Chapter Two
The Law of Club and Fang
Buck's first day on the Dyea beach was like a nightmare. Every hour was filled
with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of
civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial. No lazy, sun-kissed
life was this, with nothing to do but loaf and be bored. Here was neither
peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confusion and action, and
every moment life and limb were in peril. There was imperative need to be
constantly alert; for these dogs and men were not town dogs and men. They
were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang.
He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first
experience taught him an unforgetable lesson. It is true, it was a vicarious
experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it. Curly was the victim.
They were camped near the log store, where she, in her friendly way, made
advances to a husky dog the size of a full-grown wolf, though not half so
large as she. There was no warning, only a leap in like a flash, a metallic
clip of teeth, a leap out equally swift, and Curly's face was ripped open
from eye to jaw.
It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away; but there was
more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and surrounded
the combatants in an intent and silent circle. Buck did not comprehend that
silent intentness, nor the eager way with which they were licking their chops.
Curly rushed her antagonist, who struck again and leaped aside. He met her
next rush with his chest, in a peculiar fashion that tumbled her off her
feet. She never regained them, This was what the onlooking huskies had waited
for. They closed in upon her, snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming
with agony, beneath the bristling mass of bodies.
So sudden was it, and so unexpected, that Buck was taken aback. He saw Spitz
run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing; and he saw Francois,
swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Three men with clubs were
helping him to scatter them. It did not take long. Two minutes from the time
Curly went down, the last of her assailants were clubbed off. But she lay
there limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled snow, almost literally torn
to pieces, the swart half-breed standing over her and cursing horribly. The
scene often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the
way. No fair play. Once down, that was the end of you. Well, he would see
to it that he never went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again,
and from that moment Buck hated him with a bitter and deathless hatred.
Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic passing of Curly,
he received another shock. Francois fastened upon him an arrangement of straps
and buckles. It was a harness, such as he had seen the grooms put on the
horses at home. And as he had seen horses work, so he was set to work, hauling
Francois on a sled to the forest that fringed the valley, and returning with
a load of firewood. Though his dignity was sorely hurt by thus being made
a draught animal, he was too wise to rebel. He buckled down with a will and
did his best, though it was all new and strange. Francois was stern, demanding
instant obedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant obedience;
while Dave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Buck's hind quarters whenever
he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced, and while he
could not always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof now and again, or
cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck into the way he should
go. Buck learned easily, and under the combined tuition of his two mates
and Francois made remarkable progress. Ere they returned to camp he knew
enough to stop at "ho," to go ahead at "mush," to swing wide on the bends,
and to keep clear of the wheeler when the loaded sled shot downhill at their
heels.
"T'ree vair' good dogs," Francois told Perrault. "Dat Buck, heem pool lak
hell. I tich heem queek as anyt'ing."
By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with his
despatches, returned with two more dogs. "Billee" and "Joe" he called them,
two brothers, and true huskies both. Sons of the one mother though they were,
they were as different as day and night. Billee's one fault was his excessive
good nature, while Joe was the very opposite, sour and introspective, with
a perpetual snarl and a malignant eye. Buck received them in comradely fashion,
Dave ignored them, while Spitz proceeded to thrash first one and then the
other. Billee wagged his tail appeasingly, turned to run when he saw that
appeasement was of no avail, and cried (still appeasingly) when Spitz's sharp
teeth scored his flank. But no matter how Spitz circled, Joe whirled around
on his heels to face him, mane bristling, ears laid back, lips writhing and
snarling, jaws clipping together as fast as he could snap, and eyes diabolically
gleaming--the incarnation of belligerent fear. So terrible was his appearance
that Spitz was forced to forego disciplining him; but to cover his own
discomfiture he turned upon the inoffensive and wailing Billee and drove
him to the confines of the camp.
By evening Perrault secured another dog, an old husky, long and lean and
gaunt, with a battle-scarred face and a single eye which flashed a warning
of prowess that commanded respect. He was called Sol-leks, which means the
Angry One. Like Dave, he asked nothing, gave nothing, expected nothing; and
when he marched slowly and deliberately into their midst, even Spitz left
him alone. He had one peculiarity which Buck was unlucky enough to discover.
He did not like to be approached on his blind side. Of this offence Buck
was unwittingly guilty, and the first knowledge he had of his indiscretion
was when Sol-leks whirled upon him and slashed his shoulder to the bone for
three inches up and down. Forever after Buck avoided his blind side, and
to the last of their comradeship had no more trouble. His only apparent ambition,
like Dave's, was to be left alone; though, as Buck was afterward to learn,
each of them possessed one other and even more vital ambition.
That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent, illumined
by a candle, glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain; and when he,
as a matter of course, entered it, both Perrault and Francois bombarded him
with curses and cooking utensils, till he recovered from his consternation
and fled ignominiously into the outer cold. A chill wind was blowing that
nipped him sharply and bit with especial venom into his wounded shoulder.
He lay down on the snow and attempted to sleep, but the frost soon drove
him shivering to his feet. Miserable and disconsolate, he wandered about
among the many tents, only to find that one place was as cold as another.
Here and there savage dogs rushed upon him, but he bristled his neck-hair
and snarled (for he was learning fast), and they let him go his way unmolested.
Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own team-mates
were making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared. Again he wandered
about through the great camp, looking for them, and again he returned. Were
they in the tent? No, that could not be, else he would not have been driven
out. Then where could they possibly be? With drooping tail and shivering
body, very forlorn indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow
gave way beneath his fore legs and he sank down. Something wriggled under
his feet. He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and
unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to
investigate. A whiff of warm air ascended to his nostrils, and there, curled
up under the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. He whined placatingly, squirmed
and wriggled to show his good will and intentions, and even ventured, as
a bribe for peace, to lick Buck's face with his warm wet tongue.
Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buck confidently selected
a spot, and with much fuss and waste effort proceeded to dig a hole for himself.
In a trice the heat from his body filled the confined space and he was asleep.
The day had been long and arduous, and he slept soundly and comfortably,
though he growled and barked and wrestled with bad dreams.
Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the noises of the waking camp. At
first he did not know where he was. It had snowed during the night and he
was completely buried. The snow walls pressed him on every side, and a great
surge of fear swept through him--the fear of the wild thing for the trap.
It was a token that he was harking back through his own life to the lives
of his forebears; for he was a civilized dog, an unduly civilized dog, and
of his own experience knew no trap and so could not of himself fear it. The
muscles of his whole body contracted spasmodically and instinctively, the
hair on his neck and shoulders stood on end, and with a ferocious snarl he
bounded straight up into the blinding day, the snow flying about him in a
flashing cloud. Ere he landed on his feet, he saw the white camp spread out
before him and knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from
the time he went for a stroll with Manuel to the hole he had dug for himself
the night before.
A shout from Francois hailed his appearance. "Wot I say?" the dog-driver
cried to Perrault. "Dat Buck for sure learn queek as anyt'ing."
Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the Canadian Government, bearing
important despatches, he was anxious to secure the best dogs, and he was
particularly gladdened by the possession of Buck.
Three more huskies were added to the team inside an hour, making a total
of nine, and before another quarter of an hour had passed they were in harness
and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Canon. Buck was glad to be gone,
and though the work was hard he found he did not particularly despise it.
He was surprised at the eagerness which animated the whole team and which
was communicated to him; but still more surprising was the change wrought
in Dave and Sol-leks. They were new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness.
All passiveness and unconcern had dropped from them. They were alert and
active, anxious that the work should go well, and fiercely irritable with
whatever, by delay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces
seemed the supreme expression of their being, and all that they lived for
and the only thing in which they took delight. Dave was wheeler or sled dog,
pulling in front of him was Buck, then came Sol-leks; the rest of the team
was strung out ahead, single file, to the leader, which position was filled
by Spitz.
Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so that he might
receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they were equally apt teachers,
never allowing him to linger long in error, and enforcing their teaching
with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and very wise. He never nipped Buck
without cause, and he never failed to nip him when he stood in need of it.
As Francois's whip backed him up, Buck found it to be cheaper to mend his
ways than to retaliate. Once, during a brief halt, when he got tangled in
the traces and delayed the start, both Dave and Sol- leks flew at him and
administered a sound trouncing. The resulting tangle was even worse, but
Buck took good care to keep the traces clear thereafter; and ere the day
was done, so well had he mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging
him. Francois's whip snapped less frequently, and Perrault even honored Buck
by lifting up his feet and carefully examining them.
It was a hard day's run, up the Canon, through Sheep Camp, past the Scales
and the timber line, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of feet deep,
and over the great Chilcoot Divide, which stands between the salt water and
the fresh and guards forbiddingly the sad and lonely North. They made good
time down the chain of lakes which fills the craters of extinct volcanoes,
and late that night pulled into the huge camp at the head of Lake Bennett,
where thousands of goldseekers were building boats against the break-up of
the ice in the spring. Buck made his hole in the snow and slept the sleep
of the exhausted just, but all too early was routed out in the cold darkness
and harnessed with his mates to the sled.
That day they made forty miles, the trail being packed; but the next day,
and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, worked harder, and
made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault travelled ahead of the team, packing
the snow with webbed shoes to make it easier for them. Francois, guiding
the sled at the gee- pole, sometimes exchanged places with him, but not often.
Perrault was in a hurry, and he prided himself on his knowledge of ice, which
knowledge was indispensable, for the fall ice was very thin, and where there
was swift water, there was no ice at all.
Day after day, for days unending, Buck toiled in the traces. Always, they
broke camp in the dark, and the first gray of dawn found them hitting the
trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them. And always they pitched camp
after dark, eating their bit of fish, and crawling to sleep into the snow.
Buck was ravenous. The pound and a half of sun-dried salmon, which was his
ration for each day, seemed to go nowhere. He never had enough, and suffered
from perpetual hunger pangs. Yet the other dogs, because they weighed less
and were born to the life, received a pound only of the fish and managed
to keep in good condition.
He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterized his old life.
A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed him of his
unfinished ration. There was no defending it. While he was fighting off two
or three, it was disappearing down the throats of the others. To remedy this,
he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger compel him, he was not
above taking what did not belong to him. He watched and learned. When he
saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clever malingerer and thief, slyly steal
a slice of bacon when Perrault's back was turned, he duplicated the performance
the following day, getting away with the whole chunk. A great uproar was
raised, but he was unsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always
getting caught, was punished for Buck's misdeed.
This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland
environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to
changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible
death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature,
a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence. It was
all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to
respect private property and personal feelings; but in the Northland, under
the law of club and fang, whoso took such things into account was a fool,
and in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper.
Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, and unconsciously
he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. All his days, no matter
what the odds, he had never run from a fight. But the club of the man in
the red sweater had beaten into him a more fundamental and primitive code.
Civilized, he could have died for a moral consideration, say the defence
of Judge Miller's riding-whip; but the completeness of his decivilization
was now evidenced by his ability to flee from the defence of a moral
consideration and so save his hide. He did not steal for joy of it, but because
of the clamor of his stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and
cunningly, out of respect for club and fang. In short, the things he did
were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them.
His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles became hard as
iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an internal as
well as external economy. He could eat anything, no matter how loathsome
or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomach extracted the
last least particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it to the farthest
reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest of tissues.
Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearing developed such
acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest sound and knew whether
it heralded peace or peril. He learned to bite the ice out with his teeth
when it collected between his toes; and when he was thirsty and there was
a thick scum of ice over the water hole, he would break it by rearing and
striking it with stiff fore legs. His most conspicuous trait was an ability
to scent the wind and forecast it a night in advance. No matter how breathless
the air when he dug his nest by tree or bank, the wind that later blew inevitably
found him to leeward, sheltered and snug.
And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive
again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered
back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged in packs
through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down. It
was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf
snap. In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old
life within him, and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity
of the breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery,
as though they had been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he
pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors,
dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries
and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which
voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stiffness, and the
cold, and dark.
Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged through
him and he came into his own again; and he came because men had found a yellow
metal in the North, and because Manuel was a gardener's helper whose wages
did not lap over the needs of his wife and divers small copies of himself.
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