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The Call of the Wild
Chapter 5. Who Has Won to Mastership
"Eh? What I say? I speak true when I say that Buck two devils."
This was Francois's speech next morning when he discovered Spitz missing and Buck covered with wounds.
He drew him to the fire and by its light pointed them out.
"That Spitz fight like hell," said Perrault, as he looked at the deep rips and cuts.
"And that Buck fight like two hells," was Francois's answer.
"And now we make good time. No more Spitz, no more trouble, sure."
While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled, the dog-driver went to harness the dogs.
Buck trotted up to the place Spitz would have taken as leader.
But Francois, not noticing him, brought Sol-leks to the desired position.
In his judgment, Sol-leks was the best lead-dog left.
Buck jumped on Sol-leks in a fury, driving him back and standing in his place.
"Eh? Eh?" Francois cried, slapping his thighs happily.
"Look at that Buck. He kill that Spitz, he thinks to take the job."
"Go away, Chook!" he cried, but Buck refused to move.
He took Buck by the scruff of the neck, and though the dog growled threateningly, dragged him to one side and put Sol-leks back.
The old dog didn't like it, and showed clearly that he was afraid of Buck.
Francois was firm, but when he turned his back Buck again pushed Sol-leks away, who wasn't at all unwilling to go.
Francois was angry, his face darkening as he gripped the heavy club tightly.
"Now, by Gar, I fix you!" he cried, coming back with a heavy club in his hand.
Buck remembered the man in the red sweater, and moved back slowly.
He didn't try to attack when Sol-leks was once more brought forward.
But he circled just beyond the reach of the club, snarling with bitterness and rage.
While circling he watched the club to dodge it if Francois threw it, for he had grown wise to clubs.
The driver went about his work methodically, fixing harnesses and adjusting sled gear.
And he called to Buck when he was ready to put him in his old place in front of Dave.
Buck moved back two or three steps.
Francois followed him, and then he moved back again.
After some time of this, Francois threw down the club, thinking that Buck feared a beating.
But Buck was in open revolt, he wanted, not to escape a clubbing, but to have the leadership.
It was his by right, he had earned it, and he wouldn't be happy with less.
Perrault joined in, Between them they chased him around for the better part of an hour.
They threw clubs at him, he dodged.
They cursed him, they cursed his fathers and mothers before him.
They cursed all his children to come.
They cursed every hair on his body and drop of blood.
And he answered curse with snarl and stayed out of their reach.
He did not run away but circled the camp, clearly showing that if given the lead he'd come in and behave.
Francois sat down and scratched his head.
Perrault looked at his watch and swore.
Time was flying, and they should have been on the trail an hour ago, Francois scratched his head again.
He shook it and grinned sheepishly at the courier, who shrugged his shoulders to show that they were beaten.
Then Francois went up to where Sol-leks stood and called to Buck.
Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept his distance.
Francois unfastened Sol-leks's traces and put him back in his old place.
The team stood harnessed to the sled in an unbroken line, ready for the trail.
There was no place for Buck except at the front.
Once more Francois called, and once more Buck laughed and stayed away.
"Throw down the club," Perrault commanded.
Francois obeyed, and then Buck trotted in, laughing triumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of the team.
His traces were fastened, the sled was broken out, and with both men running they dashed out onto the river trail.
Highly as the dog-driver had valued Buck, with his two devils, he found, while the day was still young, that he had undervalued him.
At once Buck took up the duties of leadership.
And where judgment was needed, and quick thinking and quick acting, he showed himself better even than Spitz, of whom Francois had never seen an equal.
But it was in giving the law and making his mates live up to it that Buck excelled.
Dave and Sol-leks didn't mind the change in leadership.
It was none of their business, Their business was to work, and to work hard, in the traces.
As long as that wasn't interfered with, they didn't care what happened.
Billee, the good-natured one, could lead for all they cared, as long as he kept order.
The rest of the team had grown wild in Spitz's last days, and they were greatly surprised when Buck whipped them into shape.
Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels and never put an ounce more against the breast-band than needed, was repeatedly shaken for loafing.
And before the first day was done he was pulling more than ever before in his life.
The first night in camp, Joe, the sour one, was punished severely, a thing that Spitz had never succeeded in doing.
Buck simply smothered him by his greater weight, and cut him up until he stopped snapping and began to whine for mercy.
The general mood of the team picked up immediately.
It recovered its old togetherness, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in the traces.
At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, were added.
And the speed with which Buck trained them took away Francois's breath.
"Never such a dog as that Buck!" he cried.
"No, never! He's worth one thousand dollars, by Gar! Eh? What do you say, Perrault?"
And Perrault nodded, he was ahead of the record then, and gaining day by day.
The trail was in excellent condition, well packed and hard, and there was no new-fallen snow to fight.
It wasn't too cold, the temperature dropped to fifty below zero and stayed there the whole trip.
The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs were kept moving, with only rare stops.
The Thirty Mile River was mostly covered with ice.
And they covered in one day going out what had taken them ten days coming in.
In one run they made a sixty-mile dash from the foot of Lake Le Barge to the White Horse Rapids.
Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett lay seventy miles of lakes.
They flew so fast that the man whose turn to run was pulled behind the sled at the end of a rope.
On the last night of the second week they reached the top of White Pass.
They dropped down the sea slope with the lights of Skaguay and the ships at their feet.
It was a record run, Each day for fourteen days they had averaged forty miles.
Perrault and Francois walked proudly up and down the main street of Skaguay for three days.
They were flooded with invitations to drink.
Meanwhile, the team was the constant center of a worshipful crowd of dog-busters and mushers.
Then three or four western bad men tried to clean out the town, were shot, and public interest turned to other idols.
Next came official orders, Francois called Buck to him, threw his arms around him, and cried over him.
And that was the last of Francois and Perrault.
Like other men, they passed out of Buck's life for good.
A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, with dozen other dog-teams he started back over the tiring trail to Dawson.
It was no light running now, nor record time, but heavy work each day, with a heavy load behind.
For this was the mail train, carrying word from the world to the men who looked for gold under the shadow of the Pole.
Buck didn't like it, but he bore up well to the work.
He took pride in it, after the way of Dave and Sol-leks.
He also made sure his mates did their fair share, whether they took pride in it or not.
It was a boring life, operating with machine-like regularity.
One day was very like another, At a certain time each morning the cooks got up, fires were built, and breakfast was eaten.
Then, while some broke camp, others harnessed the dogs.
And they were on the way an hour or so before the darkness fell which gave warning of dawn.
At night, camp was made, tents were pitched and fires were lit for the dogs.
Some put up the tents, others cut firewood and pine branches for the beds, and still others carried water or ice for the cooks.
Also, the dogs were fed, To them, this was the one good part of the day.
It was nice to rest for an hour or so after the fish was eaten.
They relaxed with the other dogs, of which there were over a hundred.
There were fierce fighters among them, but three battles with the fiercest brought Buck to mastery.
When he raised his fur and showed his teeth, they got out of his way.
Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near the fire with his hind legs bent under him.
His fore legs were stretched out, his head was raised, and his eyes blinked dreamily at the flames.
Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's house in Santa Clara Valley, the swimming tank, Ysabel the Mexican hairless, and Toots the Japanese pug.
More often he remembered the man in the red sweater, the death of Curly, and the great fight with Spitz.
He also remembered the good things he had eaten and the things he would like to eat.
He wasn't homesick, the Sunland was very dim and distant, and such memories had no power over him.
Far stronger were the memories of his heredity that gave things he had never seen before a feeling of familiarity.
The instincts, memories of his ancestors turned into habits and long faded, revived in him and became active again.
He crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames.
The fire seemed like another one from long ago.
By that other fire, he saw a different man, not the half-breed cook before him.
This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm, with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather than round and swelling.
The hair of this man was long and tangled, and his head slanted back under it from the eyes.
He made strange sounds, he seemed very much afraid of the darkness, he looked into it continually.
In his hand, which hung halfway between knee and foot, he held a stick with a heavy stone tied to the end.
He was almost naked, a torn and fire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his body there was much hair.
In some places, across the chest and shoulders and down the outside of the arms and thighs, it was matted into almost a thick fur.
He didn't stand straight, but with body leaning forward from the hips, on legs that bent at the knees.
About his body there was a strange springiness, or bounce, almost like a cat.
He had a quick alertness, as of one who lived in constant fear of things seen and unseen.
At other times this hairy man sat by the fire with head between his legs and slept.
On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, his hands held above his head as though to keep off rain by the hairy arms.
And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see many shining coals, two by two, always two by two.
He knew them to be the eyes of great beasts of prey.
And he could hear the crashing of their bodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made in the night.
By the Yukon bank, Buck dreamed with lazy eyes blinking at the fire.
Sounds and sights of another world made his hair rise along his back.
It stood on end across his shoulders and up his neck.
He whimpered low and softly, or growled quietly.
Then the half-breed cook shouted, "Hey, you Buck, wake up!"
Then the other world vanished, the real world came into his eyes, and he would get up, yawn, and stretch as if asleep.
It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy work wore them down.
They were short of weight and in poor condition when they reached Dawson, and should have had a ten days' or a week's rest at least.
But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukon bank from the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside.
The dogs were tired, the drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed every day.
This meant a soft trail, more friction on the runners, and heavier pulling for the dogs.
Yet the drivers were fair through it all, and did their best for the animals.
Each night the dogs were attended to first.
They ate before the drivers ate, and no man went to his sleeping robe until he had seen to the feet of the dogs he drove.
Still, their strength went down, Since the beginning of the winter they had traveled eighteen hundred miles, pulling sleds the whole tiring distance.
And eighteen hundred miles will wear out even the toughest life.
Buck stood it, keeping his mates up to their work and maintaining discipline, though he, too, was very tired.
Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep each night.
Joe was sourer than ever, and Sol-leks was hard to approach, blind side or other side.
But it was Dave who suffered most of all, Something had gone wrong with him.
He became more bad-tempered and irritable, and when camp was pitched he at once made his nest, where his driver fed him.
Once out of the harness and down, he didn't get on his feet again until harness-up time in the morning.
Sometimes, in the traces, when jerked by a sudden stop of the sled, or by straining to start it, he'd cry out with pain.
The driver examined him, but could find nothing.
All the drivers became interested in his case.
They talked it over at meal-time, and over their last pipes before going to bed, and one night they held a discussion.
He was brought from his nest to the fire and was pressed and pushed until he cried out many times.
Something was wrong inside, but they could find no broken bones, couldn't figure it out.
By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he was falling again and again in the traces.
The Scotch half-breed called a halt and took him 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.
Although sick, Dave hated being taken out.
He grunted and growled while the traces were unfastened, and whimpered broken-heartedly when he saw Sol-leks in his old position.
For the pride of trace and trail was his, and, sick unto death, he couldn't bear that another dog should do his work.
He struggled in the soft snow alongside the beaten trail.
He attacked Sol-leks with his teeth and rushed against him.
He tried to push him into the soft snow on the other side.
He tried to jump inside his traces and get between him and the sled.
All the while, he whined, yelped, and cried with grief and pain.
The half-breed tried to drive him away with the whip.
But he paid no attention to the stinging lash, and the man didn't have the heart to strike harder.
Dave refused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going was easy.
He continued to struggle alongside in the soft snow, where the going was most difficult, until he was exhausted.
Then he fell, and lay where he fell, howling sadly as the long train of sleds moved by.
He managed with the last of his strength to stagger along behind until the train made another stop.
Then he struggled past the sleds to his own and stood alongside Sol-leks.
His driver stayed a moment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind.
Then he returned and started his dogs.
They swung out on the trail with remarkable lack of effort, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped in surprise.
The driver was surprised, too, the sled hadn't moved.
He called his comrades to see the sight.
Dave had bitten through both of Sol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in his proper place.
He begged with his eyes to stay there.
The driver was confused, his comrades talked about how a dog could break its heart.
This happened when it was denied the work that killed it.
They recalled cases they had known, Dogs too old or injured had died because they were cut out of the traces.
Also, they thought it a mercy, since Dave was going to die anyway, that he should die in the traces, with a peaceful heart and content.
So he was harnessed again and proudly pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out from inner pain.
He fell several times, was dragged in traces, and once the sled ran over him, leaving him to limp in one hind leg.
But he held out until camp was reached, when his driver made a place for him by the fire.
Morning found him too weak to travel.
At harness-up time he tried to crawl to his driver.
By hard efforts he got on his feet, staggered, and fell.
Then he moved forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates.
He'd move his fore legs forward and pull up his body with a sort of hitching movement.
Then he'd move his fore legs forward and hitch ahead again for a few more inches.
His strength left him, and the last his mates saw of him he lay gasping in the snow and longing for them.
But they could hear him mournfully howling until they passed out of sight behind a belt of river trees.
Here the train was stopped, the Scotch half-breed slowly went back to the camp they had left.
The men stopped talking, a revolver-shot rang out.
The man came back quickly, the whips snapped, the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds moved along the trail.
But Buck knew, and every dog knew, what had happened behind the belt of river trees.