Chapter 4
Who Has Won to Mastership"Eh? Wot I say? I spik true w'en I say dat Buck two devils."This was Francois's speech next morning when he discovered Spitzmissing and Buck covered with wounds. He drew him to the fire andby its light pointed them out.
"Dat Spitz fight lak hell," said Perrault, as he surveyed the gapingrips and cuts.
"An' dat Buck fight lak two hells," was Francois's answer. "An' nowwe 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 placeSpitz would have occupied as leader; but Francois, not noticing him,brought Sol-leks to the coveted position. In his judgment, Sol-leks wasthe best lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury, driving himback and standing in his place.
"Eh? eh?" Francois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. "Look at datBuck. 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 growledthreateningly, dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. The olddog did not like it, and showed plainly that he was afraid of Buck.
Francois was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck againdisplaced Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.
Francois was angry. "Now, by Gar, I feex you!" he cried, comingback 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 broughtforward. But he circled just beyond the range of the club, snarling withbitterness and rage; and while he circled he watched the club so as tododge it if thrown by Francois, for he was become wise in the way ofclubs. The driver went about his work, and he called to Buck when hewas ready to put him in his old place in front of Dave. Buck retreatedtwo or three steps. Francois followed him up, whereupon he againretreated. 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 washis 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 thebetter part of an hour. They threw clubs at him. He dodged. Theycursed him, and his fathers and mothers before him, and all his seed tocome after him down to the remotest generation, and every hair on hisbody and drop of blood in his veins; and he answered curse with snarland kept out of their reach. He did not try to run away, but retreatedaround and around the camp, advertising plainly that when his desirewas met, he would come in and be good.
Francois sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at hiswatch and swore. Time was flying, and they should have been on thetrail an hour gone. Francois scratched his head again. He shook itand grinned sheepishly at the courier, who shrugged his shoulders insign that they were beaten. Then Francois went up to where Sol-leksstood and called to Buck. Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept hisdistance. Francois unfastened Sol-leks's traces and put him back in hisold place. The team stood harnessed to the sled in an unbroken line, 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 growlingwhile the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken-heartedlywhen 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 notbear that another dog should do his work.
When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside thebeaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him andtrying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, striving toleap inside his traces and get between him and the sled, and A the whilewhining and yelping and crying with grief and pain. The half-breedtried to drive him away with the whip; but he paid no heed to thestinging lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder. Daverefused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going waseasy, but continued to flounder alongside in the soft snow, where thegoing was most difficult, till exhausted. Then he fell, and lay where hefell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by.
With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger alongbehind till the train made another stop, when he floundered past the sledsto his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered amoment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then hereturned and started his dogs. They swung out on the trail withremarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped insurprise. The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. Hecalled his comrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten through bothof Sol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in hisproper 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 beingdenied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known,where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they werecut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to dieanyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So hewas harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though morethan 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 thesled 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 placefor him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. Atharness-up time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts hegot on his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way forwardslowly toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates. Hewould advance his fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitchingmovement, when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead againfor a few more inches. His strength left him, and the last his mates sawof him he lay gasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But theycould hear him mournfully howling till they passed out of sight behind abelt of river timber.
Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retracedhis steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. Arevolver-shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whipssnapped, the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail; butBuck knew, and every dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt ofriver trees.
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, laughingtriumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of the team.
His traces were fastened, the sled broken out, and with both men runningthey 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 abound Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment wasrequired, and quick thinking and quick acting, he showed himself thesuperior 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, thatBuck excelled. Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the change inleadership. 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 leadfor 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 theirsurprise was great now that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape.
Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce moreof his weight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do, wasswiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the first day was donehe 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 neversucceeded in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of superiorweight, and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to whine for mercy.
The general tone of the team picked up immediately. It recoveredits old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in thetraces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, wereadded; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took awayFrancois's breath.
"Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!" he cried. "No, nevaire! Heemworth one t'ousan' dollair, by Gar! Eh? Wot you say, Perrault?"And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then, and gainingday 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 nottoo cold. The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remainedthere the whole trip. The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs werekept on the jump, with but infrequent stoppages.
The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and theycovered 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 Bargeto the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett (seventymiles of lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it was to runtowed behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the last night of thesecond week they topped White Pass and dropped down the sea slopewith the lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at their feet.
It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averagedforty miles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up anddown the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations todrink, while the team was the constant centre of a worshipful crowd ofdog-busters and mushers. Then three or four western bad men aspiredto clean out the town, were riddled like pepper-boxes for their pains, andpublic 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, theypassed out of Buck's life for good.
A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and incompany with a dozen other dog-teams he started back over the wearytrail to Dawson. It was no light running now, nor record time, butheavy 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 theshadow of the Pole.
Buck did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, taking pride init 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 amonotonous life, operating with machine-like regularity. One day wasvery 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 beforethe darkness fell which gave warning of dawn. At night, camp wasmade. Some pitched the flies, others cut firewood and pine boughs forthe beds, and still others carried water or ice for the cooks. Also, thedogs were fed. To them, this was the one feature of the day, though itwas good to loaf around, after the fish was eaten, for an hour or sowith the other dogs, of which there were fivescore and odd. Therewere fierce fighters among them, but three battles with the fiercestbrought Buck to mastery, so that when he bristled and showed his teeththey got out of his way.
Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near the fire, hind legs crouchedunder him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised, and eyes blinkingdreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's bighouse in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the cementswimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, and Toots, theJapanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater, thedeath of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he hadeaten or would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland wasvery dim and distant, and such memories had no power over him. Farmore potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things he hadnever seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were butthe memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in laterdays, and still later, in him, quickened and become alive again.
Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames, itseemed that the flames were of another fire, and that as he crouched bythis other fire he saw another and different man from the half-breed cookbefore him. This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm, withmuscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and swelling.
The hair of this man was long and matted, and his head slanted backunder it from the eyes. He uttered strange sounds, and seemed verymuch afraid of the darkness, into which he peered continually, clutchingin his hand, which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with aheavy stone made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged andfire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his bodythere was much hair. In some places, across the chest and shouldersand down the outside of the arms and thighs, it was matted into almost athick fur. He did not stand erect, but with trunk inclined forward fromthe hips, on legs that bent at the knees. About his body there was apeculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike, and a quick alertnessas of one who lived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen.
At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head betweenhis legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, hishands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms.
And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see manygleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he knew to bethe eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could hear the crashing of theirbodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made in the night.
And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking at thefire, these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair torise 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 theother world would vanish and the real world come into his eyes, and hewould 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 workwore them down. They were short of weight and in poor conditionwhen they made Dawson, and should have had a ten days' or a week'srest at least. But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukon bankfrom the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside. The dogs weretired, the drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed everyday. This meant a soft trail, greater friction on the runners, and heavierpulling for the dogs; yet the drivers were fair through it all, and did theirbest for the animals.
Each night the dogs were attended to first. They ate before thedrivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seen to thefeet of the dogs he drove. Still, their strength went down. Since thebeginning of the winter they had travelled eighteen hundred miles,dragging sleds the whole weary distance; and eighteen hundred mileswill tell upon life of the toughest. Buck stood it, keeping his mates upto their work and maintaining discipline, though he, too, was very tired.
Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe wassourer than ever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.
But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gonewrong with him. He became more morose and irritable, and whencamp 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 tillharness-up time in the morning. Sometimes, in the traces, when jerkedby a sudden stoppage of the sled, or by straining to start it, he would cryout with pain. The driver examined him, but could find nothing. Allthe 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 theyheld a consultation. He was brought from his nest to the fire and waspressed and prodded till he cried out many times. Something waswrong 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 wasfalling repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called a halt andtook him out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast