Chapter 1
Into the Primitive"Old longings nomadic leap, Chafing at custom's chain;Again from its brumal sleep Wakens the ferine strain."Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known thattrouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide- water dog,strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to SanDiego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found ayellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies werebooming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland.
　　These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs,with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
　　Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley.
　　Judge Miller's place, it was called. It stood back from the road, halfhidden among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of thewide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house wasapproached by gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. Atthe 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 ofouthouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches.
　　Then there was the pumping plant for the artesian well, and the bigcement tank where Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge andkept cool in the hot afternoon.
　　And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, andhere he had lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were otherdogs, There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they didnot count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, orlived obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of Toots,the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless,--strange creaturesthat 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 fearfulpromises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of the windows at them andprotected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
　　But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realmwas his. He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with theJudge's sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's daughters, onlong twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at theJudge's feet before the roaring library fire; he carried the Judge'sgrandsons on his back, or rolled them in the grass, and guarded theirfootsteps 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 heutterly ignored, for he was king,--king over all creeping, crawling, flyingthings of Judge Miller's place, humans included.
　　His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge'sinseparable companion, and Buck bid fair to follow in the way of hisfather. He was not so large,--he weighed only one hundred and fortypounds,--for his mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog.
　　Nevertheless, one hundred and forty pounds, to which was added thedignity that comes of good living and universal respect, enabled him tocarry himself in right royal fashion. During the four years since hispuppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat; he had a fine pridein himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimesbecome because of their insular situation. But he had saved himself bynot becoming a mere pampered house-dog. Hunting and kindredoutdoor delights had kept down the fat and hardened his muscles; and tohim, as to the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic anda health preserver.
　　And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, whenthe Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozenNorth. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know thatManuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance.
　　Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also,in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness--faith in a system; andthis made his damnation certain. For to play a system requires money,while the wages of a gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of awife and numerous progeny.
　　The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, andthe boys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorable nightof Manuel's treachery. No one saw him and Buck go off through theorchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll. And with theexception of a solitary man, no one saw them arrive at the little flagstation known as College Park. This man talked with Manuel, andmoney chinked between them.
　　"You might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'm," the strangersaid gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around Buck'sneck under the collar.
　　"Twist it, an' you'll choke 'm plentee," said Manuel, and the strangergrunted a ready affirmative.
　　Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it wasan unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew,and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own. Butwhen the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger's hands, hegrowled menacingly. He had merely intimated his displeasure, in hispride believing that to intimate was to command. But to his surprisethe rope tightened around his neck, shutting off his breath. In quickrage he sprang at the man, who met him halfway, grappled him close bythe throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Then therope tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tonguelolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never inall his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his life had hebeen so angry. But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knewnothing 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 hurtingand that he was being jolted along in some kind of a conveyance. Thehoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing told him where hewas. He had travelled too often with the Judge not to know thesensation of riding in a baggage car. He opened his eyes, and into themcame the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king. The man sprang for histhroat, 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 thebaggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle. "I'mtakin' 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco. A crack dog-doctor there thinks thathe can cure 'm."Concerning that night's ride, the man spoke most eloquently forhimself, in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco water front.
　　"All I get is fifty for it," he grumbled; "an' I wouldn't do it over for athousand, cold cash."His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the righttrouser leg was ripped from knee to ankle.
　　"How much did the other mug get?" the saloon-keeper demanded.
　　"A hundred," was the reply. "Wouldn't take a sou less, so help me.""That makes a hundred and fifty," the saloon-keeper calculated; "andhe's worth it, or I'm a squarehead."The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at hislacerated hand. "If I don't get the hydrophoby--""It'll be because you was born to hang," laughed the saloon- keeper.
　　"Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight," he added.
　　Dazed, suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with thelife half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors.
　　But he was thrown down and choked repeatedly, till they succeeded infiling the heavy brass collar from off his neck. Then the rope wasremoved, and he was flung into a cagelike crate.
　　There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his wrathand wounded pride. He could not understand what it all meant. Whatdid they want with him, these strange men? Why were they keepinghim pent up in this narrow crate? He did not know why, but he feltoppressed by the vague sense of impending calamity. Several timesduring 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 wasthe bulging face of the saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sicklylight of a tallow candle. And each time the joyful bark that trembled inBuck's throat was twisted into a savage growl.
　　But the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four menentered and picked up the crate. More tormentors, Buck decided, forthey were evil-looking creatures, ragged and unkempt; and he stormedand raged at them through the bars. They only laughed and pokedsticks at him, which he promptly assailed with his teeth till he realizedthat that was what they wanted. Whereupon he lay down sullenly andallowed the crate to be lifted into a wagon. Then he, and the crate inwhich he was imprisoned, began a passage through many hands.
　　Clerks in the express office took charge of him; he was carted about inanother wagon; a truck carried him, with an assortment of boxes andparcels, upon a ferry steamer; he was trucked off the steamer into a greatrailway depot, and finally he was deposited in an express car.
　　For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at thetail of shrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buck neitherate nor drank. In his anger he had met the first advances of the expressmessengers with growls, and they had retaliated by teasing him. Whenhe flung himself against the bars, quivering and frothing, they laughed athim and taunted him. They growled and barked like detestable dogs,mewed, and flapped their arms and crowed. It was all very silly, heknew; but therefore the more outrage to his dignity, and his anger waxedand waxed. He did not mind the hunger so much, but the lack of watercaused him severe suffering and fanned his wrath to fever-pitch. Forthat matter, high-strung and finely sensitive, the ill treatment had flunghim into a fever, which was fed by the inflammation of his parched andswollen throat and tongue.
　　He was glad for one thing: the rope was off his neck. That hadgiven them an unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would showthem. They would never get another rope around his neck. Upon thathe was resolved. For two days and nights he neither ate nor drank, andduring those two days and nights of torment, he accumulated a fund ofwrath that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him. His eyes turnedblood-shot, and he was metamorphosed into a raging fiend. Sochanged was he that the Judge himself would not have recognized him;and the express messengers breathed with relief when they bundled himoff the train at Seattle.
　　Four men gingerly carried the crate from the wagon into a small,high-walled back yard. A stout man, with a red sweater that saggedgenerously at the neck, came out and signed the book for the driver.
　　That was the man, Buck divined, the next tormentor, and he hurledhimself savagely against the bars. The man smiled grimly, and broughta hatchet and a club.
　　"You ain't going to take him out now?" the driver asked.
　　"Sure," the man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for a pry.
　　There was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who hadcarried it in, and from safe perches on top the wall they prepared towatch the performance.
　　Buck rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it, surgingand wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on the outside, he wasthere on the inside, snarling and growling, as furiously anxious to get outas 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 openingsufficient for the passage of Buck's body. At the same time he droppedthe hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand.
　　And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together forthe spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter in his blood-shoteyes. Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and fortypounds 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 ashock that checked his body and brought his teeth together with anagonizing clip. He whirled over, fetching the ground on his back andside. He had never been struck by a club in his life, and did notunderstand. With a snarl that was part bark and more scream he wasagain on his feet and launched into the air. And again the shock cameand he was brought crushingly to the ground. This time he was awarethat it was the club, but his madness knew no caution. A dozen timeshe 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 torush. He staggered limply about, the blood flowing from nose andmouth and ears, his beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with bloodyslaver. Then the man advanced and deliberately dealt him a frightfulblow on the nose. All the pain he had endured was as nothingcompared with the exquisite agony of this. With a roar that was almostlionlike 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 describeda complete circle in the air, and half of another, then crashed to theground on his head and chest.
　　For the last time he rushed. The man struck the shrewd blow hehad purposely withheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up and wentdown, knocked utterly senseless.
　　"He's no slouch at dog-breakin', that's wot I say," one of the men onthe wall cried enthusiastically.
　　"Druther break cayuses any day, and twice on Sundays," was thereply of the driver, as he climbed on the wagon and started the horses.
　　Buck's senses came back to him, but not his strength. He lay wherehe had fallen, and from there he watched the man in the red sweater.
　　" 'Answers to the name of Buck,' " the man soliloquized, quotingfrom the saloon-keeper's letter which had announced the consignment ofthe crate and contents. "Well, Buck, my boy," he went on in a genialvoice, "we've had our little ruction, and the best thing we can do is to letit go at that. You've learned your place, and I know mine. Be a gooddog and all 'll go well and the goose hang high. Be a bad dog, and I'llwhale the stuffin' outa you. Understand?"As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilesslypounded, and though Buck's hair involuntarily bristled at touch of thehand, he endured it without protest. When the man brought him waterhe drank eagerly, and later bolted a generous meal of raw meat, chunkby chunk, from the man's hand.
　　He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, oncefor all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He hadlearned the lesson, and in all his after life he never forgot it. That clubwas 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 fierceraspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all thelatent cunning of his nature aroused. As the days went by, other dogscame, in crates and at the ends of ropes, some docilely, and some ragingand roaring as he had come; and, one and all, he watched them passunder the dominion of the man in the red sweater. Again and again, ashe looked at each brutal performance, the lesson was driven home toBuck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed, thoughnot necessarily conciliated. Of this last Buck was never guilty, thoughhe 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 conciliatenor 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 tookone or more of the dogs away with them. Buck wondered where theywent, for they never came back; but the fear of the future was strongupon 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 manwho spat broken English and many strange and uncouth exclamationswhich Buck could not understand.
　　"Sacredam!" he cried, when his eyes lit upon Buck. "Dat one dambully dog! Eh? How moch?""Three hundred, and a present at that," was the prompt reply of theman in the red sweater. "And seem' it's government money, you ain'tgot no kick coming, eh, Perrault?"Perrault grinned. Considering that the price of dogs had beenboomed skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum forso fine an animal. The Canadian Government would be no loser, norwould its despatches travel the slower. Perrault knew dogs, and whenhe looked at Buck he knew that he was one in a thousand-- "One in tent'ousand," he commented mentally.
　　Buck saw money pass between them, and was not surprised whenCurly, a good-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the littleweazened 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 theNarwhal, it was the last he saw of the warm Southland. Curly and hewere taken below by Perrault and turned over to a black-faced giantcalled Francois. Perrault was a French-Canadian, and swarthy; butFrancois 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 seemany more), and while he developed no affection for them, he none theless grew honestly to respect them. He speedily learned that Perraultand Francois were fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice,and too wise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs.
　　In the 'tween-decks of the Narwhal, Buck and Curly joined two otherdogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergenwho had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had lateraccompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, ina treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's face the while he meditatedsome underhand trick, as, for instance, when he stole from Buck's foodat the first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him, the lash of Francois'swhip sang through the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothingremained to Buck but to recover the bone. That was fair of Francois, hedecided, and the half-breed began his rise in Buck's estimation.
　　The other dog made no advances, 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, andfurther, that there would be trouble if he were not left alone. "Dave" hewas called, and he ate and slept, or yawned between times, and tookinterest in nothing, not even when the Narwhal crossed Queen CharlotteSound and rolled and pitched and bucked like a thing possessed. WhenBuck and Curly grew excited, half wild with fear, he raised his head asthough annoyed, favored them with an incurious glance, yawned, andwent 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 thatthe weather was steadily growing colder. At last, one morning, thepropeller was quiet, and the Narwhal was pervaded with an atmosphereof excitement. He felt it, as did the other dogs, and knew that a changewas at hand. Francois leashed them and brought them on deck. Atthe first step upon the cold surface, Buck's feet sank into a white mushysomething very like mud. He sprang back with a snort. More of thiswhite stuff was falling through the air. He shook himself, but more of itfell upon him. He sniffed it curiously, then licked some up on histongue. It bit like fire, and the next instant was gone. This puzzledhim. He tried it again, with the same result. The onlookers laugheduproariously, and he felt ashamed, he knew not why, for it was his firstsnow.
Chapter 2
The Law of Club and FangBuck's first day on the Dyea beach was like a nightmare. Everyhour was filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerkedfrom the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of thingsprimordial. No lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do butloaf and be bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment'ssafety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limbwere in peril. There was imperative need to be constantly alert; forthese 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, andhis first experience taught him an unforgetable lesson. It is true, it wasa 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 as she. There was no warning,only a leap in like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out equallyswift, and Curly's face was ripped open from eye to jaw.
　　It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away; but therewas more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot andsurrounded the combatants in an intent and silent circle. Buck did notcomprehend that silent intentness, nor the eager way with which theywere licking their chops. Curly rushed her antagonist, who struck againand leaped aside. He met her next rush with his chest, in a peculiarfashion that tumbled her off her feet. She never regained them, Thiswas what the onlooking huskies had waited for. They closed in uponher, 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; andhe saw Francois, swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Threemen 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 assailantswere clubbed off. But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody,trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breedstanding over her and cursing horribly. The scene often came back toBuck 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 henever went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again, and fromthat moment Buck hated him with a bitter and deathless hatred.
　　Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic passingof Curly, he received another shock. Francois fastened upon him anarrangement of straps and buckles. It was a harness, such as he hadseen the grooms put on the horses at home. And as he had seen horseswork, so he was set to work, hauling Francois on a sled to the forest thatfringed the valley, and returning with a load of firewood. Though hisdignity was sorely hurt by thus being made a draught animal, he was toowise to rebel. He buckled down with a will and did his best, though itwas all new and strange. Francois was stem, demanding instantobedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant obedience; whileDave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Buck's hind quarterswhenever he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced,and while he could not always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproofnow and again, or cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buckinto the way he should go. Buck learned easily, and under thecombined tuition of his two mates and Francois made remarkableprogress. Ere they returned to camp he knew enough to stop at "ho," togo ahead at "mush," to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear of thewheeler when the loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.
　　"T'ree vair' good dogs," Francois told Perrault. "Dat Buck, heempool lak hell. I tich heem queek as anyt'ing."By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with hisdespatches, returned with two more dogs. "Billee" and "Joe" he calledthem, two brothers, and true huskies both. Sons of the one motherthough they were, they were as different as day and night. Billee's onefault 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, whileSpitz proceeded to thrash first one and then the other. Billee wagged histail appeasingly, turned to run when he saw that appeasement was of noavail, and cried (still appeasingly) when Spitz's sharp teeth scored hisflank. But no matter how Spitz circled, Joe whirled around on his heelsto face him, mane bristling, ears laid back, lips writhing and snarling,jaws clipping together as fast as he could snap, and eyes diabolicallygleaming--the incarnation of belligerent fear. So terrible was hisappearance that Spitz was forced to forego disciplining him; but to coverhis own discomfiture he turned upon the inoffensive and wailing Billeeand drove him to the confines of the camp.
　　By evening Perrault secured another dog, an old husky, long andlean and gaunt, with a battle-scarred face and a single eye which flasheda 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 intotheir midst, even Spitz left him alone. He had one peculiarity whichBuck was unlucky enough to discover. He did not like to beapproached on his blind side. Of this offence Buck was unwittinglyguilty, and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion was when Sol-leks whirled upon him and slashed his shoulder to the bone for threeinches up and down. Forever after Buck avoided his blind side, and tothe last of their comradeship had no more trouble. His only apparentambition, like Dave's, was to be left alone; though, as Buck wasafterward to learn, each of them possessed one other and even more vitalambition.
　　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 Francoisbombarded him with curses and cooking utensils, till he recovered fromhis consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer cold. A chillwind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with especial venominto his wounded shoulder. He lay down on the snow and attempted tosleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to his feet. Miserable anddisconsolate, he wandered about among the many tents, only to find thatone place was as cold as another. Here and there savage dogs rushedupon him, but he bristled his neck-hair and snarled (for he was learningfast), and they let him go his way unmolested.
　　Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his ownteam-mates were making out. To his astonishment, they haddisappeared. Again he wandered about through the great camp,looking for them, and again he returned. Were they in the tent? No,that could not be, else he would not have been driven out. Then wherecould they possibly be? With drooping tail and shivering body, veryforlorn indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gaveway beneath his fore legs and he sank down. Something wriggledunder his feet. He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of theunseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and hewent 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. Hewhined placatingly, squirmed and wriggled to show his good will andintentions, and even ventured, as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck's facewith his warm wet tongue.
　　Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buckconfidently selected a spot, and with much fuss and waste effortproceeded to dig a hole for himself. In a trice the heat from his bodyfilled the confined space and he was asleep. The day had been longand arduous, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growledand barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
　　Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the noises of the wakingcamp. At first he did not know where he was. It had snowed duringthe night and he was completely buried. The snow walls pressed himon every side, and a great surge of fear swept through him--the fear ofthe wild thing for the trap. It was a token that he was harking backthrough his own life to the lives of his forebears; for he was a civilizeddog, an unduly civilized dog, and of his own experience knew no trapand so could not of himself fear it. The muscles of his whole bodycontracted spasmodically and instinctively, the hair on his neck andshoulders stood on end, and with a ferocious snarl he bounded straightup 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 himand knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from thetime he went for a stroll with Manuel to the hole he had dug for himselfthe night before.
　　A shout from Francois hailed his appearance. "Wot I say?" the dog-driver cried to Perrault. "Dat Buck for sure learn queek as anyt'ing."Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the Canadian Government,bearing important despatches, he was anxious to secure the best dogs,and he was particularly gladdened by the possession of Buck.
　　Three more huskies were added to the team inside an hour, making atotal of nine, and before another quarter of an hour had passed they werein harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Canon. Buck wasglad to be gone, and though the work was hard he found he did notparticularly despise it. He was surprised at the eagerness whichanimated the whole team and which was communicated to him; but stillmore surprising was the change wrought in Dave and Sol-leks. Theywere new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness andunconcern had dropped from them. They were alert and active, anxiousthat the work should go well, and fiercely irritable with whatever, bydelay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces seemedthe supreme expression of their being, and all that they lived for and theonly 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 thathe might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they wereequally apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error, andenforcing their teaching with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and verywise. He never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to niphim when he stood in need of it. As Francois's whip backed him up,Buck found it to be cheaper to mend his ways than to retaliate, Once,during a brief halt, when he got tangled in the traces and delayed thestart, both Dave and Sol- leks flew at him and administered a soundtrouncing. The resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took goodcare to keep the traces clear thereafter; and ere the day was done, so wellhad he mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging him.
　　Francois's whip snapped less frequently, and Perrault even honored Buckby lifting up his feet and carefully examining them. It was a hard day'srun, up the Canon, through Sheep Camp, past the Scales and the timberline, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of feet deep, and over thegreat Chilcoot Divide, which stands between the salt water and the freshand guards forbiddingly the sad and lonely North. They made goodtime 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 goldseekers were building boats against the break-upof the ice in the spring. Buck made his hole in the snow and slept thesleep of the exhausted just, but all too early was routed out in the colddarkness and harnessed with his mates to the sled.
　　That day they made forty miles, the trail being packed; but the nextday, and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, workedharder, and made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault travelled ahead of theteam, packing the snow with webbed shoes to make it easier for them.
　　Francois, guiding the sled at the gee- pole, sometimes exchanged placeswith him, but not often. Perrault was in a hurry, and he prided himselfon his knowledge of ice, which knowledge was indispensable, for thefall 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 gray of dawn found themhitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them. And alwaysthey pitched camp after dark, eating their bit of fish, and crawling tosleep 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 theother dogs, because they weighed less and were born to the life, receiveda pound only of the fish and managed to keep in good condition.
　　He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterized his old life.
　　A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed him of hisunfinished ration. There was no defending it. While he was fightingoff two or three, it was disappearing down the throats of the others. Toremedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger compelhim, he was not above taking what did not belong to him. He watchedand learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clevermalingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon when Perrault's backwas turned, he duplicated the performance the following day, gettingaway with the whole chunk. A great uproar was raised, but he wasunsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always gettingcaught, was punished for Buck's misdeed.
　　This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northlandenvironment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himselfto changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift andterrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of hismoral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle forexistence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law oflove and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings;but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took suchthings into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them hewould fail to prosper.
　　Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, andunconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. Allhis days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. Butthe club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a morefundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for amoral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller's riding-whip; butthe completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his abilityto 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 clamor of his stomach.
　　He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect forclub and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it waseasier to do them than not to do them.
　　His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles becamehard as iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved aninternal as well as external economy. He could eat anything, no matterhow loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomachextracted the last least particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it tothe farthest reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutestof tissues. Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearingdeveloped such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest soundand knew whether it heralded peace or peril. He learned to bite the iceout with his teeth when it collected between his toes; and when he wasthirsty and there was a thick scum of ice over the water hole, he wouldbreak it by rearing and striking it with stiff fore legs. His mostconspicuous trait was an ability to scent the wind and forecast it a nightin advance. No matter how breathless the air when he dug his nest bytree 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 deadbecame alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. Invague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the timethe wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killedtheir meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fightwith cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had foughtforgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and theold tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were histricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though theyhad been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed hisnose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, deadand dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuriesand through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadenceswhich voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of thestiffness, and the cold, and dark.
　　Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surgedthrough him and he came into his own again; and he came because menhad found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was agardener's helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife anddivers small copies of himself.
Chapter 3
The Dominant Primordial BeastThe dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under thefierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth.
　　His newborn cunning gave him poise and control. He was too busyadjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease, and not only did he notpick fights, but he avoided them whenever possible. A certaindeliberateness characterized his attitude. He was not prone to rashnessand precipitate action; and in the bitter hatred between him and Spitz hebetrayed no impatience, shunned all offensive acts.
　　On the other hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerousrival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He evenwent out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly to start the fightwhich could end only in the death of one or the other. Early in the tripthis 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 theshore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a white-hotknife, and darkness had forced them to grope for a camping place.
　　They could hardly have fared worse. At their backs rose aperpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were compelled tomake their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lakeitself. The tent they had discarded at Dyea in order to travel light. Afew sticks of driftwood furnished them with a fire that thawed downthrough the ice and left them to eat supper in the dark.
　　Close in under the sheltering rock Buck made his nest. So snug andwarm was it, that he was loath to leave it when Francois distributed thefish which he had first thawed over the fire. But when Buck finishedhis ration and returned, he found his nest occupied. A warning snarltold him that the trespasser was Spitz. Till now Buck had avoidedtrouble 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 Spitzparticularly, for his whole experience with Buck had gone to teach himthat his rival was an unusually timid dog, who managed to hold his ownonly because of his great weight and size.
　　Francois was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle from thedisrupted nest and he divined the cause of the trouble. "A-a- ah!" hecried to Buck. "Gif it to heem, by Gar! Gif it to heem, the dirty t'eef!"Spitz was equally willing. He was crying with sheer rage andeagerness as he circled back and forth for a chance to spring in. Buckwas no less eager, and no less cautious, as he likewise circled back andforth for the advantage. But it was then that 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 bonyframe, and a shrill yelp of pain, heralded the breaking forth ofpandemonium. The camp was suddenly discovered to be alive withskulking furry forms, - starving huskies, four or five score of them, whohad scented the camp from some Indian village. They had crept inwhile Buck and Spitz were fighting, and when the two men sprangamong them with stout clubs they showed their teeth and fought back.
　　They were crazed by the smell of the food. Perrault found one withhead 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 ofthe famished brutes were scrambling for the bread and bacon. Theclubs fell upon them unheeded. They yelped and howled under the rainof 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 theirnests only to be set upon by the fierce invaders. Never had Buck seensuch dogs. it seemed as though their bones would burst through theirskins. 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 wasbeset by three huskies, and in a trice his head and shoulders were rippedand slashed. The din was frightful. Billee was crying as usual.
　　Dave and Sol-leks, dripping blood from a score of wounds, werefighting bravely side by side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once,his teeth closed on the fore leg of a husky, and he crunched downthrough the bone. Pike, the malingerer, leaped upon the crippled animal,breaking its neck with a quick flash of teeth and a jerk, Buck got afrothing adversary by the throat, and was sprayed with blood when histeeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of it in his mouthgoaded him to greater fierceness. He flung himself upon another, andat the same time felt teeth sink into 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 beastsrolled back before them, and Buck shook himself free. But it was onlyfor a moment. The two men were compelled to run back to save thegrub, upon which the huskies returned to the attack on the team. Billee,terrified into bravery, sprang through the savage circle and fled awayover the ice. Pike and Dub followed on his heels, with the rest of theteam behind. As Buck drew himself together to spring after them, outof the tail of his eye he saw Spitz rush upon him with the evidentintention of overthrowing him. Once off his feet and under that massof huskies, there was no hope for him. But he braced himself to theshock of Spitz's charge, then joined the flight out on the lake.
　　Later, the nine team-dogs gathered together and sought shelter in theforest. Though unpursued, they were in a sorry plight. There was notone who was not wounded in four or five places, while some werewounded grievously. Dub was badly injured in a hind leg; Dolly, thelast husky added to the team at Dyea, had a badly torn throat; Joe hadlost an eye; while Billee, the good-natured, with an ear chewed and rentto ribbons, cried and whimpered throughout the night. At daybreakthey limped warily back to camp, to find the marauders gone and thetwo men in bad tempers. Fully half their grub supply was gone. Thehuskies had chewed through the sled lashings and canvas coverings. Infact, nothing, no matter how remotely eatable, had escaped them. Theyhad eaten a pair of Perrault's moose-hide moccasins, chunks out of theleather traces, and even two feet of lash from the end of Francois's whip.
　　He broke from a mournful contemplation of it to look over his wounded dogs.
　　"Ah, my frien's," he said softly, "mebbe it mek you mad dog, dosemany bites. Mebbe all mad dog, sacredam! Wot you t'ink, eh, Perrault?"The courier shook his head dubiously. With four hundred miles oftrail still between him and Dawson, he could ill afford to have madnessbreak out among his dogs. Two hours of cursing and exertion got theharnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffened team was under way,struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they had yetencountered, and for that matter, the hardest between them and Dawson.
　　The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied thefrost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that the iceheld at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required to cover thosethirty terrible miles. And terrible they were, for every foot of them wasaccomplished at the risk of life to dog and man. A dozen times,Perrault, nosing the way broke through the ice bridges, being saved bythe long pole he carried, which he so held that it fell each time across thehole made by his body. But a cold snap was on, the thermometerregistering fifty below zero, and each time he broke through he wascompelled for very life to build a fire and dry his garments.
　　Nothing daunted him. It was because nothing daunted him that hehad been chosen for government courier. He took all manner of risks,resolutely thrusting his little weazened face into the frost and strugglingon from dim dawn to dark. He skirted the frowning shores on rim icethat 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. Theusual fire was necessary to save them. They were coated solidly withice, and the two men kept them on the run around the fire, sweating andthawing, so close that they were singed by the flames.
　　At another time Spitz went through, dragging the whole team afterhim up to Buck, who strained backward with all his strength, his foreThe Call of the Wild25paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering and snapping all around.
　　But behind him was Dave, likewise straining backward, and behind thesled was Francois, pulling till his tendons cracked.
　　Again, the rim ice broke away before and behind, and there was noescape except up the cliff. Perrault scaled it by a miracle, whileFrancois prayed for just that miracle; and with every thong and sledlashing and the last bit of harness rove into a long rope, the dogs werehoisted, one by one, to the cliff crest. Francois came up last, after thesled and load. Then came the search for a place to descend, whichdescent was ultimately made by the aid of the rope, and night foundthem back on the river with a quarter of a mile to the day's credit.
　　By the time they made the Hootalinqua and good ice, Buck wasplayed out. The rest of the dogs were in like condition; but Perrault, tomake up lost time, pushed them late and early. The first day theycovered thirty-five miles to the Big Salmon; the next day thirty-fivemore to the Little Salmon; the third day forty miles, which brought themwell up toward the Five Fingers.
　　Buck's feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of the huskies.
　　His had softened during the many generations since the day his last wildancestor was tamed by a cave-dweller or river man. AU day long helimped 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 rubbedBuck's feet for half an hour each night after supper, and sacrificed thetops of his own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck. This wasa great relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault totwist itself into a grin one morning, when Francois forgot the moccasinsand Buck lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, andrefused 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, whohad never been conspicuous for anything, went suddenly mad. Sheannounced her condition by a long, heartbreaking wolf howl that sentevery dog bristling with fear, then sprang straight for Buck. He hadnever 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 leapbehind; nor could she gain on him, so great was his terror, nor could heleave her, so great was her madness. He plunged through the woodedbreast of the island, flew down to the lower end, crossed a back channelfilled with rough ice to another island, gained a third island, curved backto the main river, and in desperation started to cross it. And all the time,though he did not took, 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 inthat Francois would save him. The dog-driver held the axe poised inhis hand, and as Buck shot past him the axe crashed down upon madDolly's head.
　　Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath,helpless. This was Spitz's opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, andtwice his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the fleshto the bone. Then Francois's lash descended, and Buck had thesatisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yetadministered to any of the teams.
　　"One devil, dat Spitz," remarked Perrault. "Some dam day heem keel dat Buck.""Dat Buck two devils, " was Francois's rejoinder. "All de tam Iwatch dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heem getmad lak hell an' den heem chew dat Spitz all up an) spit heem out on desnow. Sure. I know."From then on it was war between them. Spitz, as lead-dog andacknowledged master of the team, felt his supremacy threatened by thisstrange Southland dog. And strange Buck was to him, for of the manySouthland dogs he had known, not one had shown up worthily in campand on trail. They were all too soft, dying under the toil, the frost, andstarvation. Buck was the exception. He alone endured and prospered,matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning. Then he was amasterful dog, and what made him dangerous was the fact that the clubof the man in the red sweater had knocked all blind pluck and rashnessout of his desire for mastery. He was preeminently cunning, and couldbide his time with a patience that was nothing less than primitive.
　　It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buckwanted it. He wanted it because it was his nature, because he had beengripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the trail andtrace--that pride which holds dogs in the toil to the last gasp, which luresthem to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their hearts if they are cutout 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 atbreak of camp, transforming them from sour and sullen brutes intostraining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on allday and dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall backinto gloomy unrest and uncontent. This was the pride that bore upSpitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who blundered and shirked inthe traces or hid away at harness-up time in the morning. Likewise itwas this pride that made him fear Buck as a possible lead-dog. Andthis was Buck's pride, too.
　　He openly threatened the other's leadership. He came between himand the shirks he should have punished. And he did it deliberately.
　　One night there was a heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike, themalingerer, did not appear. He was securely hidden in his nest under afoot of snow. Francois called him and sought him in vain. Spitz waswild with wrath. He raged through the camp, smelling and digging inevery likely place, snarling so frightfully that Pike heard and shivered inhis hiding-place.
　　But when he was at last unearthed, and Spitz flew at him to punishhim, Buck flew, with equal rage, in between. So unexpected was it,and so shrewdly managed, that Spitz was hurled backward and off hisfeet. Pike, who had been trembling abjectly, took heart at this openmutiny, and sprang upon his overthrown leader. Buck, to whom fairplay was a forgotten code, likewise sprang upon Spitz. But Francois,chuckling at the incident while unswerving in the administration ofjustice, brought his lash down upon Buck with all his might. Thisfailed to drive Buck from his prostrate rival, and the butt of the whip wasbrought into play. Half- stunned by the blow, Buck was knockedbackward and the lash laid upon him again and again, while Spitzsoundly punished the many times offending Pike.
　　In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer, Buckstill continued to interfere between Spitz and the culprits; but he did itcraftily, when Francois was not around, With the covert mutiny of Buck,a general insubordination sprang up and increased. Dave and Sol-lekswere unaffected, but the rest of the team went from bad to worse.
　　Things no longer went right. There was continual bickering andjangling. Trouble was always afoot, and at the bottom of it was Buck.
　　He kept Francois busy, for the dog- driver was in constant apprehension ofthe life-and-death struggle between the two which he knew must takeplace sooner or later; and on more than one night the sounds ofquarrelling and strife among the other dogs turned him out of hissleeping robe, fearful that Buck and Spitz were at it.
　　But the opportunity did not present itself, and they pulled intoDawson one dreary afternoon with the great fight still to come. Herewere many men, and countless dogs, and Buck found them all at work.
　　It seemed the ordained order of things that dogs should work. All daythey swung up and down the main street in long teams, and in the nighttheir 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 inthe Santa Clara Valley. Here and there Buck met Southland dogs, but inthe main they were the wild wolf husky breed. Every night, regularly,at nine, at twelve, at three, they lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eeriechant, in which it was Buck's delight to join.
　　With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the starsleaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall ofsnow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, onlyit was pitched in minor key, with long- drawn wailings and half-sobs, andwas more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It wasan old song, old as the breed itself--one of the first songs of the youngerworld in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe ofunnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangelystirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of livingthat was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery ofthe cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. And that heshould be stirred by it marked the completeness with which he harkedback through the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings of life in thehowling ages.
　　Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they droppeddown the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled forDyea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches if anythingmore urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride hadgripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of the year.
　　Several things favored him in this. The week's rest had recuperated thedogs and put them in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into thecountry was packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the policehad 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; andthe second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way toPelly. But such splendid running was achieved not without greattrouble and vexation on the part of Francois. The insidious revolt ledby Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team. It no longer was asone dog leaping in the traces. The encouragement Buck gave the rebelsled them into all kinds of petty misdemeanors. No more was Spitz aleader greatly to be feared. The old awe departed, and they grew equalto challenging his authority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one night,and gulped it down under the protection of Buck. Another night Duband Joe fought Spitz and made him forego the punishment they deserved.
　　And even Billee, the good-natured, was less good-natured, and whinednot half so placatingly as in former days. Buck never came near Spitzwithout snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact, his conductapproached that of a bully, and he was given to swaggering up and downbefore Spitz's very nose.
　　The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in theirrelations with one another. They quarrelled and bickered more thanever among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling bedlam.
　　Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, though they were made irritableby the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange barbarous oaths,and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair. His lash wasalways singing among the dogs, but it was of small avail. Directly hisback was turned they were at it again. He backed up Spitz with hiswhip, while Buck backed up the remainder of the team. Francois knewhe was behind all the trouble, and Buck knew he knew; but Buck wastoo clever ever again to be caught red-handed. He worked faithfully inthe harness, for the toil had become a delight to him; yet it was agreater delight slyly to precipitate a fight amongst his mates and tanglethe traces.
　　At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turned upa snowshoe rabbit, blundered it, and missed. In a second the wholeteam was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp of theNorthwest Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined the chase.
　　The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a small creek, up thefrozen bed of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the surface of thesnow, while the dogs ploughed through by main strength. Buck led thepack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. Helay down low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashingforward, 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 menout from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things bychemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill--allthis was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was rangingat the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, tokill 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 whichlife cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comeswhen one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness thatone is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to theartist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to thesoldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came toBuck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after thefood that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through themoonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the partsof his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb ofTime. He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave ofbeing, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that itwas everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant,expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and overthe face of dead matter that did not move.
　　But Spitz, cold and calculating even in his supreme moods, left thepack and cut across a narrow neck of land where the creek made a longbend 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 andlarger frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into the immediatepath of the rabbit. It was Spitz. The rabbit could not turn, and as thewhite teeth broke its back in mid air it shrieked as loudly as a strickenman may shriek. At sound of this, the cry of Life plunging down fromLife's apex in the grip of Death, the fall pack at Buck's heels raised ahell's chorus of delight.
　　Buck did not cry out. He did not check himself, but drove in uponSpitz, shoulder to shoulder, so hard that he missed the throat. Theyrolled over and over in the powdery snow. Spitz gained his feet almostas though he had not been overthrown, slashing Buck down the shoulderand leaping clear. Twice his teeth clipped together, like the steel jaws ofa trap, as he backed away for better footing, with lean and lifting lipsthat 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 theadvantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity. Heseemed to remember it all,--the white woods, and earth, and moonlight,and the thrill of battle. Over the whiteness and silence brooded aghostly calm. There was not the faintest whisper of air--nothing moved,not a leaf quivered, the visible breaths of the dogs rising slowly andlingering in the frosty air. They had made short work of the snowshoerabbit, these dogs that were ill-tamed wolves; and they were now drawnup in an expectant circle. They, too, were silent, their eyes onlygleaming and their breaths drifting slowly upward. To Buck it wasnothing new or strange, this scene of old time. It was as though it hadalways 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 mannerof dogs and achieved to mastery over them. Bitter rage was his, butnever blind rage. In passion to rend and destroy, he never forgot thathis enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy. He never rushed tillhe 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 bythe fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and lips were cut and bleeding,but Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard. Then he warmed upand enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and time again hetried for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near to the surface,and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away. ThenBuck took to rushing, as though for the throat, when, suddenly drawingback his head and curving in from the side, he would drive his shoulderat the shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which to overthrow him. Butinstead, Buck's shoulder was slashed down each time as Spitz leaped lightly away.
　　Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood andpanting hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the while thesilent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down.
　　As Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggeringfor footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogsstarted up; but he recovered himself, almost in mid air, and the circlesank 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, asthough attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last instant swept lowto the snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitz's left fore leg. Therewas a crunch of breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on threelegs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated the trick andbroke the right fore leg. Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitzstruggled madly to keep up. He saw the silent circle, with gleamingeyes, lolling tongues, and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing inupon him as he had seen similar circles close in upon beaten antagonistsin the past. Only this time he was the one who was beaten.
　　There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy was athing reserved for gender climes. He manoeuvred for the final rush.
　　The circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths of the huskies onhis flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side, halfcrouching for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause seemed tofall. Every animal was motionless as though turned to stone. OnlySpitz quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth, snarling withhorrible menace, as though to frighten off impending death. ThenBuck sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder had at lastsquarely met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot on the moon-flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from view. Buck stood and lookedon, the successful champion, the dominant primordial beast who hadmade his kill and found it good.
Chapter 4
Who Has Won to Mastership"Eh? Wot I say? I spik true w'en I say dat Buck two devils."This was Francois's speech next morning when he discovered Spitzmissing and Buck covered with wounds. He drew him to the fire andby its light pointed them out.
　　"Dat Spitz fight lak hell," said Perrault, as he surveyed the gapingrips and cuts.
　　"An' dat Buck fight lak two hells," was Francois's answer. "An' nowwe 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 placeSpitz would have occupied as leader; but Francois, not noticing him,brought Sol-leks to the coveted position. In his judgment, Sol-leks wasthe best lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury, driving himback and standing in his place.
　　"Eh? eh?" Francois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. "Look at datBuck. Heem keel dat Spitz, heem t'ink to take de job.""Go 'way, Chook!" he cried, but Buck refused to budge.
　　He took Buck by the scruff of the neck, and though the dog growledthreateningly, dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. The olddog did not like it, and showed plainly that he was afraid of Buck.
　　Francois was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck againdisplaced Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.
　　Francois was angry. "Now, by Gar, I feex you!" he cried, comingback with a heavy club in his hand.
　　Buck remembered the man in the red sweater, and retreated slowly;nor did he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more broughtforward. But he circled just beyond the range of the club, snarling withbitterness and rage; and while he circled he watched the club so as tododge it if thrown by Francois, for he was become wise in the way ofclubs. The driver went about his work, and he called to Buck when hewas ready to put him in his old place in front of Dave. Buck retreatedtwo or three steps. Francois followed him up, whereupon he againretreated. After some time of this, Francois threw down the 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 washis 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 thebetter part of an hour. They threw clubs at him. He dodged. Theycursed him, and his fathers and mothers before him, and all his seed tocome after him down to the remotest generation, and every hair on hisbody and drop of blood in his veins; and he answered curse with snarland kept out of their reach. He did not try to run away, but retreatedaround and around the camp, advertising plainly that when his desirewas met, he would come in and be good.
　　Francois sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at hiswatch and swore. Time was flying, and they should have been on thetrail an hour gone. Francois scratched his head again. He shook itand grinned sheepishly at the courier, who shrugged his shoulders insign that they were beaten. Then Francois went up to where Sol-leksstood and called to Buck. Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept hisdistance. Francois unfastened Sol-leks's traces and put him back in hisold place. The team stood harnessed to the sled in an unbroken line, 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 growlingwhile the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken-heartedlywhen he saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served so long.
　　For the pride of trace and trail was his, and, sick unto death, he could notbear that another dog should do his work.
　　When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside thebeaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him andtrying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, striving toleap inside his traces and get between him and the sled, and A the whilewhining and yelping and crying with grief and pain. The half-breedtried to drive him away with the whip; but he paid no heed to thestinging lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder. Daverefused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going waseasy, but continued to flounder alongside in the soft snow, where thegoing was most difficult, till exhausted. Then he fell, and lay where hefell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by.
　　With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger alongbehind till the train made another stop, when he floundered past the sledsto his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered amoment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then hereturned and started his dogs. They swung out on the trail withremarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped insurprise. The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. Hecalled his comrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten through bothof Sol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in hisproper 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 beingdenied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known,where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they werecut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to dieanyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So hewas harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though morethan 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 thesled 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 placefor him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. Atharness-up time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts hegot on his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way forwardslowly toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates. Hewould advance his fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitchingmovement, when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead againfor a few more inches. His strength left him, and the last his mates sawof him he lay gasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But theycould hear him mournfully howling till they passed out of sight behind abelt of river timber.
　　Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retracedhis steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. Arevolver-shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whipssnapped, the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail; butBuck knew, and every dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt ofriver trees.
　　ready for the trail. There was no place for Buck save at the front.
　　Once more Francois called, and once more Buck laughed and kept away.
　　"T'row down de club," Perrault commanded.
　　Francois complied, whereupon Buck trotted in, laughingtriumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of the team.
　　His traces were fastened, the sled broken out, and with both men runningthey dashed out on to the river trail.
　　Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck, with his two devils,he found, while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued. At abound Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment wasrequired, and quick thinking and quick acting, he showed himself thesuperior 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, thatBuck excelled. Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the change inleadership. It was none of their business. Their business was to toil,and toil mightily, in the traces.
　　So long as that were not interfered with,they did not care what happened. Billee, the good-natured, could leadfor 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 theirsurprise was great now that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape.
　　Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce moreof his weight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do, wasswiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the first day was donehe 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 neversucceeded in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of superiorweight, and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to whine for mercy.
　　The general tone of the team picked up immediately. It recoveredits old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in thetraces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, wereadded; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took awayFrancois's breath.
　　"Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!" he cried. "No, nevaire! Heemworth one t'ousan' dollair, by Gar! Eh? Wot you say, Perrault?"And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then, and gainingday 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 nottoo cold. The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remainedthere the whole trip. The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs werekept on the jump, with but infrequent stoppages.
　　The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and theycovered 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 Bargeto the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett (seventymiles of lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it was to runtowed behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the last night of thesecond week they topped White Pass and dropped down the sea slopewith the lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at their feet.
　　It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averagedforty miles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up anddown the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations todrink, while the team was the constant centre of a worshipful crowd ofdog-busters and mushers. Then three or four western bad men aspiredto clean out the town, were riddled like pepper-boxes for their pains, andpublic 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, theypassed out of Buck's life for good.
　　A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and incompany with a dozen other dog-teams he started back over the wearytrail to Dawson. It was no light running now, nor record time, butheavy 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 theshadow of the Pole.
　　Buck did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, taking pride init after the manner of Dave and Sol-leks, and seeing that his mates,whether they prided in it or not, did their fair share. It was amonotonous life, operating with machine-like regularity. One day wasvery 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 beforethe darkness fell which gave warning of dawn. At night, camp wasmade. Some pitched the flies, others cut firewood and pine boughs forthe beds, and still others carried water or ice for the cooks. Also, thedogs were fed. To them, this was the one feature of the day, though itwas good to loaf around, after the fish was eaten, for an hour or sowith the other dogs, of which there were fivescore and odd. Therewere fierce fighters among them, but three battles with the fiercestbrought Buck to mastery, so that when he bristled and showed his teeththey got out of his way.
　　Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near the fire, hind legs crouchedunder him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised, and eyes blinkingdreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's bighouse in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the cementswimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, and Toots, theJapanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater, thedeath of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he hadeaten or would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland wasvery dim and distant, and such memories had no power over him. Farmore potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things he hadnever seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were butthe memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in laterdays, and still later, in him, quickened and become alive again.
　　Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames, itseemed that the flames were of another fire, and that as he crouched bythis other fire he saw another and different man from the half-breed cookbefore him. This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm, withmuscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and swelling.
　　The hair of this man was long and matted, and his head slanted backunder it from the eyes. He uttered strange sounds, and seemed verymuch afraid of the darkness, into which he peered continually, clutchingin his hand, which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with aheavy stone made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged andfire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his bodythere was much hair. In some places, across the chest and shouldersand down the outside of the arms and thighs, it was matted into almost athick fur. He did not stand erect, but with trunk inclined forward fromthe hips, on legs that bent at the knees. About his body there was apeculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike, and a quick alertnessas of one who lived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen.
　　At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head betweenhis legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, hishands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms.
　　And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see manygleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he knew to bethe eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could hear the crashing of theirbodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made in the night.
　　And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking at thefire, these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair torise 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 theother world would vanish and the real world come into his eyes, and hewould 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 workwore them down. They were short of weight and in poor conditionwhen they made Dawson, and should have had a ten days' or a week'srest at least. But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukon bankfrom the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside. The dogs weretired, the drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed everyday. This meant a soft trail, greater friction on the runners, and heavierpulling for the dogs; yet the drivers were fair through it all, and did theirbest for the animals.
　　Each night the dogs were attended to first. They ate before thedrivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seen to thefeet of the dogs he drove. Still, their strength went down. Since thebeginning of the winter they had travelled eighteen hundred miles,dragging sleds the whole weary distance; and eighteen hundred mileswill tell upon life of the toughest. Buck stood it, keeping his mates upto their work and maintaining discipline, though he, too, was very tired.
　　Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe wassourer than ever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.
　　But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gonewrong with him. He became more morose and irritable, and whencamp 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 tillharness-up time in the morning. Sometimes, in the traces, when jerkedby a sudden stoppage of the sled, or by straining to start it, he would cryout with pain. The driver examined him, but could find nothing. Allthe 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 theyheld a consultation. He was brought from his nest to the fire and waspressed and prodded till he cried out many times. Something waswrong 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 wasfalling repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called a halt andtook him out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast
Chapter 5
The Toil of Trace and TrailThirty days from the time it left Dawson, the Salt Water Mail, withBuck and his mates at the fore, arrived at Skaguay. They were in awretched state, worn out and worn down. Buck's one hundred andforty pounds had dwindled to one hundred and fifteen. The rest of hismates, though lighter dogs, had relatively lost more weight than he.
　　Pike, the malingerer, who, in his lifetime of deceit, had oftensuccessfully feigned a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest. Sol-lekswas limping, and Dub was suffering from a wrenched shoulder-blade.
　　They were all terribly footsore. No spring or rebound was left inthem. Their feet fell heavily on the trail, jarring their bodies anddoubting the fatigue of a day's travel. There was nothing the matterwith them except that they were dead tired. It was not the dead-tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort, from whichrecovery is a matter of hours; but it was the dead-tiredness that comesthrough 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 , every fibre,every cell, was tired, dead tired. And there was reason for it. In lessthan five months they had travelled twenty-five hundred miles, duringthe 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 justmanaged to keep out of the way of the sled.
　　"Mush on, poor sore feets," the driver encouraged them as theytottered down the main street of Skaguay. "Dis is de las'. Den we getone 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 thenature of reason and common justice they deserved an interval of loafing.
　　But so many were the men who had rushed into the Klondike, and somany were the sweethearts, wives, and kin that had not rushed in, thatthe congested mail was taking on Alpine proportions; also, there wereofficial orders. Fresh batches of Hudson Bay dogs were to take theplaces of those worthless for the trail. The worthless ones were to begot 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 howreally tired and weak they were. Then, on the morning of the fourthday, two men from the States came along and bought them, harness andall, for a song. The men addressed each other as "Hal" and "Charles."Charles was a middle-aged, lightish-colored man, with weak and wateryeyes and a mustache that twisted fiercely and vigorously up, giving thelie to the limply drooping lip it concealed. Hal was a youngster ofnineteen or twenty, with a big Colt's revolver and a hunting-knifestrapped about him on a belt that fairly bristled with cartridges. Thisbelt was the most salient thing about him. It advertised his callowness--a callowness sheer and unutterable. Both men were manifestly out ofplace, and why such as they should adventure the North is part of themystery of things that passes understanding.
　　Buck heard the chaffering, saw the money pass between the man andthe Government agent, and knew that the Scotch half-breed and themail-train drivers were passing out of his life on the heels of Perrault andFrancois and the others who had gone before. When driven with hismates to the new owners' camp, Buck saw a slipshod and slovenly affair,tent half stretched, dishes unwashed, everything in disorder; also, he sawa woman. "Mercedes" the men called her. She was Charles's wifeand Hal's sister--a nice family party.
　　Buck watched them apprehensively as they proceeded to take downthe tent and load the sled. There was a great deal of effort about theirmanner, but no businesslike method. The tent was rolled into anawkward bundle three times as large as it should have been. The tindishes were packed away unwashed. Mercedes continually fluttered inthe way of her men and kept up an unbroken chattering of remonstranceand advice. When they put a clothes-sack on the front of the sled, shesuggested 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 discoveredoverlooked articles which could abide nowhere else but in that very sack,and they unloaded again.
　　Three men from a neighboring tent came out and looked on, grinningand winking at one another.
　　"You've got a right smart load as it is," said one of them; "and it's notme should tell you your business, but I wouldn't tote that tent along if I was you.""Undreamed of!" cried Mercedes, throwing up her hands in daintydismay. "However in the world could I manage without a tent?""It's springtime, and you won't get any more cold weather," the man replied.
　　She shook her head decidedly, and Charles and Hal put the last oddsand ends on top the mountainous load.
　　"Think it'll ride?" one of the men asked.
　　"Why shouldn't it?" Charles demanded rather shortly.
　　"Oh, that's all right, that's all right," the man hastened meekly to say.
　　"I was just a-wonderin', that is all. It seemed a mite top-heavy."Charles turned his back and drew the lashings down as well as hecould, which was not in the least well.
　　"An' of course the dogs can hike along all day with that contraptionbehind them," affirmed a second of the men.
　　"Certainly," said Hal, with freezing politeness, taking hold of the ustn't," as shecaught hold of the whip and wrenched it from him. "The poor dears!
　　Now you must promise you won't be harsh with them for the rest of thetrip, or I won't go a step.""Precious lot you know about dogs," her brother sneered; "and I wishyou'd leave me alone. They're lazy, I tell you, and you've got to whipthem to get anything out of them. That's their way. You ask any one.
　　Ask one of those men."Mercedes looked at them imploringly, untold repugnance at sight ofpain written in her pretty face.
　　"They're weak as water, if you want to know," came the reply fromone of the men. "Plum tuckered out, that's what's the matter. They need a rest.""Rest be blanked," said Hal, with his beardless lips; and Mercedessaid, "Oh!" in pain and sorrow at the oath.
　　But she was a clannish creature, and rushed at once to the defence ofher brother. "Never mind that man," she said pointedly. "You'redriving our dogs, and you do what you think best with them."Again Hal's whip fell upon the dogs. They threw themselvesagainst the breast-bands, dug their feet into the packed snow, got downlow to it, and put forth all their strength. The sled held as though it werean anchor. After two efforts, they stood still, panting. The whip waswhistling savagely, when once more Mercedes interfered. She droppedon her knees before Buck, with tears in her eyes, and put her armsaround his neck.
　　"You poor, poor dears," she cried sympathetically, "why don't youpull hard?--then you wouldn't be whipped." Buck did not like her, but hewas feeling too miserable to resist her, taking it as part of the day'smiserable work.
　　One of the onlookers, who had been clenching his teeth to suppresshot speech, now spoke up:--"It's not that I care a whoop what becomes of you, but for the dogs'
　　sakes I just want to tell you, you can help them a mighty lot by breakingout that sled. The runners are froze fast. Throw your weight againstthe gee-pole, right and left, and break it out."A third time the attempt was made, but this time, following theadvice, Hal broke out the runners which had been frozen to the snow.
　　The overloaded and unwieldy sled forged ahead, Buck and his matesstruggling frantically under the rain of blows. A hundred yards aheadthe path turned and sloped steeply into the main street. It would haverequired an experienced man to keep the top-heavy sled upright, and Halwas not such a man. As they swung on the turn the sled went over,spilling half its load through the loose lashings. The dogs neverstopped. The lightened sled bounded on its side behind them. Theywere angry because of the ill treatment they had received and the unjustload. Buck was raging. He broke into a run, the team following hislead. Hal cried "Whoa! whoa!" but they gave no heed. He trippedand was pulled off his feet. The capsized sled ground over him, and thedogs dashed on up the street, adding to the gayety of Skaguay as theyscattered the remainder of the outfit along its chief thoroughfare.
　　Kind-hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered up the scatteredbelongings. Also, they gave advice. Half the load and twice the dogs,if they ever expected to reach Dawson, was what was said. Hal and hissister and brother-in-law listened unwillingly, pitched tent, andoverhauled the outfit. Canned goods were turned out that made menlaugh, 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, andall those dishes,--who's going to wash them, anyway? Good Lord, doyou think you're travelling on a Pullman?"And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the superfluous.
　　Mercedes cried when her clothes-bags were dumped on the ground andarticle after article was thrown out. She cried in general, and she criedin particular over each discarded thing. She clasped hands about knees,rocking back and forth broken-heartedly. She averred she would not goan inch, not for a dozen Charleses. She appealed to everybody and toeverything, finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to cast out evenarticles of apparel that were imperative necessaries. And in her zeal,when she had finished with her own, she attacked the belongings of hermen and went through them like a tornado.
　　This accomplished, the outfit, though cut in half, was still aformidable bulk. Charles and Hal went out in the evening and boughtsix Outside dogs. These, added to the six of the original team, andTeek and Koona, the huskies obtained at the Rink Rapids on the recordtrip, brought the team up to fourteen. But the Outside dogs, thoughpractically broken in since their landing, did not amount to much.
　　Three were short-hairegee-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 fewmoments, then relaxed. They were unable to move the sled.
　　"The lazy brutes, I'll show them," he cried, preparing to lash out atthem with the whip.
　　But Mercedes interfered, crying, "Oh, Hal, you mustn't," as shecaught hold of the whip and wrenched it from him. "The poor dears!
　　Now you must promise you won't be harsh with them for the rest of thetrip, or I won't go a step.""Precious lot you know about dogs," her brother sneered; "and I wishyou'd leave me alone. They're lazy, I tell you, and you've got to whipthem to get anything out of them. That's their way. You ask any one.
　　Ask one of those men."Mercedes looked at them imploringly, untold repugnance at sight ofpain written in her pretty face.
　　"They're weak as water, if you want to know," came the reply fromone of the men. "Plum tuckered out, that's what's the matter. Theyneed a rest.""Rest be blanked," said Hal, with his beardless lips; and Mercedessaid, "Oh!" in pain and sorrow at the oath.
　　But she was a clannish creature, and rushed at once to the defence ofher brother. "Never mind that man," she said pointedly. "You'redriving our dogs, and you do what you think best with them."Again Hal's whip fell upon the dogs. They threw themselvesagainst the breast-bands, dug their feet into the packed snow, got downlow to it, and put forth all their strength. The sled held as though it werean anchor. After two efforts, they stood still, panting. The whip waswhistling savagely, when once more Mercedes interfered. She droppedon her knees before Buck, with tears in her eyes, and put her armsaround his neck.
　　"You poor, poor dears," she cried sympathetically, "why don't youpull hard?--then you wouldn't be whipped." Buck did not like her, but hewas feeling too miserable to resist her, taking it as part of the day'smiserable work.
　　One of the onlookers, who had been clenching his teeth to suppresshot speech, now spoke up:--"It's not that I care a whoop what becomes of you, but for the dogs'
　　sakes I just want to tell you, you can help them a mighty lot by breakingout that sled. The runners are froze fast. Throw your weight againstthe gee-pole, right and left, and break it out."A third time the attempt was made, but this time, following theadvice, Hal broke out the runners which had been frozen to the snow.
　　The overloaded and unwieldy sled forged ahead, Buck and his matesstruggling frantically under the rain of blows. A hundred yards aheadthe path turned and sloped steeply into the main street. It would haverequired an experienced man to keep the top-heavy sled upright, and Halwas not such a man. As they swung on the turn the sled went over,spilling half its load through the loose lashings. The dogs neverstopped. The lightened sled bounded on its side behind them. Theywere angry because of the ill treatment they had received and the unjustload. Buck was raging. He broke into a run, the team following hislead. Hal cried "Whoa! whoa!" but they gave no heed. He trippedand was pulled off his feet. The capsized sled ground over him, and thedogs dashed on up the street, adding to the gayety of Skaguay as theyscattered the remainder of the outfit along its chief thoroughfare.
　　Kind-hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered up the scatteredbelongings. Also, they gave advice. Half the load and twice the dogs,if they ever expected to reach Dawson, was what was said. Hal and hissister and brother-in-law listened unwillingly, pitched tent, andoverhauled the outfit. Canned goods were turned out that made menlaugh, 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, andall those dishes,--who's going to wash them, anyway? Good Lord, doyou think you're travelling on a Pullman?"And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the superfluous.
　　Mercedes cried when her clothes-bags were dumped on the ground andarticle after article was thrown out. She cried in general, and she criedin particular over each discarded thing. She clasped hands about knees,rocking back and forth broken-heartedly. She averred she would not goan inch, not for a dozen Charleses. She appealed to everybody and toeverything, finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to cast out evenarticles of apparel that were imperative necessaries. And in her zeal,when she had finished with her own, she attacked the belongings of hermen and went through them like a tornado.
　　This accomplished, the outfit, though cut in half, was still aformidable bulk. Charles and Hal went out in the evening and boughtsix Outside dogs. These, added to the six of the original team, andTeek and Koona, the huskies obtained at the Rink Rapids on the recordtrip, brought the team up to fourteen. But the Outside dogs, thoughpractically broken in since their landing, did not amount to much.
　　Three were short-haired pointers, one was a Newfoundland, and theother two were mongrels of indeterminate breed. They did not seem toknow anything, these newcomers. Buck and his comrades looked uponthem with disgust, and though he speedily taught them their places andwhat not to do, he could not teach them what to do. They did not takekindly to trace and trail. With the exception of the two mongrels, theywere bewildered and spirit-broken by the strange savage environment inwhich they found themselves and by the ill treatment they had received.
　　The two mongrels were without spirit at all; bones were the only thingsbreakable about them.
　　With the newcomers hopeless and forlorn, and the old team worn outby twenty-five hundred miles of continuous trail, the outlook wasanything but bright. The two men, however, were quite cheerful. Andthey were proud, too. They were doing the thing in style, with fourteendogs. They had seen other sleds depart over the Pass for Dawson, orcome in from Dawson, but never had they seen a sled with so many asfourteen dogs. In the nature of Arctic travel there was a reason whyfourteen dogs should not drag one sled, and that was that one sled couldnot carry the food for fourteen dogs. But Charles and Hal did not knowthis. They had worked the trip out with a pencil, so much to a dog, somany dogs, so many days, Q.E.D. Mercedes looked over theirshoulders and nodded comprehensively, it was all so very simple.
　　Late next morning Buck led the long team up the street. There wasnothing lively about it, no snap or go in him and his fellows. They werestarting dead weary. Four times he had covered the distance betweenSalt Water and Dawson, and the knowledge that, jaded and tired, he wasfacing the same trail once more, made him bitter. His heart was not inthe work, nor was the heart of any dog. The Outsides were timid andfrightened, the Insides without confidence in their masters.
　　Buck felt vaguely that there was no depending upon these two menand the woman. They did not know how to do anything, and as thedays went by it became apparent that they could not learn. They wereslack in all things, without order or discipline. It took them half thenight to pitch a slovenly camp, and half the morning to break that campand get the sled loaded in fashion so slovenly that for the rest of the daythey were occupied in stopping and rearranging the load. Some daysthey did not make ten miles. On other days they were unable to getstarted at all. And on no day did they succeed in making more thanhalf 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 theyhastened it by overfeeding, bringing the day nearer when underfeedingwould commence. The Outside dogs, whose digestions had not beentrained by chronic famine to make the most of little, had voraciousappetites. And when, in addition to this, the worn- out huskies pulledweakly, Hal decided that the orthodox ration was too small. Hedoubled it. And to cap it all, when Mercedes, with tears in her prettyeyes and a quaver in her throat, could not cajole him into giving the dogsstill more, she stole from the fish-sacks and fed them slyly. But it wasnot food that Buck and the huskies needed, but rest. And though theywere making poor time, the heavy load they dragged sapped theirstrength severely.
　　Then came the underfeeding. Hal awoke one day to the fact thathis dog-food was half gone and the distance only quarter covered;further, that for love or money no additional dog-food was to beobtained. So he cut down even the orthodox ration and tried toincrease the day's travel. His sister and brother-in-law seconded him;but they were frustrated by their heavy outfit and their ownincompetence. It was a simple matter to give the dogs less food; but itwas impossible to make the dogs travel faster, while their own inabilityto get under way earlier in the morning prevented them from travellinglonger hours. Not only did they not know how to work dogs, but theydid not know how to work themselves.
　　The first to go was Dub. Poor blundering thief that he was, alwaysgetting caught and punished, he had none the less been a faithful worker.
　　His wrenched shoulder-blade, untreated and unrested, went from bad toworse, till finally Hal shot him with the big Colt's revolver. It is asaying of the country that an Outside dog starves to death on the rationof the husky, so the six Outside dogs under Buck could do no less thandie on half the ration of the husky. The Newfoundland went first,followed by the three short-haired pointers, the two mongrels hangingmore grittily on to life, but going in the end.
　　By this time all the amenities and gentlenesses of the Southland hadfallen away from the three people. Shorn of its glamour and romance,Arctic travel became to them a reality too harsh for their manhood andwomanhood. Mercedes ceased weeping over the dogs, being toooccupied with weeping over herself and with quarrelling with herhusband and brother. To quarrel was the one thing they were never tooweary to do. Their irritability arose out of their misery, increased withit, doubled upon it, outdistanced it. The wonderful patience of the trailwhich comes to men who toil hard and suffer sore, and remain sweet ofspeech 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; andbecause of this they became sharp of speech, and hard words were firston 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 ofthe work, and neither forbore to speak this belief at every opportunity.
　　Sometimes Mercedes sided with her husband, sometimes with herbrother. 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 belugged in the rest of the family, fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, peoplethousands of miles away, and some of them dead. That Hal's views onart, or the sort of society plays his mother's brother wrote, should haveanything to do with the chopping of a few sticks of firewood, passescomprehension; nevertheless the quarrel was as likely to tend in thatdirection as in the direction of Charles's political prejudices. And thatCharles's sister's tale-bearing tongue should be relevant to the buildingof a Yukon fire, was apparent only to Mercedes, who disburdenedherself of copious opinions upon that topic, and incidentally upon a fewother traits unpleasantly peculiar to her husband's family. In themeantime the fire remained unbuilt, the camp half pitched, and the dogs unfed.
　　Mercedes nursed a special grievance--the grievance of sex. She waspretty and soft, and had been chivalrously treated all her days. But thepresent treatment by her husband and brother was everything savechivalrous. 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 longerconsidered the dogs, and because she was sore and tired, she persisted inriding on the sled. She was pretty and soft, but she weighed onehundred and twenty pounds--a lusty last straw to the load dragged by theweak and starving animals. She rode for days, till they fell in the tracesand the sled stood still. Charles and Hal begged her to get off and walk,pleaded with her, entreated, the while she wept and importuned Heavenwith a recital of their brutality.
　　On one occasion they took her off the sled by main strength. Theynever did it again. She let her legs go limp like a spoiled child, and satdown on the trail. They went on their way, but she did not move.
　　After they had travelled three miles they unloaded the sled, came backfor her, and by main strength put her on the sled again.
　　In the excess of their own misery they were callous to the sufferingof their animals. Hal's theory, which he practised on others, was thatone must get hardened. He had started out preaching it to his sister andbrother-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 squawoffered to trade them a few pounds of frozen horse-hide for the Colt'srevolver that kept the big hunting-knife company at Hal's hip. A poorsubstitute for food was this hide, just as it had been stripped from thestarved horses of the cattlemen six months back. In its frozen state itwas more like strips of galvanized iron, and when a dog wrestled it intohis stomach it thawed into thin and innutritious leathery strings and intoa mass of short hair, irritating and indigestible.
　　And through it all Buck staggered along at the head of the team as ina nightmare. He pulled when he could; when he could no longer pull,he fell down and remained down till blows from whip or club drove himto his feet again. All the stiffness and gloss had gone out of hisbeautiful furry coat. The hair hung down, limp and draggled, or mattedwith dried blood where Hal's club had bruised him. His muscles hadwasted away to knotty strings, and the flesh pads had disappeared, sothat each rib and every bone in his frame were outlined cleanly throughthe loose hide that was wrinkled in folds of emptiness. It washeartbreaking, only Buck's heart was unbreakable. The man in the redsweater had proved that.
　　As it was with Buck, so was it with his mates. They wereperambulating skeletons. There were seven all together, including him.
　　In their very great misery they had become insensible to the bite of thelash or the bruise of the club. The pain of the beating was dull anddistant, just as the things their eyes saw and their ears heard seemed dulland distant. They were not half living, or quarter living. They weresimply 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 theclub or whip fell upon them, the spark fluttered feebly up, and theytottered to their feet and staggered on.
　　There came a day when Billee, the good-natured, fell and could notrise. Hal had traded off his revolver, so he took the axe and knockedBillee on the head as he lay in the traces, then cut the carcass out of theharness and dragged it to one side. Buck saw, and his mates saw, andthey knew that this thing was very close to them. On the next dayKoona went, and but five of them remained: Joe, too far gone to bemalignant; Pike, crippled and limping, only half conscious and notconscious enough longer to malinger; Sol-leks, the one-eyed, stillfaithful to the toil of trace and trail, and mournful in that he had so littlestrength with which to pull; Teek, who had not travelled so far thatwinter and who was now beaten more than the others because he wasfresher; and Buck, still at the head of the team, but no longer enforcingdiscipline or striving to enforce it, blind with weakness half the time andkeeping 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 wereaware of it. Each day the sun rose earlier and set later. It was dawnby three in the morning, and twilight lingered till nine at night. Thewhole long day was a blaze of sunshine. The ghostly winter silencehad given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life. Thismurmur arose from all the land, fraught with the joy of living. It camefrom the things that lived and moved again, things which had been asdead and which had not moved during the long months of frost. Thesap was rising in the pines. The willows and aspens were bursting outin 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 woodpeckerswere booming and knocking in the forest. Squirrels were chattering,birds singing, and overhead honked the wild-fowl driving up from thesouth in cunning wedges that split the air.
　　From every hill slope came the trickle of running water, the music ofunseen fountains. AU things were thawing, bending, snapping. TheYukon was straining to break loose the ice that bound it down. It ateaway from beneath; the sun ate from above. Air-holes formed, fissuressprang and spread apart, while thin sections of ice fell through bodilyinto the river. And amid all this bursting, rending, throbbing ofawakening life, under the blazing sun and through the soft-sighingbreezes, like wayfarers to death, staggered the two men, the woman, andthe huskies.
　　With the dogs falling, Mercedes weeping and riding, Hal swearinginnocuously, and Charles's eyes wistfully watering, they staggered intoJohn Thornton's camp at the mouth of White River. When they halted,the dogs dropped down as though they had all been struck dead.
　　Mercedes dried her eyes and looked at John Thornton. Charles satdown on a log to rest. He sat down very slowly and painstakingly whatof his great stiffness. Hal did the talking. John Thornton waswhittling the last touches on an axe-handle he had made from a stick ofbirch. He whittled and listened, gave monosyllabic replies, and,when it was asked, terse advice. He knew the breed, and he gave hisadvice in the certainty that it would not be followed.
　　"They told us up above that the bottom was dropping out of the trailand that the best thing for us to do was to lay over," Hal said in responseto Thornton's warning to take no more chances on the rotten ice. "Theytold us we couldn't make White River, and here we are." This last with asneering ring of triumph in it.
　　"And they told you true," John Thornton answered. "The bottom'slikely to drop out at any moment. Only fools, with the blind luck offools, could have made it. I tell you straight, I wouldn't risk my carcasson that ice for all the gold in Alaska.""That's because you're not a fool, I suppose," said Hal. "All the same,we'll go on to Dawson." He uncoiled his whip. "Get up there, Buck! Hi!
　　Get up there! Mush on!"Thornton went on whittling. It was idle, he knew, to get between afool and his folly; while two or three fools more or less would not alterthe scheme of things.
　　But the team did not get up at the command. It had long sincepassed into the stage where blows were required to rouse it. The whipflashed out, here and there, on its merciless errands. John Thorntoncompressed his lips. Sol-leks was the first to crawl to his feet. Teekfollowed. Joe came next, yelping with pain. Pike made painfulefforts. Twice he fell over, when half up, and on the third attemptmanaged to rise. Buck made no effort. He lay quietly where he hadfallen. The lash bit into him again and again, but he neither whined norstruggled. Several times Thornton started, as though to speak, butchanged his mind. A moisture came into his eyes, and, as the whippingcontinued, he arose and walked irresolutely up and down.
　　This was the first time Buck had failed, in itself a sufficient reason todrive Hal into a rage. He exchanged the whip for the customary club.
　　Buck refused to move under the rain of heavier blows which now fellupon him. Like his mates, he barely able to get up, but, unlike them, hehad made up his mind not to get up. He had a vague feeling ofimpending doom. This had been strong upon him when he pulled in tothe bank, and it had not departed from him. What of the thin and rottenice he had felt under his feet all day, it seemed that he sensed disasterclose at hand, out there ahead on the ice where his master was trying todrive him. He refused to stir. So greatly had he suffered, and so fargone was he, that the blows did not hurt much. And as they continuedto fall upon him, the spark of life within flickered and went down. Itwas nearly out. He felt strangely numb. As though from a greatdistance, he was aware that he was being beaten. The last sensations ofpain left him. He no longer felt anything, though very faintly he couldhear the impact of the club upon his body. But it was no longer hisbody, it seemed so far away.
　　And then, suddenly, without warning, uttering a cry that wasinarticulate and more like the cry of an animal, John Thornton sprangupon the man who wielded the club. Hal was hurled backward, asthough struck by a failing tree. Mercedes screamed. Charles looked onwistfully, wiped his watery eyes, but did not get up because of hisstiffness.
　　John Thornton stood over Buck, struggling to control himself, tooconvulsed with rage to speak.
　　"If you strike that dog again, I'll kill you," he at last managed to sayin a choking voice.
　　"It's my dog," Hal replied, wiping the blood from his mouth as hecame back. "Get out of my way, or I'll fix you. I'm going to Dawson."Thornton stood between him and Buck, and evinced no intention ofgetting out of the way. Hal drew his long hunting-knife. Mercedesscreamed. cried, laughed, and manifested the chaotic abandonment ofhysteria. Thornton rapped Hal's knuckles with the axe-handle,knocking the knife to the ground. He rapped his knuckles again as hetried to pick it up. Then he stooped, picked it up himself, and with twostrokes cut Buck's traces.
　　Hal had no fight left in him. Besides, his hands were full with hissister, or his arms, rather; while Buck was too near dead to be of furtheruse in hauling the sled. A few minutes later they pulled out from thebank and down the river. Buck heard them go and raised his head tosee, Pike was leading, Sol-leks was at the wheel, and between were Joeand Teek. They were limping and staggering. Mercedes was ridingthe loaded sled. Hal guided at the gee-pole, and Charles stumbledalong 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 haddisclosed nothing more than many bruises and a state of terriblestarvation, the sled was a quarter of a mile away. Dog and manwatched it crawling along over the ice. Suddenly, they saw its backend drop down, as into a rut, and the gee-pole, with Hal clinging to it,jerk into the air. Mercedes's scream came to their ears. They sawCharles turn and make one step to run back, and then a whole section ofice give way and dogs and humans disappear. A yawning hole was allthat 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 6
For the Love of a ManWhen John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December hispartners had made him comfortable and left him to get well, going onthemselves up the river to get out a raft of saw-logs for Dawson. Hewas still limping slightly at the time he rescued Buck, but with thecontinued warm weather even the slight limp left him. And here, lyingby the river bank through the long spring days, watching the runningwater, listening lazily to the songs of birds and the hum of nature, Buckslowly 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, hismuscles swelled out, and the flesh came back to cover his bones. Forthat matter, they were all loafing,--Buck, John Thornton, and Skeet andNig,--waiting for the raft to come that was to carry them down toDawson. Skeet was a little Irish setter who early made friends withBuck, 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 catwashes her kittens, so she washed and cleansed Buck's wounds.
　　Regularly, each morning after he had finished his breakfast, sheperformed her self- appointed task, till he came to look for herministrations as much as he did for Thornton's. Nig, equally friendly,though less demonstrative, was a huge black dog, half bloodhound andhalf deerhound, with eyes that laughed and a boundless good nature.
　　To Buck's surprise these dogs manifested no jealousy toward him.
　　They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton.
　　As Buck grew stronger they enticed him into all sorts of ridiculousgames, in which Thornton himself could not forbear to join; and in thisfashion Buck romped through his convalescence and into a newexistence. Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.
　　This he had never experienced at Judge Miller's down in the sun-kissedSanta Clara Valley. With the Judge's sons, hunting and tramping, it hadbeen a working partnership; with the Judge's grandsons, a sort ofpompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately anddignified friendship. But love that was feverish and burning, that wasadoration, that was madness, it had taken John Thornton to arouse.
　　This man had saved his life, which was something; but, further, hewas the ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs froma sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his asif they were his own children, because he could not help it. And he sawfurther. He never forgot a kindly greeting or a cheering word, and to sitdown for a long talk with them ("gas" he called it) was as much hisdelight as theirs. He had a way of taking Buck's head roughly betweenhis hands, and resting his own head upon Buck's, of shaking him backand 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 ofmurmured oaths, and at each jerk back and forth it seemed that his heartwould 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, histhroat vibrant with unuttered sound, and in that fashion remainedwithout 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 wouldoften seize Thornton's hand in his mouth and close so fiercely that theflesh bore the impress of his teeth for some time afterward. And asBuck understood the oaths to be love words, so the man understood thisfeigned bite for a caress.
　　For the most part, however, Buck's love was expressed in adoration.
　　While he went wild with happiness when Thornton touched him orspoke to him, he did not seek these tokens. Unlike Skeet, who waswont to shove her nose under Thornton's hand and nudge and nudge tillpetted, or Nig, who would stalk up and rest his great head on Thornton'sknee, Buck was content to adore at a distance. He would lie by thehour, eager, alert, at Thornton's feet, looking up into his face, dwellingupon it, studying it, following with keenest interest each fleetingexpression, every movement or change of feature. Or, as chance mighthave it, he would lie farther away, to the side or rear, watching theoutlines of the man and the occasional movements of his body. Andoften, such was the communion in which they lived, the strength ofBuck's gaze would draw John Thornton's head around, and he wouldreturn the gaze, without speech, his heart shining out of his eyes asBuck's heart shone out.
　　For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton to getout of his sight. From the moment he left the tent to when he entered itagain, Buck would follow at his heels. His transient masters since he hadcome into the Northland had bred in him a fear that no master could bepermanent. He was afraid that Thornton would pass out of his life asPerrault and Francois and the Scotch half-breed had passed out. Evenin the night, in his dreams, he was haunted by this fear. At such timeshe would shake off sleep and creep through the chill to the flap of thetent, where he would stand and listen to the sound of his master's breathing.
　　But in spite of this great love he bore John Thornton, which seemedto bespeak the soft civilizing influence, the strain of the primitive, whichthe Northland had aroused in him, remained alive and active.
　　Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire and roof, were his; yet heretained his wildness and wiliness. He was a thing of the wild, come infrom the wild to sit by John Thornton's fire, rather than a dog of the softSouthland stamped with the marks of generations of civilization.
　　Because of his very great love, he could not steal from this man, butfrom any other 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 hefought as fiercely as ever and more shrewdly. Skeet and Nig were toogood-natured for quarrelling,--besides, they belonged to John Thornton;but the strange dog, no matter what the breed or valor, swiftlyacknowledged Buck's supremacy or found himself struggling for lifewith a terrible antagonist. And Buck was merciless. He had learnedwell the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage ordrew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death. He hadlessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the police andmail, and knew there was no middle course. He must master or bemastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist inthe primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and suchmisunderstandings 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 throbbedthrough him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tides andseasons swayed. He sat by John Thornton's fire, a broad-breasted dog,white-fanged and long-furred; but behind him were the shades of allmanner of dogs, half-wolves and wild wolves, urgent and prompting,tasting the savor of the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank,scenting the wind with him, listening with him and telling him thesounds made by the wild life in the forest, dictating his moods, directinghis actions, lying down to sleep with him when he lay down, anddreaming with him and beyond him and becoming themselves the stuffof his dreams.
　　So peremptorily did these shades beckon him, that each day mankindand the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in the forest acall was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriouslythrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire andthe beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on,he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the callsounding imperiously, deep in the forest. But as often as he gained thesoft unbroken earth and the green shade, the love for John Thorntondrew him back to the fire again.
　　Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing.
　　Chance travellers might praise or pet him; but he was cold under it all,and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away.
　　When Thornton's partners, Hans and Pete, arrived on the long-expectedraft, Buck refused to notice them till he learned they were close toThornton; after that he tolerated them in a passive sort of way, acceptingfavors from them as though he favored them by accepting. They wereof the same large type as Thornton, living close to the earth, thinkingsimply and seeing clearly; and ere they swung the raft into the big eddyby the saw- mill at Dawson, they understood Buck and his ways, and didnot insist upon an intimacy such as obtained with Skeet and Nig.
　　For Thornton, however, his love seemed to grow and grow. He,alone among men, could put a pack upon Buck's back in the summertravelling. Nothing was too great for Buck to do, when Thorntoncommanded. One day (they had grub-staked themselves from theproceeds 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. JohnThornton was sitting near the edge, Buck at his shoulder. A thoughtlesswhim seized Thornton, and he drew the attention of Hans and Pete to theexperiment he had in mind. "Jump, Buck!" he commanded, sweepinghis arm out and over the chasm. The next instant he was grapplingwith Buck on the extreme edge, while Hans and Pete were draggingthem back into safety.
　　"It's uncanny," Pete said, after it was over and they had caught their speech.
　　Thornton shook his head. "No, it is splendid, and it is terrible, too.
　　Do you know, it sometimes makes me afraid.""I'm not hankering to be the man that lays hands on you while he'saround," Pete announced conclusively, nodding his head toward Buck.
　　"Py Jingo!" was Hans's contribution. "Not mineself either."It was at Circle City, ere the year was out, that Pete's apprehensionswere realized. "Black" Burton, a man evil-tempered and malicious,had been picking a quarrel with a tenderfoot at the bar, when Thorntonstepped good-naturedly between. Buck, as was his custom, was lyingin a corner, head on paws, watching his master's every action. Burtonstruck out, without warning, straight from the shoulder. Thornton wassent spinning, and saved himself from falling only by clutching the railof the bar.
　　Those who were looking on heard what was neither bark nor yelp,but a something which is best described as a roar, and they saw Buck'sbody rise up in the air as he left the floor for Burton's throat. The mansaved his life by instinctively throwing out his arm, but was hurledbackward to the floor with Buck on top of him. Buck loosed his teethfrom the flesh of the arm and drove in again for the throat. This timethe 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 asurgeon checked the bleeding, he prowled up and down, growlingfuriously, attempting to rush in, and being forced back by an array ofhostile clubs. A "miners' meeting," called on the spot, decided that thedog had sufficient provocation, and Buck was discharged. But hisreputation was made, and from that day his name spread through everycamp in Alaska.
　　Later on, in the fall of the year, he saved John Thornton's life in quiteanother fashion. The three partners were lining a long and narrowpoling-boat down a bad stretch of rapids on the Forty- Mile Creek. Hansand Pete moved along the bank, snubbing with a thin Manila rope fromtree to tree, while Thornton remained in the boat, helping its descent bymeans of a pole, and shouting directions to the shore. Buck, on thebank, worried and anxious, kept abreast of the boat, his eyes never offhis master.
　　At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged rocksjutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and, while Thorntonpoled the boat out into the stream, ran down the bank with the end in hishand to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge. This it did, andwas flying down-stream in a current as swift as a mill-race, when Hanschecked it with the rope and checked too suddenly. The boat flirtedover and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, while Thornton, flung sheerout of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst part of the rapids, astretch of wild water in which no swimmer could live.
　　Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundredyards, amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When hefelt him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all hissplendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progressdown-stream amazingly rapid. From below came the fatal roaringwhere the wild current went wilder and was rent in shreds and spray bythe 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 wasfrightful, and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. Hescraped furiously over a rock, bruised across a second, and struck a thirdwith 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, strugglingdesperately, but unable to win back. When he heard Thornton'scommand repeated, he partly reared out of the water, throwing his headhigh, as though for a last look, then turned obediently toward the bank.
　　He swam powerfully and was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at thevery point where swimming ceased to be possible and destruction began.
　　They knew that the time a man could cling to a slippery rock in theface of that driving current was a matter of minutes, and they ran as fastas they could up the bank to a point far above where Thornton washanging on. They attached the line with which they had been snubbingthe boat to Buck's neck and shoulders, being careful that it shouldneither strangle him nor impede his swimming, and launched him intothe stream. He struck out boldly, but not straight enough into thestream. He discovered the mistake too late, when Thornton was abreastof him and a bare half-dozen strokes away while he was being carriedhelplessly 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 wasjerked under the surface, and under the surface he remained till his bodystruck against the bank and he was hauled out. He was half drowned,and Hans and Pete threw themselves upon him, pounding the breath intohim and the water out of him. He staggered to his feet and fell down.
　　The faint sound of Thornton's voice came to them, and though theycould not make out the words of it, they knew that he was in hisextremity. His master's voice acted on Buck like an electric shock, Hesprang to his feet and ran up the bank ahead of the men to the point ofhis previous departure.
　　Again the rope was attached and he was launched, and again hestruck out, but this time straight into the stream. He had miscalculatedonce, but he would not be guilty of it a second time. Hans paid out therope, permitting no slack, while Pete kept it clear of coils. Buck heldon till he was on a line straight above Thornton; then he turned, and withthe speed of an express train headed down upon him. Thornton sawhim coming, and, as Buck struck him like a battering ram, with thewhole force of the current behind him, he reached up and closed withboth arms around the shaggy neck. Hans snubbed the rope around thetree, 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, theyveered in to the bank.
　　Thornton came to, belly downward and being violently propelledback and forth across a drift log by Hans and Pete. His first glance wasfor Buck, over whose limp and apparently lifeless body Nig was settingup a howl, while Skeet was licking the wet face and closed eyes.
　　Thornton was himself bruised and battered, and he went carefully overBuck's body, when he had been brought around, finding three broken ribs.
　　"That settles it," he announced. "We camp right here." And campthey did, till Buck's ribs knitted and he was able to travel.
　　That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another exploit, not soheroic, perhaps, but one that put his name many notches higher on thetotem-pole of Alaskan fame. This exploit was particularly gratifying tothe three men; for they stood in need of the outfit which it furnished, andwere enabled to make a long-desired trip into the virgin East, whereminers had not yet appeared. It was brought about by a conversation inthe Eldorado Saloon, in which men waxed boastful of their favorite dogs.
　　Buck, because of his record, was the target for these men, and Thorntonwas driven stoutly to defend him. At the end of half an hour one manstated that his dog could start a sled with five hundred pounds and walkoff 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," JohnThornton said coolly.
　　"Well," Matthewson said, slowly and deliberately, so that all couldhear, "I've got a thousand dollars that says he can't. And there it is." Sosaying, he slammed a sack of gold dust of the size of a bologna sausagedown upon the bar.
　　Nobody spoke. Thornton's bluff, if bluff it was, had been called.
　　He could feel a flush of warm blood creeping up his face. His tonguehad tricked him. He did not know whether Buck could start a thousandpounds. Half a ton! The enormousness of it appalled him. He hadgreat faith in Buck's strength and had often thought him capable ofstarting 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, hehad no thousand dollars; nor had Hans or Pete.
　　"I've got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fiftypound sacksof flour on it," Matthewson went on with brutal directness; "so don't letthat hinder you."Thornton did not reply. He did not know what to say. He glancedfrom face to face in the absent way of a man who has lost the power ofthought and is seeking somewhere to find the thing that will start itgoing again. The face of Jim O'Brien, a Mastodon King and old-timecomrade, caught his eyes. It was as a cue to him, seeming to rouse himto do what he would never have dreamed of doing.
　　"Can you lend me a thousand?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
　　"Sure," answered O'Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack by theside of Matthewson's. "Though it's little faith I'm having, John, that thebeast 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 tosee the outcome of the wager and to lay odds. Several hundred men,furred and mittened, banked around the sled within easy distance.
　　Matthewson's sled, loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had beenstanding for a couple of hours, and in the intense cold (it was sixtybelow zero) the runners had frozen fast to the hard-packed snow. Menoffered odds of two to one that Buck could not budge the sled. Aquibble arose concerning the phrase "break out." O'Brien contended itwas Thornton's privilege to knock the runners loose, leaving Buck to"break it out" from a dead standstill. Matthewson insisted that thephrase included breaking the runners from the frozen grip of the snow.
　　A majority of the men who had witnessed the making of the bet decidedin his favor, whereat the odds went up to three to one against Buck.
　　There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat.
　　Thornton had been hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt; and nowthat he looked at the sled itself, the concrete fact, with the regular teamof ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the more impossible the taskappeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant.
　　"Three to one!" he proclaimed. "I'll lay you another thousand atthat figure, Thornton. What d'ye say?"Thornton's doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spirit wasaroused--the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails to recognize theimpossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor for battle. He called Hansand Pete to him. Their sacks were slim, and with his own the threepartners could rake together only two hundred dollars. In the ebb oftheir fortunes, this sum was their total capital; yet they laid itunhesitatingly against Matthewson's six hundred.
　　The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his own harness,was put into the sled. He had caught the contagion of the excitement,and he felt that in some way he must do a great thing for John Thornton.
　　Murmurs of admiration at his splendid appearance went up. He was inperfect condition, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, and the onehundred and fifty pounds that he weighed were so many pounds of gritand virility. His furry coat shone with the sheen of silk. Down theneck and across the shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristledand seemed to lift with every movement, as though excess of vigor madeeach particular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavy forelegs were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where themuscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt thesemuscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went down totwo to one.
　　"Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" stuttered a member of the latest dynasty, a kingof the Skookum Benches. "I offer you eight hundred for him, sir,before the test, sir; eight hundred just as he stands."Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck's side.
　　"You must stand off from him," Matthewson protested. "Free playand plenty of room."The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of the gamblersvainly offering two to one. Everybody acknowledged Buck amagnificent animal, but twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked toolarge in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch-strings.
　　Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head in his twohands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, aswas 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 growingmysterious. It seemed like a conjuration. As Thornton got to his feet,Buck seized his mittened hand between his jaws, pressing in with histeeth 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 severalinches. It was the way he had learned.
　　"Gee!" Thornton's voice rang out, sharp in the tense silence.
　　Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a plunge that tookup the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fiftypounds. 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 cracklingturned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and the runners slipping andgrating several inches to the side. The sled was broken out. Menwere holding their breaths, intensely unconscious of the fact.
　　"Now, MUSH!"Thornton's command cracked out like a pistol-shot. Buck threwhimself forward, tightening the traces with a jarring lunge. His wholebody was gathered compactly together in the tremendous effort, themuscles writhing and knotting like live things under the silky fur. Hisgreat chest was low to the ground, his head forward and down, while hisfeet were flying like mad, the claws scarring the hard-packed snow inparallel grooves. The sled swayed and trembled, half-started forward.
　　One of his feet slipped, and one man groaned aloud. Then the sledlurched ahead in what appeared a rapid succession of jerks, though itnever really came to a dead stop again ...half an inch...an inch . . . twoinches. . . The jerks perceptibly diminished; as the sled gainedmomentum, he caught them up, till it was moving steadily along.
　　Men gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that for a momentthey had ceased to breathe. Thornton was running behind, encouragingBuck with short, cheery words. The distance had been measured off,and as he neared the pile of firewood which marked the end of thehundred yards, a cheer began to grow and grow, which burst into a roaras he passed the firewood and halted at command. Every man wastearing himself loose, even Matthewson. Hats and mittens were flyingin the air. Men were shaking hands, it did not matter with whom, andbubbling 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 heardhim cursing Buck, and he cursed him long and fervently, and softly and lovingly.
　　"Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" spluttered the Skookum Bench king. "I'll giveyou a thousand for him, sir, a thousand, sir--twelve hundred, sir."Thornton rose to his feet. His eyes were wet. The tears werestreaming frankly down his cheeks. "Sir," he said to the SkookumBench king, "no, sir. You can go to hell, sir. It's the best I can do foryou, sir."Buck seized Thornton's hand in his teeth. Thornton shook him backand forth. As though animated by a common impulse, the onlookersdrew back to a respectful distance; nor were they again indiscreetenough to interrupt.
Chapter 7
The Sounding of the CallWhen Buck earned sixteen hundred dollars in five minutes for JohnThornton, he made it possible for his master to pay off certain debts andto journey with his partners into the East after a fabled lost mine, thehistory of which was as old as the history of the country. Many menhad sought it; few had found it; and more than a few there were who hadnever returned from the quest. This lost mine was steeped in tragedyand shrouded in mystery. No one knew of the first man. The oldesttradition stopped before it got back to him. From the beginning therehad been an ancient and ramshackle cabin. Dying men had sworn to it,and to the mine the site of which it marked, clinching their testimonywith nuggets that were unlike any known grade of gold in the Northland.
　　But no living man had looted this treasure house, and the dead weredead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buck and half adozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achievewhere men and dogs as good as themselves had failed. They sleddedseventy miles up the Yukon, swung to the left into the Stewart River,passed the Mayo and the McQuestion, and held on until the Stewartitself became a streamlet, threading the upstanding peaks which markedthe backbone of the continent.
　　John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of thewild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into thewilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased.
　　Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the course ofthe day's travel; and if he failed to find it, like the Indian, he kept ontravelling, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later he would come toit. So, on this great journey into the East, straight meat was the bill offare, ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the sled, andthe time-card was drawn upon the limitless future.
　　To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, andindefinite wandering through strange places. For weeks at a time theywould hold on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end theywould camp, here and there, the dogs loafing and the men burning holesthrough frozen muck and gravel and washing countless pans of dirt bythe heat of the fire. Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes theyfeasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortuneof hunting. Summer arrived, and dogs and men packed on their backs,rafted across blue mountain lakes, and descended or ascended unknownrivers in slender boats whipsawed from the standing forest.
　　The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted throughthe uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men had beenif the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summerblizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains betweenthe timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amidswarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers pickedstrawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland couldboast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sadand silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life norsign of life-- only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice insheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.
　　And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trailsof men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazedthrough the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed very near.
　　But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remainedmystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it remainedmystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage ofa hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thorntonfound a long-barrelled flint-lock. He knew it for a Hudson BayCompany gun of the young days in the Northwest, when such a gun wasworth its height in beaver skins packed flat, And that was all--no hint asto the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gunamong the blankets.
　　Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering theyfound, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley wherethe gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing-pan.
　　They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned them thousandsof dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked every day. Thegold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piledlike so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge. Like giantsthey toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like dreams as theyheaped the treasure up.
　　There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meatnow and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musingby the fire. The vision of the short-legged hairy man came to him morefrequently, now that there was little work to be done; and often, blinkingby the fire, Buck wandered with him in that other world which he remembered.
　　The salient thing of this other world seemed fear. When hewatched the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees andhands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with many startsand awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully into thedarkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did they walk by thebeach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell- fish and ate them as hegathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger andwith legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Throughthe forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and theywere alert and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving andnostrils 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 ason the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to limb, sometimes adozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, never missing hisgrip. In fact, he seemed as much at home among the trees as on theground; and Buck had memories of nights of vigil spent beneath treeswherein the hairy man roosted, holding on tightly as he slept.
　　And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call stillsounding in the depths of the forest. It filled him with a great unrestand strange desires. It caused him to feel a vague, sweet gladness, andhe 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 itwere a tangible thing, barking softly or defiantly, as the mood mightdictate. He would thrust his nose into the cool wood moss, or into theblack soil where long grasses grew, and snort with joy at the fat earthsmells; or he would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behindfungus- covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to allthat moved and sounded about him. It might be, lying thus, that hehoped to surprise this call he could not understand. But he did notknow 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 liftand his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he would spring to his feetand dash away, and on and on, for hours, through the forest aisles andacross the open spaces where the niggerheads bunched. He loved torun down dry watercourses, and to creep and spy upon the bird life in thewoods. For a day at a time he would lie in the underbrush where hecould watch the partridges drumming and strutting up and down. Butespecially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights,listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signsand sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterioussomething that called--called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.
　　One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrilsquivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves. From theforest 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 inswift silence dashed through the woods. As he drew closer to the cryhe went more slowly, with caution in every movement, till he came to anopen 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 tosense his presence. Buck stalked into the open, half crouching, bodygathered compactly together, tail straight and stiff, feet falling withunwonted care. Every movement advertised commingled threateningand overture of friendliness. It was the menacing truce that marks themeeting 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 himinto a blind channel, in the bed of the creek where a timber jam barredthe way. The wolf whirled about, pivoting on his hind legs after thefashion 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 him about and hedged him in withfriendly advances. The wolf was suspicious and afraid; for Buck madethree of him in weight, while his head barely reached Buck's shoulder.
　　Watching his chance, he darted away, and the chase was resumed.
　　Time and again he was cornered, and the thing repeated, though he wasin poor condition, or Buck could not so easily have overtaken him. Hewould run till Buck's head was even with his flank, when he would whirlaround at bay, only to dash away again at the first opportunity.
　　But in the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded; for the wolf, findingthat no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him. Then theybecame friendly, and played about in the nervous, half- coy way withwhich fierce beasts belie their fierceness. After some time of this thewolf started off at an easy lope in a manner that plainly showed he wasgoing somewhere. He made it clear to Buck that he was to come, andthey ran side by side through the sombre twilight, straight up the creekbed, into the gorge from which it issued, and across the bleak dividewhere it took its rise.
　　On the opposite slope of the watershed they came down into a levelcountry where were great stretches of forest and many streams, andthrough these great stretches they ran steadily, hour after hour, the sunrising higher and the day growing warmer. Buck was wildly glad. Heknew he was at last answering the call, running by the side of his woodbrother toward the place from where the call surely came. Oldmemories were coming upon him fast, and he was stirring to them as ofold he stirred to the realities of which they were the shadows. He haddone this thing before, somewhere in that other and dimly rememberedworld, and he was doing it again, now, running free in the open, theunpacked earth underfoot, the wide sky overhead.
　　They stopped by a running stream to drink, and, stopping, Buckremembered John Thornton. He sat down. The wolf started ontoward the place from where the call surely came, then returned to him,sniffing noses and making actions as though to encourage him. ButBuck turned about and started slowly on the back track. For the betterpart of an hour the wild brother ran by his side, whining softly. Thenhe sat down, pointed his nose upward, and howled. It was a mournfulhowl, and as Buck held steadily on his way he heard it grow faint andfainter until it was lost in the distance.
　　John Thornton was eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp andsprang upon him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him, scramblingupon him, licking his face, biting his hand--"playing the general tom-fool," as John Thornton characterized it, the while he shook Buck backand forth and cursed him lovingly.
　　For two days and nights Buck never left camp, never let Thorntonout of his sight. He followed him about at his work, watched himwhile he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them in themorning. But after two days the call in the forest began to sound moreimperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came back on him, and hewas haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling landbeyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide foreststretches. Once again he took to wandering in the woods, but the wildbrother came no more; and though he listened through long vigils, themournful howl was never raised.
　　He began to sleep out at night, staying away from camp for days at atime; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the creek and wentdown into the land of timber and streams. There he wandered for aweek, seeking vainly for fresh sign of the wild brother, killing his meatas he travelled and travelling with the long, easy lope that seems neverto tire. He fished for salmon in a broad stream that emptied somewhereinto the sea, and by this stream he killed a large black bear, blinded bythe mosquitoes while likewise fishing, and raging through the foresthelpless and terrible. Even so, it was a hard fight, and it aroused thelast latent remnants of Buck's ferocity. And two days later, when hereturned to his kill and found a dozen wolverenes quarrelling over thespoil, he scattered them like chaff; and those that fled left two behindwho would quarrel no more.
　　The blood-longing became stronger than ever before. He was akiller, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone,by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in ahostile environment where only the strong survived. Because of all thishe became possessed of a great pride in himself, which communicateditself like a contagion to his physical being. It advertised itself in allhis movements, was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainlyas speech in the way he carried himself, and made his glorious furry coatif anything more glorious. But for the stray brown on his muzzle andabove his eyes, and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost downhis chest, he might well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf, largerthan the largest of the breed. From his St. Bernard father he hadinherited size and weight, but it was his shepherd mother who had givenshape to that size and weight. His muzzle was the long wolf muzzle,save that was larger than the muzzle of any wolf; and his head,somewhat broader, was the wolf head on a massive scale. His cunningwas wolf cunning, and wild cunning; his intelligence, shepherdintelligence and St. Bernard intelligence; and all this, plus anexperience gained in the fiercest of schools, made him as formidable acreature as any that intelligence roamed the wild. A carnivorous animalliving on a straight meat diet, he was in full flower, at the high tide of hislife, overspilling with vigor and virility. When Thornton passed acaressing hand along his back, a snapping and crackling followed thehand, each hair discharing its pent magnetism at the contact. Everypart, brain and body, nerve tissue and fibre, was keyed to the mostexquisite pitch; and between all the parts there was a perfect equilibriumor adjustment. To sights and sounds and events which requiredaction, he responded with lightning-like rapidity. Quickly as a huskydog could leap to defend from attack or to attack, he could leap twice asquickly. He saw the movement, or heard sound, and responded in lesstime than another dog required to compass the mere seeing or hearing.
　　He perceived and determined and responded in the same instant. Inpoint of fact the three actions of perceiving, determining, and respondingwere sequential; but so infinitesimal were the intervals of time betweenthem that they appeared simultaneous. His muscles were surchargedwith vitality, and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs. Lifestreamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until itseemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forthgenerously over the world.
　　"Never was there such a dog," said John Thornton one day, as thepartners watched Buck marching out of camp.
　　"When he was made, the mould was broke," said Pete.
　　"Py jingo! I t'ink so mineself," Hans affirmed.
　　They saw him marching out of camp, but they did not see the instantand terrible transformation which took place as soon as he was withinthe secrecy of the forest. He no longer marched. At once he became athing of the wild, stealing along softly, cat- footed, a passing shadow thatappeared and disappeared among the shadows. He knew how to takeadvantage of every cover, to crawl on his belly like a snake, and like asnake to leap and strike. He could take a ptarmigan from its nest, kill arabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing asecond too late for the trees. Fish, in open pools, were not too quickfor him; nor were beaver, mending their dams, too wary. He killed toeat, not from wantonness; but he preferred to eat what he killed himself.
　　So a lurking humor ran through his deeds, and it was his delight to stealupon the squirrels, and, when he all but had them, to let them go,chattering in mortal fear to the treetops.
　　As the fall of the year came on, the moose appeared in greaterabundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and lessrigorous valleys. Buck had already dragged down a stray part-growncalf; but he wished strongly for larger and more formidable quarry, andhe came upon it one day on the divide at the head of the creek. A bandof 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 anantagonist as even Buck could desire. Back and forth the bull tossed hisgreat palmated antlers, branching to fourteen points and embracingseven feet within the tips. His small eyes burned with a vicious andbitter light, while he roared with fury at sight of Buck.
　　From the bull's side, just forward of the flank, protruded a featheredarrow-end, which accounted for his savageness. Guided by that instinctwhich came from the old hunting days of the primordial world, Buckproceeded to cut the bull out from the herd. It was no slight task. Hewould bark and dance about in front of the bull, just out of reach of thegreat antlers and of the terrible splay hoofs which could have stampedhis life out with a single blow. Unable to turn his back on the fangeddanger and go on, the bull would be driven into paroxysms of rage. Atsuch moments he charged Buck, who retreated craftily, luring him on bya simulated inability to escape. But when he was thus separated fromhis fellows, two or three of the younger bulls would charge back uponBuck and enable the wounded bull to rejoin the herd.
　　There is a patience of the wild--dogged, tireless, persistent as lifeitself--that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, thesnake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongspeculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to Buckas he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding its march, irritating theyoung bulls, worrying the cows with their half-grown calves, anddriving the wounded bull mad with helpless rage. For half a day thiscontinued. Buck multiplied himself, attacking from all sides,enveloping the herd in a whirlwind of menace, cutting out his victim asfast as it could rejoin its mates, wearing out the patience of creaturespreyed upon, which is a lesser patience than that of creatures preying.
　　As the day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed in thenorthwest (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were sixhours long), the young bulls retraced their steps more and morereluctantly to the aid of their beset leader. The down-coming winter washarrying them on to the lower levels, and it seemed they could nevershake off this tireless creature that held them back. Besides, it was notthe life of the herd, or of the young bulls, that was threatened. The lifeof only one member was demanded, which was a remoter interest thantheir lives, and in the end they were content to pay the toll.
　　As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watching hismates--the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, the bulls hehad mastered--as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the fadinglight. He could not follow, for before his nose leaped the mercilessfanged terror that would not let him go. Three hundredweight morethan half a ton he weighed; he had lived a long, strong life, full of fightand struggle, and at the end he faced death at the teeth of a creaturewhose head did not reach beyond his great knuckled knees.
　　From then on, night and day, Buck never left his prey, never gave it amoment's rest, never permitted it to browse the leaves of trees or theshoots of young birch and willow. Nor did he give the wounded bullopportunity to slake his burning thirst in the slender trickling streamsthey 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 hisheels, satisfied with the way the game was played, lying down when themoose stood still, attacking him fiercely when he strove to eat or drink.
　　The great head drooped more and more under its tree of horns, andthe shambling trot grew weak and weaker. He took to standing for longperiods, with nose to the ground and dejected ears dropped limply; andBuck found more time in which to get water for himself and in which torest. At such moments, panting with red lolling tongue and with eyesfixed upon the big bull, it appeared to Buck that a change was comingover the face of things. He could feel a new stir in the land. As themoose were coming into the land, other kinds of life were coming in.
　　Forest and stream and air seemed palpitant with their presence. Thenews of it was borne in upon him, not by sight, or sound, or smell, butby some other and subtler sense. He heard nothing, saw nothing, yetknew that the land was somehow different; that through it strange thingswere afoot and ranging; and he resolved to investigate after he hadfinished the business in hand.
　　At last, at the end of the fourth day, he pulled the great moose down.
　　For a day and a night he remained by the kill, eating and sleeping, turnand turn about. Then, rested, refreshed and strong, he turned his facetoward camp and John Thornton. He broke into the long easy lope, andwent on, hour after hour, never at loss for the tangled way, headingstraight home through strange country with a certitude of direction thatput man and his magnetic needle to shame.
　　As he held on he became more and more conscious of the new stir inthe land. There was life abroad in it different from the life which hadbeen there throughout the summer. No longer was this fact borne inupon him in some subtle, mysterious way. The birds talked of it, thesquirrels chattered about it, the very breeze whispered of it. Severaltimes he stopped and drew in the fresh morning air in great sniffs,reading a message which made him leap on with greater speed. He wasoppressed with a sense of calamity happening, if it were not calamityalready happened; and as he crossed the last watershed and droppeddown into the valley toward camp, he proceeded with greater caution.
　　Three miles away he came upon a fresh trail that sent his neck hairrippling 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 theheels of which he was travelling. He remarked die pregnant silence ofthe forest. The bird life had flitted. The squirrels were in hiding.
　　One only he saw,--a sleek gray fellow, flattened against a gray dead limbso 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, hisnose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positive force hadgripped and pulled it. He followed the new scent into a thicket andfound Nig. He was lying on his side, dead where he had draggedhimself, an arrow protruding, head and feathers, from either side of his body.
　　A hundred yards farther on, Buck came upon one of the sled-dogsThornton had bought in Dawson. This dog was thrashing about in adeath-struggle, directly on the trail, and Buck passed around him withoutstopping. From the camp came the faint sound of many voices, risingand falling in a sing-song chant. Bellying forward to the edge of theclearing, he found Hans, lying on his face, feathered with arrows like aporcupine. At the same instant Buck peered out where the spruce-bough lodge had been and saw what made his hair leap straight up on hisneck and shoulders. A gust of overpowering rage swept over him. Hedid not know that he growled, but he growled aloud with a terribleferocity. For the last time in his life he allowed passion to usurpcunning and reason, and it was because of his great love for JohnThornton that he lost his head. The Yeehats were dancing about thewreckage of the spruce-bough lodge when they heard a fearful roaringand saw rushing upon them an animal the like of which they had neverseen before. It was Buck, a live hurricane of fury, hurling himself uponthem in a frenzy to destroy. He sprang at the foremost man (it was thechief of the Yeehats), ripping the throat wide open till the rent jugularspouted a fountain of blood. He did not pause to worry the victim, butripped in passing, with the next bound tearing wide the throat of asecond man. There was no withstanding him. He plunged about intheir very midst, tearing, rending, destroying, in constant and terrificmotion which defied the arrows they discharged at him. In fact, soinconceivably rapid were his movements, and so closely were theIndians tangled together, that they shot one another with the arrows; andone young hunter, hurling a spear at Buck in mid air, drove it throughthe chest of another hunter with such force that the point broke throughthe skin of the back and stood out beyond. Then a panic seized theYeehats, and they fled in terror to the woods, proclaiming as they fledthe advent of the Evil Spirit.
　　And truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels anddragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees. It was afateful day for the Yeehats. They scattered far and wide over theThe Call of the Wild country, and it was not till a week later that the last of the survivorsgathered together in a lower valley and counted their losses. As forBuck, wearying of the pursuit, he returned to the desolated camp. Hefound Pete where he had been killed in his blankets in the first momentof surprise. Thornton's desperate struggle was fresh-written on theearth, and Buck scented every detail of it down to the edge of a deeppool. By the edge, head and fore feet in the water, lay Skeet, faithful tothe last. The pool itself, muddy and discolored from the sluice boxes,effectually hid what it contained, and it contained John Thornton; forBuck followed his trace into the water, from which no trace led away.
Chapter 8
　　All day Buck brooded by the pool or roamed restlessly about thecamp. Death, as a cessation of movement, as a passing out and awayfrom the lives of the living, he knew, and he knew John Thornton wasdead. It left a great void in him, somewhat akin to hunger, but a voidwhich ached and ached, and which food could not fill, At times, when hepaused to contemplate the carcasses of the Yeehats, he forgot the pain ofit; and at such times he was aware of a great pride in himself,--a pridegreater than any he had yet experienced. He had killed man, thenoblest game of all, and he had killed in the face of the law of club andfang. He sniffed the bodies curiously. They had died so easily. Itwas 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 hewould be unafraid of them except when they bore in their hands theirarrows, 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 ofthe night, brooding and mourning by the pool, Buck became alive to astirring of the new life in the forest other than that which the Yeehats hadmade, He stood up, listening and scenting. From far away drifted afaint, sharp yelp, followed by a chorus of similar sharp yelps. As themoments passed the yelps grew closer and louder. Again Buck knewthem 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 everbefore. And as never before, he was ready to obey. John Thorntonwas 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 theflanks of the migrating moose, the wolf pack had at last crossed overfrom the land of streams and timber and invaded Buck's valley. Intothe clearing where the moonlight streamed, they poured in a silveryflood; and in the centre of the clearing stood Buck, motionless as astatue, waiting their coming. They were awed, so still and large hestood, and a moment's pause fell, till the boldest one leaped straight forhim. Like a flash Buck struck, breaking the neck. Then he stood,without movement, as before, the stricken wolf rolling in agony behindhim. Three others tried it in sharp succession; and one after the otherthey 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 downthe prey. Buck's marvellous quickness and agility stood him in goodstead. Pivoting on his hind legs, and snapping and gashing, he waseverywhere at once, presenting a front which was apparently unbrokenso swiftly did he whirl and guard from side to side. But to preventthem from getting behind him, he was forced back, down past the pooland 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 inthe course of mining, and in this angle he came to bay, protected onthree 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 wolvesdrew back discomfited. The tongues of all were out and lolling, thewhite fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight. Some were lyingdown with heads raised and ears pricked forward; others stood on theirfeet, watching him; and still others were lapping water from the pool.
　　One wolf, long and lean and gray, advanced cautiously, in a friendlymanner, and Buck recognized the wild brother with whom he had run fora night and a day. He was whining softly, and, as Buck whined, theytouched noses.
　　Then an old wolf, gaunt and battle-scarred, came forward. Buckwrithed his lips into the preliminary of a snarl, but sniffed noses withhim, Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose at the moon, andbroke out the long wolf howl. The others sat down and howled. Andnow the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents. He, too, sat downand howled. This over, he came out of his angle and the pack crowdedaround him, sniffing in half- friendly, half-savage manner. The leaderslifted the yelp of the pack and sprang away into the woods. The wolvesswung in behind, yelping in chorus. And Buck ran with them, side byside with the wild brother, yelping as he ran.
　　* * *And here may well end the story of Buck. The years were not manywhen the Yeehats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves; forsome were seen with splashes of brown on head and muzzle, and with arift 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. Theyare afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater than they, stealingfrom 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 tothe camp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen found withthroats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints about them in the snowgreater than the prints of any wolf. Each fall, when the Yeehats followthe movement of the moose, there is a certain valley which they neverenter. And women there are who become sad when the word goes overthe 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 whichthe Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, andyet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alone from the smiling timberland and comes down into an open space among the trees. Here ayellow stream flows from rotted moose- hide sacks and sinks into theground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mouldoverrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses fora time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.
　　But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come onand the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seenrunning at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight orglimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throata-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.The End