When Buck earned sixteen hundred
dollars in five minutes for
John Thornton, he
made
it possible for his master to pay off certain
debts
and to journey with
his partners into the East after a fabled
lost mine, the his- tory
of which was as old as the history of
the country. Many men had sought it;
few had found it; and more than a few there were who had
never returned from the quest.
This
lost
mine
was
steeped in tragedy and shrouded in mystery. No
one knew of the
first man.
The oldest tradition stopped before it got back to him.
From
the
beginning there
had been an ancient and ramshackle cabin. Dying
men
had
sworn to it, and to the mine the
site of which it
marked, clinching their testimony with nuggets that were unlike any known grade of gold in the
Northland.
But no living man had looted this treasure house, and the dead were dead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buck and half a dozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achieve where men and dogs as good as themselves had failed. They sledded seventy miles up the Yukon, swung to the left into the Stewart River, passed the Mayo and the McQuestion, and held on until the Stewart itself became a streamlet, threading the upstanding peaks which marked the backbone of the continent.
John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of the wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased. Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the course of the day's travel; and if he failed to find it, like the Indian, he kept on travelling, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later he would come to it. So, on this great journey into the East, straight meat was the bill of fare, ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the sled, and the time-card was drawn upon the limitless future.
To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, and indefinite wandering through strange places. For weeks at a time they would hold on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end they would camp, here and there, the dogs loafing and the men burning holes through frozen muck and gravel and washing countless pans of dirt by the heat of the fire. Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes they feasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortune of hunt- ing. Summer arrived, and dogs and men packed on their backs, rafted across blue mountain lakes, and descended or ascended unknown rivers in slender boats whipsawed from the standing forest.
The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted through the uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men had been if the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summer blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains between the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life— only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.
And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails of men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazed through the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed very near. But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remained mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it remained mystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage of a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thornton found a long-barrelled flint-lock. He knew it for a Hudson Bay Company gun of the young days in the Northwest, when such a gun was worth its height in beaver skins packed flat, And that was all—no hint as to the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gun among the blankets.
Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering they found, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing- pan. They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned them thou- sands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked every day. The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge. Like giants they toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like dreams as they heaped the treasure up.
There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meat now and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musing by the fire. The vision of the short-legged hairy man came to him more frequently, now that there was little work to be done; and often, blinking by the fire, Buck wandered with him in that other world which he remembered.
The salient thing of this other world seemed fear. When he watched the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees and hands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with many starts and awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully into the darkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did they walk by the beach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell- fish and ate them as he gathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Through the forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and they were alert and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving and nostrils quivering, for the man heard and smelled as keenly as Buck. The hairy man could spring up into the trees and travel ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to limb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, never missing his grip. In fact, he seemed as much at home among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories of nights of vigil spent beneath trees wherein the hairy man roosted, holding on tightly as he slept.
And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call still sounding in the depths of the forest. It filled him with a great unrest and strange desires. It caused him to feel a vague, sweet gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew not what. Some- times he pursued the call into the forest, looking for it as though it were a tangible thing, barking softly or defiantly, as the mood might dictate. He would thrust his nose into the cool wood moss, or into the black soil where long grasses grew, and snort with joy at the fat earth smells; or he would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behind fungus- covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to all that moved and sounded about him. It might be, lying thus, that he hoped to surprise this call he could not understand. But he did not know why he did these various things. He was impelled to do them, and did not reason about them at all.
Irresistible impulses seized him.
He would be
lying in camp,
dozing lazily
in the heat
of the day, when suddenly
his head would lift and his ears cock up, intent and listening, and
he
would spring to
his
feet
and dash away, and on and
on, for hours, through the forest aisles and across
the open spaces where the niggerheads bunched. He loved to run
down dry
watercourses, and
to creep and spy upon the
bird life
in the woods. For a day at a time he would lie in the underbrush where
he could watch
the
partridges drumming and strutting up and down. But especially he loved to run in the
dim
twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and
sleepy
murmurs of the forest,
reading signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called—called, waking or
sleeping, at all times, for him to come.
One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrils quivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves. From the forest came the call (or one note of it, for the call was many noted), distinct and definite as never before,—a long-drawn howl, like, yet unlike, any noise made by husky dog. And he knew it, in the old familiar way, as a sound heard before. He sprang through the sleeping camp and in swift silence dashed through the woods. As he drew closer to the cry he went more slowly, with caution in every movement, till he came to an open place among the trees, and looking out saw, erect on haunches, with nose pointed to the sky, a long, lean, timber wolf.
He had made no noise, yet it ceased from its howling and tried to sense his presence. Buck stalked into the open, half crouching, body gathered compactly together, tail straight and stiff, feet falling with unwonted care. Every movement advertised commingled threatening and overture of friendliness. It was the menacing truce that marks the meet- ing of wild beasts that prey. But the wolf fled at sight of him. He fol- lowed, with wild leapings, in a frenzy to overtake. He ran him into a blind channel, in the bed of the creek where a timber jam barred the way. The wolf whirled about, pivoting on his hind legs after the fashion of Joe and of all cornered husky dogs, snarling and bristling, clipping his teeth together in a continuous and rapid succession of snaps.
Buck did not attack, but circled him about and hedged him in with friendly advances. The wolf was suspicious and afraid; for Buck made three of him in weight, while his head barely reached Buck's shoulder. Watching his chance, he darted away, and the chase was resumed. Time and again he was cornered, and the thing repeated, though he was in poor condition, or Buck could not so easily have overtaken him. He would run till Buck's head was even with his flank, when he would whirl around at bay, only to dash away again at the first opportunity.
But in the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded; for the wolf, finding that no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him.
Then they became
friendly, and
played about in the
nervous, half-
coy
way
with which fierce
beasts belie
their fierceness. After some time of this the wolf started off
at an easy lope in a manner that
plainly showed he
was going somewhere. He made it
clear to Buck that
he was to come, and they ran side
by side through the
sombre twilight, straight up the creek bed, into
the gorge from which it issued, and
across the bleak divide where it took its rise.
On the opposite slope
of the watershed they came down into
a level country where were great stretches of forest and
many streams, and through these great stretches they
ran
steadily,
hour after hour, the sun rising
higher and
the
day
growing warmer. Buck was wildly glad. He knew he was
at last answering the call, running by the side
of his wood brother toward
the place from where the call surely
came. Old memories were
coming
upon him
fast,
and
he was stirring to them as of old
he stirred
to the realities of
which they
were the
shadows. He had done this thing
before,
somewhere in
that
other
and
dimly
remembered world, and he was doing it again,
now, running free in the open, the
unpacked earth underfoot, the wide sky overhead.
They stopped by a running stream to
drink, and, stopping, Buck remembered John Thornton. He sat down. The wolf started on toward the
place from where the call surely came, then returned
to
him,
sniffing
noses
and
making actions
as though to
encourage him. But Buck turned about and started slowly
on the back track. For
the better part
of an hour
the wild brother
ran by his side, whining softly. Then he sat down, pointed his nose
upward, and
howled. It was a mournful howl, and as Buck held steadily on his way he heard it grow faint and fainter until it was lost in the distance.
John Thornton was
eating
dinner when Buck dashed into camp and
sprang upon him in a
frenzy
of affection, overturning him, scrambling upon him, licking his face, biting
his hand—"playing
the
general tom- fool," as John Thornton characterized it, the while he shook
Buck back
and forth and cursed him lovingly.
For two days
and
nights Buck never left
camp, never let Thornton out of his
sight.
He
followed
him about at his
work,
watched him
while
he ate, saw him into his blankets at
night and out of them in the
morning. But after two days the
call in the forest began to sound more
imperiously ever. Buck's
restlessness came back on him, and he was haunted by
recollections of the wild brother, and
of the smiling land beyond the
divide and the run side by side
through the
wide forest stretches. Once again he took
to wandering in
the woods, but the wild brother came
no more;
and
though he
listened through long vigils, the mournful howl was never
raised.
He began to sleep out at night,
staying away
from
camp
for days at a time; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the
creek
and
went
down into
the
land
of timber and streams. There he wandered for a week, seeking vainly for fresh sign of the
wild
brother, killing
his
meat as he
travelled and travelling with the long,
easy
lope
that
seems
never
to tire. He fished for salmon in a broad stream that
emptied somewhere into the sea, and by this
stream he killed a large black
bear,
blinded by the mosquitoes while likewise fishing, and raging through
the forest
helpless and terrible. Even so, it was a hard fight, and it aroused the last latent
remnants of Buck's ferocity. And two days later,
when
he returned to
his
kill
and
found a dozen wolverines quarrelling over
the
spoil,
he scattered them like
chaff; and those
that
fled left two
behind who
would quarrel no more.
The blood-longing became
stronger than
ever before.
He was a killer, a thing
that
preyed, living on the
things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength
and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived. Because of all this he became possessed of
a great pride in himself, which communicated itself like a contagion to
his physical being. It advertised itself in all his movements, was
apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainly as speech in the way he carried himself, and made his
glorious furry
coat
if any- thing more
glorious. But for the stray brown on
his muzzle and above his eyes, and for the
splash of
white
hair
that
ran
midmost down his chest, he might well
have
been
mistaken for a gigantic wolf,
larger
than
the largest of the breed. From
his St. Bernard father he had inherited
size and weight, but it was his shepherd mother who had given
shape
to that size and weight. His muzzle was the long wolf muzzle, save that was larger
than
the
muzzle of any wolf;
and his head, somewhat broader, was the wolf head on a massive scale.
His cunning was
wolf
cunning, and
wild
cunning; his
intelligence, shepherd intelligence and St. Bernard intelligence; and all this, plus an experience gained in
the fiercest of schools, made him
as formidable a
creature as any that intelligence roamed
the wild. A carnivorous animal living on a straight meat diet, he was in full flower, at the high
tide of his life, overspilling with
vigor
and
virility.
When
Thornton passed a caressing
hand
along his back,
a snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharging its pent magnetism at the contact. Every part, brain and body, nerve tissue and fibre, was keyed to the
most
exquisite pitch; and between all
the parts there
was
a perfect equilibrium or
adjustment. To sights and
sounds and events
which
required action,
he responded with lightning-like rapidity. Quickly as a husky dog could leap to defend from
attack
or
to
attack,
he
could
leap
twice
as
quickly. He saw the movement, or heard
sound, and responded in less time than another dog required to compass the mere seeing
or
hearing. He
perceived and
de- termined and responded in the same instant. In
point of fact the three
actions of perceiving, determining, and responding were sequential; but so infinitesimal were
the intervals
of time between them that they appeared simultaneous. His muscles were surcharged with vitality, and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs. Life streamed through him
in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until
it seemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy
and pour forth generously over the world.
"Never was there such
a dog," said John Thornton one day, as the part-
ners watched Buck marching out of camp.
"When he was made,
the mould was broke," said Pete. "Py jingo! I t'ink so mineself," Hans affirmed.
They saw him marching out
of camp, but they did not see the
instant and
terrible transformation which took place
as soon as he was within the secrecy of the
forest.
He
no longer
marched. At once he became
a thing of the wild, stealing along softly,
cat- footed, a passing shadow that appeared and disappeared among the
shadows. He knew how to take advantage of every cover, to crawl on his belly like a snake,
and
like
a snake to leap
and
strike.
He
could
take
a ptarmigan from its
nest, kill
a rabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing a second too late for the trees. Fish, in open
pools,
were
not
too
quick
for him; nor
were
beaver,
mending their dams, too wary. He killed
to eat, not from wantonness; but he preferred to eat what
he killed himself. So a lurking humor ran
through his
deeds, and
it was his delight to steal upon the squirrels, and, when he all but
had
them,
to let them
go, chat- tering
in mortal fear to the treetops.
As the fall of the year
came
on, the moose
appeared in greater abundance,
moving slowly down to meet the winter in
the lower and less
rigorous valleys.
Buck had already dragged
down a stray part-grown calf; but he wished strongly for larger and more formidable quarry, and
he
came
upon
it one day on the divide at
the head of the
creek.
A band of twenty moose had
crossed over
from the land of streams and timber, and chief among them was a great bull. He was in a savage temper, and, standing over six feet from
the ground, was as formidable an antagonist as
even Buck
could desire. Back and forth the bull tossed his great
palmated antlers,
branching to fourteen points and embracing seven feet within the tips. His small eyes burned with a vicious and bitter light, while he roared with fury at sight of Buck.
From the bull's
side,
just
forward of the flank, protruded a feathered arrow-end, which accounted for his savageness. Guided by that instinct which came from the old hunting days of the primordial world, Buck proceeded to
cut the bull out from the herd. It was
no slight task. He would bark
and
dance
about
in front of the
bull,
just out of reach
of the great antlers and of the terrible splay hoofs which
could
have
stamped his life out
with
a single blow. Unable to turn his
back
on the fanged danger
and go on, the bull would be
driven into paroxysms of
rage. At such moments he charged Buck, who retreated craftily, luring him on by a simulated inability to escape. But when he
was thus separated from his fellows,
two or three
of the younger bulls
would charge back upon Buck and enable
the wounded bull to rejoin the herd.
There is a patience of
the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life it- self—that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in
its web, the snake in its coils,
the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to
Buck as he clung to the flank
of the herd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying the
cows with their half-grown calves, and driving the wounded bull mad with
helpless rage.
For half a day
this
continued. Buck multiplied himself, attacking from all sides, enveloping the herd in a whirlwind of
menace, cutting out
his victim as fast as it could
rejoin its mates, wearing out the patience of
creatures preyed upon, which is a lesser patience than that of creatures preying.
As the day wore along and the sun dropped to
its bed in the northwest (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were six hours long), the young bulls
retraced their
steps
more
and
more reluctantly to the aid of their
beset leader. The down-coming winter was harrying them on to the lower levels,
and it seemed they could
never
shake
off this tireless creature that held them back. Besides,
it was not the life of the herd,
or of the
young bulls,
that
was
threatened. The
life of only one member was
demanded, which
was
a remoter interest than
their
lives, and in the end they
were content to pay the toll.
As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watching his mates—the cows he had known, the calves he had
fathered, the bulls he had mastered—as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the fading light. He could
not follow,
for before
his nose leaped the merciless fanged terror that would not let him go. Three hundredweight more than half a ton
he
weighed; he
had lived a long, strong life, full of fight
and struggle, and at the end he faced
death at the teeth of a creature whose head did not reach beyond his great knuckled knees.
From then on, night and day, Buck
never left
his prey, never
gave
it a moment's rest, never
permitted it to browse the
leaves
of trees or the shoots of young birch and willow. Nor did he give the wounded bull opportunity to slake
his burning thirst in the slender trickling streams they
crossed. Often, in desperation, he burst into long stretches of
flight. At such
times
Buck
did
not attempt to stay him,
but
loped
easily
at
his heels,
satisfied with the way
the game was played, lying down when the moose stood still,
attacking him fiercely when he strove to eat or drink.
The great head
drooped more
and
more
under its
tree
of horns, and
the shambling trot grew weak
and
weaker. He took to standing for long periods, with nose to the ground and
dejected ears dropped limply; and Buck found more
time
in which to get water for himself and in which
to rest.
At such moments, panting
with red lolling tongue and with
eyes fixed upon the big bull, it appeared to
Buck that a change was
coming
over the face of things.
He could feel a new stir in the land.
As the moose
were
coming
into the land,
other
kinds
of life were
coming
in. Forest
and stream and air seemed palpitant
with their presence. The
news of it was borne
in upon him, not by sight, or sound, or
smell, but by some
other
and subtler sense. He heard nothing, saw nothing, yet knew that the land was somehow different; that through it
strange things were afoot
and ranging; and he resolved to investigate after he had finished the business in hand.
At last, at the end of the fourth day, he pulled the great moose
down. For a day
and
a night he remained by
the kill,
eating and sleeping, turn and turn about.
Then, rested, refreshed
and strong, he
turned his face toward camp
and
John Thornton. He
broke into the long easy lope, and
went on,
hour
after
hour,
never
at
loss
for
the
tangled way,
heading straight home through strange
country with a certitude of
direction that put man and his magnetic needle
to shame.
As he held on he became more and more conscious of
the new stir in the
land.
There
was
life abroad in
it different from the life which had
been there throughout the summer. No longer
was this fact borne in upon him
in
some
subtle,
mysterious way.
The
birds
talked of it, the squirrels chattered
about it, the very breeze
whispered of it. Several times he stopped and
drew in the fresh
morning air in great sniffs, reading a message which
made him
leap
on with greater speed. He was oppressed with a sense of calamity happening, if it were not calamity already
happened; and as he
crossed the last watershed and dropped down into the valley toward camp, he proceeded with
greater caution.
Three miles away he came upon a
fresh trail that sent his neck hair rippling and
bristling, It led straight toward
camp and John
Thornton. Buck hurried on, swiftly and stealthily, every
nerve straining and
tense,
alert to the multitudinous details
which told
a story—all but the end. His nose gave him a varying description of
the passage of
the life
on the heels
of which he was
travelling. He remarked the pregnant silence
of the forest. The bird
life had
flitted. The squirrels were in
hiding. One only he saw,—a
sleek
gray
fellow,
flattened against a
gray dead limb so that he
seemed a part of it, a woody excrescence upon the wood itself.
As Buck slid along
with
the obscureness of
a gliding shadow, his
nose was jerked
suddenly to the side as though a positive force
had
gripped and
pulled it. He followed the new scent into
a thicket
and
found Nig.
He was lying on his side, dead where he had dragged himself, an arrow protruding, head
and feathers, from either side
of his body.
A hundred yards farther
on, Buck came upon one of the sled-dogs Thornton
had bought in Dawson. This dog was
thrashing about
in
a death-struggle, directly on the trail,
and
Buck passed around
him without stopping.
From the camp came the faint sound of
many voices, rising and falling in a sing-song chant. Bellying forward to
the
edge
of the clearing, he found Hans, lying on his face, feathered
with arrows
like a porcupine. At the same
instant Buck
peered out
where the
spruce- bough lodge had been
and
saw
what
made his
hair
leap
straight up
on his neck and
shoulders.
A gust of overpowering rage swept over him. He did not
know that he growled, but he growled
aloud with a terrible
ferocity. For the last time in his life he allowed passion
to usurp cunning and reason, and it was because of
his great love for John Thornton that he lost his head.
The Yeehats
were
dancing about
the
wreckage of the spruce-bough lodge when they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon them an animal the like
of which they
had
never
seen
before. It was Buck,
a live hurricane of
fury, hurling himself upon them in a frenzy
to destroy. He
sprang at the foremost man
(it was the chief of the Yeehats), ripping the throat wide open till the rent jugular spouted a fountain of blood. He did not pause to worry the victim,
but
ripped in
passing, with
the
next bound tearing
wide the throat of a second man.
There was no withstanding him. He plunged about in their very
midst, tearing, rending,
destroy- ing, in constant and terrific motion which
defied
the
arrows they
dis- charged at
him. In fact, so inconceivably rapid were
his movements, and
so closely were
the
Indians tangled together, that they shot one another with
the
arrows; and
one
young hunter, hurling
a spear at Buck in mid air, drove it through the chest of another
hunter with such
force that the point broke
through the
skin
of the back and stood out beyond. Then a panic seized the Yeehats, and they fled in terror to
the woods, proclaim- ing as they fled the advent of
the Evil Spirit.
And truly
Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging
at their heels and
dragging them down like deer as they
raced
through the
trees.
It was a fateful day for the Yeehats. They scattered far and wide over the country, and it was not till a week
later
that
the last of the survivors gathered together in a lower
valley
and
counted their
losses.
As for Buck, wearying of
the pursuit, he
returned to the desolated camp.
He found Pete where he had been
killed
in his blankets
in
the
first
moment of
surprise. Thornton's desperate struggle was fresh-written on
the
earth,
and
Buck scented every detail of it down to
the edge of a deep pool. By the
edge, head and fore
feet in the water,
lay Skeet, faithful to the last. The pool it- self, muddy and
discolored from
the sluice
boxes, effectually hid what it contained,
and it contained John Thornton; for Buck followed his trace into the water,
from which no
trace led away.
All day Buck
brooded by
the
pool
or
roamed restlessly about the camp. Death, as a cessation of movement, as
a passing out and away
from
the
lives
of the living, he knew,
and
he knew
John
Thornton was dead. It left a great
void
in him, somewhat akin to hunger, but a void which ached
and
ached,
and
which
food could not
fill, At times, when he paused to
contemplate the carcasses of the Yeehats,
he forgot the
pain of it;
and at such
times
he was aware of
a great pride in himself,—a pride greater than any he had yet
experienced. He had killed
man,
the noblest game of all, and he had killed in the face of the law of club and
fang. He sniffed
the bodies curiously. They had died so easily. It was harder to kill a husky dog than them.
They
were
no match at all, were it not for their arrows and spears and clubs. Thenceforward he would be
unafraid of them except when
they
bore
in
their
hands their
arrows, spears, and clubs.
Night came on,
and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky,
lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day. And with the coming
of the night, brooding and
mourning by
the
pool,
Buck became alive to a stirring of the
new
life in
the
forest
other
than
that
which
the
Yeehats had made, He stood
up,
listening and
scenting. From far away drifted a
faint, sharp yelp, followed
by a chorus of similar sharp yelps.
As the moments passed the yelps grew
closer
and
louder. Again
Buck knew them as things heard in that other world which persisted in his memory. He
walked to the centre
of the open space and listened. It
was the call,
the many- noted call, sounding more alluringly and compellingly than
ever before. And as never
before,
he
was
ready to obey. John Thornton was dead. The last tie was broken. Man
and the claims of man no longer bound him.
Hunting their living meat,
as the Yeehats were hunting it,
on
the
flanks of the
migrating moose, the wolf pack
had
at last crossed over from the land of streams and
timber and
invaded Buck's valley. Into
the clearing where the moonlight streamed, they poured in a silvery
flood; and in the
centre of the clearing stood Buck, motionless as
a statue, waiting their
coming.
They
were awed, so still and large
he
stood,
and
a moment's
pause
fell, till the boldest one leaped straight for him. Like
a flash Buck struck, breaking the neck. Then he stood,
without movement, as before, the
stricken wolf
rolling
in agony behind him. Three others
tried
it
in
sharp succession; and one after
the
other
they
drew back, streaming blood from slashed throats or shoulders.
This was sufficient to
fling the whole pack
forward, pell-mell, crowded together,
blocked and confused by its eagerness to pull down the prey. Buck's
marvellous quickness and agility
stood
him in good stead. Pivoting on his hind
legs,
and
snapping and
gashing, he
was
everywhere at
once,
presenting a front which
was
apparently unbroken so
swiftly did he whirl and guard from side to side.
But to prevent them
from
getting behind him, he was forced back, down past
the
pool
and into the
creek bed, till he brought up against a
high gravel bank. He worked along to a right angle
in the bank which the men had made in the course of mining, and in this angle he came to bay, protected on three sides
and with nothing to do but face the front.
And so well
did
he face it, that at the
end
of half an hour the wolves drew back discomfited. The tongues of all were out and lolling, the white fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight.
Some were lying down with heads raised and ears pricked forward; others stood on their
feet, watching him; and still others were lapping water from
the
pool.
One
wolf, long and lean
and gray, advanced cautiously, in a friendly manner, and Buck recognized the wild brother
with whom he had run for a night and a day. He was
whining softly,
and,
as Buck whined, they
touched noses.
Then an
old
wolf,
gaunt
and battle-scarred,
came forward.
Buck
writhed his lips into the
preliminary of a snarl,
but
sniffed
noses
with him, Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose at the moon,
and broke out the long wolf howl. The
others sat down and howled. And now the
call came to Buck in unmistakable accents.
He, too, sat down and howled. This over,
he came out of his angle and the pack crowded around him,
sniffing
in half- friendly, half-savage manner.
The leaders lifted the yelp of the pack and sprang away into the woods. The
wolves swung in
behind, yelping in chorus. And Buck ran with them, side by side with the wild brother, yelping as he ran.
*
* *
And here may well end the story of Buck.
The
years
were
not
many
when the Yeehats
noted a change in
the breed of timber wolves; for some were seen with splashes
of brown on head and muzzle, and
with
a rift of white centring down the
chest.
But more remarkable than this, the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog
that runs at the head
of the pack. They are afraid of this
Ghost
Dog,
for
it has
cunning greater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters, robbing their
traps, slaying their
dogs,
and defying their bravest hunters.
Nay, the tale grows
worse.
Hunters there
are who fail
to return to the camp,
and
hunters there
have
been
whom their
tribesmen found with throats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints
about them in the snow greater than the prints of any wolf. Each fall,
when
the Yeehats follow the movement of the moose, there
is a certain
valley which they
never enter. And women there are who become sad when the
word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit came to select
that
valley for
an abiding-place.
In the summers there
is one visitor, however, to that valley, of which the Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, and yet
unlike, all other wolves. He crosses
alone
from the
smiling
timber land
and
comes down into an open space among the trees. Here a yellow
stream flows
from
rotted moose-
hide
sacks
and
sinks
into
the
ground, with long grasses growing through it and
vegetable mould overrunning it and hiding its
yellow
from
the
sun;
and
here
he
muses
for a
time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.
But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come
on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower
valleys,
he may be seen running
at the head of the
pack
through the
pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great
throat a-bellow as
he sings a song of the younger world, which
is the song of the pack.