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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.




Chapter III. The Dominant Primordial Beast


The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under the fierce
conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth.
His newborn cunning gave him poise and control. He was too busy
adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease, and not only did
he not pick fights, but he avoided them whenever possible. A certain
deliberateness characterized his attitude. He was not prone to rashness
and precipitate action; and in the bitter hatred between him and Spitz
he betrayed no impatience, shunned all offensive acts.

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Spitz was a practised fighter. From Spitzbergen through the Arctic, and
across Canada and the Barrens, he had held his own with all manner of
dogs and achieved to mastery over them. Bitter rage was his, but never
blind rage. In passion to rend and destroy, he never forgot that his
enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy. He never rushed till
he was prepared to receive a rush; never attacked till he had first
defended that attack.

In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the big white dog.
Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh, they were countered by
the fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and lips were cut and bleeding,
but Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard. Then he warmed up and
enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and time again he tried
for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near to the surface, and
each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away. Then Buck took
to rushing, as though for the throat, when, suddenly drawing back his
head and curving in from the side, he would drive his shoulder at the
shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which to overthrow him. But instead,
Buck's shoulder was slashed down each time as Spitz leaped lightly away.

Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood and panting
hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the while the silent and
wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down. As Buck
grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggering for
footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogs started
up; but he recovered himself, almost in mid air, and the circle sank
down again and waited.

But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness--imagination. He
fought by instinct, but he could fight by head as well. He rushed, as
though attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last instant swept
low to the snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitz's left fore leg. There
was a crunch of breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on three
legs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated the trick and
broke the right fore leg. Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitz
struggled madly to keep up. He saw the silent circle, with gleaming
eyes, lolling tongues, and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing in
upon him as he had seen similar circles close in upon beaten antagonists
in the past. Only this time he was the one who was beaten.

There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy was a thing
reserved for gentler climes. He manoeuvred for the final rush. The
circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths of the huskies on
his flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side, half
crouching for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause seemed to
fall. Every animal was motionless as though turned to stone. Only Spitz
quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth, snarling with
horrible menace, as though to frighten off impending death. Then Buck
sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder had at last squarely
met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot on the moon-flooded snow as
Spitz disappeared from view. Buck stood and looked on, the successful
champion, the dominant primordial beast who had made his kill and found
it good.




Chapter IV. 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 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.

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