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《The Call of the Wild》
CHAPTER 1
INTO THE PRIMITIVE
Old longings nomadic leap,
Chafing at s ;
Again from its brumal sleep
Wakens the ferirain.
Buck did not read the neers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San９9lib? Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation panies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge Millers place, it was called. It stood back from the road, half-hidden among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house roached by graveled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and uhe interlag boughs of tall poplars. At the rear things were on even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables, where a dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbreen pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big t tank where Judge Milers boys took their m plunge a cool i 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 s. There could not but be s on so vast a place, but they did not t. They came a, resided in the populous kennels, or lived obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of Toots, the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexi hairless, strange creatures that rarely put of doors or set foot to ground. Oher hand, there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who yelped fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of the windows at them and protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
But Buck was her house dog nor kennel dog. The whole realm was his. He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the Judges sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judges daughters, on long twilight or early m rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the Judges feet before the r library fire; he carried the Judges grandsons on his back, or rolled them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain iable yard, and even beyond, where the paddocks were, and the berry patches. Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for he was king--king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Millers place, humans included.
His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judges inseparable panion, and Buck bid fair to follow in the way of his father. He was not se--he weighed only one hundred and forty pounds--for his mother, She, had been a Scotch shepherd dog. heless, one hundred and forty pounds, to which was added the dignity that es of good living and universal respect, enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion. During the four years since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat; he had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as try gentlemen sometimes bee because of their insular situation. But he had saved himself by not being a mere pampered house dog. Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept dow and hardened his muscles; and to him, as to the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonid a health preserver.
And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when the Klorike dragged men from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck did not read the neers, and he did not know that Manuel, one of the gardeners helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel had oing sin. He loved to play ese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had oing weakness--faith in a system; and this made his damnatioain. For to play a system requires money, while the wages of a gardeners helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerous progeny.
The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers Association, and the boys were busy anizing an athletic club, on the memorable night of Mareachery. No one saw him and Buck go off through the orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll. And with the exception of a solitary man, no one saw them arrive at the little flag station known as College Park. This man talked with Manuel, and money ked between them.
"You might the goods before you deliver them," the stranger said gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around Bueder the collar.
"Twist it, and youll choke him plenty," said Manuel, and the stranger grunted a ready affirmative.
Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an unwonted performa he had learo 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 irangers hands, he growled menagly. He had merely intimated his displeasure, in his pride believing that to intimate was to and. But to his surprise the rope tightened around his neck, shutting off his breath. In a quick rage he sprang at the man, who met him halfway, grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Then the rope tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never in all his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his life had he been so angry. But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knew nothing wherain was flagged and the two men threw him into the baggage car.
The he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting and that he was being jolted along in some kind of a veyahe hoarse shriek of a lootive whistling a crossing told him where he was. He had traveled 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 kidnaped king. The man sprang for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him. His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they relax till his senses were choked out of him once more.
"Yep, has fits," the man said, hiding his mangled hand from the baggage man, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle. "Im taking him up for the boss to Frisco. A crack dog doctor there thinks that he cure him."
ing that nights ride, the man spoke most eloquently for himself, in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco water front.
"All I get is fifty for it," he grumbled, "and I wouldnt do it over for a thousand, cold cash."
His hand was ed in a bloody handkerchief, and the right tr was ripped from ko ankle.
"How much did the get?" the saloon-keeper demanded.
"A hundred," was the reply. "Wouldnt take a sou less, so help me."
"That makes a hundred and fifty," the saloon-keeper calculated, "and hes worth it, or Im a squarehead."
The kidnaper undid the bloody ings and looked at his lacerated hand. "If I do hydrophobia--"
"Itll 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 cage-like crate.
There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his wrath and wounded pride. He could not uand what it all meant. What did they want with him, these strange men? Why were they keeping him pent up in this narrow crate? He did not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense of impending calamity. Several times during the night he sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled open, expeg 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 dle. And each time the joyful bark that trembled in Bucks throat was twisted into a savage growl.
But the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the m four meered and picked up the crate. More tormentors, Buck decided, for they were evil-looking creatures, ragged and u; aormed 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 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 anon; a truck carried him, with an assortment of boxes and parcels, upon a ferry steamer; he was trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot, and finally he was deposited in an express car.
For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the tail of shrieking lootives; and for two days and nights Bueither ate nor drank. In his anger he had met the first advances of the express messengers with growls, and they had retaliated by teasing him. When he flung himself against the bars, quivering and frothing, they laughed at him and taunted him. They growled and barked like detestable dogs, mewed, and flapped their arms and crowed. It was all very silly, he knew; but therefore the more e to his dignity, and his anger waxed and waxed. He did not mind the hunger so much, but the lack of water caused him severe suffering and fanned his wrath to fever-pitch. For that matter, high-strung and finely sensitive, the ill treatment had flung him into a fever, which was fed by the inflammation of his parched and swollen throat and tongue.
He was glad for ohing: the rope was off his neck. That had given them an unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would show them. They would never get another rope around his neck. Upon that he was resolved. For two days and nights he her ate nor drank, and during those two days and nights of torment, he accumulated a fund of wrath that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him. His eyes turned bloodshot, and he was metamorphosed inting fiend. So ged was he that the Judge himself would not have reized him; and the express messengers breathed with relief when they bundled him off the train at Seattle.
Four men gingerly carried the crate from the wagon into a small, high-walled back yard. A stout man, with a red sweater that sagged generously at the neck, came out and sighe book for the driver. That was the man, Buck divihe ormentor, and he hurled himself savagely against the bars. The man smiled grimly, and brought a hatchet and a club.
"You aint going to take him out now?" the driver asked.
"Sure," the man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for a pry.
There was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who had carried it in, and from safe perches on top the wall they prepared to watch the performance.
Buck rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it, surging and wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell oside, he was there on the inside, snarling and growling, as furiously anxious to get out as the man in the red sweater was calmly i oing him out.
"Now, you red-eyed devil," he said, when he had made an opening suffit for the passage of Bucks body. At the same time he dropped the hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand.
And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together for the spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter in his bloodshot eyes. Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds of fury, surcharged with the pent passion of two days and nights. In mid-air, just as his jaws were about to close on the man, he received a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip. He whirled over, fetg the ground on his bad side. He had never been struck by a club in his life, and did not uand. With a snarl that art bark and more scream he was again on his feet and launched into the air. And again the shock came and he was brought crushingly to the ground. This time he was aware that it was the club, but His madness knew no caution. A dozen times he charged, and as often the club broke the charge and smashed him down.
After a particularly fierce blow he crawled to his feet, too dazed to rush. He staggered limply about, the blood flowing from nose and mouth and ears, his beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with bloody slaver. Then the man advanced and deliberately dealt him a frightful blow on the nose. All the pain he had endured was nothing pared with the exquisite agony of this. With a roar that was almost lion-like in its ferocity, he again hurled himself at the man. But the man, shifting the club frht to left, cooly caught him by the under jaw, at the same time wreng downward and backward. Buck described a plete circle in the air, and half of ahen crashed to the ground on his head and chest.
For the last time he rushed. The man struck the shrewd blow he had purposely withheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up a down, kterly senseless.
"Hes no slouch at dog-breaking, thats what I say," one of the men on the wall cried with enthusiasm.
"Druther break cayuses any day, and twi Sundays," was the reply of the driver, as he climbed on the wagon and started the horses.
Bucks senses came ba, but not his strength. He lay where he had fallen, and from there he watched the man in the red sweater.
" `Ao the name of Buck, " the man soliloquized, quoting from the saloon-keepers letter which had annouhe sig of the crate and tents. "Well, Buck, my boy," he went on in a genial voice, "weve had our little ru, and the best thing we do is to let it go at that. Youve learned your place, and I know mine. Be a good dog and all will go well and the goose hang high. Be a bad dog, and Ill whale the stuffing outa you. Uand?"
As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilessly pounded, and though Bucks hair involuntarily bristled at touch of the hand, he e without protest. When the man brought him water, he drank eagerly, and later bolted a generous meal of raw meat, chuck by k, from the mans hand.
He was beaten (he khat); but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no ce against a man with a club. He had learhe lesson, and in all his afterlife he never fot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introdu to the reign of primitive law, a the introdu halfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspecowed, he faced it with all the latent ing of his nature aroused. As the days went by, s came, in crates and at the ends of ropes, some docilely, and sing and r as he had e; and, one and all, he watched them pass uhe dominion of the man in the red sweater. Again and again, as he looked at each brutal performahe lesson was driven home to Buck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed, though not necessarily ciliated. Of this last Buck was never guilty, though he did see beaten dogs that fawned upon the man, and wagged their tails, and licked his hand. Also he saw one dog, that would her ciliate nor obey, finally killed iruggle 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 betweehe straook one or more of the dogs away with them. Buck wondered where they went, for they never came back; but the fear of the future was strong upon him, and he was glad each time when he was not selected.
Yet his time came, in the end, in the form of a little weazened man who spat broken English and many strange and uncouth exclamations which Buck could not uand.
"Sacredam!" he cried, when his eyes lit upon Buck. "Dat one dam bully dog! Eh? How much?"
"Three hundred, and a present at that," was the prompt reply of the man in the red sweater. "And seeing its gover money, you aint got no kiing, eh, Perrault?"
Perrault grinned. sidering that the price of dogs had been boomed skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum for so fine an animal. The adian Gover would be no loser, nor would its dispatches travel the slower. Perrault knew dogs, when he looked at Buck he khat he was one in a thousand--"One ihousand," he ented mentally.
Buck saw money pass between them, and was not surprised when Curly, a good-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the little weazened man. That was the last he saw of the man in the red sweater, and as Curly and he looked at reg Seattle from the deck of the Narwhal, it was the last he saw of the warm Southland. Curly and he were taken below by Perrault and turned over to a black-faced giant called Francois. Perrault was a French adian, and swarthy; but Francois was a French adian half-breed, and twice as swarthy. They were a new kind of men to Buck (of which he was destio see many more), and while he developed no affe for them, he he less grew holy to respect them. He speedily learhat Perrault and Francois were fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice, and too wise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs.
Iween-decks of the Narwhal, Bud Curly joiwo s. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later apanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens.
He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into ones face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance, wheole from Bucks food at the first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him, the lash of Francoiss whip sang through the air, reag the culprit first; and nothing remaio Buck but to recover the bohat was fair of Francois, he decided, and the half-breed began his rise in Bucks estimation.
The made no advances, nor received any; also, he did not attempt to steal from the newers. He was a gloomy, morose fellow, ant 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, ae and slept, or yawned between times, and took i in nothing, not evehe Narwhal crossed Queen Charlotte Sound and rolled and pitched and bucked like a thing possessed. When Bud Curly grew excited, half-wild with fear, he raised his head as though annoyed, favored them with an incurious glance, yawned, ao sleep again.
Day and night the ship throbbed to the tireless pulse of the propeller, and though one day was very like another, it arent to Buck that the weather was steadily growing colder. At last, one m, the propeller was quiet, and the Narwhal ervaded with an atmosphere of excitement. He felt it, as did the s, and khat a ge was at hand. Francois leashed them and brought them on deck. At the first step upon the cold surface, Bucks feet sank into a white mushy something very like mud. He sprang back with a snort. More of this white stuff was falling through the air. He shook himself, but more of it fell upon him. He s curiously, then licked some up on his to bit like fire, and the instant was gohis puzzled him. He tried it again, with the same results. The onlookers laughed uproariously, and he felt ashamed, he knew not why, for it was his first snow.
CHAPTER 2
THE LAW OF CLUB AND FANG
Bucks first day on the Yea beach was like a nightmare. Every hour was filled with shod surprise. He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial. No lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do but loaf and be bored. Here was her peaor rest, nor a moments safety. All was fusion and a, and every moment life and limb were in peril. There was imperative o be stantly alert; for these dogs and men were not town dogs ahey were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang.
He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experieaught him an unfettable lesson. it is true, it was a vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it. Curly was the victim. They were camped he log store, where she, in her friendly way, made advao a husky dog the size of a full-grown wolf, though not half se as she. There was n, only a leap in like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out equally swift, and Curlys face was ripped open from eye to jaw.
It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away; but there was more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and surrouhe batants in an i and silent circle. Buck did not prehend that silent iness, nor the eager way with which they were lig their chops. Curly rushed her antagonist, who struck again and leaped aside. He met her rush with his chest, in a peculiar fashion that tumbled her off her feet. She never regaihem. This was what the onlooking huskies had waited for. They closed in upon her, snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming with agony, beh the bristling mass of bodies.
So sudden was it, and so ued, that Buck was taken aback. He saw Spitz run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing; and he saw Francois, swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Three men with clubs were helping him to scatter them. It did not take long. Two minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her ass９9ｌｉb?ailants 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 se often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the way. No fair play. Once down, that was the end of you. Well, he would see to it that he never went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again, and from that moment Buck hated him with a bitter ahless hatred.
Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic passing of Curly, he received another shock. Francois fastened upon him an arra of straps and buckles. It was a harness, such as he had seen the grooms put on the horses at home. And as he had seen horses work, so he was set to work, hauling Francois on a sled to the forest that frihe valley, aurning with a load of firewood. Though his dignity was sorely hurt by thus being made a draught animal, he was too wise to rebel. He buckled down with a will and did his best, though it was all new and strange. Francois was stern, demanding instant obedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant obedience; while Dave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Bucks hindquarters whenever he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced, and while he could not always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof now and again, or ingly threw his weight iraces to jerk Buto the way he should go. Buck learned easily, and uhe biuition of his two mates and Franade remarkable progress. Ere they returo camp he knew enough to stop at "ho," to go ahead at "mush," to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear of the wheeler when the loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.
"Three very good dogs," Francois told Perrault. "Dat Buck, him pull like hell. I teach him quick as anything."
By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be orail with his dispatches, returned with two more dogs. "Billee" and "Joe" he called them, two brothers, and true huskies both. Sons of the oher though they were, they were different as day and night. Billees one fault was his excessive good nature, while Joe was the very opposite, sour and introspective, with a perpetual snarl and a malignant eye. Buck received them in radely fashion, Dave ighem, while Spitz proceeded to thrash first one and theher. Billee wagged his tail appeasingly, turo run when he sapeasement was of no avail, and cried (still appeasingly) when Spitzs sharp teeth scored his flank. But no matter how Spitz circled, Joe whirled around on his heels to face him, mane bristling, ears laid back, lips writhing and snarling, jaws clipping together as fast as he could snap, and eyes diabolically gleaming--the ination of belligerent fear. So terrible was his appearahat Spitz was forced to disciplining him; but to cover his own disfiture he turned upon the inoffensive and wailing Billee and drove him to the fines of the camp.
By evening Perrault secured an, an old husky, long and lean and gaunt, with a battle-scarred fad a single eye which flashed a warning of prowess that anded respect. He was called Sol-leks, which means the Angry One. Like Dave, he asked nothing, gave nothing, expected nothing: and when he marched slowly and deliberately into their midst, even Spitz left him alone. he had one peculiarity which Buck was unlucky enough to discover. He did not like to be approached on his blind side. Of this offense Buck was unwittingly guilty, and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion was when Sol-leks whirled upon him and slashed his shoulder to the bone for three inches up and down. Forever after Buck avoided his blind side, and to the last of their radeship had no more trouble.a His only apparent ambition, like Daves, was to be left alohough, as Buck was afterward to learn, each of them possessed oher and even more vital ambition.
That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent, illumined by a candle, glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain; and when he, as a matter of course, e, both Perrault and Francois bombarded him with curses and cooking utensils, till he recovered from his sternation 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 dissolate, he wandered about among the mas, only to find that one place was as cold as another. Here and there savage dogs rushed upon him, but he bristled his neck-hair and snarled (for he was learning fast) and they let him go his way ued.
Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own teammates were making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared. Again he wandered about through the great camp, looking for them, and agaiurned. Were t..t>ey ient? No, that could not be, else he would not have been driven out. Then where could they possibly be? With drooping tail and shivering body, very forlorn indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave way beh his fore legs and he sank down. Something wriggled under his feet. He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to iigate. A whiff of warm air asded to his nostrils, and there, curled up uhe snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. He whined plagly, squirmed and wriggled to show his good will and iions, and eveured, as a bribe for peace, to lick Bucks face with his warm wet tongue.
Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buck fidently selected a spot, and with much fuss and wasted effort proceeded to dig a hole for himself. In a trice the heat from his body filled the fined spad he was asleep. The day had been long and arduous, and he slept soundly and fortably, though he growled and barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the noises of the waking camp. At first he did not know where he was. It had snowed during the night and he was pletely buried. The snow walls pressed him on every side, and a great surge of fear swept through him--the fear of the wild thing for the trap. It was a token that he was harking back through his own life to the lives of his forebears; for he was a civilized dog, an unduly civilized dog and of his own experienew no trap and so could not of himself fear it. The muscles of his whole body tracted spasmodically and instinctively, the hair on his ned shoulders stood on end, and with a ferocious snarl he bouraight up into the blinding day, the snow flying about him in a flashing cloud. Ere he landed on his feet, he saw the white camp spread out before him and knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from the time he went for a stroll with Mao the hole he had dug for himself the night before.
A shout from Francois hailed his appearance. "What I say?" the dog-driver cried to Perrault. "Dat Buck for sure learn quick as anything."
Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the adian Gover, bearing important dispatches, he was anxious to secure the best dogs, and he articularly 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 Yea yon. Buck was glad to be gone, and though the work was hard he found he did not particularly despise it. he was surprised at the eagerness whiimated the whole team and which was unicated to him;i but still more surprising was the ge wrought in Dave and Sol-leks. They were new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness and un had dropped from them. They were alert and active, anxious that the work should go well, and fiercely irritable with whatever, by delay or fusioarded 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 instru. Apt scholar that he was, they were equally apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error, and enf their teag with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and very wise. He never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to nip him wheood in need of it. As Francois whip backed him up, Buck found it to be cheaper to mend his ways than to retaliate. Once, during a brief halt, whe tangled iraces and delayed the start, both Dave and Sol-leks flew at him and administered a sound troung. The resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took good care to keep the traces clear thereafter; ahe day was done, so well had he mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging him. Francois whip snapped less frequently, and Perrault even honored Buck by lifting up his feet and carefully examining them.
It was a hard days run, up the yon, 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 guards forbiddingly the sad and lonely North. They made good time down the of lakes which fills the craters of extinct voloes, and late that night pulled into the huge camp at the head of Lake Be, where thousands of gold-seekers were building boats against the breakup of the i 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 day, and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, worked harder, and made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault traveled ahead of the team, pag the snow with webbed shoes to make it easier for them. Francois, guiding the sled at the gee-pole, sometimes exged places with him, but not often. Perrault was in a hurry, and he prided himself on his knowledge of ice, whiowledge 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 iraces. Always, they broke camp 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 fish, and crawling to sleep into the snow. Buck was ravenous. The pound and a half of sundried salmon, which was his ration for each day, seemed to go nowhere. He never had enough, and suffered from perpetual hunger pangs. Yet the s, because they weighed less and were born to the life, received a pound only of the fish and mao keep in good dition.
He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterized his old life. A daier, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed him of his unfinished ration. There was no defending it. While he was fighting off two or three, it was disappearing dowhroats of the others. To remedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger pel him, he was not above taking what did not belong to him. He watched and learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clever malingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of ba when Perraults back was turned, he duplicated the performahe following day, getting away with the whole k. A great uproar was raised, but he was unsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always getting caught, unished for Bucks misdeed.
This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland enviro. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to ging ditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. It marked, further, the decay oing to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap ihless struggle for existe was all well enough in the Southland, uhe law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feeling; but in the Northland, uhe law of club and fang, whoso took such things into at was a fool, and in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper.
Not that Buck reaso out. He was fit, that was all, and unsciously he aodated himself to the new mode of life. All his days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. But the club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more fual and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a moral sideration, say the defense of Judge Millers riding whip; but the pleteness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability to flee from the defense of a moral sideration 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 ingly, out of respect for club and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them.
His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles became hard as iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an internal as well as external ey. He could eat anything, no matter how loathsome or iible; and, oen, 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 st became remarkably keen, while his hearing developed such aess that in his sleep he heard the fai sound and knew whether it heralded peace or peril. He learo 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 spicuous trait was an ability to st the wind and forecast it a night in advano matter how breathless the air when he dug his by tree or bank, the wind that later blew iably found him to leeward, sheltered and snug.
And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated geions fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild ded in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought fotten aors. They quied 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, oill cold nights, he pointed his a star a9９lib?nd howled long and wolf-like, it was his aors, dead and dust, pointing star and howling down through the turies and through him. And his ces were their ces, the ces 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 a song surged through him and he came into his own again; and he came because men had found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was a gardeners helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife and divers small copies of himself.
CHAPTER 3
THE DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST
The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and uhe fierce ditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth. His newborn ing gave him poise and trol. He was too busy adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease, and not only did he not pick fights, but he avoided them whenever possible. A certain deliberateness characterized his attitude. He was not proo rashness and precipitate a; and iter hatred between him and Spitz he betrayed no impatience, shunned all offes.
Oher hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous rival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He eve out of his way to bully Buck, striving stantly to start the fight which could end only in the death of one or the other.
Early irip this might have taken place had it not been for an unwonted act. At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a white-hot knife, and darkness, had forced them to grope for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse. At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were pelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself. The tent they had discarded at Yea in order to travel light. A few sticks of driftwood furhem with a fire that thawed down through the id left them to eat supper in the dark.
Close in uhe sheltering rock Buck made his . So snug and warm was it, that he was loath to leave it when Francois distributed the fish which he had first thawed over the fire. But when Buck finished his ration aurned, he found his occupied. A warning snarl told him that the trespasser itz. Till now Buck had avoided trouble with his enemy, but this was too much. The beast in him roared. He sprang upon Spitz with a fury which surprised them both, and Spitz particularly, for his whole experieh Buck had goo teach him that his rival was an unusually timid dog, who mao hold his own only because of his great weight and size.
Francois was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle from the disrupted and he divihe cause of the trouble. "A-a-ah!" he cried to Buck. "Give it to him by Gar! Give it to him, the dirty thief!"
Spitz was equally willing. He was g with sheer rage and eagerness as he circled bad forth for a ce t in. Buck was no less eager, and no less cautious, as he likewise circled bad forth for the advantage. But it was then that the ued happehe thing which projected their struggle for supremacy far into the future, past many a weary mile of trail and toil.
An oath from Perrault, the resounding impact of a club upon a bony frame, and a shrill yelp of pain, heralded the breaking forth of pandemonium. the camp was suddenly discovered to be alive with skulking furry forms--starving huskies, four or five score of them, who had sted the camp from some Indian village. They had crept in while Bud Spitz were fighting, and whewo men sprang among them with stout clubs they showed their teeth and fought back. They were crazed by the smell of the food. Perrault found oh head buried in the grub-box. His club landed heavily on the gaunt ribs, and the grub-box was capsized on the ground. On the instant a score of the famished brutes were scrambling for the bread and ba. The clubs fell upon them unheeded. They yelped and howled uhe rain of blows, but struggled he less madly till the last crumb had been devoured.
In the meahe astoeam-dogs had burst out of their s only to be set upon by the fiervaders. Never had Buck seen such dogs. It seemed as though their bones would burst through their skins. They were mere skeletons, draped loosely in draggled hides, with blazing eyes and slavered fangs. But the hunger-madness made them terrifying, irresistible. There was no opposing them. The team-dogs were swept back against the cliff at the first o. Buck was beset by three huskies, and in a trice his head and shoulders were ripped and slashed. The din was frightful. Billee was g as usual. Dave and Sol-leks, dripping blood from a score of wounds, were fighting bravely side by side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once his teeth closed on the fore leg of a husky, and he ched down through the bone. Pike, the malingerer, leaped upon the crippled animal, breaking its neck with a quick flash of teeth and a jerk. Buck got a frothing adversary by the throat, and rayed with blood when his teeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of it in his mouth goaded him to greater fieress. He flung himself upon another, and at the same time felt teeth sink into his own throat. It itz, treacherously attag from the side.
Perrault and Francois, having ed out their part of the camp, hurried to save their sled-dogs. The wild wave of famished beasts rolled back before them, and Buck shook himself free. But is was only for a moment. The two men were pelled to run back to save the grub; upon which the huskies returo the atta the team. Billee, terrified into bravery, sprang through the savage circle and fled away over the ice. Pike and Dub followed on his heels, with the rest of the team behind. As Buck drew himself together t after them, out of the tail of his eye he saw Spitz rush upon him with the evident iion of overthrowing him. Once off his feet and uhat mass of huskies, there was no hope for him. But he braced himself to the shock of Spitzs charge, then joihe flight out on the lake.
Later, the eam-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 Yea, had a badly torn throat; Joe had lost an eye; while Billee, the good-natured, with an ear chewed ao ribbons, cried and whimpered throughout the night. At daybreak they limped warily bap, to find the marauders gone and the two men in bad tempers. Fully half their grub supply was gohe huskies had chewed through the sled lashings and vas cs. In faothing, no matter how remotely eatable, had escaped them. They had eaten a pair of Perraults moose-hide mocs, ks out of the leather traces, and even two feet of lash from the end of Francoiss whip. He broke from a mournful plation of it to look over his wounded dogs.
"Ah, my friends," he said softly, "mebbe it make you mad dog, those many bites. Mebbe all mad dog, sacredam! What you think, eh, Perrault?"
The courier shook his head dubiously. With four hundred miles of trail still between him and Dawson, he could ill afford to have madness break out among his dogs. Two hours of cursing aion got the harnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffeeam was under way, struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they had yet entered, and for that matter, the hardest between them and Dawson.
The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied the frost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that the ice held at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required to cover those thirty terrible miles. And terrible they were, for every foot of them was aplished at the risk of life to dog and man. A dozen times, Perrault, nosing the way, broke through the ice bridges, being saved by the long pole he carried, which he so held that it fell each time across the hole made by his body. But a cold snap was on, the thermometer registering fifty below zero, and each time he broke through he was pelled for very life to build a fire and dry his garments.
Nothing daunted him. It was because nothing daunted him that he had been chosen fover courier. He took all manner of risks, resolutely thrusting his little weazened fato the frost and struggling on from dim dawn to dark. He skirted the frowning shores on rim ice that bent and crackled under foot and upon which they dared not halt. Ohe 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 mehem on the run around the fire, sweating and thawing, so close that they were singed by the flames.
At aime Spitz went through, dragging the whole team after him up to Buck, who strained backward with all his strength, his fore paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering and snapping all around. But behind him was Dave, likewise straining backward, and behind the sled was Francois, pulling till his tendons cracked.
Again, the rim ice broke away before and behind, and there was no escape except up the cliff. Perrault scaled it by a miracle, while Francois prayed for just that miracle; and with every thong and sled lashing and the last bit of harness rove into a long rope, the dogs were hoisted, one by oo the cliff crest. Francois came up last, after the sled and load. Then came the search for a place to desd, which dest was ultimately made by the aid of the rope, and night found them ba the river with a quarter of a mile to the days credit.
By the time they made the Hootalinqua and good ice, Buck layed out. The rest of the dogs were in like dition; but Perrault, to make up lost time, pushed them late and early. The first day they covered thirty-five miles to the Big Salmon; the day thirty-five more to the Little Salmon; the third day forty miles, which brought them well up toward the Five Fingers.
Bucks feet were not so pad hard as the feet of the huskies. His had softened during the many geions sihe day his last wild aor was tamed by a cave dweller or river man. All day long he limped in agony, and camp once made, lay down like a dead dog. Hungry as he was, he would not move to receive his ration of fish, which Francois had t to him. Also, the dog-driver rubbed Bucks feet for half an hour eaight after supper, and sacrificed the tops of his own mocs to make four mocs for Buck. This was a great relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault to twist itself into a grin one m, when Francois fot the mocs and Buck lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused to budge without them. later his feet grew hard to the trail, and the worn-out footgear was thrown away.
At the Pelly one m, as they were harnessing up, dolly, who had never been spicuous for anything, went suddenly mad. She announced her dition by a long, heart-breaking wolf howl that sent every dog bristling with fear, then sprang straight for Buck. He had never seen a dog go mad, nor did he have any reason to fear madness; yet he khat here was horror, and fled away from it in a panic. Straight away he raced, with Dolly, panting and frothing, one leap behind; nor could she gain on him, so great was his terror, nor cou藏书网ld he leave her, so great was her madness. He pluhrough the wooded breast of the island, flew down to the lower end, crossed a back el filled with rough ice to another island, gained a third island, curved back to the main river, and in desperation started to cross it. And all the time, though he did not look, he could hear her snarling just one leap behind. Francois called to him a quarter of a mile away and he doubled back, still one leap ahead, gasping painfully for air and putting all his faith in that Francois would save him. the dog-driver held the axe poised in his hand, and as Buck shot past him the axe crashed down upon mad Dollys head.
Buck staggered ainst the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath, helpless. This itzs opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice his teeth sank into his uing foe and ripped and tore the flesh to the bohen Francois lash desded, and Buck had the satisfa of watg Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet administered to any of the team.
"One devil, dat Spitz," remarked Perrault. "Some dam day him kill dat Buck."
"Dat Buck two devils," was Francoiss rejoinder. "All de time I watch dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day him get mad like hell and den him cheitz all up and spit him out on de snow. Sure, I know."
From then on it was war between them. Spitz, as lead-dog and aowledged master of the team, felt his supremacy threatened by this strange Southland dog.F And strange Buck was to him, for of the many Southland dogs he had known, not one had shown up worthily in camp and on trail. They were all too soft, dying uhe toil, the frost, and starvation. Buck was the exception. He alone endured and prospered, matg the husky in strength, savagery, and ihen he was a masterful dog, and what made him dangerous was the fact that the club of the man in the red sweater had knocked all blind plud rashness out of his desire for mastery. He reemily ing, and could bide his time with a patiehat was nothihan primitive.
It was iable that the clash for leadership should e. Buck wa. He wa because it was his nature, because he had been gripped tight by that nameless, inprehensible pride of the trail and trace--that pride which holds dogs ioil to the last gasp, which lures them to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their hearts if they are cut out of the harness. This was the pride of Dave as wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with all his strength; the pride that laid hold of them at break of camp, transf them from sour and sullen brutes into straining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on all day and dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall bato gloomy u and distent. This was the pride that bore up Spitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who blundered and shirked iraces or hid away at harness-up time in the m. Likewise it was this pride that made him fear Buck as a possible lead-dog. And this was Bucks pride, too.
He openly threatehe others leadership. He came between him and the shirks he should have punished. And he did it deliberately. One night there was a heavy snowfall, and in the m Pike, the malingerer, did not appear. He was securely hidden in his under a foot of snow. Francois called him and sought him in vain. Spitz was wild with wrath. He raged through the camp, smelling and digging in every likely place, snarling shtfully that Pike heard and shivered in his hiding-place.
But when he was at last uhed, and Spitz flew at him to punish him, Buck flew with equal rage, iween. So ued was it, and so shrewdly mahat Spitz was hurled backward and off his feet. Pike, who had been trembling abjectly, took heart at this open mutiny, and sprang upon his overthrown leader. Buck, to whom fair play was a fotten code, likewise sprang upon Spitz. But Francois, chug at the i while unswerving in the administration of justice, brought his lash down upon Buck with all his might. This failed to drive Buck from his prostrate 藏书网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 puhe many times offending Pike.
In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer, Buck still tio interfere between Spitz and the culprits; but he did it craftily, when Francois was not around. With the covert mutiny of Buck, a general insubordination sprang up and increased. Dave and Sol-leks were ued, but the rest of the team went from bad to worse. Things no longer went right. There was tinual bickering and jangling. Trouble was always afoot, and at the bottom of it was Buck. He kept Francois busy, for the dog-driver was in stant apprehension of the life-ah struggle betweewo which he knew must take place sooner or later; and on more than one night the sounds of quarreling and strife among the s turned him out of his sleeping robe, fearful that Bud Spitz were at it.
But the opportunity did not present itself, and they pulled into Dawson one dreary afternoon with the great fight still to e. Here were many men, and tless dogs, and Buck found them all at work. It seemed the ordained order of things that dogs should work. All day they swung up and down the main street in long teams, and in the night their jingling bells still went by. They hauled 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 twelve, and three, they lifted a noal song, a weird and eerie t, in which it was Bucks delight to join.
With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen us pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it itched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existe 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 ied with the woe of unnumbered geions, this plaint by which Buck was sely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. And that he should be stirred by it marked the pleteness with which he harked back through the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages.
Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they dropped doweep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled for Yea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying dispatches if anything more urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride had gripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of the year. Several things favored him in this. The weeks rest had recuperated the dogs and put them in thh trim. The trail they had broken into the try acked hard by later journeyers. And further, the police had arranged in two or three places deposits of grub f and man, and he was traveling light.
They made Sixty Mile, which is a fifty-mile run, on the first day; and the sed day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way to Pelly. But such splendid running was achieved not without great trouble aion on the part of Francois. The insidious revolt led by Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team. It no longer was as one dog leaping iraces. The encement Buck gave the rebels led them into all kinds of petty misdemeanors. No more itz a leader greatly to be feared. The old awe departed, and they grew equal to challenging his authority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one night, and gulped it down uhe prote of Buck. Anht Dub and Joe fought Spitz and made him fo the punishment they deserved. And even Billee.９9ｌiｂ?, the good-natured, was less good-natured, and whined not half so plagly as in former days. Buever came near Spitz without snarling and bristling menagly. In fact, his duct approached that of a bully, and he was given to swaggering up and down before Spitzs very nose.
The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in their relations with one ahey quarreled and bickered more than ever among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling bedlam. Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, though they were made irritable by the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange barbarous oaths, and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair. His lash was always singing among the dogs, but it was of small avail. Directly his back was turhey were at it again. He backed up Spitz with his whip, while Buck backed up the remainder of the team. Francois knew he was behind all the trouble, and Buew he knew; but Buck was too clever ever again to be caught red-handed. He worked faithfully in the harness, for the toil had bee a delight to him; yet it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight amongst his mates and tahe traces.
At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turned up a snowshoe rabbit, blu, and missed. In a sed the whole team was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp of the Northwest Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joihe chase. The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a small creek, up the frozen bed of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the surface of the snow, while the dogs plowed through by main strength. Buck led the pack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. He lay down low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing forward, leap by leap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap by leap, like some pale frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead.
All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leades, the bloodlust, the joy to kill--all this was Bucks, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the livi, to kill with his owh and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.
There is aasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life ot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy es when one is most alive, and it es as a plete fetfulhat one is alive. This ecstasy, this fetfulness of living, es to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it es to the soldier, war-mad on a stri field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going bato the womb of Time. He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flyiantly uhe stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move.
But Spitz, cold and calculating even in his supreme moods, left the pad cut across a narrow neck of land where the creek made a long bend around. Buck did not know of this, and as he rouhe bend, the frost wraith of a rabbit still flitting before him, he saw another and larger frost wraith leap from the ing bank into the immediate path of the rabbit. It itz. The rabbit could not turn, and as the white teeth broke its ba mid air it shrieked as loudly as a stri man may shriek. At sound of this, the cry of Life plunging down from Lifes apex in the grip of Death, the full pack at Bucks heels raised a hells chorus of delight.
Buck did not cry out. He did not check himself, but drove in upon Spitz, shoulder to shoulder, so hard that he missed the throat. They rolled over and over in the powdery snow. Spitz gained his feet almost as though he had not beehrown, slashing Buck down the shoulder and leaping clear. Twice his teeth clipped together, like the steel jaws of a trap, as he backed away for better footing, with lean and lifting lips that writhed and snarled.
In a flash Buew it. The time had e. It was to the death. As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchful for the advahe se came to Buck with a sense of familiarity. He seemed to remember it all--the white woods, ah, and moonlight, and the thrill of battle. Over the whiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm. There was not the fai whisper of air--nothing moved, not a leaf quivered, the visible breaths of the dogs rising slowly and lingering in the frosty air. They had made short work of the snowshoe rabbit, these dogs that were ill-tamed wolves; and they were now drawn up in an expet circle. They, too, were silent, their eyes only gleaming and their breaths drifting slowly upward. To Buck it was nothing new or strahis se of old time. It was as though it had always been, the wonted way of things.
Spitz racticed fighter. From Spitzbergen through the Arctid across ada and the Barrens, he had held his own with all manner of dogs and achieved to mastery over them. Bitter rage was his, but never blind rage. In passion to rend aroy, he never fot that his enemy was in like passion to rend aroy. He never rushed till he repared to receive a rush; tacked till he had first defehat 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 tered by the fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and lips were cut and bleeding, but Buck could not pee his enemys guard. Then he warmed up and enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and time agairied for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled o the surface, and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away. Then Buck took to rushing, as though for the throat, when, suddenly drawing back his head and curving in from the side, he would drive his shoulder at the shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which to overthrow him. But instead, Bucks shoulder was slashed down each time as Spitz leaped lightly away.
Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood and panting hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the while the silent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down. As Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggering for footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogs started up; but he recovered himself, almost in mid air, and the circle sank down again and waited.
But Buck possessed a quality that made freatness--imagination. He fought by instinct, but he could fight by head as well he rushed, as though attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last instant swept low to the snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitzs left fore leg. There was a ch of breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on three legs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, theed the trid broke the right fore leg. Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitz struggled madly to keep up. He saw the silent circle, with gleaming eyes, lolling tongues, and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing in upon him as he had seen similar circles close in upoen antagonists in the past. Only this time he was the one who was beaten.
There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy was a thing reserved fentler climes. He maneuvered for the final rush. The circle had tighteill he could feel the breaths of the huskies on his flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side, half-croug for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause seemed to fall. Every animal was motionless as though turo stone. Only Spitz quivered and bristled as he staggered bad forth, snarling with horrible menace, as though thten off impendih. Then Buck sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder had at last squa