CHAPTER II
The Law of Club and Fang
Buck's first day on the Dyea beach was like a
nightmare. Every
hour was filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked
from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things
primordial. No lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do but
loaf and be bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's
safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb
were in peril. There was
imperative need to be constantly alert; for
these 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, and
his first experience taught him an unforgetable lesson. It is true, it was
a 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 equally
swift, and Curly's face was ripped open from eye to jaw.
It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away; but there
was more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and
surrounded the combatants in an intent and silent circle. Buck did not
comprehend that silent intentness, nor the eager way with which they
were licking their chops. Curly rushed her
antagonist, who struck again
and leaped aside. He met her next rush with his chest, in a peculiar
fashion that tumbled her off her feet. She never regained them, This
was what the onlooking huskies had waited for. They closed in upon
her, 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; and
he saw Francois, swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Three
men 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 assailants
were clubbed off. But she lay there limp and
lifeless in the bloody,
trampled snow, almost
literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breed
standing over her and cursing
horribly. The scene often came back to
Buck 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 he
never went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again, and from
that moment Buck hated him with a bitter and deathless hatred.
Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the
tragic passing
of Curly, he received another shock. Francois fastened upon him an
arrangement of straps and buckles. It was a harness, such as he had
seen the grooms put on the horses at home. And as he had seen horses
work, so he was set to work, hauling Francois on a sled to the forest that
fringed the valley, and returning with a load of
firewood. Though his
dignity was
sorely hurt by thus being made a
draught animal, he was too
wise to rebel. He buckled down with a will and did his best, though it
was all new and strange. Francois was stem, demanding instant
obedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant
obedience; while
Dave, who was an
experienced wheeler, nipped Buck's hind quarters
whenever 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 Buck
into the way he should go. Buck
learned easily, and under the
combined tuition of his two mates and Francois made remarkable
progress. Ere they returned to camp he knew enough to stop at "ho," to
go ahead at "mush," to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear of the
wheeler when the loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.
"T'ree vair' good dogs," Francois told Perrault. "Dat Buck, heem
pool lak hell. I tich heem queek as anyt'ing."
By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with his
despatches, returned with two more dogs. "Billee" and "Joe" he called
them, two brothers, and true huskies both. Sons of the one mother
though they were, they were as different as day and night. Billee's one
fault 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, while
Spitz proceeded to
thrash first one and then the other. Billee wagged his
tail appeasingly, turned to run when he saw that appeasement was of no
avail, and cried (still appeasingly) when Spitz's sharp teeth scored his
flank. But no matter how Spitz circled, Joe whirled around on his heels
to face him, mane bristling, ears laid back, lips writhing and snarling,
jaws clipping together as fast as he could snap, and eyes diabolically
gleaming--the incarnation of
belligerent fear. So terrible was his
appearance that Spitz was forced to forego disciplining him; but to cover
his own discomfiture he turned upon the inoffensive and wailing Billee
and drove him to the confines of the camp.
By evening Perrault secured another dog, an old husky, long and
lean and gaunt, with a battle-scarred face and a single eye which flashed
a
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 into
their midst, even Spitz left him alone. He had one
peculiarity which
Buck was
unlucky enough to discover. He did not like to be
approached on his blind side. Of this offence Buck was unwittingly
guilty, and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion was when Sol-
leks whirled upon him and slashed his shoulder to the bone for three
inches up and down. Forever after Buck avoided his blind side, and to
the last of their comradeship had no more trouble. His only apparent
ambition, like Dave's, was to be left alone; though, as Buck was
afterward to learn, each of them possessed one other and even more vital
ambition.
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 Francois
bombarded him with curses and cooking utensils, till he recovered from
his
consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer cold. A chill
wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with
especial venom
into his wounded shoulder. He lay down on the snow and attempted to
sleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to his feet. Miserable and
disconsolate, he wandered about among the many tents, only to find that
one place was as cold as another. Here and there savage dogs rushed
upon him, but he bristled his neck-hair and snarled (for he was learning
fast), and they let him go his way unmolested.
Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own
team-mates were making out. To his astonishment, they had
disappeared. 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 where
could they possibly be? With drooping tail and shivering body, very
forlorn indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave
way beneath his fore legs and he sank down. Something wriggled
under his feet. He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the
unseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he
went 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. He
whined placatingly, squirmed and wriggled to show his good will and
intentions, and even ventured, as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck's face
with his warm wet tongue.
Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buck
confidently selected a spot, and with much fuss and waste effort
proceeded to dig a hole for himself. In a trice the heat from his body
filled the confined space and he was asleep. The day had been long
and
arduous, and he slept soundly and
comfortably, though he growled
and barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the noises of the waking
camp. At first he did not know where he was. It had snowed during
the night and he was completely buried. The snow walls pressed him
on every side, and a great surge of fear swept through him--the fear of
the wild thing for the trap. It was a token that he was harking back
through 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 trap
and so could not of himself fear it. The muscles of his whole body
contracted spasmodically and
instinctively, the hair on his neck and
shoulders stood on end, and with a
ferocious snarl he bounded straight
up 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 him
and knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from the
time he went for a
stroll with Manuel to the hole he had dug for himself
the 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 a
total of nine, and before another quarter of an hour had passed they were
in harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Canon. Buck was
glad to be gone, and though the work was hard he found he did not
particularly despise it. He was surprised at the
eagerness which
animated the whole team and which was communicated to him; but still
more surprising was the change wrought in Dave and Sol-leks. They
were new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness and
unconcern had dropped from them. They were alert and active, anxious
that the work should go well, and fiercely
irritable with whatever, by
delay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces seemed
the supreme expression of their being, and all that they lived for and the
only 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 that
he might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they were
equally apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error, and
enforcing their teaching with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and very
wise. He never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to nip
him 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 the
start, both Dave and Sol- leks flew at him and administered a sound
trouncing. The resulting
tangle was even worse, but Buck took good
care to keep the traces clear
thereafter; and ere the day was done, so well
had he mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging him.
Francois's whip snapped less frequently, and Perrault even honored Buck
by lifting up his feet and carefully examining them. It was a hard day's
run, up the Canon, through Sheep Camp, past the Scales and the timber
line, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of feet deep, and over the
great Chilcoot Divide, which stands between the salt water and the fresh
and guards forbiddingly the sad and lonely North. They made good
time 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-up
of the ice in the spring. Buck made his hole in the snow and slept the
sleep of the exhausted just, but all too early was routed out in the cold
darkness and harnessed with his mates to the sled.
That day they made forty miles, the trail being packed; but the next
day, and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, worked
harder, and made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault travelled ahead of the
team, packing the snow with webbed shoes to make it easier for them.
Francois, guiding the sled at the gee- pole, sometimes exchanged places
with him, but not often. Perrault was in a hurry, and he prided himself
on his knowledge of ice, which knowledge was
indispensable, for the
fall 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 them
hitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them. And always
they pitched camp after dark, eating their bit of fish, and crawling to
sleep 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 the
other dogs, because they weighed less and were born to the life, received
a 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 his
unfinishedration. There was no defending it. While he was fighting
off two or three, it was disappearing down the throats of the others. To
remedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger compel
him, he was not above
taking what did not belong to him. He watched
and
learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clever
malingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon when Perrault's back
was turned, he duplicated the performance the following day, getting
away with the whole chunk. A great
uproar was raised, but he was
unsuspected; while Dub, an
awkward blunderer who was always getting
caught, was punished for Buck's misdeed.
This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland
environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself
to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and
terrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his
moral nature, a vain thing and a
handicap in the
ruthless struggle for
existence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of
love and
fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings;
but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took such
things into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them he
would fail to
prosper.
Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, and
unconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. All
his days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. But
the club of the man in the red
sweater had beaten into him a more
fundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a
moral conside
ration, say the defence of Judge Miller's riding-whip; but
the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability
to flee from the defence of a moral conside
ration 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 for
club and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it was
easier to do them than not to do them.
His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles became
hard as iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an
internal as well as
external economy. He could eat anything, no matter
how
loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomach
extracted the last least
particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it to
the
farthest reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest
of tissues. Sight and scent became
remarkably keen, while his
hearingdeveloped such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest sound
and knew whether it heralded peace or peril. He
learned to bite the ice
out with his teeth when it collected between his toes; and when he was
thirsty and there was a thick scum of ice over the water hole, he would
break it by rearing and striking it with stiff fore legs. His most
conspicuous trait was an ability to scent the wind and
forecast it a night
in advance. No matter how
breathless the air when he dug his nest by
tree 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 dead
became alive again. The domesticated gene
rations fell from him. In
vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time
the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed
their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight
with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought
forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the
old tricks which they had stamped into the
heredity of the breed were his
tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they
had been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his
nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead
and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries
and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences
which voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the
stiffness, and the cold, and dark.
Thus, as token of what a
puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged
through him and he came into his own again; and he came because men
had found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was a
gardener's
helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife and
divers small copies of himself.
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