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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. Francois was
obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck
again displaced Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.
Francois
was angry. "Now, by Gar, I
feex you!" he cried, coming back
with a heavy club in his hand.
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 Francois, 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. Francois
followed him up, whereupon he again retreated.
After some time of this,
Francois 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.
Francois
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. Francois
scratched his head again. He
shook it and grinned sheepishly at the courier, who shrugged his
shoulders in sign that they were beaten. Then Francois went up to
where Sol-leks stood and called to Buck.
Buck laughed, as dogs laugh,
yet kept his distance. Francois 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 Francois called,
and once more Buck laughed and kept away.
"T'row
down de club," Perrault commanded.
Francois
complied, whereupon Buck trotted in, laughing
triumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of the
team. 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 Francois 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 Francois'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 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 Francois 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. Francois
called Buck to him, threw his
arms around him, wept over him. And
that was the last of Francois
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, 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 become 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 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.
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 A 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
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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