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The Call of the Wild
Chapter 2. The Law of Club and Fang
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 thrown into the heart of primitive things.
This was no lazy, sun-kissed life, with nothing to do but loaf and be bored.
There was no peace, no rest, and not a moment's safety.
Everything was confusion and action, and every moment his life and body were in danger.
He had to be constantly alert, because these dogs and men weren't town dogs and men.
They were savages, all of them, who knew no law except the law of club and fang.
He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experience taught him a lesson he'd never forget.
It's true, it was a lesson he learned by watching, or else he wouldn't have lived to benefit from it.
Curly was the victim, torn and bleeding while the huskies watched silently.
They were camped near the log store.
In her friendly way she made advances to a husky dog as big as a full-grown wolf, though not half her size.
There was no warning, a leap in like a flash and a metallic snap of teeth happened.
Curly's face was ripped open from eye to jaw by the attacker's swift bite and exit.
It was the wolf way of fighting, to strike and leap away, but there was more to it than that.
Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and surrounded the fighters in a silent, intent circle.
Buck didn't understand that silent intentness, or the eager way they were licking their mouths.
Curly rushed her attacker, who struck again and leaped aside.
He met her next rush with his chest, in a strange way that knocked her off her feet.
She never got up again, this was what the watching huskies had waited for.
They closed in on her, snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming in pain, under the bristling mass of bodies.
It was so sudden and unexpected that Buck was shocked.
He saw Spitz stick out his red tongue in a way he had of laughing.
And he saw Francois, swinging an axe, jump into the mess of dogs.
Three men with clubs were helping him to scatter them.
It didn't take long, Two minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her attackers were beaten off with clubs.
She lay limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces, with the dark half-breed cursing over her.
The scene often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep.
So that was the way, No fair play.
Once you went down, that was the end of you.
Well, he'd make sure he never went down.
Spitz stuck 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 Curly's tragic death, he received another shock.
Francois fastened an arrangement of straps and buckles on him.
It was a harness, like the ones he had seen the grooms put on the horses at home.
Just as he had seen horses work, he was put to work pulling Francois on a sled to the valley forest.
He returned with a load of firewood.
Though his dignity was badly hurt by being made a work animal, he was too wise to rebel.
He worked hard and did his best, even though it was all new and strange.
Francois was stern, demanding instant obedience, and by using his whip he got instant obedience.
Dave, who was an experienced wheel dog, bit Buck's back legs whenever he made a mistake.
Spitz was the leader and experienced, he couldn't always reach Buck.
But he growled sharp warnings now and again.
He also cleverly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck into the right way.
Buck learned easily, and with the combined teaching of his two teammates and Francois, he made remarkable progress.
Before they returned to camp, he knew enough to stop at "ho."
He also learned to go ahead at "mush." He knew to swing wide on the bends.
He stayed clear of the wheel dog when the loaded sled shot downhill.
"Three very good dogs," Francois told Perrault.
"That Buck, he pulls like hell. I teach him quick as anything."
By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with his messages, returned with two more dogs.
"Billee" and "Joe" he called them, two brothers, and true huskies both.
Though they were sons of the same mother, they were as different as day and night.
Billee's only fault was his extreme good nature, while Joe was the exact opposite, sour and thoughtful, with a constant snarl and a mean eye.
Buck welcomed them in a friendly way, Dave ignored them, and Spitz started to beat first one and then the other.
Billee wagged his tail to make peace and turned to run when he saw that peace didn't work.
He cried, still trying to make peace, when Spitz's sharp teeth cut his side.
Spitz circled, but Joe spun around to face him.
His hair stood up, ears back, lips curled, and he snarled.
His jaws snapped together as fast as he could.
His eyes shone like a devil, he was the picture of angry fear.
He looked so terrible that Spitz had to give up trying to discipline him.
But to hide his own embarrassment, he turned on the harmless, crying Billee and drove him to the edge of the camp.
By evening Perrault got another dog.
He was an old, long, thin husky with a battle-scarred face and one eye that flashed a warning of strength.
He was called Sol-leks, which means the Angry One.
Like Dave, he asked nothing, gave nothing, expected nothing.
And when he walked slowly and carefully into their group, even Spitz left him alone.
He had one strange habit that Buck was unlucky enough to discover.
He didn't like to be approached on his blind side.
Buck made this mistake without knowing it.
He only realized his error when Sol-leks spun around and slashed his shoulder.
The cut was three inches long and went to the bone.
After that, Buck always avoided his blind side, and for the rest of their time together, he had no more trouble.
His only clear goal, like Dave's, was to be left alone.
But as Buck would later learn, each of them had one other and even more important goal.
That night Buck faced the big problem of sleeping.
The tent, lit by a candle, glowed warmly in the middle of the white plain.
He went inside as a matter of course.
Perrault and Francois threw curses and cooking pots at him.
He recovered from his shock and ran away in shame into the outside cold.
A cold wind was blowing that bit him sharply and stung his wounded shoulder with special force.
He lay down on the snow and tried to sleep, but the frost soon drove him, shivering, to his feet.
Miserable and sad, he wandered around among the many tents, only to find that one place was as cold as another.
Here and there, wild dogs rushed at him, but he raised the hair on his neck and snarled, because he was learning fast.
And they let him go on his way without trouble.
Finally an idea came to him, he'd go back and see how his own teammates were doing.
To his surprise, they had disappeared, Again he wandered through the big camp, looking for them, and again he returned.
Were they in the tent? No, that couldn't be, or else he wouldn't have been driven out, so where could they possibly be?
With his tail hanging down and his body shivering, very sad indeed, he walked aimlessly around the tent.
Suddenly the snow gave way under his front legs and he sank down.
Something moved under his feet, he jumped back, with his hair up and snarling, afraid of the unseen and unknown.
But a friendly little yelp calmed him down, and he went back to investigate.
A puff of warm air rose to his nose, and there, curled up under the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee.
He whined to make peace and squirmed and wriggled to show his good will and intentions.
He even dared, as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck's face with his warm, wet tongue.
Another lesson, so that was how they did it, eh?
Buck confidently chose a spot, and with much fuss and wasted effort, he started to dig a hole for himself.
In a moment, the heat from his body filled the small space and he was asleep.
The day had been long and hard, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growled and barked and fought with bad dreams.
Nor did he open his eyes until he was woken by the noises of the waking camp.
At first he didn't 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 wave of fear swept through him.
It was the fear of a wild animal for a trap.
It was a sign that he was going back through his own life to the lives of his ancestors.
Because he was a civilized dog, overly civilized, and had never known a trap, he could not fear it on his own.
His whole body muscles tightened suddenly and instinctively.
The hair on his neck and shoulders stood up.
With a fierce snarl, he jumped straight up into the blinding daylight.
Snow flew around him in a flashing cloud.
He saw the white camp spread out before him.
He knew where he was, he remembered everything from his walk with Manuel to the hole he had dug the night before.
A shout from Francois greeted his appearance.
"What did I say?" the dog driver cried to Perrault.
"That Buck for sure learns quick as anything."
Perrault nodded seriously, As a messenger for the Canadian Government, carrying important messages, he was eager to get the best dogs.
And he was especially glad to have Buck.
Three more huskies were added to the team within an hour.
That made a total of nine, Before another fifteen minutes passed, they were in harness.
They moved up the trail toward the Dyea Canyon.
Buck was glad to be gone, and though the work was hard, he found he didn't really hate it.
He was surprised at the eagerness that filled the whole team and that was passed on to him.
But even more surprising was the change in Dave and Sol-leks.
They were new dogs, completely changed by the harness.
All their passiveness and lack of concern had dropped away.
They were alert and active, eager for the work to go well, and fiercely angry with anything that, by delay or confusion, slowed that work.
The work of the traces seemed to be the highest expression of their being, and all that they lived for and the only thing they enjoyed.
Dave was the wheel dog, or sled dog, pulling in front of him was Buck, then came Sol-leks.
The rest of the team was spread out ahead, in single file, to the leader, which position was filled by Spitz.
Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so that he could receive instruction, he was a good learner.
And they were equally good teachers, never letting him stay long in error, and enforcing their teaching with their sharp teeth.
Dave was fair and very wise, he never bit Buck without reason, and he never failed to bite him when he needed it.
With Francois's whip backing him up, Buck found it was easier to change his ways than to fight back.
Once during a short stop, when he tangled in the traces and delayed the start, Dave and Sol-leks attacked him and beat him.
The resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took good care to keep the traces clear after that.
And before the day was done, he had mastered his work so well that his teammates almost stopped bothering him.
Francois's whip snapped less often, and Perrault even honored Buck by lifting up his feet and carefully examining them.
It was a hard day's run up the Canyon.
The path went through Sheep Camp, past the Scales, and beyond the timber line.
They crossed glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of feet deep.
Then they went over the great Chilcoot Divide.
This divide stands between the salt water and the fresh.
It guards the sad and lonely North.
They made good time down the chain of lakes.
These lakes fill the craters of dead volcanoes.
Late that night, they pulled into the huge camp at the head of Lake Bennett.
Thousands of gold seekers were building boats there.
They were preparing for the spring ice break-up.
Buck made his hole in the snow and slept the sleep of the exhausted.
All too early he was woken in the cold darkness and harnessed with his teammates to the sled.
That day they made forty miles, because the trail was packed.
But the next day, and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, worked harder, and made slower time.
As a rule, Perrault traveled 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 traded places with him, but not often.
Perrault was in a hurry, he prided himself on his knowledge of ice.
This knowledge was necessary because the fall ice was very thin.
Where there was fast water, there was no ice at all.
Day after day, for days without end, Buck worked in the traces.
Always, they broke camp in the dark, and the first gray of dawn found them hitting the trail with fresh miles behind them.
And always they set up camp after dark, eating their bit of fish, and crawling to sleep in the snow.
Buck was starving, the pound and a half of sun-dried salmon, which was his ration for each day, seemed to go nowhere.
He never had enough, and suffered from constant hunger pains.
The other dogs, lighter and born to the life, got only a pound of fish and remained in good condition.
He quickly lost the pickiness that had marked his old life.
He used to be a careful eater, but he found that his teammates, finishing first, stole his unfinished ration.
There was no way to defend it.
While he was fighting off two or three, it was disappearing down the throats of the others.
To fix this, he ate as fast as they did.
And his hunger was so strong that he wasn't above taking what didn't belong to him, he watched and learned.
When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, slyly steal a slice of bacon, he did the same thing the next day.
Pike was a clever liar and thief.
Perrault's back was turned, so the dog got away with the whole piece.
A big uproar was raised, but he wasn't suspected.
Meanwhile, Dub, an awkward fool who was always getting caught, was punished for Buck's crime.
This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment.
It showed his ability to adapt, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions.
The lack of that ability would have meant quick and terrible death.
It also marked the decay or falling apart of his moral nature, a useless thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence.
It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings.
But in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, anyone who took such things into account was a fool.
If he followed them, to that extent he would fail to succeed.
Not that Buck thought it through, he simply acted to survive.
He was fit, that was all, and without thinking, he adjusted himself to the new way 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 basic and primitive code.
As a civilized dog, he could have died for a moral cause, like defending Judge Miller's riding whip.
His loss of civilization was shown by his running from defending a moral cause to save his skin.
He didn't steal for the joy of it, but because of the demands of his stomach.
He didn't rob openly, but stole secretly and cleverly, out of respect for club and fang.
In short, he did the things he did because it was easier to do them than not to do them.
His development, or going backward, was quick.
His muscles became hard as iron, and he grew insensitive to all ordinary pain.
He achieved an internal as well as an external economy.
He could eat anything, no matter how disgusting or hard to digest.
The juices of his stomach took out the last tiny bit of nutrition.
His blood carried it to the farthest parts of his body.
There, it built into the toughest and strongest of tissues.
His sight and sense of smell became remarkably sharp.
His hearing grew so keen that, even in sleep, he heard the faintest sound and knew if it meant peace or danger.
He learned to bite the ice out with his teeth when it collected between his toes, and when he was thirsty.
There was a thick layer of ice over the water hole, he'd break it by rearing up and striking it with his stiff front legs.
His most noticeable trait was an ability to smell the wind and predict it a night in advance.
No matter how still air as he dug his nest by tree or bank, the wind always found him on sheltered side, warm.
And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead came alive again.
The generations of domestication fell away from him.
In vague ways, he remembered the breed's youth.
He remembered wild dogs ranging in packs through the ancient forest, killing their meat as they chased it down.
It was no trouble for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap.
In this way, forgotten ancestors had fought.
They awakened the old life within him, and the old tricks that they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks.
They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had always been his.
On the still, cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolf-like.
It was his ancestors, dead and dust, doing the same through him.
And his sounds were theirs, expressing their sorrow and the meaning of the stiffness, the cold, and the dark.
Thus, as a sign of how much a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged through him.
He came into his own again, feeling the wild strength awaken within him.
Men had found a yellow metal in the North.
Manuel was a gardener's helper whose wages did not cover the needs of his wife and various small copies of himself.