THE CALL OF THE WILD

                                 by Jack London

                        CHAPTER ONE 

                     Into the Primitive 

                 Old longings nomadic leap 

                   Chafing at customs chain 

                 Again from its brumal sleep

                   Wakens the ferine strain 

  BUCK DID NOT READ THE newspapers  or he would have known that
trouble was brewing not alone for himself  but for every tide water
dog  strong of muscle and with warm  long hair  from Puget Sound to
San Diego  Because men  groping in the Arctic darkness  had found a
yellow metal  and because steamship and transportation companies
were booming the find  thousands of men were rushing into the
Northland  These men wanted dogs  and the dogs they wanted were
heavy dogs  with strong muscles by which to toil and furry coats to
protect them from the frost 

  Buck lived at a big house in the sun kissed Santa Clara Valley 
Judge Millers place  it was called  It stood back from the road  half
hidden among the trees  through which glimpses could be caught of
the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides  The house was
approached by gravelled driveways which wound about through
widespreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall
poplars  At the rear things were on even a more spacious scale than at
the front  There were great stables  where a dozen grooms and boys
held forth  rows of vine clad servants cottages  an endless and
orderly array of out houses  long grape arbours  green pastures 
orchards  and berry patches  Then there was the pumping plant for
the artesian well  and the big cement tank where Judge Millers boys
took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon 

  And over this great demesne Buck ruled  Here he was born  and here
he had lived the four years of his life  It was true  there were other
dogs  There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place  but they
did not count  They came and went  resided in the populous kennels  or
lived obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of
Toots  the Japanese pug  or Ysabel  the Mexican hairless strange
creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground 
On the other hand  there were the fox terriers  a score of them at
least  who yelped fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out
of the windows at them and protected by a legion of housemaids armed
with brooms and mops 

  But Buck was neither house dog nor kennel dog  The whole realm was
his  He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the
Judges sons  he escorted Mollie and Alice  the Judges daughters 
on long twilight or early morning rambles  on wintry nights he lay
at the Judges feet before the roaring library fire  he carried the
Judges grandsons on his back  or rolled them in the grass  and
guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain
in the stable yard  and even beyond  where the paddocks were  and
the berry patches  Among the terriers he stalked imperiously  and
Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored  for he was king king over all
the creeping  crawling  flying things of Judge Millers place 
humans included 

  His father  Elmo  a huge St  Bernard  had been the Judges
inseparable companion and Buck did fair to follow in the way of his
father  He was not so large he weighed only one hundred and forty
pounds for his mother  Shep  had been a Scotch shepherd dog 
Nevertheless  one hundred and forty pounds  to which was added the
dignity that comes of good living and universal respect  enabled him
to carry himself in right royal fashion  During the four years since
his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat  he had a
fine pride in himself  was ever a trifle egotistical  as country
gentlemen sometimes become because of their insular situation  But
he had saved himself by not becoming a mere pampered house dog 
Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat and
hardened his muscles  and to him  as to the cold tubbing races  the
love of water had been a tonic and a health preserver 

  And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of   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 gardeners helpers  was an undesirable
acquaintance  Manuel had one besetting sin  He loved to play Chinese
lottery  Also  in his gambling  he had one besetting weakness faith
in a system  and this made his damnation certain  For to play a system
requires money  while the wages of a gardeners helper do not lap over
the needs of a wife and numerous progeny 

  The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers Association  and
the boys were busy organising an athletic club  on the memorable night
of Manuels treachery  No one saw him and Buck go off through the
orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll  And with the
exception of a solitary man  no one saw them arrive at the little flag
station known as College Park  This man talked with Manuel  and
money clinked between them 

  You might wrap up the goods before you deliver m  the stranger
said gruffly  and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around Bucks
neck under the collar 

  Twist it  an youll choke m plentee  said Manuel  and the
stranger grunted a ready affirmative 

  Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity  To be sure  it was an
unwonted performance but he had learned to trust in men he knew 
and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own  But when
the ends of the rope were placed in the strangers hands  he growled
menacingly  He had merely intimated his displeasure  in his pride
believing that to intimate was to command  But to his surprise the
rope tightened around his neck  shutting off his breath  In quick rage
he sprang at the man  who met him halfway  grappled him close by the
throat  and with a deft twist threw him over on his back  Then the
rope tightened mercilessly  while Buck struggled in a fury  his tongue
lolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely  Never
in all his life had he been so vilely treated  and never in all his
life had he been so angry  But his strength ebbed  his eyes glazed 
and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two men threw
him into the baggage car 

  The next he knew  he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting and
that he was being jolted along in some kind of conveyance  The
hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing told him where he
was  He had travelled too often with the Judge not to know the
sensation of riding in a baggage car  He opened his eyes  and into
them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king  The man sprang
for his throat  but Buck was too quick for him  His jaws closed on the
hand  nor did they relax till his senses were choked out of him once
more 

  Yep  has fits  the man said  hiding his mangled hand from the
baggageman  who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle  Im
takin im up for the boss to Frisco  A crack dog doctor there thinks
that he can cure im 

  Concerning that nights ride the man spoke most eloquently for
himself  in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco
water front 

  All I get is fifty for it  he grumbled  an I wouldnt do it over
for a thousand  cold cash 

  His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief  and the right trouser
leg was ripped from knee to ankle 

  How much did the other mug get  the saloon keeper demanded 

  A hundred  was the reply  Wouldnt take a sou less  so help me 

  That makes a hundred and fifty  the saloon keeper calculated  and
hes worth it  or Im a squarehead 

  The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his lacerated
hand  If I dont get the hydrophoby 

  Itll be because you were born to hang  laughed the saloon keeper 
Here  lend me a hand before you pull your freight  he added 

  Dazed  suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue  with the
life half throttled out of him  Buck attempted to face his tormentors 
But he was thrown down and choked repeatedly  till they succeeded in
filing the heavy brass collar from off his neck  Then the rope was
removed  and he was flung into a cage like crate 

  There he lay for the remainder of the weary night  nursing his wrath
and wounded pride  He could not understand what it all meant  What did
they want with him  these strange men  Why were they keeping him
pent up in this narrow crate  He did not know why  but he felt
oppressed by the vague sense of impending calamity  Several times
during the night he sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled
open  expecting to see the Judge  or the boys at least  But each
time it was the bulging face of the saloon keeper that peered in at
him by the sickly light of a tallow candle  And each time the joyful
bark that trembled in Bucks throat was twisted into a savage growl 

  But the saloon keeper let him alone  and in the morning four men
entered and picked up the crate  More tormentors  Buck decided  for
they were evil looking creatures  ragged and unkempt  and he stormed
and raged at them through the bars  They only laughed and poked sticks
at him  which he promptly assailed with his teeth till he realised
that that was what they wanted  Whereupon he lay down sullenly and
allowed the crate to be lifted into a waggon  Then he  and the crate
in which he was imprisoned  began a passage through many hands  Clerks
in the express office took charge of him  he was carted about in
another waggon  a truck carried him  with an assortment of boxes and
parcels  upon a ferry steamer  he was trucked off the steamer into a
great railway depot  and finally he was deposited in an express car 

  For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the
tail of shrieking locomotives  and for two days and nights Buck
neither ate nor drank  In his anger he had met the first advances of
the express messengers with growls  and they had retaliated by teasing
him  When he flung himself against the bars  quivering and frothing 
they laughed at him and taunted him  They growled and barked like
detestable dogs  mewed  and flapped their arms and crowed  It was
all very silly  he knew  but therefore the more outrage to his
dignity  and his anger waxed and waxed  He did not mind the hunger
so much  but the lack of water caused him severe suffering and
fanned his wrath to fever pitch  For that matter  high strung and
finely sensitive  the ill treatment had flung him into a fever 
which was fed by the inflammation of his parched and swollen throat
and tongue 

  He was glad for one thing the rope was off his neck  That had given
them an unfair advantage  but now that it was off  he would show them 
They would never get another rope around his neck  Upon that he was
resolved  For two days and nights he neither ate nor drank  and during
those two days and nights of torment  he accumulated a fund of wrath
that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him  His eyes turned
bloodshot  and he was metamorphosed into a raging fiend  So changed
was he that the Judge himself would not have recognised him  and the
express messengers breathed with relief when they bundled him off
the train at Seattle 

  Four men gingerly carried the crate from the waggon into a small 
high walled backyard  A stout man  with a red sweater that sagged
generously at the neck  came out and signed the book for the driver 
That was the man  Buck divined  the next tormentor  and he hurled
himself savagely against the bars  The man smiled grimly  and
brought a hatchet and a club 

  You aint going to take him out now  the driver asked 

  Sure  the man replied  driving the hatchet into the crate for a
pry 

  There was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who had
carried it in  and from safe perches on top the wall they prepared
to watch the performance 

  Buck rushed at the splintering wood  sinking his teeth into it 
surging and wrestling with it  Wherever the hatchet fell on the
outside  he was there on the inside  snarling and growling  as
furiously anxious to get out as the man in the red sweater was
calmly intent on getting him out 

  Now  you red eyed devil  he said  when he had made an opening
sufficient for the passage of Bucks body  At the same time he dropped
the hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand 

  And Buck was truly a red eyed devil  as he drew himself together for
the spring  hair bristling  mouth foaming  a mad glitter in his
bloodshot eyes  Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and
forty pounds of fury  surcharged with the pent passion of two days and
nights  In mid air  just as his jaws were about to close on the man 
he received a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth
together with an agonising clip  He whirled over  fetching the
ground on his back and side  He had never been struck by a club in his
life  and did not understand  With a snarl that was part bark and more
scream he was again on his feet and launched into the air  And again
the shock came and he was brought crushingly to the ground  This
time he was aware that it was the club  but his madness knew no
caution  A dozen times he charged  and as often the club broke the
charge and smashed him down 

  After a particularly fierce blow  he crawled to his feet  too
dazed to rush  He staggered limply about  the blood flowing from
nose and mouth and ears  his beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with
bloody slaver  Then the man advanced and deliberately dealt him a
frightful blow on the nose  All the pain he had endured was as nothing
compared with the exquisite agony of this  With a roar that was almost
lionlike in its ferocity  he again hurled himself at the man  But
the man  shifting the club from right to left  coolly caught him by
the under jaw  at the same time wrenching downward and backward 
Buck described a complete circle in the air  and half of another  then
crashed to the ground on his head and chest 

  For the last time he rushed  The man struck the shrewd blow he had
purposely withheld for so long  and Buck crumpled up and went down 
knocked utterly senseless 

  Hes no slouch at dog breakin  thats wot I say  one of the men
on the wall cried enthusiastically 

  Druther break cayuses any day  and twice on Sundays  was the reply
of the driver  as he climbed on the waggon and started the horses 

  Bucks senses came back to him  but not his strength  He lay where
he had fallen  and from there he watched the man in the red sweater 

  Answers to the name of Buck  the man soliloquised  quoting
from the saloon keepers letter which had announced the consignment of
the crate and contents  Well  Buck  my boy  he went on in a genial
voice  weve had our little ruction  and the best thing we can do
is to let it go at that  Youve learned your place  and I know mine 
Be a good dog  and all ll go well and the goose hang high  Be a bad
dog  and Ill whale the stuffin outa you  Understand 

  As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilessly
pounded  and though Bucks hair involuntarily bristled at touch of the
hand  he endured it without protest  When the man brought water he
drank eagerly  and later bolted a generous meal of raw meat  chunk
by chunk  from the mans hand 

  He was beaten  he knew that   but he was not broken  He saw  once
for all  that he stood no chance against a man with a club  He had
learned the lesson  and in all his afterlife he never forgot it 
That club was a revelation  It was his introduction to the reign of
primitive law  and he met the introduction halfway  The facts of
life took on a fiercer aspect  and while he faced that aspect uncowed 
he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused  As
the days went by  other dogs came in crates and at the ends of
ropes  some docilely  and some raging and roaring as he had come  and 
one and all  he watched them pass under the dominion of the man in the
red sweater  Again and again  as he looked at each brutal performance 
the lesson was driven home to Buck a man with a club was a
lawgiver  a master to be obeyed  though not necessarily conciliated 
Of this last Buck was never guilty  though he did see beaten dogs that
fawned upon the man  and wagged their tails  and licked his hand  Also
he saw one dog  that would neither conciliate nor obey  finally killed
in the struggle for mastery 

  Now and again men came  strangers  who talked excitedly 
wheedlingly  and in all kinds of fashions to the man in the red
sweater  And at such times that money passed between them the
strangers took one or more of the dogs away with them  Buck wondered
where they went  for they never came back  but the fear of the
future was strong upon him  and he was glad each time when he was
not selected 

  Yet his time came  in the end  in the form of a little weazened
man who spat broken English and many strange and uncouth
exclamations which Buck could not understand 

  Sacredam  he cried  when his eyes lit upon Buck  Dat one dam
bully dog  Eh  How much 

  Three hundred  and a present at that  was the prompt reply of
the man in the red sweater  And seein its government money  you
aint got no kick coming  eh  Perrault 

  Perrault grinned  Considering that the price of dogs had been boomed
skyward by the unwonted demand  it was not an unfair sum for so fine
an animal  The Canadian Government would be no loser  nor would its
despatches travel the slower  Perrault knew dogs  and when he looked
at Buck he knew that he was one in a thousand One in ten
tousand  he commented mentally 

  Buck saw money pass between them  and was not surprised when
Curly  a good natured Newfoundland  and he were led away by the little
weazened man  That was the last he saw of the man in the red
sweater  and as Curly and he looked at receding Seattle from the
deck of the Narwhal  it was the last he saw of the warm Southland 
Curly and he were taken below by Perrault and turned over to a
black faced giant called Francois  Perrault was a French Canadian  and
swarthy  but Francois was a French Canadian half breed  and twice as
swarthy  They were a new kind of men to Buck  of which he was destined
to see many more   and while he developed no affection for them  he
none the less grew honestly to respect them  He speedily learned
that Perrault and Francois were fair men  calm and impartial in
administering justice  and too wise in the way of dogs to be ever
fooled by dogs 

  In the tween decks of the Narwhal  Buck and Curly joined two
other dogs  One of them was a big  snow white fellow from
Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain  and who
had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens 

  He was friendly  in a treacherous sort of way  smiling into ones
face the while he meditated some underhand trick  as  for instance 
when he stole from Bucks food at the first meal  As Buck sprang to
punish him  the lash of Francois whip sang through the air  reaching
the culprit first  and nothing remained to Buck but to recover the
bone  That was fair of Francois  he decided  and the half breed
began to rise in Bucks estimation 

  The other dog made no advance  nor received any  also  he did not
attempt to steal from the newcomers  He was a gloomy  morose fellow 
and he showed Curly plainly that all he desired was to be left
alone  and further  that there would be trouble if he were not left
alone  Dave he was called  and he ate and slept  or yawned between
times  and took interest in nothing  not even when the Narwhal crossed
Queen Charlotte Sound and rolled and pitched and bucked like a thing
possessed  When Buck and Curly grew excited  half wild with fear  he
raised his head as though annoyed  favoured them with an incurious
glance  yawned  and went to sleep again 

  Day and night the ship throbbed to the tireless pulse of the
propeller  and though one day was very like another  it was apparent
to Buck that the weather was steadily growing colder  At last  one
morning  the propeller was quiet  and the Narwhal was pervaded with an
atmosphere of excitement  He felt it  as did the other dogs  and
knew that a change was at hand  Francois leashed them and brought them
on deck  At the first step upon the cold surface  Bucks feet sank
into a white mushy something very like mud  He sprang back with a
snort  More of this white stuff was falling through the air  He
shook himself  but more of it fell upon him  He sniffed it
curiously  then licked some up on his tongue  It bit like fire  and
the next instant was gone  This puzzled him  He tried it again  with
the same result  The onlookers laughed uproariously  and he felt
ashamed  he knew not why  for it was his first snow 

                        CHAPTER TWO 

                  The Law of Club and Fang 

  BUCKS FIRST DAY ON THE Dyea bach was like a nightmare  Every hour
was filled with shock and surprise  He had been suddenly jerked from
the heart of civilisation and flung into the heart of things
primordial  No lazy  sun kissed life was this  with nothing to do
but loaf and be bored  Here was neither peace  nor rest  nor a
moments safety  All was confusion and action  and every moment life
and limb were in peril  There was imperative need to be constantly
alert  for these dogs and men were not town dogs and men  They were
savages  all of them  who knew no law but the law of club and fang 

  He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought 
and his first experience taught him an unforgettable lesson  It is
true  it was a vicarious experience  else he would not have lived to
profit by it  Curly was the victim  They were camped near the log
store  where she  in her friendly way  made advances to a husky dog
the size of a full grown wolf  though not half so large she  There was
no warning  only a leap in like a flash  a metallic clip of teeth  a
leap out equally swift  and Curlys face was ripped open from eye to
jaw 

  It was the wolf manner of fighting  to strike and leap away  but
there was more to it than this  Thirty or forty huskies ran to the
spot and surrounded the combatants in an intent and silent circle 
Buck did not comprehend that silent intentness  nor the eager way with
which they were licking their chops  Curly rushed her antagonist 
who struck again and leaped aside  He met her next rush with his
chest  in a peculiar fashion that tumbled her off her feet  She
never regained them  This was what the onlooking huskies had waited
for  They closed in upon her  snarling and yelping  and she was
buried  screaming with agony  beneath the bristling mass of bodies 

  So sudden was it  and so unexpected  that Buck was taken aback  He
saw Spitz run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing 
and he saw Francois  swinging an axe  spring into the mess of dogs 
Three men with clubs were helping him to scatter them  It did not take
long  Two minutes from the time Curly went down  the last of her
assailants were clubbed off  But she lay there limp and lifeless in
the bloody  trampled snow  almost literally torn to pieces  the
swart half breed standing over her and cursing horribly  The scene
often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep  So that was the
way  No fair play  Once down  that was the end of you  Well  he
would see to it that he never went down  Spitz ran out his tongue
and laughed again and from that moment Buck hated him with a bitter
and deathless hatred 

  Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic
passing of Curly  he received another shock  Francois fastened upon
him an arrangement of straps and buckles  It was a harness  such as he
had seen the grooms put on the horses at home  And as he had seen
horses work  so he was set to work  hauling Francois on a sled to
the forest that fringed the valley  and returning with a load of
firewood  Though his dignity was sorely hurt by thus being made a
draught animal  he was too wise to rebel  He buckled down with a
will and did his best  though it was all new and strange  Francois was
stern  demanding instant obedience  and by virtue of his whip
receiving instant obedience  while Dave  who was an experienced
wheeler  nipped Bucks hind quarters whenever he was in error  Spitz
was the leader  likewise experienced  and while he could not always
get at Buck  he growled sharp reproof now and again  or cunningly
threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck into the way he should go 
Buck learned easily  and under the combined tuition of his two mates
and Francois made remarkable progress  Ere they returned to camp he
knew enough to stop at ho  to go ahead at mush  to swing wide on
the bends  and to keep clear of the wheeler when the loaded sled
shot downhill at their heels 

  Tree vair good dogs  Francois told Perrault  Dat Buck  heem
pool lak hell  I tich heem queek as anyting 

  By afternoon  Perrault  who was in a hurry to be on the trail with
his despatches  returned with two more dogs  Billee and Joe he
called them  two brothers  and true huskies both  Sons of the one
mother though they were  they were as different as day and night 
Billees one fault was his excessive good nature  while Joe was the
very opposite  sour and introspective  with a perpetual snarl and a
malignant eye  Buck received them in comradely fashion  Dave ignored
them  while Spitz proceeded to thrash first one and then the other 
Billee wagged his tail appeasingly  turned to run when he saw that
appeasement was of no avail  and cried  still appeasingly  when
Spitzs sharp teeth scored his flank  But no matter how Spitz circled 
Joe whirled around on his heels to face him  mane bristling  ears laid
back  lips writhing and snarling  jaws clipping together as fast as he
could snap  and eyes diabolically gleaming the incarnation of
belligerent fear  So terrible was his appearance that Spitz was forced
to forego disciplining him  but to cover his own discomfiture he
turned upon the inoffensive and wailing Billee and drove him to the
confines of the camp 

  By evening Perrault secured another dog  an old husky  long and lean
and gaunt  with a battle scarred face and a single eye which flashed a
warning of prowess that commanded respect  He was called Sol leks 
which means the Angry One  Like Dave  he asked nothing  gave
nothing  expected nothing  and when he marched slowly and deliberately
into their midst  even Spitz left him alone  He had one peculiarity
which  Buck was unlucky enough to discover  He did not like to be
approached on his blind side  Of this offence Buck was unwittingly
guilty  and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion was when
Sol leks whirled upon him and slashed his shoulder to the bone for
three inches up and down  Forever after Buck avoided his blind side 
and to the last of their comradeship had no more trouble  His only
apparent ambition  like Daves  was to be left alone  though  as
Buck was afterward to learn  each of them possessed one other and even
more vital ambition 

  That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping  The tent 
illumined by a candle  glowed warmly in the midst of the white
plain  and when he  as a matter of course  entered it  both Perrault
and Francois bombarded him with curses and cooking utensils till he
recovered from his consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer
cold  A chill wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with
especial venom into his wounded shoulder  He lay down on the snow
and attempted to sleep  but the frost soon drove him shivering to
his feet  Miserable and disconsolate  he wandered about among the many
tents  only to find that one place was as cold as another  Here and
there savage dogs rushed upon him  but he bristled his neck hair and
snarled  for he was learning fast   and they let him go his way
unmolested 

  Finally an idea came to him  He would return and see how his own
team mates were making out  To his astonishment  they had disappeared 
Again he wandered about through the great camp  looking for them 
again he returned  Were they in the tent  No  that could not be 
else he would not have been driven out  Then where could they possibly
be  With drooping tail and shivering body  very forlorn indeed  he
aimlessly circled the tent  Suddenly the snow gave way beneath his
forelegs and he sank down  Something wriggled under his feet  He
sprang back  bristling and snarling  fearful of the unseen and
unknown  But a friendly little yelp reassured him  and he went back to
investigate  A whiff of warm air ascended to his nostrils  and
there  curled up under the snow in a snug ball  lay Billee  He
whined placatingly  squirmed and wriggled to show his good will and
intention  and even ventured  as a bribe for peace  to lick Bucks
face with his warm wet tongue 

  Another lesson  So that was the way they did it  eh  Buck
confidently selected a spot  and with much fuss and waste effort
proceeded to dig a hole for himself  In a trice the heat from his body
filled the confined space and he was asleep  The day had been long and
arduous  and he slept soundly and comfortably  though he growled and
barked and wrestled with bad dreams 

  Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the noises of the waking
camp  At first he did not know where he was  It had snowed during
the night and he was completely buried  The snow walls pressed him
on every side  and a great surge of fear swept through him the fear
of the wild thing for the trap  It was a token that he was harking
back through his own life to the lives of his forebears  for he was
a civilised dog  an unduly civilised dog  and of his own experience
knew no trap and so could not of himself fear it  The muscles of his
whole body contracted spasmodically and instinctively  the hair on his
neck and shoulders stood on end  and with a ferocious snarl he bounded
straight up into the blinding day  the snow flying about him in a
flashing cloud  Ere he landed on his feet  he saw the white camp
spread out before him and knew where he was and remembered all that
had passed from the time he went for a stroll with Manuel to the
hole he had dug for himself the night before 

  A shout from Francois hailed his appearance  Wot I say  the
dog driver cried to Perrault  Dat Buck for sure learn queek as
anyting 

  Perrault nodded gravely  As courier for the Canadian Government 
bearing important despatches  he was anxious to secure the best
dogs  and he was particularly gladdened by the possession of Buck 

  Three more huskies were added to the team inside an hour  making a
total of nine  and before another quarter of an hour had passed they
were in harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Canon 
Buck was glad to be gone  and thought the work was hard he found he
did not particularly despise it  He was surprised at the eagerness
which animated the whole team and which was communicated to him  but
still more surprising was the change wrought in Dave and Sol leks 
They were new dogs  utterly transformed by the harness  All
passiveness and unconcern had dropped from them  They were alert and
active  anxious that the work should go well and fiercely irritable
with whatever  by delay or confusion  retarded that work  The toil
of the traces seemed the supreme expression of their being  and all
that they lived for and the only thing in which they took delight 

  Dave was wheeler or sled dog  pulling in front of him was Buck  then
came Sol leks  the rest of the team was strung out ahead  single file 
to the leader  which position was filled by Spitz 

  Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol leks so that
he might receive instruction  Apt scholar that he was  they were
equally apt teachers  never allowing him to linger long in error 
and enforcing their teaching with sharp teeth  Dave was fair and
very wise  He never nipped Buck without cause  and he never failed
to nip him when he stood in need of it  As Francoiss whip backed
him up  Buck found it to be cheaper to mend his ways than to
retaliate  Once  during a brief halt  when he got tangled in the
traces and delayed the start  both Dave and Sol leks flew at him and
administered a sound trouncing  The resulting tangle was even worse 
but Buck took good care to keep the traces clear thereafter  and ere
the day was done  so well had he mastered his work  his mates about
ceased nagging him  Francoiss whip snapped less frequently  and
Perrault even honoured Buck by lifting up his feet and carefully
examining them 

  It was a hard days run  up the Canon  through Sheep Camp  past
the Scales and timber line  across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of
feet deep  and over the great Chilcoot Divide  which stands between
the salt water and the fresh  and guards forbiddingly the sad and
lonely North  They made good time down the chain of lakes which
fills the craters of extinct volcanoes  and late that night pulled
into the huge camp at the head of Lake Bennett  where thousands of
gold seekers were building boats against the break up of the ice in
the spring  Buck made his hole in the snow and slept the sleep of
the exhausted just  but all too early was routed out in the cold
darkness and harnessed with his mates to the sled 

  That day they made forty miles  the trail being packed  but the next
day  and for many days to follow  they broke their own trail  worked
harder  and made poorer time  As a rule  Perrault travelled ahead of
the team  packing the snow with webbed shoes to make it easier for
them  Francois  guiding the sled at the geepole  sometimes exchanged
places with him  but not often  Perrault was in a hurry  and he prided
himself on his knowledge of ice  which knowledge was indispensable 
for the fall ice was very thin  and where there was swift water  there
was no ice at all 

  Day after day  for days unending  Buck toiled in the traces 
Always they broke camp in the dark  and the first grey of dawn found
them hitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them  And
always they pitched camp after dark  eating their bit of fish  and
crawling to sleep into the snow  Buck was ravenous  The pound and a
half of sun dried salmon  which was his ration for each day  seemed to
go nowhere  He never had enough  and suffered from perpetual hunger
pangs  Yet the other dogs  because they weighed less and were born
to the life  received a pound only of the fish and managed to keep
in good condition 

  He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterised his old
life  A dainty eater  he found that his mates  finishing first  robbed
him of his unfinished ration  There was no defending it  While he
was fighting off two or three  it was disappearing down the throats of
the others  To remedy this  he ate as fast as they  and  so greatly
did hunger compel him  he was not above taking what did not belong
to him  He watched and learned  When he saw Pike  one of the new dogs 
a clever malingerer and thief  slyly steal a slice of bacon when
Perraults back was turned  he duplicated the performance the
following day  getting away with the whole chunk  A great uproar was
raised  but he was unsuspected  while Dub  an awkward blunderer who
was always getting caught  was punished for Bucks misdeed 

  This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile
Northland environment  It marked his adaptability  his capacity to
adjust himself to changing conditions  the lack of which would have
meant swift and terrible death  It marked further the decay or going
to pieces of his moral nature  a vain thing and a handicap in the
ruthless struggle for existence  It was all well enough in the
Southland  under the law of love and fellowship  to respect private
property and personal feelings  but in the Northland  under the law of
club and fang  whoso took such things into account was a fool  and
in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper 

  Not that Buck reasoned it out  He was fit  that was all  and
unconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life  All his
days  no matter what the odds  he had never run from a fight  But
the club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more
fundamental and primitive code  Civilised  he could have died for a
moral consideration  say the defence of Judge Millers riding whip 
but the completeness of his decivilisation was not evidenced by his
ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so
save his hide  He did not steal for joy of it  but because of the
clamour of his stomach  He did not rob openly  but stole secretly
and cunningly  out of respect for club and fang  In short  the
things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to
do them 

  His development  or retrogression  was rapid  His muscles became
hard as iron  and he grew callous to all ordinary pain  He achieved an
internal as well as external economy  He could eat anything  no matter
how loathsome or indigestible  and  once eaten  the juices of his
stomach extracted the last least particle of nutriment  and his
blood carried it to the farthest reaches of his body  building it into
the  toughest and stoutest of tissues  Sight and scent became
remarkably keen  while his hearing developed such acuteness that in
his sleep he heard the faintest sound whether it heralded peace or
peril  He learned to bite the ice out with his teeth when it collected
between his toes  and when he was thirsty and there was a thick scum
of ice over the water hole  he would break it by rearing and
striking it with stiff fore legs  His most conspicuous trait was an
ability to scent the wind and forecast it at night in advance  No
matter how breathless the air when he dug his nest by tree or bank 
the wind that later blew inevitably found him to leeward  sheltered
and snug 

  And not only did he learn by experience  but instincts long dead
became alive again  The domesticated generations fell from him  In
vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed  to the time
the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed
their meat as they ran it down  It was no task for him to learn to
fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap  In this manner had
fought forgotten ancestors  They quickened the old life within him 
and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the
breed were his tricks  They came to him without effort or discovery 
as though they had been his always  And when  on the still cold
nights  he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike  it
was his ancestors  dead and dust  pointing nose at star and howling
down through the centuries and through him  And his cadences were
their cadences  the cadences which voiced their woe and what to them
was the meaning of the stillness  and the cold  and dark 

  Thus  as token of what a puppet thing life is  the ancient song
surged through him and he came into his own again  and he came because
men had found a yellow metal in the North  and because Manuel was a
gardeners helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife
and divers small copies of himself 

                        CHAPTER THREE 

                 The Dominant Primordial Beast 

  THE DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST WAS strong in Buck  and under the
fierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew  Yet it was a
secret growth  His new born cunning gave him poise and control  He was
too busy adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease  and not
only did he not pick fights  but he avoided them whenever possible 
A certain deliberateness characterised his attitude  He was not
prone to rashness and precipitate action  and in the bitter hatred
between him and Spitz he betrayed no impatience  shunned all offensive
acts 

  On the other hand  possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous
rival  Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth  He even
went out of his way to bully Buck  striving constantly to start the
fight which could end only in the death of one or the other 

  Early in the trip this might have taken place had it not been for an
unwonted accident  At the end of this day they made a bleak and
miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge  Driving snow  a wind
that cut like a white hot knife  and darkness had forced them to grope
for a camping place  They could hardly have fared worse  At their
backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock  and Perrault and Francois
were compelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on
the ice of the lake itself  The tent they had discarded at Dyea in
order to travel light  A few sticks of driftwood furnished them with a
fire that thawed down through the ice and left them to eat supper in
the dark 

  Close in under the sheltering rock Buck made his nest  So snug and
warm was it  that he was loath to leave it when Francois distributed
the fish which he had first thawed over the fire  But when Buck
finished his ration and returned  he found his nest occupied  A
warning snarl told him that his trespasser was Spitz  Till now Buck
had avoided trouble with his enemy  but this was too much  The beast
in him roared  He sprang upon Spitz with a fury which surprised them
both  and Spitz particularly  for his whole experience with Buck had
gone to teach him that his rival was an unusually timid dog  who
managed to hold his own because of his great weight and size 

  Francois was surprised  too  when they shot out in a tangle from the
disrupted nest and he divined the cause of the trouble  A a ah  he
cried to Buck  Gif it to heem  by Gar  Gif it to heem  the dirty
teef 

  Spitz was equally willing  He was crying with sheer rage and
eagerness as he circled back and forth for a chance to spring in  Buck
was no less eager and no less cautious  as he likewise circled back
and forth for the advantage  But it was then the unexpected
happened  the thing which projected their struggle for supremacy far
into the future  past many a weary mile of trail and toil 

  An oath from Perrault  the resounding impact of a club upon a bony
frame  and a shrill yelp of pain  heralded the breaking forth of
pandemonium  The camp was suddenly discovered to be alive with
skulking furry forms starving huskies  four or five score of them 
who had scented the camp from some Indian village  They had crept in
while Buck and Spitz were fighting  and when the two men sprang
among them with stout clubs they showed their teeth and fought back 
They were crazed by the smell of the food  Perrault found one with
head buried in the grub box  His club landed heavily on the gaunt
ribs  and the grub box was capsized on the ground  On the instant a
score of the famished brutes were scrambling for the bread and
bacon  The clubs fell upon them unheeded  They yelped and howled under
the rain of blows  but struggled none the less madly till the last
crumb had been devoured 

  In the meantime the astonished team dogs had burst out of their
nests only to be set upon by the fierce invaders  Never had Buck
seen such dogs  It seemed as though their bones would burst through
their skins  They were mere skeletons  draped loosely in draggled
hides  with blazing eyes and slavered fangs  But the hunger madness
made them terrifying  irresistible  There was no opposing them  The
team dogs were swept back against the cliff at the first onset  Buck
was beset by three huskies  and in a trice his head and shoulders were
ripped and slashed  The din was frightful  Billee was crying as usual 
Dave and Sol leks  dripping blood from a score of wounds  were
fighting bravely side by side  Joe was snapping like a demon  Once 
his teeth closed on the fore leg of a husky  and he crunched down
through the bone  Pike  the malingerer  leaped upon the crippled
animal  breaking its neck with a quick flash of teeth and a jerk  Buck
got a frothing adversary by the throat  and was sprayed with blood
when his teeth sank through the jugular  The warm taste of it in his
mouth goaded him to greater fierceness  He flung himself upon another 
and at the same time felt teeth sink in his own throat  It was
Spitz  treacherously attacking from the side 

  Perrault and Francois  having cleaned out their part of the camp 
hurried to save their sled dogs  The wild wave of famished beasts
rolled back before them  and Buck shook himself free  But it was
only for a moment  The two men were compelled to run back to save
the grub  upon which the huskies returned to the attack on the team 
Billee  terrified into bravery  sprang through the savage circle and
fled away over the ice  Pike and Dub followed on his heels  with the
rest of the team behind  As Buck drew himself together to spring after
them  out of the tail of his eye he saw Spitz rush upon him with the
evident intention of overthrowing him  Once off his feet and under
that mass of huskies  there was no hope for him  But he braced himself
to the shock of Spitzs charge  then joined the flight out on the
lake 

  Later  the nine team dogs gathered together and sought shelter in
the forest  Though unpursued  they were in sorry plight  There was not
one who was not wounded in four or five places  while some were
wounded grievously  Dub was badly injured in a hind leg  Dolly  the
last husky added to the team at Dyea  had a badly torn throat  Joe had
lost an eye  while Billee  the good natured  with an ear chewed and
rent to ribbons  cried and whimpered throughout the night  At daybreak
they limped warily back to camp  to find the marauders gone and the
two men in bad tempers  Fully half their grub supply was gone  The
huskies had chewed through the sled lashings and canvas covering  In
fact  nothing  no matter how remotely eatable  had escaped them 
They had eaten a pair of Perraults moose hide moccasins  chunks out
of the leather traces  and even two feet of lash from the end of
Francoiss whip  He broke from a mournful contemplation of it to
look over his wounded dogs 

  Ah  my friens  he said softly  mebbe it mek you mad dog  dose
many bites  Mebbe all mad dog  sacredam  Wot you tink  eh  Perrault 

  The courier shook his head dubiously  With four hundred miles of
trail still between him and Dawson  he could ill afford to have
madness break out among his dogs  Two hours of cursing and exertion
got the harness into shape  and the wound stiffened team was under
way  struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they
had yet encountered  and for that matter  the hardest between them and
Dawson 

  The Thirty Mile River was wide open  Its wild water defied the
frost  and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that
the ice held at all  Six days of exhausting toil were required to
cover those thirty terrible miles  And terrible they were  for every
foot of them was accomplished at the risk of life to dog and man  A
dozen times  Perrault  nosing the way  broke through the ice
bridges  being saved by the long pole he carried  which he so held
that it fell each time across the hole made by his body  But a cold
snap was on  the thermometer registering fifty below zero  and each
time he broke through he was compelled for very life to build a fire
and dry his garments 

  Nothing daunted him  It was because nothing daunted him that he
had been chosen for government courier  He took all manner of risks 
resolutely thrusting his little weazened face into the frost and
struggling on from dim dawn to dark  He skirted the frowning shores on
rim ice that bent and crackled under foot and upon which they dared
not halt  Once  the sled broke through  with Dave and Buck  and they
were half frozen and all but drowned by the time they were dragged
out  The usual fire was necessary to save them  They were coated
solidly with ice  and the two men kept them on the run around the
fire  sweating and thawing  so close that they were singed by the
flames 

  At another time Spitz went through  dragging the whole team after
him up to Buck  who strained backward with all his strength  his
fore paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering and snapping
all around  But behind him was Dave  likewise straining backward 
and behind the sled was Francois  pulling till his tendons cracked 

  Again the rim ice broke away before and behind  and there was no
escape except up the cliff  Perrault scaled it by a miracle  while
Francois prayed for just that miracle  and with every thong and sled
lashing and the last bit of harness rove into a long rope  the dogs
were hoisted  one by one  to the cliff crest  Francois came up last 
after the sled and load  Then came the search for a place to
descend  which descent was ultimately made by the aid of the rope  and
night found them back on the river with a quarter of a mile to the
days credit 

  By the time they made the Hootalinqua and good ice  Buck was
played out  The rest of the dogs were in like condition  but Perrault 
to make up lost time  pushed them late and early  The first day they
covered thirty five miles to the Big Salmon  the next day
thirty five more to the Little Salmon  the third day forty miles 
which brought them well up toward the Five Fingers 

  Bucks feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of the huskies 
His had softened during the many generations since the day his last
wild ancestor was tamed by a cave dweller or river man  All day long
he limped in agony  and camp once made  lay down like a dead dog 
Hungry as he was  he would not move to receive his ration of fish 
which Francois had to bring to him  Also  the dog driver rubbed Bucks
feet for half an hour each night after supper  and sacrificed the tips
of his own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck  This was a great
relief  and Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault to twist
itself into a grin one morning  when Francois forgot the moccasins and
Buck lay on his back  his four feet waving appealingly in the air  and
refused to budge without them  Later his feet grew hard to the
trail  and the worn out foot gear was thrown away 

  At the Pelly one morning  as they were harnessing up  Dolly  who had
never been conspicuous for anything  went suddenly mad  She
announced her condition by a long  heart breaking wolf howl that
sent every dog bristling with fear  then sprang straight for Buck 
He had never seen a dog go mad  nor did he have any reason to fear
madness  yet he knew that here was horror  and fled away from it in
a panic  Straight away he raced  with Dolly  panting and frothing  one
leap behind  nor could she gain on him  so great was his terror  nor
could he leave her  so great was her madness  He plunged through the
wooded breast of the island  flew down to the lower end  crossed a
back channel filled with rough ice to another island  gained a third
island  curved back to the main river and in desperation started to
cross it  And all the time  though he did not look  he could hear
her snarling just one leap behind  Francois called to him a quarter of
a mile away and he doubled back  still one leap ahead  gasping
painfully for air and putting all his faith in that Francois would
save him  The dog driver held the axe poised in his hand  and as
Buck shot past him the axe crashed down upon mad Dollys head 

  Buck staggered over against the sled  exhausted  sobbing for breath 
helpless  This was Spitzs opportunity  He sprang upon Buck  and twice
his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the
flesh to the bone  Then Francoiss lash descended  and Buck had the
satisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet
administered to any of the teams 

  One devil  dat Spitz  remarked Perrault  Some dam day heem keel
dat Buck 

  Dat Buck two devils  was Francoiss rejoinder  All de tam I watch
dat Buck I know for sure  Lissen some dam fine day heem get mad lak
hell an den heem chew dat Spitz all up an spit heem out on de
snow  Sure  I know 

  From then on it was war between them  Spitz  as lead dog and
acknowledged master of the team  felt his supremacy threatened by this
strange Southland dog  And strange Buck was to him  for of the many
Southland dogs he had known  not one had shown up worthily in camp and
on trail  They were all too soft  dying under the toil  the frost  and
starvation  Buck was the exception  He alone endured and prospered 
matching the husky in strength  savagery  and cunning  Then he was a
masterful dog  and what made him dangerous was the fact that the
club of the man in the red sweater had knocked all blind pluck and
rashness out of his desire for mastery  He was pre eminently
cunning  and could bide his time with a patience that was nothing less
than primitive 

  It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come  Buck
wanted it  He wanted it because it was his nature  because he had been
gripped tight by that nameless  incomprehensible pride of the trail
and trace that pride which holds dogs in the toil to the last gasp 
which lures them to die joyfully in the harness  and breaks their
hearts if they are cut out of the harness  This was the pride of
Dave as wheel dog  of Sol leks as he pulled with all his strength  the
pride that laid hold of them at break of camp  transforming them
from sour and sullen brutes into straining  eager  ambitious
creatures  the pride that spurred them on all day and dropped them
at pitch of camp at night  letting them fall back into gloomy unrest
and uncontent  This was the pride that bore up Spitz and made him
thrash the sled dogs who blundered and shirked in the traces or hid
away at harness up time in the morning  Likewise it was this pride
that made him fear Buck as a possible lead dog  And this was Bucks
pride  too 

  He openly threatened the others leadership  He came between him and
the shirks he should have punished  And he did it deliberately  One
night there was a heavy snowfall  and in the morning Pike  the
malingerer  did not appear  He was securely hidden in his nest under a
foot of snow  Francois called him and sought him in vain  Spitz was
wild with wrath  He raged through the camp  smelling and digging in
every likely place  snarling so frightfully that Pike heard and
shivered in his hiding place 

  But when he was at last unearthed  and Spitz flew at him to punish
him  Buck flew  with equal rage  in between  So unexpected was it  and
so shrewdly managed  that Spitz was hurled backward and off his
feet  Pike  who had been trembling abjectly  took heart at this open
mutiny  and sprang upon his overthrown leader  Buck  to whom fair play
was a forgotten code  likewise sprang upon Spitz  But Francois 
chuckling at the incident while unswerving in the administration of
justice  brought his lash down upon Buck with all his might  This
failed to drive Buck from his prostrate rival  and the butt of the
whip was brought into play  Half stunned by the blow  Buck was knocked
backward and the lash laid upon him again and again  while Spitz
soundly punished the many times offending Pike 

  In the days that followed  as Dawson grew closer and closer  Buck
still continued to interfere between Spitz and the culprits  but he
did it craftily  when Francois was not around  With the covert
mutiny of Buck  a general insubordination sprang up and increased 
Dave and Sol leks were unaffected  but the rest of the team went
from bad to worse  Things no longer went right  There was continual
bickering and jangling  Trouble was always afoot  and at the bottom of
it was Buck  He kept Francois busy  for the dog driver was in constant
apprehension of the life and death struggle between the two which he
knew must take place sooner or later  and on more than one night the
sounds of quarrelling and strife among the other dogs turned him out
of his sleeping robe  fearful that Buck and Spitz were at it 

  But the opportunity did not present itself  and they pulled into
Dawson one dreary afternoon with the great fight still to come  Here
were many men  and countless dogs  and Buck found them all at work  It
seemed the ordained order of things that dogs should work  All day
they swung up and down the main street in long teams  and in the night
their jingling bells still went by  They hauled cabin logs and
firewood  freighted up to the mines  and did all manner of work that
horses did in the Santa Clara Valley  Here and there Buck met
Southland dogs  but in the main they were the wild wolf husky breed 
Every night  regularly at night  at twelve  at three  they lifted a
nocturnal song  a weird and eerie chant  in which it was Bucks
delight to join 

  With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead  or the stars
leaping in the frost dance  and the land numb and frozen under its
pall of snow  this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of
life  only it was pitched in minor key  with long drawn wailings and
half sobs  and was more the pleading of life  the articulate travail
of existence  It was an old song  old as the breed itself one of
the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad 
It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations  this plaint by
which Buck was so strangely stirred  When he moaned and sobbed  it was
with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild
fathers  and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to
them fear and mystery  And that he should be stirred by it marked
the completeness with which he harked back through the ages of fire
and roof to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages 

  Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson  they dropped
down the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail  and pulled for
Dyea and Salt Water  Perrault was carrying despatches if anything more
urgent than those he had brought in  also  the travel pride had
gripped him  and he purposed to make the record trip of the year 
Several things favoured him in this  The weeks rest had recuperated
the dogs and put them in thorough trim  The trail they had broken into
the country was packed hard by later journeyers  And further  the
police had arranged in two or three places deposits of grub for dog
and man  and he was travelling light 

  They made Sixty Mile  which is a fifty mile run  on the first day 
and the second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way
to Pelly  But such splendid running was achieved not without great
trouble and vexation on the part of Francois  The insidious revolt led
by Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team  It no longer was
as one dog leaping in the traces  The encouragement Buck gave the
rebels led them into all kinds of petty misdemeanours  No more was
Spitz a leader greatly to be feared  The old awe departed  and they
grew equal to challenging his authority  Pike robbed him of half a
fish one night  and gulped it down under the protection of Buck 
Another night Dub and Joe fought Spitz and made him forgo the
punishment they deserved  And even Billee  the good natured  was
less good natured  and whined not half so placatingly as in former
days  Buck never came near Spitz without snarling and bristling
menacingly  In fact  his conduct approached that of a bully  and he
was given to swaggering up and down before Spitzs very nose 

  The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in
their relations with one another  They quarrelled and bickered more
than ever among themselves  till at times the camp was a howling
bedlam  Dave and Sol leks alone were unaltered  though they were
made irritable by the unending squabbling  Francois swore strange
barbarous oaths  and stamped the snow in futile rage  and tore his
hair  His lash was always singing among the dogs  but it was of
small avail  Directly his back was turned they were at it again  He
backed up Spitz with his whip  while Buck backed up the remainder of
the team  Francois knew he was behind all the trouble  and Buck knew
he knew  but Buck was too clever ever again to be caught red handed 
He worked faithfully in the harness  for the toil had become a delight
to him  yet it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight
amongst his mates and tangle the traces 

  At the mouth of the Tahkeena  one night after supper  Dub turned
up a snowshoe rabbit  blundered it  and missed  In a second the
whole team was in full cry  A hundred yards away was a camp of the
Northwest Police  with fifty dogs  huskies all  who joined the
chase  The rabbit sped down the river  turned off into a small
creek  up the frozen bed of which it held steadily  It ran lightly
on the surface of the snow  while the dogs ploughed through by main
strength  Buck led the pack  sixty strong  around bend after bend  but
he could not gain  He lay down low to the race  whining eagerly  his
splendid body flashing forward  leap by leap  in the wan white
moonlight  And leap by leap  like some pale frost wraith  the snowshoe
rabbit flashed on ahead 

  All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives
men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by
chemically propelled leaden pellets  the blood lust  the joy to
kill all this was Bucks  only it was infinitely more intimate  He
was ranging at the head of the pack  running the wild thing down 
the living meat  to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the
eyes in warm blood 

  There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life  and beyond
which life cannot rise  And such is the paradox of living  this
ecstasy comes when one is most alive  and it comes as a complete
forgetfulness that one is alive  This ecstasy  this forgetfulness of
living  comes to the artist  caught up and out of himself in a sheet
of flame  it comes to the soldier  war mad on a stricken field and
refusing quarter  and it came to Buck  leading the pack  sounding
the old wolf cry  straining after the food that was alive and that
fled swiftly before him through the moonlight  He was sounding the
deeps of his nature  and of the parts of his nature that were deeper
than he  going back into the womb of Time  He was mastered by the
sheer surging of life  the tidal wave of being  the perfect joy of
each separate muscle  joint  and sinew in that it was everything
that was not death  that it was aglow and rampant  expressing itself
in movement  flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of
dead matter that did not move 

  But Spitz  cold and calculating even in his supreme moods  left
the pack and cut across a narrow neck of land where the creek made a
long bend around  Buck did not know of this  and as he rounded the
bend  the frost wraith of a rabbit still flitting before him  he saw
another and larger frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into
the immediate path of the rabbit  It was Spitz  The rabbit could not
turn  and as the white teeth broke its back in mid air it shrieked
as loudly as a stricken man may shriek  At sound of this  the cry of
Life plunging down from Lifes apex in the grip of Death  the full
pack at Bucks heels raised a hells chorus of delight 

  Buck did not cry out  He did not check himself  but drove in upon
Spitz  shoulder to shoulder  so hard that he missed the throat  They
rolled over and over in the powdery snow  Spitz gained his feet almost
as though he had not been overthrown  slashing Buck down the
shoulder and leaping clear  Twice his teeth clipped together  like the
steel jaws of a trap  as he backed away for better footing  with
lean and lifting lips that writhed and snarled 

  In a flash Buck knew it  The time had come  It was to the death 
As they circled about  snarling  ears laid back  keenly watchful for
the advantage  the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity 
He seemed to remember it all the white woods  and earth  and
moonlight  and the thrill of battle  Over the whiteness and silence
brooded a ghostly calm  There was not the faintest whisper of air
nothing moved  not a leaf quivered  the visible breaths of the dogs
rising slowly and lingering in the frosty air  They had made short
work of the snow shoe rabbit  these dogs that were ill tamed wolves 
and they were now drawn up in an expectant circle  They  too  were
silent  their eyes only gleaming and their breaths drifting slowly
upward  To Buck it was nothing new or strange  this scene of old time 
It was as though it had always been the wonted way of things 

  Spitz was a practised fighter  From Spitzbergen through the
Arctic  and across Canada and the Barrens  he had held his own with
all manner of dogs and achieved to mastery over them  Bitter rage
was his  but never blind rage  In passion to rend and destroy  he
never forgot that his enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy 
He never rushed till he was prepared to receive a rush  never attacked
till he had first defended that attack 

  In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the big white
dog  Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh  they were
countered by the fangs of Spitz  Fang clashed fang  and lips were
cut and bleeding  but Buck could not penetrate his enemys guard  Then
he warmed up and enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes  Time and
time again he tried for the snow white throat  where life bubbled near
to the surface  and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got
away  Then Buck took to rushing  as though for the throat  when 
suddenly drawing back his head and curving in from the side  he
would drive his shoulder at the shoulder of Spitz  as a ram by which
to overthrow him  But instead  Bucks shoulder was slashed down each
time as Spitz leaped lightly away 

  Spitz was untouched  while Buck was streaming with blood and panting
hard  The fight was growing desperate  And all the while the silent
and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down  As
Buck grew winded  Spitz took to rushing  and he kept him staggering
for footing  Once Buck went over  and the whole circle of sixty dogs
started up  but he recovered himself  almost in mid air  and the
circle sank down again and waited 

  But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness imagination 
He fought by instinct  but he could fight by head as well  He
rushed  as though attempting the old shoulder trick  but at the last
instant swept low to the snow and in  His teeth closed on Spitzs left
fore leg  There was a crunch of breaking bone  and the white dog faced
him on three legs  Thrice he tried to knock him over  then repeated
the trick and broke the right fore leg  Despite the pain and
helplessness  Spitz struggled madly to keep up  He saw the silent
circle  with gleaming eyes  lolling tongues  and silvery breaths
drifting upward  closing in upon him as he had seen similar circles
close in upon beaten antagonists in the past  Only this time he was
the one who was beaten 

  There was no hope for him  Buck was inexorable  Mercy was a thing
reserved for gentler climes  He manoeuvred for the final rush  The
circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths of the huskies
on his flanks  He could see them  beyond Spitz and to either side 
half crouching for the spring  their eyes fixed upon him  A pause
seemed to fall  Every animal was motionless as though turned to stone 
Only Spitz quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth 
snarling with horrible menace  as though to frighten off impending
death  Then Buck sprang in and out  but while he was in  shoulder
had at last squarely met shoulder  The dark circle became a dot on the
moon flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from view  Buck stood and
looked on  the successful champion  the dominant primordial beast
who had made his kill and found it good 

                        CHAPTER FOUR 

                  Who Has Won to Mastership 

  EH  WOT I SAY  I SPIK TRUE wen I say dat Buck two devils 

  This was Francoiss 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 Francoiss answer  An
now we make good time  No more Spitz  no more trouble  sure 

  While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled  the
dog driver proceeded to harness the dogs  Buck trotted up to the place
Spitz would have occupied as leader  but Francois  not noticing him 
brought Sol leks to the coveted position  In his judgment  Sol leks
was the best lead dog left  Buck sprang upon Sol leks in a fury 
driving him back and standing in his place 

  Eh  eh  Francois cried  slapping his thighs gleefully  Look at
dat Buck  Heem keel dat Spitz  hee  tink to take de job 

  Go way  Chook  he cried  but Buck refused to budge 

  He took Buck by the scruff of the neck  and though the dog growled
threateningly  dragged him to one side and replaced Sol leks  The
old dog did not like it  and showed plainly that he was afraid of
Buck  Francois was obdurate  but when he turned his back Buck again
displaced Sol leks  who was not at all unwilling to go 

  Francois was angry  Now  by Gar  I feex you  he cried  coming back
with a heavy club in his hand 

  Buck remembered the man in the red sweater  and retreated slowly 
not did he attempt to charge in when Sol leks was once more brought
forward  But he circled just beyond the range of the club  snarling
with bitterness and rage  and while he circled he watched the club
so as to dodge it if thrown by Francois  for he was become wise in the
way of clubs 

  The driver went about his work  and he called to Buck he was ready
to put him in his old place in front of Dave  Buck retreated two or
three steps  Francois followed him up  whereupon he again retreated 
After some time of this  Francois threw down his club  thinking that
Buck feared a thrashing  But Buck was in open revolt  He wanted not to
escape a clubbing but to have the leadership  It was his by right 
He had earned it  and he would not be content with less 

  Perrault took a hand  Between them they ran him about for the better
part of an hour  They threw clubs at him  He dodged  They cursed
him  and his father and mothers before him  and all his seed to come
after him down to the remotest generation  and every hair on his
body and drop of blood in his veins  and he answered curse with
snarl and kept out of their reach  He did not try to run away  but
retreated around and around the camp  advertising plainly that when
his desire was met  he would come in and be good 

  Francois sat down and scratched his head  Perrault looked at his
watch and swore  Time was flying  and they should have been on the
trail an hour gone  Francois scratched his head again  He shook it and
grinned sheepishly at the courier  who shrugged his shoulders in
sign that they were beaten  Then Francois went up to where Sol leks
stood and called to Buck  Buck laughed  as dogs laugh  yet kept his
distance  Francois unfastened Sol lekss traces and put him back in
his old place  The team stood harnessed to the sled in an unbroken
line  ready for the trail  There was no place for Buck save at the
front  Once more Francois called  and once more Buck laughed and
kept away 

  Trow down de club  Perrault commanded 

  Francois complied  whereupon Buck trotted in  laughing triumphantly 
and swung around into position at the head of the team  His traces
were fastened  the sled broken out  and with both men running they
dashed out on to the river trail 

  Highly as the dog driver had fore valued Buck  with his two
devils  he found  while the day was yet young  that he had
undervalued  At a bound Buck took up the duties of leadership  and
where judgment was required  and quick thinking and quick acting  he
showed himself the superior even of Spitz  of whom Francois had
never seen an equal 

  But it was in giving the law and making his mates live up to it 
that Buck excelled  Dave and Sol leks did not mind the change in
leadership  It was none of their business  Their business was to toil 
and toil mightily  in the traces  So long as they were not
interfered with  they did not care what happened  Billee  the
good natured  could lead for all they cared so long as he kept
order  The rest of the team  however  had grown unruly during the last
days of Spitz  and their surprise was great now that Buck proceeded to
lick them into shape 

  Pike  who pulled at Bucks heels  and who never put an ounce more of
his weight against the breast band than he was compelled to do  was
swiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing  and ere the first day was
done he was pulling more than ever before in his life  The first night
in camp  Joe  the sour one  was punished roundly a thing that Spitz
had never succeeded in doing  Buck simply smothered him by virtue of
superior weight  and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to
whine for mercy 

  The general tone of the team picked up immediately  It recovered its
old time solidarity  and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in the
traces  At the Rink Rapids two native huskies  Teek and Koona  were
added  and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took away
Francoiss breath 

  Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck  he cried  No  nevaire  Heem worth
one tousan dollair  by Gar  Eh  Wot you say  Perrault 

  And Perrault nodded  He was ahead of the record then  and gaining
day by day  The trail was in excellent condition  well packed and
hard  and there was no new fallen snow with which to contend  It was
not too cold  The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remained
there the whole trip  The men rode and ran by turn  and the dogs
were kept on the jump  with but infrequent stoppages 

  The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice  and they
covered in one day going out what had taken them ten days coming in 
In one run they made a sixty mile dash from the foot of Lake Le
Barge to the White Horse Rapids  Across Marsh  Tagish  and Bennett
 seventy miles of lakes   they flew so fast that the man whose turn it
was to run  towed behind the sled at the end of a rope  And on the
last night of the second week they topped White Pass and dropped
down the sea slope with the lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at
their feet 

  It was a record run  Each day for fourteen days they had averaged
forty miles  For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up
and down the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with
invitations to drink  while the team was the constant centre of a
worshipful crowd of dog busters and mushers  Then three or four
western bad men aspired to clean out the town  were riddled like
pepper boxes for their pains  and public interest turned to other
idols  Next came official orders  Francois called Buck to him  threw
his arms around him  wept over him  And that was the last of
Francois and Perrault  Like other men  they passed out of Bucks
life for good 

  A Scotch half breed took charge of him and his mates  and in company
with a dozen other dog teams he started back over the weary trail to
Dawson  It was no light running now  nor record time  but heavy toil
each day  with a heavy load behind  for this was the mail train 
carrying word from the world to the men who sought gold under the
shadow of the Pole 

  Buck did not like it  but he bore up well to the work  taking
pride in it after the manner of Dave and Sol leks  and seeing his
mates  whether they prided in it or not  did their fair share  It
was a monotonous life  operating with machine like regularity  One day
was very like another  At a certain time each morning the cooks turned
out  fires were built  and breakfast was eaten  Then  while some broke
camp  others harnessed the dogs  and they were under way an hour or so
before the darkness fell which gave warning of dawn  At night  camp
was made  Some pitched the flies  others cut firewood and pine
boughs for the beds  and still others carried water or ice for the
cooks  Also  the dogs were fed  To them  this was the one feature of
the day  though it was good to loaf around  after the fish was
eaten  for an hour or so with the other dogs  of which there were
fivescore and odd  There were fierce fighters among them  but three
battles with the fiercest brought Buck to mastery  so that when he
bristled and showed his teeth they got out of the way 

  Best of all  perhaps he loved to lie near the fire  hind legs
crouched under him  fore legs stretched out in front  head raised  and
eyes blinking dreamily at the flames  Sometimes he thought of Judge
Millers big house in the sun kissed Santa Clara Valley  and of the
cement swimming tank  and Ysabel  the Mexican hairless  and Toots  the
Japanese pug  but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater 
the death of Curly  the great fight with Spitz  and the good things he
had eaten or would like to eat  He was not homesick  The Sunland was
very dim and distant  and such memories had no power over him  Far
more potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things he
had never seen before a seeming familiarity  the instincts  which were
but the memories of his ancestors become habits  which had lapsed in
later days  and still later  in him  quickened and become alive again 

  Sometimes as he crouched there  blinking dreamily at the flames 
it seemed that the flames were of another fire  and that as he
crouched by this other fire he saw another and different man from
the half breed cook before him  This other man was shorter of leg
and longer of arm  with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather
than rounded and swelling  The hair of this man was long and matted 
and his head slanted back under it from the eyes  He uttered strange
sounds  and seemed very much afraid of the darkness  into which he
peered continually  clutching in his hand  which hung midway between
knee and foot  a stick with a heavy stone made fast to the end  He was
all but naked  a ragged and fire scorched skin hanging part way down
his back  but on his body there was much hair  In some places 
across the chest and shoulders and down the outside of the arms and
thighs  it was matted into almost a thick fur  He did not stand erect 
but with trunk inclined forward from the hips  on legs that bent at
the knees  About his body there was a peculiar springiness  or
resiliency  almost catlike  and a quick alertness as of one who
lived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen 

  At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head between
his legs and slept  On such occasions his elbows were on his knees 
his hands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy
arms  And beyond that fire  in the circling darkness  Buck could see
many gleaming coals  two by two  always two by two  which he knew to
be the eyes of great beasts of prey  And he could hear the crashing of
their bodies through the undergrowth  and the noises they made in
the night  And dreaming there by the Yukon bank  with lazy eyes
blinking at the fire  these sounds and sights of another world would
make the hair to rise along his back and stand on end across his
shoulders and up his neck  till he whimpered low and suppressedly 
or growled softly  and the half breed cook shouted at him  Hey  you
Buck  wake up  Whereupon the other world would vanish and the real
world come into his eyes  and he would get up and yawn and stretch
as though he had been asleep 

  It was a hard trip  with the mail behind them  and the heavy work
wore them down  They were short of weight and in poor condition when
they made Dawson  and should have had a ten days or a weeks rest
at least  But in two days time they dropped down the Yukon bank
from the Barracks  loaded with letters for the outside  The dogs
were tired  the drivers grumbling  and  to make matters worse  it
snowed every day  This meant a soft trail  greater friction on the
runners  and heavier pulling for the dogs  yet the drivers were fair
through it all  and did their best for the animals 

  Each night the dogs were attended to first  They ate before the
drivers ate  and no man sought his sleeping robe till he had seen to
the feet of the dogs he drove  Still  their strength went down 
Since the beginning of the winter they had travelled eighteen
hundred miles  dragging sleds the whole weary distance  and eighteen
hundred miles will tell upon life of the toughest  Buck stood it 
keeping his mates up to their work and maintaining discipline 
though he  too  was very tired  Billee cried and whimpered regularly
in his sleep each night  Joe was sourer than ever  and Sol leks was
unapproachable  blind side or other side 

  But it was Dave who suffered most of all  Something had gone wrong
with him  He became more morose and irritable  and when camp was
pitched at once made his nest  where his driver fed him  Once out of
the harness and down  he did not get on his feet again till harness up
time in the morning  Sometimes  in the traces  when jerked by a sudden
stoppage of the sled  or by straining to start it  he would cry out
with pain  The driver examined him  but could find nothing  All the
drivers became interested in his case  They talked it over at
meal time  and over their last pipes before going to bed  and one
night they held a consultation  He was brought from his nest to the
fire and was pressed and prodded till he cried out many times 
Something was wrong inside  but they could locate no broken bones 
could not make it out 

  By the time Cassiar Bar was reached  he was so weak that he was
falling repeatedly in the traces  The Scotch half breed called a
halt and took him out of the team  making the next dog  Sol leks  fast
to the sled  His intention was to rest Dave  letting him run free
behind the sled  Sick as he was  Dave resented being taken out 
grunting and growling while the traces were unfastened  and whimpering
broken heartedly when he saw Sol lek in the position he had held and
served so long  For the pride of trace and trail was his  and sick
unto his death  he could not bear that another dog should do his work 

  When the sled started  he floundered in the soft snow alongside
the beaten trail  attacking Sol leks with his teeth  rushing against
him and trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side 
striving to leap inside his traces and get between him and the sled 
and all the while whining and yelping and crying with grief and
pain  The half breed tried to drive him away with the whip  but he
paid no heed to the stinging lash  and the man had not the heart to
strike harder  Dave refused to run quietly on the trail behind the
sled  where the going was easy  but continued to flounder alongside in
the soft snow  where the going was most difficult  till exhausted 
Then he fell  and lay where he fell  howling lugubriously as the
long train of sleds churned by 

  With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger along
behind till the train made another stop  when he floundered past the
sleds to his own  where he stood alongside Sol leks  His driver
lingered a moment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind 
Then he returned and started his dogs  They swung out on the trail
with remarkable lack of exertion  turned their heads uneasily  and
stopped in surprise  The driver was surprised  too  the sled had not
moved  He called his comrades to witness the sight  Dave had bitten
through both of Sol lekss traces  and was standing directly in
front of the sled in his proper place 

  He pleaded with his eyes to remain there  The driver was
perplexed  His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart
through being denied the work that killed it  and recalled instances
they had known  where dogs  too old for the toil  or injured  had died
because they were cut out of the traces  Also  they held it a mercy 
since Dave was to die anyway  that he should die in the traces 
heart easy and content  So he was harnessed in again  and proudly he
pulled as of old  though more than once he cried out involuntarily
from the bite of his inward hurt  Several times he fell down and was
dragged in the traces  and once the sled ran upon him so that he
limped thereafter in one of his hind legs 

  But he held out till camp was reached  when his driver made a
place for him by the fire  Morning found him too weak to travel  At
harness up time he tried to crawl to his driver  By convulsive efforts
he got on his feet  staggered  and fell  Then he wormed his way
forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates 
He would advance his forelegs and drag up his body with a sort of
hitching movement  when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead
again for a few more inches  His strength left him  and the last his
mates saw of him he lay gasping in the snow and yearning toward
them  But they could hear him mournfully howling  till they passed out
of sight behind a belt of river timber 

  Here the train was halted  The Scotch half breed slowly retraced his
steps to the camp they had left  The men ceased talking  A
revolver shot rang out  The man came back hurriedly  The whips
snapped  the bells tinkled merrily  the sleds churned along the trail 
but Buck knew  and every dog knew  what had taken place behind the
belt of river trees 

                        CHAPTER FIVE 

                 The Toil of Trace and Trail 

  THIRTY DAYS FROM THE TIME it left Dawson  the Salt Water Mail 
with Buck and his mates at the fore  arrived at Skaguay  They were
in a wretched state  worn out and worn down  Bucks one hundred and
forty pounds had dwindled to one hundred and fifteen  The rest of
his mates  though lighter dogs  had relatively lost more weight than
he  Pike  the malingerer  who  in his lifetime of deceit  had often
successfully feigned a hurt leg  was now limping in earnest 
Sol leks was limping  and Dub was suffering from a wrenched
shoulder blade 

  They were all terribly footsore  No spring or rebound was left in
them  Their feet fell heavily on the trail  jarring their bodies and
doubling the fatigue of a days travel  There was nothing the matter
with them except that they were dead tired  It was not the
dead tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort  from
which recovery is a matter of hours  but it was the dead tiredness
that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of
months of toil  There was no power of recuperation left  no reserve
strength to call upon  It had been all used  the last least bit of it 
Every muscle  every fibre  every cell  was tired  dead tired  And
there was reason for it  In less than five months they had travelled
twenty five hundred miles  during the last eighteen hundred of which
they had had but five days rest  When they arrived at Skaguay they
were apparently on their last legs  They could barely keep the
traces taut  and on the down grades just managed to keep out of the
way of the sled 

  Mush on  poor sore feets  the driver encouraged them as they
tottered down the main street of Skaguay  Dis is de las  Den we
get one long res  Eh  For sure  One bully long res 

  The drivers confidently expected a long stopover  Themselves  they
had covered twelve hundred miles with two days rest  and in the
nature of reason and common justice they deserved an interval of
loafing  But so many were the men who had rushed into the Klondyke 
and so many were the sweethearts  wives  and kin that had not rushed
in  that the congested mail was taking on Alpine proportions  also
there were official orders  Fresh batches of Hudson Bay dogs were to
take the places of those worthless for the trail  The worthless ones
were to be got rid of  and since dogs count for little against
dollars  they were to be sold 

  Three days passed  by which time Buck and his mates found how really
tired and weak they were  Then  on the morning of the fourth day 
two men from the States came along and bought them harness and all 
for a song  The men addressed each other as Hal and Charles 
Charles was a middle aged  lightish coloured man  with weak and watery
eyes and a moustache that twisted fiercely and vigorously up  giving
the lie to the limply drooping lip it concealed  Hal was a youngster
of nineteen or twenty  with a big Colts revolver and a
hunting knife strapped about him on a belt that fairly bristled with
cartridges  This belt was the most salient thing about him  It
advertised his callowness a callowness sheer and unutterable  Both
men were manifestly out of place  and why such as they should
adventure the North is part of the mystery of things that passes
understanding 

  Buck heard the chaffering  saw the money pass between the man and
the Government agent  and knew that the Scotch halfbreed and the
mail train drivers were passing out of his life on the heels of
Perrault and Francois and the others who had gone before  When
driven with his mates to the new owners camp  Buck saw a slipshod and
slovenly affair  tent half stretched  dishes unwashed  everything in
disorder  also  he saw a woman  Mercedes the men called her  She was
Charless wife and Hals sister a nice family party 

  Buck watched them apprehensively as they proceeded to take down
the tent and load the sled  There was a great deal of effort about
their manner  but no business like method  The tent was rolled into an
awkward bundle three times as large as it should have been  The tin
dishes were packed away unwashed  Mercedes continually fluttered in
the way of her men and kept up an unbroken chattering of
remonstrance and advice  When they put a clothes sack on the front
of the sled  she suggested it should go on the back  and when they had
put it on the back  and covered it over with a couple of other
bundles  she discovered overlooked articles which could abide
nowhere else but in that sack  and they unloaded again 

  Three men from a neighbouring tent came out and looked on 
grinning and winking at one another 

  Youve got a right smart load as it is  said one of them  and
its not me should tell you your business  but I wouldnt tote that
tent along if I was you 

  Undreamed of cried Mercedes  throwing up her hands in dainty
dismay  However in the world could I manage without a tent 

  Its springtime  and you wont get any more cold weather  the
man replied 

  She shook her head decidedly  and Charles and Hal put the last
odds and ends on top of the mountainous load 

  Think itll ride  one of the men asked 

  Why shouldnt it  Charles demanded rather shortly 

  Oh  thats all right  thats all right  the man hastened meekly to
say  I was just a wonderin  that is all  It seemed a mite
top heavy 

  Charles turned his back and drew the lashing down as well as he
could  which was not in the least well 

  An of course the dogs can hike along all day with that contraption
behind them  affirmed a second of the men 

  Certainly  said Hal  with freezing politeness  taking hold of
the gee pole with one hand and swinging his whip from the other 
Mush  he shouted  Mush on there 

  The dogs sprang against the breast bands  strained hard for a few
moments  then relaxed  They were unable to move the sled 

  The lazy brutes  Ill show them  he cried  preparing to lash out
at them with the whip 

  But Mercedes interfered  crying  Oh  Hal  you musnt  as she
caught hold of the whip and wrenched it from him  The poor dears  Now
you must promise you wont be harsh with them for the rest of the
trip  or I wont go a step 

  Precious lot you know about dogs  her brother sneered  and I wish
youd leave me alone  Theyre lazy  I tell you  and youve got to whip
them to get anything out of them  Thats their way  You ask any one 
Ask one of those men 

  Mercedes looked at them imploringly  untold repugnance at sight of
pain written in her pretty face 

  Theyre weak as water  if you want to know  came the reply from
one of the men  Plum tuckered out  that whats the matter  They
need a rest 

  Rest be blanked  said Hal  with his beardless lips  and Mercedes
said  Oh  in pain and sorrow at the oath 

  But she was a clannish creature  and rushed at once to the defence
of her brother  Never mind that man  she said pointedly  Youre
driving our dogs  and you do what you think best with them 

  Again Hals whip fell upon the dogs  They threw themselves against
the breast bands  dug their feet into the packed snow  got down low to
it  and put forth all their strength  The sled held as though it
were an anchor  After two efforts  they stood still  panting  The whip
was whistling savagely  when once more Mercedes interfered  She
dropped on her knees before Buck  with tears in her eyes  and put
her arms around his neck 

  You poor  poor dears  she cried sympathetically  why dont you
pull hard  then you wouldnt be whipped  Buck did not like her 
but he was feeling too miserable to resist her  taking it as part of
the days miserable work 

  One of the onlookers  who had been clenching his teeth to suppress
hot speech  now spoke up

  Its not that I care a whoop what becomes of you  but for the dogs
sakes I just want to tell you  you can help them a mighty lot by
breaking out that sled  The runners are froze fast  Throw your
weight against the gee pole  right and left  and break it out 

  A third time the attempt was made  but this time  following the
advice  Hal broke out the runners which had been frozen to the snow 
The overloaded and unwieldy sled forged ahead  Buck and his mates
struggled frantically under the rain of blows  A hundred yards ahead
the path turned and sloped steeply into the main street  It would have
required an experienced man to keep the top heavy sled upright  and
Hal was not such a man  As they swung on the turn the sled went
over  spilling half its load through the loose lashings  The dogs
never stopped  The lightened sled bounded on its side behind them 
They were angry because of the ill treatment they had received and the
unjust load  Buck was raging  He broke into a run  the team
following his lead  Hal cried whoa  whoa  but they gave no heed 
He tripped and was pulled off his feet  The capsized sled ground
over him  and the dogs dashed on up the street  adding to the gaiety
of Skaguay as they scattered the remainder of the outfit along its
chief thoroughfare 

  Kind hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered up the
scattered belongings  Also  they gave advice  Half the load and
twice the dogs  if they ever expected to reach Dawson  was what was
said  Hal and his sister and brother in law listened unwillingly 
pitched tent  and overhauled the outfit  Canned goods were turned
out that made men laugh  for canned goods on the Long Trail is a thing
to dream about  Blankets for a hotel  quoth one of the men who
laughed and helped  Half as many is too much  get rid of them 
Throw away that tent  and all those dishes whos going to wash
them  anyway  Good Lord  do you think youre travelling on a Pullman 

  And so it went  the inexorable elimination of the superfluous 
Mercedes cried when her clothes bags were dumped on the ground and
article after article was thrown out  She cried in general  and she
cried in particular over each discarded thing  She clasped hands about
knees  rocking back and forth broken heartedly  She averred she
would not go an inch  not for a dozen Charleses  She appealed to
everybody and to everything  finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to
cast out even articles of apparel that were imperative necessities 
And in her zeal  when she had finished with her own  she attacked
the belongings of her men and went through them like a tornado 

  This accomplished  the outfit  though cut in half  was still a
formidable bulk  Charles and Hal went out in the evening and bought
six Outside dogs  These  added to the six of the original team  and
Teek and Koona  the huskies obtained at the Rink Rapids on the
record trip  brought the team up to fourteen  But the Outside dogs 
though practically broken in since their landing  did not amount to
much  Three were short haired pointers  one was a Newfoundland  and
the other two were mongrels of indeterminate breed  They did not
seem to know anything  these newcomers  Buck and his comrades looked
upon them with disgust  and though he speedily taught them their
places and what not to do  he could not teach them what to do  They
did not take kindly to trace and trail  With the exception of the
two mongrels they were bewildered and spirit broken by the strange
savage environment in which they found themselves and by the
ill treatment they had received  The two mongrels were without
spirit at all  bones were the only things breakable about them 

  With the newcomers hopeless and forlorn  and the old team worn out
by twenty five hundred miles of continuous trail  the outlook was
anything but bright  The two men  however  were quite cheerful  And
they were proud  too  They were doing the thing in style  with
fourteen dogs  They had seen other sleds depart over the Pass for
Dawson  or come in from Dawson  but never had they seen a sled with so
many as fourteen dogs  In the nature of Arctic travel there was a
reason why fourteen dogs should not drag one sled  and that was that
one sled could not carry the food for fourteen dogs  But Charles and
Hal did not know this  They had worked the trip out with a pencil 
so much to a dog  so many dogs  so many days  Q E D  Mercedes looked
over their shoulders and nodded comprehensively  it was all so very
simple 

  Late next morning Buck led the long team up the street  There was
nothing lively about it  no snap or go in him and his fellows  They
were starting dead weary  Four times he had covered the distance
between Salt Water and Dawson  and the knowledge that  jaded and
tired  he was facing the same trail once more  made him bitter  His
heart was not in the work  nor was the heart of any dog  The
Outsides were timid and frightened  the Insides without confidence
in their masters 

  Buck felt vaguely that there was no depending upon these two men and
the woman  They did not know how to do anything  and as the days
went by it became apparent that they could not learn  They were
slack in all things  without order or discipline  It took them half
the night to pitch a slovenly camp  and half the morning to break that
camp and get the sled loaded in fashion so slovenly that for the
rest of the day they were occupied in stopping and rearranging the
load  Some days they did not make ten miles  On other days they were
unable to get started at all  And on no day did they succeed in making
more than half the distance used by the men as a basis in their
dog food computation 

  It was inevitable that they should go short on dog food  But they
hastened it by over feeding  bringing the day nearer when
under feeding would commence  The Outside dogs  whose digestions had
not been trained by chronic famine to make the most of little  had
voracious appetites  And when  in addition to this  the worn out
huskies pulled weakly  Hal decided that the orthodox ration was too
small  He doubled it  And to cap it all  when Mercedes  with tears
in her pretty eyes and a quaver in her throat  could not cajole him
into giving the dogs still more  she stole from the fish sacks and fed
them slyly  But it was not food that Buck and the huskies needed 
but rest  And though they were making poor time  the heavy load they
dragged sapped their strength severely 

  Then came the under feeding  Hal awoke one day to the fact that
his dog food was half gone and the distance only quarter covered 
further  that for love or money no additional dog food was to be
obtained  So he cut down even the orthodox ration and tried to
increase the days travel  His sister and brother in law seconded him 
but they were frustrated by their heavy outfit and their own
incompetence  It was a simple matter to give the dogs less food  but
it was impossible to make the dogs travel faster  while their own
inability to get under way earlier in the morning prevented them
from travelling longer hours  Not only did they not know how to work
dogs  but they did not know how to work themselves 

  The first to go was Dub  Poor blundering thief that he was  always
getting caught and punished  he had none the less been a faithful
worker  His wrenched shoulder blade  untreated and unrested  went from
bad to worse  till finally Hal shot him with the big Colts
revolver  It is a saying of the country that an Outside dog starves to
death on the ration of the husky  so the six Outside dogs under Buck
could do no less than die on half the ration of the husky  The
Newfoundland went first  followed by the three short haired
pointers  the two mongrels hanging more grittily on to life  but going
in the end 

  By this time all the amenities and gentlenesses of the Southland had
fallen away from the three people  Shorn of its glamour and romance 
Arctic travel became to them a reality too harsh for their manhood and
womanhood  Mercedes ceased weeping over the dogs  being too occupied
with weeping over herself and with quarrelling with her husband and
brother  To quarrel was the one thing they were never too weary to do 
Their irritability arose out of their misery  increased with it 
doubled upon it  outdistanced it  The wonderful patience of the
trail which comes to men who toil hard and suffer sore  and remain
sweet of speech and kindly  did not come to these two men and the
woman  They had no inkling of such a patience  They were stiff and
in pain  their muscles ached  their bones ached  their very hearts
ached  and because of this they became sharp of speech  and hard words
were first on their lips in the morning and last at night 

  Charles and Hal wrangled whenever Mercedes gave them a chance  It
was the cherished belief of each that he did more than his share of
the work  and neither forbore to speak his belief at every
opportunity  Sometimes Mercedes sided with her husband  sometimes with
her brother  The result was a beautiful and unending family quarrel 
Starting from a dispute as to which should chop a few sticks for the
fire  a dispute which concerned only Charles and Hal   presently would
be lugged in the rest of the family  fathers  mothers  uncles 
cousins  people thousands of miles away and some of them dead  That
Hals views on art  or the sort of society plays his mothers
brother wrote  should have anything to do with the chopping of a few
sticks of firewood  passes comprehension  nevertheless the quarrel was
as likely to tend in that direction as in the direction of Charless
political prejudices  And that Charless sisters tale bearing
tongue should be relevant to the building of a Yukon fire  was
apparent only to Mercedes  who disburdened herself of copious opinions
upon that topic  and incidentally upon a few other traits unpleasantly
peculiar to her husbands family  In the meantime the fire remained
unbuilt  the camp half pitched  and the dogs unfed 

  Mercedes nursed a special grievance the grievance of her sex  She
was pretty and soft  and had been chivalrously treated all her days 
But the present treatment by her husband and brother was everything
save chivalrous  It was her custom to be helpless  They complained 
Upon which impeachment of what to her was her most essential
sex prerogative  she made their lives unendurable  She no longer
considered the dogs  and because she was sore and tired  she persisted
in riding on the sled  She was pretty and soft  but she weighed one
hundred and twenty pounds a lusty last straw to the load dragged by
the weak and starving animals  She rode for days  till they fell in
the traces and the sled stood still  Charles and Hal begged her to get
of and walk  pleaded with her  entreated  the while she wept and
importuned Heaven with a recital of their brutality 

  On one occasion they took her off the sled by main strength  They
never did it again  She let her legs go limp like a spoiled child  and
sat down on the trail  They went on their way  but she did not move 
After they had travelled three miles they unloaded the sled  came back
for her  and by main strength put her on the sled again 

  In the excess of their own misery they were callous to the suffering
of their animals  Hals theory  which he practised on others  was that
one must get hardened  He had started out preaching it to his sister
and brother in law  Failing there  he hammered it into the dogs with a
club  At the Five Fingers the dog food gave out  and a toothless old
squaw offered to trade them a few pounds of frozen horse hide for
the Colts revolver that kept the big hunting knife company at Hals
hip  A poor substitute for food was this hide  just as it had been
stripped from the starved horses of the cattlemen six months back 
In its frozen state it was more like strips of galvanised iron  and
when a dog wrestled it into his stomach it thawed into thin and
innutritious leathery strings and into a mass of short hair 
irritating and indigestible  And through it all Buck staggered along
at the head of the team as in a nightmare  He pulled when he could 
when he could not longer pull  he fell down and remained till blows
from whip or club drove him to his feet again  All the stiffness and
gloss had gone out of his beautiful furry coat  The hair hung down 
limp and draggled  or matted with dried blood where Hals club had
bruised him  His muscles had wasted away to knotty strings  and the
flesh pads had disappeared  so that each rib and every bone in his
frame were outlined cleanly through the loose hide that was wrinkled
in folds of emptiness  It was heartbreaking  only Bucks heart was
unbreakable  The man in the red sweater had proved that 

  As it was with Buck  so was it with his mates  They were
perambulating skeletons  There were seven all together  including him 
In their very great misery they had become insensible to the bite of
the lash or the bruise of the club  The pain of the beating was dull
and distant  just as the things their eyes saw and their ears heard
seemed dull and distant  They were not half living  or quarter living 
They were simply so many bags of bones in which sparks of life
fluttered faintly  When a halt was made  they dropped down in the
traces like dead dogs  and the spark dimmed and paled and seemed to go
out  And when the club or whip fell upon them  the spark fluttered
feebly up  and they tottered to their feet and staggered on 

  There came a day when Billee  the good natured  fell and could not
rise  Hal had traded off his revolver  so he took the axe and
knocked Billee on the head as he lay in the traces  then cut the
carcass out of the harness and dragged it to one side  Buck saw  and
his mates saw  and they knew that this thing was very close to them 
On the next day Koona went  and but five of them remained Joe  too
far gone to be malignant  Pike  crippled and limping  only half
conscious and not conscious enough longer to malinger  Sol leks  the
one eyed  still faithful to the toil of trace and trail  and
mournful in that he had so little strength with which to pull  Teek 
who had not travelled so far that winter and who was now beaten more
than the others because he was fresher  and Buck  still at the head of
the team  but no longer enforcing discipline or striving to enforce
it  blind with weakness half the time and keeping the trail by the
loom of it and by the dim feel of his feet 

  It was beautiful spring weather  but neither dogs nor humans were
aware of it  Each day the sun rose earlier and set later  It was
dawn by three in the morning  and twilight lingered till nine at
night  The whole long day was a blaze of sunshine  The ghostly
winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening
life  The murmur arose from all the land  fraught with the joy of
living  It came from the things that lived and moved again  things
which had been as dead and which had not moved during the long
months of frost  The sap was rising in the pines  The willows and
aspens were bursting out in young buds  Shrubs and vines were
putting on fresh garbs of green  Crickets sang in the nights  and in
the days all manner of creeping  crawling things rustled forth into
the sun  Partridges and woodpeckers were booming and knocking in the
forest  Squirrels were chattering  birds singing  and overhead
honked the wild fowl driving up from the south in cunning wedges
that split the air 

  From every hill slope came the trickle of running water  the music
of unseen fountains  All things were thawing  bending  snapping  The
Yukon was straining to break loose the ice that bound it down  It
ate away from beneath  the sun ate from above  Air holes formed 
fissures sprang and spread apart  while thin sections of ice fell
through bodily into the river  And amid all this bursting  rending 
throbbing of awakening life  under the blazing sun and through the
soft sighing breezes  like wayfarers to death  staggered the two
men  the woman  and the huskies 

  With the dogs falling  Mercedes weeping and riding  Hal swearing
innocuously  and Charless eyes wistfully watering  they staggered
into John Thorntons camp at the mouth of White River  When they
halted  the dogs dropped down as though they had all been struck dead 
Mercedes dried her eyes and looked at John Thornton  Charles sat
down on a log to rest  He sat down very slowly and painstakingly
what of his great stiffness  Hal did the talking  John Thornton was
whittling the last touches of an axe handle he had made from a stick
of birch  He whittled and listened  gave monosyllabic replies  and 
when it was asked  terse advice  He knew the breed  and he gave his
advice in the certainty that it would not be followed 

  They told us up above that the bottom was dropping out of the trail
and that the best thing for us to do was to lay over  Hal said in
response to Thorntons warning to take no more chances on the rotten
ice  They told us we couldnt make White River  and here we are 
This last with a sneering ring of triumph in it 

  And they told you true  John Thornton answered  The bottoms
likely to drop out at any moment  Only fools  with the blind luck of
fools  could have made it  I tell you straight  I wouldnt risk my
carcass on that ice for all the gold in Alaska 

  Thats because youre not a fool  I suppose  said Hal  All the
same  well go on to Dawson  He uncoiled his whip  Get up there 
Buck  Hi  Get up there  Mush on 

  Thornton went on whittling  It was idle  he knew  to get between a
fool and his folly  while two or three fools more or less would not
alter the scheme of things 

  But the team did not get up at the command  It had long since passed
into the stage where blows were required to rouse it  The whip flashed
out  here and there  on its merciless errands  John Thornton
compressed his lips  Solleks was the first to crawl to his feet 
Teek followed Joe came next  yelping with pain  Pike made painful
efforts  Twice he fell over  when half up  and on the third attempt
managed to rise  Buck made no effort  He lay quietly where he had
fallen  The lash bit into him again and again  but he neither whined
nor struggled  Several times Thornton started  as though to speak  but
changed his mind  A moisture came into his eyes  and  as the
whipping continued  he arose and walked irresolutely up and down 

  This was the first time Buck had failed  in itself sufficient reason
to drive Hal into a rage  He exchanged the whip for the customary
club  Buck refused to move under the rain of heavy blows which now
fell upon him  Like his mates  he was barely able to get up  but 
unlike them  he had made up his mind not to get up  He had a vague
feeling of impending doom  This had been strong upon him when he
pulled in to the bank  and it had not departed from him  What of the
thin and rotten ice he had felt under his feet all day  it seemed that
he sensed disaster close at hand  out there ahead on the ice where his
master was trying to drive him  He refused to stir  So greatly had
he suffered  and so far gone was he  that the blows did not hurt much 
And as they continued to fall upon him  the spark of life within
flickered and went down  It was nearly out  He felt strangely numb  As
though from a great distance  he was aware that he was being beaten 
The last sensations of pain left him  He no longer felt anything 
though very faintly he could hear the impact of the club upon his
body  But it was no longer his body  it seemed so far away 

  And then  suddenly  without warning  uttering a cry that was
inarticulate and more like the cry of an animal  John Thornton
sprang upon the man who wielded the club  Hal was hurled backward 
as though struck by a falling tree  Mercedes screamed  Charles
looked on wistfully  wiping his watery eyes  but did not get up
because of his stiffness 

  John Thornton stood over Buck  struggling to control himself  too
convulsed with rage to speak 

  If you strike that dog again  Ill kill you  he at last managed to
say in a choking voice 

  Its my dog  Hal replied  wiping the blood from his mouth as he
came back  Get out of my way  or Ill fix you  Im going to Dawson 

  Thornton stood between him and Buck  and evinced no intention of
getting out of the way  Hal drew his long hunting knife  Mercedes
screamed  cried  laughed and manifested the chaotic abandonment of
hysteria  Thornton rapped Hals knuckles with the axe handle  knocking
the knife to the ground  He rapped his knuckles again as he tried to
pick it up  Then he stooped  picked it up himself  and with two
strokes cut Bucks traces 

  Hal had no fight left in him  Besides  his hands were full with
his sister  or his arms  rather  while Buck was too near dead to be of
further use in hauling the sled  A few minutes later they pulled out
from the bank and down the river  Buck heard them go and raised his
head to see  Pike was leading  Sol leks was at the wheel  and
between were Joe and Teek  They were limping and staggering 
Mercedes was riding the loaded sled  Hal guided at the gee pole  and
Charles stumbled along in the rear 

  As Buck watched them  Thornton knelt beside him and with rough 
kindly hands searched for broken bones  By the time his search had
disclosed nothing more than many bruises and a state of terrible
starvation  the sled was a quarter of a mile away  Dog and man watched
it crawling along over the ice  Suddenly  they saw its back end drop
down  as into a rut  and the gee pole  with Hal clinging to it  jerk
into the air  Mercedess scream came to their ears  They saw Charles
turn and make one step to run back  and then a whole section of ice
gave way and dogs and humans disappeared  A yawning hole was all
that was to be seen  The bottom had dropped out of the trail 

  John Thornton and Buck looked at each other 

  You poor devil  said John Thornton  and Buck licked his hand 

                        CHAPTER SIX 

                    For the Love of a Man 

  WHEN JOHN THORNTON FROZE his feet in the previous December  his
partners had made him comfortable and left him to get well  going on
themselves up the river to get out a raft of saw logs for Dawson  He
was still limping slightly at the time he rescued Buck  but with the
continued warm weather even the slight limp left him  And here 
lying by the river bank through the long spring days  watching the
running water  listening lazily to the songs of birds and the hum of
nature  Buck slowly won back his strength 

  A rest comes very good after one has travelled three thousand miles 
and it must be confessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed 
his muscles swelled out  and the flesh came back to cover his bones 
For that matter  they were all loafing Buck  John Thornton  and Skeet
and Nig waiting for the raft to come that was to carry them down to
Dawson  Skeet was a little Irish setter who early made friends with
Buck  who  in a dying condition  was unable to resent her first
advances  She had the doctor trait which some dogs possess  and as a
mother cat washes her kittens  so she washed and cleansed Bucks
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 Thorntons  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 Bucks surprise these dogs manifested no jealousy toward him 
They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton  As
Buck grew stronger they enticed him into all sorts of ridiculous
games  in which Thornton himself could not forbear to join  and in
this fashion Buck romped through his convalescence and into a new
existence  Love  genuine passionate love  was his for the first
time  This he had never experienced at Judge Millers down in the
sun kissed Santa Clara Valley  With the Judges son  hunting and
tramping  it had been a working partnership  with the Judgess
grandsons  a sort of pompous guardianship  and with the Judge himself 
a stately and dignified friendship  But love that was feverish and
burning  that was adoration  that was madness  it had taken John
Thornton to arouse 

  This man had saved his life  which was something  but  further  he
was the ideal master  Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs
from a sense of duty and business expediency  he saw to the welfare of
his as if they were his own children  because he could not help it 
And he saw further  He never forgot a kindly greeting or a cheering
word  and to sit down for a long talk with them  gas he called it 
was as much his delight as theirs  He had a way of taking Bucks
head roughly between his hands  and resting his own head upon
Bucks  of shaking him back and forth  the while calling him ill names
that to Buck were love names  Buck knew no greater joy than that rough
embrace and the sound of murmured oaths  and at each jerk back and
forth it seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body so
great was its ecstasy  And when  released  he sprang to his feet 
his mouth laughing  his eyes eloquent  his throat vibrant with
unuttered sounds  and in that fashion remain without movement  John
Thornton would reverently exclaim  God  you can all but speak 

  Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt  He
would often seize Thorntons hand in his mouth and close so fiercely
that the flesh bore impress of his teeth for some time afterward 
And as Buck understood the oaths to be love words  so the man
understood this feigned bite for a caress 

  For the most part  however  Bucks love was expressed in
adoration  While he went wild with happiness when Thornton touched him
or spoke to him  he did not seek these tokens  Unlike Skeet  who was
wont to shove her nose under Thorntons hand and nudge and nudge
till petted  or Nig  who would stalk up and rest his great head on
Thorntons knee  Buck was content to adore at a distance  He would lie
by the hour  eager  alert  at Thorntons feet looking up into his
face  dwelling upon it  studying it  following with keenest interest
each fleeting expression  every movement or change of feature  Or 
as chance might have it  he would lie farther away  to the side or
rear  watching the outlines of the man and the occasional movements of
his body  And often  such was the communion in which they lived  the
strength of Bucks gaze would draw John Thorntons head around  and he
would return the gaze  without speech  his heart shining out of his
eyes as Bucks heart shone out 

  For a long time after his rescue  Buck did not like Thornton to
get out of his sight  From the moment he left the tent to when he
entered it again  Buck would follow at his heels  His transient
masters since he had come into the Northland had bred in him fear that
no master could be permanent  He was afraid that Thornton would pass
out of his life as Perrault and Francois and the Scotch half breed had
passed out  Even in the night  in his dreams  he was haunted by this
fear  At such times he would shake off sleep and creep through the
chill to the flap of the tent  where he would stand and listen to
the sound of his masters breathing 

  But in spite of this great love he bore John Thornton  which
seemed to bespeak the soft civilising influence  the strain of the
primitive  which the Northland had aroused in him  remained alive
and active  Faithfulness and devotion  things born of fire and roof 
were his  yet he retained his wildness and wiliness  He was a thing of
the wild  come in from the wild to sit by John Thorntons fire  rather
than a dog of the soft Southland stamped with the marks of generations
of civilisation  Because of his very great love  he could not steal
from this man  but from any man  in any other camp  he did not
hesitate an instant  while the cunning with which he stole enabled him
to escape detection 

  His face and body were scored by the teeth of many dogs  and he
fought as fiercely as ever and more shrewdly  Skeet and Nig were too
good natured for quarrelling besides  they belonged to John Thornton 
but the strange dog  no matter what the breed or valour  swiftly
acknowledged Bucks supremacy or found himself struggling for life
with a terrible antagonist  And Buck was merciless  He had learned
well the law of club and fang  and he never forewent an advantage or
drew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death  He had
lessoned from Spitz  and from the chief fighting dogs of the police
and mail  and knew there was no middle course  He must master or be
mastered  while to show mercy was a weakness  Mercy did not exist in
the primordial life  It was misunderstood for fear  and such
misunderstandings made for death  Kill or be killed  eat or be
eaten  was the law  and this mandate  down out of the depths of
Time  he obeyed 

  He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn 
He linked the past with the present  and the eternity behind him
throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the
tides and season swayed  He sat by John Thorntons fire  a
broad breasted dog  white fanged and long furred  but behind him
were the shades of all manner of dogs  half wolves and wild wolves 
urgent and prompting  tasting the savour of the meat he ate  thirsting
for the water he drank  scenting the wind with him  listening with him
and telling him the sounds made by the wild life in the forest 
dictating his moods  directing his actions  lying down to sleep with
him when he lay down  and dreaming with him and beyond him and
becoming themselves the stuff of his dreams 

  So peremptorily did these shades beckon him  that each day mankind
and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him  Deep in the forest
a call was sounding  and as often as he heard this call 
mysteriously thrilling and luring  he felt compelled to turn his
back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it  and to plunge
into the forest  and on and on  he knew not where or why  the call
sounding imperiously  deep in the forest  But as often as he gained
the soft unbroken earth and the green shade  the love for John
Thornton drew him back to the fire again 

  Thornton alone held him  The rest of mankind was as nothing 
Chance travellers might praise or pet him  but he was cold under it
all  and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away 
When Thorntons partners  Hans and Pete  arrived on the
long expected raft Buck refused to notice them till he learned they
were close to Thornton  after that he tolerated them in a passive sort
of way  accepting favours from them as though he favoured them by
accepting  They were of the same large type as Thornton  living
close to the earth  thinking simply and seeing clearly  and ere they
swung the raft into the big eddy by the saw mill at Dawson  they
understood Buck and his ways  and did not insist upon an intimacy such
as obtained with Skeet and Nig 

  For Thornton  however  his love seemed to grow and grow  He  alone
among men  could put a pack upon Bucks back in the summer travelling 
Nothing was too great for Buck to do  when Thornton commanded  One day
 they had grub staked themselves from the proceeds of the raft and
left Dawson for the head waters of the Tanana  the men and dogs were
sitting on the crest of a cliff which fell away  straight down  to
naked bed rock three hundred feet below  John Thornton was sitting
near the edge  Buck at his shoulder  A thoughtless whim seized
Thornton  and he drew the attention of Hans and Pete to the experiment
he had in mind  Jump  Buck  he commanded  sweeping his arm out and
over the chasm  The next instant he was grappling with Buck on the
extreme edge  while Hans and Pete were dragging them back into safety 

  Its uncanny  Pete said  after it was over and they had caught
their speech 

  Thornton shook his head  No  it is splendid  and it is terrible 
too  Do you know  it sometimes makes me afraid 

  Im not hankering to be the man that lays hands on you while hes
around  Pete announced conclusively  nodding his head toward Buck 

  By Jingo  was Hans contribution  Not mineself either 

  It was at Circle City  ere the year was out  that Petes
apprehensions were realised  Black Burton  a man evil tempered and
malicious  had been picking a quarrel with a tenderfoot at the bar 
when Thornton stepped good naturedly between  Buck  as was his custom 
was lying in a corner  head on paws  watching his masters every
action  Burton struck out  without warning  straight from the
shoulder  Thornton was sent spinning  and saved himself from falling
only by clutching the rail of the bar 

  Those who were looking on heard what was neither bark nor yelp 
but a something which is best described as a roar  and they saw Bucks
body rise up in the air as he left the floor for Burtons throat 
The man saved his life by instinctively throwing out his arm  but
was hurled backward to the floor with Buck on top of him  Buck
loosed his teeth from the flesh of the arm and drove in again for
the throat  This time the man succeeded only in partly blocking  and
his throat was torn open  Then the crowd was upon Buck  and he was
driven off  but while a surgeon checked the bleeding  he prowled up
and down  growling furiously  attempting to rush in  and being
forced back by an array of hostile clubs  A miners meeting 
called on the spot  decided that the dog had sufficient provocation 
and Buck was discharged  But his reputation was made  and from that
day his name spread through every camp in Alaska 

  Later on  in the fall of the year  he saved John Thorntons life
in quite another fashion  The three partners were lining a long and
narrow poling boat down a bad stretch of rapids on the Forty Mile
Creek  Hans and Pete moved along the bank  snubbing with a thin Manila
rope from tree to tree  while Thornton remained in the boat  helping
the descent by means of a pole  and shouting directions to the
shore  Buck  on the bank worried and anxious  kept abreast of the
boat  his eyes never off his master 

  At a particularly bad spot where a ledge of barely submerged rocks
jutted out into the river  Hans cast off the rope  and while
Thornton poled the boat out into the stream  ran down the bank with
the end in his hand to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge 
This it did  and was flying down stream in a current as swift as a
mill race  when Hans checked it with the rope and checked too
suddenly  The boat flirted over and snubbed into the bank bottom up 
while Thornton  flung sheer out of it  was carried down stream
toward the worst part of the rapids  a stretch of wild water in
which no swimmer could live 

  Buck had sprung in on the instant  and at the end of three hundred
yards  amid a mad swirl of water  he overhauled Thornton  When he felt
him grasp his tail  Buck headed for the bank  swimming with all his
splendid strength  But the progress shoreward was slow  the progress
down stream amazingly rapid  From below came the fatal roaring where
the wild current went wilder and was rent in shreds and spray by the
rocks which thrust through like the teeth of an enormous comb  The
suck of the water as it took the beginning of the last steep pitch was
frightful  and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible  He scraped
furiously over a rock  bruised across a second  and struck a third
with crushing force  He clutched its slippery top with both hands 
releasing Buck  and above the roar of the churning water shouted Go 
Buck  Go 

  Buck could not hold his own  and swept on down stream  struggling
desperately  but unable to win back  When he heard Thorntons
command repeated  he partly reared out of the water  throwing his head
high as though for a last look  then turned obediently toward the
bank  He swam powerfully and was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at
the very point where swimming ceased to be possible and destruction
began 

  They knew that the time a man could cling to a slippery rock in
the face of that driving current was a matter of minutes  and they ran
as fast as they could up the bank to a point far above where
Thornton was hanging on  They attached the line with which they had
been snubbing the boat to Bucks neck and shoulders  being careful
that it should neither strangle him nor impede his swimming and
launched him into the stream  He struck out boldly but not straight
enough into the stream  He discovered the mistake too late  when
Thornton was abreast of him and a bare half dozen strokes away while
he was being carried helplessly past 

  Hans promptly snubbed with the rope  as though Buck were a boat  The
rope thus tightening on him in the sweep of the current  he was jerked
under the surface  and under the surface he remained till his body
struck against the bank and he was hauled out  He was half drowned 
and Hans and Pete threw themselves upon him  pounding the breath
into him and the water out of him  He staggered to his feet and fell
down  The faint sound of Thorntons voice came to them  and though
they could not make out the words of it  they knew that he was in
his extremity  His masters voice acted on Buck like an electric
shock  He sprang to his feet and ran up the bank ahead of the men to
the point of his previous departure 

  Again the rope was attached and he was launched  and again he struck
out  but this time straight into the stream  He had miscalculated
once  but he would not be guilty of it a second time  Hans paid out
the rope  permitting no slack  while Pete kept it clear of coils  Buck
held on till he was on a line straight above Thornton  then he turned 
and with the speed of an express train headed down upon him 
Thornton saw him coming  and  as Buck struck him like a battering ram 
with the whole force of the current behind him  he reached up and
closed with both arms around the shaggy neck  Hans snubbed the rope
around the tree  and Buck and Thornton were jerked under the water 
Strangling  suffocating  sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the
other  dragging over the jagged bottom  smashing against rocks and
snags  they veered in to the bank 

  Thornton came to  belly downward and being violently propelled
back and forth across a drift log by Hans and Pete  His first glance
was for Buck  over whose limp and apparently lifeless body Nig was
setting up a howl  while Skeet was licking the wet face and closed
eyes  Thornton was himself bruised and battered  and he went carefully
over Bucks body  when he had been brought around  finding three
broken ribs 

  That settles it  he announced  We camp right here  camp they
did  till Bucks ribs knitted and he was able to travel 

  That winter  at Dawson  Buck performed another exploit  not so
heroic  perhaps  but one that put his name many notches higher on
the totem pole of Alaskan fame  This exploit was particularly
gratifying to the three men  for they stood in need of the outfit
which it furnished  and were enabled to make a long desired trip
into the virgin East  where miners had not yet appeared  It was
brought about by a conversation in the Eldorado Saloon  in which men
waxed boastful of their favourite dogs  Buck  because of his record 
was the target for these men  and Thornton was driven stoutly to
defend him  At the end of half an hour one man stated that his dog
could start a sled with five hundred pounds and walk off with it  a
second bragged six hundred for his dog  and a third  seven hundred 

  Pooh  pooh  said John Thornton  Buck can start a thousand
pounds 

  And break it out  and walk off with it for a hundred yards 
demanded Matthewson  a Bonanza King  he of the seven hundred vaunt 

  And break it out  and walk off with it for a hundred yards  John
Thornton said coolly 

  Well  Matthewson said  slowly and deliberately  so that all
could hear  Ive got a thousand dollars that says he cant  And there
it is  So saying  he slammed a sack of gold dust of the size of a
bologna sausage down upon the bar 

  Nobody spoke  Thorntons 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 Bucks 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 

  Ive got a sled standing outside now  with twenty fifty pound sacks
of flour on it  Matthewson went on  with brutal directness  so dont
let that hinder you 

  Thornton did not reply  He did not know what to say  He glanced from
face to face in the absent way of a man who has lost the power of
thought and is seeking somewhere to find the thing that will start
it going again  The face of Jim OBrien  a Mastodon King and
old time comrade  caught his eyes  It was a cue to him  seeming to
rouse him to do what he would never have dreamed of doing 

  Can you lend me a thousand  he asked  almost in a whisper 

  Sure  answered OBrien  thumping down a plethoric sack by the side
of Matthewsons  Though its little faith Im having  John  that
the beast can do the trick 

  The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see the
test  The tables were deserted  and the dealers and gamekeepers came
forth to see the outcome of the wager and to lay odds  Several hundred
men  furred and mittened  banked around the sled within easy distance 
Matthewsons sled  loaded with a thousand pounds of flour  had been
standing for a couple of hours  and in the intense cold  it was
sixty below zero  the runners had frozen fast to the hard packed snow 
Men offered odds of two to one that Buck could not budge the sled  A
quibble arose concerning the phrase break out  OBrien contended
it was Thorntons privilege to knock the runners loose  leaving Buck
to break it out from a dead standstill  Matthewson insisted that the
phrase included breaking the runners from the frozen grip of the snow 
A majority of the men who had witnessed the making of the bet
decided in his favour  whereat the odds went up to three to one
against Buck 

  There were no takers  Not a man believed him capable of the feat 
Thornton had been hurried into the wager  heavy with doubt  and now
that he looked at the sled itself  the concrete fact  with the regular
team of ten dogs curled up in the snow before it  the more
impossible the task appeared  Matthewson waxed jubilant 

  Three to one  he proclaimed  Ill lay you another thousand at
that figure  Thornton  What dye say 

  Thorntons doubt was strong in his face  but his fighting spirit was
aroused the fighting spirit that soars above odds  fails to recognise
the impossible  and is deaf to all save the clamour for battle  He
called Hans and Pete to him  Their sacks were slim  and with his own
the three partners could rake together only two hundred dollars  In
the ebb of their fortunes  this sum was their total capital  yet
they laid it unhesitatingly against Matthewsons six hundred 

  The team of ten dogs was unhitched  and Buck  with his own
harness  was put into the sled  He had caught the contagion of the
excitement  and he felt that in some way he must do a great thing
for John Thornton  Murmurs of admiration of his splendid condition 
without an ounce of superfluous flesh  and the one hundred and fifty
pounds that he weighed were so many pounds of grit and virility  His
furry coat shone with the sheen of silk  Down the neck and across
the shoulders  his mane  in repose as it was  half bristled and seemed
to lift with every movement  as though excess of vigour made each
particular hair alive and active  The great breast and heavy fore legs
were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body  where the
muscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin  Men felt these
muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron  and the odds went down to
two to one 

  Gad  sir  Gad  sir  stuttered a member of the latest dynasty  a
king of the Skookum Benches  I offer you eight hundred for him 
sir  before the test  sir  eight hundred just as he stands 

  Thornton shook his head and stepped to Bucks side 

  You must stand off from him  Matthewson protested  Free play
and plenty of room 

  The crowd fell silent  only could be heard the voices of the
gamblers vainly offering two to one  Everybody acknowledged Buck a
magnificent animal  but twenty fifty pound sacks of flour bulked too
large in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch strings 

  Thornton knelt down by Bucks side  He took his head in his two
hands and rested check on cheek  He did not playfully shake him  as
was his wont  or murmur soft love curses  but he whispered in his ear 
As you love me  Buck  As you love me  was what he whispered  Buck
whined with suppressed eagerness 

  The crowd was watching curiously  The affair was growing mysterious 
It seemed like a conjuration  As Thornton got to his feet  Buck seized
his mittened hand between his jaws  pressing in with his teeth and
releasing slowly  half reluctantly  It was the answer  in terms not of
speech  but of love  Thornton stepped well back 

  Now  Buck  he said 

  Buck tightened the traces  then slacked them for a matter of several
inches  It was the way he had learned 

  Gee  Thorntons voice rang out  sharp in tense silence 

  Buck swung to the right  ending the movement in a plunge that took
up the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty
pounds  The load quivered  and from under the runners arose a crisp
crackling 

  Haw  Thornton commanded 

  Buck duplicated the manoeuvre  this time to the left  The
crackling turned into a snapping  the sled pivoting and the runners
slipping and grating several inches to the side  The sled was broken
out  Men were holding their breaths  intensely unconscious of the
fact 

  Now  MUSH 

  Thorntons command cracked out like a pistol shot  Buck threw
himself forward  tightening the traces with a jarring lunge  His whole
body was gathered compactly together in the tremendous effort  the
muscles writhing and knotting like live things under the silky fur 
His great chest was low to the ground  his head forward and down 
while his feet were flying like mad  the claws scarring the
hard packed snow in parallel grooves  The sled swayed and trembled 
half started forward  One of his feet slipped  and one man groaned
aloud  Then the sled lurched ahead in what appeared a rapid succession
of jerks  though it never really came to a dead stop again    half
an inch    an inch    two inches    The jerks perceptibly
diminished  as the sled gained momentum  he caught them up  till it
was moving steadily along 

  Men gasped and began to breathe again  unaware that for a moment
they had ceased to breathe  Thornton was running behind  encouraging
Buck with short  cheery words  The distance had been measured off  and
as he neared the pile of firewood which marked the end of the
hundred yards  a cheer began to grow and grow  which burst into a roar
as he passed the firewood and halted at command  Every man was tearing
himself loose  even Matthewson  Hats and mittens were flying in the
air  Men were shaking hands  it did not matter with whom  and bubbling
over in a general incoherent babel 

  But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck  Head was against head 
and he was shaking him back and forth  Those who hurried up heard
him cursing Buck and he cursed long and fervently  and softly and
lovingly 

  Gad  sir  Gad  sir  spluttered the Skookum Bench king  Ill
give a thousand for him  sir  a thousand  sir twelve hundred sir 

  Thornton rose to his feet  His eyes were wet  The tears were
streaming frankly down his cheeks  Sir  he said to the Skookum Bench
king  no  sir  You can go to hell  sir  Its the best I can do for
you  sir 

  Buck seized Thorntons hand in his teeth  Thornton shook him back
and forth  As though animated by a common impulse  the onlookers
drew back to a respectful distance  nor were they again indiscreet
enough to interrupt 

                        CHAPTER SEVEN 

                   The Sounding of the Call 

  WHEN BUCK EARNED SIXTEEN hundred dollars in five minutes for John
Thornton  he made it possible for his master to pay off certain
debts and to journey with his partners into the East after a fabled
lost mine  the history of which was as old as the history of the
country  Many men had sought it  few had found it  and more than a few
there were who had never returned from the quest 

  This lost mine was steeped in tragedy and shrouded in mystery  No
one knew of the first man  The oldest tradition stopped before it
got back to him  From the beginning there had been an ancient and
ramshackle cabin  Dying men had sworn to it  and to the mine the
site of which it marked  clinching their testimony with nuggets that
were unlike any known grades of gold in the Northland 

  But no living man had looted this treasure house and the dead were
dead  wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans  with Buck and half
a dozen other dogs  faced into the East on an unknown trail to achieve
where men and dogs as good as themselves had failed  They sledded
seventy miles up the Yukon  swung to the left into the Stewart
River  passed the Mayo and the McQuestion  and held on until the
Stewart itself became a streamlet  threading the upstanding peaks
which marked the backbone of the continent 

  John Thornton asked little of man or nature  He was unafraid of
the wild  With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into
the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased 
Being in no haste  Indian fashion  he hunted his dinner in the
course of the days travel  and if he failed to find it  like the
Indian  he kept on travelling  secure in the knowledge that sooner
or later he would come to it  So  on this great journey into the East 
straight meat was the bill of fare  ammunition and tools principally
made up the load on the sled  and the time card was drawn upon the
limitless future 

  To Buck it was boundless delight  this hunting  fishing  and
indefinite wandering through strange places  For weeks at a time
they would hold on steadily  day after day  and for weeks upon end
they would camp  here and there  the dogs loafing and the men
burning holes through frozen muck and gravel and washing countless
pans of dirt by the heat of the fire  Sometimes they went hungry 
sometimes they feasted riotously  all according to the abundance of
game and the fortune of hunting  Summer arrived  and dogs and men 
packed on their backs  rafted across blue mountain lakes  and
descended or ascended unknown rivers in slender boats whipsawed from
the standing forest 

  Two months came and went  and back and forth they twisted through
the uncharted vastness  where no men were  yet where men had been if
the Lost Cabin were true  They went across divides in summer
blizzards  shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains
between the timber line and the eternal snows  dropped into summer
valleys amid swarming gnats and flies  and in the shadows of
glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the
Southland could boast  In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird
lake country  sad and silent  where wild flowl had been  but where
then there was no life nor sign of life only the blowing of chill
winds  the forming of ice in sheltered places  and the melancholy
rippling of waves on lonely beaches 

  And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails
of men who had gone before  Once  they came upon a path blazed through
the forest  an ancient path  and the Lost Cabin seemed very near 
But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere  and it remained mystery 
as the man who made it and the reason he made it remained mystery 
Another time they chanced upon the time graven wreckage of a hunting
lodge  and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thornton found a
long barrelled flint lock  He knew it for a Hudson Bay Company gun
of the young days in the Northwest  when such a gun was worth its
height in beaver skins packed flat  And that was all no hint as to
the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gun
among the blankets 

  Spring came on once more  and at the end of all their wandering they
found  not the Lost Cabin  but a shallow placer in a broad valley
where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the
washing pan  They sought no farther  Each day they worked earned
them thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets  and they worked
every day  The gold was sacked in moose hide bags  fifty pounds to the
bag  and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce bough lodge 
Like giants they toiled  days flashing on the heels of days like
dreams as they heaped the treasure up 

  There was nothing for the dogs to do  save the hauling in of meat
now and again that Thornton killed  and Buck spent long hours musing
by the fire  The vision of the short legged hairy man came to him more
frequently now that there was little work to be done  and often 
blinking by the fire  Buck wandered with him in that other world which
he remembered 

  The salient thing of this other world seemed fear  When he watched
the hairy man sleeping by the fire  head between his knees  and
hands clasped above  Buck saw that he slept restlessly  with many
starts and awakenings  at which times he would peer fearfully into the
darkness and fling more wood upon the fire  Did they walk by the beach
of a sea  where the hairy man gathered shell fish and ate them as he
gathered  it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger and
with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance 
Through the forest they crept noiselessly  Buck at the hairy mans
heels  and they were alert and vigilant  the pair of them  ears
twitching and moving and nostrils quivering  for the man heard and
smelled as keenly as Buck  The hairy man could spring up into the
trees and travel ahead as fast as on the ground  swinging by the
arms from limb to limb  sometimes a dozen feet apart  letting go and
catching  never falling  never missing his grip  In fact  he seemed as
much at home among the trees as on the ground  and Buck had memories
of nights of vigil spent beneath trees wherein the hairy man
roosted  holding on tightly as he slept 

  And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call
still sounding in the depths of the forest  It filled him with a great
unrest and strange desires  It caused him to feel a vague  sweet
gladness  and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew
not what  Sometimes he pursued the call into the forest  looking for
it as though it were a tangible thing  barking softly or defiantly  as
the mood might dictate  He would thrust his nose into the cool wood
moss  or into the black soil where long grasses grew  and snort with
joy at the fat earth smells  or he would crouch for hours  as if in
concealment  behind fungus covered trunks of fallen trees  wide eyed
and wide eared to all that moved and sounded about him  It might be 
lying thus  that he hoped to surprise this call he could not
understand  But he did not know why he did these various things  He
was impelled to do them  and did not reason about them at all 

  Irresistible impulses seized him  He would be lying in camp 
dozing lazily in the heat of the day  when suddenly his head would
lift and his ears cock up  intent and listening  and he would spring
to his feet and dash away  and on and on  for hours  through the
forest aisles and across the open spaces where the niggerheads
bunched  He loved to run down dry watercourses and to creep and spy
upon the bird life in the woods  For a day at a time he would lie in
the underbrush where he could watch the partridges drumming and
strutting up and down  But especially he loved to run in the dim
twilight of the summer midnights  listening to the subdued and
sleepy murmurs of the forest  reading signs and sounds as man may read
a book  and seeking for the mysterious something that called
called  waking or sleeping  at all times  for him to come 

  One night he sprang from sleep with a start  eager eyed  nostrils
quivering and scenting  his mane bristling in recurrent waves  From
the forest came the call  or one note of it  for the call was many
noted   distinct and definite as never before a long drawn howl 
like  yet unlike  any noise made by husky dog  And he knew it  in
the old familiar way  as a sound heard before  He sprang through the
sleeping camp and in swift silence dashed through the wood  As he drew
closer to the cry he went more slowly  with caution in every movement 
till he came to an open place among the trees  and looking out saw 
erect on haunches  with nose pointed to the sky  a long  lean timber
wolf 

  He had made no noise yet it ceased from its howling and tried to
sense his presence  Buck stalked into the open  half crouching  body
gathered compactly together  tail straight and stiff  feet falling
with unwonted care  Every movement advertised commingled threatening
and overture of friendliness  It was the menacing truce that marks the
meeting of wild beasts that prey  But the wolf fled at sight of him 
He followed  with wild leapings  in a frenzy to overtake  He ran him
into a blind channel  in the bed of the creek  where a timber jam
barred the way  The wolf whirled about  pivoting on his hind legs
after the fashion of Joe and of all cornered husky dogs  snarling
and bristling  clipping his teeth together in a continuous and rapid
succession of snaps 

  Buck did not attack  but circled about him and hedged him in with
friendly advances  The wolf was suspicious and afraid  for Buck made
three of him in weight  while his head barely reached Bucks shoulder 
Watching his chance  he darted away  and the chase was resumed  Time
and again he was cornered  and the thing repeated  though he was in
poor condition  or Buck could not so easily have overtaken him  He
would run till Bucks head was even with his flank  when he would
whirl around at bay  only to dash away again at the first opportunity 

  But in the end Bucks pertinacity was rewarded  for the wolf 
finding that no harm was intended  finally sniffed noses with him 
Then they became friendly  and played about in the nervous  half coy
way with which fierce beasts belie their fierceness  After some time
of this the wolf started off at an easy lope in a manner that
plainly showed he was going somewhere  He made it clear to Buck that
he was to come  and they ran side by side through the sombre twilight 
straight up the creek bed  into the gorge from which it issued  and
across the bleak divide where it took its rise 

  On the opposite slope of the watershed they came down into a level
country where were great stretches of forest and many streams  and
through these great stretches they ran steadily  hour after hour 
the sun rising higher and the day growing warmer  Buck was wildly
glad  He knew he was at last answering the call  running by the side
of his wood brother toward the place from where the call surely
came  Old memories were coming upon him fast  and he was stirring to
them as of old he stirred to the realities of which they were the
shadows  He had done this thing before  somewhere in that other and
dimly remembered world  and he was doing it again  now  running free
in the open  the unpacked earth underfoot  the wide sky overhead 

  They stopped by a running stream to drink  and  stopping  Buck
remembered John Thornton  He sat down  The wolf started on toward
the place from where the call surely came  then returned to him 
sniffing noses and making actions as though to encourage him  But Buck
returned about and started slowly on the back track  For the better
part of an hour the wild brother ran by his side  whining softly  Then
he sat down  pointed his nose upward  and howled  It was a mournful
howl  and as Buck held steadily on his way he heard it grow faint
and fainter until it was lost in the distance  John Thornton was
eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp and sprang upon him in a
frenzy of affection  overturning him  scrambling upon him  licking his
face  biting his hand playing the general tom fool  as John
Thornton characterised it  the while he shook Buck back and forth
and cursed him lovingly 

  For two days and nights Buck never left camp  never let Thornton out
of his sight  He followed him about at his work  watching him while he
ate  saw him into his blankets at night and out of them in the
morning  But after two days the call in the forest began to sound more
imperiously than ever  Bucks restlessness came back on him  and he
was haunted by recollections of the wild brother  and of the smiling
land beyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide
forest stretches  Once again he took to wandering in the woods  but
the wild brother came no more  and though he listened through long
vigils  the mournful howl was never raised 

  He began to sleep out at night  staying away from the camp for
days at a time  and once he crossed the divide at the head of the
creek and went down into the land of timber and streams  There he
wandered for a week  seeking vainly for fresh signs of the wild
brother  killing his meat as he travelled and travelling with the long
easy lope that seems never to tire  He fished for salmon in a broad
stream that emptied somewhere into the sea  and by this stream he
killed a large black bear  blinded by the mosquitoes while likewise
fishing  and raging through the forest helpless and terrible  Even so 
it was a hard fight  and it aroused the last latent remnants of Bucks
ferocity  And two days later  when he returned to his kill and found a
dozen wolverenes quarrelling over the spoil  he scattered them like
chaff  and those that fled left two behind who would quarrel no more 

  The blood longing became stronger than ever before  He was a killer 
a thing that preyed  living on the things that lived  unaided 
alone  by virtue of his own strength and prowess  surviving
triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong
survived  Because of all this he became possessed of a great pride
in himself  which communicated itself like a contagion to his physical
being  It advertised itself in all his movements  was apparent in
the play of every muscle  spoke plainly as speech in the way he
carried himself and made his glorious furry coat if anything more
glorious  But for the stray brown on his muzzle and above his eyes 
and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost down his chest  he
might well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf  larger than the
largest of the breed  From his St  Bernard father he had inherited
size and weight  but it was his shepherd mother who had given shape to
that size and weight  His muzzle was the long wolf muzzle  save that
it was larger than the muzzle of any wolf  and his head  somewhat
broader  was the wolf head on a massive scale 

  His cunning was wolf cunning  and wild cunning  his intelligence 
shepherd intelligence and St  Bernard intelligence  and all this  plus
an experience gained in the fiercest of schools  made him as
formidable a creature as any that roamed the wild  A carnivorous
animal  living on a straight meat diet  he was in full flower  at
the high tide of his life  over spilling with vigour and virility 
When Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back  a snapping and
cracking followed the hand  each hair discharging its pent magnetism
at the contact  Every part  brain nerve tissue and fibre  was keyed to
the most exquisite pitch  and between all the parts there was a
perfect equilibrium or adjustment  To sights and sounds and events
which required action  he responded with lightning like rapidity 
Quickly as a husky dog could leap to defend from attack or to
attack  he could leap twice as quickly  He saw the movement  or
heard sound  and responded in less time than another dog required to
compass the mere seeing or hearing  He perceived and determined and
responded in the same instant  In point of fact the three actions of
perceiving  determining  and responding were sequential  but so
infinitesimal were the intervals of time between them that they
appeared simultaneous  His muscles were surcharged with vitality 
and snapped into play sharply  like steel springs  Life streamed
through him in splendid flood  glad and rampant  until it seemed
that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forth
generously over the world 

  Never was there such a dog  said John Thornton one day  as the
partners watched Buck marching out of camp 

  When he was made  the mould was broke  said Pete 

  Py jingo  I tink so mineself  Hans affirmed 

  They saw him marching out of the camp  but they did not see the
instant and terrible transformation which took place as soon as he was
within the secrecy of the forest  He no longer marched  At once he
became a thing of the wild  stealing along softly  cat footed  a
passing shadow that appeared and disappeared among the shadows  He
knew how to take advantage of every cover  to crawl on his belly
like a snake  and like a snake to leap and strike  He could take a
ptarmigan from its nest  kill a rabbit as it slept  and snap in mid
air the little chipmunks fleeing a second too late for the trees 
Fish  in open pools  were not too quick for him  nor were beaver 
mending their dams  too wary  He killed to eat  not from wantonness 
but he preferred to eat what he killed himself  So a lurking humour
ran through his deeds  and it was his delight to steal upon the
squirrels  and  when he all but had them  to let them go  chattering
in mortal fear to the tree tops 

  As the fall of the year came on the moose appeared in greater
abundance  moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and less
rigorous valleys  Buck had already dragged down a stray part grown
calf  but he wished strongly for larger and more formidable quarry 
and he came upon it one day on the divide at the head of the creek 
A bank of twenty moose had crossed over from the land of streams and
timber  and chief among them was a great bull  He was in a savage
temper  and  standing over six feet from the ground  was as formidable
an antagonist as even Buck could desire  Back and forth the bull
tossed his great palmated antlers branching to fourteen points and
embracing seven feet within the tips  His small eyes burned with a
vicious and bitter light  while he roared with fury at sight of Buck 

  From the bulls side  just forward of the flank  protruded a
feathered arrow end  which accounted for his savageness  Guided by
that instinct which came from the old hunting days of the primordial
world  Buck proceeded to cut the bull out from the herd  It was no
slight task  He would bark and dance about in front of the bull 
just out of reach of the great antlers and of the terrible splay hoofs
which could have stamped his life out with a single blow  Unable to
turn his back on the fanged danger and go on  the bull would be driven
into paroxysms of rage  At such moments he charged Buck  who retreated
craftily  luring him on by a simulated inability to escape  But when
he was thus separated from his fellows  two or three of the younger
bulls would charge back upon Buck and enable the wounded bull to
rejoin the herd 

  There is a patience of the wild dogged  tireless  persistent as
life itself that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its
web  the snake in its coils  the panther in its ambuscade  this
patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food  and
it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the herd  retarding
its march  irritating the young bulls  worrying the cows with their
half grown calves  and driving the wounded bull mad with helpless
rage  For half a day this continued  Buck multiplied himself 
attacking from all sides  enveloping the herd in a whirlwind of
menace  cutting out his victim as fast as it could rejoin its mates 
wearing out the patience of creatures preyed upon  which is a lesser
patience than that of creatures preying 

  As the day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed in the
north west  the darkness had come back and the fall nights were six
hours long   the young bulls retraced their steps more and more
reluctantly to the aid of their beset leader  The down coming winter
was harrying them on to the lower levels  and it seemed they could
never shake off this tireless creature that held them back  Besides 
it was not the life of the herd  or of the young bulls  that was
threatened  The life of only one member was demanded  which was a
remoter interest than their lives  and in the end they were content to
pay the toll 

  As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head  watching
his mates the cows he had known  the calves he had fathered  the
bulls he had mastered as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the
fading light  He could not follow  for before his nose leaped the
merciless fanged terror that would not let him go  Three hundredweight
more than half a ton he weighed  he had lived a long  strong life 
full of fight and struggle  and at the end he faced death at the teeth
of a creature whose head did not reach beyond his great knuckled
knees 

  From then on  night and day  Buck never left his prey  never gave it
a moments rest  never permitted it to browse the leaves of the
trees or the shoots of young birch and willow  Nor did he give the
wounded bull opportunity to slake his burning thirst in the slender
trickling streams they crossed  Often  in desperation  he burst into
long stretches of flight  At such times Buck did not attempt to stay
him  but loped easily at his heels  satisfied with the way the game
was played  lying down when the moose stood still  attacking him
fiercely when he strove to eat or drink 

  The great head drooped more and more under its tree of horns  and
the shambling trot grew weak and weaker  He took to standing for
long periods  with nose to the ground and dejected ears dropped
limply  and Buck found more time in which to get water for himself and
in which to rest  At such moments  panting with red lolling tongue and
with eyes fixed upon the big bull  it appeared to Buck that a change
was coming over the face of things  He could feel a new stir in the
land  As the moose were coming into the land  other kinds of life were
coming in  Forest and stream and air seemed palpitant with their
presence  The news of it was borne in upon him  not by sight  or
sound  or smell  but by some other and subtler sense  He heard
nothing  saw nothing  yet knew that the land was somehow different 
that through it strange things were afoot and ranging  and he resolved
to investigate after he had finished the business in hand 

  At last  at the end of the fourth day  he pulled the great moose
down  For a day and night he remained by the kill  eating and
sleeping  turn and turn about  Then  rested  refreshed and strong 
he turned his face toward camp and John Thornton  He broke into the
long easy lope  and went on  hour after hour  never at loss for the
tangled way  heading straight home through strange country with a
certitude of direction that put man and his magnetic needle to shame 

  As he held on he became more and more conscious of the new stir in
the land  There was life abroad in it different from the life which
had been there throughout the summer  No longer was this fact borne in
upon him in some subtle  mysterious way  The birds talked of it  the
squirrels chattered about it  the very breeze whispered of it  Several
times he stopped and drew in the fresh morning air in great sniffs 
reading a message which made him leap on with greater speed  He was
oppressed with a sense of calamity happening  if it were no calamity
already happened  and as he crossed the last water shed and dropped
down into the valley toward camp  he proceeded with greater caution 

  Three miles away he came upon a fresh trail that sent his neck
hair rippling and bristling  It led straight toward camp and John
Thornton  Buck hurried on  swiftly and stealthily  every nerve
straining and tense  alert to the multitudinous details which told a
story all but the end  His nose gave him a varying description of the
passage of the life on the heels of which he was travelling  He
remarked the pregnant silence of the forest  The bird life had
flitted  The squirrels were in hiding  One only he saw a sleek grey
fellow  flattened against a grey dead limb so that he seemed a part of
it  a woody excrescence upon the wood itself 

  As Buck slid along with the obscureness of a gliding shadow  his
nose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positive force had
gripped and pulled it  He followed the new scent into a thicket and
found Nig  He was lying on his side  dead where he had dragged
himself  an arrow protruding  head and feathers from either side of
his body 

  A hundred yards farther on  Buck came upon one of the sled dogs
Thornton had bought in Dawson  This dog was thrashing about in a
death struggle  directly on the trail  and Buck passed around him
without stopping  From the camp came the faint sound of many voices 
rising and falling in a sing song chant  Bellying forward to the
edge of the clearing  he found Hans  lying on his face  feathered with
arrows like a porcupine  At the same instant Buck peered out where the
spruce bough lodge had been and saw what made his hair leap straight
up on his neck and shoulders  A gust of overpowering rage swept over
him  He did not know that he growled  but he growled aloud with a
terrible ferocity  For the last time in his life he allowed passion to
usurp cunning and reason  and it was because of his great love for
John Thornton that he lost his head 

  The Yeehats were dancing about the wreckage of the spruce bough
lodge when they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon them an
animal the like of which they had never seen before  It was Buck  a
live hurricane of fury  hurling himself upon them in a frenzy to
destroy  He sprang at the foremost man  it was the chief of the
Yeehats   ripping the throat wide open till the rent jugular spouted a
fountain of blood  He did not pause to worry the victim  but ripped in
passing  with the next bound tearing wide the throat of a second
man  There was no withstanding him  He plunged about in their very
midst  tearing  rending  destroying  in constant and terrific motion
which defied the arrows they discharged at him  In fact  so
inconceivably rapid were his movements  and so closely were the
Indians tangled together  that they shot one another with the
arrows  and one young hunter  hurling a spear at Buck in mid air 
drove it through the chest of another hunter with such force that
the point broke through the skin of the back and stood out beyond 
Then a panic seized the Yeehats  and they fled in terror to the woods 
proclaiming as they fled the advent of the Evil Spirit 

  And truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate  raging at their heels and
dragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees  It was a
fateful day for the Yeehats  They scattered far and wide over the
country  and it was not till a week later that the last of the
survivors gathered together in a lower valley and counted their
losses  As for Buck  wearying of the pursuit  he returned to the
desolated camp  He found Pete where he had been killed in his blankets
in the first moment of surprise  Thorntons desperate struggle was
fresh written on the earth  and Buck scented every detail of it down
to the edge of a deep pool  By the edge  head and fore feet in the
water  lay Skeet  faithful to the last  The pool itself  muddy and
discoloured from the sluice boxes  effectually hid what it
contained  and it contained John Thornton  for Buck followed his trace
into the water  from which no trace led away 

  All day Buck brooded by the pool or roamed restlessly about the
camp  Death  as a cessation of movement  as a passing out and away
from the lives of the living  he knew  and he knew that John
Thornton was dead  It left a great void in him  somewhat akin to
hunger  but a void which ached and ached  and which food could not
fill  At times when he paused to contemplate the carcasses of the
Yeehats  he forgot the pain of it  and at such times he was aware of a
great pride in himself a pride greater than any he had yet
experienced  He had killed man  the noblest game of all  and he had
killed in the face of the law of club and fang  He sniffed the
bodies curiously  They had died so easily  It was harder to kill a
husky dog than them  They were no match at all  were it not for
their arrows and spears and clubs  Thenceforward he would be
unafraid of them except when they bore in their hands their arrows 
spears  and clubs 

  Night came on  and a full moon rose high over the trees into the
sky  lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day  And with the
coming of the night  brooding and mourning by the pool  Buck became
alive to a stirring of the new life in the forest other than that
which the Yeehats had made  He stood up  listening and scenting 
From far away drifted a faint  sharp yelp  followed by a chorus of
similar sharp yelps  As the moments passed the yelps grew closer and
louder  Again Buck knew them as things heard in that other world which
persisted in his memory  He walked to the centre of the open space and
listened  It was the call  the many noted call  sounding more luringly
and compellingly than ever before  And as never before  he was ready
to obey  John Thornton was dead  The last tie was broken  Man and
the claims of man no longer bound him 

  Hunting their living meat  as the Yeehats were hunting it  on the
flanks of the migrating moose  the wolf pack had at last crossed
over from the land of streams and timber and invaded Bucks valley 
Into the clearing where the moonlight streamed  they poured in a
silvery flood  and in the centre of the clearing stood Buck 
motionless as a statue  waiting their coming  They were awed  so still
and large he stood  and a moments pause fell  till the boldest one
leaped straight for him  Like a flash Buck struck  breaking the
neck  Then he stood  without movement  as before  the stricken wolf
rolling in agony behind him  Three others tried it in sharp
succession  and one after the other they drew back  streaming blood
from slashed throats or shoulders 

  This was sufficient to fling the whole pack forward  pell mell 
crowded together  blocked and confused by its eagerness to pull down
the prey  Bucks marvellous quickness and agility stood him in good
stead  Pivoting on his hind legs  and snapping and gashing  he was
everywhere at once  presenting a front which was apparently unbroken
so swiftly did he whirl and guard from side to side  But to prevent
them from getting behind him  he was forced back  down past the pool
and into the creek bed  till he brought up against a high gravel bank 
He worked along to a right angle in the bank which the men had made in
the course of mining  and in this angle he came to bay  protected on
three sides and with nothing to do but face the front 

  And so well did he face it  that at the end of half an hour the
wolves drew back discomfited  The tongues of all were out and lolling 
the white fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight  Some were
lying down with heads raised and ears pricked forward  others stood on
their feet  watching him  and still others were lapping water from the
pool  One wolf  long and lean and grey  advanced cautiously  in a
friendly manner  and Buck recognised the wild brother with whom he had
run for a night and a day  He was whining softly and  as Buck
whined  they touched noses 

  Then an old wolf  gaunt and battle scarred  came forward  Buck
writhed his lips into the preliminary of a snarl  but sniffed noses
with him  Whereupon the old wolf sat down  pointed nose at the moon 
and broke out the long wolf howl  The others sat down and howled 
And now the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents  He  too  sat
down and howled  This over  he came out of his angle and the pack
crowded around him  sniffing in half friendly  half savage manner  The
leaders lifted the yelp of the pack and sprang away into the woods 
The wolves swung in behind yelping in chorus  And Buck ran with
them  side by side with the wild brother  yelping as he ran 

  And here may well end the story of Buck  The years were not many
when the Yeehats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves  for
some were seen with splashes of brown on head and muzzle  and with a
rift of white centring down the chest  But more remarkable than
this  the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the
pack  They are afraid of this Ghost Dog  for it has cunning greater
than they  stealing from their camps in fierce winters  robbing
their traps  slaying their dogs  and defying their bravest hunters 

  Nay  the tale grows worse  Hunters there are who fail to return to
the camp  and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen found
with throats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints about them in
the snow greater than the prints of any wolf  Each fall  when the
Yeehats follow the movement of the moose  there is a certain valley
which they never enter  And women there are who become sad when the
word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit came to select that
valley for an abiding place 

  In the summers there is one visitor  however  to that valley  of
which the Yeehats do not know  It is a great  gloriously coated
wolf  like  and yet unlike  all other wolves  He crosses alone from
the smiling timber land and comes down into an open space among the
trees  Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose hide sacks and
sinks into the ground  with long grasses growing through it and
vegetable mould overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun  and
here he muses for a time  howling once  long and mournfully  ere he
departs 

  But he is not always alone  When the long winter nights come on
and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys  he may be
seen running at the head of the pack  through the pale moonlight or
glimmering borealis  leaping gigantic above his fellows  his great
throat a bellow as he sings a song of the younger world  which is
the song of the pack 

                             THE END