CHAPTER 4
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WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP"Eh? What I say? I speak true when I say dat Buck two devils."
This was Francoiss speeext m when he discovered Spitz missing and Buck covered with wounds. He drew him to the fire and by its light poihem out.
"Dat Spitz fight like hell," said Perrault, as he surveyed the gaping rips and cuts.
"An dat Buck fight like two hells," was Francoiss answer. "And now we make good time. No more Spitz, no more trouble, sure."
While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled, the dog-driver proceeded to harhe dogs. Buck trotted up to the place Spitz would have occupied as leader; but Francois, not notig him, brought Sol-leks to the coveted position. In his judgment, Sol-leks was the best lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury, driving him bad standing in his place.
"Eh? Eh?" Francois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. "Look at dat Buck. Him kill dat Spitz, him think to take de job."
"Go way, Hook!" he cried, but Buck refused to budge.
He took Buck by the scruff of the neck, and though the dog growled threateningly, dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. The old dog did not like it, and showed plainly that he was afraid of Buck. Francois was obdurate, but wheurned his back, Buck again displaced Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.
Francois was angry. "Now, by Gar, I fix you!" he cried, ing back with a heavy club in his hand.
Buck remembered the man in the red sweater, areated slowly; nor did he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more brought forward. But he circled just beyond the range of the club, snarling with bitterness and rage; and while he circled he watched the club so as to dodge it if thrown by Francois, for he was bee wise in the way of clubs.
The driver went about his work, and he called to Buck when he was ready to put him in his old pla front of Dave. Buck retreated two or three steps. Francois followed him up, whereupon he agaireated. After some time of this, Francois threw down the club, thinking that Buck feared a thrashing. But Buck was in ope. He wanted, not to escape a clubbing, but to have the leadership. It was his by right. He had ear, and he would not be tent with less.
Perrault took a hand. Betweehey ran him about for the better part of an hour. They threw clubs at him. He dodged. They cursed him, and his fathers and mothers before him, and all his seed to e after him down to the remotest geion, and every hair on his body and drop of blood in his veins; and he answered curse with snarl a out of their reach. He did not try to run away, but retreated around and around the camp, advertising plainly that when his desire was met<samp></samp>, he would e in and be good.
Francois sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at his watc<bdi>?9９lib.</bdi>h and swore. Time was flying, and they should have been orail an hone. Francois scratched his head again. He shook it and grinned sheepishly at the courier, whed his shoulders in sign that they were beaten. Then Francois went up to where Sol-leks stood and called to Buck. Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept his distance. Francois unfastened Sol-lekss traces and put him ba his old place. The team stood haro the sled in an unbroken line, ready for the trail. There was no place for Buck save at the front. Once more Francois called, and once more Buck laughed a away.
"Throw down de club," Perrault anded.
Francois plied, whereupon Buck trotted in, laughing triumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of the team. His traces were fastehe sled broken out, and with both men running they dashed out on to the river trail.
Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck, with his two devils, he found, while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued. At a bound Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment was required, and quick thinking and quick ag, he showed himself the superior even of Spitz, of whom Francois had never seen an equal.
But it was in giving the law and making his mates live up to it, that Buck excelled. Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the ge in leadership. It was none of their business. Their business was to toil, and toil mightily, iraces. So long as that was not interfered with, they did not care what happened. Billee, the good-natured, could lead for all they cared, so long as he kept order. The rest of the team, however, had grown unruly during the last days of Spitz, and their surprise was great now that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape.
Pike, who pulled at Bucks heels, and who never put an ounce more of his weight against the breastband than he was pelled to do, was swiftly aedly shaken for loafing; ahe first day was done he ulling more than ever before in his life. The first night in camp, Joe, the sour one, unished soundly--a thing that Spitz had never succeeded in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of superior weight, and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to whine for mercy.
The general tone of the team picked up immediately. It recovered its old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog iraces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, were added; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took away Francoiss breath.
"Never such a dog as dat Buck!" he cried. "No, never! Him worth ohousand dollair, by Gar! Eh? What you say, Perrault?"
And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then, and gaining day by day. The trail was in excellent dition, well packed and hard, and there was no new-fallen snow with which to tend. It was not too cold. The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remaihere the whole trip. The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs were kept on the jump, with but infrequent stop-pages.
The Thirty Mile River was paratively coated with ice, and they covered in one day going out what had takeen days ing in. In one run they made a sixty-mile dash from the foot of Lake LeBarge to the White Horse Rapids. Aarsh, Tagish, at (seventy miles of lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it was to run towed behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the last night of the sed week they topped White Pass and dropped down the sea slope with the lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at their feet.
It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averaged forty miles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up and down the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations to drink, while the team was the staer of a worshipful crowd of dogbusters and mushers. Then thre9９ｌｉb?e or four western bad men aspired to out the town, were riddled like pepperboxes for their pains, and publiterest turo other idols. came official orders. Francois called Bu, threw his arms around him, wept over him. And that was the last of Francois and Perrault. Like other men, they passed out of Bucks life food.
A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and in pany with a dozen -teams he started back over the weary trail to Dawson. It was no light running now, nor record time, but heavy toil each day, with a heavy load behind; for this was the mail train, carrying word from the world to the men who sought gold uhe shadow of the Pole.
Buck did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, taking pride in it after the manner of Dave and Sol-leks, and seeing that his mates, whether they prided in it or not, did their fair share. It was a monotonous life, operating with mae-like regularity. One day was very like another. At a certain time each m the cooks turned out, fires were built, and breakfast was eaten. Then, while some broke camp, others harhe dogs, and they were under way an hour or so before the darkness fell which gave warning of dawn. At night, camp was made. Some pitched the tents, others cut firewood and pine boughs for the beds, and still others carried water or ice for the cooks. Also, the dogs were fed. To them, this was the oure of the day, though it was good to loaf around, after the fish was eaten, for an hour or so with the s, of which there were fivescore and odd. There were fierce fighters among them, but three battles with the fiercest brought Buastery, so that when he bristled and showed his teeth, they got out of his way.
Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie he fire, hind legs crouched under him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised, and eyes blinking drearily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge Millers big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the t swimming tank, and Ysabel, the Mexi hairless, and Toots, the Japanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater, the death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz and the good things he had eaten or would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland was very dim and distant, and such memories had no power over him. Far more potehe memories of his heredity that gave things he had never seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but the memories of his aors bee habits) which had lapsed in later days, and still later, in him, quied and became alive again.
Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames, it seemed that the flames were of another fire, and that as he crouched by this other fire he saw another and different man from the half-breed cook before him. This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm, with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and swelling. The hair of this man was long and matted, and his head slanted bader it from the eyes. He uttered strange sounds, and seemed very much afraid of the darkness, into which he peered tinually, clutg in his hand, which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with a heavy stone made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged and fire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his body there was much hair. In some places, across the chest and shoulders and dowside of the arms and thighs, it was matted into almost a thick fur. He did not sta, but with trunk ined forward from the hips, ohat bent at the knees. About his body there eculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike, and a quick alertness as of one who lived iual fear of things seen and unseen.
At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head between his legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, his hands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms. And beyond that fire, in the cirg darkness, Buck could see many gleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he ko be the eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could hear the crashing of their bodies through the undergrowth, and the hey made in the night. And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking at the fire, these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair to rise along his bad stand on end across his shoulders and up his neck, till he whimpered low and suppressedly, rowled softly, and the half-breed cook shouted at him, "Hey, you Buck, wake up!" Whereupoher world would vanish and the real world e into his eyes, and he would get up and yawn and stretch as though he had been asleep.
It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy work wore them down. They were short of weight and in poor ditiohey made Dawson, and should have had a ten days or a weeks rest at least. But in two days time they dropped down the Yukon bank from the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside. The dogs were tired, the drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed every day. This meant a soft trail, greater fri on the runners, and heavier pulling for the dogs; yet the drivers were fair through it all, and did their best for the animals.
Eaight the dogs were atteo first. They ate before the drivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seen to the feet of the dogs he drove. Still, their strength went down. Sihe beginning of the wihey had traveled eighteen hundred miles, dragging sleds the whole weary distance; aeen hundred miles will tell upon life of the toughest. Buck stood it, keeping his mates up to their work and maintaining disciplihough he too was very tired. Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep eaight. Joe was sourer than ever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.
But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gone wrong with him. He became more morose and irritable, and when camp itched at once made his , where his driver fed him. O of the harness and down, he did not get on his feet again till harness-up time in the m. Sometimes, iraces, when jerked by a sudden stoppage of the sled, or by straining to start it, he would cry out with pain. The driver examined him, but could find nothing. All the drivers became ied in his case. They talked it over at meal-time, and over their last pipes befoing to bed, and one night they held a sultation. He was brought from his o the fire and ressed and prodded till he cried out many times. Something was wrong inside, but they could locate no broken bones, could not make it out.
By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he was falliedly iraces. The Scotch half-breed called a halt and took him out of the team, making the dog, Sol-leks, fast to the sled. His iion was to rest Dave, letting him run free behind the sled. Sick as he was, Dave resented being taken out, grunting and growling while the traces were unfastened, and whimpering brokeedly when he saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served so long. For the pride of trad trail was his, and, sito death, he could not bear that an should do his work.
When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside the beaten trail, attag Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him and trying to thrust him off into the soft snow oher side, striving to leap inside his traces a between him and the sled, and all the while whining and yelping and g with grief and pain. The half-breed tried to drive him away with the whip; but he paid o the stinging lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder. Dave refused to run quietly orail behind the sled, where the going was easy, but tio flounder alongside in the soft snow, where the going was most difficult, till exhausted. Then he fell, and lay where he fell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds ed by.
With the last remnant of his strength he mao stagger along behind till the train made aop, when he floundered past the sleds to his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered a moment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Theurned and started his dogs. They swung out orail with remarkable lack of exertion, turheir heads uneasily, and stopped in surprise. The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. He called his rades to withe sight. Dave had bitten through both of Sol-leks traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in his proper place.
He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver erplexed. His rades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being dehe work that killed it, and recalled instahey had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die iraces, heart-easy and tent. So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times fell down and was dragged iraces, and ohe sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter on one of his hind legs.
But he held out till camp was reached, when his driver made a place for him by the fire. M found him too weak to travel. At harness-up time he tried to crawl to his driver. By vulsive efforts he got on his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates. He would advance his fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitg movement, when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead again for a few more inches. His strength left him, and the last his mates saw of him he lay gasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But they could hear him mournfully howling till they passed out of sight behind a belt of river timber.
Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced his steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A revolver-sh out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips she bells tinkled merrily, the sleds ed along the trail; but Buew, and every dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt of river trees.
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