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But
Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog.
The whole realm was his.
He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with
the Judge's sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's
daughters, on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry
nights he lay at the Judge's feet before the roaring library fire;
he carried the Judge's grandsons on his back, or rolled them in
the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond,
where the paddocks were, and
the berry patches. Among the
terriers he stalked
imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for
he was king,--king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of
Judge Miller's place, humans included.
His
father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard,
had been the Judge's inseparable
companion, and Buck bid fair to follow in the way of
his father. He was not
so large,--he weighed only one hundred and
forty pounds,--for his mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd
dog. Nevertheless, one
hundred and forty pounds, to which was
added the dignity that comes of good living and universal respect,
enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion.
During the four years
since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated
aristocrat; he had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle
egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes become because of
their insular situation. But
he had saved himself by not becoming a
mere pampered house-dog. Hunting
and kindred outdoor delights had
kept down the fat and hardened his muscles; and to him, as to
the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and a
health preserver.
And
this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when
the Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck
did not read the newspapers, and he did not know
that Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable
acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin.
He loved to play Chinese
lottery. Also, in his gambling,
he had one besetting weakness--faith
in a system; and this made his damnation certain.
For to play a system requires money, while the wages of a
gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerous
progeny.
The
Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, and
the boys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorable night of Manuel's treachery.
No one saw him and Buck go off through
the orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll.
And with the exception of a solitary man, no one saw them arrive
at the little flag station known as College Park.
This man talked with
Manuel, and money chinked between them.
"You
might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'm," the stranger
said gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around
Buck's neck under the collar.
"Twist
it, an' you'll choke 'm plentee," said Manuel, and the
stranger grunted a ready affirmative.
Buck
had accepted the rope with quiet dignity.
To be sure, it was an
unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he
knew, and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his
own. But when the ends
of the rope were placed in the stranger's
hands, he growled menacingly. He
had merely intimated his displeasure,
in his pride believing that to intimate was to
command. But to his
surprise the rope tightened around his neck,
shutting off his breath. In
quick rage he sprang at the man, who met
him halfway, grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft
twist threw him over on his back.
Then the rope tightened mercilessly,
while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling
out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely.
Never in all his life
had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his
life had he been so angry. But
his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed,
and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two
men threw him into the baggage car.
The
next he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting
and that he was being jolted along in some kind of a conveyance. The hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing
told him where he was.
He had travelled too often with the Judge not to
know the sensation of riding in a baggage car.
He opened his eyes, and
into them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king.
The man sprang for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him. His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they relax till
his senses were choked out of
him once more.
"Yep,
has fits," the man said, hiding his mangled hand from the
baggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle.
"I'm takin' 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco.
A crack dog-doctor there
thinks that he can cure 'm."
Concerning
that night's ride, the man spoke most eloquently for
himself, in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco water front.
"All
I get is fifty for it," he grumbled; "an' I wouldn't do it
over for a thousand, cold cash."
His
hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right
trouser leg was ripped from knee to ankle.
"How
much did the other mug get?" the saloon-keeper demanded.
"A
hundred," was the reply. "Wouldn't
take a sou less, so help me."
"That
makes a hundred and fifty," the saloon-keeper calculated;
"and he's worth it, or I'm a squarehead."
The
kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his
lacerated hand. "If
I don't get the hydrophoby--"
"It'll
be because you was born to hang," laughed the saloon- keeper.
"Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight," he
added.
Dazed,
suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with the
life half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors. But
he was thrown down and choked repeatedly, till
they succeeded in filing the heavy brass collar from off his neck.
Then the rope was removed, and he was flung into a cagelike crate.
There
he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his
wrath and wounded pride. He
could not understand what it all meant.
What did they want with him, these strange men?
Why were they keeping him pent up in this narrow crate?
He did not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense of impending
calamity. Several times
during the night he sprang to his feet
when the shed door rattled open, expecting to see the Judge, or
the boys at least. But
each time it was the bulging face of the
saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of a
tallow candle. And each
time the joyful bark that trembled in Buck's
throat was twisted into a savage growl.
But
the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four men
entered and picked up the crate.
More tormentors, Buck decided, for
they were evil-looking creatures, ragged and unkempt; and he stormed and raged at them through the bars.
They only laughed and poked
sticks at him, which he promptly assailed with his teeth
till he realized that that was what they wanted.
Whereupon he lay down
sullenly and allowed the crate to be lifted into a wagon. Then he, and the crate in which he was imprisoned,
began a passage through many
hands. Clerks in the express
office took charge of him; he
was carted about in another wagon; a truck carried him,
with an assortment of boxes and parcels, upon a ferry steamer; he
was trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot, and
finally he was deposited in an express car.
For
two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the
tail of shrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buck
neither ate nor drank. In
his anger he had met the first advances
of the express messengers with growls, and they had retaliated by
teasing him. When he
flung himself against the bars, quivering
and frothing, they laughed at him and taunted him.
They growled and barked
like detestable dogs, mewed, and flapped their arms and crowed. It was
all very silly, he knew; but therefore the more
outrage to his dignity, and his anger waxed and waxed.
He did not mind the
hunger so much, but the lack of water caused him severe
suffering and fanned his wrath to fever-pitch.
For that matter, high-strung and finely sensitive, the ill treatment had flung
him into a fever, which was fed
by the inflammation of his parched and
swollen throat and tongue.
He
was glad for one thing: the rope was off his neck.
That had given them an
unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would
show them. They would
never get another rope around his neck.
Upon that he was resolved. For
two days and nights he neither ate nor
drank, and during those two days and nights of torment, he
accumulated a fund of wrath that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him. His
eyes turned blood-shot, and he was metamorphosed
into a raging fiend. So
changed was he that the Judge himself would
not have recognized him; and the express messengers breathed
with relief when they bundled him off the train at Seattle.
Four
men gingerly carried the crate from the wagon into a small,
high-walled back yard. A
stout man, with a red sweater that sagged
generously at the neck, came out and signed the book for
the driver. That was the
man, Buck divined, the next tormentor,
and he hurled himself savagely against the bars.
The man smiled grimly,
and brought a hatchet and a club.
"You
ain't going to take him out now?" the driver asked.
"Sure,"
the man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for a
pry.
There
was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who had
carried it in, and from safe perches on top the wall they prepared to watch the performance.
Buck
rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it,
surging and wrestling with it. Wherever
the hatchet fell on the outside,
he was there on the inside, snarling and growling, as
furiously anxious to get out as the man in the red sweater was
calmly intent on getting him out.
"Now,
you red-eyed devil," he said, when he had made an opening
sufficient for the passage of Buck's body. At the same time he dropped
the hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand.
And
Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together
for the spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter in his blood-shot eyes. Straight
at the man he launched his one hundred
and forty pounds of fury, surcharged with the pent passion
of two days and nights. In
mid air, just as his jaws were about to
close on the man, he received a shock that checked his body and
brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip.
He whirled over,
fetching the ground on his back and side.
He had never been struck
by a club in his life, and did not understand.
With a snarl that was
part bark and more scream he was again on his feet
and launched into the air. And
again the shock came and he was brought
crushingly to the ground. This
time he was aware that it was
the club, but his madness knew no caution.
A dozen times he charged,
and as often the club broke the charge and smashed him
down.
After
a particularly fierce blow, he crawled to his feet, too
dazed to rush. He
staggered limply about, the blood flowing from
nose and mouth and ears, his beautiful coat sprayed and flecked
with bloody slaver. Then
the man advanced and deliberately dealt
him a frightful blow on the nose.
All the pain he had endured was
as nothing compared with the exquisite agony of this.
With a roar that was
almost lionlike in its ferocity, he again hurled himself at the man. But
the man, shifting the club from right to left,
coolly caught him by the under jaw, at the same time wrenching
downward and backward. Buck
described a complete circle in the air,
and half of another, then crashed to the ground on his head
and chest.
For
the last time he rushed. The
man struck the shrewd blow he had
purposely withheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up and went
down, knocked utterly senseless.
"He's
no slouch at dog-breakin', that's wot I say," one of the men
on the wall cried enthusiastically.
"Druther
break cayuses any day, and twice on Sundays," was the
reply of the driver, as he climbed on the wagon and started the
horses.
Buck's
senses came back to him, but not his strength.
He lay where he had
fallen, and from there he watched the man in the red
sweater.
"
'Answers to the name of Buck,' " the man soliloquized, quoting
from the saloon-keeper's letter which had announced the
consignment of the crate and contents.
"Well, Buck, my boy," he
went on in a genial voice, "we've had our little ruction, and
the best thing we can do is to
let it go at that. You've learned your
place, and I know mine. Be
a good dog and all 'll go well and the
goose hang high. Be a
bad dog, and I'll whale the stuffin' outa
you. Understand?"
As
he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilessly
pounded, and though Buck's hair involuntarily bristled at touch of the hand, he endured it without protest.
When the man brought him water
he drank eagerly, and later bolted a generous meal of raw
meat, chunk by chunk, from the man's hand.
He
was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken.
He saw, once for all,
that he stood no chance against a man with a club.
He had learned the
lesson, and in all his after life he never forgot
it. That club was a
revelation. It was his
introduction to the reign of
primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway.
The facts of life took
on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that
aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his
nature aroused. As the
days went by, other dogs came, in crates
and at the ends of ropes, some docilely, and some raging and roaring as he had come; and, one and all, he watched them
pass under the dominion of the
man in the red sweater. Again
and again, as he looked at each
brutal performance, the lesson was driven
home to Buck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to
be obeyed, though not necessarily conciliated.
Of this last Buck was
never guilty, though he did see beaten dogs that fawned upon
the man, and wagged their tails, and licked his hand.
Also he saw one dog,
that would neither conciliate nor obey, finally killed in
the struggle for mastery.
Now
and again men came, strangers, who talked excitedly,
wheedlingly, and in all kinds of fashions to the man in the red
sweater. And at such
times that money passed between them the
strangers took one or more of the dogs away with them.
Buck wondered where they
went, for they never came back; but the fear
of the future was strong upon him, and he was glad each time when
he was not selected.
Yet
his time came, in the end, in the form of a little weazened
man who spat broken English and many strange and uncouth
exclamations which Buck could not understand.
"Sacredam!"
he cried, when his eyes lit upon Buck.
"Dat one dam bully
dog! Eh? How moch?"
"Three
hundred, and a present at that," was the prompt reply of
the man in the red sweater. "And
seem' it's government money, you ain't
got no kick coming, eh, Perrault?"
Perrault
grinned. Considering that the
price of dogs had been boomed
skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum
for so fine an animal. The
Canadian Government would be no loser,
nor would its despatches travel the slower.
Perrault knew dogs, and
when he looked at Buck he knew that he was one in a thousand-- "One in
ten t'ousand," he commented mentally.
Buck
saw money pass between them, and was not surprised when
Curly, a good-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the
little weazened man. That
was the last he saw of the man in the red
sweater, and as Curly and he looked at receding Seattle from
the deck of the Narwhal, it was the last he saw of the warm
Southland. Curly and he
were taken below by Perrault and turned
over to a black-faced giant called Francois.
Perrault was a French-Canadian,
and swarthy; but Francois was a French-Canadian half-breed, and twice as swarthy. They were a new kind of men to
Buck (of which he was destined to see many more), and while he
developed no affection for them, he none the less grew honestly to
respect them. He
speedily learned that Perrault and Francois were
fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice, and too
wise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs.
In
the 'tween-decks of the Narwhal, Buck and Curly joined two
other dogs. One of them
was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen
who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and
who had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens.
He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's
face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for
instance, when he stole from Buck's food at the first meal.
As Buck sprang to punish
him, the lash of Francois's whip sang through
the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remained
to Buck but to recover the bone. That was fair of Francois, he decided, and the half-breed began his rise in Buck's
estimation.
The
other dog made no advances, nor received any; also, he did not
attempt to steal from the newcomers.
He was a gloomy, morose fellow,
and he showed Curly plainly that all he desired was to be
left alone, and further, that there would be trouble if he were
not left alone. "Dave" he was called, and he ate and slept, or
yawned between times, and took interest in nothing, not even when
the Narwhal crossed Queen Charlotte Sound and rolled and pitched and bucked like a thing possessed. When Buck and Curly grew
excited, half wild with fear, he raised his head as though
annoyed, favored them with an incurious glance, yawned, and went
to sleep again.
Day
and night the ship throbbed to the tireless pulse of the
propeller, and though one day was very like another, it was
apparent to Buck that the weather was steadily growing colder.
At last, one morning,
the propeller was quiet, and the Narwhal was
pervaded with an atmosphere of excitement.
He felt it, as did the other
dogs, and knew that a change was at hand.
Francois leashed them
and brought them on deck. At
the first step upon the cold surface,
Buck's feet sank into a white mushy something very like
mud. He sprang back with
a snort. More of this white
stuff was falling through the
air. He shook himself, but more of it fell
upon him. He sniffed it
curiously, then licked some up on his tongue.
It bit like fire, and the next instant was gone.
This puzzled him. He
tried it again, with the same result. The
onlookers laughed uproariously, and he felt ashamed, he knew not
why, for it was his first snow.
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