CHAPTER 1
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INTO THE PRIMITIVEOld 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 <bdo></bdo>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, whic<cite></cite>h 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.
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