CHAPTER 6
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FOR THE LOVE OF A MANWhen John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December, his partners had made him fortable a him to get well, going on themselves up the river to get out a raft of saw-logs for Dawson. He was still limping slightly at the time he rescued Buck, but with the tinued warm weather even the slight limp left him. And here, lying by the river bank through the long spring days, watg the running water, listening lazily to the songs of birds and the hum of nature, Buck slowly won back his strength.
A rest es very good after one has traveled three thousand miles, and it must be fessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed, his muscles swelled out, and the flesh came back to cover his bones. For that matter, they were all loafing,--Buck, John Thornton, and Skeet and Nig--waiting for the raft to e that was to carry them down to Dawson. Skeet was a little Irish setter who early made friends with Buck, who, in a dying dition, was uo resent her first advances. She had the doctor trait whie dogs possess; and as a mother cat washes her kittens, so she washed and sed Bucks wounds. Regularly, each m after he had finished his breakfast, she performed her self-appoiask, till he came to look for her ministrations as much as he did for Thorntons. Nig, equally friendly though less demonstrative, was a huge black dog, half-bloodhound and half-deerhound, with eyes that laughed and a boundless good nature.
To Bucks surprise these dogs maed no jealousy toward him. They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton. As Buck grew strohey enticed him into all sorts of ridiculous games, in which Thornton himself could not forbear to join; and in this fashion Buped through his valesd into a ence. Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time. This he had never experie Judge Millers down in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. With the Judges sons, hunting and tramping, it had been a w partnership; with the Judges grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately and dignified friendship. But love that was feverish and burning, that was adoration, that was madness, it had taken John Thornton to arouse.
This man had saved his life, which was something; but, further, he was the ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs from a sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his as if they were his own children, because he could not help it. And he saw further. He never fot a kindly greeting or a cheering word, and to sit down for a long talk with them--"gas" he called it--was as much his delight as theirs. He had a way of taking Bucks head roughly between his hands, aing his own head upon Bucks, of shaking him bad forth, the while calling him ill hat to Buck were love names. Buew no greater joy than that rough embrad the sound of murmured oaths, and at each jerk bad forth it seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body, so great was its ecstasy. And when, released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, his eyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and in that fashion remained without movement, John Thornton would reverently exclaim, "God! you all but speak!"
Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt. He would often seize Thorntons hand in his mouth and close so fiercely that the flesh bore the impress of his teeth for some time afterward. And as Buderstood the oaths to be love words, so the man uood this feigned bite for a caress.
For the most part, however, Bucks love was expressed in adoration. While he went wild with happiness when Thornton touched him or spoke to him, he did not seek these tokens. Unlike Skeet, ont to shove her nose uhorntons hand and nudge and ill petted, , who would stalk up a his great head on Thorntons knee, Buck was tent to adore at a distance. He would lie by the hour, eager, alert, at Thornto, looking up into his face, dwelling upon it, studying it, following with kee i each fleeting expression, every movement or ge of feature. Or, as ce might have it, he would lie farther away, to the side or rear, watg the outlines of the man and the occasional movements of his body. And often, such was the union in which they lived, the strength of Bucks gaze would draw John Thorntons head around, and he would return the gaze, without speech, his heart shining out of his eyes as Bucks heart sho.
For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton to get out of his sight. From the moment he left the tent to wheered it again, Buck would follow at his heels. His tra masters since he had e into the Northland had bred in him a fear that no master could be perma. He was afraid that Thornton would pass out of his life as Perrault and Francois and the Scotch half-breed had passed out. Even in the night, in his dreams, he was haunted by this fear. At such times he would shake off sleep and creep through the chill to the flap of the tent, where he would stand and listen to the sound of his masters breathing.
But in spite of this great love he bore John Thornton, which seemed to bespeak the soft civilizing influehe strain of the primitive, which the Northland had aroused in him, remained alive and active. Faithfulness aion, things born of fire and roof, were his; yet he retained his wildness and wiliness. He was a thing of the wild, e in from the wild to sit by John Thorntons fire, rather than a dog of the soft Southland stamped with the marks of geions of civilization. Because of his very great love, he could not steal from this man, but from any other man, in any other camp, he did not hesitate an instant; while the ing with which he stole enabled him to escape dete.
His fad body were scored by the teeth of many dogs, and he fought as fiercely as ever and more shrewdly. Skeet and Nig were too good-natured for quarreling--besides, they beloo John Thornton; but the strange dog, no matter what the breed or valor, swiftly aowledged Bucks supremacy or found himself struggling for life with a terrible antagonist. And Buck was merciless. He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way to death. He had lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the polid mail, and khere was no middle course. He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did in the primordial life. It was misuood for fear, and such misuandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.
He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn. He lihe past with the present, and the eternity behind him throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tides and seasons swayed. He sat by John Thorntons fire, a broad-breasted dog, white-fanged and long-furred; but behind him were the shades of all manner of dogs, half wolves and wild wolves, urgent and prompting, tasting the savor of the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank, sting the wind with him, listening with him and telling him the sounds made by the wild life in the forest; dictating his moods, direg his as, lying down to sleep with him when he lay down, and dreaming with him and beyond him and being themselves the stuff of his dreams.
So peremptorily did these shades be him, that each day mankind and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt pelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beateh around it, and to pluo the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest. But as often as he gaihe soft unbrokeh and the green shade, the love for John Thornton drew him back to the fire again.
Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing. ce travelers might praise or pet him; but he was cold u all, and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away. When Thorntons partners, Hans ae, arrived on the long-expected raft, Buck refused to notice them till he learhey were close to Thornton; after that he tolerated them in a passive sort of way, accepting favors from them as though he favored them by accepting. They were of the same large type as Thornton, living close to the earth, thinking simply and seeing clearly; ahey swung the raft into the big eddy by the saw-mill at Dawson, they uood Bud his ways, and did not insist upon an intimacy such as obtained with Skeet and Nig.
For Thornton, however, his love seemed to grow and grow. He, alone among men, could put a pack upon Bucks ba the summer traveling. Nothing was too great for Buck to do, when Thornton anded. One day (they had grub-staked themselves from the proceeds of the raft a Dawson for the head waters of the Tanana) the men and dogs were sitting on the crest of a cliff which fell away, straight down, to naked bedrock three hundred feet below. John Thornton was sittihe edge, Buck at his shoulder. A thoughtless whim seized Thornton, and he drew the attention of Hans ao the experiment he had in mind. "Jump, Buck!" he anded, sweeping his arm out and over the chasm. The instant he was grappling with Bu the extreme edge, while Hans ae were dragging them bato safety.
"Its uny," Pete said, after it was over and they had caught their speech.
Thornton shook his head. "No, it is splendid, and it is terrible, too. Do you know, it sometimes makes me afraid."
"Im not hankering to be the man that lays hands on you while hes around," Pete announced clusively, nodding his head toward Buck.
"Py Jingo!" was Hanss tribution. "Not mineself either."
It was at Circle City, ere the year was out, that Petes apprehensions were realized. "Black" Burton, a man evil tempered and malicious, had been pig a quarrel with a tenderfoot at the bar, when Thornton stepped good naturedly between. Buck, as was his , was lying in a er, head on paws, watg his masters every a. Burton struck out, without warning, straight from the shoulder. Thornton was sent spinning, and saved himself from falling only by clutg the rail of the bar.
Those who were looking on heard what was her bark nor yelp, but a something which is best described as a roar, and they saw Bucks body rise up in the air as he left the floor for Burtons throat. The man saved his life by instinctively throwing out his arm, but was hurled backward to the floor with Bu top of him. Buck loosed his teeth from the flesh of the arm and drove in again for the throat. This time the man succeeded only in partly blog, and his throat was torhen the croon Buck, and he was driven off; but while a surgeon checked the bleeding, he prowled up and down, growling furiously, attempting to rush in, and being forced back by an array of hostile clubs. A "miners meeting" called on the spot, decided that the dog had suffit provocation, and Buck was discharged. But his reputation was made, and from that day his name spread through every camp in Alaska.
Later on, in the fall of the year, he saved John Thorntons life in quite another fashion. The three partners were lining a long and narrow poling boat down a bad stretch of rapids on the Forty Mile Creek. Hans ae moved along the bank, snubbing with a thin Manila rope from tree to tree, while Thornton remained in the boat, helping its dest by means of a pole, and shouting dires to the shore. Buck, on the bank, worried and anxious, kept abreast of the boat, his eyes never off his master.
At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged rocks jutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and, while Thornton poled the boat out into the stream, ran down the bank with the end in his hand to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge. This it did, and was flying down-stream in a current as swift as a mill-race, when Hans checked it with the rope and checked too suddenly. The boat flirted over and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, while Thornton, flung sheer out of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wild water in whio swimmer could live.
Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundred yards, amid a mad swirl of water, he over-hauled Thornton. When he felt him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all his splendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progress down-stream amazingly rapid. From below came the fatal r where the wild curre wilder and was rent in shreds and spray by the rocks which thrust through like the teeth of an enormous b. The suck of the water as it took the beginning of the last steep pitch was frightful, and Thorntohat the shore was impossible. He scraped furiously over a rock, bruised across a sed, and struck a third with crushing force. He clutched its slippery top with both hands, releasing Buck, and above the roar of the ing water shouted: "Go, Buck! Go!"
Buck could not hold his own, and swept on downstream, struggling desperately, but uo win back. When he heard Thorntons aed, he partly reared out of the water, throwing his head high, as though for a last look, then turned obediently toward the bank. He sowerfully and was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at the very point where swimming ceased to <q></q>be possible aru began.
They khat the time a man could g to a slippery ro the face of that driving current was a matter of minutes, and they ran as fast as they could up the bank to a point far above where Thornton was hanging on. They attached the lih which they had been snubbing the boat to Bued shoulders, being careful that it should her strangle him nor impede his swimming, and launched him into the stream. He struck out boldly, but not straight enough into the stream. He discovered the mistake too late, when Thornton was abreast of him and a bare half-dozen strokes away while he was being carried helplessly past.
Hans promptly snubbed with the rope, as though Buck were a boat. The rope thus tightening on him in the sweep of the current, he was jerked uhe surface, and uhe surface he remaiill his body struck against the bank and he was hauled out. He was half drowned, and Hans ahrew themselves upon him, pounding the breath into him and the water out of him. He staggered to his feet and fell down. The faint sound of Thorntons voice came to them, and though they could not make out the words of it, they khat he was in his extremity. His masters voice acted on Buck like aric shock. He sprang to his feet and ran up the bank ahead of the men to the point of his previous departure.
Again the rope was attached and he was launched, and agairuck out, but this time straight into the stream. He had miscalculated once, but he would not be guilty of it a sed time. Hans paid out the rope, permitting no slack, while Pete kept it clear of coils. Buck held on till he was on a liraight above Thornton; theurned, and with the speed of an express train headed down upon him. Thornton saw him ing, and, as Buck struck him like a battering ram, with the whole force of the current behind him, he reached up and closed with both arms around the shaggy neck. Hans she rope around the tree, and Bud Thornton were jerked uhe water. Strangling, suffog, sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other, dragging over the jagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags, they veered in to the bank.
Thornton came to, belly downward and being violently propelled bad forth across a drift log by Hans ae. His first glance was for Buck, over whose limp and apparently lifeless body Nig was setting up a howl, while Skeet was lig the wet fad closed eyes. Thornton was himself bruised and battered, and he went carefully over Bucks body, when he had been brought around, finding three broken ribs.
"That settles it," he announced. " right here." And camp they did, till Bucks ribs knitted and he was able to travel.
That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another exploit, not so heroic perhaps, but ohat puts his name many notches higher oem pole of Alaskan fame. This exploit articularly gratifying to the three men; for they stood in need of the outfit which it furnished, and were eo make a long-desired trip into the virgi, where miners had not yet appeared. It was brought about by a versation in the Eldorado Saloon, in which men waxed boastful of their favorite dogs. Buck, because of his record, was the target for these men, and Thornton was driven stoutly to defend him. At the end of half an hour one man stated that his dog could start a sled with five hundred pounds and walk off with it; a sed bragged six hundred for his dog; and a third, seven hundred.
"Pooh! Pooh!" said John Thornton. "Buck start a thousand pounds."
"And break it out, and walk off with it for a hundred yards?" demanded Matthewson, a Bonanza king, he of the seven hundred vaunt.
"And break it out, and walk off with it for a hundred yards," John Thornton said cooly.
"Well," Matthewson said, slowly and deliberately, so that all could hear, "Ive got a thousand dollars that says he t. And there it is." So saying, he slammed a sack of gold dust of the size of a bologna sausage down upon the bar.
Nobody spoke. Thorntons bluff, if bluff it was, had been called. He could feel a flush of warm blood c<cite>99ｌib?</cite>reeping up his face. His tongue had tricked him. He did not know whether Buck could start a thousand pounds. Half a ton! The enormousness of it appalled him. He had great faith in Bucks strength and had often thought him capable of starting such a load; but never, as now, had he faced the possibility of it, the eyes of a dozen men fixed upon him, silent and waiting. Further, he had no thousand dollars; nor had Hans ae.
"Ive got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour on it," Matthewso on with brutal direess; "so dohat hinder you."
Thornton did not reply. He did not know what to say. He glanced from face to fa the absent way of a man who has lost the power of thought and is seeking somewhere to find the thing that will start it going again. The face of Jim OBrien, a Mastodon king and old-time rade, caught his eyes. It was a cue to him, seeming to rouse him to do what he would never have dreamed of doing.
" you lehousand?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
"Sure," answered OBrien, thumping dolethoric sack by the side of Matthewsons. "Though its little faith Im having, John, that the beast do the trick."
The Eldorado emptied its octs into the street to see the test. The tables were deserted, and the dealers and gamekeepers came forth to see the oute of the wager and to lay odds. Several hundred men, furred and mittened, banked around the sled within easy distance. Matthewsons sled, loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had been standing for a couple of hours, and iense cold --it was sixty below zero--the runners had frozen fast to the hard-packed snow. Men offered odds of two to ohat Buck could not budge the sled. A quibble arose ing the phrase "break out." OBrien te was Thorntons privilege to knock the runners loose, leaving Buck to "break it out" from a dead standstill. Matthewson insisted that the phrase included breaking the runners from the frozen grip of the snow. A majority of the men who had withe making of the bet decided in his favor, whereat the odds went up to three to one against Buck.
There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat. Thornton had been hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt; and now that he looked at the sled itself, the crete fact, with the regular team of ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the more impossible the task appeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant.
"Three to one!" he proclaimed. "Ill lay you ahousand at that figure, Thornton, what do you say?"
Thorntons doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spirit was aroused--the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails the impossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor for battle. He called Hans ao him. Their sacks were slim, and with his owhree partners could rake together only two hundred dollars. In the ebb of their fortuhis sum was their total capital; yet they laid it uatingly against Matthewsons six hundred.
The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his own harness, ut into the sled. He had caught the tagion of the excitement, and he felt that in some way he must do a great thing for John Thornton. Murmurs of admiration at his splendid appearance went up. He was in perfect dition, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, and the one hundred and fifty pounds that he weighed were so many pounds of grit and virility. His furry coat shoh the sheen of silk. Down the ned across the shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled and seemed to lift with every movement, as though excess of vigor made each particular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavy fore legs were no more than in proportion with the rest of his body, where the muscles showed in tight rolls underh the skin. Mehese muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went down to two to one.
"Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" stuttered a member of the latest dynasty, a king of the Skookum Benches. "I offer you eight hundred for him, sir, before the test; eight hundred just as he stands."
Thornton shook his head and stepped over to Bucks side.
"You must stand off from him," Matthewson protested. "Free play and plenty of room."
The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of the gamblers vainly two to one. Everybody aowledged Buck a magnifit animal, but twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked toe in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch strings.
Thornto down by Bucks side. He took his head in his hands aed cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. "As you love me, Buck. As you love me," was what he whispered. Buck whined with suppressed eagerness.
The croatg curiously. The affair was growing mysterious. It seemed like a juration. As Thornton got to his feet, Buck seized his mittened haween his jaws, pressing in with his teeth and releasing slowly, half-relutly. It was the answer, in terms, not of speech, but of love. Thornton stepped well back.
"Now, Buck," he said.
Buck tightehe traces, then slacked them for a matter of several inches. It was the way he had learned.
"Gee!" Thorntons voice rang out, sharp iense silence.
Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a pluhat took up the slad with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty pounds. The load quivered, and from uhe runners arose a crisp crag.
"Haw!" Thornton anded.
Buck duplicated the mahis time to the left. The crag turned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and the runners slipping and grating several io the side. The sled was broken out. Men were holding their breaths, intensely unscious of the fact.
"Now, MUSH!"
Thorntons and cracked out like a pistol shot. Buck threw himself forward, tightening the traces with a jarring lunge. His whole body was gathered pactly together iremendous effort, the muscles writhing and knotting like live things uhe silky fur. His great chest was low to the ground, his head forward and down, while his feet were flying like mad, the claws scarring the hard-packed snow in parallel grooves. The sled swayed and trembled, half-started forward. One of his feet slipped, and one man groaned aloud. The sled lurched ahead in peared a rapid succession of jerks, though it never really came to a dead stop again . . . half an inch . . . an inch . . . two inches . . . The jerks perceptibly diminished; as the sled gained momentum, he caught them up, till it was moving steadily along.
Men gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that for a moment they had ceased to breathe. Thornton was running behind, encing Buck with short, cheery words. The distance had been measured off, and as he he pile of firewood which marked the end of the hundred yards, a cheer began to grow and grow, which burst into a roar as he passed the firewood and halted at and. Every man was tearing himself loose, even Matthewson. Hats and mittens were flying in the air. Men were shaking hands, it did not matter with whom, and bubbling over in a general i babel.
But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck. Head was against head, and he was shaking him bad forth. Those who hurried up heard him cursing Buck, and he cursed him long and fervently, and softly and lovingly.
"Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" sputtered the Skookum Bench king. "Ill give you a thousand for him, sir, a thousand, sir--twelve hundred, sir."
Thornton rose to his feet. His eyes were wet. The tears were streaming frankly down his cheeks. "Sir," he said to the Skookum Bench king, "no, sir. You go to hell, sir. Its the best I do for you, sir."
Buck seized Thorntons hand in his teeth. Thornton shook him bad forth. As though animated by a pulse, the onlookers drew back to a respectful distanor were they again indiscreet enough to interrupt.
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