The Call of the Wild Page 6

  Chapter VI. For the Love of a Man

  When John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December his partnershad made him comfortable and left him to get well, going on themselvesup the river to get out a raft of saw-logs for Dawson. He was stilllimping slightly at the time he rescued Buck, but with the continuedwarm weather even the slight limp left him. And here, lying by the riverbank through the long spring days, watching the running water, listeninglazily to the songs of birds and the hum of nature, Buck slowly won backhis strength.

  A rest comes very good after one has travelled three thousand miles,and it must be confessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed, hismuscles swelled out, and the flesh came back to cover his bones. Forthat matter, they were all loafing,--Buck, John Thornton, and Skeetand Nig,--waiting for the raft to come that was to carry them down toDawson. Skeet was a little Irish setter who early made friends withBuck, who, in a dying condition, was unable to resent her firstadvances. She had the doctor trait which some dogs possess; and as amother cat washes her kittens, so she washed and cleansed Buck'swounds. Regularly, each morning after he had finished his breakfast,she performed her self-appointed task, till he came to look for herministrations as much as he did for Thornton's. Nig, equally friendly,though less demonstrative, was a huge black dog, half bloodhound andhalf deerhound, with eyes that laughed and a boundless good nature.

  To Buck's surprise these dogs manifested no jealousy toward him. Theyseemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton. As Buckgrew stronger they enticed him into all sorts of ridiculous games, inwhich Thornton himself could not forbear to join; and in this fashionBuck romped through his convalescence and into a new existence. Love,genuine passionate love, was his for the first time. This he had neverexperienced at Judge Miller's down in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley.With the Judge's sons, hunting and tramping, it had been a workingpartnership; with the Judge's grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship;and with the Judge himself, a stately and dignified friendship. But lovethat was feverish and burning, that was adoration, that was madness, ithad taken John Thornton to arouse.

  This man had saved his life, which was something; but, further, he wasthe ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs from asense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his asif they were his own children, because he could not help it. And he sawfurther. He never forgot a kindly greeting or a cheering word, and tosit down for a long talk with them ("gas" he called it) was as much hisdelight as theirs. He had a way of taking Buck's head roughly betweenhis hands, and resting his own head upon Buck's, of shaking him backand forth, the while calling him ill names that to Buck were lovenames. Buck knew no greater joy than that rough embrace and the sound ofmurmured oaths, and at each jerk back and forth it seemed that his heartwould be shaken out of his body so great was its ecstasy. And when,released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, his eyes eloquent,his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and in that fashion remainedwithout movement, John Thornton would reverently exclaim, "God! you canall but speak!"

  Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt. He wouldoften seize Thornton's hand in his mouth and close so fiercely that theflesh bore the impress of his teeth for some time afterward. And asBuck understood the oaths to be love words, so the man understood thisfeigned bite for a caress.

  For the most part, however, Buck's love was expressed in adoration.While he went wild with happiness when Thornton touched him or spoke tohim, he did not seek these tokens. Unlike Skeet, who was wont to shoveher nose under Thornton's hand and nudge and nudge till petted, or Nig,who would stalk up and rest his great head on Thornton's knee, Buck wascontent to adore at a distance. He would lie by the hour, eager, alert,at Thornton's feet, looking up into his face, dwelling upon it, studyingit, following with keenest interest each fleeting expression, everymovement or change of feature. Or, as chance might have it, he would liefarther away, to the side or rear, watching the outlines of the man andthe occasional movements of his body. And often, such was the communionin which they lived, the strength of Buck's gaze would draw JohnThornton's head around, and he would return the gaze, without speech,his heart shining out of his eyes as Buck's heart shone out.

  For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton to get outof his sight. From the moment he left the tent to when he entered itagain, Buck would follow at his heels. His transient masters since hehad come into the Northland had bred in him a fear that no master couldbe permanent. He was afraid that Thornton would pass out of his life asPerrault and Francois and the Scotch half-breed had passed out. Even inthe night, in his dreams, he was haunted by this fear. At such timeshe would shake off sleep and creep through the chill to the flap ofthe tent, where he would stand and listen to the sound of his master'sbreathing.

  But in spite of this great love he bore John Thornton, which seemedto bespeak the soft civilizing influence, the strain of the primitive,which the Northland had aroused in him, remained alive and active.Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire and roof, were his; yethe retained his wildness and wiliness. He was a thing of the wild, comein from the wild to sit by John Thornton's fire, rather than a dogof the soft Southland stamped with the marks of generations ofcivilization. Because of his very great love, he could not steal fromthis man, but from any other man, in any other camp, he did not hesitatean instant; while the cunning with which he stole enabled him to escapedetection.

  His face and body were scored by the teeth of many dogs, and hefought as fiercely as ever and more shrewdly. Skeet and Nig were toogood-natured for quarrelling,--besides, they belonged to John Thornton;but the strange dog, no matter what the breed or valor, swiftlyacknowledged Buck's supremacy or found himself struggling for life witha terrible antagonist. And Buck was merciless. He had learned well thelaw of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew backfrom a foe he had started on the way to Death. He had lessoned fromSpitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the police and mail, and knewthere was no middle course. He must master or be mastered; while to showmercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It wasmisunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Killor be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down outof the depths of Time, he obeyed.

  He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn. Helinked the past with the present, and the eternity behind him throbbedthrough him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tides andseasons swayed. He sat by John Thornton's fire, a broad-breasted dog,white-fanged and long-furred; but behind him were the shades of allmanner of dogs, half-wolves and wild wolves, urgent and prompting,tasting the savor of the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank,scenting the wind with him, listening with him and telling him thesounds made by the wild life in the forest, dictating his moods,directing his actions, lying down to sleep with him when he lay down,and dreaming with him and beyond him and becoming themselves the stuffof his dreams.

  So peremptorily did these shades beckon him, that each day mankind andthe claims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in the forest acall was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriouslythrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fireand the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and onand on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, thecall sounding imperiously, deep in the forest. But as often as he gainedthe soft unbroken earth and the green shade, the love for John Thorntondrew him back to the fire again.

  Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing. Chancetravellers might praise or pet him; but he was cold under it all,and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away. WhenThornton's partners, Hans and Pete, arrived on the long-expected raft,Buck refused to notice them till he learned they were close to Thornton;after that he tolerated them in a passive sort of way, accepting favorsfrom them as though he favored them by accepting. They were of the samelarge type as Thornton, living c
lose to the earth, thinking simply andseeing clearly; and ere they swung the raft into the big eddy by thesaw-mill at Dawson, they understood Buck and his ways, and did notinsist upon an intimacy such as obtained with Skeet and Nig.

  For Thornton, however, his love seemed to grow and grow. He, alone amongmen, could put a pack upon Buck's back in the summer travelling. Nothingwas too great for Buck to do, when Thornton commanded. One day (they hadgrub-staked themselves from the proceeds of the raft and left Dawsonfor the head-waters of the Tanana) the men and dogs were sitting on thecrest of a cliff which fell away, straight down, to naked bed-rock threehundred feet below. John Thornton was sitting near the edge, Buck at hisshoulder. A thoughtless whim seized Thornton, and he drew the attentionof Hans and Pete to the experiment he had in mind. "Jump, Buck!" hecommanded, sweeping his arm out and over the chasm. The next instant hewas grappling with Buck on the extreme edge, while Hans and Pete weredragging them back into safety.

  "It's uncanny," Pete said, after it was over and they had caught theirspeech.

  Thornton shook his head. "No, it is splendid, and it is terrible, too.Do you know, it sometimes makes me afraid."

  "I'm not hankering to be the man that lays hands on you while he'saround," Pete announced conclusively, nodding his head toward Buck.

  "Py Jingo!" was Hans's contribution. "Not mineself either."

  It was at Circle City, ere the year was out, that Pete's apprehensionswere realized. "Black" Burton, a man evil-tempered and malicious, hadbeen picking a quarrel with a tenderfoot at the bar, when Thorntonstepped good-naturedly between. Buck, as was his custom, was lying in acorner, head on paws, watching his master's every action. Burton struckout, without warning, straight from the shoulder. Thornton was sentspinning, and saved himself from falling only by clutching the rail ofthe bar.

  Those who were looking on heard what was neither bark nor yelp, but asomething which is best described as a roar, and they saw Buck's bodyrise up in the air as he left the floor for Burton's throat. The mansaved his life by instinctively throwing out his arm, but was hurledbackward to the floor with Buck on top of him. Buck loosed his teethfrom the flesh of the arm and drove in again for the throat. This timethe man succeeded only in partly blocking, and his throat was torn open.Then the crowd was upon Buck, and he was driven off; but while a surgeonchecked the bleeding, he prowled up and down, growling furiously,attempting to rush in, and being forced back by an array of hostileclubs. A "miners' meeting," called on the spot, decided that the dog hadsufficient provocation, and Buck was discharged. But his reputation wasmade, and from that day his name spread through every camp in Alaska.

  Later on, in the fall of the year, he saved John Thornton's life inquite another fashion. The three partners were lining a long and narrowpoling-boat down a bad stretch of rapids on the Forty-Mile Creek. Hansand Pete moved along the bank, snubbing with a thin Manila rope fromtree to tree, while Thornton remained in the boat, helping its descentby means of a pole, and shouting directions to the shore. Buck, on thebank, worried and anxious, kept abreast of the boat, his eyes never offhis master.

  At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged rocksjutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and, while Thorntonpoled the boat out into the stream, ran down the bank with the end inhis hand to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge. This it did,and was flying down-stream in a current as swift as a mill-race, whenHans checked it with the rope and checked too suddenly. The boat flirtedover and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, while Thornton, flung sheerout of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst part of the rapids,a stretch of wild water in which no swimmer could live.

  Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundredyards, amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When he felthim grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all hissplendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progressdown-stream amazingly rapid. From below came the fatal roaring where thewild current went wilder and was rent in shreds and spray by the rockswhich thrust through like the teeth of an enormous comb. The suck of thewater as it took the beginning of the last steep pitch was frightful,and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. He scraped furiouslyover a rock, bruised across a second, and struck a third with crushingforce. He clutched its slippery top with both hands, releasing Buck, andabove the roar of the churning water shouted: "Go, Buck! Go!"

  Buck could not hold his own, and swept on down-stream, strugglingdesperately, but unable to win back. When he heard Thornton's commandrepeated, he partly reared out of the water, throwing his head high, asthough for a last look, then turned obediently toward the bank. He swampowerfully and was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at the very pointwhere swimming ceased to be possible and destruction began.

  They knew that the time a man could cling to a slippery rock in the faceof that driving current was a matter of minutes, and they ran as fast asthey could up the bank to a point far above where Thornton was hangingon. They attached the line with which they had been snubbing the boat toBuck's neck and shoulders, being careful that it should neither stranglehim nor impede his swimming, and launched him into the stream. He struckout boldly, but not straight enough into the stream. He discovered themistake too late, when Thornton was abreast of him and a bare half-dozenstrokes away while he was being carried helplessly past.

  Hans promptly snubbed with the rope, as though Buck were a boat. Therope thus tightening on him in the sweep of the current, he was jerkedunder the surface, and under the surface he remained till his bodystruck against the bank and he was hauled out. He was half drowned, andHans and Pete threw themselves upon him, pounding the breath into himand the water out of him. He staggered to his feet and fell down. Thefaint sound of Thornton's voice came to them, and though they could notmake out the words of it, they knew that he was in his extremity. Hismaster's voice acted on Buck like an electric shock, He sprang to hisfeet and ran up the bank ahead of the men to the point of his previousdeparture.

  Again the rope was attached and he was launched, and again he struckout, but this time straight into the stream. He had miscalculated once,but he would not be guilty of it a second time. Hans paid out the rope,permitting no slack, while Pete kept it clear of coils. Buck held ontill he was on a line straight above Thornton; then he turned, and withthe speed of an express train headed down upon him. Thornton saw himcoming, and, as Buck struck him like a battering ram, with the wholeforce of the current behind him, he reached up and closed with both armsaround the shaggy neck. Hans snubbed the rope around the tree, andBuck and Thornton were jerked under the water. Strangling, suffocating,sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other, dragging over thejagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags, they veered in to thebank.

  Thornton came to, belly downward and being violently propelled backand forth across a drift log by Hans and Pete. His first glance was forBuck, over whose limp and apparently lifeless body Nig was setting up ahowl, while Skeet was licking the wet face and closed eyes. Thornton washimself bruised and battered, and he went carefully over Buck's body,when he had been brought around, finding three broken ribs.

  "That settles it," he announced. "We camp right here." And camp theydid, till Buck's ribs knitted and he was able to travel.

  That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another exploit, not so heroic,perhaps, but one that put his name many notches higher on the totem-poleof Alaskan fame. This exploit was particularly gratifying to the threemen; for they stood in need of the outfit which it furnished, and wereenabled to make a long-desired trip into the virgin East, where minershad not yet appeared. It was brought about by a conversation in theEldorado Saloon, in which men waxed boastful of their favorite dogs.Buck, because of his record, was the target for these men, and Thorntonwas driven stoutly to defend him. At the end of half an hour one manstated that his dog could start a sled with five hundred pounds andwalk off with it; a second bragged six hundred for his dog; and a third,seven hundred.

  "Pooh! poo
h!" said John Thornton; "Buck can start a thousand pounds."

  "And break it out? and walk off with it for a hundred yards?" demandedMatthewson, a Bonanza King, he of the seven hundred vaunt.

  "And break it out, and walk off with it for a hundred yards," JohnThornton said coolly.

  "Well," Matthewson said, slowly and deliberately, so that all couldhear, "I've got a thousand dollars that says he can't. And there itis." So saying, he slammed a sack of gold dust of the size of a bolognasausage down upon the bar.

  Nobody spoke. Thornton's bluff, if bluff it was, had been called. Hecould feel a flush of warm blood creeping up his face. His tongue hadtricked him. He did not know whether Buck could start a thousand pounds.Half a ton! The enormousness of it appalled him. He had great faith inBuck's strength and had often thought him capable of starting such aload; but never, as now, had he faced the possibility of it, the eyesof a dozen men fixed upon him, silent and waiting. Further, he had nothousand dollars; nor had Hans or Pete.

  "I've got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fiftypound sacks offlour on it," Matthewson went on with brutal directness; "so don't letthat hinder you."

  Thornton did not reply. He did not know what to say. He glanced fromface to face in the absent way of a man who has lost the power ofthought and is seeking somewhere to find the thing that will startit going again. The face of Jim O'Brien, a Mastodon King and old-timecomrade, caught his eyes. It was as a cue to him, seeming to rouse himto do what he would never have dreamed of doing.

  "Can you lend me a thousand?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

  "Sure," answered O'Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack by the side ofMatthewson's. "Though it's little faith I'm having, John, that the beastcan do the trick."

  The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see the test. Thetables were deserted, and the dealers and gamekeepers came forth to seethe outcome of the wager and to lay odds. Several hundred men, furredand mittened, banked around the sled within easy distance. Matthewson'ssled, loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had been standing for acouple of hours, and in the intense cold (it was sixty below zero) therunners had frozen fast to the hard-packed snow. Men offered odds of twoto one that Buck could not budge the sled. A quibble arose concerningthe phrase "break out." O'Brien contended it was Thornton's privilegeto knock the runners loose, leaving Buck to "break it out" from a deadstandstill. Matthewson insisted that the phrase included breaking therunners from the frozen grip of the snow. A majority of the men who hadwitnessed the making of the bet decided in his favor, whereat the oddswent up to three to one against Buck.

  There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat.Thornton had been hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt; and now thathe looked at the sled itself, the concrete fact, with the regular teamof ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the more impossible thetask appeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant.

  "Three to one!" he proclaimed. "I'll lay you another thousand at thatfigure, Thornton. What d'ye say?"

  Thornton's doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spirit wasaroused--the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails to recognizethe impossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor for battle. He calledHans and Pete to him. Their sacks were slim, and with his own the threepartners could rake together only two hundred dollars. In the ebb oftheir fortunes, this sum was their total capital; yet they laid itunhesitatingly against Matthewson's six hundred.

  The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his own harness, wasput into the sled. He had caught the contagion of the excitement, andhe felt that in some way he must do a great thing for John Thornton.Murmurs of admiration at his splendid appearance went up. He was inperfect condition, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, and the onehundred and fifty pounds that he weighed were so many pounds of grit andvirility. His furry coat shone with the sheen of silk. Down the neck andacross the shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled andseemed to lift with every movement, as though excess of vigor made eachparticular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavy fore legswere no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where themuscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt thesemuscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went down to twoto one.

  "Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" stuttered a member of the latest dynasty, a kingof the Skookum Benches. "I offer you eight hundred for him, sir, beforethe test, sir; eight hundred just as he stands."

  Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck's side.

  "You must stand off from him," Matthewson protested. "Free play andplenty of room."

  The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of the gamblersvainly offering two to one. Everybody acknowledged Buck a magnificentanimal, but twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked too large in theireyes for them to loosen their pouch-strings.

  Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head in his two handsand rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as was hiswont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. "As youlove me, Buck. As you love me," was what he whispered. Buck whined withsuppressed eagerness.

  The crowd was watching curiously. The affair was growing mysterious. Itseemed like a conjuration. As Thornton got to his feet, Buck seized hismittened hand between his jaws, pressing in with his teeth and releasingslowly, half-reluctantly. It was the answer, in terms, not of speech,but of love. Thornton stepped well back.

  "Now, Buck," he said.

  Buck tightened the traces, then slacked them for a matter of severalinches. It was the way he had learned.

  "Gee!" Thornton's voice rang out, sharp in the tense silence.

  Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a plunge that took upthe slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fiftypounds. The load quivered, and from under the runners arose a crispcrackling.

  "Haw!" Thornton commanded.

  Buck duplicated the manoeuvre, this time to the left. The cracklingturned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and the runners slipping andgrating several inches to the side. The sled was broken out. Men wereholding their breaths, intensely unconscious of the fact.

  "Now, MUSH!"

  Thornton's command cracked out like a pistol-shot. Buck threw himselfforward, tightening the traces with a jarring lunge. His whole bodywas gathered compactly together in the tremendous effort, the muscleswrithing and knotting like live things under the silky fur. His greatchest was low to the ground, his head forward and down, while hisfeet were flying like mad, the claws scarring the hard-packed snow inparallel grooves. The sled swayed and trembled, half-started forward.One of his feet slipped, and one man groaned aloud. Then the sledlurched ahead in what appeared a rapid succession of jerks, though itnever really came to a dead stop again...half an inch...an inch... twoinches... The jerks perceptibly diminished; as the sled gained momentum,he caught them up, till it was moving steadily along.

  Men gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that for a moment theyhad ceased to breathe. Thornton was running behind, encouraging Buckwith short, cheery words. The distance had been measured off, and as heneared the pile of firewood which marked the end of the hundred yards,a cheer began to grow and grow, which burst into a roar as he passedthe firewood and halted at command. Every man was tearing himself loose,even Matthewson. Hats and mittens were flying in the air. Men wereshaking hands, it did not matter with whom, and bubbling over in ageneral incoherent babel.

  But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck. Head was against head,and he was shaking him back and forth. Those who hurried up heard himcursing Buck, and he cursed him long and fervently, and softly andlovingly.

  "Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" spluttered the Skookum Bench king. "I'll give youa thousand for him, sir, a thousand, sir--twelve hundred, sir."

  Thornton rose to his feet. His eyes were wet. The tears were streamingfrankly down his cheeks. "Sir," he said to the Skookum Bench king, "no,sir. You can go to hell, sir. It's the best I can do for you, sir."

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nbsp; Buck seized Thornton's hand in his teeth. Thornton shook him back andforth. As though animated by a common impulse, the onlookers drew backto a respectful distance; nor were they again indiscreet enough tointerrupt.