WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP

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WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP

H? Wot I say? I spik true w'en I say dat Buck two devils."

This was François's speech next morning when he

discovered Spitz missing and Buck covered with wounds. He

drew him to the fire and by its light pointed them out.

"Dat Spitz fight lak hell," said Perrault, as he surveyed the gaping

rips and cuts.

"An' dat Buck fight lak two hells," was François's answer. "An'

now we make good time. No more Spitz, no more trouble, sure."

While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled, the dog-

driver proceeded to harness the dogs. Buck trotted up to the place Spitz

would have occupied as leader; but François, not noticing him, brought

Sol-leks to the coveted position. In his judgment, Sol-leks was the best

lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury, driving him back and

standing in his place.

"Eh? eh?" François cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. "Look at dat

Buck. Heem keel dat Spitz, heem t'ink to take de job."

"Go 'way, Chook!" he cried, but Buck refused to budge.

He took Buck by the scruff of the neck, and though the dog growled

threateningly, dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. The old

dog did not like it, and showed plainly that he was afraid of Buck.

François was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck again

displaced Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.

François was angry. "Now, by Gar, I feex you!" he cried, coming

back with a heavy club in his hand.

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Buck remembered the man in the red sweater, and retreated slowly;

nor did he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more brought

forward. But he circled just beyond the range of the club, snarling with

bitterness and rage; and while he circled he watched the club so as to

dodge it if thrown by François, for he was become wise in the way of

clubs.

The driver went about his work, and he called to Buck when he was

ready to put him in his old place in front of Dave. Buck retreated two or

three steps. François followed him up, whereupon he again retreated.

After some time of this, François threw down the club, thinking that

Buck feared a thrashing. But Buck was in open revolt. He wanted, not to

escape a clubbing, but to have the leadership. It was his by right. He had

earned it, and he would not be content with less.

Perrault took a hand. Between them they ran him about for the better

part of an hour. They threw clubs at him. He dodged. They cursed him,

and his fathers and mothers before him, and all his seed to come after

him down to the remotest generation, and every hair on his body and

drop of blood in his veins; and he answered curse with snarl and kept out

of their reach. He did not try to run away, but retreated around and

around the camp, advertising plainly that when his desire was met, he

would come in and be good.

François sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at his

watch and swore. Time was flying, and they should have been on the

trail an hour gone. François scratched his head again. He shook it and

grinned sheepishly at the courier, who shrugged his shoulders in sign

that they were beaten. Then François went up to where Sol-leks stood

and called to Buck. Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept his distance.

François unfastened Sol-leks's traces and put him back in his old place.

The team stood harnessed to the sled in an unbroken line, ready for the

trail. There was no place for Buck save at the front. Once more François

called, and once more Buck laughed and kept away.

"T'row down de club," Perrault commanded.

François complied, whereupon Buck trotted in, laughing

triumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of the team.

WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP

His traces were fastened, the sled broken out, and with both men running

they dashed out on to the river trail.

Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck, with his two devils,

he found, while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued. At a

bound Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment was

required, and quick thinking and quick acting, he showed himself the

superior even of Spitz, of whom François had never seen an equal.

But it was in giving the law and making his mates live up to it, that

Buck excelled. Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the change in leadership.

It was none of their business. Their business was to toil, and toil

mightily, in the traces. So long as that were not interfered with, they did

not care what happened. Billee, the good-natured, could lead for all they

cared, so long as he kept order. The rest of the team, however, had

grown unruly during the last days of Spitz, and their surprise was great

now that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape.

Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce more

of his weight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do, was

swiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the first day was done

he was pulling more than ever before in his life. The first night in camp,

Joe, the sour one, was punished roundly--a thing that Spitz had never

succeeded in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of superior

weight, and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to whine for

mercy.

The general tone of the team picked up immediately. It recovered its

old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in the

traces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, were

added; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took away

François's breath.

"Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!" he cried. "No, nevaire! Heem

worth one t'ousan' dollair, by Gar! Eh? Wot you say, Perrault?"

And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then, and gaining

day by day. The trail was in excellent condition, well packed and hard,

and there was no new-fallen snow with which to contend. It was not too

cold. The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remained there

THE CALL OF THE WILD

the whole trip. The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs were kept on

the jump, with but infrequent stoppages.

The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and they

covered in one day going out what had taken them ten days coming in.

In one run they made a sixty-mile dash from the foot of Lake Le Barge

to the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett (seventy

miles of lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it was to run

towed behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the last night of the

second week they topped White Pass and dropped down the sea slope

with the lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at their feet.

It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averaged

forty miles. For three days Perrault and François threw chests up and

down the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations to

drink, while the team was the constant centre of a worshipful crowd of

dog-busters and mushers. Then three or four western bad men aspired to

clean out the town, were riddled like pepper-boxes for their pains, and

public interest turned to other idols. Next came official orders. François

called Buck to him, threw his arms around him, wept over him. And that

was the last of François and Perrault. Like other men, they passed out of

Buck's life for good.

A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and in

company with a dozen other dog-teams he started back over the weary

trail to Dawson. It was no light running now, nor record time, but heavy

toil each day, with a heavy load behind; for this was the mail train,

carrying word from the world to the men who sought gold under the

shadow of the Pole.

Buck did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, taking pride in

it after the manner of Dave and Sol-leks, and seeing that his mates,

whether they prided in it or not, did their fair share. It was a monotonous

life, operating with machine-like regularity. One day was very like

another. At a certain time each morning the cooks turned out, fires were

built, and breakfast was eaten. Then, while some broke camp, others

harnessed the dogs, and they were under way an hour or so before the

darkness fell which gave warning of dawn. At night, camp was made.

Some pitched the flies, others cut firewood and pine boughs for the beds,

WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP

and still others carried water or ice for the cooks. Also, the dogs were

fed. To them, this was the one feature of the day, though it was good to

loaf around, after the fish was eaten, for an hour or so with the other

dogs, of which there were fivescore and odd. There were fierce fighters

among them, but three battles with the fiercest brought Buck to mastery,

so that when he bristled and showed his teeth, they got out of his way.

Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near the fire, hind legs crouched

under him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised, and eyes blinking

dreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's big

house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the cement

swimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, and Toots, the

Japanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater, the

death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he had

eaten or would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland was very

dim and distant, and such memories had no power over him. Far more

potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things he had never

seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but the

memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later

days, and still later, in him, quickened and became alive again.

Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames, it

seemed that the flames were of another fire, and that as he crouched by

this other fire he saw another and different man from the half-breed cook

before him. This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm, with

muscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and swelling.

The hair of this man was long and matted, and his head slanted back

under it from the eyes. He uttered strange sounds, and seemed very

much afraid of the darkness, into which he peered continually, clutching

in his hand, which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with a

heavy stone made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged and

fire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his body

there was much hair. In some places, across the chest and shoulders and

down the outside of the arms and thighs, it was matted into almost a

thick fur. He did not stand erect, but with trunk inclined forward from

the hips, on legs that bent at the knees. About his body there was a

THE CALL OF THE WILD

peculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike, and a quick alertness

as of one who lived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen.

At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head between

his legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, his

hands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms.

And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see many

gleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he knew to be

the eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could hear the crashing of their

bodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made in the night.

And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking at the

fire, these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair to

rise along his back and stand on end across his shoulders and up his

neck, till he whimpered low and suppressedly, or growled softly, and the

half-breed cook shouted at him, "Hey, you Buck, wake up!" Whereupon

the other world would vanish and the real world come into his eyes, and

he would get up and yawn and stretch as though he had been asleep.

It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy work

wore them down. They were short of weight and in poor condition when

they made Dawson, and should have had a ten days' or a week's rest at

least. But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukon bank from

the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside. The dogs were tired, the

drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed every day. This

meant a soft trail, greater friction on the runners, and heavier pulling for

the dogs; yet the drivers were fair through it all, and did their best for the

animals.

Each night the dogs were attended to first. They ate before the

drivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seen to the

feet of the dogs he drove. Still, their strength went down. Since the

beginning of the winter they had travelled eighteen hundred miles,

dragging sleds the whole weary distance; and eighteen hundred miles

will tell upon life of the toughest. Buck stood it, keeping his mates up to

their work and maintaining discipline, though he too was very tired.

Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe was

sourer than ever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other

side.

WHO HAS WON TO MASTERSHIP

But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gone

wrong with him. He became more morose and irritable, and when camp

was pitched at once made his nest, where his driver fed him. Once out of

the harness and down, he did not get on his feet again till harness-up

time in the morning. Sometimes, in the traces, when jerked by a sudden

stoppage of the sled, or by straining to start it, he would cry out with

pain. The driver examined him, but could find nothing. All the drivers

became interested in his case. They talked it over at meal-time, and over

their last pipes before going to bed, and one night they held a

consultation. He was brought from his nest to the fire and was pressed

and prodded till he cried out many times. Something was wrong inside,

but they could locate no broken bones, could not make it out.

By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he was

falling repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called a halt and

took him out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast to the sled.

His intention was to rest Dave, letting him run free behind the sled. Sick

as he was, Dave resented being taken out, grunting and growling while

the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken-heartedly when he

saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served so long. For the

pride of trace and trail was his, and, sick unto death, he could not bear

that another dog should do his work.

When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside the

beaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him and

trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, striving to

leap inside his traces and get between him and the sled, and all the while

whining and yelping and crying with grief and pain. The half-breed tried

to drive him away with the whip; but he paid no heed to the stinging

lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder. Dave refused to run

quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going was easy, but

continued to flounder alongside in the soft snow, where the going was

most difficult, till exhausted. Then he fell, and lay where he fell,

howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by.

With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger along

behind till the train made another stop, when he floundered past the sleds

to his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered a

THE CALL OF THE WILD

moment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then he

returned and started his dogs. They swung out on the trail with

remarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped in

surprise. The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. He

called his comrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten through both of

Sol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in his

proper place.

He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed.

His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being

denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known,

where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were

cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die

anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he

was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more

than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt.

Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once the

sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind legs.

But he held out till camp was reached, when his driver made a place

for him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. At harness-up

time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts he got on his

feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way forward slowly

toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates. He would

advance his fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitching

movement, when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead again

for a few more inches. His strength left him, and the last his mates saw

of him he lay gasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But they

could hear him mournfully howling till they passed out of sight behind a

belt of river timber.

Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced his

steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A revolver-shot

rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips snapped, the bells

tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail; but Buck knew, and

every dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt of river trees.

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