Buck's first day on the Dyea beach was like a nightmare.
Every hour was filled with shock and
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 neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confu-
sion and action,
and every moment life and limb were in peril. There was imperative need
to be constantly alert;
for these dogs and men were not
town dogs and men. They 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 experience taught him an unforgetable 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 near
the
log store, where she, in her friendly
way,
made advances to
a husky dog the
size
of a full-grown wolf, though not half so large as she. There
was
no warning, only a leap in like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out equally swift,
and Curly's 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 sur- rounded the combatants in
an intent and silent
circle. Buck did not com- prehend that silent intentness, nor
the
eager
way
with
which
they
were licking their chops. Curly rushed her
antagonist, who
struck
again
and leaped aside. He met her next rush with
his
chest,
in a peculiar fashion
that
tumbled her
off her feet.
She never regained them,
This was
what
the onlooking huskies
had waited for. They closed in upon her, snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming
with agony, beneath the bristling mass of bodies.
So sudden was
it, and so unexpected, that
Buck was taken aback. He saw Spitz run out
his scarlet tongue in
a way he had of laughing; and
he saw 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 assailants were clubbed off. But she lay there
limp
and
lifeless
in the
bloody, trampled snow, almost literally torn
to pieces, the swart half-breed standing over her and cursing
horribly. The scene
often
came
back
to Buck to trouble him in his sleep.
So that was the way.
No 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
and deathless hatred.
Before he had recovered from
the
shock
caused by the tragic passing of Curly, he received
another shock. Francois fastened upon him an ar- rangement 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 fringed the valley, and
returning 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
obedi- ence,
and by virtue of his whip receiving instant
obedience; while Dave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Buck's hind quarters 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 cunningly threw his weight in
the traces to jerk Buck into
the way he should go. Buck learned easily,
and
under the
combined tuition
of his two mates and Francois made remarkable progress.
Ere they returned to 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.
"T'ree vair'
good
dogs,"
Francois
told
Perrault. "Dat
Buck,
heem
pool lak hell. I tich heem
queek as anyt'ing."
By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with his despatches, returned with two more
dogs.
"Billee" and "Joe" he called
them, two brothers, and true
huskies both. Sons of
the
one
mother though they were, they
were
as different as
day and night. Billee's one fault was
his
excessive
good
nature, while
Joe was the very opposite, sour and introspective, with a perpetual snarl and a malignant eye. Buck received them
in
comradely fashion, Dave ignored them, while Spitz
proceeded to thrash first one and then
the
other.
Billee wagged his tail appeasingly, turned
to run when he saw that appeasement was
of no avail,
and
cried
(still appeasingly) when Spitz's
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 gleam- ing—the
incarnation of belligerent fear. So terrible was
his appearance that Spitz was forced to forego disciplining him; but to cover his
own discomfiture he
turned upon the inoffensive and wailing
Billee
and drove him to the confines of the camp.
By evening Perrault secured
another dog, an old husky, long
and
lean and gaunt, with a battle-scarred face and a single
eye which flashed a
warning of prowess that
commanded respect.
He
was
called
Sol-leks, which means the Angry One. Like Dave, he 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
offence
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 com-
radeship had no more
trouble. His
only
apparent ambition, like Dave's, was to be
left
alone;
though, as
Buck was afterward to learn, each
of them possessed one other and
even more vital ambition.
That night
Buck faced the great
problem of sleeping. The tent,
il- lumined by a candle, glowed warmly in
the midst of the white
plain; and when he, as a matter of
course, entered it, both Perrault and
Francois
bombarded him
with
curses
and
cooking
utensils, till he recovered from
his consternation and
fled
ignominiously into
the
outer cold. A chill
wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with especial venom into his wounded shoulder. He
lay down on the snow
and attempted to sleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to his feet. Miserable and disconsolate, he wandered about
among the many tents,
only to find that one place was as cold
as another. Here 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 unmolested.
Finally an idea came to him.
He would return and
see how his own team-mates
were making
out. To his astonishment,
they had
disap- peared. Again he wandered about through the great camp,
looking for them, and again he returned. Were they in the tent? No, that could not
be, else he would not
have been
driven out. Then where could they pos- sibly be? With drooping tail and shivering body, very forlorn indeed, he
aimlessly circled the tent.
Suddenly the snow gave way beneath 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 investigate. A
whiff of warm air ascended to
his nostrils, and there,
curled up
under the snow in a snug ball,
lay Billee. He whined placatingly, squirmed
and wriggled to show his
good will and intentions, and even ventured, as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck's face with his warm wet tongue.
Another lesson. So that
was
the way they did it,
eh? Buck confidently selected a spot, and with much fuss
and waste effort proceeded to dig a hole
for
himself.
In
a trice the heat from his
body
filled
the
confined space and he was
asleep.
The day had been long and arduous, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growled and barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
Nor did 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 completely 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
un- duly civilized
dog, and of his own experience
knew no trap and so could
not
of himself fear it.
The muscles of his whole
body
contracted spas- modically and instinctively, the
hair on his neck and
shoulders stood
on end, and with a ferocious snarl
he bounded straight 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 Manuel to the hole he had dug for
himself the night
before.
A shout from
Francois
hailed
his
appearance. "Wot I say?" the dog-
driver cried to Perrault. "Dat Buck for sure learn queek
as anyt'ing."
Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the Canadian Government, bearing important despatches, he
was anxious to
secure the best dogs,
and he was particularly gladdened by
the possession of Buck.
Three more huskies were
added to the team
inside
an hour, making a total of nine, and before another quarter
of an hour
had
passed they were in harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Canon.
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 which anim- ated
the whole team
and which was communicated to him; but still more surprising was the change wrought in
Dave and Sol-leks. They were new dogs,
utterly transformed by
the harness. All passiveness and unconcern had dropped from them. They
were
alert
and
active,
anxious that
the
work should go well, and
fiercely
irritable with
whatever, by delay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces seemed the supreme expression
of their being, and all
that they lived for and
the only thing
in which
they took delight.
Dave was wheeler or sled dog, pulling in
front of him
was
Buck, then came
Sol-leks;
the
rest of the
team
was
strung out
ahead, single
file, to the leader, which position was filled by Spitz.
Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so that he might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they were
equally apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error, and
enforcing their teaching with their sharp teeth.
Dave
was
fair
and
very
wise.
He
never
nipped Buck without cause, and he never
failed
to
nip
him
when he stood in need
of it. As Francois's whip backed him
up,
Buck found it
to be cheaper to
mend
his ways than
to retaliate. Once, during a brief halt, when he got tangled in
the traces and delayed the
start,
both
Dave
and Sol- leks flew at him
and
administered a sound trouncing. The resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took good care to keep the traces
clear thereafter; and ere the day was done,
so well had
he mastered his
work, his mates about ceased nagging him. Francois's whip
snapped less fre- quently, and Perrault even honored Buck by lifting up his feet and
care- fully examining them.
It was a hard day's run, up the Canon, 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
chain
of lakes which fills
the craters of extinct volcanoes, and late
that
night pulled into the huge
camp
at the head
of Lake Bennett,
where thousands of goldseekers were building boats against the break-up of the ice in the spring. Buck made his hole in the snow and slept the sleep
of the exhausted just, but all too early was
routed out
in the cold darkness and
harnessed with
his mates to the
sled.
That day they made forty
miles,
the
trail
being
packed; but
the
next
day, and
for many days to
follow,
they
broke
their
own
trail,
worked harder, and made poorer time.
As a rule,
Perrault travelled
ahead
of the team, packing the snow with
webbed shoes
to
make
it easier for them.
Francois, guiding the sled at the gee-
pole, sometimes exchanged
places with him,
but
not
often. Perrault was
in a hurry, and
he prided himself on his knowledge of ice, which
knowledge was indispensable, for the fall ice was very
thin,
and
where there
was
swift
water,
there
was
no ice at all.
Day after day, for days unending, Buck toiled in the traces. Always, they broke
camp
in the dark, and the first gray of dawn found them
hit- ting 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 in- to the snow.
Buck was ravenous. The
pound
and a half of sun-dried sal- mon, which was his
ration for each day, seemed to
go nowhere. He nev- er had enough, and suffered from perpetual hunger pangs. Yet the other dogs, because they weighed less and were
born
to the life,
received a pound only of
the fish and managed to keep in good condition.
He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which
had
characterized his old life. A dainty eater,
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 down the throats of the others. To rem- edy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger compel 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 bacon when Perrault's
back was turned, he
du- plicated the performance the following day, getting away with the whole chunk. A
great uproar was raised, but he was
unsuspected; while
Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always getting caught,
was punished for Buck's misdeed.
This first theft
marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to
adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which
would have meant swift and ter- rible death. It
marked, further, the decay
or going to pieces
of his moral
nature, a vain thing
and
a handicap in
the ruthless struggle for existence. It was
all well enough in the Southland, under
the law of love
and
fel- lowship, to respect private property
and personal
feelings;
but
in
the Northland, under the law of club and
fang,
whoso took
such
things into account was a fool, and in so far as he
observed them
he
would fail to prosper.
Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit,
that was all,
and uncon- sciously he accommodated 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 fundamental
and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller's
riding-whip; but
the
completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by
his
ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide. He did not steal
for joy of it, but because
of the clamor of his stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly
and
cunningly, out of respect for club and
fang. In short,
the
things he
did
were
done
because it was easier to do them than not to do them.
His development (or
retrogression) was
rapid. His
muscles became
hard as iron, and
he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an in- ternal
as
well
as
external economy. He could eat anything, no matter how loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomach
extracted the last
least
particle of nutriment; and his blood
carried it to the farthest reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest of tissues. Sight and scent
became
remarkably keen,
while
his
hearing developed such acuteness that in his sleep
he heard the
faintest sound and knew whether it heralded peace or peril. He learned to
bite the ice out
with
his teeth when it
collected between his
toes; and when he was thirsty and there was a thick
scum
of ice over
the
water hole, he would break
it by rearing and
striking it with stiff
fore legs. His most
conspicu- ous
trait
was
an ability
to
scent
the
wind
and
forecast
it a night
in
ad- vance. No matter how
breathless the air when he
dug his
nest by tree or bank, the
wind
that
later
blew
inevitably
found
him to leeward, sheltered and snug.
And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead be-
came alive
again.
The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways
he remembered
back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged 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 forgotten an- cestors. They
quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks
which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks.
They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his al- ways. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead
and dust, pointing nose at star and
howling down through the centuries and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced their
woe and what to them
was the meaning of
the stiffness, and the cold, and dark.
Thus, as token of what
a puppet thing life is, the
ancient song
surged through him and
he came into his own again; and he came because men had found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was a gardener's helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife and divers small copies of himself.