CORNELL UNIViERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF George H, Sabine Digitized by Microsoft® Cornell University Library PS 3523.058C15 1915 The call of the wild / 3 1924 021 763 549 Digitized by Microsoft® This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Corneii University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in iimited quantity for your personai purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partiai versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commerciai purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® THE CALL OF THE WILD Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® iUtistrated by PHILIP R.. GOODWIN and CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL ^ NEW YOB.ifC GROSSET& DUNLAP l/'Xfii ^?^^l PUBLISHERS li'**:-^VA\ PubSasIsod by Arraneemoni with THE MACMILLAN COMPANY i^lSSSHSiMliiK , Decoratsti by CHA^. EDW: HOOPEFo Digitized by Microsoft® Set up and electrotyped. Published July, i903> Reprinted July, August, September, December, X903; January, March, September, November, 1904; February, April, July, 1905; January, April, November, 1906; June, 1907; May, June, 1908; April, 1909; February, 1910; September, December^ IQii ; April, September, October, 1912. New edition May, September, xgicw October, i9iSf May, 1915. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® ' And beyond that fire . . . Buck could see many gleaming coals, two by two, always two by two." Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS Chapter I, Into the Primitive . 3 g II. The Law of Club and Fang m III, The Dominant Primordial Beast a IV. Who has won to Mastership .j h V. The Toil of Trace and Trail a VI. For the Love of a Man ^ a yil. The Sounding of the Cali, a Page 13 H 13 S ^ S7 a m s? SI m 91 EI m 111 B [•] .145 S B m Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® THE CALL OF THE WILD Into the Primitive " Old longings nomadic leap. Chafing at custom's chain ; Again from its brumal sleep Wakens the ferine strain." ^UCK 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 com.panies IS Digitized by Microsoft® i6 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 drive- ways which wound about through wide-spread- ing 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 outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE vf 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 &4»t 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 pro- tected 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 c Digitized by Microsoft® 1 8 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 foot- steps 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 creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's place, humans included. His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge's inseparable companio; , and Buck bid 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. Never- theless, one hundred and forty pounds, to which was added the dignity that comes of good living and universal respect, enabled him to carry him- self in right roya\ fashioiv. During the four years since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat ; he had a fine pride in him- self, was ever a trifle egotistical, as country Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 19 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 undesir- able acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting weak- ness — faith in a system ; and this made his damnation certain. For to play a system re- \ quires 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 metdng of the Raisin Growers' Association, and the boys were busy Digitized by Microsoft® 30 THE CALL OF THE WILD organizing 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 chinked 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 dig- nity. To be sure, it was an unwonted perform- ance : 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 growlrd menacingly. He had merely inti- mated his displeasure, in his pride believing that to intimate was to command. But to his Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 21 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 futile'y. 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, a'ld 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 a 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 nding in a baggage car. He opened his eyes, and into them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king. The man s^ang for his throat, but Buck was too Digitized by Microsoft® 22 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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* 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco. A crack dog-doctor there thinks that he can cure 'm." Concerning that night's ride, the man spoke most eloquently for himself. In a little shed back of a saloon on the San Franc'sco 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 hand- kerchief, 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 Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 23 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 th^ hydrophoby — " " It'll be because you was 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 tor- mentors. 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 cagelike 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 im- pending calamity. Several times during tiie Digitized by Microsoft® «4 THE CALL OF THE WILD aight he sprang to his feet when the shed dooi rattled open, expecting to see the Judge, or the boys at least. But each time it was the bulg- ing face of the saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of a tallow candle. \ And each time the joyfuJ bark that trembled; 5n 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 prompdy assdied with his teeth till he realized that that was what they wanted. Whereupon he lay down sullenly and allowed the crate to be lifted into a wagon. 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 wagon ; a truck carried him, with aa assortment of boxes and parcels, upon a ferry ; iteamer; he was trucked off the steamer into Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 25 t great railway depot, and finally he was de- posited in an express car. For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the tail of shrieking loco- motives; and for two days and nights Buck neither ate nor drank. In his anger he had met the first advances of the express mes- sengers 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 irfT his neck. That had given them an unfwr Digitized by Microsoft® 26 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 blood-shot, and he was metamorphosed into a raging fiend. So changed was he that the Judge himself would not have recognized him; and the express messengers breathed with relief when they bundled him oiF the train at Seattle. Four men gingerly carried the crate from the wagon into a small, high-walled back yard. 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. Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 17 •* 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, sink- ing his teeth into it, surging and wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on the out- side, 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 pas- sage 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 bris- tling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter in his blood- shot eyes. Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds of fury, sur- charged with the pent passion of two days and Digitized by Microsoft® 28 THE CALL OF THE WILD nights. In mid air, just as his jaws were .i)out to close on the man, he received a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip. He whirled over, fetch- ing 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 j 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 ad- I vanced and deliberately dealt him a frightful blew on the nose. All the pain he had endured^ was as nothing compared with the exquisit^ agony of this. With a roar that was almost lionlike in its ferocity, he again hurled himself' Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 29 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 down- ward and backward. _ Buck described a com- plete 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 with- held 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 wagon and started the horses. Bupk'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 soliloquized, quoting from the saloon-keeper's letter which had announced the consignment of the crate and contents. " Well, Buck, my Digitized by Microsoft® 30 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 '11 go well and the goose hang high. Be a bad dog, and I'll whale the stufBn' 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 him 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 after life he never forgot it. That club was a reve- ilation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introduction half- way. 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 Digitized by Microsoft® ' Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds of fury." Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 31 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 tlog, 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. Digitized by Microsoft® 32 THE CALL OF THE WILD Yet his time came. In the end, in the form of a little weazened man who spat broken English and many strange and uncouth excla- mations which Buck could not understand. " Sacredam ! " he cried, when his eyes lit upon Buck. " Dat one dam bully dog I Eh ? How moch?" •'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 un- wonted 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 Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 33 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- feced giant called Fran9ois. Perrault was a French-Canadian, and swarthy ; but Fran9ois 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 re- spect them. He speedily learned that Perrault and Fran9oIs were fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice, and too wise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs. In the 'tween-decks of the Narwhal, Buck I 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 latei accom- panied a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's face the while he meditated Digitized by Microsoft® 34 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 Fran9ois's whip sang through the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remained to Buck but to recover the bone. That was fair of Fran9ois, he decided, and the half-breed began his rise in Buck's estimation. The other dog made no advances, nor re- ceived 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 prew excited, half wild with fear, he iwised his head as though annoyed, favored them with an incurious glance, yawned, and went to sleep again. Digitized by Microsoft® INTO THE PRIMITIVE 35 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. Fran9ois leashed them and brought them on deck. At the first step upon the cold surface. Buck's feet sank into :. 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 lu9 first snow* Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® II THE LAW OF CLUB AND FANG Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® 11 The Law of Club and Fang BUCK'S first day on the Dyea beach was like a nightmare. Every hour was filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of ovilization 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 kw but the law of club and fang. 39 Digitized by Microsoft® 40 THE CALL OF THE WILD He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experi- ence taught him an unforgetable lesson. It \s true, it was a vicarious experience, else he would ngt 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 as she. There was no warning, only a leap tu like a Sash, 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 oflF her feet. She Digitized by Microsoft® THE LAW OF CLUB AND FANG 41 never regained them. This was what the on- looking huskies had jpaited for. Thejr 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 Fran9ois, swinging an axe, spring into the .^ess of d'gs. 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 hor- ribly. The scene often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the way. Na fairplay. 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. Digitized by Microsoft® 42 THE CALL OF THE WILD Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic passing of Curly, he received another shock. Fran9ois 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 Franfois on a sled to the forest that fringed the valley, and return- ing with 1 load of f^ewood. 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. Fran9ois wa:; stern, demanding iiistant obe- dience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant obedience ; while Dave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Buck's hind quar- ters whenever he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced, and while be 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 Digitized by Microsoft® iliE LAW OF CLUB AND FANG 43 easily, and under the combined tuition of his two mates and Fran9ois 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," Fran9ois told Perrault. " Dat Buck, !ieem pool lak hell I rich 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 wer" ^s 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 i and a malignant eye. Buck received them m comradely fashion, Dave ignored them, while Spitz proceeded to thrash first one and then the other. Billee wagged his tail appcas- iagly, turned to run when he saw that ap» Digitized by Microsoft® 44 THE CALL OF THE WILD ~ peasement was of eo avail, and cried (stili appeasingly) when Spitz's sharp teeth scored his flank. But no matter how Spitz circled^ Joe whirled around on his heels to face hinij 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 j 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 ~'*igle 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 hira alone. He had one peculiarity which Buck was unlucky snough to discover. He did not like to be Digitized by Microsoft® THE LAW OF CLUB AND FANG ,45 approached on his blind side. Of tWs ofFence Buck was unwittingly guilty, and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion was •iiyhea Sol-Ieks 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 s'ital ambition. That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent, illumined by a candlcj, glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain; and when he, as a matter of course, entered it, both Perrault and Fran9oIs bom- barded him with curses and cooking utensilsj till he recovered from his consternation and fled sgnominiously into the outer cold. A rhill wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with especial venom into his woxnded shoulder. He lay down on the snow and attempted to sleeps but the frost won drove Digitized by Microsoft® 46 THE CALL OF THE WILD &ira shivering to his feet. Miserable an^ disconsolate, he wandered about among the many tents, only to find that one place was , as cold as another. Here and there savage idogs 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 ocn team-mates were making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared. Again he wandered about through the great camp, looking for them, and again he returned. Were they in the tent? No, that could not be, else he would not have becB driven out. Then where could they possibly be ? With drooping tail and shivering bodyj, very forlorn indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave way beneath his fore legs and hs sank down. Something wriggled under his feeL He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to invesa- gate. A whiff of warm air ascended to tm Digitized by Microsoft® THE LAW OF CLUB AND FANG 47 aostrils, and there, curled up under the snow m a snug ball, lay Billee. He whined placat- ingly, squirmed and wriggled to show his good 'will and intentions, 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 spotj 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 jirduous, and he slept soundly and comfort- ably, though he growled and barked and wresded with bad dreams. Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the fioises of the waking camp. At first he did act know where he was. It had snowed dur- ing the night and he was completely buried. The snow walls pressed him on every side, and a great surge of fear swept through him —- dj«e fear of the wild thing for the trap. '^ c was s token that he was harking back through M^ &wn ife to the lives of his forb'^drs ; for h^ ^u^skies,, there was no hope for him. But is>& brdced himself to tlie shock of Spitz'^8 ::AiargC; ihen joined the flight out ou the ^akft. Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 67 Later, the nine team-dogs gathered together and sought shelter in the forest. Though unpursued, they were in a sorry plight. There was not one who was not wounded in four or five places, while some were wounded griev- ously. 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 day- break 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 coverings. 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 Fran9ois's whip. He broke from a mournful contemplation of it to look over his wounded dogs. " Ah, my frien's," he said softly, " mebbe Digitized by Microsoft® 68 THE CALL OF THE WILD it mek you mad dog, dose many bites. Mebbe all mad dog, sacredam 1 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 harnesses into shape, and the wound-stiifened 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 Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 69 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 ';ompelled 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, drag- ging the whole team after him up to Buck, who strained backward with all his strength. Digitized by Microsoft® 70 THE CALL OF THE WILD his fore paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering and snapping all around. But behind him was Dave, likewise straining back- ward, and behind the sled was Fran9ois, pulling till his tendons cracked. Again, the rim ice broke away before and behind, and there was no escape except up the cliiF. 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. Fran9ois 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 hke 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 Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 71 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 Franfois had to bring to him. Also, the dog-driver rubbed Buck's feet for half an hour each night after supper, and sacrificed the tops 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 Fran9ois forgot the moccasins and Buck lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused to budge with- out 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 72 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 bris- tling 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. Fran9ois 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 Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 73 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, ex- hausted, sobbing for breath, helpless. This was Spitz's opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice his teeth sank into his un- resisting foe and ripped and tore the flesh to the bone. Then Fran9ois's lash descended, and Buck had the satisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet administered to any of the team. " One devil, dat Spitz," remarked Perrault. "Some dam day heem keel dat Buck." "Dat Buck two devils," was Fran9ois*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 Digitized by Microsoft® 74 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 fro«tj and starvation. Buck was the exception. He alone endured and prospered, matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunn"ng. 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 preeminently cunning, and could bide his time with a patience that was nothing less than primitive. It was inevitable that the clash for leader- ship 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 Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 75 he pulled with all his strength ; the pride that laiti hold of them at break of camp, trans- forming 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 leader- ship. He came between him and the shirks he should have punished. And he did it deliberately. One night th re was a heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike, the malin- gerei, did not appear. He was securely hid- den in his nest under a foot of snow. Fran9oIs called him and sought him in vain. Spitz was wild with wrath. He raged through the camp, smelling and digging in every likely a Digitized by Microsoft® 76 THE CALL OF THE WILD place, snarling so frightfully tiiat 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 fairplay was a forgotten code, likewise sprang upon Spitz. But Fran9ois, chuckling at the inci- dent 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 wffend- ing Pike. In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer. Buck still continued to inter- fere between Spitz and the culprits; but he Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 11 did it craftily, when Fran9ois was not around. With the covert mutiny of Buck, a general in- subordination 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 after- noon with the great fight still to come. Here were many men, and countless dogs, and Buck found them all at work. It seemed the or- dained 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 Digitized by Microsoft® n THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 nine, 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 wail- ings 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 'With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead.' Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 79 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 mys- tery. 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 ur- gent 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 favored 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 Vv'as packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the police had ar- ranged in tv/o 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 80 THE CALL OF THE WILD them booming up the Yukon well on their way to Pelly. But such splendid running was achieved not without great trouble and vexa- tion on the part of Fran9ois. 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 misdemeanors. 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 pro- tection of Buck. Another night Dub and Joe fought Spitz and made him forego the punish- ment 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 Digitized by Microsoft® DO./iINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 81 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. Fran9ois 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 'ta.ck.ed up the remainder of the team. Fran- 9ois 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 rab- bit, blundered it, and missed. In a second the whole team was in full cry. A hundred yards Digitized by Microsoft® 82 THE CALL OF THE WILD away was a camp of the Northwest Policy 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 sound- ing 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, ranning the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood. Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANi rr.IMORDIAL BEAST 83' 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, sound- ing 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 move- ment, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move. Digitized by Microsoft® 84 THE CALL OF ^rHt WILD But SpitZj 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' 5 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 'chough he had not betrv overthrown, slashing Buck down the shoulder ai d leaping clear. Twice his teeth dipped together, like the steel jaws of a trap, as he backed away for better foot- Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 85 ing, 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 wirfi a sense of familiarity. -He seemed to re- member 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 a'" — 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 snowshoe 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 Spitz- bergen through the Arctic, and across Canada Digitized by Microsoft® 86 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 pas- sion to rend and destroy. He never rushed till he was prepared to receive a rush ; never attacked till he had first defended that at- tack. 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 wr'-e 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 whirl- wind 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 Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL REAST ^ by which to overthrow him. Bat instead. Buck's shoulder was slashed down each tune as Spitz leaped lightly away. Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood and panting hard. The fight was growing deeperate. And all the while the silent and wolfish ircle waited to finish oflT' whicherer 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 drcle sank down again and waited. But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness — imagination. He fought by in- stinct, 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 &ced him on three legs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated the trick and broke the right fore leg. Digitized by Microsoft® 88 THE CALL OF THE WILD Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitz strug* gled 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 oiF im- pending death. Then Buck sprang in and out ; but while he was in, shoulder had at last squarely met shoulder. The dark circle be- came a dot on the moon-flooded snow as Digitized by Microsoft® DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST 89 Spitz disappeared from view. Buck stood and looked on, the successful champion, the domi- nant primordial beast who had made his kill and found it good* Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® IV WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® IV Who has won to Mastership **1~^H? Wot I say? I spik true w'en S m^ say dat Buck two devils." This was Fran9ois'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 Fran5ois'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 Fran9ois, not noticing him, brought SoUeks Digitized by Microsoft® ^ THE CALL OF THE WILD to the coveted position. In his judgmeaf, Sol-leks was the best lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-Ieks in a fury, driving him back and standing in his place. **Eh? eh?" Fran9ois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. ** Look at dat Buck. Heem keel dat Spitz, heem 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 threateniugly, 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. Fran9ois was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck again displaced Sol-leks, who was not at aU 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 ; nor did he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more brought forward. But he circled just Digitized by Microsoft® WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP 95 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 Fran9ois, for he was become wise in the \ way of clubs. The driver went about his work, and he called to Buck when he was ready to put him in his old place in front of Dave. Buck re- treated two or three steps. Fran9ois followed him up, whereupon he again retreated. After some time of this, Fran9ois threw down the club, thinking that Buck feared a thrashingo 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 houro 1 hey threw clubs at him. He dodged. They cursed him, and his fathers 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 j an^ Digitized by Microsoft® 96 THE CALL OF THE WILD 9te answered curse with snarl and kept out of their reach. He did not try to run away, buS retreated around and around the camp, adver- tising plainly that when his desire was met, he, would come in and be good. Fran9ois 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. Fran9ois scratched his head again. He shook it and grinned sheep- ishly at the courier, who shrugged Kti shoul- ders in sign that they were beaten. Then Fran9ois went up to where Sol-Ieks stiiod and called to Buck. Buck laughed, as dogfc laugh, yet kept his distance. Fran9ois unfaatened 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 traxL There was no place for Buck save at the front Ones more Fran9ois called, and once mors Buck laughed and kept away. ** T'row down de club," Penault commanded. Fran9ois complied, whereupon Buck trotts?! In, laughing triumphantly, and swung around Digitized by Microsoft® WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP 97 into position at the head of the team. His traces were fastened, the sled broken out, and ^reakable about them. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL 125 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, how- ever, 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 126 THE CALL OF THE WILL> he had covered the distance between Stilt 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 de- pending 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 thev succeed in making more than half the distance used by the men as a basis in thdr dog-food computation. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TOIL OK TRACE AND TRAIL 1^ It was inevitable that they should go short on dog-food. But they hastened it by oveiP" 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 k iWas 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 underfeeding. Hal awoke ©ne day to the fact that his dog-food was half gone and the distance only quarter covered; fijrther, 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 128 THE CALL OF THE WILD the day's travel. His sister and brother-in-la^ 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, un- treated and unrestedj 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 tc life, but going in the end. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL 129 By this time all the amenities and gentle- nesses 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 tliese two men and the woman. They had no ink- ling of such a patience. They were stiff md 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 Mer- cedes gave them a chance. It was the cher* Digitized by Microsoft® %30 THE CALL OF THE WILD ished belief of each that he did more than his share or the work, and neither forbore to speak this belief at every opportunity. Some- times Mercedes sided with her husband, some<= times with her brother. The result was s. beautiful and unending family quarrel. Starfr' ing from a dispute as to which should chop a few sticks for the fire (a dispute whidi 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 wnj's^ should have anything to do with the chopping of a few sticks of firewood, passes compre- hen^on ; neverthless the quarrel was as liketf. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TOIL OF TRACE AND TKAIL UX to tend in that direction as in the.dirertion of Charles's political prejudices. And that Charles's sister's tale-bearing tongue should |l)e relevant to the building of a Yukon fire^ was apparent only to Mercedes, who disbur- dened herself of copious opinions upon that topicj 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 Wrievance of 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 com- Digitized by Microsoft® I32 THE CALL OF THE WILD plained. 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 Husty last straw to the 'oad 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 off 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 pilous to the suffering of their animals. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL 133 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 ':t 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 galvanized 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 no longer puii^ he fell down and remained down till blows from whip or club drove him to his feet again. All the stiffness and gloss had gone out of his beautiful furry coafe e. Digitized by Microsoft® 134 THE CALL OF THE WILD The hair hung down, limp and draggled, o8 matted with dried blood where Hal's club had bruised him. His muscles had wasted away to knotty strings, and the flesh pad* had disappeared, so that each rib and every bone in his frame were outlinec 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 bearing 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 wuich 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. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL 135 And when the dub or whip fell upon thena, 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 malignjint ; Pike, crippled and limping, only half conscious and not conscious enough longer to malinger; Sol-Ieks, 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 j 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 traSI Digitized by Microsoft® 136 THE CALL OF THE WILD by the loom of it and by the dim feel of h» feet. .t 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 twi- light 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. This 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 wood- peckers were booming and knocking in the forest. Squirrels were chattering, birds sing- ang, and overhead honked the wild-fowl driving Digitized by Microsoft® THE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL 137 up from the south in cunning wedges that split the air. From every h'll 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 Chafles's eyes wistfully watering, they stag- gered 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 158 THE CALL OF THE WILD slowly and painstakingly what of his greaf. stiffness. Hal did the talking. John Thorn- Ion was whittling the last touches on an axe- handle he had made from a stick of birch. He whittled and listened, gave monosyllabic replies, and, when it vas asked, terse advice. He knew the breed, and he gave his advice in the certainty that it would not be foU Sowed. "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 tri' umph in it. " And they told you tru£,"" John Thonitoo answered. "The bottom's likely to drop ouJ iit any moment. Only fools, with the blind Juck 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 sup" Digitized by Microsoft® rHE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL 139 pose,'* said Hal. " AH the same, we'll go on to Dawson.** He uncoiled his whip. " Get up there, Buck! Hi! Get up there! Mushon!*° Thornton went on whittling. It was idle^ fle knew, to get between a fool and his folly 5 while two or three fools more or less would not alter the scheme of tilings. But the team did not get up at the com- mand. It had long since passed into the stage where blows were required to rouse it. The whip flashed out, here and there, on its merci- less errands. John Thornton compressed his lips. Sol-leks 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 fallenc The lash bit into him again and again, but be 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 walked irresolutely up and down. Digitized by Microsoft® 140 THE CALL OF THE WILD Tills was the first time Buck had failed, in itself a sufficient reason to drive Hal into a rage. He exchanged the whip for the custom- ary club. Buck refused to move under the , rain of heavier blows which now fell upon him. Like h:3 mates, he was barely able to get up» but, unlike them, be had made up his mind not to get up. He had a vague feeling of im~ pending 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 Digitized by Microsoft® IHE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL 141 af the dub upon his body. But it WaS no longer his body, it seemed so far away. And then, suddenly, without warning, utter- 'ing 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, wiped 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 mani- Digitized by Microsoft® 1^ THE ©ALL OF THiE WHLD fested tfie shaotk abandomnent ol kysteana. Thornton rapped Hal's knuckle® 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 hitn- self, 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 Teck. They were limping and stag- gering. Mercedes was riding the loaded sled. Hal guided at the gee-pole, and Charles stum- bled 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 'John Thornton and Buck looked at each other." Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® TBE TOIL OF TRACE AND TRAIL 143 man watched it crawling along over the icco Suddenly, they saw its back end drop downg as into a rut, and the gee-pole, with Hal cling-' ing 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 give way and dogs and humans disappear. A yawning hole was ah tliat was to be seen. The bottom had dropped out of the trail. John Thornton ano Buck looked at eaci'. other **You poor devil,*" said John Thornt»j> and Buck licked his hand. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® VI fX)B THE LOVE OF A MAN Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® VI For the Love of a Man WHEN John Thornton froze his fee« in the previous December, his part- ners 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 con- tinued warm weather even the slight limp left him. And here, lying by the river bank through the long spring days, watching the run- ning 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 hag travelled three thousand miles, and it must be confessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed, his muscles swelled out^ and M 147 Digitized by Microsoft® 148 IHE CALL OF THE WILD ihe flesh came back to cover his bones. FoJ ihat matter, they were all loafing,- — Buckj 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 Thorn- ton'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 ao jealousy toward him. They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John I'hornton. As Buck grew stronger they en- ticed him into all sorts of ridiculous games, in which Thornton himself could not forbear Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 149 to join J and in this fashion Buck romped fthrough 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. W^ith the Judge's sons, hunting and tramping, it had been a working partnership; with the Judge's grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianships and with the Judge himself, a stately and dig- nified friendship. But love that was feverish and burning, that was adoration, that was mad- ness, 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 150 THE CALL OF THE WILD head roughly between his hands, and restiiig 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 sound, and in that fashion remained 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 the 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 lova was expressed in adoration. While he went wild with happineM when Thornton toached Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN ISl Slim or spoke to hlnij he did not seek thest 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 fea- ture. Or, as chance might have it, he would He 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 at again. Buck would follow at lus Digitized by Microsoft® 152 THE CALL OF THE WILD heels. His transient masters since he had come into the Northland had bred in him a fear that no master could be permanent. He was afraid that Thornton would pass out of his life as Perrault and Fran9ois and the Scotch half-breed had passed out. Even in the nighty 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 civilizing 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 j yet he retained his wildness and wiliness. He Was a thing of the wild, come in from the wild ^.o sit by John Thornton's fire, rather than a dog of the soft Southland stamped with the marks of generations of civilization. Because of his very great love, he could not steal from this man, but from any other man, in any Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 153 other camp, he did not hesitate an instant j while the cunning with which he stole enabled him to escape detection. His fare 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 valor, swiftly acknowledged Buck's supremacy or found him- self struggling fo? life with a terrible antagonist. And Juck was merciless. He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a he 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 weak- ness. 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 man« 4ate,down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed. Digitized by Microsoft® 154 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 migb^y rhythm to which he swayed as the tides and seasons swayed. He sat b^ 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 savor of the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank, scenting the wind witn 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 be- yond 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 -iS often as he heard this call, mysteriously tlirilling and Ini-ing, he felt compelled to turn his back upon Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 155 the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why ; nor did he wonder where or (vhy, 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 undo* it all, and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away. When Thorn- ton's partners, Hans and Pete, arrived on the long-expected raft, Buck refused to notice them till he learned they were close to Thorn- ton ; after that he tolerated them in a passive sort of way, accepting favors from them as though he favored them by accepting. They were of the same large type as Thornton, liv- ing 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 156 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 cliiF which fell away, straight down, to naked bed-rock three hundred feet below. John Thornton was sit- ting 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 h Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 157 jtpJe.idid, and it is terrible, too. Do you know, it sometimes makes me afraid." " l*m not hankering to be the man that lays hands on you while he's around," Pete an- nounced conclusively, nodding his head toward Buck. " Py Jingo ! " was Hans's contribution. " Not mineself either." It was at Circle City, ere the year was out, that Pete's apprehensions were realized. " 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 clutch- ing 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 158 THE CALL OF THE WILD Burton's tkroat. 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' meet- ing," called on the spot, decided that the dog had sufficient provocation, and Buck was dis- charged. 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 Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 159 Thornton remained in the boat, helping its 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 oiF 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 sud- ' enly. The boat flirted over and snubbed in 10 the bank bottom up, while Thornton, flung 'heer out of it, was carried down-stream toward e worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wild vater in which no swimmer could live. Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at rfie 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. Digitized by Microsoft® 160 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 Thorn- ton'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 po9« sible and destruction began. Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 161 They knew that the time a man could cling So 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 latCj, when Thornton was abreast of him and a bars half-dozen strokes away while he was being carried helple-^dly 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 them- selves upon him, pounding the breath into him and the water out of him. He staggered N Digitized by Microsoft® 162 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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, thev knew that he was in his extremity. His mas- ter'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 agam he struck out, but this time straight into the stream. He had mis- calculated 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 vvas on a line straight above Thornton; then he turned, and with the speed of an express train headed down upon him. Thornton saw him com- ing, and, as Buck struck him like a battering iram, with the whole force of the current be- hind 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. Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 163 Strangling, suffocating, sometimes one upper- most 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." And camp they did, till Buck's ribs kni'^-ted and he was able to travel. That winter, ^t 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 164 THE CALL OF THE WILD 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 favorite dogs. Buck, because of bis 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 hjj dog ; and a thirds 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 de- liberately, so that all could hear, " I've got a thousand dollars that says he can't. And Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 165 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 5 " 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 166 THE CALL OF THE WILD to find the thing that will start it going agaia The face of Jim O'Brien, a Mastodon King and old-time comrade, caught his eyes. It was as a cue to him, seeming to rouse hira 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, Johii, that the beast can do the trick." The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see the test. T'he tables were deserted, and the dealers and gamekeepers came forth to see the outcome of the wager isnd to lay odds. Several hundred men, furred and mittened, banked around the sled within easy distance. Matthewson's sled, ioaded 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 Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN \& 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. Mat-' thewson 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 favor, 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 j 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. Mat- thewson waxed jubilant. " Three to one 1 " he proclaimed. ** V^ 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 Digitized by Microsoft® 168 THE CALL OF THE WILD fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails t« recognize the impossible, and is deaf to ali save the clamor 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 at his splendid ap- pearance went up. He was in perfect condi- tion, without an ounce of superfluous fleshy 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 >'xce«« of vigor mads Digitized by Microsoft® FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN 169 gach 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 under neath the skin. Men felt these muscles and proclaiu.ed 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 Skookura Benches. " I offer you eight hundred fol him, sir, before the test, sir ; eight hundred just as he stands." Thornton shook his head and stepped t@ Buck's side. " You must stand off from him," Matthew-* son 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. Hi Digitized by Microsoft® 170 THE CALL OF THE WILD took his head in his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses ; but he whispered in his ear. ** A* you loA'^e me. Buck. As you Iotc me," was what he whispered. Buck whined «-'th sup pressed 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, tiien slacked them for a matter of several inches. It was the way he had learned. " Gee ! " Thornton's voice rang out, sharji In the tense silence. Buck swung to the right, ending the move' went in a plunge that took up the slack an