Acme-KeyboardMarathon
view release on metacpan or search on metacpan
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
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
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
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.
On the other hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous
rival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He even
went out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly to start the
that spurred them on all day and dropped them at pitch of camp at night,
letting them fall back into gloomy unrest and uncontent. This was the
pride that bore up Spitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who blundered
and shirked in the traces or hid away at harness-up time in the morning.
Likewise it was this pride that made him fear Buck as a possible
lead-dog. And this was Buck's pride, too.
He openly threatened the other's leadership. He came between him and the
shirks he should have punished. And he did it deliberately. One night
there was a heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike, the malingerer,
did not appear. He was securely hidden in his nest under a foot of snow.
Francois called him and sought him in vain. Spitz was wild with wrath.
He raged through the camp, smelling and digging in every likely
place, snarling so frightfully that Pike heard and shivered in his
hiding-place.
But when he was at last unearthed, and Spitz flew at him to punish him,
Buck flew, with equal rage, in between. So unexpected was it, and so
shrewdly managed, that Spitz was hurled backward and off his feet. Pike,
who had been trembling abjectly, took heart at this open mutiny,
and sprang upon his overthrown leader. Buck, to whom fair play was a
Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches if anything more urgent
than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride had gripped him,
and he purposed to make the record trip of the year. Several things
favored him in this. The week's rest had recuperated the dogs and put
them in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into the country was
packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the police had arranged
in two or three places deposits of grub for dog and man, and he was
travelling light.
They made Sixty Mile, which is a fifty-mile run, on the first day; and
the second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way to Pelly.
But such splendid running was achieved not without great trouble and
vexation on the part of Francois. The insidious revolt led by Buck
had destroyed the solidarity of the team. It no longer was as one dog
leaping in the traces. The encouragement Buck gave the rebels led them
into all kinds of petty misdemeanors. No more was Spitz a leader greatly
to be feared. The old awe departed, and they grew equal to challenging
his authority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one night, and gulped
it down under the protection of Buck. Another night Dub and Joe fought
Spitz and made him forego the punishment they deserved. And even
Billee, the good-natured, was less good-natured, and whined not half
the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair. His lash was always singing
among the dogs, but it was of small avail. Directly his back was turned
they were at it again. He backed up Spitz with his whip, while Buck
backed up the remainder of the team. Francois knew he was behind all the
trouble, and Buck knew he knew; but Buck was too clever ever again to be
caught red-handed. He worked faithfully in the harness, for the toil
had become a delight to him; yet it was a greater delight slyly to
precipitate a fight amongst his mates and tangle the traces.
At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turned up a
snowshoe rabbit, blundered it, and missed. In a second the whole team
was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp of the Northwest
Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined the chase. The rabbit
sped down the river, turned off into a small creek, up the frozen bed of
which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the surface of the snow, while
the dogs ploughed through by main strength. Buck led the pack, sixty
strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. He lay down low
to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing forward, leap
by leap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap by leap, like some pale
frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead.
The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remained there the whole
trip. The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs were kept on the jump,
with but infrequent stoppages.
The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and they
covered 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 Barge to
the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett (seventy miles
of lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it was to run
towed behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the last night of the
second week they topped White Pass and dropped down the sea slope with
the lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at their feet.
It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averaged forty
miles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up and down the
main street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations to drink, while
the team was the constant centre of a worshipful crowd of dog-busters
and mushers. Then three or four western bad men aspired to clean out
the town, were riddled like pepper-boxes for their pains, and public
interest turned to other idols. Next came official orders. Francois
called Buck to him, threw his arms around him, wept over him. And that
"Why shouldn't it?" Charles demanded rather shortly.
"Oh, that's all right, that's all right," the man hastened meekly to
say. "I was just a-wonderin', that is all. It seemed a mite top-heavy."
Charles turned his back and drew the lashings down as well as he could,
which was not in the least well.
"An' of course the dogs can hike along all day with that contraption
behind them," affirmed a second of the men.
"Certainly," said Hal, with freezing politeness, taking hold of the
gee-pole with one hand and swinging his whip from the other. "Mush!" he
shouted. "Mush on there!"
The dogs sprang against the breast-bands, strained hard for a few
moments, then relaxed. They were unable to move the sled.
"The lazy brutes, I'll show them," he cried, preparing to lash out at
them with the whip.
cap it all, when Mercedes, with tears in her pretty eyes and a quaver
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
in the days all manner of creeping, crawling things rustled forth into
the sun. Partridges and woodpeckers were booming and knocking in the
forest. Squirrels were chattering, birds singing, and overhead honked
the wild-fowl driving up from the south in cunning wedges that split the
air.
From every hill slope came the trickle of running water, the music of
unseen fountains. All things were thawing, bending, snapping. The Yukon
was straining to break loose the ice that bound it down. It ate away
from beneath; the sun ate from above. Air-holes formed, fissures sprang
and spread apart, while thin sections of ice fell through bodily into
the river. And amid all this bursting, rending, throbbing of awakening
life, under the blazing sun and through the soft-sighing breezes, like
wayfarers to death, staggered the two men, the woman, and the huskies.
With the dogs falling, Mercedes weeping and riding, Hal swearing
innocuously, and Charles's eyes wistfully watering, they staggered into
John Thornton's camp at the mouth of White River. When they halted,
the dogs dropped down as though they had all been struck dead. Mercedes
dried her eyes and looked at John Thornton. Charles sat down on a log
to rest. He sat down very slowly and painstakingly what of his great
loaded sled. Hal guided at the gee-pole, and Charles stumbled along in
the rear.
As Buck watched them, Thornton knelt beside him and with rough, kindly
hands searched for broken bones. By the time his search had disclosed
nothing more than many bruises and a state of terrible starvation, the
sled was a quarter of a mile away. Dog and man watched it crawling along
over the ice. Suddenly, they saw its back end drop down, as into a rut,
and the gee-pole, with Hal clinging to it, jerk into the air. Mercedes's
scream came to their ears. They saw Charles turn and make one step to
run back, and then a whole section of ice give way and dogs and humans
disappear. A yawning hole was all that was to be seen. The bottom had
dropped out of the trail.
John Thornton and Buck looked at each other.
"You poor devil," said John Thornton, and Buck licked his hand.
Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundred
yards, amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When he felt
him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all his
splendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progress
down-stream amazingly rapid. From below came the fatal roaring where the
wild current went wilder and was rent in shreds and spray by the rocks
which thrust through like the teeth of an enormous comb. The suck of the
water as it took the beginning of the last steep pitch was frightful,
and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. He scraped furiously
over a rock, bruised across a second, and struck a third with crushing
force. He clutched its slippery top with both hands, releasing Buck, and
above the roar of the churning water shouted: "Go, Buck! Go!"
Buck could not hold his own, and swept on down-stream, struggling
desperately, but unable to win back. When he heard Thornton's command
repeated, he partly reared out of the water, throwing his head high, as
though for a last look, then turned obediently toward the bank. He swam
powerfully and was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at the very point
where swimming ceased to be possible and destruction began.
Hans and Pete threw themselves upon him, pounding the breath into him
and the water out of him. He staggered to his feet and fell down. The
faint sound of Thornton's voice came to them, and though they could not
make out the words of it, they knew that he was in his extremity. His
master's voice acted on Buck like an electric shock, He sprang to his
feet and ran up the bank ahead of the men to the point of his previous
departure.
Again the rope was attached and he was launched, and again he struck
out, but this time straight into the stream. He had miscalculated once,
but he would not be guilty of it a second time. Hans paid out the rope,
permitting no slack, while Pete kept it clear of coils. Buck held on
till he was on a line straight above Thornton; then he turned, and with
the speed of an express train headed down upon him. Thornton saw him
coming, and, as Buck struck him like a battering ram, with the whole
force of the current behind him, he reached up and closed with both arms
around the shaggy neck. Hans snubbed the rope around the tree, and
Buck and Thornton were jerked under the water. Strangling, suffocating,
sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other, dragging over the
jagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags, they veered in to the
bank.
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."
"And break it out? and walk off with it for a hundred yards?" demanded
Matthewson, a Bonanza King, he of the seven hundred vaunt.
"And break it out, and walk off with it for a hundred yards," John
Thornton said coolly.
seventy miles up the Yukon, swung to the left into the Stewart River,
passed the Mayo and the McQuestion, and held on until the Stewart itself
became a streamlet, threading the upstanding peaks which marked the
backbone of the continent.
John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of the
wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into the
wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased. Being
in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the course of the
day's travel; and if he failed to find it, like the Indian, he kept on
travelling, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later he would come
to it. So, on this great journey into the East, straight meat was the
bill of fare, ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the
sled, and the time-card was drawn upon the limitless future.
To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, and indefinite
wandering through strange places. For weeks at a time they would hold
on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end they would camp, here
and there, the dogs loafing and the men burning holes through frozen
muck and gravel and washing countless pans of dirt by the heat of the
fire. Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes they feasted riotously, all
"Never was there such a dog," said John Thornton one day, as the
partners 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 instant and
terrible transformation which took place as soon as he was within the
secrecy of the forest. He no longer marched. At once he became a thing
of the wild, stealing along softly, cat-footed, a passing shadow
that appeared and disappeared among the shadows. He knew how to take
advantage of every cover, to crawl on his belly like a snake, and like a
snake to leap and strike. He could take a ptarmigan from its nest, kill
a rabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing
a second too late for the trees. Fish, in open pools, were not too quick
for him; nor were beaver, mending their dams, too wary. He killed
to eat, 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 steal upon 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 greater
abundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and less
rigorous valleys. Buck had already dragged down a stray part-grown calf;
but he wished strongly for larger and more formidable quarry, and he
time in his life he allowed passion to usurp cunning and reason, and it
was because of his great love for John Thornton that he lost his head.
The Yeehats were dancing about the wreckage of the spruce-bough lodge
when they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon them an animal
the like of which they had never seen before. It was Buck, a live
hurricane of fury, hurling himself upon them in a frenzy to destroy. He
sprang at the foremost man (it was the chief of the Yeehats), ripping
the throat wide open till the rent jugular spouted a fountain of blood.
He did not pause to worry the victim, but ripped in passing, with
the next bound tearing wide the throat of a second man. There was
no withstanding him. He plunged about in their very midst, tearing,
rending, destroying, in constant and terrific motion which defied the
arrows they discharged at him. In fact, so inconceivably rapid were his
movements, and so closely were the Indians tangled together, that they
shot one another with the arrows; and one young hunter, hurling a spear
at Buck in mid air, drove it through the chest of another hunter with
such force that the point broke through the skin of the back and stood
out beyond. Then a panic seized the Yeehats, and they fled in terror to
the woods, proclaiming as they fled the advent of the Evil Spirit.
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
( run in 1.059 second using v1.01-cache-2.11-cpan-39bf76dae61 )