When John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December
his partners
had
made him comfortable and left 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
continued warm weather even
the slight limp left him. And
here, lying
by the river bank through the long spring days,
watching the
running water,
listening lazily
to the songs
of birds and the hum
of nature, Buck slowly won
back his strength.
A rest comes
very
good
after
one
has
travelled three
thousand miles, and it must
be confessed 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
come
that was to carry
them
down to Dawson. Skeet was a little Irish setter who early made friends
with Buck,
who, in a dying condition, was unable to resent her first advances. She had the doctor trait which
some dogs
possess; and
as a mother cat washes her kittens, so she washed and
cleansed Buck's
wounds. Regularly, each morning after he had finished his breakfast, she performed her self-
appointed task,
till
he
came
to
look
for
her ministrations as much as he did for Thornton's. 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 Buck's surprise these
dogs
manifested no
jealousy toward him. They seemed to share the kindliness and
largeness of John Thornton. As Buck grew
stronger they enticed him into all sorts of ridiculous games, in which Thornton himself could not forbear
to
join; and in this fashion Buck romped through his convalescence and into a new
existence.
Love, genuine passionate
love, was his for the first time. This
he had never
experienced at
Judge Miller's down in the sun-kissed Santa
Clara
Valley. With the Judge's sons, hunting and
tramping, it
had
been
a
working partnership; with the
Judge's
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
mad-ness, 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
forgot
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 Buck's
head roughly between his hands, and resting his own head upon Buck's, of shaking him back and
forth, the while calling
him ill names that to Buck were love
names. Buck knew no greater joy than that rough
embrace and
the
sound of mur- mured oaths, and at each jerk
back and 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 can all but speak!"
Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt.
He would often seize Thornton's hand in his mouth and
close so fiercely
that the flesh
bore the impress of
his teeth for some time afterward. And as Buck understood the oaths to be love words, so the man
understood this feigned bite for a caress.
For the most part, however, Buck's 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, who
was
wont
to shove her nose under Thornton's
hand and nudge and
nudge till petted,
or Nig,
who
would stalk
up
and
rest
his
great
head
on
Thornton's knee, Buck was
content to adore at
a distance. He would lie by the hour, eager, alert, at Thornton's feet, looking up
into his face, dwelling upon it, studying it, following with keenest interest each fleeting expression, every movement or change of feature. Or,
as chance might have
it, he would lie farther away, to the side or rear, watching the
outlines of the man
and
the occasional movements
of his body. And often,
such was the communion in which they
lived, the strength of
Buck's gaze would draw John
Thornton's head
around, and
he
would return the gaze, without speech,
his heart shining out of his eyes as Buck's
heart shone
out.
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
when he
entered it again, Buck would follow at his heels.
His transient masters since he had come into the Northland had
bred
in him a fear that no master could
be permanent. 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 master's breathing.
But in spite of this great love
he bore John Thornton, which
seemed to
bespeak the
soft civilizing
influence, the
strain
of the primitive, which the Northland had aroused in him, remained alive and active. Faithfulness and devotion, things
born of fire and roof,
were his;
yet he retained his wildness and wiliness. He
was a thing
of the wild,
come
in from the wild
to sit by
John
Thornton's fire, rather than a dog of the
soft
South- land stamped with the marks
of generations 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 cunning with which he stole enabled him to
escape detection.
His face and 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 quarrelling,—besides, they belonged to John Thornton; but
the strange dog, no matter what the breed
or valor, swiftly acknow- ledged Buck's 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 police
and
mail,
and
knew
there
was
no middle course. He must master or
be mastered; while to show mercy
was a weakness. Mercy did not
exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings 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 linked the
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
Thornton's 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, scenting the wind with him, listening with him and telling
him the sounds made by the wild life
in the forest, dictating his moods, directing his
actions, lying down to
sleep with him when he
lay down, and dreaming with him and beyond him
and
becoming themselves the stuff of
his dreams.
So peremptorily did
these
shades beckon
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 compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth
around it, and to plunge into
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 gained the soft unbroken earth 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. Chance travellers might praise or pet him; but he was cold under it all, and from a too
demonstrative
man he would
get up
and walk away.
When Thornton's partners,
Hans and Pete, arrived on
the long-expected raft, Buck refused to notice them till
he learned they 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; and
ere they swung the raft into the big eddy by
the saw- mill at Dawson, they understood Buck and 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 Buck's
back
in
the
summer travel-
ling. Nothing was too great for Buck to do, when Thornton commanded. One day (they had grub-staked themselves from the proceeds of the raft and left 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 bed-rock three hundred feet below.
John
Thornton was sitting near the
edge,
Buck at
his
shoulder.
A
thoughtless whim seized Thornton, and he drew the attention of
Hans and Pete
to the experiment he had in mind.
"Jump,
Buck!" he
commanded, sweeping his arm out and over
the chasm. The next instant he was grappling with Buck on the extreme edge, while Hans and Pete were dragging them back into safety. "It's uncanny," 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."
"I'm not
hankering to be the
man
that
lays
hands on you while he's
around," Pete announced conclusively, nodding
his head toward Buck.
"Py Jingo!" was Hans's contribution. "Not mineself either."
It was at Circle
City, ere the year
was
out,
that
Pete's
apprehensions were
realized. "Black" Burton, a
man evil-tempered and malicious, had been picking
a quarrel with a tenderfoot at the bar, when Thornton
stepped good-naturedly between.
Buck, as was his custom, was
lying
in a corner,
head
on paws,
watching his master's every action.
Burton struck out, without warning, straight from the shoulder. Thornton was sent spinning, and saved
himself
from
falling
only
by clutching the
rail of the bar.
Those who were looking
on heard what was neither bark nor yelp, but a something which is best described as a roar,
and
they
saw Buck's body
rise
up
in the air as he left the
floor
for Burton's throat. The man saved his
life by instinctively throwing
out his
arm, but was hurled backward
to the floor with Buck
on 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 blocking, and his throat was torn open. Then
the crowd was upon 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 sufficient 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 Thornton's 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
and
Pete moved along the bank, snubbing with a thin Manila rope from tree to tree,
while
Thornton remained in
the boat, helping its descent by means of a pole, and shouting directions 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 which no 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 overhauled 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 roaring where the wild current went wilder and was rent in shreds and
spray by the rocks which thrust through
like the teeth of an enormous comb. The suck of the water as
it took the beginning of
the last steep pitch was frightful, and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. He
scraped furiously over a rock,
bruised across
a second, and struck a third with crushing force. He clutched its slippery top with both
hands, releasing Buck, and above the roar of the churning water shouted: "Go, Buck! Go!"
Buck could not hold his
own,
and
swept on
down-stream, struggling desperately, but unable
to
win
back.
When
he
heard Thornton's com- mand repeated, he partly reared out of the water,
throwing his
head
high,
as though for a last look,
then turned obediently toward the bank. He swam powerfully and was dragged ashore by
Pete and Hans at the
very point
where
swimming
ceased to be possible
and destruction began.
They knew that
the time a man
could
cling to a slippery rock in 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 line with
which
they
had
been
snubbing the
boat to Buck's neck and shoulders,
being careful
that
it should neither
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 under the surface, and under the surface he remained till his body struck
against the bank and he was
hauled out.
He was half
drowned, and Hans and Pete
threw
themselves upon him, pounding the breath in- to him
and the
water
out of him. He staggered to
his feet and fell
down.
The faint sound of Thornton's voice came
to
them, and
though they could not make
out the words of it, they knew
that
he was
in his extremity. His master's voice acted on Buck like an electric 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
again
he struck out, but this time straight into the stream. He had miscalculated once,
but
he would not be guilty of it a second time. Hans paid out the rope,
permitting no slack, while Pete kept it clear
of coils.
Buck held on till he was
on
a line straight above Thornton; then he turned, and
with the speed of an express
train headed down upon him. Thornton saw him coming, 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 snubbed the
rope
around the
tree, and Buck
and Thornton were jerked under the water. Strangling, suffocating, 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 back and forth across a drift log by Hans
and
Pete.
His first glance
was
for Buck,
over whose limp and apparently lifeless body Nig was setting up a howl, while Skeet was licking the wet face and closed eyes. Thornton was
himself
bruised and
battered, and
he
went
carefully over
Buck's body, when he had been brought
around, finding three broken ribs.
"That settles
it," he announced. "We camp right here." And camp they did, till Buck's ribs knitted
and he was able to travel.
That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another
exploit, not
so heroic, perhaps, but one that put his name
many
notches higher on
the totem- pole of Alaskan fame.
This
exploit
was particularly
gratifying to
the three men;
for they stood in need
of the outfit
which
it furnished, and were enabled to make
a long-desired trip into the
virgin
East,
where miners had not yet appeared. It was
brought about
by a conversation 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 second bragged six hundred for his dog; and a third,
seven hundred.
"Pooh! pooh!" said John Thornton; "Buck can 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 coolly.
"Well," Matthewson said,
slowly
and
deliberately, so
that
all
could
hear, "I've got a thousand dollars that
says
he can'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. Thornton's bluff, if bluff it was,
had
been
called.
He could feel a flush
of warm
blood
creeping 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
Buck's
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
or Pete.
"I've got a sled standing outside now,
with
twenty fiftypound sacks of flour on it," Matthewson went on with
brutal directness; "so don't let that hinder you."
Thornton did not reply. He did not
know
what
to
say.
He
glanced from face to face in 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 O'Brien,
a Mastodon King and old-time comrade, caught his
eyes. It was as a cue to him, seeming to
rouse him to do what
he would never have dreamed of
doing.
"Can you lend me a thousand?"
he asked, almost
in a whisper.
"Sure," answered O'Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack by the side of Matthewson's. "Though it's little faith I'm
having, John, that the beast can do the trick."
The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see the test. The tables
were
deserted, and the dealers and gamekeepers came forth to see the outcome of the wager and
to lay odds.
Several hundred men,
furred and mittened, banked around the sled within easy distance. Matthewson's sled, loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had been
standing for a couple of hours, and in the intense cold (it was sixty below zero) the runners had frozen fast to the hard-packed snow.
Men
offered
odds of two to one
that
Buck could not budge the sled. A quibble arose concerning the
phrase "break
out."
O'Brien
contended it was Thornton's 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 witnessed the 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 concrete 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. "I'll lay you
another thousand at
that figure, Thornton. What
d'ye say?"
Thornton's doubt was strong in
his
face, but his fighting spirit was aroused—the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails
to recognize the impossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor for battle. He called
Hans
and
Pete to him.
Their
sacks were slim,
and with his own
the three partners
could
rake
together only
two
hundred dollars. In the ebb of their fortunes, this
sum
was
their
total capital;
yet
they
laid
it unhesitatingly against Matthewson's six hundred.
The team of ten dogs
was
unhitched, and
Buck, with his
own harness, was put into
the
sled.
He had caught the contagion 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 condition, 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
shone
with
the
sheen
of silk. Down the neck
and 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 the body, where
the muscles
showed
in
tight rolls
underneath
the skin.
Men
felt these
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, sir; eight hundred just as he stands."
Thornton shook his head
and stepped to
Buck's 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 offering two
to one. Everybody acknowledged Buck a magnificent animal, but twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked
too large in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch-strings.
Thornton knelt down by Buck's side.
He
took
his
head in his two
hands
and rested 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 crowd was
watching curiously. The
affair was growing mysteri- ous. It seemed like a conjuration. As
Thornton got to his feet, Buck seized
his mittened hand between his jaws, pressing in
with
his teeth and releasing slowly,
half-reluctantly.
It
was the
answer,
in
terms, not
of speech, but of love. Thornton stepped well back.
"Now, Buck," he said.
Buck tightened the
traces,
then
slacked
them
for a matter of several inches. It was the way he
had learned.
"Gee!" Thornton's voice rang out, sharp in
the tense silence.
Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a plunge that
took
up the
slack
and
with
a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and
fifty pounds. The
load quivered, and from under the
runners arose
a crisp
crackling.
"Haw!" Thornton commanded.
Buck duplicated the
manoeuvre, this
time
to
the
left.
The
crackling turned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and the runners slipping and grating several inches to the side. The
sled was
broken out.
Men
were holding their breaths, intensely unconscious of the fact.
"Now, MUSH!"
Thornton's command cracked out like a pistol-shot. Buck threw himself forward, tightening the
traces
with
a jarring lunge. His whole
body
was gathered compactly together
in the tremendous effort,
the
muscles writhing and knotting like live things under the 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. Then the sled lurched ahead in what appeared 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, encouraging Buck with short,
cheery
words. The
distance had been measured off, and as he neared the 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
command. 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 incoherent babel.
But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck. Head was
against head,
and
he was shaking him back and forth. Those who hurried up heard him cursing Buck, and he cursed him
long
and fervently, and
softly
and lovingly.
"Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" spluttered the
Skookum Bench king. "I'll 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 can go to hell, sir. It's the best I can do
for you, sir."
Buck seized Thornton's hand
in his teeth. Thornton shook him back and forth.
As
though animated by a common impulse, the onlookers drew back to a respectful
distance;
nor were
they again
indiscreet enough to interrupt.