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Francois's speech next morning when he discovered Spitz missing and Buck
covered with wounds. He drew him to the fire and by its light pointed
them out.

"Dat Spitz fight lak hell," said Perrault, as he surveyed the gaping
rips and cuts.

"An' dat Buck fight lak two hells," was Francois's answer. "An' now we
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 place
Spitz would have occupied as leader; but Francois, not noticing him,
brought Sol-leks to the coveted position. In his judgment, Sol-leks was
the best lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury, driving him
back and standing in his place.

"Eh? eh?" Francois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. "Look at dat
Buck. Heem keel dat Spitz, heem t'ink to take de job."

"Go 'way, Chook!" he cried, but Buck refused to budge.

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turned and sloped steeply into the main street. It would have required
an experienced man to keep the top-heavy sled upright, and Hal was not
such a man. As they swung on the turn the sled went over, spilling
half its load through the loose lashings. The dogs never stopped. The
lightened sled bounded on its side behind them. They were angry because
of the ill treatment they had received and the unjust load. Buck was
raging. He broke into a run, the team following his lead. Hal cried
"Whoa! whoa!" but they gave no heed. He tripped and was pulled off his
feet. The capsized sled ground over him, and the dogs dashed on up the
street, adding to the gayety of Skaguay as they scattered the remainder
of the outfit along its chief thoroughfare.

Kind-hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered up the scattered
belongings. Also, they gave advice. Half the load and twice the dogs,
if they ever expected to reach Dawson, was what was said. Hal and
his sister and brother-in-law listened unwillingly, pitched tent, and
overhauled the outfit. Canned goods were turned out that made men laugh,
for canned goods on the Long Trail is a thing to dream about. "Blankets
for a hotel" quoth one of the men who laughed and helped. "Half as
many is too much; get rid of them. Throw away that tent, and all those
dishes,--who's going to wash them, anyway? Good Lord, do you think
you're travelling on a Pullman?"

And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the superfluous. Mercedes
cried when her clothes-bags were dumped on the ground and article
after article was thrown out. She cried in general, and she cried in
particular over each discarded thing. She clasped hands about knees,
rocking back and forth broken-heartedly. She averred she would not go
an inch, not for a dozen Charleses. She appealed to everybody and to
everything, finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to cast out even
articles of apparel that were imperative necessaries. And in her zeal,
when she had finished with her own, she attacked the belongings of her
men and went through them like a tornado.

This accomplished, the outfit, though cut in half, was still a
formidable bulk. Charles and Hal went out in the evening and bought six
Outside dogs. These, added to the six of the original team, and Teek
and Koona, the huskies obtained at the Rink Rapids on the record
trip, brought the team up to fourteen. But the Outside dogs, though
practically broken in since their landing, did not amount to much. Three
were short-haired pointers, one was a Newfoundland, and the other
two were mongrels of indeterminate breed. They did not seem to know
anything, these newcomers. Buck and his comrades looked upon them with
disgust, and though he speedily taught them their places and what not
to do, he could not teach them what to do. They did not take kindly

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in her throat, could not cajole him into giving the dogs still more, she
stole from the fish-sacks and fed them slyly. But it was not food that
Buck and the huskies needed, but rest. And though they were making poor
time, the heavy load they dragged sapped their strength severely.

Then came the underfeeding. Hal awoke one day to the fact that his
dog-food was half gone and the distance only quarter covered; further,
that for love or money no additional dog-food was to be obtained. So
he cut down even the orthodox ration and tried to increase the day's
travel. His sister and brother-in-law seconded him; but they were
frustrated by their heavy outfit and their own incompetence. It was a
simple matter to give the dogs less food; but it was impossible to
make the dogs travel faster, while their own inability to get under way
earlier in the morning prevented them from travelling longer hours. Not
only did they not know how to work dogs, but they did not know how to
work themselves.

The first to go was Dub. Poor blundering thief that he was, always
getting caught and punished, he had none the less been a faithful
worker. His wrenched shoulder-blade, untreated and unrested, went from
bad to worse, till finally Hal shot him with the big Colt's revolver. It

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howl, while Skeet was licking the wet face and closed eyes. Thornton was
himself bruised and battered, and he went carefully over Buck's body,
when he had been brought around, finding three broken ribs.

"That settles it," he announced. "We camp right here." And camp they
did, till Buck's ribs knitted and he was able to travel.

That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another exploit, not so heroic,
perhaps, but one that put his name many notches higher on the totem-pole
of Alaskan fame. This exploit was particularly gratifying to the three
men; for they stood in need of the outfit which it furnished, and were
enabled to make a long-desired trip into the virgin East, where miners
had not yet appeared. It was brought about by a conversation in the
Eldorado Saloon, in which men waxed boastful of their favorite dogs.
Buck, because of his record, was the target for these men, and Thornton
was driven stoutly to defend him. At the end of half an hour one man
stated that his dog could start a sled with five hundred pounds and
walk off with it; a second bragged six hundred for his dog; and a third,
seven hundred.

"Pooh! pooh!" said John Thornton; "Buck can start a thousand pounds."