The Law of Club and FangBuck's first day on the Dyea beach was like a nightmare. Everyhour was filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerkedfrom the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of thingsprimordial. No lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do butloaf and be bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment'ssafety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limbwere in peril. There was imperative need to be constantly alert; forthese dogs and men were not town dogs and men. They were savages,all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang.
He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, andhis first experience taught him an unforgetable lesson. It is true, it wasa vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it.
Curly was the victim. They were camped near the log store, where she,in her friendly way, made advances to a husky dog the size of a full-grown wolf, though not half so large as she. There was no warning,only a leap in like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out equallyswift, and Curly's face was ripped open from eye to jaw.
It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away; but therewas more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot andsurrounded the combatants in an intent and silent circle. Buck did notcomprehend that silent intentness, nor the eager way with which theywere licking their chops. Curly rushed her antagonist, who struck againand leaped aside. He met her next rush with his chest, in a peculiarfashion that tumbled her off her feet. She never regained them, Thiswas what the onlooking huskies had waited for. They closed in uponher, snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming with agony,beneath the bristling mass of bodies.
So sudden was it, and so unexpected, that Buck was taken aback.
He saw Spitz run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing; andhe saw Francois, swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Threemen with clubs were helping him to scatter them. It did not take long.
Two minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her assailantswere clubbed off. But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody,trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breedstanding over her and cursing horribly. The scene often came back toBuck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the way. No fair play.
Once down, that was the end of you. Well, he would see to it that henever went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again, and fromthat moment Buck hated him with a bitter and deathless hatred.
Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic passingof Curly, he received another shock. Francois fastened upon him anarrangement of straps and buckles. It was a harness, such as he hadseen the grooms put on the horses at home. And as he had seen horseswork, so he was set to work, hauling Francois on a sled to the forest thatfringed the valley, and returning with a load of firewood. Though hisdignity was sorely hurt by thus being made a draught animal, he was toowise to rebel. He buckled down with a will and did his best, though itwas all new and strange. Francois was stem, demanding instantobedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant obedience; whileDave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Buck's hind quarterswhenever he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced,and while he could not always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproofnow and again, or cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buckinto the way he should go. Buck learned easily, and under thecombined tuition of his two mates and Francois made remarkableprogress. Ere they returned to camp he knew enough to stop at "ho," togo ahead at "mush," to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear of thewheeler when the loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.
"T'ree vair' good dogs," Francois told Perrault. "Dat Buck, heempool lak hell. I tich heem queek as anyt'ing."By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with hisdespatches, returned with two more dogs. "Billee" and "Joe" he calledthem, two brothers, and true huskies both. Sons of the one motherthough they were, they were as different as day and night. Billee's onefault was his excessive good nature, while Joe was the very opposite,sour and introspective, with a perpetual snarl and a malignant eye.
Buck received them in comradely fashion, Dave ignored them, whileSpitz proceeded to thrash first one and then the other. Billee wagged histail appeasingly, turned to run when he saw that appeasement was of noavail, and cried (still appeasingly) when Spitz's sharp teeth scored hisflank. But no matter how Spitz circled, Joe whirled around on his heelsto face him, mane bristling, ears laid back, lips writhing and snarling,jaws clipping together as fast as he could snap, and eyes diabolicallygleaming--the incarnation of belligerent fear. So terrible was hisappearance that Spitz was forced to forego disciplining him; but to coverhis own discomfiture he turned upon the inoffensive and wailing Billeeand drove him to the confines of the camp.
By evening Perrault secured another dog, an old husky, long andlean and gaunt, with a battle-scarred face and a single eye which flasheda warning of prowess that commanded respect. He was called Sol-leks,which means the Angry One. Like Dave, he asked nothing, gave nothing,expected nothing; and when he marched slowly and deliberately intotheir midst, even Spitz left him alone. He had one peculiarity whichBuck was unlucky enough to discover. He did not like to beapproached on his blind side. Of this offence Buck was unwittinglyguilty, and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion was when Sol-leks whirled upon him and slashed his shoulder to the bone for threeinches up and down. Forever after Buck avoided his blind side, and tothe last of their comradeship had no more trouble. His only apparentambition, like Dave's, was to be left alone; though, as Buck wasafterward to learn, each of them possessed one other and even more vitalambition.
That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent,illumined by a candle, glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain;and when he, as a matter of course, entered it, both Perrault and Francoisbombarded him with curses and cooking utensils, till he recovered fromhis consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer cold. A chillwind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with especial venominto his wounded shoulder. He lay down on the snow and attempted tosleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to his feet. Miserable anddisconsolate, he wandered about among the many tents, only to find thatone place was as cold as another. Here and there savage dogs rushedupon him, but he bristled his neck-hair and snarled (for he was learningfast), and they let him go his way unmolested.
Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his ownteam-mates were making out. To his astonishment, they haddisappeared. Again he wandered about through the great camp,looking for them, and again he returned. Were they in the tent? No,that could not be, else he would not have been driven out. Then wherecould they possibly be? With drooping tail and shivering body, veryforlorn indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gaveway beneath his fore legs and he sank down. Something wriggledunder his feet. He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of theunseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and hewent back to investigate. A whiff of warm air ascended to his nostrils,and there, curled up under the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. Hewhined placatingly, squirmed and wriggled to show his good will andintentions, and even ventured, as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck's facewith his warm wet tongue.
Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buckconfidently selected a spot, and with much fuss and waste effortproceeded to dig a hole for himself. In a trice the heat from his bodyfilled the confined space and he was asleep. The day had been longand arduous, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growledand barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the noises of the wakingcamp. At first he did not know where he was. It had snowed duringthe night and he was completely buried. The snow walls pressed himon every side, and a great surge of fear swept through him--the fear ofthe wild thing for the trap. It was a token that he was harking backthrough his own life to the lives of his forebears; for he was a civilizeddog, an unduly civilized dog, and of his own experience knew no trapand so could not of himself fear it. The muscles of his whole bodycontracted spasmodically and instinctively, the hair on his neck andshoulders stood on end, and with a ferocious snarl he bounded straightup into the blinding day, the snow flying about him in a flashing cloud.
Ere he landed on his feet, he saw the white camp spread out before himand knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from thetime he went for a stroll with Manuel to the hole he had dug for himselfthe night before.
A shout from Francois hailed his appearance. "Wot I say?" the dog-driver cried to Perrault. "Dat Buck for sure learn queek as anyt'ing."Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the Canadian Government,bearing important despatches, he was anxious to secure the best dogs,and he was particularly gladdened by the possession of Buck.
Three more huskies were added to the team inside an hour, making atotal of nine, and before another quarter of an hour had passed they werein harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Canon. Buck wasglad to be gone, and though the work was hard he found he did notparticularly despise it. He was surprised at the eagerness whichanimated the whole team and which was communicated to him; but stillmore surprising was the change wrought in Dave and Sol-leks. Theywere new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness andunconcern had dropped from them. They were alert and active, anxiousthat the work should go well, and fiercely irritable with whatever, bydelay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces seemedthe supreme expression of their being, and all that they lived for and theonly thing in which they took delight.
Dave was wheeler or sled dog, pulling in front of him was Buck,then came Sol-leks; the rest of the team was strung out ahead, single file,to the leader, which position was filled by Spitz.
Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so thathe might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they wereequally apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error, andenforcing their teaching with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and verywise. He never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to niphim when he stood in need of it. As Francois's whip backed him up,Buck found it to be cheaper to mend his ways than to retaliate, Once,during a brief halt, when he got tangled in the traces and delayed thestart, both Dave and Sol- leks flew at him and administered a soundtrouncing. The resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took goodcare to keep the traces clear thereafter; and ere the day was done, so wellhad he mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging him.
Francois's whip snapped less frequently, and Perrault even honored Buckby lifting up his feet and carefully examining them. It was a hard day'srun, up the Canon, through Sheep Camp, past the Scales and the timberline, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of feet deep, and over thegreat Chilcoot Divide, which stands between the salt water and the freshand guards forbiddingly the sad and lonely North. They made goodtime down the chain of lakes which fills the craters of extinct volcanoes,and late that night pulled into the huge camp at the head of Lake Bennett,where thousands of goldseekers were building boats against the break-upof the ice in the spring. Buck made his hole in the snow and slept thesleep of the exhausted just, but all too early was routed out in the colddarkness and harnessed with his mates to the sled.
That day they made forty miles, the trail being packed; but the nextday, and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, workedharder, and made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault travelled ahead of theteam, packing the snow with webbed shoes to make it easier for them.
Francois, guiding the sled at the gee- pole, sometimes exchanged placeswith him, but not often. Perrault was in a hurry, and he prided himselfon his knowledge of ice, which knowledge was indispensable, for thefall ice was very thin, and where there was swift water, there was no ice at all.
Day after day, for days unending, Buck toiled in the traces. Always,they broke camp in the dark, and the first gray of dawn found themhitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them. And alwaysthey pitched camp after dark, eating their bit of fish, and crawling tosleep into the snow. Buck was ravenous. 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 perpetual hunger pangs. Yet theother dogs, because they weighed less and were born to the life, receiveda pound only of the fish and managed to keep in good condition.
He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterized his old life.
A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed him of hisunfinished ration. There was no defending it. While he was fightingoff two or three, it was disappearing down the throats of the others. Toremedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger compelhim, he was not above taking what did not belong to him. He watchedand learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clevermalingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon when Perrault's backwas turned, he duplicated the performance the following day, gettingaway with the whole chunk. A great uproar was raised, but he wasunsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always gettingcaught, was punished for Buck's misdeed.
This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northlandenvironment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himselfto changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift andterrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of hismoral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle forexistence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law oflove and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings;but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took suchthings into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them hewould fail to prosper.
Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, andunconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. Allhis days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. Butthe club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a morefundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for amoral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller's riding-whip; butthe completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his abilityto flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide.
He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach.
He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect forclub and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it waseasier to do them than not to do them.
His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles becamehard as iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved aninternal as well as external economy. He could eat anything, no matterhow loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomachextracted the last least particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it tothe farthest reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutestof tissues. Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearingdeveloped such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest soundand knew whether it heralded peace or peril. He learned to bite the iceout with his teeth when it collected between his toes; and when he wasthirsty and there was a thick scum of ice over the water hole, he wouldbreak it by rearing and striking it with stiff fore legs. His mostconspicuous trait was an ability to scent the wind and forecast it a nightin advance. No matter how breathless the air when he dug his nest bytree or bank, the wind that later blew inevitably found him to leeward,sheltered and snug.
And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long deadbecame alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. Invague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the timethe wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killedtheir meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fightwith cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had foughtforgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and theold tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were histricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though theyhad been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed hisnose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, deadand dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuriesand through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadenceswhich voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of thestiffness, and the cold, and dark.
Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surgedthrough him and he came into his own again; and he came because menhad found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was agardener's helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife anddivers small copies of himself.