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 gloomy unrest and uncontent. This was the pride that bore upSpitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who blundered and shirked inthe traces or hid away at harness-up time in the morning. Likewise itwas this pride that made him fear Buck as a possible lead-dog. Andthis was Buck's pride, too.
He openly threatened the other's leadership. He came between himand the shirks he should have punished. And he did it deliberately.
One night there was a heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike, themalingerer, did not appear. He was securely hidden in his nest under afoot of snow. Francois called him and sought him in vain. Spitz waswild with wrath. He raged through the camp, smelling and digging inevery likely place, snarling so frightfully that Pike heard and shivered inhis hiding-place.
But when he was at last unearthed, and Spitz flew at him to punishhim, Buck flew, with equal rage, in between. So unexpected was it,and so shrewdly managed, that Spitz was hurled backward and off hisfeet. Pike, who had been trembling abjectly, took heart at this openmutiny, and sprang upon his overthrown leader. Buck, to whom fairplay was a forgotten code, likewise sprang upon Spitz. But Francois,chuckling at the incident while unswerving in the administration ofjustice, brought his lash down upon Buck with all his might. Thisfailed to drive Buck from his prostrate rival, and the butt of the whip wasbrought into play. Half- stunned by the blow, Buck was knockedbackward and the lash laid upon him again and again, while Spitzsoundly punished the many times offending Pike.
In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer, Buckstill continued to interfere between Spitz and the culprits; but he did itcraftily, when Francois was not around, With the covert mutiny of Buck,a general insubordination sprang up and increased. Dave and Sol-lekswere unaffected, but the rest of the team went from bad to worse.
Things no longer went right. There was continual bickering andjangling. Trouble was always afoot, and at the bottom of it was Buck.
He kept Francois busy, for the dog- driver was in constant apprehension ofthe life-and-death struggle between the two which he knew must takeplace sooner or later; and on more than one night the sounds ofquarrelling and strife among the other dogs turned him out of hissleeping robe, fearful that Buck and Spitz were at it.
But the opportunity did not present itself, and they pulled intoDawson one dreary afternoon with the great fight still to come. Herewere many men, and countless dogs, and Buck found them all at work.
It seemed the ordained order of things that dogs should work. All daythey swung up and down the main street in long teams, and in the nighttheir jingling bells still went by. They hauled cabin logs and firewood,freighted up to the mines, and did all manner of work that horses did inthe Santa Clara Valley. Here and there Buck met Southland dogs, but inthe main they were the wild wolf husky breed. Every night, regularly,at nine, at twelve, at three, they lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eeriechant, in which it was Buck's delight to join.
With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the starsleaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall ofsnow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, onlyit was pitched in minor key, with long- drawn wailings and half-sobs, andwas more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It wasan old song, old as the breed itself--one of the first songs of the youngerworld in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe ofunnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangelystirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of livingthat was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery ofthe cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. And that heshould be stirred by it marked the completeness with which he harkedback through the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings of life in thehowling ages.
Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they droppeddown the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled forDyea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches if anythingmore urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride hadgripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of the year.
Several things favored him in this. The week's rest had recuperated thedogs and put them in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into thecountry was packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the policehad arranged in two or three places deposits of grub for dog and man,and he was travelling light.
They made Sixty Mile, which is a fifty-mile run, on the first day; andthe second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way toPelly. But such splendid running was achieved not without greattrouble and vexation on the part of Francois. The insidious revolt ledby Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team. It no longer was asone dog leaping in the traces. The encouragement Buck gave the rebelsled them into all kinds of petty misdemeanors. No more was Spitz aleader greatly to be feared. The old awe departed, and they grew equalto challenging his authority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one night,and gulped it down under the protection of Buck. Another night Duband Joe fought Spitz and made him forego the punishment they deserved.
And even Billee, the good-natured, was less good-natured, and whinednot half so placatingly as in former days. Buck never came near Spitzwithout snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact, his conductapproached that of a bully, and he was given to swaggering up and downbefore Spitz's very nose.
The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in theirrelations with one another. They quarrelled and bickered more thanever among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling bedlam.
Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, though they were made irritableby the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange barbarous oaths,and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair. His lash wasalways singing among the dogs, but it was of small avail. Directly hisback was turned they were at it again. He backed up Spitz with hiswhip, while Buck backed up the remainder of the team. Francois knewhe was behind all the trouble, and Buck knew he knew; but Buck wastoo clever ever again to be caught red-handed. He worked faithfully inthe harness, for the toil had become a delight to him; yet it was agreater delight slyly to precipitate a fight amongst his mates and tanglethe traces.
At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turned upa snowshoe rabbit, blundered it, and missed. In a second the wholeteam was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp of theNorthwest Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined the chase.
The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a small creek, up thefrozen bed of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the surface of thesnow, while the dogs ploughed through by main strength. Buck led thepack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. Helay down low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashingforward, leap by leap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap by leap,like some pale frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead.
All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives menout from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things bychemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill--allthis was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was rangingat the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, tokill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.
There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond whichlife cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comeswhen one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness thatone is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to theartist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to thesoldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came toBuck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after thefood that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through themoonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the partsof his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb ofTime. He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave ofbeing, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that itwas everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant,expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and overthe face of dead matter that did not move.
But Spitz, cold and calculating even in his supreme moods, left thepack and cut across a narrow neck of land where the creek made a longbend around. Buck did not know of this, and as he rounded the bend,the frost wraith of a rabbit still flitting before him, he saw another andlarger frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into the immediatepath of the rabbit. It was Spitz. The rabbit could not turn, and as thewhite teeth broke its back in mid air it shrieked as loudly as a strickenman may shriek. At sound of this, the cry of Life plunging down fromLife's apex in the grip of Death, the fall pack at Buck's heels raised ahell's chorus of delight.
Buck did not cry out. He did not check himself, but drove in uponSpitz, shoulder to shoulder, so hard that he missed the throat. Theyrolled over and over in the powdery snow. Spitz gained his feet almostas though he had not been overthrown, slashing Buck down the shoulderand leaping clear. Twice his teeth clipped together, like the steel jaws ofa trap, as he backed away for better footing, with lean and lifting lipsthat writhed and snarled.
In a flash Buck knew it. The time had come. It was to the death.
As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchful for theadvantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity. Heseemed to remember it all,--the white woods, and earth, and moonlight,and the thrill of battle. Over the whiteness and silence brooded aghostly calm. There was not the faintest whisper of air--nothing moved,not a leaf quivered, the visible breaths of the dogs rising slowly andlingering in the frosty air. They had made short work of the snowshoerabbit, these dogs that were ill-tamed wolves; and they were now drawnup in an expectant circle. They, too, were silent, their eyes onlygleaming and their breaths drifting slowly upward. To Buck it wasnothing new or strange, this scene of old time. It was as though it hadalways been, the wonted way of things.
Spitz was a practised fighter. From Spitzbergen through the Arctic,and across Canada and the Barrens, he had held his own with all mannerof dogs and achieved to mastery over them. Bitter rage was his, butnever blind rage. In passion to rend and destroy, he never forgot thathis enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy. He never rushed tillhe was prepared to receive a rush; never attacked till he had first defended that attack.
In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the big white dog.
Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh, they were countered bythe fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and lips were cut and bleeding,but Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard. Then he warmed upand enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and time again hetried for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near to the surface,and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away. ThenBuck took to rushing, as though for the throat, when, suddenly drawingback his head and curving in from the side, he would drive his shoulderat the shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which to overthrow him. Butinstead, Buck's shoulder was slashed down each time as Spitz leaped lightly away.
Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood andpanting hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the while thesilent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down.
As Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggeringfor footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogsstarted up; but he recovered himself, almost in mid air, and the circlesank down again and waited.
But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness-- imagination.
He fought by instinct, but he could fight by head as well. He rushed, asthough attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last instant swept lowto the snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitz's left fore leg. Therewas a crunch of breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on threelegs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated the trick andbroke the right fore leg. Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitzstruggled madly to keep up. He saw the silent circle, with gleamingeyes, lolling tongues, and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing inupon him as he had seen similar circles close in upon beaten antagonistsin the past. Only this time he was the one who was beaten.
There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy was athing reserved for gender climes. He manoeuvred for the final rush.
The circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths of the huskies onhis flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side, halfcrouching for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause seemed tofall. Every animal was motionless as though turned to stone. OnlySpitz quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth, snarling withhorrible menace, as though to frighten off impending death. ThenBuck sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder had at lastsquarely met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot on the moon-flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from view. Buck stood and lookedon, the successful champion, the dominant primordial beast who hadmade his kill and found it good.