THE CALL OF THE WILD – JACK LONDON

[members_only]

I
INTO THE PRIMITIVE

“Old longings nomadic leap,
Chafing at custom’s chain,
Again from its brumal sleep
Wakens the ferine strain.”
UCK did no t read the newspapers, or he would have known that
trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-
water dog, strong o f muscle and with warm, long h air, from
Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness,
had found a yellow metal, and b ecause steamship and transportation
companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into
the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were
heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to
protect them from the frost.
Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge
Miller’s place, it was called. It stood b ack from the road, half hidden
among the trees, through which g limpses could b e ca ught of the wide
cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached
by gravelled d riveways which wound about through wide-spreading
lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At the rear things
were on even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great
stables, where a dozen g rooms and bo ys held forth, rows of vine-clad
servants’ cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape
Barbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the
pumping p lant for the a rtesian well, and the big cement t ank where
Judge Miller’s boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot
afternoon.
And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here
he had lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were other dogs.
There c ould no t but be other dogs on so v ast a place, but t hey did n ot
count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or lived
obscurely in the recesses of the house a fter the fashion of Toots, the
Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican h airless,—strange c reatures that
rarely put nose out of doors or set foot t o g round. On the other hand,
there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who yelped fearful
promises at Toots and Ysabel l ooking ou t of the windows at t hem and
protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
But Buck was neither house-dog n or kennel-dog. The whole realm
was his. He plunged into the swimming tank o r went hunting with the
Judge’s sons; he e scorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge’s daughters, on
long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the
Judge’s feet before the roaring library fire; he c arried the Judge’s
grandsons on his back, or r olled them in the grass, and guarded their
footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable
yard, and even beyond, where the paddocks were, and the berry patches.
Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he
utterly ignored, for he was king,—king ov er all creeping, crawling,
flying things of Judge Miller’s place, humans included.
His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had b een the Judge’s
inseparable c ompanion, and Buck b id fair to follow in the way of his
father. He was not so large,—he weighed on ly one hundred and forty
pounds,—for his mother, Shep, had b een a Scotch shepherd dog .
Nevertheless, one hundred and forty pounds, to which was added the
dignity that comes of good living and universal respect, enabled him to
carry himself in right royal fashion. During the four years s ince his
puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat; he had a fine pride
in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes
become because of their insular situation. But he had saved himself by

not becoming a mere pampered house-dog. Hunting and kindred outdoor
delights had kept down the fat and hardened his muscles; and to him, as
to the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and a health
preserver.
And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when
the Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozen
North. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know that
Manuel, one of the gardener’s helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance.
Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in
his gambling, he had one besetting weakness—faith in a system; and this
made his damnation certain. For to play a system requires money, while
the wages of a gardener’s helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and
numerous progeny.
The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers’ Association, and
the boys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorable night
of Manuel’s treachery. No on e saw him and Buck go o ff through the
orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll. And with the
exception of a solitary man, no on e saw them arrive a t t he little flag
station known as College Park. This man talked with Manuel, and
money chinked between them.
“You might wrap up the goods before you deliver ’m,” the stranger
said g ruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope a round Buck’s
neck under the collar.
“Twist it , an’ you’ll choke ’m plentee,” said Manuel, and the
stranger grunted a ready affirmative.
Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an
unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew, and
to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own. But when the
ends of the rope were placed in the stranger’s hands, he growled
menacingly. He had merely intimated h is displeasure, in h is pride
believing that to intimate was to command. But to his surprise the rope
tightened around h is neck, shutting off his breath. In qu ick rage he
sprang at t he man, who met him halfway, grappled h im close by the
throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Then the rope
tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling

out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never in all his life
had h e been so vilely treated, and n ever in all his life had h e been so
angry. But his s trength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and h e knew nothing
when the train was flagged and the two men threw him into the baggage
car.
The next he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting
and that he was being jolted along in some kind o f a c onveyance. The
hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a c rossing told h im where he
was. He had travelled too often with the Judge not to know the sensation
of riding in a baggage car. He opened his eyes, and into them came the
unbridled anger of a kidnapped king. The man sprang for his throat, but
Buck was too quick for him. His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they
relax till his senses were choked out of him once more.
“Yep, has fits,” the man said, hiding h is mangled h and from the
baggageman, who had b een attracted b y the sounds of struggle. “I’m
takin’ ’m up for the boss to ’Frisco. A crack dog-doctor there thinks that
he can cure ’m.”
Concerning that night’s ride, the man spoke most eloquently for
himself, in a little shed, back of a saloon o n the San Francisco water
front.
“All I get is fifty for it,” he grumbled; “an’ I wouldn’t do it over for a
thousand, cold cash.”
His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right
trouser leg was ripped from knee to ankle.
“How much did the other mug get?” the saloon-keeper demanded.
“A hundred,” was the reply. “Wouldn’t take a sou less, so help me.”
“That makes a hundred and fifty,” the saloon-keeper calculated; “and
he’s worth it, or I’m a squarehead.”
The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his
lacerated hand. “If I don’t get the hydrophoby—”
“It’ll be because you was born to hang,” laughed the saloon-keeper.
“Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight,” he added.
Dazed, suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with the
life half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors. But
he was thrown down and choked repeatedly, till they succeeded in filing

the heavy brass collar from off his neck. Then the rope was removed,
and he was flung into a cagelike crate.
There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his wrath
and wounded pride. He could not understand what it all meant. What did
they want with h im, these strange men? Why were they keeping h im
pent up in this narrow crate? He did not know why, but he felt oppressed
by the vague sense of impending calamity. Several t imes during the
night he sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled open, expecting to
see the Judge, or the boys at least. But each time it was the bulging face
of the saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of a tallow
candle. And each time the joyful bark that trembled in Buck’s throat was
twisted into a savage growl.
But t he saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four men
entered and p icked u p the c rate. More tormentors, Buck d ecided, for
they were e vil-looking creatures, ragged and unkempt; and h e stormed
and raged at them through the bars. They only laughed and poked sticks
at him, which he promptly assailed with his teeth till he realized that that
was what they wanted. Whereupon he lay down sullenly and allowed the
crate to be lifted into a wagon. Then he, and the crate in which he was
imprisoned, began a passage through many hands. Clerks in the express
office took charge of him; he was carted about in another wagon; a truck
carried h im, with an assortment of boxes and p arcels, upon a ferry
steamer; he was trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot, and
finally he was deposited in an express car.
For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the tail
of shrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buck neither ate
nor drank. In h is anger he had met the first advances of the e xpress
messengers with growls, and they had retaliated b y teasing h im. When
he flung himself against the bars, quivering and frothing, they laughed at
him and taunted h im. They growled and b arked like detestable dogs,
mewed, and flapped their arms and crowed. It was all very silly, he
knew; but therefore the more outrage to his dignity, and his anger waxed
and waxed. He did not mind the hunger so much, but the lack of water
caused him severe suffering and fanned his wrath to fever pitch. For that
matter, high-strung and finely sensitive, the ill treatment had flung him

into a fever, which was fed b y the inflammation o f his parched and
swollen throat and tongue.
He was glad for one thing: the rope was off his neck. That had given
them an unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would show them.
They would never get another rope a round his neck. Upon that he was
resolved. For two days and n ights he neither ate nor drank, and du ring
those two d ays and n ights of torment, he acc umulated a fund of wrath
that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him. His eyes turned
bloodshot, and he was metamorphosed into a raging fiend. So changed
was he that the Judge himself would not have recognized him; and the
express messengers breathed with relief when they bundled him off the
train at Seattle.
Four men g ingerly carried the c rate from the wagon into a small,
high-walled b ack yard. A stout man, with a red sweater that sagged
generously at the neck, came out and signed the book for the driver. That
was the man, Buck d ivined, the next t ormentor, and h e hurled h imself
savagely against the bars. The man smiled grimly, and brought a hatchet
and a club.
“You ain’t going to take him out now?” the driver asked.
“Sure,” the man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for a pry.
There was an instantaneous s cattering o f the four men who h ad
carried it i n, and from safe perches on top the wall t hey prepared to
watch the performance.
Buck rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it, surging
and wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on the outside, he was
there on the inside, snarling and growling, as furiously anxious to get out
as the man in the red sweater was calmly intent on getting him out.
“Now, you red-eyed devil,” he said, when he had made an opening
sufficient for the passage of Buck’s body. At the same time he dropped
the hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand.
And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together for
the spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter in his bloodshot
eyes. Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds
of fury, surcharged with the pent passion of two days and nights. In mid
air, just as his jaws were about to close on the man, he received a shock

that checked his body and brought his teeth together with an agonizing
clip. He whirled over, fetching the ground on his back and side. He had
never been struck by a c lub in h is life, and d id not understand. With a
snarl that was part bark and more scream he was again on his feet and
launched into the a ir. And again the shock came a nd h e was brought
crushingly to the ground. This time he was aware that it was the club,
but his madness knew no caution. A dozen times he c harged, and as
often the club broke the charge and smashed him down.
After a particularly fierce blow, he crawled to his feet, too dazed to
rush. He staggered limply about, the blood flowing from nose and mouth
and ears, his beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with bloody slaver. Then
the man advanced and d eliberately dealt him a frightful blow on the
nose. All t he pain h e had endured was as nothing compared with the
exquisite a gony o f this. With a roar that was almost li onlike in its
ferocity, he a gain hu rled h imself at t he man. But t he man, shifting the
club from right to left, coolly caught him by the under jaw, at the same
time wrenching downward and b ackward. Buck d escribed a c omplete
circle in the air, and half of another, then crashed to the ground on h is
head and chest.
For the last time he rushed. The man struck the shrewd blow he had
purposely withheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up and went down,
knocked utterly senseless.
“He’s no slouch at dog-breakin’, that’s wot I say,” one of the men on
the wall cried enthusiastically.
“Druther break cayuses any day, and twice on Sundays,” was the
reply of the driver, as he climbed on the wagon and started the horses.
Buck’s senses came back to him, but not his strength. He lay where
he had fallen, and from there he watched the man in the red sweater.
“ ‘Answers to the name of Buck,’ ” the man soliloquized, quoting
from the saloon-keeper’s letter which had announced the consignment of
the c rate a nd contents. “Well, Buck, my boy,” he went on in a genial
voice, “we’ve had our little ruction, and the best thing we can do is to let
it go at that. You’ve learned your place, and I know mine. Be a good dog
and all’ll go well and the goose hang high. Be a bad dog, and I’ll whale
the stuffin’ outa you. Understand?”

As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head h e had so mercilessly
pounded, and though Buck’s hair involuntarily bristled at t ouch o f the
hand, he endured it without protest. When the man brought him water he
drank eagerly, and later bolted a generous meal of raw meat, chunk by
chunk, from the man’s hand.
He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once
for all, that he stood no chance a gainst a man with a c lub. He had
learned the lesson, and in all his after life he never forgot it. That club
was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign o f primitive law,
and he met the introduction halfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer
aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the
latent cunning of his nature a roused. As the days went by, other dogs
came, in crates and at the ends of ropes, some docilely, and some raging
and roaring as he had come; and, one a nd all, he watched them pass
under the dominion of the man in the red sweater. Again and again, as
he looked at each b rutal performance, the lesson was driven h ome to
Buck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed, though
not necessarily conciliated. Of this last Buck was never guilty, though he
did see beaten dog s that fawned u pon the man, and wagged their tails,
and licked his hand. Also he saw one dog, that would neither conciliate
nor obey, finally killed in the struggle for mastery.
Now and again men came, strangers, who talked excitedly,
wheedlingly, and in all kinds of fashions to the man in the red sweater.
And at such times that money p assed b etween them the strangers took
one or more of the dogs away with them. Buck wondered where they
went, for they never came back; but t he fear of the future was s trong
upon him, and he was glad each time when he was not selected.
Yet his time came, in the end, in the form of a little weazened man
who spat broken English and many strange a nd un couth exclamations
which Buck could not understand.
“Sacredam!” he cried, when h is eyes lit upon Buck. “Dat one dam
bully dog! Eh? How moch?”
“Three hundred, and a present at that,” was the prompt reply of the
man in the red sweater. “And seein’ it’s government money, you ain’t
got no kick coming, eh, Perrault?”

Perrault grinned. Considering that the price of dogs had b een
boomed skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum for
so fine a n animal. The Canadian Government would b e no loser, nor
would its despatches travel the slower. Perrault knew dogs, and when he
looked at Buck he knew that he was one in a thousand—“One in ten
t’ousand,” he commented mentally.
Buck saw money pass between them, and was not surprised when
Curly, a good-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the little
weazened man. That was the last he saw of the man in the red sweater,
and as Curly and h e looked at receding Seattle from the deck o f the
Narwhal, it was the last he saw of the warm Southland. Curly and h e
were taken b elow by Perrault and turned ov er to a black-faced g iant
called François. Perrault was a French-Canadian, and swarthy; but
François was a French-Canadian half-breed, and twice as swarthy. They
were a new kind of men to Buck (of which he was destined to see many
more), and while he developed no affection for them, he none the less
grew honestly to respect t hem. He speedily learned that Perrault and
François 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
other dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen
who h ad b een b rought away by a whaling captain, and who h ad later
accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens.
He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one’s face
the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance, when he
stole from Buck’s food at the first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him,
the lash of François’s whip sang through the a ir, reaching the c ulprit
first; and nothing remained to Buck but t o recover the bone. That was
fair of François, he decided, 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, and
further, that there would be trouble if he were not left alone. “Dave” he
was called, and he a te a nd slept, or yawned b etween times, and took

the bristling mass of bodies.
So sudden was it, and so unexpected, that Buck was taken aback. He
saw Spitz run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing; and he
saw François, swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Three men
with clubs were helping him to scatter them. It did n ot t ake long. Two
minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her assailants were
clubbed off. But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled
snow, almost literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breed standing over
her and cursing horribly. The scene often came back to Buck to trouble
him in his sleep. So that was the way. No fairplay. Once down, that was
the end of you. Well, he would see to it that he never went down. Spitz
ran out his tongue and laughed again, and from that moment Buck hated
him with a bitter and deathless hatred.
Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic passing
of Curly, he received another shock. François fastened up on h im an
arrangement of straps and buckles. It was a harness, such as he had seen
the grooms put on the horses at home. And as he had seen horses work,
so h e was s et t o work, hauling François on a sled to the forest t hat
fringed the valley, and returning with a load o f f irewood. Though his
dignity was sorely hurt by thus being made a draught animal, he was too
wise to rebel. He buckled do wn with a will and d id h is best, though it
was all new and strange. François was s tern, demanding instant
obedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant obedience; while
Dave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Buck’s hind qu arters
whenever he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise e xperienced,
and while he could no t always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof
now and again, or cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck
into the way he should go. Buck learned easily, and under the combined
tuition o f his two mates and François made remarkable progress. Ere
they returned to camp h e knew enough to stop at “ho,” to go ahead at
“mush,” to swing wide on the bends, and to k eep clear of the wheeler
when the loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.

 

“T’ree vair’ good dog s,” François told Perrault. “Dat Buck, heem
pool lak hell. I tich heem queek as anyt’ing.”
By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with his
despatches, returned with two more dogs. “Billee” a nd “Joe” he ca lled
them, two b rothers, and true huskies both. Sons of the one mother
though they were, they were as different as day and night. Billee’s one
fault was his excessive good n ature, while Joe was the very opposite,
sour and introspective, with a perpetual snarl and a malignant eye. Buck
received them in comradely fashion, Dave ignored them, while Spitz
proceeded to thrash first one a nd then the other. Billee wagged h is tail
appeasingly, turned to run when h e saw that appeasement was of no
avail, and cried (still appeasingly) when Spitz’s s harp teeth scored h is
flank. But no matter how Spitz circled, Joe whirled around on his heels
to face him, mane bristling, ears laid b ack, lips writhing and snarling,
jaws clipping together as fast as he could snap, and eyes diabolically
gleaming—the incarnation o f belligerent fear. So terrible was his
appearance that Spitz was forced to forego disciplining him; but to cover
his own discomfiture he turned upon the inoffensive and wailing Billee
and drove him to the confines of the camp.
By evening Perrault secured another dog, an o ld hu sky, long and
lean and gaunt, with a battle-scarred face and a single eye which flashed
a warning of prowess that commanded respect. He was called Sol-leks,
which means the Angry One. Like Dave, he a sked no thing, gave
nothing, expected no thing; and when h e marched slowly and
deliberately into their midst, even Spitz left him alone. He had on e
peculiarity which Buck was unlucky enough to discover. He did not like
to be approached on his blind side. Of this offence Buck was unwittingly
guilty, and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion was when Sol-
leks whirled up on him and slashed h is s houlder to the bone for three
inches up and d own. Forever after Buck avoided h is blind side, and to
the last of their comradeship h ad no more trouble. His only apparent
ambition, like Dave’s, was to b e left alone; t hough, as Buck was
afterward to learn, each of them possessed one other and even more vital
ambition.

That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent,
illumined b y a candle, glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain;
and when he, as a matter of course, entered it, both Perrault and François
bombarded him with curses and cooking utensils, till he recovered from
his consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer cold. A chill
wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with especial venom
into his wounded shoulder. He lay down on the snow and attempted to
sleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to his feet. Miserable and
disconsolate, he wandered about among the many tents, only to find that
one place was as cold as another. Here a nd there savage dogs rushed
upon him, but he bristled his neck hair and snarled (for he was learning
fast), and they let him go his way unmolested.
Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own
team-mates were making ou t. To h is astonishment, they had
disappeared. Again he wandered about through the great camp, looking
for them, and again h e returned. Were they in the tent? No, that could
not be, else he would not have been driven out. Then where could they
possibly be? With drooping tail and shivering body, very forlorn indeed,
he a imlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave way beneath h is
fore legs and h e sank down. Something wriggled u nder his feet. He
sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown.
But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to investigate.
A whiff of warm air ascended to his nostrils, and there, curled up under
the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. He whined placatingly, squirmed and
wriggled to show his good will and intentions, and even ventured, as a
bribe for peace, to lick Buck’s face with his warm wet tongue.
Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buck
confidently selected a spot, and with much fuss and waste e ffort
proceeded to d ig a hole for himself. In a trice the heat from his body
filled the confined space and he was asleep. The day had been long and
arduous, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growled and
barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
Nor did h e open h is eyes till roused b y the noises of the waking
camp. At first he did not know where he was. It had snowed during the
night and h e was completely buried. The snow w alls pressed h im on

every side, and a great surge of fear swept through him—the fear of the
wild thing for the trap. It was a token that he was harking back through
his own life to the lives of his forebears; for he was a civilized dog, an
unduly civilized dog, and o f his own experience knew no trap and so
could not of himself fear it. The muscles of his whole body contracted
spasmodically and instinctively, the hair on his neck and shoulders stood
on end, and with a ferocious s narl he bounded straight up into the
blinding day, the snow flying about him in a flashing cloud. Ere he
landed on h is feet, he saw the white c amp spread ou t before him and
knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from the time
he went for a stroll with Manuel to the hole he had dug for himself the
night before.
A shout from François 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 f or the Canadian Government,
bearing important despatches, he was anxious to secure the best dogs,
and he was particularly gladdened by the possession of Buck.
Three more huskies were added to the team inside an hour, making a
total of nine, and before another quarter of an hour had passed they were
in harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Cañon. Buck was
glad to b e gone, and though the work was hard h e found h e did n ot
particularly despise it. He was surprised at the eagerness which animated
the whole team, and which was communicated to h im; but still more
surprising was the change wrought in Dave and Sol-leks. They were new
dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness and unconcern
had d ropped from them. They were alert and active, anxious that t he
work should g o well, and fiercely irritable with whatever, by delay or
confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces seemed the supreme
expression of their being, and all that they lived for and the only thing in
which they took delight.
Dave was wheeler or sled dog , pulling in front of him was Buck,
then came Sol-leks; the rest of the team was strung out ahead, single file,
to the leader, which position was filled by Spitz.
Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so that
he might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they were equally

apt t eachers, never allowing h im to linger long in error, and enforcing
their teaching with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and v ery wise. He
never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to nip him when
he stood in need of it. As François’s whip backed him up, Buck found it
to b e c heaper to mend h is ways than to retaliate. Once, during a brief
halt, when he got tangled in the traces and delayed the start, both Dave
and Sol-leks flew at him and administered a sound trouncing. The
resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took good care to k eep the
traces clear thereafter; and ere the day was done, so well had h e
mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging him. François’s whip
snapped less frequently, and Perrault even hono red Buck b y lifting u p
his feet and carefully examining them.
It was a hard day’s run, up the Cañon, through Sheep Camp, past the
Scales and the timber line, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of
feet deep, and over the great Chilcoot Divide, which stands between the
salt water and the fresh and gu ards forbiddingly the sad and lonely
North. They made good time down the c hain o f lakes which fills the
craters of extinct volcanoes, and late that night pulled into the huge
camp at the head of Lake Bennett, where thousands of gold-seekers were
building b oats against t he breakup of the ice in the spring. Buck made
his hole in the snow and slept the sleep of the exhausted just, but all too
early was routed out in the cold darkness and harnessed with his mates
to the sled.
That day they made forty miles, the trail being packed; but the next
day, and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, worked
harder, and made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault travelled ahead of the
team, packing the snow w ith webbed shoes to make it easier for them.
François, guiding the sled at the gee-pole, sometimes exchanged places
with him, but not often. Perrault was in a hurry, and he prided himself on
his knowledge of ice, which kno wledge was indispensable, for the fall
ice was very thin, and where there was swift water, there was no ice at
all.
Day after day, for days unending, Buck toiled in the traces. Always,
they broke c amp in the dark, and the first gray of dawn found them
hitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them. And always they

pitched camp after dark, eating their bit of f ish, and crawling to sleep
into the snow. Buck was ravenous. The pound and a half of sun-dried
salmon, which was his ration for each d ay, seemed to go no where. He
never had enough, and suffered from perpetual hunger pangs. Yet t he
other dogs, because they weighed less and were born to the life, received
a pound only of the fish and managed to keep in good condition.
He swiftly lost t he fastidiousness which h ad characterized h is old
life. A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed him
of his unfinished ration. There was no d efending it. While he was
fighting o ff two o r three, it was disappearing do wn the throats of the
others. To remedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger
compel him, he was not above taking what did not belong to h im. He
watched and learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clever
malingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon when Perrault’s back
was turned, he duplicated the performance the following d ay, getting
away with the whole c hunk. A great uproar was raised, but he was
unsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always getting
caught, was punished for Buck’s misdeed.
This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland
environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to
changing conditions, the lack o f which would h ave meant swift and
terrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his
moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless s truggle for
existence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love
and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings; but in
the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took such things
into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them he would fail
to prosper.
Not t hat Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, and
unconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. All his
days, no matter what t he odds, he had n ever r un from a fight. But t he
club of the man in the red sweater had b eaten into h im a more
fundamental and p rimitive c ode. Civilized, he c ould have died for a
moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller’s riding-whip; but
the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability

to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide.
He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach.
He did no t rob o penly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect
for club and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it was
easier to do them than not to do them.
His development (or r etrogression) was rapid. His muscles became
hard as iron, and h e grew callous to all ordinary pain. He ac hieved an
internal as well as external economy. He c ould eat anything, no matter
how loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomach
extracted the last least particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it to
the farthest reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest
of tissues. Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearing
developed such acuteness that in h is sleep h e heard the faintest sound
and knew whether it heralded peace or peril. He learned to bite the ice
out with his teeth when it collected between his toes; and when he was
thirsty and there was a thick scum of ice over the water hole, he would
break it by rearing and striking it with stiff fore legs. His most
conspicuous trait was an ability to scent the wind and forecast it a night
in advance. No matter how breathless the a ir when h e dug h is nest by
tree or bank, the wind that l ater blew inevitably found h im to leeward,
sheltered and snug.
And no t only did h e learn by experience, but i nstincts long d ead
became alive a gain. The domesticated g enerations fell from him. In
vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time
the wild dog s ranged in p acks through the primeval forest and k illed
their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight
with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought
forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old
tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his
tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had
been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose
at a star and howled long and wolf-like, it was his ancestors, dead and
dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and
through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which

 

voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stillness, and
the cold, and dark.
Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged
through him and he came into his own again; and he came because men
had found a yellow metal i n the North, and b ecause Manuel was a
gardener’s helper whose wages did not l ap ov er the needs of his wife
and divers small copies of himself.

ration and returned, he found h is nest occupied. A warning snarl t old
him that t he trespasser was Spitz. Till now Buck h ad avoided trouble
with h is enemy, but t his was too much. The beast i n him roared. He
sprang upon Spitz with a fury which surprised them both, and Spitz
particularly, for his whole experience with Buck had gone to teach him
that his rival was an unusually timid dog, who managed to hold his own
only because of his great weight and size.
François was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle from the
disrupted nest and he divined the cause of the trouble. “A-a-ah!” he cried
to Buck. “Gif it to heem, by Gar! Gif it to heem, the dirty t’eef!”
Spitz was equally willing. He was crying with sheer r age a nd
eagerness as he c ircled b ack and forth for a c hance to spring in. Buck
was no less eager, and no less cautious, as he likewise circled back and
forth for the a dvantage. But it was then that t he unexpected h appened,
the thing which p rojected their struggle for supremacy far into the
future, past many a weary mile of trail and toil.
An oath from Perrault, the resounding impact of a club upon a bony
frame, and a shrill yelp o f pain, heralded the breaking forth of
pandemonium. The c amp was suddenly discovered to b e a live with
skulking furry forms—starving huskies, four or five score of them, who
had scented the camp from some Indian village. They had crept in while
Buck and Spitz were fighting, and when the two men sprang among
them with stout clubs they showed their teeth and fought back. They
were c razed b y the smell of the food. Perrault found on e with head
buried in the grub-box. His club landed h eavily on the gaunt ribs, and
the grub-box was capsized on the ground. On the instant a score of the
famished brutes were scrambling for the bread and bacon. The clubs fell
upon them unheeded. They yelped and howled under the rain of blows,
but struggled none the less madly till the last crumb had been devoured.
In the meantime the astonished team-dogs had burst out of their nests
only to b e set upon b y the fierce invaders. Never had Buck seen such
dogs. It seemed as though their bones would bu rst t hrough their skins.
They were mere skeletons, draped loosely in d raggled h ides, with
blazing eyes and slavered fangs. But t he hunger-madness made them

terrifying, irresistible. There was no opposing them. The team-dogs were
swept back against t he c liff at t he first onset. Buck was beset by three
huskies, and in a trice his head and shoulders were ripped and slashed.
The din was frightful. Billee was crying as usual. Dave a nd Sol-leks,
dripping blood from a score of wounds, were fighting bravely side by
side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once his teeth closed on the fore
leg o f a husky, and h e crunched do wn through the bone. Pike, the
malingerer, leaped upon the c rippled animal, breaking its neck with a
quick flash of teeth and a jerk, Buck go t a frothing adversary by the
throat, and was sprayed with b lood when h is teeth sank through the
jugular. The warm taste of it in h is mouth go aded h im to g reater
fierceness. He flung h imself upon another, and at t he same time felt
teeth sink into his own throat. It was Spitz, treacherously attacking from
the side.
Perrault and François, having cleaned ou t their part of the c amp,
hurried to save their sled-dogs. The wild wave of famished beasts rolled
back b efore them, and Buck shook h imself f ree. But it was only for a
moment. The two men were compelled to run b ack to save the grub,
upon which the huskies returned to the a ttack on the team. Billee,
terrified into b ravery, sprang through the savage c ircle a nd fled away
over the ice. Pike and Dub followed on h is heels, with the rest of the
team behind. As Buck drew himself together to spring after them, out of
the tail of his eye he saw Spitz rush upon him with the evident intention
of overthrowing him. Once off his feet and under that mass of huskies,
there was no hope for him. But he braced himself to the shock of Spitz’s
charge, then joined the flight out on the lake.
Later, the nine team-dogs gathered together and sought shelter in the
forest. Though unpursued, they were in a sorry plight. There was not one
who was not wounded in four or five places, while some were wounded
grievously. Dub was badly injured in a hind leg; Dolly, the last husky
added to the team at Dyea, had a badly torn throat; Joe had lost an eye;
while Billee, the good-natured, with an ear chewed and rent to ribbons,
cried and whimpered throughout t he night. At daybreak they limped
warily back to camp, to find the marauders gone and the two men in bad
tempers. Fully half their grub supply was gone. The huskies had chewed

through the sled lashings and canvas coverings. In fact, nothing, no
matter how remotely eatable, had escaped them. They had eaten a pair of
Perrault’s moose-hide moccasins, chunks out of the leather traces, and
even two feet of lash from the end of François’s whip. He broke from a
mournful contemplation of it to look over his wounded dogs.
“Ah, my frien’s,” he said softly, “mebbe it mek you mad dog, dose
many bites. Mebbe all mad dog, sacredam! Wot you t’ink, eh, Perrault?”
The c ourier shook his head dub iously. With four hundred miles of
trail still between him and Dawson, he could ill afford to have madness
break ou t among his dogs. Two h ours of cursing and exertion go t t he
harnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffened team was under way,
struggling p ainfully over the hardest part of the trail t hey had yet
encountered, and for that matter, the hardest between them and Dawson.
The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied the frost,
and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that the ice held at
all. Six d ays of exhausting toil were required to cover those thirty
terrible miles. And terrible they were, for every foot of them was
accomplished at the risk of life to dog and man. A dozen times, Perrault,
nosing the way, broke through the ice bridges, being saved by the long
pole he ca rried, which h e so held that it fell each time ac ross the hole
made by his body. But a cold snap was on, the thermometer registering
fifty below zero, and each time he broke through he was compelled for
very life to build a fire and dry his garments.
Nothing d aunted h im. It was because nothing d aunted h im that he
had b een chosen for government courier. He took all manner of risks,
resolutely thrusting his little weazened face into the frost and struggling
on from dim dawn to d ark. He skirted the frowning shores on rim ice
that bent and crackled und er foot and upon which they dared no t halt.
Once, the sled broke through, with Dave and Buck, and they were half-
frozen and all but drowned by the time they were dragged out. The usual
fire was necessary to save them. They were coated solidly with ice, and
the two men kept them on the run around the fire, sweating and thawing,
so close that they were singed by the flames.
At another time Spitz went t hrough, dragging the whole team after
him up to Buck, who strained b ackward with all his s trength, his fore

paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering and snapping all around.
But behind him was Dave, likewise straining backward, and behind the
sled was François, pulling till his tendons cracked.
Again, the rim ice broke away before and behind, and there was no
escape except up the cliff. Perrault scaled it by a miracle, while François
prayed for just that miracle; and with every thong and sled lashing and
the last bit of harness rove into a long rope, the dogs were hoisted, one
by one, to the cliff crest. François came up last, after the sled and load.
Then came the search for a place to d escend, which d escent was
ultimately made by the aid of the rope, and night found them back on the
river with a quarter of a mile to the day’s credit.
By the time they made the Hootalinqua a nd good ice, Buck was
played out. The rest of the dogs were in like condition; but Perrault, to
make up lost t ime, pushed them late a nd early. The first day they
covered thirty-five miles to the Big Salmon; t he next day thirty-five
more to the Little Salmon; the third day forty miles, which brought them
well up toward the Five Fingers.
Buck’s feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of the huskies.
His had softened during the many generations since the day his last wild
ancestor was tamed b y a ca ve-dweller or river man. All day long h e
limped in agony, and camp on ce made, lay do wn like a dead dog .
Hungry as he was, he would no t move to receive his ration of f ish,
which François had to bring to him. Also, the dog-driver rubbed Buck’s
feet for half an hour each n ight after supper, and sacrificed the tops of
his own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck. This was a great
relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault to twist itself
into a grin one morning, when François forgot the moccasins and Buck
lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused
to bu dge without t hem. Later his feet grew hard to the trail, and the
worn-out foot-gear was thrown away.
At t he Pelly one morning, as they were harnessing up , Dolly, who
had n ever been conspicuous for anything, went suddenly mad. She
announced h er condition b y a long, heart-breaking wolf howl t hat sent
every dog b ristling with fear, then sprang straight for Buck. He had
never seen a dog go mad, nor did he have any reason to fear madness;

yet he knew that here was horror, and fled away from it i n a panic.
Straight away h e raced, with Dolly, panting and frothing, one leap
behind; nor could she gain on him, so great was his terror, nor could he
leave her, so g reat was her madness. He plunged through the wooded
breast of the island, flew down to the lower end, crossed a back channel
filled with rough ice to another island, gained a third island, curved back
to the main river, and in desperation started to cross it. And all the time,
though he did not look, he could hear her snarling just one leap behind.
François called to him a quarter of a mile away and h e doubled b ack,
still one leap ahead, gasping painfully for air and putting all his faith in
that François would save him. The dog-driver held the axe poised in his
hand, and as Buck shot past him the a xe c rashed do wn up on mad
Dolly’s head.
Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath,
helpless. This was Spitz’s opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice
his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the flesh to the
bone. Then François’s lash descended, and Buck had the satisfaction of
watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet administered to any of
the team.
“One devil, dat Spitz,” remarked Perrault. “Some dam day heem keel
dat Buck.”
“Dat Buck two devils,” was François’s rejoinder. “All de tam I
watch d at Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heem get
mad lak hell an’ den heem chew dat Spitz all up an’ spit heem out on de
snow. Sure. I know.”
From then on it was war between them. Spitz, as lead-dog and
acknowledged master of the team, felt his supremacy threatened by this
strange Southland dog. And strange Buck was to h im, for of the many
Southland dogs he had known, not one had shown up worthily in camp
and on trail. They were all too soft, dying under the toil, the frost, and
starvation. Buck was the e xception. He a lone e ndured and p rospered,
matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning. Then h e was a
masterful dog, and what made him dangerous was the fact that the club
of the man in the red sweater had knocked all blind pluck and rashness

out of his desire for mastery. He was preëminently cunning, and could
bide his time with a patience that was nothing less than primitive.
It was inevitable that t he c lash for leadership should come. Buck
wanted it. He wanted it because it was his nature, because he had been
gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the trail and
trace—that pride which ho lds dogs in the toil t o the last gasp, which
lures them to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their hearts if they
are cut out of the harness. This was the pride of Dave as wheel-dog, of
Sol-leks as he pulled with all his s trength; t he pride that l aid ho ld of
them at break o f camp, transforming them from sour and sullen b rutes
into straining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on
all day and dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall back
into gloomy unrest and uncontent. This was the pride that bore up Spitz
and made him thrash the sled-dogs who b lundered and shirked in the
traces or hid away at harness-up time in the morning. Likewise it was
this pride that made him fear Buck as a possible lead-dog. And this was
Buck’s pride, too.
He openly threatened the other’s leadership. He c ame between h im
and the shirks he should have punished. And he did it deliberately. One
night t here was a heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike, the
malingerer, did not appear. He was s ecurely hidden in his nest under a
foot of snow. François called him and sought him in vain. Spitz was wild
with wrath. He raged through the camp, smelling and d igging in every
likely place, snarling so frightfully that Pike heard and shivered in h is
hiding-place.
But when he was at last unearthed, and Spitz flew at him to punish
him, Buck flew, with equal rage, in between. So unexpected was it, and
so shrewdly managed, that Spitz was hurled backward and off his feet.
Pike, who h ad b een trembling abjectly, took h eart at t his open mutiny,
and sprang upon his overthrown leader. Buck, to whom fairplay was a
forgotten code, likewise sprang upon Spitz. But François, chuckling at
the incident while unswerving in the a dministration o f justice, brought
his lash do wn up on Buck with all his might. This failed to d rive Buck
from his prostrate rival, and the butt of the whip was brought into play.
Half-stunned by the blow, Buck was knocked backward and the lash laid

upon him again and again, while Spitz soundly punished the many times
offending Pike.
In the days that followed, as Dawson g rew closer and closer, Buck
still continued to interfere between Spitz a nd the c ulprits; but he did it
craftily, when François was not around, With the covert mutiny of Buck,
a general i nsubordination sprang up and increased. Dave a nd Sol-leks
were unaffected, but the rest of the team went from bad to worse. Things
no longer went right. There was continual bickering and jangling.
Trouble was always afoot, and at the bottom of it was Buck. He kept
François busy, for the dog-driver was in constant apprehension o f the
life-and-death struggle between the two which he knew must take place
sooner or later; and on more than one night the sounds of quarrelling and
strife among the other dogs turned him out of his sleeping robe, fearful
that Buck and Spitz were at it.
But t he opportunity did no t present it self, and they pu lled into
Dawson on e dreary afternoon with the great fight still to come. Here
were many men, and countless dogs, and Buck found them all at work. It
seemed the ordained order of things that dogs should work. All day they
swung up and down the main street in long teams, and in the night their
jingling b ells s till went by. They hauled cabin logs and firewood,
freighted up to the mines, and did all manner of work that horses did in
the Santa Clara Valley. Here and there Buck met Southland dogs, but in
the main they were the wild wolf husky breed. Every night, regularly, at
nine, at twelve, at three, they lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eerie
chant, in which it was Buck’s delight to join.
With the a urora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars
leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of
snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only
it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and
was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was
an old song, old as the breed itself—one of the first songs of the younger
world in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of
unnumbered g enerations, this plaint by which Buck was s o strangely
stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that
was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the

[/members_only]