Chapter 7
The Sounding of the CallWhen Buck earned sixteen hundred dollars in five minutes for JohnThornton, he made it possible for his master to pay off certain debts andto journey with his partners into the East after a fabled lost mine, thehistory of which was as old as the history of the country. Many menhad sought it; few had found it; and more than a few there were who hadnever returned from the quest. This lost mine was steeped in tragedyand shrouded in mystery. No one knew of the first man. The oldesttradition stopped before it got back to him. From the beginning therehad been an ancient and ramshackle cabin. Dying men had sworn to it,and to the mine the site of which it marked, clinching their testimonywith nuggets that were unlike any known grade of gold in the Northland.
But no living man had looted this treasure house, and the dead weredead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buck and half adozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achievewhere men and dogs as good as themselves had failed. They sleddedseventy miles up the Yukon, swung to the left into the Stewart River,passed the Mayo and the McQuestion, and held on until the Stewartitself became a streamlet, threading the upstanding peaks which markedthe backbone of the continent.
John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of thewild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into thewilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased.
Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the course ofthe day's travel; and if he failed to find it, like the Indian, he kept ontravelling, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later he would come toit. So, on this great journey into the East, straight meat was the bill offare, ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the sled, andthe time-card was drawn upon the limitless future.
To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, andindefinite wandering through strange places. For weeks at a time theywould hold on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end theywould camp, here and there, the dogs loafing and the men burning holesthrough frozen muck and gravel and washing countless pans of dirt bythe heat of the fire. Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes theyfeasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortuneof hunting. Summer arrived, and dogs and men packed on their backs,rafted across blue mountain lakes, and descended or ascended unknownrivers in slender boats whipsawed from the standing forest.
The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted throughthe uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men had beenif the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summerblizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains betweenthe timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amidswarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers pickedstrawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland couldboast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sadand silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life norsign of life-- only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice insheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.
And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trailsof men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazedthrough the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed very near.
But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remainedmystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it remainedmystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage ofa hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thorntonfound a long-barrelled flint-lock. He knew it for a Hudson BayCompany gun of the young days in the Northwest, when such a gun wasworth its height in beaver skins packed flat, And that was all--no hint asto the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gunamong the blankets.
Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering theyfound, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley wherethe gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing-pan.
They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned them thousandsof dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked every day. Thegold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piledlike so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge. Like giantsthey toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like dreams as theyheaped the treasure up.
There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meatnow and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musingby the fire. The vision of the short-legged hairy man came to him morefrequently, now that there was little work to be done; and often, blinkingby the fire, Buck wandered with him in that other world which he remembered.
The salient thing of this other world seemed fear. When hewatched the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees andhands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with many startsand awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully into thedarkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did they walk by thebeach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell- fish and ate them as hegathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger andwith legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Throughthe forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and theywere alert and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving andnostrils 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 ason the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to limb, sometimes adozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, never missing hisgrip. In fact, he seemed as much at home among the trees as on theground; and Buck had memories of nights of vigil spent beneath treeswherein the hairy man roosted, holding on tightly as he slept.
And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call stillsounding in the depths of the forest. It filled him with a great unrestand strange desires. It caused him to feel a vague, sweet gladness, andhe 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 itwere a tangible thing, barking softly or defiantly, as the mood mightdictate. He would thrust his nose into the cool wood moss, or into theblack soil where long grasses grew, and snort with joy at the fat earthsmells; or he would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behindfungus- covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to allthat moved and sounded about him. It might be, lying thus, that hehoped to surprise this call he could not understand. But he did notknow 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 liftand his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he would spring to his feetand dash away, and on and on, for hours, through the forest aisles andacross the open spaces where the niggerheads bunched. He loved torun down dry watercourses, and to creep and spy upon the bird life in thewoods. For a day at a time he would lie in the underbrush where hecould watch the partridges drumming and strutting up and down. Butespecially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights,listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signsand sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterioussomething that called--called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.
One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrilsquivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves. From theforest 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 inswift silence dashed through the woods. As he drew closer to the cryhe went more slowly, with caution in every movement, till he came to anopen 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 tosense his presence. Buck stalked into the open, half crouching, bodygathered compactly together, tail straight and stiff, feet falling withunwonted care. Every movement advertised commingled threateningand overture of friendliness. It was the menacing truce that marks themeeting 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 himinto a blind channel, in the bed of the creek where a timber jam barredthe way. The wolf whirled about, pivoting on his hind legs after thefashion 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 withfriendly advances. The wolf was suspicious and afraid; for Buck madethree 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 wasin poor condition, or Buck could not so easily have overtaken him. Hewould run till Buck's head was even with his flank, when he would whirlaround at bay, only to dash away again at the first opportunity.
But in the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded; for the wolf, findingthat no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him. Then theybecame friendly, and played about in the nervous, half- coy way withwhich fierce beasts belie their fierceness. After some time of this thewolf started off at an easy lope in a manner that plainly showed he wasgoing somewhere. He made it clear to Buck that he was to come, andthey ran side by side through the sombre twilight, straight up the creekbed, into the gorge from which it issued, and across the bleak dividewhere it took its rise.
On the opposite slope of the watershed they came down into a levelcountry where were great stretches of forest and many streams, andthrough these great stretches they ran steadily, hour after hour, the sunrising higher and the day growing warmer. Buck was wildly glad. Heknew he was at last answering the call, running by the side of his woodbrother toward the place from where the call surely came. Oldmemories were coming upon him fast, and he was stirring to them as ofold he stirred to the realities of which they were the shadows. He haddone this thing before, somewhere in that other and dimly rememberedworld, and he was doing it again, now, running free in the open, theunpacked earth underfoot, the wide sky overhead.
They stopped by a running stream to drink, and, stopping, Buckremembered John Thornton. He sat down. The wolf started ontoward the place from where the call surely came, then returned to him,sniffing noses and making actions as though to encourage him. ButBuck turned about and started slowly on the back track. For the betterpart of an hour the wild brother ran by his side, whining softly. Thenhe sat down, pointed his nose upward, and howled. It was a mournfulhowl, and as Buck held steadily on his way he heard it grow faint andfainter until it was lost in the distance.
John Thornton was eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp andsprang upon him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him, scramblingupon him, licking his face, biting his hand--"playing the general tom-fool," as John Thornton characterized it, the while he shook Buck backand forth and cursed him lovingly.
For two days and nights Buck never left camp, never let Thorntonout of his sight. He followed him about at his work, watched himwhile he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them in themorning. But after two days the call in the forest began to sound moreimperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came back on him, and hewas haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling landbeyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide foreststretches. Once again he took to wandering in the woods, but the wildbrother came no more; and though he listened through long vigils, themournful howl was never raised.
He began to sleep out at night, staying away from camp for days at atime; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the creek and wentdown into the land of timber and streams. There he wandered for aweek, seeking vainly for fresh sign of the wild brother, killing his meatas he travelled and travelling with the long, easy lope that seems neverto tire. He fished for salmon in a broad stream that emptied somewhereinto the sea, and by this stream he killed a large black bear, blinded bythe mosquitoes while likewise fishing, and raging through the foresthelpless and terrible. Even so, it was a hard fight, and it aroused thelast latent remnants of Buck's ferocity. And two days later, when hereturned to his kill and found a dozen wolverenes quarrelling over thespoil, he scattered them like chaff; and those that fled left two behindwho would quarrel no more.
The blood-longing became stronger than ever before. He was akiller, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone,by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in ahostile environment where only the strong survived. Because of all thishe became possessed of a great pride in himself, which communicateditself like a contagion to his physical being. It advertised itself in allhis movements, was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainlyas speech in the way he carried himself, and made his glorious furry coatif anything more glorious. But for the stray brown on his muzzle andabove his eyes, and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost downhis chest, he might well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf, largerthan the largest of the breed. From his St. Bernard father he hadinherited size and weight, but it was his shepherd mother who had givenshape 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 cunningwas wolf cunning, and wild cunning; his intelligence, shepherdintelligence and St. Bernard intelligence; and all this, plus anexperience gained in the fiercest of schools, made him as formidable acreature as any that intelligence roamed the wild. A carnivorous animalliving on a straight meat diet, he was in full flower, at the high tide of hislife, overspilling with vigor and virility. When Thornton passed acaressing hand along his back, a snapping and crackling followed thehand, each hair discharing its pent magnetism at the contact. Everypart, brain and body, nerve tissue and fibre, was keyed to the mostexquisite pitch; and between all the parts there was a perfect equilibriumor adjustment. To sights and sounds and events which requiredaction, he responded with lightning-like rapidity. Quickly as a huskydog could leap to defend from attack or to attack, he could leap twice asquickly. He saw the movement, or heard sound, and responded in lesstime than another dog required to compass the mere seeing or hearing.
He perceived and determined and responded in the same instant. Inpoint of fact the three actions of perceiving, determining, and respondingwere sequential; but so infinitesimal were the intervals of time betweenthem that they appeared simultaneous. His muscles were surchargedwith vitality, and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs. Lifestreamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until itseemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forthgenerously over the world.
"Never was there such a dog," said John Thornton one day, as thepartners 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 instantand terrible transformation which took place as soon as he was withinthe secrecy of the forest. He no longer marched. At once he became athing of the wild, stealing along softly, cat- footed, a passing shadow thatappeared and disappeared among the shadows. He knew how to takeadvantage of every cover, to crawl on his belly like a snake, and like asnake to leap and strike. He could take a ptarmigan from its nest, kill arabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing asecond too late for the trees. Fish, in open pools, were not too quickfor him; nor were beaver, mending their dams, too wary. He killed toeat, 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 stealupon 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 greaterabundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and lessrigorous valleys. Buck had already dragged down a stray part-growncalf; but he wished strongly for larger and more formidable quarry, andhe came upon it one day on the divide at the head of the creek. A bandof 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 anantagonist as even Buck could desire. Back and forth the bull tossed hisgreat palmated antlers, branching to fourteen points and embracingseven feet within the tips. His small eyes burned with a vicious andbitter light, while he roared with fury at sight of Buck.
From the bull's side, just forward of the flank, protruded a featheredarrow-end, which accounted for his savageness. Guided by that instinctwhich came from the old hunting days of the primordial world, Buckproceeded to cut the bull out from the herd. It was no slight task. Hewould bark and dance about in front of the bull, just out of reach of thegreat antlers and of the terrible splay hoofs which could have stampedhis life out with a single blow. Unable to turn his back on the fangeddanger and go on, the bull would be driven into paroxysms of rage. Atsuch moments he charged Buck, who retreated craftily, luring him on bya simulated inability to escape. But when he was thus separated fromhis fellows, two or three of the younger bulls would charge back uponBuck and enable the wounded bull to rejoin the herd.
There is a patience of the wild--dogged, tireless, persistent as lifeitself--that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, thesnake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongspeculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to Buckas he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding its march, irritating theyoung bulls, worrying the cows with their half-grown calves, anddriving the wounded bull mad with helpless rage. For half a day thiscontinued. Buck multiplied himself, attacking from all sides,enveloping the herd in a whirlwind of menace, cutting out his victim asfast as it could rejoin its mates, wearing out the patience of creaturespreyed upon, which is a lesser patience than that of creatures preying.
As the day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed in thenorthwest (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were sixhours long), the young bulls retraced their steps more and morereluctantly to the aid of their beset leader. The down-coming winter washarrying them on to the lower levels, and it seemed they could nevershake off this tireless creature that held them back. Besides, it was notthe life of the herd, or of the young bulls, that was threatened. The lifeof only one member was demanded, which was a remoter interest thantheir lives, and in the end they were content to pay the toll.
As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watching hismates--the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, the bulls hehad mastered--as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the fadinglight. He could not follow, for before his nose leaped the mercilessfanged terror that would not let him go. Three hundredweight morethan half a ton he weighed; he had lived a long, strong life, full of fightand struggle, and at the end he faced death at the teeth of a creaturewhose head did not reach beyond his great knuckled knees.
From then on, night and day, Buck never left his prey, never gave it amoment's rest, never permitted it to browse the leaves of trees or theshoots of young birch and willow. Nor did he give the wounded bullopportunity to slake his burning thirst in the slender trickling streamsthey crossed. Often, in desperation, he burst into long stretches of flight.
At such times Buck did not attempt to stay him, but loped easily at hisheels, satisfied with the way the game was played, lying down when themoose stood still, attacking him fiercely when he strove to eat or drink.
The great head drooped more and more under its tree of horns, andthe shambling trot grew weak and weaker. He took to standing for longperiods, with nose to the ground and dejected ears dropped limply; andBuck found more time in which to get water for himself and in which torest. At such moments, panting with red lolling tongue and with eyesfixed upon the big bull, it appeared to Buck that a change was comingover the face of things. He could feel a new stir in the land. As themoose were coming into the land, other kinds of life were coming in.
Forest and stream and air seemed palpitant with their presence. Thenews of it was borne in upon him, not by sight, or sound, or smell, butby some other and subtler sense. He heard nothing, saw nothing, yetknew that the land was somehow different; that through it strange thingswere afoot and ranging; and he resolved to investigate after he hadfinished the business in hand.
At last, at the end of the fourth day, he pulled the great moose down.
For a day and a night he remained by the kill, eating and sleeping, turnand turn about. Then, rested, refreshed and strong, he turned his facetoward camp and John Thornton. He broke into the long easy lope, andwent on, hour after hour, never at loss for the tangled way, headingstraight home through strange country with a certitude of direction thatput man and his magnetic needle to shame.
As he held on he became more and more conscious of the new stir inthe land. There was life abroad in it different from the life which hadbeen there throughout the summer. No longer was this fact borne inupon him in some subtle, mysterious way. The birds talked of it, thesquirrels chattered about it, the very breeze whispered of it. Severaltimes he stopped and drew in the fresh morning air in great sniffs,reading a message which made him leap on with greater speed. He wasoppressed with a sense of calamity happening, if it were not calamityalready happened; and as he crossed the last watershed and droppeddown into the valley toward camp, he proceeded with greater caution.
Three miles away he came upon a fresh trail that sent his neck hairrippling and bristling, It led straight toward camp and John Thornton.
Buck hurried on, swiftly and stealthily, every nerve straining and tense,alert to the multitudinous details which told a story--all but the end.
His nose gave him a varying description of the passage of the life on theheels of which he was travelling. He remarked die pregnant silence ofthe forest. The bird life had flitted. The squirrels were in hiding.
One only he saw,--a sleek gray fellow, flattened against a gray dead limbso that he seemed a part of it, a woody excrescence upon the wood itself.
As Buck slid along with the obscureness of a gliding shadow, hisnose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positive force hadgripped and pulled it. He followed the new scent into a thicket andfound Nig. He was lying on his side, dead where he had draggedhimself, an arrow protruding, head and feathers, from either side of his body.
A hundred yards farther on, Buck came upon one of the sled-dogsThornton had bought in Dawson. This dog was thrashing about in adeath-struggle, directly on the trail, and Buck passed around him withoutstopping. From the camp came the faint sound of many voices, risingand falling in a sing-song chant. Bellying forward to the edge of theclearing, he found Hans, lying on his face, feathered with arrows like aporcupine. At the same instant Buck peered out where the spruce-bough lodge had been and saw what made his hair leap straight up on hisneck and shoulders. A gust of overpowering rage swept over him. Hedid not know that he growled, but he growled aloud with a terribleferocity. For the last time in his life he allowed passion to usurpcunning and reason, and it was because of his great love for JohnThornton that he lost his head. The Yeehats were dancing about thewreckage of the spruce-bough lodge when they heard a fearful roaringand saw rushing upon them an animal the like of which they had neverseen before. It was Buck, a live hurricane of fury, hurling himself uponthem in a frenzy to destroy. He sprang at the foremost man (it was thechief of the Yeehats), ripping the throat wide open till the rent jugularspouted a fountain of blood. He did not pause to worry the victim, butripped in passing, with the next bound tearing wide the throat of asecond man. There was no withstanding him. He plunged about intheir very midst, tearing, rending, destroying, in constant and terrificmotion which defied the arrows they discharged at him. In fact, soinconceivably rapid were his movements, and so closely were theIndians tangled together, that they shot one another with the arrows; andone young hunter, hurling a spear at Buck in mid air, drove it throughthe chest of another hunter with such force that the point broke throughthe skin of the back and stood out beyond. Then a panic seized theYeehats, and they fled in terror to the woods, proclaiming as they fledthe advent of the Evil Spirit.
And truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels anddragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees. It was afateful day for the Yeehats. They scattered far and wide over theThe Call of the Wild country, and it was not till a week later that the last of the survivorsgathered together in a lower valley and counted their losses. As forBuck, wearying of the pursuit, he returned to the desolated camp. Hefound Pete where he had been killed in his blankets in the first momentof surprise. Thornton's desperate struggle was fresh-written on theearth, and Buck scented every detail of it down to the edge of a deeppool. By the edge, head and fore feet in the water, lay Skeet, faithful tothe last. The pool itself, muddy and discolored from the sluice boxes,effectually hid what it contained, and it contained John Thornton; forBuck followed his trace into the water, from which no trace led away.