The Call of the Wild, Page 4

  Chapter IV. Who Has Won to Mastership

  "Eh? Wot I say? I spik true w'en I say dat Buck two devils." This wasFrancois's speech next morning when he discovered Spitz missing and Buckcovered with wounds. He drew him to the fire and by its light pointedthem out.

  "Dat Spitz fight lak hell," said Perrault, as he surveyed the gapingrips and cuts.

  "An' dat Buck fight lak two hells," was Francois's answer. "An' now wemake good time. No more Spitz, no more trouble, sure."

  While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled, thedog-driver proceeded to harness the dogs. Buck trotted up to the placeSpitz would have occupied as leader; but Francois, not noticing him,brought Sol-leks to the coveted position. In his judgment, Sol-leks wasthe best lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury, driving himback and standing in his place.

  "Eh? eh?" Francois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. "Look at datBuck. Heem keel dat Spitz, heem t'ink to take de job."

  "Go 'way, Chook!" he cried, but Buck refused to budge.

  He took Buck by the scruff of the neck, and though the dog growledthreateningly, dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. The olddog did not like it, and showed plainly that he was afraid of Buck.Francois was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck again displacedSol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.

  Francois was angry. "Now, by Gar, I feex you!" he cried, coming backwith a heavy club in his hand.

  Buck remembered the man in the red sweater, and retreated slowly; nordid he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more broughtforward. But he circled just beyond the range of the club, snarling withbitterness and rage; and while he circled he watched the club so as tododge it if thrown by Francois, for he was become wise in the way ofclubs. The driver went about his work, and he called to Buck when he wasready to put him in his old place in front of Dave. Buck retreated twoor three steps. Francois followed him up, whereupon he again retreated.After some time of this, Francois threw down the club, thinking thatBuck feared a thrashing. But Buck was in open revolt. He wanted, not toescape a clubbing, but to have the leadership. It was his by right. Hehad earned it, and he would not be content with less.

  Perrault took a hand. Between them they ran him about for the betterpart of an hour. They threw clubs at him. He dodged. They cursed him,and his fathers and mothers before him, and all his seed to come afterhim down to the remotest generation, and every hair on his body and dropof blood in his veins; and he answered curse with snarl and kept out oftheir reach. He did not try to run away, but retreated around and aroundthe camp, advertising plainly that when his desire was met, he wouldcome in and be good.

  Francois sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at his watchand swore. Time was flying, and they should have been on the trail anhour gone. Francois scratched his head again. He shook it and grinnedsheepishly at the courier, who shrugged his shoulders in sign that theywere beaten. Then Francois went up to where Sol-leks stood and calledto Buck. Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept his distance. Francoisunfastened Sol-leks's traces and put him back in his old place. The teamstood harnessed to the sled in an unbroken line, ready for the trail.There was no place for Buck save at the front. Once more Francoiscalled, and once more Buck laughed and kept away.

  "T'row down de club," Perrault commanded.

  Francois complied, whereupon Buck trotted in, laughing triumphantly,and swung around into position at the head of the team. His traces werefastened, the sled broken out, and with both men running they dashed outon to the river trail.

  Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck, with his two devils, hefound, while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued. At a boundBuck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment was required,and quick thinking and quick acting, he showed himself the superior evenof Spitz, of whom Francois had never seen an equal.

  But it was in giving the law and making his mates live up to it, thatBuck excelled. Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the change in leadership.It was none of their business. Their business was to toil, and toilmightily, in the traces. So long as that were not interfered with, theydid not care what happened. Billee, the good-natured, could lead for allthey cared, so long as he kept order. The rest of the team, however, hadgrown unruly during the last days of Spitz, and their surprise was greatnow that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape.

  Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce more of hisweight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do, was swiftlyand repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the first day was done he waspulling more than ever before in his life. The first night in camp,Joe, the sour one, was punished roundly--a thing that Spitz had neversucceeded in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of superiorweight, and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to whine formercy.

  The general tone of the team picked up immediately. It recovered itsold-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in thetraces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, wereadded; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took awayFrancois's breath.

  "Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!" he cried. "No, nevaire! Heem worth onet'ousan' dollair, by Gar! Eh? Wot you say, Perrault?"

  And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then, and gaining dayby day. The trail was in excellent condition, well packed and hard, andthere was no new-fallen snow with which to contend. It was not too cold.The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remained there the wholetrip. The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs were kept on the jump,with but infrequent stoppages.

  The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and theycovered in one day going out what had taken them ten days coming in. Inone run they made a sixty-mile dash from the foot of Lake Le Barge tothe White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett (seventy milesof lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it was to runtowed behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the last night of thesecond week they topped White Pass and dropped down the sea slope withthe lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at their feet.

  It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averaged fortymiles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up and down themain street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations to drink, whilethe team was the constant centre of a worshipful crowd of dog-bustersand mushers. Then three or four western bad men aspired to clean outthe town, were riddled like pepper-boxes for their pains, and publicinterest turned to other idols. Next came official orders. Francoiscalled Buck to him, threw his arms around him, wept over him. And thatwas the last of Francois and Perrault. Like other men, they passed outof Buck's life for good.

  A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and in companywith a dozen other dog-teams he started back over the weary trail toDawson. It was no light running now, nor record time, but heavy toileach day, with a heavy load behind; for this was the mail train,carrying word from the world to the men who sought gold under the shadowof the Pole.

  Buck did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, taking pride init after the manner of Dave and Sol-leks, and seeing that his mates,whether they prided in it or not, did their fair share. It was amonotonous life, operating with machine-like regularity. One day wasvery like another. At a certain time each morning the cooks turned out,fires were built, and breakfast was eaten. Then, while some broke camp,others harnessed the dogs, and they were under way an hour or so beforethe darkness fell which gave warning of dawn. At night, camp was made.Some pitched the flies, others cut firewood and pine boughs for thebeds, and still others carried water or ice for the cooks. Also, thedogs were fed. To them, this was the one feature of the day, though itwas good to loaf around, after the fish was eaten, for an hour or sowith the other dogs, of which there were fivescore and odd. There werefierce fighters among them, but three battles with the fiercest broughtBuck to mastery, so that when he bristled and showed his teeth they gotout of his way.

  Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie
near the fire, hind legs crouchedunder him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised, and eyesblinking dreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller'sbig house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the cementswimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, and Toots, the Japanesepug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater, the death ofCurly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he had eaten orwould like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland was very dim anddistant, and such memories had no power over him. Far more potent werethe memories of his heredity that gave things he had never seen beforea seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but the memories ofhis ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later days, and stilllater, in him, quickened and become alive again.

  Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames, itseemed that the flames were of another fire, and that as he crouchedby this other fire he saw another and different man from the half-breedcook before him. This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm,with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded andswelling. The hair of this man was long and matted, and his head slantedback under it from the eyes. He uttered strange sounds, and seemed verymuch afraid of the darkness, into which he peered continually, clutchingin his hand, which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with aheavy stone made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged andfire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his body therewas much hair. In some places, across the chest and shoulders and downthe outside of the arms and thighs, it was matted into almost a thickfur. He did not stand erect, but with trunk inclined forward fromthe hips, on legs that bent at the knees. About his body there wasa peculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike, and a quickalertness as of one who lived in perpetual fear of things seen andunseen.

  At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head betweenhis legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, hishands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms.And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see manygleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he knew to be theeyes of great beasts of prey. And he could hear the crashing of theirbodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made in the night.And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking at thefire, these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair torise along his back and stand on end across his shoulders and up hisneck, till he whimpered low and suppressedly, or growled softly, and thehalf-breed cook shouted at him, "Hey, you Buck, wake up!" Whereupon theother world would vanish and the real world come into his eyes, and hewould get up and yawn and stretch as though he had been asleep.

  It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy work worethem down. They were short of weight and in poor condition when theymade Dawson, and should have had a ten days' or a week's rest atleast. But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukon bank from theBarracks, loaded with letters for the outside. The dogs were tired, thedrivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed every day. Thismeant a soft trail, greater friction on the runners, and heavier pullingfor the dogs; yet the drivers were fair through it all, and did theirbest for the animals.

  Each night the dogs were attended to first. They ate before the driversate, and no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seen to the feet ofthe dogs he drove. Still, their strength went down. Since the beginningof the winter they had travelled eighteen hundred miles, dragging sledsthe whole weary distance; and eighteen hundred miles will tell upon lifeof the toughest. Buck stood it, keeping his mates up to their work andmaintaining discipline, though he, too, was very tired. Billee cried andwhimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe was sourer than ever,and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.

  But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gone wrong withhim. He became more morose and irritable, and when camp was pitched atonce made his nest, where his driver fed him. Once out of the harnessand down, he did not get on his feet again till harness-up time in themorning. Sometimes, in the traces, when jerked by a sudden stoppage ofthe sled, or by straining to start it, he would cry out with pain. Thedriver examined him, but could find nothing. All the drivers becameinterested in his case. They talked it over at meal-time, and over theirlast pipes before going to bed, and one night they held a consultation.He was brought from his nest to the fire and was pressed and proddedtill he cried out many times. Something was wrong inside, but they couldlocate no broken bones, could not make it out.

  By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he was fallingrepeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called a halt and tookhim out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast to the sled.His intention was to rest Dave, letting him run free behind the sled.Sick as he was, Dave resented being taken out, grunting and growlingwhile the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken-heartedly whenhe saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served so long. For thepride of trace and trail was his, and, sick unto death, he could notbear that another dog should do his work.

  When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside thebeaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him andtrying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, strivingto leap inside his traces and get between him and the sled, and all thewhile whining and yelping and crying with grief and pain. The half-breedtried to drive him away with the whip; but he paid no heed to thestinging lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder. Daverefused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going waseasy, but continued to flounder alongside in the soft snow, where thegoing was most difficult, till exhausted. Then he fell, and lay where hefell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by.

  With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger along behindtill the train made another stop, when he floundered past the sleds tohis own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered a momentto get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then he returned andstarted his dogs. They swung out on the trail with remarkable lack ofexertion, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped in surprise. Thedriver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. He called hiscomrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten through both ofSol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in hisproper place.

  He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed. Hiscomrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being deniedthe work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, wheredogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cutout of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to dieanyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. Sohe was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though morethan once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt.Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once thesled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind legs.

  But he held out till camp was reached, when his driver made a place forhim by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. At harness-uptime he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts he got onhis feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way forward slowlytoward where the harnesses were being put on his mates. He would advancehis fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitching movement,when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead again for a few moreinches. His strength left him, and the last his mates saw of him he laygasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But they could hear himmournfully howling till they passed out of sight behind a belt of rivertimber.

  Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced hissteps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A revolver-shotrang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips snapped, the bellstinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail; but Buck knew, andevery dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt of river trees.