, snarling and yelping, and she was
buried, screaming with agony, beneath the bristling mass of bodies.
  So sudden was it, and so unexpected, that Buck was taken aback. He
saw Spitz run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing;
and 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
swart half-breed standing over her and cursing horribly. 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 deathless hatred.
  Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic
passing of Curly, he received another shock. Francois fastened upon
him an arrangement of straps and buckles. 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 fringed the valley, and returning with a load of
firewood. Though his dignity was sorely hurt by thus being made a
draught animal, he was too wise to rebel. He buckled down with a
will and did his best, though it was all new and strange. Francois was
stern, demanding instant obedience; and by virtue of his whip
receiving instant obedience; while Dave, who was an experienced
wheeler, nipped Buck's hind quarters whenever he was in error. Spitz
was the leader, likewise experienced, and while he could not always
get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof now and again, or cunningly
threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck into the way he should go.
Buck learned easily, and under the combined tuition of his two mates
and Francois made remarkable progress. Ere 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.
  'T'ree vair' good dogs,' Francois told Perrault. 'Dat Buck, heem
pool lak hell, I tich heem queek as anyt'ing.'
  By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with
his despatches, returned with two more dogs. 'Billee' and 'Joe' he
called them, two brothers, and true huskies both. Sons of the one
mother though they were, 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 and a
malignant eye. Buck received them in comradely fashion. Dave ignored
them; while Spitz proceeded to thrash first one and then the other.
Billee wagged his tail appeasingly, turned to run when he saw that
appeasement was of no avail, and cried (still appeasingly) 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
belligerent fear. So terrible was his appearance that Spitz was forced
to forego disciplining him; but to cover his own discomfiture 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 prowess 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. Of this offence Buck was unwittingly
guilty, and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion 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 comradeship 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 possessed 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 white
plain; and when he, as a matter of course, entered it, both Perrault
and Francois bombarded him with curses and cooking utensils till he
recovered from his consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer
cold. A chill wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with
especial venom into his wounded shoulder. He lay down on the snow
and attempted to sleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to
his feet. Miserable and disconsolate, he wandered about among the many
tents, only to find that one place was as cold as another. Here and
there savage dogs rushed upon him, but he bristled his neck-hair and
snarled (for he was learning fast), and they let him go his way
unmolested.
  Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own
team-mates were making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared.
Again he wandered about through the great camp, looking for them,
again he returned. Were they in the tent? No, that could not be,
else he would not have been driven out. Then where could they possibly
be? With drooping tail and shivering body, very forlorn indeed, 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, bristling and 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 ascended to his nostrils, and
there, curled up under the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. He
whined placatingly, squirmed and wriggled to show his good will and
intention, and even ventured, 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 waste effort
proceeded to dig a hole for himself. In a trice the heat from his body
filled the confined space and he was asleep. The day had been long and
arduous, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growled and
barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
  Nor did he open his eyes till 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 for the trap. It was a token that he was harking
back through his own life to the lives of his forebears; for he was
a civilised dog, an unduly civilised dog, and of his own experience
knew no trap and so could not of himself fear it. The muscles of his
whole body contracted spasmodically and instinctively, 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. Ere he landed on his feet, he saw the white camp
spread out before him and knew where he was and 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 hailed his appearance. 'Wot I say?' the
dog-driver cried to Perrault. 'Dat Buck for sure learn queek as
anyt'ing.'
  Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the Canadian Government,
bearing important despatches, he was anxious to secure the best
dogs, and he was particularly gladdened by the possession of 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 thought the work was hard he found he
did not particularly despise it. He was surprised at the eagerness
which animated the whole team and which was communicated to him; but
still more surprising was the change wrought in Dave and Sol-leks.
They were new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All
passiveness and unconcern had dropped from them. They were alert and
active, anxious that the work should go well and fiercely irritable
with whatever, by delay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil
of the traces seemed the supreme expression of their being, and all
that they lived for and the only thing in which they took delight.
  Dave was wheeler or sled dog, pulling in front of him was Buck, then
came Sol-leks; the rest of the team was strung out ahead, single file,
to the leader, which position was filled by Spitz.
  Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so that
he might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they were
equally apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error,
and enforcing their teaching with sharp teeth. Dave was fair and
very wise. He never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed
to nip him when he stood in need of it. As Francois's whip backed
him up, Buck found it to be cheaper to mend his ways than to
retaliate. Once, during a brief halt, when he got tangled in the
traces and delayed the start, both Dave and Sol-leks flew at him and
administered a sound trouncing. The resulting tangle was even worse;
but Buck took good care to keep the traces clear thereafter; and ere
the day was done, so well had he mastered his work, his mates about
ceased nagging him. Francois's whip snapped less frequently, and
Perrault even honoured Buck by lifting up his feet and carefully
examining them.
  It was a hard day's run, up the Canon, through Sheep Camp, past
the Scales and timber line, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of
feet deep, and over the great Chilcoot Divide, which stands between
the salt water and the fresh, and guards forbiddingly the sad and
lonely North. They made good time down the chain of lakes which
fills the craters of extinct volcanoes, and late that night pulled
into the huge camp at the head of Lake Bennett, where thousands of
gold-seekers were building boats against the break-up of the ice in
the spring. Buck made his hole in the snow and slept the sleep of
the exhausted just, but all too early was routed out in the cold
darkness and harnessed with his mates to the sled.
  That day they made forty miles, the trail being packed; but the next
day, and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, worked
harder, and made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault travelled ahead of
the team, packing the snow with webbed shoes to make it easier for
them. Francois, guiding the sled at the geepole, sometimes exchanged
places with him, but not often. Perrault was in a hurry, and he prided
himself on his knowledge of ice, which knowledge was indispensable,
for the fall ice was very thin, and where there was swift water, there
was no ice at all.
  Day after day, for days unending, Buck toiled in the traces.
Always they broke camp in the dark, and the first grey of dawn found
them hitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them. And
always they pitched camp after dark, eating their bit of fish, and
crawling to sleep into the snow. Buck was ravenous. The pound and a
half of sun-dried salmon, which was his ration for each day, seemed to
go nowhere. He never had enough, and suffered from perpetual hunger
pangs. Yet the other dogs, because they weighed less and were born
to the life, received a pound only of the fish and managed to keep
in good condition.
  He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterised his old
life. A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed
him of his unfinished ration. There was no defending it. While he
was fighting off two or three, it was disappearing down the throats of
the others. To remedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly
did hunger compel him, he was not above taking what did not belong
to him. He watched and learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs,
a clever malingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon when
Perrault's back was turned, he duplicated the performance the
following day, getting away with the whole chunk. A great uproar was
raised, but he was unsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who
was always getting caught, was punished for Buck's misdeed.
  This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile
Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to
adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have
meant swift and terrible death. It marked further the decay or going
to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the
ruthless struggle for existence. It was all well enough in the
Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private
property and personal feelings; but in the Northland, under the law of
club and fang, whoso took such things into account was a fool, and
in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper.
  Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, and
unconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. All his
days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. But
the club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more
fundamental and primitive code. Civilised, he could have died for a
moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller's riding-whip;
but the completeness of his decivilisation was not evidenced by his
ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so
save his hide. He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the
clamour of his stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly
and cunningly, out of respect for club and fang. In short, the
things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to
do them.
  His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles became
hard as iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an
internal as well as external economy. He could eat anything, no matter
how loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his
stomach extracted the last least particle of nutriment; and his
blood carried it to the farthest reaches of his body, building it into
the, toughest and stoutest of tissues. Sight and scent became
remarkably keen, while his hearing developed such acuteness that in
his sleep he heard the faintest sound whether it heralded peace or
peril. He learned to bite the ice out with his teeth when it collected
between his toes; and when he was thirsty and there was a thick scum
of ice over the water hole, he would break it by rearing and
striking it with stiff fore legs. His most conspicuous trait was an
ability to scent the wind and forecast it at night in advance. No
matter how breathless the air when he dug his nest by tree or bank,
the wind that later blew inevitably found him to leeward, sheltered
and snug.
  And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead
became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In
vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time
the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed
their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to
fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had
fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him,
and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the
breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery,
as though they had been his always. And when, on the still cold
nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it
was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling
down through the centuries and through him. And his cadences were
their cadences, the cadences which voiced their woe and what to them
was the meaning of the stillness, and the cold, and dark.
  Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song
surged through him and he came into his own again; and he came because
men had found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was a
gardener's helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife
and divers small copies of himself.
                        CHAPTER THREE.
                 The Dominant Primordial Beast.

  THE DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST WAS strong in Buck, and under the
fierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a
secret growth. His new-born cunning gave him poise and control. He was
too busy adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease, and not
only did he not pick fights, but he avoided them whenever possible.
A certain deliberateness characterised his attitude. He was not
prone to rashness and precipitate action; and in the bitter hatred
between him and Spitz he betrayed no impatience, shunned all offensive
acts.
  On the other hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous
rival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He even
went out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly to start the
fight which could end only in the death of one or the other.
  Early in the trip this might have taken place had it not been for an
unwonted accident. At the end of this day they made a bleak and
miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind
that cut like a white-hot knife, and darkness had forced them to grope
for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse. At their
backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois
were compelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on
the ice of the lake itself. The tent they had discarded at Dyea in
order to travel light. A few sticks of driftwood furnished them with a
fire that thawed down through the ice and left them to eat supper in
the dark.
  Close in under the sheltering rock Buck made his nest. So snug and
warm was it, that he was loath to leave it when Francois distributed
the fish which he had first thawed over the fire. But when Buck
finished his ration and returned, he found his nest occupied. A
warning snarl told him that his trespasser was Spitz. Till now Buck
had avoided trouble with his enemy, but this was too much. The beast
in him roared. He sprang upon Spitz with a fury which surprised them
both, and Spitz particularly, for his whole experience with Buck had
gone to teach him that his rival was an unusually timid dog, who
managed to hold his own because of his great weight and size.
  Francois was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle from the
disrupted nest and he divined the cause of the trouble. 'A-a-ah!' he
cried to Buck. 'Gif it to heem, by Gar! Gif it to heem, the dirty
t'eef!'
  Spitz was equally willing. He was crying with sheer rage and
eagerness as he circled back and forth for a chance to spring in. Buck
was no less eager and no less cautious, as he likewise circled back
and forth for the advantage. But it was then the unexpected
happened, the thing which projected their struggle for supremacy far
into the future, past many a weary mile of trail and toil.
  An oath from Perrault, the resounding impact of a club upon a bony
frame, and a shrill yelp of pain, heralded the breaking forth of
pandemonium. The camp was suddenly discovered to be alive with
skulking furry forms- starving huskies, four or five score of them,
who had scented the camp from some Indian village. They had crept in
while Buck and Spitz were fighting, and when the two men sprang
among them with stout clubs they showed their teeth and fought back.
They were crazed by the smell of the food. Perrault found one with
head buried in the grub-box. His club landed heavily on the gaunt
ribs, and the grub-box was capsized on the ground. On the instant a
score of the famished brutes were scrambling for the bread and
bacon. The clubs fell upon them unheeded. They yelped and howled under
the rain of blows, but struggled none the less madly till the last
crumb had been devoured.
  In the meantime the astonished team-dogs had burst out of their
nests only to be set upon by the fierce invaders. Never had Buck
seen such dogs. It seemed as though their bones would burst through
their skins. They were mere skeletons, draped loosely in draggled
hides, with blazing eyes and slavered fangs. But the hunger-madness
made them terrifying, irresistible. There was no opposing them. The
team-dogs were swept back against the cliff at the first onset. Buck
was beset by three huskies, and in a trice his head and shoulders were
ripped and slashed. The din was frightful. Billee was crying as usual.
Dave and Sol-leks, dripping blood from a score of wounds, were
fighting bravely side by side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once,
his teeth closed on the fore leg of a husky, and he crunched down
through the bone. Pike, the malingerer, leaped upon the crippled
animal, breaking its neck with a quick flash of teeth and a jerk. Buck
got a frothing adversary by the throat, and was sprayed with blood
when his teeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of it in his
mouth goaded him to greater fierceness. He flung himself upon another,
and at the same time felt teeth sink in his own throat. It was
Spitz, treacherously attacking from the side.
  Perrault and Francois, having cleaned out their part of the camp,
hurried to save their sled-dogs. The wild wave of famished beasts
rolled back before them, and Buck shook himself free. But it was
only for a moment. The two men were compelled to run back to save
the grub, upon which the huskies returned to the attack on the team.
Billee, terrified into bravery, sprang through the savage circle and
fled away over the ice. Pike and Dub followed on his heels, with the
rest of the team behind. As Buck drew himself together to spring after
them, out of the tail of his eye he saw Spitz rush upon him with the
evident intention of overthrowing him. Once off his feet and under
that mass of huskies, there was no hope for him. But he braced himself
to the shock of Spitz's charge, then joined the flight out on the
lake.
  Later, the nine team-dogs gathered together and sought shelter in
the forest. Though unpursued, they were in sorry plight. There was not
one who was not wounded in four or five places, while some were
wounded grievously. Dub was badly injured in a hind leg; Dolly, the
last husky added to the team at Dyea, had a badly torn throat; Joe had
lost an eye; while Billee, the good-natured, with an ear chewed and
rent to ribbons, cried and whimpered throughout the night. At daybreak
they limped warily back to camp, to find the marauders gone and the
two men in bad tempers. Fully half their grub supply was gone. The
huskies had chewed through the sled lashings and canvas covering. In
fact, nothing, no matter how remotely eatable, had escaped them.
They had eaten a pair of Perrault's moose-hide moccasins, chunks out
of the leather traces, and even two feet of lash from the end of
Francois's whip. He broke from a mournful contemplation of it to
look over his wounded dogs.
  'Ah, my frien's,' he said softly, 'mebbe it mek you mad dog, dose
many bites. Mebbe all mad dog, sacredam! Wot you t'ink, eh, Perrault?'
  The courier shook his head dubiously. With four hundred miles of
trail still between him and Dawson, he could ill afford to have
madness break out among his dogs. Two hours of cursing and exertion
got the harness into shape, and the wound-stiffened team was under
way, struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they
had yet encountered, and for that matter, the hardest between them and
Dawson.
  The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied the
frost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that
the ice held at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required to
cover those thirty terrible miles. And terrible they were, for every
foot of them was accomplished at the risk of life to dog and man. A
dozen times, Perrault, nosing the way, broke through the ice
bridges, being saved by the long pole he carried, which he so held
that it fell each time across the hole made by his body. But a cold
snap was on, the thermometer registering fifty below zero, and each
time he broke through he was compelled for very life to build a fire
and dry his garments.
  Nothing daunted him. It was because nothing daunted him that he
had been chosen for government courier. He took all manner of risks,
resolutely thrusting his little weazened face into the frost and
struggling on from dim dawn to dark. He skirted the frowning shores on
rim ice that bent and crackled under foot and upon which they dared
not halt. Once, the sled broke through, with Dave and Buck, and they
were half-frozen and all but drowned by the time they were dragged
out. The usual fire was necessary to save them. They were coated
solidly with ice, and the two men kept them on the run around the
fire, sweating and thawing, so close that they were singed by the
flames.
  At another time Spitz went through, dragging the whole team after
him up to Buck, who strained backward with all his strength, his
fore paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering and snapping
all around. But behind him was Dave, likewise straining backward,
and behind the sled was Francois, pulling till his tendons cracked.
  Again the rim ice broke away before and behind, and there was no
escape except up the cliff. Perrault scaled it by a miracle, while
Francois prayed for just that miracle; and with every thong and sled
lashing and the last bit of harness rove into a long rope, the dogs
were hoisted, one by one, to the cliff crest. Francois came up last,
after the sled and load. Then came the search for a place to
descend, which descent was ultimately made by the aid of the rope, and
night found them back on the river with a quarter of a mile to the
day's credit.
  By the time they made the Hootalinqua and good ice, Buck was
played out. The rest of the dogs were in like condition; but Perrault,
to make up lost time, pushed them late and early. The first day they
covered thirty-five miles to the Big Salmon; the next day
thirty-five more to the Little Salmon; the third day forty miles,
which brought them well up toward the Five Fingers.
  Buck's feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of the huskies.
His had softened during the many generations since the day his last
wild ancestor was tamed by a cave-dweller or river man. All day long
he limped in agony, and camp once made, lay down like a dead dog.
Hungry as he was, he would not move to receive his ration of fish,
which Francois had to bring to him. Also, the dog-driver rubbed Buck's
feet for half an hour each night after supper, and sacrificed the tips
of his own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck. This was a great
relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault to twist
itself into a grin one morning, when Francois forgot the moccasins and
Buck lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and
refused to budge without them. Later his feet grew hard to the
trail, and the worn-out foot-gear was thrown away.
  At the Pelly one morning, as they were harnessing up, Dolly, who had
never been conspicuous for anything, went suddenly mad. She
announced her condition by a long, heart-breaking wolf howl that
sent every dog bristling with fear, then sprang straight for Buck.
He had never seen a dog go mad, nor did he have any reason to fear
madness; yet he knew that here was horror, and fled away from it in
a panic. Straight away he raced, with Dolly, panting and frothing, one
leap behind; nor could she gain on him, so great was his terror, nor
could he leave her, so great was her madness. He plunged through the
wooded breast of the island, flew down to the lower end, crossed a
back channel filled with rough ice to another island, gained a third
island, curved back to the main river and in desperation started to
cross it. And all the time, though he did not look, he could hear
her snarling just one leap behind. Francois called to him a quarter of
a mile away and he doubled back, still one leap ahead, gasping
painfully for air and putting all his faith in that Francois would
save him. The dog-driver held the axe poised in his hand, and as
Buck shot past him the axe crashed down upon mad Dolly's head.
  Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath,
helpless. This was Spitz's opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice
his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the
flesh to the bone. Then Francois's lash descended, and Buck had the
satisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet
administered to any of the teams.
  'One devil, dat Spitz,' remarked Perrault. 'Some dam day heem keel
dat Buck.'
  'Dat Buck two devils,' was Francois's rejoinder. 'All de tam I watch
dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heem get mad lak
hell an' den heem chew dat Spitz all up an' spit heem out on de
snow. Sure. I know.'
  From then on it was war between them. Spitz, as lead-dog and
acknowledged master of the team, felt his supremacy threatened by this
strange Southland dog. And strange Buck was to him, for of the many
Southland dogs he had known, not one had shown up worthily in camp and
on trail. They were all too soft, dying under the toil, the frost, and
starvation. Buck was the exception. He alone endured and prospered,
matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning. Then he was a
masterful dog, and what made him dangerous was the fact that the
club of the man in the red sweater had knocked all blind pluck and
rashness out of his desire for mastery. He was pre-eminently
cunning; and could bide his time with a patience that was nothing less
than primitive.
  It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buck
wanted it. He wanted it because it was his nature, because he had been
gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the trail
and trace- that pride which holds dogs in the toil to the last gasp,
which lures them to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their
hearts if they are cut out of the harness. This was the pride of
Dave as wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with all his strength; the
pride that laid hold of them at break of camp, transforming them
from sour and sullen brutes into straining, eager, ambitious
creatures; the pride that spurred them on all day and dropped them
at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall back into gloomy unrest
and uncontent. This was the pride that bore up Spitz and made him
thrash the sled-dogs who blundered and shirked in the traces or hid
away at harness-up time in the morning. Likewise it was this pride
that made him fear Buck as a possible lead-dog. And this was Buck's
pride, too.
  He openly threatened the other's leadership. He came between him and
the shirks he should have punished. And he did it deliberately. One
night there was a heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike, the
malingerer, did not appear. He was securely hidden in his nest under a
foot of snow. Francois called him and sought him in vain. Spitz was
wild with wrath. He raged through the camp, smelling and digging in
every likely place, snarling so frightfully that Pike heard and
shivered in his hiding-place.
  But when he was at last unearthed, and Spitz flew at him to punish
him, Buck flew, with equal rage, in between. So unexpected was it, and
so shrewdly managed, that Spitz was hurled backward and off his
feet. Pike, who had been trembling abjectly, took heart at this open
mutiny, and sprang upon his overthrown leader. Buck, to whom fair play
was a forgotten code, likewise sprang upon Spitz. But Francois,
chuckling at the incident while unswerving in the administration of
justice, brought his lash down upon Buck with all his might. This
failed to drive Buck from his prostrate rival, and the butt of the
whip was brought into play. Half-stunned by the blow, Buck was knocked
backward and the lash laid upon him again and again, while Spitz
soundly punished the many times offending Pike.
  In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer, Buck
still continued to interfere between Spitz and the culprits; but he
did it craftily, when Francois was not around. With the covert
mutiny of Buck, a general insubordination sprang up and increased.
Dave and Sol-leks were unaffected, but the rest of the team went
from bad to worse. Things no longer went right. There was continual
bickering and jangling. Trouble was always afoot, and at the bottom of
it was Buck. He kept Francois busy, for the dog-driver was in constant
apprehension of the life-and-death struggle between the two which he
knew must take place sooner or later; and on more than one night the
sounds of quarrelling and strife among the other dogs turned him out
of his sleeping robe, fearful that Buck and Spitz were at it.
  But the opportunity did not present itself, and they pulled into
Dawson one dreary afternoon with the great fight still to come. Here
were many men, and countless dogs, and Buck found them all at work. It
seemed the ordained order of things that dogs should work. All day
they swung up and down the main street in long teams, and in the night
their jingling bells still went by. They hauled cabin logs and
firewood, freighted up to the mines, and did all manner of work that
horses did in the Santa Clara Valley. Here and there Buck met
Southland dogs, but in the main they were the wild wolf husky breed.
Every night, regularly at night, at twelve, at three, they lifted a
nocturnal song, a weird and eerie chant, in which it was Buck's
delight to join.
  With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars
leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its
pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of
life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and
half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail
of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself- one of
the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad.
It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by
which Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was
with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild
fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to
them fear and mystery. And that he should be stirred by it marked
the completeness with which he harked back through the ages of fire
and roof to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages.
  Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they dropped
down the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled for
Dyea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches if anything more
urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride had
gripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of the year.
Several things favoured him in this. The week's rest had recuperated
the dogs and put them in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into
the country was packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the
police had arranged in two or three places deposits of grub for dog
and man, and he was travelling light.
  They made Sixty Mile, which is a fifty-mile run, on the first day;
and the second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way
to Pelly. But such splendid running was achieved not without great
trouble and vexation on the part of Francois. The insidious revolt led
by Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team. It no longer was
as one dog leaping in the traces. The encouragement Buck gave the
rebels led them into all kinds of petty misdemeanours. No more was
Spitz a leader greatly to be feared. The old awe departed, and they
grew equal to challenging his authority. Pike robbed him of half a
fish one night, and gulped it down under the protection of Buck.
Another night Dub and Joe fought Spitz and made him forgo the
punishment they deserved. And even Billee, the good-natured, was
less good-natured, and whined not half so placatingly as in former
days. Buck never came near Spitz without snarling and bristling
menacingly. In fact, his conduct approached that of a bully, and he
was given to swaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose.
  The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in
their relations with one another. They quarrelled and bickered more
than ever among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling
bedlam. Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, though they were
made irritable by the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange
barbarous oaths, and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his
hair. His lash was always singing among the dogs, but it was of
small avail. Directly his back was turned they were at it again. He
backed up Spitz with his whip, while Buck backed up the remainder of
the team. Francois knew he was behind all the trouble, and Buck knew
he knew; but Buck was too clever ever again to be caught red-handed.
He worked faithfully in the harness, for the toil had become a delight
to him; yet it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight
amongst his mates and tangle the traces.
  At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turned
up a snowshoe rabbit, blundered it, and missed. In a second the
whole team was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp of the
Northwest Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined the
chase. The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a small
creek, up the frozen bed of which it held steadily. It ran lightly
on the surface of the snow, while the dogs ploughed through by main
strength. Buck led the pack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but
he could not gain. He lay down low to the race, whining eagerly, his
splendid body flashing forward, leap by leap, in the wan white
moonlight. And leap by leap, like some pale frost wraith, the snowshoe
rabbit flashed on ahead.
  All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives
men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by
chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to
kill- all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He
was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down,
the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the
eyes in warm blood.
  There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond
which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this
ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete
forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of
living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet
of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and
refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding
the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that
fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding the
deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper
than he, going back into the womb of Time. He was mastered by the
sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of
each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything
that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself
in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of
dead matter that did not move.
  But Spitz, cold and calculating even in his supreme moods, left
the pack and cut across a narrow neck of land where the creek made a
long bend around. Buck did not know of this, and as he rounded the
bend, the frost wraith of a rabbit still flitting before him, he saw
another and larger frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into
the immediate path of the rabbit. It was Spitz. The rabbit could not
turn, and as the white teeth broke its back in mid air it shrieked
as loudly as a stricken man may shriek. At sound of this, the cry of
Life plunging down from Life's apex in the grip of Death, the full
pack at Buck's heels raised a hell's chorus of delight.
  Buck did not cry out. He did not check himself, but drove in upon
Spitz, shoulder to shoulder, so hard that he missed the throat. They
rolled over and over in the powdery snow. Spitz gained his feet almost
as though he had not been overthrown, slashing Buck down the
shoulder and leaping clear. Twice his teeth clipped together, like the
steel jaws of a trap, as he backed away for better footing, with
lean and lifting lips that writhed and snarled.
  In a flash Buck knew it. The time had come. It was to the death.
As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchful for
the advantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity.
He seemed to remember it all- the white woods, and earth, and
moonlight, and the thrill of battle. Over the whiteness and silence
brooded a ghostly calm. There was not the faintest whisper of air-
nothing moved, not a leaf quivered, the visible breaths of the dogs
rising slowly and lingering in the frosty air. They had made short
work of the snow-shoe rabbit, these dogs that were ill-tamed wolves;
and they were now drawn up in an expectant circle. They, too, were
silent, their eyes only gleaming and their breaths drifting slowly
upward. To Buck it was nothing new or strange, this scene of old time.
It was as though it had always been the wonted way of things.
  Spitz was a practised fighter. From Spitzbergen through the
Arctic, and across Canada and the Barrens, he had held his own with
all manner of dogs and achieved to mastery over them. Bitter rage
was his, but never blind rage. In passion to rend and destroy, he
never forgot that his enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy.
He never rushed till he was prepared to receive a rush; never attacked
till he had first defended that attack.
  In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the big white
dog. Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh, they were
countered by the fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and lips were
cut and bleeding, but Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard. Then
he warmed up and enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and
time again he tried for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near
to the surface, and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got
away. Then Buck took to rushing, as though for the throat, when,
suddenly drawing back his head and curving in from the side, he
would drive his shoulder at the shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which
to overthrow him. But instead, Buck's shoulder was slashed down each
time as Spitz leaped lightly away.
  Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood and panting
hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the while the silent
and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down. As
Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggering
for footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogs
started up; but he recovered himself, almost in mid air, and the
circle sank down again and waited.
  But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness- imagination.
He fought by instinct, but he could fight by head as well. He
rushed, as though attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last
instant swept low to the snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitz's left
fore leg. There was a crunch of breaking bone, and the white dog faced
him on three legs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated
the trick and broke the right fore leg. Despite the pain and
helplessness, Spitz struggled madly to keep up. He saw the silent
circle, with gleaming eyes, lolling tongues, and silvery breaths
drifting upward, closing in upon him as he had seen similar circles
close in upon beaten antagonists in the past. Only this time he was
the one who was beaten.
  There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy was a thing
reserved for gentler climes. He manoeuvred for the final rush. The
circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths of the huskies
on his flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side,
half crouching for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause
seemed to fall. Every animal was motionless as though turned to stone.
Only Spitz quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth,
snarling with horrible menace, as though to frighten off impending
death. Then Buck sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder
had at last squarely met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot on the
moon-flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from view. Buck stood and
looked on, the successful champion, the dominant primordial beast
who had made his kill and found it good.
                        CHAPTER FOUR.
                  Who Has Won to Mastership.

  'EH? WOT I SAY? I SPIK TRUE w'en I say dat Buck two devils.'
  This was Francois's speech next morning when he discovered Spitz
missing and Buck covered with wounds. He drew him to the fire and by
its light pointed them out.
  'Dat Spitz fight lak hell,' said Perrault, as he surveyed the gaping
rips and cuts.
  'An' dat Buck fight lak two hells,' was Francois's answer. 'An'
now we make good time. No more Spitz, no more trouble, sure.'
  While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled, the
dog-driver proceeded to harness the dogs. Buck trotted up to the place
Spitz would have occupied as leader; but Francois, not noticing him,
brought Sol-leks to the coveted position. In his judgment, Sol-leks
was the best lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury,
driving him back and standing in his place.
  'Eh? eh?' Francois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. 'Look at
dat Buck. Heem keel dat Spitz, hee, t'ink to take de job.'
  'Go 'way, Chook!' he cried, but Buck refused to budge.
  He took Buck by the scruff of the neck, and though the dog growled
threateningly, dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. The
old dog did not like it, and showed plainly that he was afraid of
Buck. Francois was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck again
displaced Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.
  Francois was angry. 'Now, by Gar, I feex you!' he cried, coming back
with a heavy club in his hand.
  Buck remembered the man in the red sweater, and retreated slowly;
not did he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more brought
forward. But he circled just beyond the range of the club, snarling
with bitterness and rage; and while he circled he watched the club
so as to dodge it if thrown by Francois, for he was become wise in the
way of clubs.
  The driver went about his work, and he called to Buck he was ready
to put him in his old place in front of Dave. Buck retreated two or
three steps. Francois followed him up, whereupon he again retreated.
After some time of this, Francois threw down his club, thinking that
Buck feared a thrashing. But Buck was in open revolt. He wanted not to
escape a clubbing but to have the leadership. It was his by right.
He had earned it, and he would not be content with less.
  Perrault took a hand. Between them they ran him about for the better
part of an hour. They threw clubs at him. He dodged. They cursed
him, and his father and mothers before him, and all his seed to come
after him down to the remotest generation, and every hair on his
body and drop of blood in his veins; and he answered curse with
snarl and kept out of their reach. He did not try to run away, but
retreated around and around the camp, advertising plainly that when
his desire was met, he would come in and be good.
  Francois sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at his
watch and swore. Time was flying, and they should have been on the
trail an hour gone. Francois scratched his head again. He shook it and
grinned sheepishly at the courier, who shrugged his shoulders in
sign that they were beaten. Then Francois went up to where Sol-leks
stood and called to Buck. Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept his
distance. Francois unfastened Sol-leks's traces and put him back in
his old place. The team stood harnessed to the sled in an unbroken
line, ready for the trail. There was no place for Buck save at the
front. Once more Francois called, and once more Buck laughed and
kept away.
  'T'row down de club,' Perrault commanded.
  Francois complied, whereupon Buck trotted in, laughing triumphantly,
and swung around into position at the head of the team. His traces
were fastened, the sled broken out, and with both men running they
dashed out on to the river trail.
  Highly as the dog-driver had fore-valued Buck, with his two
devils, he found, while the day was yet young, that he had
undervalued. At a bound Buck took up the duties of leadership; and
where judgment was required, and quick thinking and quick acting, he
showed himself the superior even of Spitz, of whom Francois had
never seen an equal.
  But it was in giving the law and making his mates live up to it,
that Buck excelled. Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the change in
leadership. It was none of their business. Their business was to toil,
and toil mightily, in the traces. So long as they were not
interfered with, they did not care what happened. Billee, the
good-natured, could lead for all they cared so long as he kept
order. The rest of the team, however, had grown unruly during the last
days of Spitz, and their surprise was great now that Buck proceeded to
lick them into shape.
  Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce more of
his weight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do, was
swiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the first day was
done he was pulling more than ever before in his life. The first night
in camp, Joe, the sour one, was punished roundly- a thing that Spitz
had never succeeded in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of
superior weight, and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to
whine for mercy.
  The general tone of the team picked up immediately. It recovered its
old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in the
traces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, were
added; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took away
Francois's breath.
  'Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!' he cried. 'No, nevaire! Heem worth
one t'ousan' dollair, by Gar! Eh? Wot you say, Perrault?'
  And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then, and gaining
day by day. The trail was in excellent condition, well packed and
hard, and there was no new-fallen snow with which to contend. It was
not too cold. The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remained
there the whole trip. The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs
were kept on the jump, with but infrequent stoppages.
  The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and they
covered in one day going out what had taken them ten days coming in.
In one run they made a sixty-mile dash from the foot of Lake Le
Barge to the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett
(seventy miles of lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it
was to run, towed behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the
last night of the second week they topped White Pass and dropped
down the sea slope with the lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at
their feet.
  It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averaged
forty miles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up
and down the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with
invitations to drink, while the team was the constant centre of a
worshipful crowd of dog-busters and mushers. Then three or four
western bad men aspired to clean out the town, were riddled like
pepper-boxes for their pains, and public interest turned to other
idols. Next came official orders. Francois called Buck to him, threw
his arms around him, wept over him. And that was the last of
Francois and Perrault. Like other men, they passed out of Buck's
life for good.
  A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and in company
with a dozen other dog-teams he started back over the weary trail to
Dawson. It was no light running now, nor record time, but heavy toil
each day, with a heavy load behind; for this was the mail train,
carrying word from the world to the men who sought gold under the
shadow of the Pole.
  Buck did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, taking
pride in it after the manner of Dave and Sol-leks, and seeing his
mates, whether they prided in it or not, did their fair share. It
was a monotonous life, operating with machine-like regularity. One day
was very like another. At a certain time each morning the cooks turned
out, fires were built, and breakfast was eaten. Then, while some broke
camp, others harnessed the dogs, and they were under way an hour or so
before the darkness fell which gave warning of dawn. At night, camp
was made. Some pitched the flies, others cut firewood and pine
boughs for the beds, and still others carried water or ice for the
cooks. Also, the dogs were fed. To them, this was the one feature of
the day, though it was good to loaf around, after the fish was
eaten, for an hour or so with the other dogs, of which there were
fivescore and odd. There were fierce fighters among them, but three
battles with the fiercest brought Buck to mastery, so that when he
bristled and showed his teeth they got out of the way.
  Best of all, perhaps he loved to lie near the fire, hind legs
crouched under him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised, and
eyes blinking dreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge
Miller's big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the
cement swimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, and Toots, the
Japanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater,
the death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he
had eaten or would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland was
very dim and distant, and such memories had no power over him. Far
more potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things he
had never seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were
but the memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in
later days, and still later, in him, quickened and become alive again.
  Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames,
it seemed that the flames were of another fire, and that as he
crouched by this other fire he saw another and different man from
the half-breed cook before him. This other man was shorter of leg
and longer of arm, with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather
than rounded and swelling. The hair of this man was long and matted,
and his head slanted back under it from the eyes. He uttered strange
sounds, and seemed very much afraid of the darkness, into which he
peered continually, clutching in his hand, which hung midway between
knee and foot, a stick with a heavy stone made fast to the end. He was
all but naked, a ragged and fire-scorched skin hanging part way down
his back, but on his body there was much hair. In some places,
across the chest and shoulders and down the outside of the arms and
thighs, it was matted into almost a thick fur. He did not stand erect,
but with trunk inclined forward from the hips, on legs that bent at
the knees. About his body there was a peculiar springiness, or
resiliency, almost catlike, and a quick alertness as of one who
lived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen.
  At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head between
his legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees,
his hands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy
arms. And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see
many gleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he knew to
be the eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could hear the crashing of
their bodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made in
the night. And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes
blinking at the fire, these sounds and sights of another world would
make the hair to rise along his back and stand on end across his
shoulders and up his neck, till he whimpered low and suppressedly,
or growled softly, and the half-breed cook shouted at him, 'Hey, you
Buck, wake up!' Whereupon the other world would vanish and the real
world come into his eyes, and he would get up and yawn and stretch
as though he had been asleep.
  It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy work
wore them down. They were short of weight and in poor condition when
they made Dawson, and should have had a ten days' or a week's rest
at least. But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukon bank
from the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside. The dogs
were tired, the drivers grumbling, and, to make matters worse, it
snowed every day. This meant a soft trail, greater friction on the
runners, and heavier pulling for the dogs; yet the drivers were fair
through it all, and did their best for the animals.
  Each night the dogs were attended to first. They ate before the
drivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping robe till he had seen to
the feet of the dogs he drove. Still, their strength went down.
Since the beginning of the winter they had travelled eighteen
hundred miles, dragging sleds the whole weary distance; and eighteen
hundred miles will tell upon life of the toughest. Buck stood it,
keeping his mates up to their work and maintaining discipline,
though he, too, was very tired. Billee cried and whimpered regularly
in his sleep each night. Joe was sourer than ever, and Sol-leks was
unapproachable, blind side or other side.
  But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gone wrong
with him. He became more morose and irritable, and when camp was
pitched at once made his nest, where his driver fed him. Once out of
the harness and down, he did not get on his feet again till harness-up
time in the morning. Sometimes, in the traces, when jerked by a sudden
stoppage of the sled, or by straining to start it, he would cry out
with pain. The driver examined him, but could find nothing. All the
drivers became interested in his case. They talked it over at
meal-time, and over their last pipes before going to bed, and one
night they held a consultation. He was brought from his nest to the
fire and was pressed and prodded till he cried out many times.
Something was wrong inside, but they could locate no broken bones,
could not make it out.
  By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he was
falling repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called a
halt and took him out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast
to the sled. His intention was to rest Dave, letting him run free
behind the sled. Sick as he was, Dave resented being taken out,
grunting and growling while the traces were unfastened, and whimpering
broken-heartedly when he saw Sol-lek in the position he had held and
served so long. For the pride of trace and trail was his, and sick
unto his death, he could not bear that another dog should do his work.
  When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside
the beaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against
him and trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side,
striving to leap inside his traces and get between him and the sled,
and all the while whining and yelping and crying with grief and
pain. The half-breed tried to drive him away with the whip; but he
paid no heed to the stinging lash, and the man had not the heart to
strike harder. Dave refused to run quietly on the trail behind the
sled, where the going was easy, but continued to flounder alongside in
the soft snow, where the going was most difficult, till exhausted.
Then he fell, and lay where he fell, howling lugubriously as the
long train of sleds churned by.
  With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger along
behind till the train made another stop, when he floundered past the
sleds to his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver
lingered a moment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind.
Then he returned and started his dogs. They swung out on the trail
with remarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily, and
stopped in surprise. The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not
moved. He called his comrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten
through both of Sol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in
front of the sled in his proper place.
  He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was
perplexed. His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart
through being denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances
they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died
because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy,
since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die in the traces,
heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he
pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily
from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times he fell down and was
dragged in the traces, and once the sled ran upon him so that he
limped thereafter in one of his hind legs.
  But he held out till camp was reached, when his driver made a
place for him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. At
harness-up time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts
he got on his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way
forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates.
He would advance his forelegs and drag up his body with a sort of
hitching movement, when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead
again for a few more inches. His strength left him, and the last his
mates saw of him he lay gasping in the snow and yearning toward
them. But they could hear him mournfully howling, till they passed out
of sight behind a belt of river timber.
  Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced his
steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A
revolver-shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips
snapped, the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail;
but Buck knew, and every dog knew, what had taken place behind the
belt of river trees.
                        CHAPTER FIVE.
                 The Toil of Trace and Trail.

  THIRTY DAYS FROM THE TIME it left Dawson, the Salt Water Mail,
with Buck and his mates at the fore, arrived at Skaguay. They were
in a wretched state, worn out and worn down. Buck's one hundred and
forty pounds had dwindled to one hundred and fifteen. The rest of
his mates, though lighter dogs, had relatively lost more weight than
he. Pike, the malingerer, who, in his lifetime of deceit, had often
successfully feigned a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest.
Sol-leks was limping, and Dub was suffering from a wrenched
shoulder-blade.
  They were all terribly footsore. No spring or rebound was left in
them. Their feet fell heavily on the trail, jarring their bodies and
doubling the fatigue of a day's travel. There was nothing the matter
with them except that they were dead tired. It was not the
dead-tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort, from
which recovery is a matter of hours; but it was the dead-tiredness
that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of
months of toil. There was no power of recuperation left, no reserve
strength to call upon. It had been all used, the last least bit of it.
Every muscle, every fibre, every cell, was tired, dead tired. And
there was reason for it. In less than five months they had travelled
twenty-five hundred miles, during the last eighteen hundred of which
they had had but five days' rest. When they arrived at Skaguay they
were apparently on their last legs. They could barely keep the
traces taut, and on the down grades just managed to keep out of the
way of the sled.
  'Mush on, poor sore feets,' the driver encouraged them as they
tottered down the main street of Skaguay. 'Dis is de las'. Den we
get one long res'. Eh? For sure. One bully long res'.'
  The drivers confidently expected a long stopover. Themselves, they
had covered twelve hundred miles with two days' rest, and in the
nature of reason and common justice they deserved an interval of
loafing. But so many were the men who had rushed into the Klondyke,
and so many were the sweethearts, wives, and kin that had not rushed
in, that the congested mail was taking on Alpine proportions; also
there were official orders. Fresh batches of Hudson Bay dogs were to
take the places of those worthless for the trail. The worthless ones
were to be got rid of, and since dogs count for little against
dollars, they were to be sold.
  Three days passed, by which time Buck and his mates found how really
tired and weak they were. Then, on the morning of the fourth day,
two men from the States came along and bought them harness and all,
for a song. The men addressed each other as 'Hal' and 'Charles'.
Charles was a middle-aged, lightish-coloured man, with weak and watery
eyes and a moustache that twisted fiercely and vigorously up, giving
the lie to the limply drooping lip it concealed. Hal was a youngster
of nineteen or twenty, with a big Colt's revolver and a
hunting-knife strapped about him on a belt that fairly bristled with
cartridges. This belt was the most salient thing about him. It
advertised his callowness- a callowness sheer and unutterable. Both
men were manifestly out of place, and why such as they should
adventure the North is part of the mystery of things that passes
understanding.
  Buck heard the chaffering, saw the money pass between the man and
the Government agent, and knew that the Scotch halfbreed and the
mail-train drivers were passing out of his life on the heels of
Perrault and Francois and the others who had gone before. When
driven with his mates to the new owners' camp, Buck saw a slipshod and
slovenly affair, tent half stretched, dishes unwashed, everything in
disorder; also, he saw a woman. 'Mercedes' the men called her. She was
Charles's wife and Hal's sister- a nice family party.
  Buck watched them apprehensively as they proceeded to take down
the tent and load the sled. There was a great deal of effort about
their manner, but no business-like method. The tent was rolled into an
awkward bundle three times as large as it should have been. The tin
dishes were packed away unwashed. Mercedes continually fluttered in
the way of her men and kept up an unbroken chattering of
remonstrance and advice. When they put a clothes-sack on the front
of the sled, she suggested it should go on the back; and when they had
put it on the back, and covered it over with a couple of other
bundles, she discovered overlooked articles which could abide
nowhere else but in that sack, and they unloaded again.
  Three men from a neighbouring tent came out and looked on,
grinning and winking at one another.
  'You've got a right smart load as it is,' said one of them; 'and
it's not me should tell you your business, but I wouldn't tote that
tent along if I was you.'
  'Undreamed of!'cried Mercedes, throwing up her hands in dainty
dismay. 'However in the world could I manage without a tent?'
  'It's springtime, and you won't get any more cold weather,' the
man replied.
  She shook her head decidedly, and Charles and Hal put the last
odds and ends on top of the mountainous load.
  'Think it'll ride?' one of the men asked.
  'Why shouldn't it?' Charles demanded rather shortly.
  'Oh, that's all right, that's all right,' the man hastened meekly to
say. 'I was just a-wonderin', that is all. It seemed a mite
top-heavy.'
  Charles turned his back and drew the lashing down as well as he
could, which was not in the least well.
  'An' of course the dogs can hike along all day with that contraption
behind them,' affirmed a second of the men.
  'Certainly,' said Hal, with freezing politeness, taking hold of
the gee-pole with one hand and swinging his whip from the other.
'Mush!' he shouted. 'Mush on there!'
  The dogs sprang against the breast-bands, strained hard for a few
moments, then relaxed. They were unable to move the sled.
  'The lazy brutes, I'll show them,' he cried, preparing to lash out
at them with the whip.
  But Mercedes interfered, crying, 'Oh, Hal, you musn't,' as she
caught hold of the whip and wrenched it from him. 'The poor dears! Now
you must promise you won't be harsh with them for the rest of the
trip, or I won't go a step.'
  'Precious lot you know about dogs,' her brother sneered; 'and I wish
you'd leave me alone. They're lazy, I tell you, and you've got to whip
them to get anything out of them. That's their way. You ask any one.
Ask one of those men.'
  Mercedes looked at them imploringly, untold repugnance at sight of
pain written in her pretty face.
  'They're weak as water, if you want to know,' came the reply from
one of the men. 'Plum tuckered out, that what's the matter. They
need a rest.'
  'Rest be blanked,' said Hal, with his beardless lips; and Mercedes
said, 'Oh!' in pain and sorrow at the oath.
  But she was a clannish creature, and rushed at once to the defence
of her brother. 'Never mind that man,' she said pointedly. 'You're
driving our dogs, and you do what you think best with them.'
  Again Hal's whip fell upon the dogs. They threw themselves against
the breast-bands, dug their feet into the packed snow, got down low to
it, and put forth all their strength. The sled held as though it
were an anchor. After two efforts, they stood still, panting. The whip
was whistling savagely, when once more Mercedes interfered. She
dropped on her knees before Buck, with tears in her eyes, and put
her arms around his neck.
  'You poor, poor dears,' she cried sympathetically, 'why don't you
pull hard?- then you wouldn't be whipped.' Buck did not like her,
but he was feeling too miserable to resist her, taking it as part of
the day's miserable work.
  One of the onlookers, who had been clenching his teeth to suppress
hot speech, now spoke up:
  'It's not that I care a whoop what becomes of you, but for the dogs'
sakes I just want to tell you, you can help them a mighty lot by
breaking out that sled. The runners are froze fast. Throw your
weight against the gee-pole, right and left, and break it out.'
  A third time the attempt was made, but this time, following the
advice, Hal broke out the runners which had been frozen to the snow.
The overloaded and unwieldy sled forged ahead. Buck and his mates
struggled frantically under the rain of blows. A hundred yards ahead
the path turned and sloped steeply into the main street. It would have
required an experienced man to keep the top-heavy sled upright, and
Hal was not such a man. As they swung on the turn the sled went
over, spilling half its load through the loose lashings. The dogs
never stopped. The lightened sled bounded on its side behind them.
They were angry because of the ill treatment they had received and the
unjust load. Buck was raging. He broke into a run, the team
following his lead. Hal cried 'whoa! whoa!' but they gave no heed.
He tripped and was pulled off his feet. The capsized sled ground
over him, and the dogs dashed on up the street, adding to the gaiety
of Skaguay as they scattered the remainder of the outfit along its
chief thoroughfare.
  Kind-hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered up the
scattered belongings. Also, they gave advice. Half the load and
twice the dogs, if they ever expected to reach Dawson, was what was
said. Hal and his sister and brother-in-law listened unwillingly,
pitched tent, and overhauled the outfit. Canned goods were turned
out that made men laugh, for canned goods on the Long Trail is a thing
to dream about. 'Blankets for a hotel,' quoth one of the men who
laughed and helped. 'Half as many is too much; get rid of them.
Throw away that tent, and all those dishes- who's going to wash
them, anyway? Good Lord, do you think you're travelling on a Pullman?'
  And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the superfluous.
Mercedes cried when her clothes-bags were dumped on the ground and
article after article was thrown out. She cried in general, and she
cried in particular over each discarded thing. She clasped hands about
knees, rocking back and forth broken-heartedly. She averred she
would not go an inch, not for a dozen Charleses. She appealed to
everybody and to everything, finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to
cast out even articles of apparel that were imperative necessities.
And in her zeal, when she had finished with her own, she attacked
the belongings of her men and went through them like a tornado.
  This accomplished, the outfit, though cut in half, was still a
formidable bulk. Charles and Hal went out in the evening and bought
six Outside dogs. These, added to the six of the original team, and
Teek and Koona, the huskies obtained at the Rink Rapids on the
record trip, brought the team up to fourteen. But the Outside dogs,
though practically broken in since their landing, did not amount to
much. Three were short-haired pointers, one was a Newfoundland, and
the other two were mongrels of indeterminate breed. They did not
seem to know anything, these newcomers. Buck and his comrades looked
upon them with disgust, and though he speedily taught them their
places and what not to do, he could not teach them what to do. They
did not take kindly to trace and trail. With the exception of the
two mongrels they were bewildered and spirit-broken by the strange
savage environment in which they found themselves and by the
ill-treatment they had received. The two mongrels were without
spirit at all; bones were the only things breakable about them.
  With the newcomers hopeless and forlorn, and the old team worn out
by twenty-five hundred miles of continuous trail, the outlook was
anything but bright. The two men, however, were quite cheerful. And
they were proud, too. They were doing the thing in style, with
fourteen dogs. They had seen other sleds depart over the Pass for
Dawson, or come in from Dawson, but never had they seen a sled with so
many as fourteen dogs. In the nature of Arctic travel there was a
reason why fourteen dogs should not drag one sled, and that was that
one sled could not carry the food for fourteen dogs. But Charles and
Hal did not know this. They had worked the trip out with a pencil,
so much to a dog, so many dogs, so many days, Q.E.D. Mercedes looked
over their shoulders and nodded comprehensively, it was all so very
simple.
  Late next morning Buck led the long team up the street. There was
nothing lively about it, no snap or go in him and his fellows. They
were starting dead weary. Four times he had covered the distance
between Salt Water and Dawson, and the knowledge that, jaded and
tired, he was facing the same trail once more, made him bitter. His
heart was not in the work, nor was the heart of any dog. The
Outsides were timid and frightened, the Insides without confidence
in their masters.'
  Buck felt vaguely that there was no depending upon these two men and
the woman. They did not know how to do anything, and as the days
went by it became apparent that they could not learn. They were
slack in all things, without order or discipline. It took them half
the night to pitch a slovenly camp, and half the morning to break that
camp and get the sled loaded in fashion so slovenly that for the
rest of the day they were occupied in stopping and rearranging the
load. Some days they did not make ten miles. On other days they were
unable to get started at all. And on no day did they succeed in making
more than half the distance used by the men as a basis in their
dog-food computation.
  It was inevitable that they should go short on dog-food. But they
hastened it by over-feeding, bringing the day nearer when
under-feeding would commence. The Outside dogs, whose digestions had
not been trained by chronic famine to make the most of little, had
voracious appetites. And when, in addition to this, the worn-out
huskies pulled weakly, Hal decided that the orthodox ration was too
small. He doubled it. And to cap it all, when Mercedes, with tears
in her pretty eyes and a quaver in her throat, could not cajole him
into giving the dogs still more, she stole from the fish-sacks and fed
them slyly. But it was not food that Buck and the huskies needed,
but rest. And though they were making poor time, the heavy load they
dragged sapped their strength severely.
  Then came the under-feeding. Hal awoke one day to the fact that
his dog-food was half gone and the distance only quarter covered;
further, that for love or money no additional dog-food was to be
obtained. So he cut down even the orthodox ration and tried to
increase the day's travel. His sister and brother-in-law seconded him;
but they were frustrated by their heavy outfit and their own
incompetence. It was a simple matter to give the dogs less food; but
it was impossible to make the dogs travel faster, while their own
inability to get under way earlier in the morning prevented them
from travelling longer hours. Not only did they not know how to work
dogs, but they did not know how to work themselves.
  The first to go was Dub. Poor blundering thief that he was, always
getting caught and punished, he had none the less been a faithful
worker. His wrenched shoulder-blade, untreated and unrested, went from
bad to worse, till finally Hal shot him with the big Colt's
revolver. It is a saying of the country that an Outside dog starves to
death on the ration of the husky, so the six Outside dogs under Buck
could do no less than die on half the ration of the husky. The
Newfoundland went first, followed by the three short-haired
pointers, the two mongrels hanging more grittily on to life, but going
in the end.
  By this time all the amenities and gentlenesses of the Southland had
fallen away from the three people. Shorn of its glamour and romance,
Arctic travel became to them a reality too harsh for their manhood and
womanhood. Mercedes ceased weeping over the dogs, being too occupied
with weeping over herself and with quarrelling with her husband and
brother. To quarrel was the one thing they were never too weary to do.
Their irritability arose out of their misery, increased with it,
doubled upon it, outdistanced it. The wonderful patience of the
trail which comes to men who toil hard and suffer sore, and remain
sweet of speech and kindly, did not come to these two men and the
woman. They had no inkling of such a patience. They were stiff and
in pain; their muscles ached, their bones ached, their very hearts
ached; and because of this they became sharp of speech, and hard words
were first on their lips in the morning and last at night.
  Charles and Hal wrangled whenever Mercedes gave them a chance. It
was the cherished belief of each that he did more than his share of
the work, and neither forbore to speak his belief at every
opportunity. Sometimes Mercedes sided with her husband, sometimes with
her brother. The result was a beautiful and unending family quarrel.
Starting from a dispute as to which should chop a few sticks for the
fire (a dispute which concerned only Charles and Hal), presently would
be lugged in the rest of the family, fathers, mothers, uncles,
cousins, people thousands of miles away and some of them dead. That
Hal's views on art, or the sort of society plays his mother's
brother wrote, should have anything to do with the chopping of a few
sticks of firewood, passes comprehension; nevertheless the quarrel was
as likely to tend in that direction as in the direction of Charles's
political prejudices. And that Charles's sister's tale-bearing
tongue should be relevant to the building of a Yukon fire, was
apparent only to Mercedes, who disburdened herself of copious opinions
upon that topic, and incidentally upon a few other traits unpleasantly
peculiar to her husband's family. In the meantime the fire remained
unbuilt, the camp half pitched, and the dogs unfed.
  Mercedes nursed a special grievance- the grievance of her sex. She
was pretty and soft, and had been chivalrously treated all her days.
But the present treatment by her husband and brother was everything
save chivalrous. It was her custom to be helpless. They complained.
Upon which impeachment of what to her was her most essential
sex-prerogative, she made their lives unendurable. She no longer
considered the dogs, and because she was sore and tired, she persisted
in riding on the sled. She was pretty and soft, but she weighed one
hundred and twenty pounds- a lusty last straw to the load dragged by
the weak and starving animals. She rode for days, till they fell in
the traces and the sled stood still. Charles and Hal begged her to get
of and walk, pleaded with her, entreated, the while she wept and
importuned Heaven with a recital of their brutality.
  On one occasion they took her off the sled by main strength. They
never did it again. She let her legs go limp like a spoiled child, and
sat down on the trail. They went on their way, but she did not move.
After they had travelled three miles they unloaded the sled, came back
for her, and by main strength put her on the sled again.
  In the excess of their own misery they were callous to the suffering
of their animals. Hal's theory, which he practised on others, was that
one must get hardened. He had started out preaching it to his sister
and brother-in-law. Failing there, he hammered it into the dogs with a
club. At the Five Fingers the dog-food gave out, and a toothless old
squaw offered to trade them a few pounds of frozen horse-hide for
the Colt's revolver that kept the big hunting-knife company at Hal's
hip. A poor substitute for food was this hide, just as it had been
stripped from the starved horses of the cattlemen six months back.
In its frozen state it was more like strips of galvanised iron, and
when a dog wrestled it into his stomach it thawed into thin and
innutritious leathery strings and into a mass of short hair,
irritating and indigestible. And through it all Buck staggered along
at the head of the team as in a nightmare. He pulled when he could;
when he could not longer pull, he fell down and remained till blows
from whip or club drove him to his feet again. All the stiffness and
gloss had gone out of his beautiful furry coat. The hair hung down,
limp and draggled, or matted with dried blood where Hal's club had
bruised him. His muscles had wasted away to knotty strings, and the
flesh pads had disappeared, so that each rib and every bone in his
frame were outlined cleanly through the loose hide that was wrinkled
in folds of emptiness. It was heartbreaking, only Buck's heart was
unbreakable. The man in the red sweater had proved that.
  As it was with Buck, so was it with his mates. They were
perambulating skeletons. There were seven all together, including him.
In their very great misery they had become insensible to the bite of
the lash or the bruise of the club. The pain of the beating was dull
and distant, just as the things their eyes saw and their ears heard
seemed dull and distant. They were not half living, or quarter living.
They were simply so many bags of bones in which sparks of life
fluttered faintly. When a halt was made, they dropped down in the
traces like dead dogs, and the spark dimmed and paled and seemed to go
out. And when the club or whip fell upon them, the spark fluttered
feebly up, and they tottered to their feet and staggered on.
  There came a day when Billee, the good-natured, fell and could not
rise. Hal had traded off his revolver, so he took the axe and
knocked Billee on the head as he lay in the traces, then cut the
carcass out of the harness and dragged it to one side. Buck saw, and
his mates saw, and they knew that this thing was very close to them.
On the next day Koona went, and but five of them remained: Joe, too
far gone to be malignant; Pike, crippled and limping, only half
conscious and not conscious enough longer to malinger; Sol-leks, the
one-eyed, still faithful to the toil of trace and trail, and
mournful in that he had so little strength with which to pull; Teek,
who had not travelled so far that winter and who was now beaten more
than the others because he was fresher; and Buck, still at the head of
the team, but no longer enforcing discipline or striving to enforce
it, blind with weakness half the time and keeping the trail by the
loom of it and by the dim feel of his feet.
  It was beautiful spring weather, but neither dogs nor humans were
aware of it. Each day the sun rose earlier and set later. It was
dawn by three in the morning, and twilight lingered till nine at
night. The whole long day was a blaze of sunshine. The ghostly
winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening
life. The murmur arose from all the land, fraught with the joy of
living. It came from the things that lived and moved again, things
which had been as dead and which had not moved during the long
months of frost. The sap was rising in the pines. The willows and
aspens were bursting out in young buds. Shrubs and vines were
putting on fresh garbs of green. Crickets sang in the nights, and in
the days all manner of creeping, crawling things rustled forth into
the sun. Partridges and woodpeckers were booming and knocking in the
forest. Squirrels were chattering, birds singing, and overhead
honked the wild-fowl driving up from the south in cunning wedges
that split the air.
  From every hill slope came the trickle of running water, the music
of unseen fountains. All things were thawing, bending, snapping. The
Yukon was straining to break loose the ice that bound it down. It
ate away from beneath; the sun ate from above. Air-holes formed,
fissures sprang and spread apart, while thin sections of ice fell
through bodily into the river. And amid all this bursting, rending,
throbbing of awakening life, under the blazing sun and through the
soft-sighing breezes, like wayfarers to death, staggered the two
men, the woman, and the huskies.
  With the dogs falling, Mercedes weeping and riding. Hal swearing
innocuously, and Charles's eyes wistfully watering, they staggered
into John Thornton's camp at the mouth of White River. When they
halted, the dogs dropped down as though they had all been struck dead.
Mercedes dried her eyes and looked at John Thornton. Charles sat
down on a log to rest. He sat down very slowly and painstakingly
what of his great stiffness. Hal did the talking. John Thornton was
whittling the last touches of an axe-handle he had made from a stick
of birch. He whittled and listened, gave monosyllabic replies, and,
when it was asked, terse advice. He knew the breed, and he gave his
advice in the certainty that it would not be followed.
  'They told us up above that the bottom was dropping out of the trail
and that the best thing for us to do was to lay over,' Hal said in
response to Thornton's warning to take no more chances on the rotten
ice. 'They told us we couldn't make White River, and here we are.'
This last with a sneering ring of triumph in it.
  'And they told you true,' John Thornton answered. 'The bottom's
likely to drop out at any moment. Only fools, with the blind luck of
fools, could have made it. I tell you straight, I wouldn't risk my
carcass on that ice for all the gold in Alaska.'
  'That's because you're not a fool, I suppose,' said Hal. 'All the
same, we'll go on to Dawson.' He uncoiled his whip. 'Get up there,
Buck! Hi! Get up there! Mush on!'
  Thornton went on whittling. It was idle, he knew, to get between a
fool and his folly; while two or three fools more or less would not
alter the scheme of things.
  But the team did not get up at the command. It had long since passed
into the stage where blows were required to rouse it. The whip flashed
out, here and there, on its merciless errands. John Thornton
compressed his lips. Solleks was the first to crawl to his feet.
Teek followed Joe came next, yelping with pain. Pike made painful
efforts. Twice he fell over, when half up, and on the third attempt
managed to rise. Buck made no effort. He lay quietly where he had
fallen. The lash bit into him again and again, but he neither whined
nor struggled. Several times Thornton started, as though to speak, but
changed his mind. A moisture came into his eyes, and, as the
whipping continued, he arose and walked irresolutely up and down.
  This was the first time Buck had failed, in itself sufficient reason
to drive Hal into a rage. He exchanged the whip for the customary
club. Buck refused to move under the rain of heavy blows which now
fell upon him. Like his mates, he was barely able to get up, but,
unlike them, he had made up his mind not to get up. He had a vague
feeling of impending doom. This had been strong upon him when he
pulled in to the bank, and it had not departed from him. What of the
thin and rotten ice he had felt under his feet all day, it seemed that
he sensed disaster close at hand, out there ahead on the ice where his
master was trying to drive him. He refused to stir. So greatly had
he suffered, and so far gone was he, that the blows did not hurt much.
And as they continued to fall upon him, the spark of life within
flickered and went down. It was nearly out. He felt strangely numb. As
though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being beaten.
The last sensations of pain left him. He no longer felt anything,
though very faintly he could hear the impact of the club upon his
body. But it was no longer his body, it seemed so far away.
  And then, suddenly, without warning, uttering a cry that was
inarticulate and more like the cry of an animal, John Thornton
sprang upon the man who wielded the club. Hal was hurled backward,
as though struck by a falling tree. Mercedes screamed. Charles
looked on wistfully, wiping his watery eyes, but did not get up
because of his stiffness.
  John Thornton stood over Buck, struggling to control himself, too
convulsed with rage to speak.
  'If you strike that dog again, I'll kill you,' he at last managed to
say in a choking voice.
  'It's my dog,' Hal replied, wiping the blood from his mouth as he
came back. 'Get out of my way, or I'll fix you. I'm going to Dawson.'
  Thornton stood between him and Buck, and evinced no intention of
getting out of the way. Hal drew his long hunting-knife. Mercedes
screamed, cried, laughed and manifested the chaotic abandonment of
hysteria. Thornton rapped Hal's knuckles with the axe handle, knocking
the knife to the ground. He rapped his knuckles again as he tried to
pick it up. Then he stooped, picked it up himself, and with two
strokes cut Buck's traces.
  Hal had no fight left in him. Besides, his hands were full with
his sister, or his arms, rather; while Buck was too near dead to be of
further use in hauling the sled. A few minutes later they pulled out
from the bank and down the river. Buck heard them go and raised his
head to see. Pike was leading, Sol-leks was at the wheel, and
between were Joe and Teek. They were limping and staggering.
Mercedes was riding the loaded sled. Hal guided at the gee-pole, and
Charles stumbled along in the rear.
  As Buck watched them, Thornton knelt beside him and with rough,
kindly hands searched for broken bones. By the time his search had
disclosed nothing more than many bruises and a state of terrible
starvation, the sled was a quarter of a mile away. Dog and man watched
it crawling along over the ice. Suddenly, they saw its back end drop
down, as into a rut, and the gee-pole, with Hal clinging to it, jerk
into the air. Mercedes's scream came to their ears. They saw Charles
turn and make one step to run back, and then a whole section of ice
gave way and dogs and humans disappeared. A yawning hole was all
that was to be seen. The bottom had dropped out of the trail.
  John Thornton and Buck looked at each other.
  'You poor devil,' said John Thornton, and Buck licked his hand.
                        CHAPTER SIX.
                    For the Love of a Man.

  WHEN JOHN THORNTON FROZE his feet in the previous December, his
partners had made him comfortable and left him to get well, going on
themselves up the river to get out a raft of saw-logs for Dawson. He
was still limping slightly at the time he rescued Buck, but with the
continued warm weather even the slight limp left him. And here,
lying by the river bank through the long spring days, watching the
running water, listening lazily to the songs of birds and the hum of
nature, Buck slowly won back his strength.
  A rest comes very good after one has travelled three thousand miles,
and it must be confessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed,
his muscles swelled out, and the flesh came back to cover his bones.
For that matter, they were all loafing- Buck, John Thornton, and Skeet
and Nig- waiting for the raft to come that was to carry them down to
Dawson. Skeet was a little Irish setter who early made friends with
Buck, who, in a dying condition, was unable to resent her first
advances. She had the doctor trait which some dogs possess; and as a
mother cat washes her kittens, so she washed and cleansed Buck's
wounds. Regularly, each morning, after he had finished his
breakfast, she performed her self-appointed task, till he came to look
for her ministrations as much as he did for Thornton's. Nig, equally
friendly, though less demonstrative, was a huge black dog, half
bloodhound and half deerhound, with eyes that laughed and a
boundless good nature.
  To Buck's surprise these dogs manifested no jealousy toward him.
They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton. As
Buck grew stronger they enticed him into all sorts of ridiculous
games, in which Thornton himself could not forbear to join; and in
this fashion Buck romped through his convalescence and into a new
existence. Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first
time. This he had never experienced at Judge Miller's down in the
sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. With the Judge's son, hunting and
tramping, it had been a working partnership; with the Judges's
grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself,
a stately and dignified friendship. But love that was feverish and
burning, that was adoration, that was madness, it had taken John
Thornton to arouse.
  This man had saved his life, which was something; but, further, he
was the ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs
from a sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of
his as if they were his own children, because he could not help it.
And he saw further. He never forgot a kindly greeting or a cheering
word, and to sit down for a long talk with them ('gas' he called it)
was as much his delight as theirs. He had a way of taking Buck's
head roughly between his hands, and resting his own head upon
Buck's, of shaking him back and forth, the while calling him ill names
that to Buck were love names. Buck knew no greater joy than that rough
embrace and the sound of murmured oaths, and at each jerk back and
forth it seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body so
great was its ecstasy. And when, released, he sprang to his feet,
his mouth laughing, his eyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with
unuttered sounds, and in that fashion remain without movement, John
Thornton would reverently exclaim, 'God, you can all but speak!'
  Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt. He
would often seize Thornton's hand in his mouth and close so fiercely
that the flesh bore impress of his teeth for some time afterward.
And as Buck understood the oaths to be love words, so the man
understood this feigned bite for a caress.
  For the most part, however, Buck's love was expressed in
adoration. While he went wild with happiness when Thornton touched him
or spoke to him, he did not seek these tokens. Unlike Skeet, who was
wont to shove her nose under Thornton's hand and nudge and nudge
till petted, or Nig, who would stalk up and rest his great head on
Thornton's knee, Buck was content to adore at a distance. He would lie
by the hour, eager, alert, at Thornton's feet looking up into his
face, dwelling upon it, studying it, following with keenest interest
each fleeting expression, every movement or change of feature. Or,
as chance might have it, he would lie farther away, to the side or
rear, watching the outlines of the man and the occasional movements of
his body. And often, such was the communion in which they lived, the
strength of Buck's gaze would draw John Thornton's head around, and he
would return the gaze, without speech, his heart shining out of his
eyes as Buck's heart shone out.
  For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton to
get out of his sight. From the moment he left the tent to when he
entered it again, Buck would follow at his heels. His transient
masters since he had come into the Northland had bred in him fear that
no master could be permanent. He was afraid that Thornton would pass
out of his life as Perrault and Francois and the Scotch half-breed had
passed out. Even in the night, in his dreams, he was haunted by this
fear. At such times he would shake off sleep and creep through the
chill to the flap of the tent, where he would stand and listen to
the sound of his master's breathing.
  But in spite of this great love he bore John Thornton, which
seemed to bespeak the soft civilising influence, the strain of the
primitive, which the Northland had aroused in him, remained alive
and active. Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire and roof,
were his, yet he retained his wildness and wiliness. He was a thing of
the wild, come in from the wild to sit by John Thornton's fire, rather
than a dog of the soft Southland stamped with the marks of generations
of civilisation. Because of his very great love, he could not steal
from this man, but from any man, in any other camp, he did not
hesitate an instant; while the cunning with which he stole enabled him
to escape detection.
  His face and body were scored by the teeth of many dogs, and he
fought as fiercely as ever and more shrewdly. Skeet and Nig were too
good-natured for quarrelling- besides, they belonged to John Thornton;
but the strange dog, no matter what the breed or valour, swiftly
acknowledged Buck's supremacy or found himself struggling for life
with a terrible antagonist. And Buck was merciless. He had learned
well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or
drew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death. He had
lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the police
and mail, and knew there was no middle course. He must master or be
mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in
the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such
misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be
eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of
Time, he obeyed.
  He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn.
He linked the past with the present, and the eternity behind him
throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the
tides and season swayed. He sat by John Thornton's fire, a
broad-breasted dog, white-fanged and long-furred; but behind him
were the shades of all manner of dogs, half-wolves and wild wolves,
urgent and prompting, tasting the savour of the meat he ate, thirsting
for the water he drank, scenting the wind with him, listening with him
and telling him the sounds made by the wild life in the forest,
dictating his moods, directing his actions, lying down to sleep with
him when he lay down, and dreaming with him and beyond him and
becoming themselves the stuff of his dreams.
  So peremptorily did these shades beckon him, that each day mankind
and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in the forest
a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call,
mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his
back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge
into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; the call
sounding imperiously, deep in the forest. But as often as he gained
the soft unbroken earth and the green shade, the love for John
Thornton drew him back to the fire again.
  Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing.
Chance travellers might praise or pet him; but he was cold under it
all, and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away.
When Thornton's partners, Hans and Pete, arrived on the
long-expected raft Buck refused to notice them till he learned they
were close to Thornton; after that he tolerated them in a passive sort
of way, accepting favours from them as though he favoured them by
accepting. They were of the same large type as Thornton, living
close to the earth, thinking simply and seeing clearly; and ere they
swung the raft into the big eddy by the saw-mill at Dawson, they
understood Buck and his ways, and did not insist upon an intimacy such
as obtained with Skeet and Nig.
  For Thornton, however, his love seemed to grow and grow. He, alone
among men, could put a pack upon Buck's back in the summer travelling.
Nothing was too great for Buck to do, when Thornton commanded. One day
(they had grub-staked themselves from the proceeds of the raft and
left Dawson for the head-waters of the Tanana) the men and dogs were
sitting on the crest of a cliff which fell away, straight down, to
naked bed-rock three hundred feet below. John Thornton was sitting
near the edge. Buck at his shoulder. A thoughtless whim seized
Thornton, and he drew the attention of Hans and Pete to the experiment
he had in mind. 'Jump, Buck!' he commanded, sweeping his arm out and
over the chasm. The next instant he was grappling with Buck on the
extreme edge, while Hans and Pete were dragging them back into safety.
  'It's uncanny,' Pete said, after it was over and they had caught
their speech.
  Thornton shook his head. 'No, it is splendid, and it is terrible,
too. Do you know, it sometimes makes me afraid.'
  'I'm not hankering to be the man that lays hands on you while he's
around,' Pete announced conclusively, nodding his head toward Buck.
  'By Jingo!' was Hans' contribution. 'Not mineself either.'
  It was at Circle City, ere the year was out, that Pete's
apprehensions were realised. 'Black' Burton, a man evil-tempered and
malicious, had been picking a quarrel with a tenderfoot at the bar,
when Thornton stepped good-naturedly between. Buck, as was his custom,
was lying in a corner, head on paws, watching his master's every
action. Burton struck out, without warning, straight from the
shoulder. Thornton was sent spinning, and saved himself from falling
only by clutching the rail of the bar.
  Those who were looking on heard what was neither bark nor yelp,
but a something which is best described as a roar, and they saw Buck's
body rise up in the air as he left the floor for Burton's throat.
The man saved his life by instinctively throwing out his arm, but
was hurled backward to the floor with Buck on top of him. Buck
loosed his teeth from the flesh of the arm and drove in again for
the throat. This time the man succeeded only in partly blocking, and
his throat was torn open. Then the crowd was upon Buck, and he was
driven off; but while a surgeon checked the bleeding, he prowled up
and down, growling furiously, attempting to rush in, and being
forced back by an array of hostile clubs. A 'miners' meeting',
called on the spot, decided that the dog had sufficient provocation,
and Buck was discharged. But his reputation was made, and from that
day his name spread through every camp in Alaska.
  Later on, in the fall of the year, he saved John Thornton's life
in quite another fashion. The three partners were lining a long and
narrow poling-boat down a bad stretch of rapids on the Forty-Mile
Creek. Hans and Pete moved along the bank, snubbing with a thin Manila
rope from tree to tree, while Thornton remained in the boat, helping
the descent by means of a pole, and shouting directions to the
shore. Buck, on the bank worried and anxious, kept abreast of the
boat, his eyes never off his master.
  At a particularly bad spot where a ledge of barely submerged rocks
jutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and while
Thornton poled the boat out into the stream, ran down the bank with
the end in his hand to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge.
This it did, and was flying down-stream in a current as swift as a
mill-race, when Hans checked it with the rope and checked too
suddenly. The boat flirted over and snubbed into the bank bottom up,
while Thornton, flung sheer out of it, was carried down-stream
toward the worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wild water in
which no swimmer could live.
  Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundred
yards, amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When he felt
him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all his
splendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progress
down-stream amazingly rapid. From below came the fatal roaring where
the wild current went wilder and was rent in shreds and spray by the
rocks which thrust through like the teeth of an enormous comb. The
suck of the water as it took the beginning of the last steep pitch was
frightful, and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. He scraped
furiously over a rock, bruised across a second, and struck a third
with crushing force. He clutched its slippery top with both hands,
releasing Buck, and above the roar of the churning water shouted: 'Go,
Buck! Go!'
  Buck could not hold his own, and swept on down-stream, struggling
desperately, but unable to win back. When he heard Thornton's
command repeated, he partly reared out of the water, throwing his head
high as though for a last look, then turned obediently toward the
bank. He swam powerfully and was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at
the very point where swimming ceased to be possible and destruction
began.
  They knew that the time a man could cling to a slippery rock in
the face of that driving current was a matter of minutes, and they ran
as fast as they could up the bank to a point far above where
Thornton was hanging on. They attached the line with which they had
been snubbing the boat to Buck's neck and shoulders, being careful
that it should neither strangle him nor impede his swimming and
launched him into the stream. He struck out boldly but not straight
enough into the stream. He discovered the mistake too late, when
Thornton was abreast of him and a bare half-dozen strokes away while
he was being carried helplessly past.
  Hans promptly snubbed with the rope, as though Buck were a boat. The
rope thus tightening on him in the sweep of the current, he was jerked
under the surface, and under the surface he remained till his body
struck against the bank and he was hauled out. He was half drowned,
and Hans and Pete threw themselves upon him, pounding the breath
into him and the water out of him. He staggered to his feet and fell
down. The faint sound of Thornton's voice came to them, and though
they could not make out the words of it, they knew that he was in
his extremity. His master's voice acted on Buck like an electric
shock. He sprang to his feet and ran up the bank ahead of the men to
the point of his previous departure.
  Again the rope was attached and he was launched, and again he struck
out, but this time straight into the stream. He had miscalculated
once, but he would not be guilty of it a second time. Hans paid out
the rope, permitting no slack, while Pete kept it clear of coils. Buck
held on till he was on a line straight above Thornton; then he turned,
and with the speed of an express train headed down upon him.
Thornton saw him coming, and, as Buck struck him like a battering ram,
with the whole force of the current behind him, he reached up and
closed with both arms around the shaggy neck. Hans snubbed the rope
around the tree, and Buck and Thornton were jerked under the water.
Strangling, suffocating, sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the
other, dragging over the jagged bottom, smashing against rocks and
snags, they veered in to the bank.
  Thornton came to, belly downward and being violently propelled
back and forth across a drift log by Hans and Pete. His first glance
was for Buck, over whose limp and apparently lifeless body Nig was
setting up a howl, while Skeet was licking the wet face and closed
eyes. Thornton was himself bruised and battered, and he went carefully
over Buck's body, when he had been brought around, finding three
broken ribs.
  'That settles it,' he announced. 'We camp right here.' camp they
did, till Buck's ribs knitted and he was able to travel.
  That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another exploit, not so
heroic, perhaps, but one that put his name many notches higher on
the totem-pole of Alaskan fame. This exploit was particularly
gratifying to the three men; for they stood in need of the outfit
which it furnished, and were enabled to make a long-desired trip
into the virgin East, where miners had not yet appeared. It was
brought about by a conversation in the Eldorado Saloon, in which men
waxed boastful of their favourite dogs. Buck, because of his record,
was the target for these men, and Thornton was driven stoutly to
defend him. At the end of half an hour one man stated that his dog
could start a sled with five hundred pounds and walk off with it; a
second bragged six hundred for his dog; and a third, seven hundred.
  'Pooh! pooh!' said John Thornton; 'Buck can start a thousand
pounds.'
  'And break it out? and walk off with it for a hundred yards?'
demanded Matthewson, a Bonanza King, he of the seven hundred vaunt.
  'And break it out, and walk off with it for a hundred yards,' John
Thornton said coolly.
  'Well,' Matthewson said, slowly and deliberately, so that all
could hear, 'I've got a thousand dollars that says he can't. And there
it is.' So saying, he slammed a sack of gold dust of the size of a
bologna sausage down upon the bar.
  Nobody spoke. Thornton's bluff, if bluff it was, had been called. He
could feel a flush of warm blood creeping up his face. His tongue
had tricked him. He did not know whether Buck could start a thousand
pounds. Half a ton! The enormousness of it appalled him. He had
great faith in Buck's strength and had often thought him capable of
starting such a load; but never, as now, had he faced the
possibility of it, the eyes of a dozen men fixed upon him, silent
and waiting. Further, he had no thousand dollars; nor had Hans or
Pete.
  'I've got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fifty-pound sacks
of flour on it,' Matthewson went on, with brutal directness, 'so don't
let that hinder you.'
  Thornton did not reply. He did not know what to say. He glanced from
face to face in the absent way of a man who has lost the power of
thought and is seeking somewhere to find the thing that will start
it going again. The face of Jim O'Brien, a Mastodon King and
old-time comrade, caught his eyes. It was a cue to him, seeming to
rouse him to do what he would never have dreamed of doing.
  'Can you lend me a thousand?' he asked, almost in a whisper.
  'Sure,' answered O'Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack by the side
of Matthewson's. 'Though it's little faith I'm having, John, that
the beast can do the trick.'
  The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see the
test. The tables were deserted, and the dealers and gamekeepers came
forth to see the outcome of the wager and to lay odds. Several hundred
men, furred and mittened, banked around the sled within easy distance.
Matthewson's sled, loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had been
standing for a couple of hours, and in the intense cold (it was
sixty below zero) the runners had frozen fast to the hard-packed snow.
Men offered odds of two to one that Buck could not budge the sled. A
quibble arose concerning the phrase 'break out'. O'Brien contended
it was Thornton's privilege to knock the runners loose, leaving Buck
to 'break it out' from a dead standstill. Matthewson insisted that the
phrase included breaking the runners from the frozen grip of the snow.
A majority of the men who had witnessed the making of the bet
decided in his favour, whereat the odds went up to three to one
against Buck.
  There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat.
Thornton had been hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt, and now
that he looked at the sled itself, the concrete fact, with the regular
team of ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the more
impossible the task appeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant.
  'Three to one!' he proclaimed. 'I'll lay you another thousand at
that figure, Thornton. What d'ye say?'
  Thornton's doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spirit was
aroused- the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails to recognise
the impossible, and is deaf to all save the clamour for battle. He
called Hans and Pete to him. Their sacks were slim, and with his own
the three partners could rake together only two hundred dollars. In
the ebb of their fortunes, this sum was their total capital; yet
they laid it unhesitatingly against Matthewson's six hundred.
  The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his own
harness, was put into the sled. He had caught the contagion of the
excitement, and he felt that in some way he must do a great thing
for John Thornton. Murmurs of admiration of his splendid condition,
without an ounce of superfluous flesh, and the one hundred and fifty
pounds that he weighed were so many pounds of grit and virility. His
furry coat shone with the sheen of silk. Down the neck and across
the shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled and seemed
to lift with every movement, as though excess of vigour made each
particular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavy fore legs
were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where the
muscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt these
muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went down to
two to one.
  'Gad, sir! Gad, sir!' stuttered a member of the latest dynasty, a
king of the Skookum Benches, 'I offer you eight hundred for him,
sir, before the test, sir; eight hundred just as he stands.'
  Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck's side.
  'You must stand off from him,' Matthewson protested. 'Free play
and plenty of room.'
  The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of the
gamblers vainly offering two to one. Everybody acknowledged Buck a
magnificent animal, but twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked too
large in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch-strings.
  Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head in his two
hands and rested check on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as
was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear.
'As you love me, Buck. As you love me,' was what he whispered. Buck
whined with suppressed eagerness.
  The crowd was watching curiously. The affair was growing mysterious.
It seemed like a conjuration. As Thornton got to his feet, Buck seized
his mittened hand between his jaws, pressing in with his teeth and
releasing slowly, half-reluctantly. It was the answer, in terms not of
speech, but of love. Thornton stepped well back.
  'Now, Buck,' he said.
  Buck tightened the traces, then slacked them for a matter of several
inches. It was the way he had learned.
  'Gee!' Thornton's voice rang out, sharp in tense silence.
  Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a plunge that took
up the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty
pounds. The load quivered, and from under the runners arose a crisp
crackling.
  'Haw!' Thornton commanded.
  Buck duplicated the manoeuvre, this time to the left. The
crackling turned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and the runners
slipping and grating several inches to the side. The sled was broken
out. Men were holding their breaths, intensely unconscious of the
fact.
  'Now, MUSH!'
  Thornton's command cracked out like a pistol-shot. Buck threw
himself forward, tightening the traces with a jarring lunge. His whole
body was gathered compactly together in the tremendous effort, the
muscles writhing and knotting like live things under the silky fur.
His great chest was low to the ground, his head forward and down,
while his feet were flying like mad, the claws scarring the
hard-packed snow in parallel grooves. The sled swayed and trembled,
half-started forward. One of his feet slipped, and one man groaned
aloud. Then the sled lurched ahead in what appeared a rapid succession
of jerks, though it never really came to a dead stop again... half
an inch... an inch... two inches... The jerks perceptibly
diminished; as the sled gained momentum, he caught them up, till it
was moving steadily along.
  Men gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that for a moment
they had ceased to breathe. Thornton was running behind, encouraging
Buck with short, cheery words. The distance had been measured off, and
as he neared the pile of firewood which marked the end of the
hundred yards, a cheer began to grow and grow, which burst into a roar
as he passed the firewood and halted at command. Every man was tearing
himself loose, even Matthewson. Hats and mittens were flying in the
air. Men were shaking hands, it did not matter with whom, and bubbling
over in a general incoherent babel.
  But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck. Head was against head,
and he was shaking him back and forth. Those who hurried up heard
him cursing Buck and he cursed long and fervently, and softly and
lovingly.
  'Gad, sir! Gad, sir!' spluttered the Skookum Bench king. 'I'll
give a thousand for him, sir, a thousand, sir- twelve hundred sir.'
  Thornton rose to his feet. His eyes were wet. The tears were
streaming frankly down his cheeks. 'Sir,' he said to the Skookum Bench
king, 'no, sir. You can go to hell, sir. It's the best I can do for
you, sir.'
  Buck seized Thornton's hand in his teeth. Thornton shook him back
and forth. As though animated by a common impulse, the onlookers
drew back to a respectful distance; nor were they again indiscreet
enough to interrupt.
                        CHAPTER SEVEN.
                   The Sounding of the Call.

  WHEN BUCK EARNED SIXTEEN hundred dollars in five minutes for John
Thornton, he made it possible for his master to pay off certain
debts and to journey with his partners into the East after a fabled
lost mine, the history of which was as old as the history of the
country. Many men had sought it; few had found it; and more than a few
there were who had never returned from the quest.
  This lost mine was steeped in tragedy and shrouded in mystery. No
one knew of the first man. The oldest tradition stopped before it
got back to him. From the beginning there had been an ancient and
ramshackle cabin. Dying men had sworn to it, and to the mine the
site of which it marked, clinching their testimony with nuggets that
were unlike any known grades of gold in the Northland.
  But no living man had looted this treasure house and the dead were
dead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buck and half
a dozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achieve
where men and dogs as good as themselves had failed. They sledded
seventy miles up the Yukon, swung to the left into the Stewart
River, passed the Mayo and the McQuestion, and held on until the
Stewart itself became a streamlet, threading the upstanding peaks
which marked the backbone of the continent.
  John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of
the wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into
the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased.
Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the
course of the day's travel; and if he failed to find it, like the
Indian, he kept on travelling, secure in the knowledge that sooner
or later he would come to it. So, on this great journey into the East,
straight meat was the bill of fare, ammunition and tools principally
made up the load on the sled, and the time-card was drawn upon the
limitless future.
  To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, and
indefinite wandering through strange places. For weeks at a time
they would hold on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end
they would camp, here and there, the dogs loafing and the men
burning holes through frozen muck and gravel and washing countless
pans of dirt by the heat of the fire. Sometimes they went hungry,
sometimes they feasted riotously, all according to the abundance of
game and the fortune of hunting. Summer arrived, and dogs and men,
packed on their backs, rafted across blue mountain lakes, and
descended or ascended unknown rivers in slender boats whipsawed from
the standing forest.
  Two months came and went, and back and forth they twisted through
the uncharted vastness, where no men were, yet where men had been if
the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summer
blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains
between the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer
valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of
glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the
Southland could boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird
lake country, sad and silent, where wild-flowl had been, but where
then there was no life nor sign of life- only the blowing of chill
winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholy
rippling of waves on lonely beaches.
  And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails
of men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazed through
the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed very near.
But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remained mystery,
as the man who made it and the reason he made it remained mystery.
Another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage of a hunting
lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thornton found a
long-barrelled flint-lock. He knew it for a Hudson Bay Company gun
of the young days in the Northwest, when such a gun was worth its
height in beaver skins packed flat. And that was all- no hint as to
the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gun
among the blankets.
  Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering they
found, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley
where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the
washing-pan. They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned
them thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked
every day. The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the
bag, and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge.
Like giants they toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like
dreams as they heaped the treasure up.
  There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meat
now and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musing
by the fire. The vision of the short-legged hairy man came to him more
frequently now that there was little work to be done; and often,
blinking by the fire, Buck wandered with him in that other world which
he remembered.
  The salient thing of this other world seemed fear. When he watched
the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees, and
hands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with many
starts and awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully into the
darkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did they walk by the beach
of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell-fish and ate them as he
gathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger and
with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance.
Through the forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's
heels; and they were alert and vigilant, the pair of them, ears
twitching and moving and nostrils quivering, for the man heard and
smelled as keenly as Buck. The hairy man could spring up into the
trees and travel ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the
arms from limb to limb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and
catching, never falling, never missing his grip. In fact, he seemed as
much at home among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories
of nights of vigil spent beneath trees wherein the hairy man
roosted, holding on tightly as he slept.
  And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call
still sounding in the depths of the forest. It filled him with a great
unrest and strange desires. It caused him to feel a vague, sweet
gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew
not what. Sometimes he pursued the call into the forest, looking for
it as though it were a tangible thing, barking softly or defiantly, as
the mood might dictate. He would thrust his nose into the cool wood
moss, or into the black soil where long grasses grew, and snort with
joy at the fat earth smells; or he would crouch for hours, as if in
concealment, behind fungus-covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed
and wide-eared to all that moved and sounded about him. It might be,
lying thus, that he hoped to surprise this call he could not
understand. But he did not know why he did these various things. He
was impelled to do them, and did not reason about them at all.
  Irresistible impulses seized him. He would be lying in camp,
dozing lazily in the heat of the day, when suddenly his head would
lift and his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he would spring
to his feet and dash away, and on and on, for hours, through the
forest aisles and across the open spaces where the niggerheads
bunched. He loved to run down dry watercourses and to creep and spy
upon the bird life in the woods. For a day at a time he would lie in
the underbrush where he could watch the partridges drumming and
strutting up and down. But especially he loved to run in the dim
twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and
sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as man may read
a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called-
called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.
  One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrils
quivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves. From
the forest came the call (or one note of it, for the call was many
noted), distinct and definite as never before- a long-drawn howl,
like, yet unlike, any noise made by husky dog. And he knew it, in
the old familiar way, as a sound heard before. He sprang through the
sleeping camp and in swift silence dashed through the wood. As he drew
closer to the cry he went more slowly, with caution in every movement,
till he came to an open place among the trees, and looking out saw,
erect on haunches, with nose pointed to the sky, a long, lean timber
wolf.
  He had made no noise yet it ceased from its howling and tried to
sense his presence. Buck stalked into the open, half crouching, body
gathered compactly together, tail straight and stiff, feet falling
with unwonted care. Every movement advertised commingled threatening
and overture of friendliness. It was the menacing truce that marks the
meeting of wild beasts that prey. But the wolf fled at sight of him.
He followed, with wild leapings, in a frenzy to overtake. He ran him
into a blind channel, in the bed of the creek, where a timber jam
barred the way. The wolf whirled about, pivoting on his hind legs
after the fashion of Joe and of all cornered husky dogs, snarling
and bristling, clipping his teeth together in a continuous and rapid
succession of snaps.
  Buck did not attack, but circled about him and hedged him in with
friendly advances. The wolf was suspicious and afraid; for Buck made
three of him in weight, while his head barely reached Buck's shoulder.
Watching his chance, he darted away, and the chase was resumed. Time
and again he was cornered, and the thing repeated, though he was in
poor condition, or Buck could not so easily have overtaken him. He
would run till Buck's head was even with his flank, when he would
whirl around at bay, only to dash away again at the first opportunity.
  But in the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded; for the wolf,
finding that no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him.
Then they became friendly, and played about in the nervous, half-coy
way with which fierce beasts belie their fierceness. After some time
of this the wolf started off at an easy lope in a manner that
plainly showed he was going somewhere. He made it clear to Buck that
he was to come, and they ran side by side through the sombre twilight,
straight up the creek bed, into the gorge from which it issued, and
across the bleak divide where it took its rise.
  On the opposite slope of the watershed they came down into a level
country where were great stretches of forest and many streams, and
through these great stretches they ran steadily, hour after hour,
the sun rising higher and the day growing warmer. Buck was wildly
glad. He knew he was at last answering the call, running by the side
of his wood brother toward the place from where the call surely
came. Old memories were coming upon him fast, and he was stirring to
them as of old he stirred to the realities of which they were the
shadows. He had done this thing before, somewhere in that other and
dimly remembered world, and he was doing it again, now, running free
in the open, the unpacked earth underfoot, the wide sky overhead.
  They stopped by a running stream to drink, and, stopping, Buck
remembered John Thornton. He sat down. The wolf started on toward
the place from where the call surely came, then returned to him,
sniffing noses and making actions as though to encourage him. But Buck
returned about and started slowly on the back track. For the better
part of an hour the wild brother ran by his side, whining softly. Then
he sat down, pointed his nose upward, and howled. It was a mournful
howl, and as Buck held steadily on his way he heard it grow faint
and fainter until it was lost in the distance. John Thornton was
eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp and sprang upon him in a
frenzy of affection, overturning him, scrambling upon him, licking his
face, biting his hand- 'playing the general tom-fool,' as John
Thornton characterised it, the while he shook Buck back and forth
and cursed him lovingly.
  For two days and nights Buck never left camp, never let Thornton out
of his sight. He followed him about at his work, watching him while he
ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them in the
morning. But after two days the call in the forest began to sound more
imperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came back on him, and he
was haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling
land beyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide
forest stretches. Once again he took to wandering in the woods, but
the wild brother came no more; and though he listened through long
vigils, the mournful howl was never raised.
  He began to sleep out at night, staying away from the camp for
days at a time; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the
creek and went down into the land of timber and streams. There he
wandered for a week, seeking vainly for fresh signs of the wild
brother, killing his meat as he travelled and travelling with the long
easy lope that seems never to tire. He fished for salmon in a broad
stream that emptied somewhere into the sea, and by this stream he
killed a large black bear, blinded by the mosquitoes while likewise
fishing, and raging through the forest helpless and terrible. Even so,
it was a hard fight, and it aroused the last latent remnants of Buck's
ferocity. And two days later, when he returned to his kill and found a
dozen wolverenes quarrelling over the spoil, he scattered them like
chaff; and those that fled left two behind who would quarrel no more.
  The blood-longing became stronger than ever before. He was a killer,
a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided,
alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving
triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong
survived. Because of all this he became possessed of a great pride
in himself, which communicated itself like a contagion to his physical
being. It advertised itself in all his movements, was apparent in
the play of every muscle, spoke plainly as speech in the way he
carried himself and made his glorious furry coat if anything more
glorious. But for the stray brown on his muzzle and above his eyes,
and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost down his chest, he
might well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf, larger than the
largest of the breed. From his St. Bernard father he had inherited
size and weight, but it was his shepherd mother who had given shape to
that size and weight. His muzzle was the long wolf muzzle, save that
it was larger than the muzzle of any wolf; and his head, somewhat
broader, was the wolf head on a massive scale.
  His cunning was wolf cunning, and wild cunning; his intelligence,
shepherd intelligence and St. Bernard intelligence; and all this, plus
an experience gained in the fiercest of schools, made him as
formidable a creature as any that roamed the wild. A carnivorous
animal, living on a straight meat diet, he was in full flower, at
the high tide of his life, over-spilling with vigour and virility.
When Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back, a snapping and
cracking followed the hand, each hair discharging its pent magnetism
at the contact. Every part, brain nerve tissue and fibre, was keyed to
the most exquisite pitch; and between all the parts there was a
perfect equilibrium or adjustment. To sights and sounds and events
which required action, he responded with lightning-like rapidity.
Quickly as a husky dog could leap to defend from attack or to
attack, he could leap twice as quickly. He saw the movement, or
heard sound, and responded in less time than another dog required to
compass the mere seeing or hearing. He perceived and determined and
responded in the same instant. In point of fact the three actions of
perceiving, determining, and responding were sequential; but so
infinitesimal were the intervals of time between them that they
appeared simultaneous. His muscles were surcharged with vitality,
and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs. Life streamed
through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it seemed
that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forth
generously over the world.
  'Never was there such a dog,' said John Thornton one day, as the
partners watched Buck marching out of camp.
  'When he was made, the mould was broke,' said Pete.
  'Py jingo! I t'ink so mineself,' Hans affirmed.
  They saw him marching out of the camp, but they did not see the
instant and terrible transformation which took place as soon as he was
within the secrecy of the forest. He no longer marched. At once he
became a thing of the wild, stealing along softly, cat-footed, a
passing shadow that appeared and disappeared among the shadows. He
knew how to take advantage of every cover, to crawl on his belly
like a snake, and like a snake to leap and strike. He could take a
ptarmigan from its nest, kill a rabbit as it slept, and snap in mid
air the little chipmunks fleeing a second too late for the trees.
Fish, in open pools, were not too quick for him; nor were beaver,
mending their dams, too wary. He killed to eat, not from wantonness;
but he preferred to eat what he killed himself. So a lurking humour
ran through his deeds, and it was his delight to steal upon the
squirrels, and, when he all but had them, to let them go, chattering
in mortal fear to the tree-tops.
  As the fall of the year came on the moose appeared in greater
abundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and less
rigorous valleys. Buck had already dragged down a stray part-grown
calf; but he wished strongly for larger and more formidable quarry,
and he came upon it one day on the divide at the head of the creek.
A bank of twenty moose had crossed over from the land of streams and
timber, and chief among them was a great bull. He was in a savage
temper, and, standing over six feet from the ground, was as formidable
an antagonist as even Buck could desire. Back and forth the bull
tossed his great palmated antlers branching to fourteen points and
embracing seven feet within the tips. His small eyes burned with a
vicious and bitter light, while he roared with fury at sight of Buck.
  From the bull's side, just forward of the flank, protruded a
feathered arrow-end, which accounted for his savageness. Guided by
that instinct which came from the old hunting days of the primordial
world, Buck proceeded to cut the bull out from the herd. It was no
slight task. He would bark and dance about in front of the bull,
just out of reach of the great antlers and of the terrible splay hoofs
which could have stamped his life out with a single blow. Unable to
turn his back on the fanged danger and go on, the bull would be driven
into paroxysms of rage. At such moments he charged Buck, who retreated
craftily, luring him on by a simulated inability to escape. But when
he was thus separated from his fellows, two or three of the younger
bulls would charge back upon Buck and enable the wounded bull to
rejoin the herd.
  There is a patience of the wild- dogged, tireless, persistent as
life itself- that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its
web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this
patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and
it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding
its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying the cows with their
half-grown calves, and driving the wounded bull mad with helpless
rage. For half a day this continued. Buck multiplied himself,
attacking from all sides, enveloping the herd in a whirlwind of
menace, cutting out his victim as fast as it could rejoin its mates,
wearing out the patience of creatures preyed upon, which is a lesser
patience than that of creatures preying.
  As the day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed in the
north-west (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were six
hours long), the young bulls retraced their steps more and more
reluctantly to the aid of their beset leader. The down-coming winter
was harrying them on to the lower levels, and it seemed they could
never shake off this tireless creature that held them back. Besides,
it was not the life of the herd, or of the young bulls, that was
threatened. The life of only one member was demanded, which was a
remoter interest than their lives, and in the end they were content to
pay the toll.
  As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watching
his mates- the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, the
bulls he had mastered- as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the
fading light. He could not follow, for before his nose leaped the
merciless fanged terror that would not let him go. Three hundredweight
more than half a ton he weighed; he had lived a long, strong life,
full of fight and struggle, and at the end he faced death at the teeth
of a creature whose head did not reach beyond his great knuckled
knees.
  From then on, night and day, Buck never left his prey, never gave it
a moment's rest, never permitted it to browse the leaves of the
trees or the shoots of young birch and willow. Nor did he give the
wounded bull opportunity to slake his burning thirst in the slender
trickling streams they crossed. Often, in desperation, he burst into
long stretches of flight. At such times Buck did not attempt to stay
him, but loped easily at his heels, satisfied with the way the game
was played, lying down when the moose stood still, attacking him
fiercely when he strove to eat or drink.
  The great head drooped more and more under its tree of horns, and
the shambling trot grew weak and weaker. He took to standing for
long periods, with nose to the ground and dejected ears dropped
limply; and Buck found more time in which to get water for himself and
in which to rest. At such moments, panting with red lolling tongue and
with eyes fixed upon the big bull, it appeared to Buck that a change
was coming over the face of things. He could feel a new stir in the
land. As the moose were coming into the land, other kinds of life were
coming in. Forest and stream and air seemed palpitant with their
presence. The news of it was borne in upon him, not by sight, or
sound, or smell, but by some other and subtler sense. He heard
nothing, saw nothing, yet knew that the land was somehow different;
that through it strange things were afoot and ranging; and he resolved
to investigate after he had finished the business in hand.
  At last, at the end of the fourth day, he pulled the great moose
down. For a day and night he remained by the kill, eating and
sleeping, turn and turn about. Then, rested, refreshed and strong,
he turned his face toward camp and John Thornton. He broke into the
long easy lope, and went on, hour after hour, never at loss for the
tangled way, heading straight home through strange country with a
certitude of direction that put man and his magnetic needle to shame.
  As he held on he became more and more conscious of the new stir in
the land. There was life abroad in it different from the life which
had been there throughout the summer. No longer was this fact borne in
upon him in some subtle, mysterious way. The birds talked of it, the
squirrels chattered about it, the very breeze whispered of it. Several
times he stopped and drew in the fresh morning air in great sniffs,
reading a message which made him leap on with greater speed. He was
oppressed with a sense of calamity happening, if it were no calamity
already happened; and as he crossed the last water-shed and dropped
down into the valley toward camp, he proceeded with greater caution.
  Three miles away he came upon a fresh trail that sent his neck
hair rippling and bristling. It led straight toward camp and John
Thornton. Buck hurried on, swiftly and stealthily, every nerve
straining and tense, alert to the multitudinous details which told a
story- all but the end. His nose gave him a varying description of the
passage of the life on the heels of which he was travelling. He
remarked the pregnant silence of the forest. The bird life had
flitted. The squirrels were in hiding. One only he saw- a sleek grey
fellow, flattened against a grey dead limb so that he seemed a part of
it, a woody excrescence upon the wood itself.
  As Buck slid along with the obscureness of a gliding shadow, his
nose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positive force had
gripped and pulled it. He followed the new scent into a thicket and
found Nig. He was lying on his side, dead where he had dragged
himself, an arrow protruding, head and feathers from either side of
his body.
  A hundred yards farther on, Buck came upon one of the sled-dogs
Thornton had bought in Dawson. This dog was thrashing about in a
death-struggle, directly on the trail, and Buck passed around him
without stopping. From the camp came the faint sound of many voices,
rising and falling in a sing-song chant. Bellying forward to the
edge of the clearing, he found Hans, lying on his face, feathered with
arrows like a porcupine. At the same instant Buck peered out where the
spruce-bough lodge had been and saw what made his hair leap straight
up on his neck and shoulders. A gust of overpowering rage swept over
him. He did not know that he growled, but he growled aloud with a
terrible ferocity. For the last time in his life he allowed passion to
usurp cunning and reason, and it was because of his great love for
John Thornton that he lost his head.
  The Yeehats were dancing about the wreckage of the spruce-bough
lodge when they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon them an
animal the like of which they had never seen before. It was Buck, a
live hurricane of fury, hurling himself upon them in a frenzy to
destroy. He sprang at the foremost man (it was the chief of the
Yeehats), ripping the throat wide open till the rent jugular spouted a
fountain of blood. He did not pause to worry the victim, but ripped in
passing, with the next bound tearing wide the throat of a second
man. There was no withstanding him. He plunged about in their very
midst, tearing, rending, destroying, in constant and terrific motion
which defied the arrows they discharged at him. In fact, so
inconceivably rapid were his movements, and so closely were the
Indians tangled together, that they shot one another with the
arrows; and one young hunter, hurling a spear at Buck in mid air,
drove it through the chest of another hunter with such force that
the point broke through the skin of the back and stood out beyond.
Then a panic seized the Yeehats, and they fled in terror to the woods,
proclaiming as they fled the advent of the Evil Spirit.
  And truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels and
dragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees. It was a
fateful day for the Yeehats. They scattered far and wide over the
country, and it was not till a week later that the last of the
survivors gathered together in a lower valley and counted their
losses. As for Buck, wearying of the pursuit, he returned to the
desolated camp. He found Pete where he had been killed in his blankets
in the first moment of surprise. Thornton's desperate struggle was
fresh-written on the earth, and Buck scented every detail of it down
to the edge of a deep pool. By the edge, head and fore feet in the
water, lay Skeet, faithful to the last. The pool itself, muddy and
discoloured from the sluice boxes, effectually hid what it
contained, and it contained John Thornton; for Buck followed his trace
into the water, from which no trace led away.
  All day Buck brooded by the pool or roamed restlessly about the
camp. Death, as a cessation of movement, as a passing out and away
from the lives of the living, he knew, and he knew that John
Thornton was dead. It left a great void in him, somewhat akin to
hunger, but a void which ached and ached, and which food could not
fill. At times when he paused to contemplate the carcasses of the
Yeehats, he forgot the pain of it; and at such times he was aware of a
great pride in himself- a pride greater than any he had yet
experienced. He had killed man, the noblest game of all, and he had
killed in the face of the law of club and fang. He sniffed the
bodies curiously. They had died so easily. It was harder to kill a
husky dog than them. They were no match at all, were it not for
their arrows and spears and clubs. Thenceforward he would be
unafraid of them except when they bore in their hands their arrows,
spears, and clubs.
  Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the
sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day. And with the
coming of the night, brooding and mourning by the pool, Buck became
alive to a stirring of the new life in the forest other than that
which the Yeehats had made. He stood up, listening and scenting.
From far away drifted a faint, sharp yelp, followed by a chorus of
similar sharp yelps. As the moments passed the yelps grew closer and
louder. Again Buck knew them as things heard in that other world which
persisted in his memory. He walked to the centre of the open space and
listened. It was the call, the many-noted call, sounding more luringly
and compellingly than ever before. And as never before, he was ready
to obey. John Thornton was dead. The last tie was broken. Man and
the claims of man no longer bound him.
  Hunting their living meat, as the Yeehats were hunting it, on the
flanks of the migrating moose, the wolf pack had at last crossed
over from the land of streams and timber and invaded Buck's valley.
Into the clearing where the moonlight streamed, they poured in a
silvery flood; and in the centre of the clearing stood Buck,
motionless as a statue, waiting their coming. They were awed, so still
and large he stood, and a moment's pause fell, till the boldest one
leaped straight for him. Like a flash Buck struck, breaking the
neck. Then he stood, without movement, as before, the stricken wolf
rolling in agony behind him. Three others tried it in sharp
succession; and one after the other they drew back, streaming blood
from slashed throats or shoulders.
  This was sufficient to fling the whole pack forward, pell-mell,
crowded together, blocked and confused by its eagerness to pull down
the prey. Buck's marvellous quickness and agility stood him in good
stead. Pivoting on his hind legs, and snapping and gashing, he was
everywhere at once, presenting a front which was apparently unbroken
so swiftly did he whirl and guard from side to side. But to prevent
them from getting behind him, he was forced back, down past the pool
and into the creek bed, till he brought up against a high gravel bank.
He worked along to a right angle in the bank which the men had made in
the course of mining, and in this angle he came to bay, protected on
three sides and with nothing to do but face the front.
  And so well did he face it, that at the end of half an hour the
wolves drew back discomfited. The tongues of all were out and lolling,
the white fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight. Some were
lying down with heads raised and ears pricked forward; others stood on
their feet, watching him; and still others were lapping water from the
pool. One wolf, long and lean and grey, advanced cautiously, in a
friendly manner, and Buck recognised the wild brother with whom he had
run for a night and a day. He was whining softly and, as Buck
whined, they touched noses.
  Then an old wolf, gaunt and battle-scarred, came forward. Buck
writhed his lips into the preliminary of a snarl, but sniffed noses
with him. Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose at the moon,
and broke out the long wolf howl. The others sat down and howled.
And now the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents. He, too, sat
down and howled. This over, he came out of his angle and the pack
crowded around him, sniffing in half-friendly, half-savage manner. The
leaders lifted the yelp of the pack and sprang away into the woods.
The wolves swung in behind yelping in chorus. And Buck ran with
them, side by side with the wild brother, yelping as he ran.
  And here may well end the story of Buck. The years were not many
when the Yeehats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves; for
some were seen with splashes of brown on head and muzzle, and with a
rift of white centring down the chest. But more remarkable than
this, the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the
pack. They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater
than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters, robbing
their traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravest hunters.
  Nay, the tale grows worse. Hunters there are who fail to return to
the camp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen found
with throats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints about them in
the snow greater than the prints of any wolf. Each fall, when the
Yeehats follow the movement of the moose, there is a certain valley
which they never enter. And women there are who become sad when the
word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit came to select that
valley for an abiding-place.
  In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of
which the Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coated
wolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alone from
the smiling timber land and comes down into an open space among the
trees. Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose-hide sacks and
sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and
vegetable mould overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and
here he muses for a time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he
departs.
  But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on
and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be
seen running at the head of the pack, through the pale moonlight or
glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great
throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is
the song of the pack.

                             THE END