The Dominant Primordial BeastThe dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under thefierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth.
His newborn cunning gave him poise and control. He was too busyadjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease, and not only did he notpick fights, but he avoided them whenever possible. A certaindeliberateness characterized his attitude. He was not prone to rashnessand precipitate action; and in the bitter hatred between him and Spitz hebetrayed no impatience, shunned all offensive acts.
On the other hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerousrival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He evenwent out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly to start the fightwhich could end only in the death of one or the other. Early in the tripthis might have taken place had it not been for an unwonted accident.
At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on theshore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a white-hotknife, and darkness had forced them to grope for a camping place.
They could hardly have fared worse. At their backs rose aperpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were compelled tomake their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lakeitself. The tent they had discarded at Dyea in order to travel light. Afew sticks of driftwood furnished them with a fire that thawed downthrough the ice and left them to eat supper in the dark.
Close in under the sheltering rock Buck made his nest. So snug andwarm was it, that he was loath to leave it when Francois distributed thefish which he had first thawed over the fire. But when Buck finishedhis ration and returned, he found his nest occupied. A warning snarltold him that the trespasser was Spitz. Till now Buck had avoidedtrouble with his enemy, but this was too much. The beast in him roared.
He sprang upon Spitz with a fury which surprised them both, and Spitzparticularly, for his whole experience with Buck had gone to teach himthat his rival was an unusually timid dog, who managed to hold his ownonly because of his great weight and size.
Francois was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle from thedisrupted nest and he divined the cause of the trouble. "A-a- ah!" hecried to Buck. "Gif it to heem, by Gar! Gif it to heem, the dirty t'eef!"Spitz was equally willing. He was crying with sheer rage andeagerness as he circled back and forth for a chance to spring in. Buckwas no less eager, and no less cautious, as he likewise circled back andforth for the advantage. But it was then that the unexpected happened,the thing which projected their struggle for supremacy far into the future,past many a weary mile of trail and toil.
An oath from Perrault, the resounding impact of a club upon a bonyframe, and a shrill yelp of pain, heralded the breaking forth ofpandemonium. The camp was suddenly discovered to be alive withskulking furry forms, - starving huskies, four or five score of them, whohad scented the camp from some Indian village. They had crept inwhile Buck and Spitz were fighting, and when the two men sprangamong them with stout clubs they showed their teeth and fought back.
They were crazed by the smell of the food. Perrault found one withhead buried in the grub-box. His club landed heavily on the gaunt ribs,and the grub-box was capsized on the ground. On the instant a score ofthe famished brutes were scrambling for the bread and bacon. Theclubs fell upon them unheeded. They yelped and howled under the rainof blows, but struggled none the less madly till the last crumb had been devoured.
In the meantime the astonished team-dogs had burst out of theirnests only to be set upon by the fierce invaders. Never had Buck seensuch dogs. it seemed as though their bones would burst through theirskins. They were mere skeletons, draped loosely in draggled hides,with blazing eyes and slavered fangs. But the hunger-madness made them terrifying, irresistible. There was no opposing them. The team-dogs were swept back against the cliff at the first onset. Buck wasbeset by three huskies, and in a trice his head and shoulders were rippedand slashed. The din was frightful. Billee was crying as usual.
Dave and Sol-leks, dripping blood from a score of wounds, werefighting bravely side by side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once,his teeth closed on the fore leg of a husky, and he crunched downthrough the bone. Pike, the malingerer, leaped upon the crippled animal,breaking its neck with a quick flash of teeth and a jerk, Buck got afrothing adversary by the throat, and was sprayed with blood when histeeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of it in his mouthgoaded him to greater fierceness. He flung himself upon another, andat the same time felt teeth sink into his own throat. It was Spitz,treacherously attacking from the side.
Perrault and Francois, having cleaned out their part of the camp,hurried to save their sled-dogs. The wild wave of famished beastsrolled back before them, and Buck shook himself free. But it was onlyfor a moment. The two men were compelled to run back to save thegrub, upon which the huskies returned to the attack on the team. Billee,terrified into bravery, sprang through the savage circle and fled awayover the ice. Pike and Dub followed on his heels, with the rest of theteam behind. As Buck drew himself together to spring after them, outof the tail of his eye he saw Spitz rush upon him with the evidentintention of overthrowing him. Once off his feet and under that massof huskies, there was no hope for him. But he braced himself to theshock of Spitz's charge, then joined the flight out on the lake.
Later, the nine team-dogs gathered together and sought shelter in theforest. Though unpursued, they were in a sorry plight. There was notone who was not wounded in four or five places, while some werewounded grievously. Dub was badly injured in a hind leg; Dolly, thelast husky added to the team at Dyea, had a badly torn throat; Joe hadlost an eye; while Billee, the good-natured, with an ear chewed and rentto ribbons, cried and whimpered throughout the night. At daybreakthey limped warily back to camp, to find the marauders gone and thetwo men in bad tempers. Fully half their grub supply was gone. Thehuskies had chewed through the sled lashings and canvas coverings. Infact, nothing, no matter how remotely eatable, had escaped them. Theyhad eaten a pair of Perrault's moose-hide moccasins, chunks out of theleather traces, and even two feet of lash from the end of Francois's whip.
He broke from a mournful contemplation of it to look over his wounded dogs.
"Ah, my frien's," he said softly, "mebbe it mek you mad dog, dosemany bites. Mebbe all mad dog, sacredam! Wot you t'ink, eh, Perrault?"The courier shook his head dubiously. With four hundred miles oftrail still between him and Dawson, he could ill afford to have madnessbreak out among his dogs. Two hours of cursing and exertion got theharnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffened team was under way,struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they had yetencountered, and for that matter, the hardest between them and Dawson.
The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied thefrost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that the iceheld at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required to cover thosethirty terrible miles. And terrible they were, for every foot of them wasaccomplished at the risk of life to dog and man. A dozen times,Perrault, nosing the way broke through the ice bridges, being saved bythe long pole he carried, which he so held that it fell each time across thehole made by his body. But a cold snap was on, the thermometerregistering fifty below zero, and each time he broke through he wascompelled for very life to build a fire and dry his garments.
Nothing daunted him. It was because nothing daunted him that hehad been chosen for government courier. He took all manner of risks,resolutely thrusting his little weazened face into the frost and strugglingon from dim dawn to dark. He skirted the frowning shores on rim icethat bent and crackled under foot and upon which they dared not halt.
Once, the sled broke through, with Dave and Buck, and they were half-frozen and all but drowned by the time they were dragged out. Theusual fire was necessary to save them. They were coated solidly withice, and the two men kept them on the run around the fire, sweating andthawing, so close that they were singed by the flames.
At another time Spitz went through, dragging the whole team afterhim up to Buck, who strained backward with all his strength, his foreThe Call of the Wild25paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering and snapping all around.
But behind him was Dave, likewise straining backward, and behind thesled was Francois, pulling till his tendons cracked.
Again, the rim ice broke away before and behind, and there was noescape except up the cliff. Perrault scaled it by a miracle, whileFrancois prayed for just that miracle; and with every thong and sledlashing and the last bit of harness rove into a long rope, the dogs werehoisted, one by one, to the cliff crest. Francois came up last, after thesled and load. Then came the search for a place to descend, whichdescent was ultimately made by the aid of the rope, and night foundthem back on the river with a quarter of a mile to the day's credit.
By the time they made the Hootalinqua and good ice, Buck wasplayed out. The rest of the dogs were in like condition; but Perrault, tomake up lost time, pushed them late and early. The first day theycovered thirty-five miles to the Big Salmon; the next day thirty-fivemore to the Little Salmon; the third day forty miles, which brought themwell up toward the Five Fingers.
Buck's feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of the huskies.
His had softened during the many generations since the day his last wildancestor was tamed by a cave-dweller or river man. AU day long helimped in agony, and camp once made, lay down like a dead dog.
Hungry as he was, he would not move to receive his ration of fish,which Francois had to bring to him. Also, the dog-driver rubbedBuck's feet for half an hour each night after supper, and sacrificed thetops of his own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck. This wasa great relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault totwist itself into a grin one morning, when Francois forgot the moccasinsand Buck lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, andrefused to budge without them. Later his feet grew hard to the trail,and the worn-out foot-gear was thrown away.
At the Pelly one morning, as they were harnessing up, Dolly, whohad never been conspicuous for anything, went suddenly mad. Sheannounced her condition by a long, heartbreaking wolf howl that sentevery dog bristling with fear, then sprang straight for Buck. He hadnever seen a dog go mad, nor did he have any reason to fear madness;yet he knew that here was horror, and fled away from it in a panic.
Straight away he raced, with Dolly, panting and frothing, one leapbehind; nor could she gain on him, so great was his terror, nor could heleave her, so great was her madness. He plunged through the woodedbreast of the island, flew down to the lower end, crossed a back channelfilled with rough ice to another island, gained a third island, curved backto the main river, and in desperation started to cross it. And all the time,though he did not took, he could hear her snarling just one leap behind.
Francois called to him a quarter of a mile away and he doubled back,still one leap ahead, gasping painfully for air and putting all his faith inthat Francois would save him. The dog-driver held the axe poised inhis hand, and as Buck shot past him the axe crashed down upon madDolly's head.
Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath,helpless. This was Spitz's opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, andtwice his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the fleshto the bone. Then Francois's lash descended, and Buck had thesatisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yetadministered to any of the teams.
"One devil, dat Spitz," remarked Perrault. "Some dam day heem keel dat Buck.""Dat Buck two devils, " was Francois's rejoinder. "All de tam Iwatch dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heem getmad lak hell an' den heem chew dat Spitz all up an) spit heem out on desnow. Sure. I know."From then on it was war between them. Spitz, as lead-dog andacknowledged master of the team, felt his supremacy threatened by thisstrange Southland dog. And strange Buck was to him, for of the manySouthland dogs he had known, not one had shown up worthily in campand on trail. They were all too soft, dying under the toil, the frost, andstarvation. Buck was the exception. He alone endured and prospered,matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning. Then he was amasterful dog, and what made him dangerous was the fact that the clubof the man in the red sweater had knocked all blind pluck and rashnessout of his desire for mastery. He was preeminently cunning, and couldbide his time with a patience that was nothing less than primitive.
It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buckwanted it. He wanted it because it was his nature, because he had beengripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the trail andtrace--that pride which holds dogs in the toil to the last gasp, which luresthem to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their hearts if they are cutout of the harness. This was the pride of Dave as wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with all his strength; the pride that laid hold of them atbreak of camp, transforming them from sour and sullen brutes intostraining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on allday and dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall backinto gloo............