CHAPTER VII

The Sounding of the Call

When Buck earned sixteen hundred dollars in five minutes for John

Thornton, he made it possible for his master to pay off certain debts and

to journey with his partners into the East after a fabled lost mine, the

history of which was as old as the history of the country. Many men

had sought it; few had found it; and more than a few there were who had

never returned from the quest. This lost mine was steeped in tragedy

and shrouded in mystery. No one knew of the first man. The oldest

tradition stopped before it got back to him. From the beginning there

had been an ancient and ramshackle cabin. Dying men had sworn to it,

and to the mine the site of which it marked, clinching their testimony

with nuggets that were unlike any known grade of gold in the Northland.

But no living man had looted this treasure house, and the dead were

dead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buck and half a

dozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achieve

where men and dogs as good as themselves had failed. They sledded

seventy miles up the Yukon, swung to the left into the Stewart River,

passed the Mayo and the McQuestion, and held on until the Stewart

itself became a streamlet, threading the upstanding peaks which marked

the backbone of the continent.

John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of the

wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into the

wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased.

Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the course of

the day's travel; and if he failed to find it, like the Indian, he kept on

travelling, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later he would come to

it. So, on this great journey into the East, straight meat was the bill of

fare, ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the sled, and

the time-card was drawn upon the limitless future.

To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, and

indefinite wandering through strange places. For weeks at a time they

would hold on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end they

would camp, here and there, the dogs loafing and the men burning holes

through frozen muck and gravel and washing countless pans of dirt by

the heat of the fire. Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes they

feasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortune

of hunting. Summer arrived, and dogs and men packed on their backs,

rafted across blue mountain lakes, and descended or ascended unknown

rivers in slender boats whipsawed from the standing forest.

The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted through

the uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men had been

if the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summer

blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains between

the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid

swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked

strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could

boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad

and silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor

sign of life-- only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in

sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.

And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails

of men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazed

through the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed very near.

But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remained

mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it remained

mystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage of

a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thornton

found a long-barrelled flint-lock. He knew it for a Hudson Bay

Company gun of the young days in the Northwest, when such a gun was

worth its height in beaver skins packed flat, And that was all--no hint as

to the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gun

among the blankets.

Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering they

found, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley where

the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing-pan.

They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned them thousands

of dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked every day. The

gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piled

like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge. Like giants

they toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like dreams as they

heaped the treasure up.

There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meat

now and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musing

by the fire. The vision of the short-legged hairy man came to him more

frequently, now that there was little work to be done; and often, blinking

by the fire, Buck wandered with him in that other world which he remembered.

The salient thing of this other world seemed fear. When he

watched the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees and

hands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with many starts

and awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully into the

darkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did they walk by the

beach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell- fish and ate them as he

gathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger and

with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Through

the forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and they

were alert and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving and

nostrils quivering, for the man heard and smelled as keenly as Buck.

The hairy man could spring up into the trees and travel ahead as fast as

on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to limb, sometimes a

dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, never missing his

grip. In fact, he seemed as much at home among the trees as on the

ground; and Buck had memories of nights of vigil spent beneath trees

wherein the hairy man roosted, holding on tightly as he slept.

And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call still

sounding in the depths of the forest. It filled him with a great unrest

and strange desires. It caused him to feel a vague, sweet gladness, and

he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew not what.

Sometimes he pursued the call into the forest, looking for it as though it

were a tangible thing, barking softly or defiantly, as the mood might

dictate. He would thrust his nose into the cool wood moss, or into the

black soil where long grasses grew, and snort with joy at the fat earth

smells; or he would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behind

fungus- covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to all

that moved and sounded about him. It might be, lying thus, that he

hoped to surprise this call he could not understand. But he did not

know why he did these various things. He was impelled to do them,

and did not reason about them at all.

Irresistible impulses seized him. He would be lying in camp,

dozing lazily in the heat of the day, when suddenly his head would lift

and his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he would spring to his feet

and dash away, and on and on, for hours, through the forest aisles and

across the open spaces where the niggerheads bunched. He loved to

run down dry watercourses, and to creep and spy upon the bird life in the

woods. For a day at a time he would lie in the underbrush where he

could watch the partridges drumming and strutting up and down. But

especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights,

listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs

and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious

something that called--called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.

One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrils

quivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves. From the

forest came the call (or one note of it, for the call was many noted),

distinct and definite as never before,--a long-drawn howl, like, yet unlike,

any noise made by husky dog. And he knew it, in the old familiar way,

as a sound heard before. He sprang through the sleeping camp and in

swift silence dashed through the woods. As he drew closer to the cry

he went more slowly, with caution in every movement, till he came to an

open place among the trees, and looking out saw, erect on haunches,

with nose pointed to the sky, a long, lean, timber wolf.

He had made no noise, yet it ceased from its howling and tried to

sense his presence. Buck stalked into the open, half crouching, body

gathered compactly together, tail straight and stiff, feet falling with

unwonted care. Every movement advertised commingled threatening

and overture of friendliness. It was the menacing truce that marks the

meeting of wild beasts that prey. But the wolf fled at sight of him.

He followed, with wild leapings, in a frenzy to overtake. He ran him

into a blind channel, in the bed of the creek where a timber jam barred

the way. The wolf whirled about, pivoting on his hind legs after the

fashion of Joe and of all cornered husky dogs, snarling and bristling,

clipping his teeth together in a continuous and rapid succession of snaps.

Buck did not attack, but circled him about and hedged him in with

friendly advances. The wolf was suspicious and afraid; for Buck made

three of him in weight, while his head barely reached Buck's shoulder.

Watching his chance, he darted away, and the chase was resumed.

Time and again he was cornered, and the thing repeated, though he was

in poor condition, or Buck could not so easily have overtaken him. He

would run till Buck's head was even with his flank, when he would whirl

around at bay, only to dash away again at the first opportunity.

But in the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded; for the wolf, finding

that no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him. Then they

became friendly, and played about in the nervous, half- coy way with

which fierce beasts belie their fierceness. After some time of this the

wolf started off at an easy lope in a manner that plainly showed he was

going somewhere. He made it clear to Buck that he was to come, and

they ran side by side through the sombre twilight, straight up the creek

bed, into the gorge from which it issued, and across the bleak divide

where it took its rise.

On the opposite slope of the watershed they came down into a level

country where were great stretches of forest and many streams, and

through these great stretches they ran steadily, hour after hour, the sun

rising higher and the day growing warmer. Buck was wildly glad. He

knew he was at last answering the call, running by the side of his wood

brother toward the place from where the call surely came. Old

memories were coming upon him fast, and he was stirring to them as of

old he stirred to the realities of which they were the shadows. He had

done this thing before, somewhere in that other and dimly remembered

world, and he was doing it again, now, running free in the open, the

unpacked earth underfoot, the wide sky overhead.

They stopped by a running stream to drink, and, stopping, Buck

remembered John Thornton. He sat down. The wolf started on

toward the place from where the call surely came, then returned to him,

sniffing noses and making actions as though to encourage him. But

Buck turned about and started slowly on the back track. For the better

part of an hour the wild brother ran by his side, whining softly. Then

he sat down, pointed his nose upward, and howled. It was a mournful

howl, and as Buck held steadily on his way he heard it grow faint and

fainter until it was lost in the distance.

John Thornton was eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp and

sprang upon him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him, scrambling

upon him, licking his face, biting his hand--"playing the general tom-

fool," as John Thornton characterized it, the while he shook Buck back

and forth and cursed him lovingly.

For two days and nights Buck never left camp, never let Thornton

out of his sight. He followed him about at his work, watched him

while he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them in the

morning. But after two days the call in the forest began to sound more

imperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came back on him, and he

was haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling land

beyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide forest

stretches. Once again he took to wandering in the woods, but the wild

brother came no more; and though he listened through long vigils, the

mournful howl was never raised.

He began to sleep out at night, staying away from camp for days at a

time; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the creek and went

down into the land of timber and streams. There he wandered for a

week, seeking vainly for fresh sign of the wild brother, killing his meat

as he travelled and travelling with the long, easy lope that seems never

to tire. He fished for salmon in a broad stream that emptied somewhere

into the sea, and by this stream he killed a large black bear, blinded by

the mosquitoes while likewise fishing, and raging through the forest

helpless and terrible. Even so, it was a hard fight, and it aroused the

last latent remnants of Buck's ferocity. And two days later, when he

returned to his kill and found a dozen wolverenes quarrelling over the

spoil, he scattered them like chaff; and those that fled left two behind

who would quarrel no more.

The blood-longing became stronger than ever before. He was a

killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone,

by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a

hostile environment where only the strong survived. Because of all this

he became possessed of a great pride in himself, which communicated

itself like a contagion to his physical being. It advertised itself in all

his movements, was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainly

as speech in the way he carried himself, and made his glorious furry coat

if anything more glorious. But for the stray brown on his muzzle and

above his eyes, and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost down

his chest, he might well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf, larger

than the largest of the breed. From his St. Bernard father he had

inherited size and weight, but it was his shepherd mother who had given

shape to that size and weight. His muzzle was the long wolf muzzle,

save that was larger than the muzzle of any wolf; and his head,

somewhat broader, was the wolf head on a massive scale. His cunning

was wolf cunning, and wild cunning; his intelligence, shepherd

intelligence and St. Bernard intelligence; and all this, plus an

experience gained in the fiercest of schools, made him as formidable a

creature as any that intelligence roamed the wild. A carnivorous animal

living on a straight meat diet, he was in full flower, at the high tide of his

life, overspilling with vigor and virility. When Thornton passed a

caressing hand along his back, a snapping and crackling followed the

hand, each hair discharing its pent magnetism at the contact. Every

part, brain and body, nerve tissue and fibre, was keyed to the most

exquisite pitch; and between all the parts there was a perfect equilibrium

or adjustment. To sights and sounds and events which required

action, he responded with lightning-like rapidity. Quickly as a husky

dog could leap to defend from attack or to attack, he could leap twice as

quickly. He saw the movement, or heard sound, and responded in less

time than another dog required to compass the mere seeing or hearing.

He perceived and determined and responded in the same instant. In

point of fact the three actions of perceiving, determining, and responding

were sequential; but so infinitesimal were the intervals of time between

them that they appeared simultaneous. His muscles were surcharged

with vitality, and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs. Life

streamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it

seemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forth

generously over the world.

"Never was there such a dog," said John Thornton one day, as the

partners watched Buck marching out of camp.

"When he was made, the mould was broke," said Pete.

"Py jingo! I t'ink so mineself," Hans affirmed.

They saw him marching out of camp, but they did not see the instant

and terrible transformation which took place as soon as he was within

the secrecy of the forest. He no longer marched. At once he became a

thing of the wild, stealing along softly, cat- footed, a passing shadow that

appeared and disappeared among the shadows. He knew how to take

advantage of every cover, to crawl on his belly like a snake, and like a

snake to leap and strike. He could take a ptarmigan from its nest, kill a

rabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing a

second too late for the trees. Fish, in open pools, were not too quick

for him; nor were beaver, mending their dams, too wary. He killed to

eat, not from wantonness; but he preferred to eat what he killed himself.

So a lurking humor ran through his deeds, and it was his delight to steal

upon the squirrels, and, when he all but had them, to let them go,

chattering in mortal fear to the treetops.

As the fall of the year came on, the moose appeared in greater

abundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and less

rigorous valleys. Buck had already dragged down a stray part-grown

calf; but he wished strongly for larger and more formidablequarry, and

he came upon it one day on the divide at the head of the creek. A band

of twenty moose had crossed over from the land of streams and timber,

and chief among them was a great bull. He was in a savage temper,

and, standing over six feet from the ground, was as formidable an

antagonist as even Buck could desire. Back and forth the bull tossed his

great palmated antlers, branching to fourteen points and embracing

seven feet within the tips. His small eyes burned with a vicious and