Latest / Audiobooks & Scary Stories / The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Transcript

The Call of the Wild by Jack London · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: work in the public domain, The Call of the Wild
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: by Jack London, Chapter one into the primitive old longing's
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: nomadic leap, chafing at custom's chain again from its brumo
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: sleep wakens the furine strain. Buck did not read the newspapers,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: alone for himself, but for every tide water dog, strong
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of mussel and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to San Diego. Because men groping in the Arctic darkness
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: companies were booming to find thousands of men were rushing
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Buck lived at a big house in the sun kissed
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Santa Clara Valley, Judge Miller's Place it was called. It
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: stood back from the road, half hidden among the trees
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: through which glimpses could be caught of the wide cool
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: verandah that ran around its four sides. The house was
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: approached by gravel driveways, which wound about through wide, spreading
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the rear things were on even a more spacious scale
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: than at the front. There were great stables where a
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vineclad servants, cottages,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: green pastures orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: where Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: cool in the hot afternoon. And over this great Domaine
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he had
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: lived the four years of his life. It was true
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: there were other dogs. There could not but be other
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: dogs on so vast a place, But they did not count.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: lived obscurely in the recesses of the house, after the
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: fashion of Toots the Japanese pug or Isabel the Mexican
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: hairless strange creatures that rarely put nose out of doors
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: or set foot to ground. On the other hand, There
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: were the fox terriers, a score of them at least,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: who yelped fearful promises at Toots and Isabel, looking out
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of the windows at them, and protected by a legion
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: of housemaids armed with brooms and mops. But Buck was
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: neither house dog nor kennel dog. The whole realm was his.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: He plunged into the swimming tank, or went hunting with
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the judges sons. He escorted Molly and Alice, the Judge's daughters,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: on long twilight or early morning rambles. On wintry nights,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: he lay at the Judge's feet before the roaring library fire.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: He carried the Judge's grandsons on his back, or rolled
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: even beyond, where the paddocks were and the berry patches.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Isabel
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: he utterly ignored, for he was king, king over all creeping, crawling,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: flying things of Judge Miller's place. Humans included his father, Elmo,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a huge saint. Bernard had been the Judge's inseparable companion,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and but bid fair to follow in the way of
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: his father. He was not so large. He weighed only
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: one hundred forty pounds. For his mother shep had been
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a Scotch shepherd dog. Nevertheless, one hundred and forty pounds
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to which was added the dignity that comes of good
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: living in universal respect enabled him to carry himself in
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: right royal fashion. During the four years since his puppyhood,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat. He
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: as country gentlemen sometimes become because of their insular situation.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: But he had saved himself by not becoming a mere
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: pampered house dog. Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: down the fat and hardened his muscles. And to him,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: as to the cold tubbing races, the love of water
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: had been a tonic and a health preserver. And this
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: was the manner of dog. Buck was in the fall
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of eighteen ninety seven, when the Klondike strike dragged men
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: did not read the newspapers, and he did not know
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: that Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Also in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness, faith
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: in a system, and this made his damnation certain, for
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to play a system requires money, while the wages of
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: a gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: a wife and numerous progeny. The judge was at a
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: meeting of the Raisin Growers Association, and the boys were
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: busy organizing an athletic club. On the memorable night of
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Manuel's treachery, no one saw him and Buck go off
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: through the orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and with the exception of a solitary man, no one
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: saw them arrive at the little flag station known as
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: College Park. This man talked with Manuel and money chinked
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: between them. You might wrap up the goods before you deliver,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: m the stranger said, gruffly, and Manoel doubled a piece
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of stout rope around Buck's neck under the collar, Twist
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: it and gilchoke m plantee, said Manuel, and the stranger
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: grunted a ready affirmative. Buck had accepted the rope with
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an unwonted performance,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: but he had learned to trust in men he knew,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: his own. But when the ends of the rope were
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: placed in the stranger's hands, he growled menacingly. He had
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: merely intimated his displeasure in his pride, believing that to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: intimate was to command. But to his surprise, the rope
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: typed around his neck, shutting off his breath. In quick rage,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: he sprang at the man who met him half way,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft twist,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: threw him over on his back. Then the rope tightened mercilessly,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling out
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: of his mouth and his great chest panting futily. Never
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: in all his life had he been so vilely treated,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and never in all his life had he been so angry.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knew nothing.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: When the train was flagged and the two men threw
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: him into the baggage car. The next he knew he
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting, and that
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: he was being jolted along in some kind of a conveyance.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: The hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing told
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: him where he was. He had traveled too often with
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the judge not to know the sensation of riding in
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: a baggage car. He opened his eyes, and into them
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king. The man
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: sprang for his throat, but buck was too quick for him.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they relax
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: till his senses were choked out of him once more.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Yep has fits, the man said, hiding his mangled hand
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: from the baggage man, who had been attracted by the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: sounds of struggle. I'm tucken em up for the boss
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to Frisco. A crack dog doctor there thinks that he
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: can cure M. Concerning that knight's ride, the man spoke
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: most eloquently for himself in a little shed back of
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: a saloon on the San Francisco water front. All I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: get is fifty for it, he grumbled, And I wouldn't
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: do it over for a thousand cold cash. His hand
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right trouser
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: leg was ripped from knee to ankle. How much did
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the other mug get the saloon keeper demanded? A hundred
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: was the reply, wouldn't take us so less? So help me.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: That makes a hundred and fifty, the saloon keeper coutated,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And he's worth it, or I'm a square head. The
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his lacerated hand.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: If I don't get the hydrophoby, it'll be because you
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: was born to hang, laughed the saloon keeper. Here, lend
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: me a hand before you pull your freight, he added. Dazed,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with the light
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: but he was thrown down and choked repeatedly till they
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: succeeded in filing the heavy brass collar from off his neck.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Then the rope was removed and he was flung into
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a cage like crate. There he lay for the remainder
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of the weary night, nursing his wrath and wounded pride.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: He could not understand what it all meant. What did
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: they want with him, these strange men. Why were they
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: keeping him pent up in this narrow crate. He did
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: sense of impending calamity. Several times during the night he
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled open,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: expecting to see the judge or the boys at least,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: But each time it was the bulging face of the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: saloon keeper that peered in at him by the sickly
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: light of a tallow candle. And each time the joyful
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: bark that trembled in Buck's throat was twisted into a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: savage growl. But the saloon keeper let him alone, and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: in the morning four men entered and picked up the crate,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: more tormentors, Buck decided, for they were evil looking creatures,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: ragged and unkempt, and he stormed and raged at them
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: through the bars. They only laughed and poked sticks at him,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: which he promptly assailed with his teeth, till he realized
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: that that was what they wanted, whereupon he lay down
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: sullenly and allowed the crate to be lifted into a wagon.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Then he and the crate in which he was imprisoned,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: began a passage through many hands. Clerks in the express
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: office took charge of him. He was carted about in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: another wagon. A truck carried him with an assortment of
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: boxes and parcels upon a fairy steamer. He was trucked
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: off the steamer into a great railway depot, and finally
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: he was deposited in an express car. For two days
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and nights, this express car was dragged along at the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: tail of shrieking locomotives, and for two days and Knight's
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: buck neither ate nor drank. In his anger, he had
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: met the first advances of the express messengers with growls,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: and they had retaliated by teasing him. When he flung
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: himself against the bars, quivering and frothing, they laughed at
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: him and taunted him. They growled and barked like detestable dogs,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: mewed and flapped their arms and crowed. It was all
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: very silly, he knew, But therefore the more outrage to
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: his dignity, and his anger waxed and waxed. He did
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: not mind the hunger so much, but the lack of
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: water caused him severe suffering and fanned his wrath to
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: fever pitch for that matter, high strung and finely sensitive,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the ill treeat had flung him into a fever which
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: was fed by the inflammation of his parched and swollen
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: throat and tongue. He was glad for one thing. The
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: rope was off his neck. That had given them an
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: unfair advantage. But now that it was off, he would
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: show them they would never get another rope around his neck.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Upon that he was resolved. For two days and nights
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: he neither ate nor drank, And during those two days
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and nights of torment he accumulated a fund of wrath
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: His eyes turned blood shot, and he was metamorphosed into
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a raging fiend. So changed was he that the judge
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: himself would not have recognized him, and the express messengers
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: breathed with relief when they bundled him off the train
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: at Seattle. For men gingerly carried the crate from the
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: wagon into a small, high walled back yard. A stout
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: man with a red sweater that sagged generously at the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: neck came out and signed the book for the driver.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: That was the man buck divined. The next tormentor, and
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: he hurled himself savagely against the bars. The man smiled
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: grimly and brought a hatchet and a club. You ain't
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: going to take him out now, the driver asked, sure,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: The man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: a prye. There was an instantaneous scattering of the four
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: men who had carried it in, and from safe perches
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: on top the wall, they prepared to watch the performance.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Buck rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: surging and wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the outside, he was there on the inside, snarling and growling,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: as furiously anxious to get out as the man in
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the red sweater was calmly intent on getting him out. Now,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: you red eyed devil, he said, when he had made
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: an opening sufficient for the passage of Buck's body. At
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the same time, he dropped the hatchet and shifted the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: club to his right hand. And Buck was truly a
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: red eye as he drew himself together for the spring,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: hair bristling mouth, foaming a mad glitter in his bloodshot eyes.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Straight at the man, he launched his one hundred and
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: forty pounds of fury. Surcharged with the pent passion of
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: two days and nights in mid air. Just as his
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: jaws were about to close on the man, he received
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: together with an agonizing clip. He whirled over, fetching the
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: ground on his back and side. He had never been
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: struck by a club in his life and did not understand.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: With a snarl that was part bark and more scream,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: he was again on his feet and launched into the air,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And again the shock came and he was brought crushingly
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: to the ground. This time he was aware that it
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: was the club, but his madness knew no caution. A
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: dozen times he charged, and as often the club broke
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the charge and smashed him down. After a particularly fierce blow,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: he crawled to his feet two days to rush. He
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: staggered limply about the blood flowing from nose and mouth
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: and ears. His beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with bloody slaver.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Then the man advanced and deliberately dealt him a frightful
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: blow on the nose. All the pain he had endured
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: was as nothing compared with the exquisite agony of this
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: with a roar that was almost lionlike in its ferocity.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: He again hurled himself at the man, but the man,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: shifting the club from right to left, coolly caught him
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: by the under jaw at the same time, wrenching downward
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and backward. Buck described a complete circle in the air
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and half of another, then crashed to the ground on
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: his head and chest. For the last time he rushed.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: The man struck the shrewd blow he had purposely withheld
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: for so long, and Buck crumpled up and went down,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: knocked utterly senseless. He's no slouch at dog breakin. That's
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: what I say. One of the men on the wall cried,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: enthusiastically drew their brake. Cayus's in and twice on Sundays,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: was the reply of the driver, as he climbed on
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the wagon and started the horses. Buck's senses came back
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to him, but not his strength. He lay where he
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: had fallen, and from there he watched the man in
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the red sweater answers to the name of Buck. The
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: man soliloquized, quoting from the saloon keeper's letter which had
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: announced the consignment of the crate and contents. Well, Buck,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: my boy, he went on in a genial voice. We've
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: had our little ruction, and the best thing we can
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: do is to let it go at that. You've learned
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: your place, and I know mine. Be a good dog
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: in all, fellow, go well, and the goose hang high.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Be a bad dog, and I'll wail the stuffin out.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: O you understand. As he spoke, he fearlessly patted the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: head he had so mercilessly pounded, and though Buck's hair
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: involuntarily bristled at touch of the hand, he endured it
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: without protest. When the man brought him water, he drank eagerly,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and later bolted a generous meal of raw meat, chunk
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: by chunk from the man's hand. He was beaten, he
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: knew that, but he was not broken. He saw once
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: for all that he stood no chance against a man
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: with a club. He had learned the lesson, and in
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: all his after life he never forgot it. That club
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. The
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: facts of life took on a fiercer aspect, and while
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the latent cunning of his nature aroused. As the days
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: went by, other dogs came in crates and at the
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: ends of ropes, some docilely and some raging and roaring
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: as he had come, And one and all he watched
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: them pass under the dominion of the man in the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: red sweater again and again. As he looked at each
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: brutal performance, the lesson was driven home to Buck. A
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: man with a club was a logiver, a master to
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: be obeyed, though not necessarily conciliated. Of this last, Buck
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: was never guilty, though he did see beaten dogs that
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: fawned upon the man and wagged their tails and licked
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: his hand. Also he saw one dog that would neither
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: conciliate nor obey, finally killed in the struggle for mastery.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Now and again men came strangers who talked excitedly, wheedlingly,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and in all kinds of fashions to the man in
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the red sweater. And at such times that money passed
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: between them, the strangers took one or more of the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: dogs away with them. Buck wondered where they went, for
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: they never came back. But the fear of the future
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: was strong upon him, and he was glad each time
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: when he was not selected. Yet his time came in
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the end in the form of a little reasoned man
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: who spat broken English and many strange and uncouth exclamations
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: which Buck could not understand. Sacradam, he cried when his
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: eyes lit upon Buck, Da damn bully dog? Eh, how
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: much three hundred and a present at? That was the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: prompt reply of the man in the red sweater, And
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: seem its government money. You ain't got no kick coming, eh, Perot.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Perot grinned, considering that the price of dogs had been
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: boomed skyward by the unwonted demand. It was not an
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: unfair sum for so fine an animal. The Canadian government
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: would be no loser, nor would its despatches travel the slower.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Peraut knew dogs, and when he looked at Buck, he
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: knew that he was one in a thousand, one in
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: ten ty thousand, he commented mentally. Buck saw money pass
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: between them, and was not surprised when Curley, a good
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the little
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: reasoned man. That was the last he saw of the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: man in the red sweater, And as curly and he
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: looked at receding seattle from the deck of the Narwhal.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: It was the last he saw of the warm Southland.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Curly and he were taken belowau by Perraut and turned
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: over to a black faced giant called Francois. Piaut was
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a French Canadian and swarthy, but Francois was a French
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Canadian half breed and twice as swarthy. They were a
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: new kind of men to Buck, of which he was
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: destined to see many more, And while he developed no
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: affection for them, he none the less grew honestly to
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: respect them. He speedily learned that Perraut and Francois were
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice, and too
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: wise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: In the tween decks of the Narwhal, Buck and Curly
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: joined two other dogs. One of them was a big
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: snow white fellow from Spitzbergen who had been brought away
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: by a wailing captain, and who had later accompanied a
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: geological survey into the barons. He was friendly in a
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's face the while
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: he meditated some underhand trick as, for instance, when he
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: stole from Buck's food at the first meal. As Buck's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: sprang to punish him, the lash of Francois's whip sang
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: through the air, reaching the culprit first, and nothing remained
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to Buck, but to recover the bone that was fair
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: of Francois, he decided, and the half breed began his rise.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: In Buck's estimation, the other dog made no advances, nor
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: received any. Also, he did not attempt to steal from
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the newcomers. He was a gloomy, morose fellow. And he
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: showed Curly plainly that all he desired was to be
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: left alone, and further that there would be trouble if
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: he were not left alone. Dave he was called, and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: he ate and slept or yawned between times, and took
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: interest in nothing, not even when the narvel crossed Queen
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Charlotte sound and rolled and pitched and bucked like a
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: thing possessed. When Buck and Curly grew excited, half wild
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: with fear, he raised his head as though annoyed, favored
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: them with an incurious glance, yawned and went to sleep again.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Day and night, the ship throbbed to the tireless pulse
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of the propeller, and though one day was very like another,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: it was apparent to Buck that the weather was steadily
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: growing colder. At last, one morning, the propeller was quiet
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and the narvel was pervaded with an atmosphere of excitement.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: He felt it, as did the other dogs, and knew
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: that a change was at hand. Francois leashed them and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: brought them on deck. At the first step upon the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: cold surface, Buck's feet sank into a white mushy, something
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: very like mud. He sprang back with a snort. More
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: of this white stuff was falling through the air. He
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: shook himself, but more of it fell upon him. He
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: sniffed it curiously, then licked some up on his tongue.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: It bit like fire, and the next instant was gone.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: This puzzled him. He tried it again with the same result.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: The onlookers laughed uproariously, and he felt ashamed. He knew
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: not why, for it was his first snow. Chapter two,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: The Law of Club and Fang. Buck's first day on
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the Dye Beach was like a nightmare. Every hour was
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: from the heart of civilization, flung into the heart of
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: things primordial, No lazy, sunkissed life was this with nothing
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to do but loaf and be bored. Here was neither peace,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confusion, action,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and every moment life and limb were in peril. There
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: was imperative need to be constantly alert, for these dogs
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: and men were not town dogs and men. They were savages,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: all of them, who knew no law but the law
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: of club and fawn. He had never seen dogs fight
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experience taught
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: him an unforgettable lesson. It is true it was a
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: by it. Curly was the victim. They were camped near
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the log's stone, where she, in her friendly way, made
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: advances to a husky dog the size of a full
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: grown wolf, though not half so large as she. There
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: was no warning, only a leap in like a flash,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out equally swift,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and Curley's face was ripped open from eye to jaw.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: leap away. But there was more to it than this.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and surrounded
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the combatants in an intent and silent circle. Buck did
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: not comprehend that silent intentness, nor the eager way with
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: which they were licking their chops. Curley rushed her antagonist,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: who struck again and leaped aside. He met her next
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: rush with his chest in a peculiar fashion that tumbled
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: her off her feet. She never regained them. This was
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: what the onlooking huskies had waited for. They closed in
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: upon her, snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: with agony, beneath the bristling mass of bodies. So sudden
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: was it, and so unexpected that Buck was taken aback.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: He saw spits run out his scarlet tongue in a
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: way he had of laughing, And he saw Francois swinging
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: an axe spring into the mess of dogs. Three men
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: with clubs were helping him to scatter them. It did
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: not take long. Two minutes from the time Curly went down,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the last of her assailants were clubbed off, but she
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: lay there, limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled snow,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: almost literally torn to pieces. The swart half breeds, standing
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: over her and cursing horribly. The scene often came back
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: was the way, no fair play. Once down, that was
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the end of you. Well, he would see to it
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: that he never went down. Spits, ran out his tongue
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and laughed again, And from that moment Buck hated him
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: with a bitter and deathless hatred. Before he had recovered
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: from the shock caused by the tragic passing of Curly,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he received another shock. Francois fastened upon him an arrangement
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: of straps and buckles. It was a harness, such as
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: he had seen the grooms put on the horses at home,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and as he had seen horses work. So he was
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: set to work, hauling Francois on a sledge to the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: forest that fringed the valley, and returning with a load
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of firewood. Though his dignity was sorely hurt by thus
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: being made a draft animal, he was too wise to rebel.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: He buckled down with a will and did his best.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Though it was all new and strange, Francois was stern,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: demanding instant obedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: instant obedience, while Dave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Buck's hind quarters whenever he was in error. Spitz was
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the leader, likewise experienced, and while he could not always
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof now and again,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: or cuttingly through his weight in the traces to jerk
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Buck into the way he should go. Buck learned easily,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: and under the combined tuition of his two mates, and
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Froncois made remarkable progress. Ere they returned to camp. He
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: knew enough to stop at ho, to go ahead at mush,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: of the wheeler when the loaded sledge shot downhill at
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: their heels tree There good dogs, Francois told Perraut dat
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: buck heem pool lack hell I titch heen queak as
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: enotay in gee. By afternoon, Pierot, who was in a
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: hurry to be on the trail with his despatches, returned
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: with two more dogs, bill Lee and Joe. He called
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: them two brothers and true huskies, both sons of the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: one mother. Though they were, they were as different as
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: day and night. Billie's one fault was his excessive good nature,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: while Joe was the very opposite, sour and introspective, with
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a perpetual snarl and a malignant eye. Buck received them
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: in comradleigh fashion. Dave ignored them, while Spits proceeded to thrash,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: first one and then the other. Billy wagged his tail appeasingly,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: turned to run when he saw that appeasement was of
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: no avail, and cried still appeasingly when Spitz's sharp teeth
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: scored his flank. But no matter how Spit circled, Joe
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: whirled around on his heels to face him, main bristling ears,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: laid back, lips writhing and snarling, jaws clipping together as
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: fast as he could snap, and eyes diabolically gleaming the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: incarnation of belligerent fear. So terrible was his appearance that
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Spits was forced to forego disciplining him, but to cover
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: his own discomfiture, he turned upon the inoffensive and wailing
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Billy and drove him to the confines of the camp.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: By evening, Perrault secured another dog, an old husky, long
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: and lean and gaunt, with a battle scarred face and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a single eye which flashed a warning of prowess that
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: commanded respect. He was called Soles, which means the angry one.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Like Dave, he asked nothing, gave nothing, expected nothing, and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: when he marched slowly and deliberately into their midst, even
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Spits left him alone. He had one peculiarity, which Buck
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: was unlucky enough to discover. He did not like to
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: be approached on his blind side. Of this offense, Buck
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: was unwittingly guilty, and the first knowledge he had of
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: his indiscretion was when Soleks whirled upon him and slashed
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: his shoulder to the bone for three inches up and down.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Forever after, Buck avoided his blind side, and to the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: last of their comradeship had no more trouble. His only
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: apparent ambition, like Dave's, was to be left alone, though,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: as Buck was afterward to learn, each of them possessed
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: one other and even more vital ambition. That night, Buck
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent, illumined by
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: a candle, glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and when he, as a matter of course, entered it,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: both Perrault and Francois bombarded him with curses and cooks.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: King utensils till he recovered from his consternation, fled ignominiously
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: into the outer cold. A chill wind was blowing that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: nipped him sharply and bit with a special venom into
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: his wounded shoulder. He lay down on the snow and
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: attempted to sleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: to his feet. Miserable and disconsolate, he wandered about among
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the many tents, only to find that one place was
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: as cold as another. Here and their savage dogs rushed
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: upon him, but he bristled his neck hair and snarled,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: for he was learning fast, and they let him go
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: his way unmolested. Finally, an idea came to him. He
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: would return and see how his own team mates were
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared. Again. He
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: wandered about through the great camp looking for them, and
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: again he returned. Were they in the tent? No, that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: could not be else he would not have been driven out?
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Then where could they possibly be? With drooping tail and
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: shivering body, very forlorn, indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Suddenly the snow gave way beneath his four legs, and
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: he sank down. Something wriggled under his feet. He sprang back,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown. But
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to investigate. A whiff of warm air ascended to his nostrils,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: and there curled up under the snow in a snug
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: ball lay bill Lee. He whined placatingly, squirmed and wriggled
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: to show his good will and intentions, and even ventured,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck's face with
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: his warm, wet tongue. Another lesson. So that was the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: way they did it. Eh. Buck confidently selected a spot,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and with much fuss and waste effort, proceeded to dig
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: a hole for himself. In a trice, the heat from
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: his body filled the confined space, and he was asleep.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: The day had been long and arduous, and he slept
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: soundly and comfortably, though he growled and barked and wrestled
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: with bad dreams, nor did he open his eyes till
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: roused by the noises of the waking camp. At first,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: he did not know where he was. It had snowed
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: during the night, and he was completely buried. The snow
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: walls pressed him on every side, and a great surge
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: of fear swept through him, the fear of the wild thing,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: for the trap. It was a token that he was
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: HARKing back through his own life to the lives of
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: his forebears. For he was a civilized dog, an unduly
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: civilized dog, and of his own experience knew no trap,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and so could not of himself fear it. The muscles
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: of his whole body contracted spasmodically and instinctively, the hair
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: on his neck and shoulders stood on end, and with
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: a ferocious snarl, he bounded straight up into the blinding day,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the snow flying about him in a flashing cloud. Ere
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: he landed on his feet, he saw the white camp
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: spread out before him, and knew where he was, and
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: remember all that had passed from the time he went
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: for a stroll with Manuel, to the whole he had
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: dug for himself the night before. A shout from Francois
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: hailed his appearance. What I say, the dog driver, cried
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: to Piaut. Dat buck for sure learned quak as enatai
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: in g Peraut nodded gravely as courier for the Canadian
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: government bearing important dispatches. He was anxious to secure the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: best dogs, and he was particularly gladdened by the possession
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: of Buck. Three more huskies were added to the team
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: inside an hour, making a total of nine, and before
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: another quarter of an hour had passed, they were in
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dai cannon.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Buck was glad to be gone, and though the work
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: was hard, he found he did not particularly despise it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: He was surprised at the eagerness which animated the whole team,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and which was communicated to him. But still more surprising
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: was the change wrought in Dave and Soles. They were
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness and
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: unconcern had dropped from them. They were alert and active,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: anxious that the work should go well, and fiercely irritable
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: with whatever, by delay or confusion, retarded that work. The
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: toil of the traces seemed the supreme expression of their
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: being and all that they lived for, and the only
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: thing in which they took delight. Dave was wheeler or
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: sled dog. Pulling in front of him was Buck. Then
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: came Soles. The rest of the team was strung out
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: ahead single file to the leader, which position was filled
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: by spits. Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Solex so that he might receive instruction. Apt scholar that
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: he was, they were equally apt teachers, never allowing him
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to linger long in error, and enforcing their teaching with
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and very wise. He
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: nip him when he stood in need of it. As
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: francois whip backed him up. Buck found it to be
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: cheaper to mend his ways than to retaliate. Once, during
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a brief halt, when he got tangled in the traces
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: and delayed the start, both Dave and Soleks flew at
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: him and administered a sound trouncing. The resulting tangle was
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: even worse, but Buck took good care to keep the
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: traces clear thereafter, and ere the day was done. So
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: well had he mastered his work, his mates about ceased
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: nagging him. Francois's whip snapped less frequently, and Pirat even
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: honored Buck by lifting up his feet and carefully examining them.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It was a hard day's run up the cannon through
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: sheep camp, past the scales in the timber line, across
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: glaciers and snow drifts hundreds of feet deep, and over
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the great Chilcoot Divide, which stands between the salt water
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and the fresh and guards forbiddingly the sad and lonely north.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: They made good time down the chain of lakes which
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: fills the craters of extinct volcanoes, and late that night
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: pulled into the huge camp at the head of Lake Bennett,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: where thousands of gold seekers were building boats against the
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: break up of the ice in the spring. Buck made
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: his hole in the snow and slept the sleep of
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the exhausted just but all too early was routed out
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: in the cold darkness and harnessed with his mates to
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the sled. That day they made forty miles the trail
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: being packed, but the next day and for many days
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: to follow, they broke their own trail, worked harder and
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: made poorer time. As a rule, Peraut traveled ahead of
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the team, packing the snow with webbed shoes to make
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: it easier for them. Francois, guiding the sledge at the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: jeep hole, sometimes exchanged places with him, but not often.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Piaut was in a hurry, and he prided himself on
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: his knowledge of ice, which knowledge was indispensable. For the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: fall ice was very thin, and where there was swift
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: water there was no ice at all. Day after day
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: for days unending, Buck toiled in the traces. Always they
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: broke camp in the dark, and the first gray of
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: dawn found them hitting the trail with fresh miles reeled
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: off behind them. And always they pitched camp after dark,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: eating their bit of fish, and crawling to sleep into
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the snow. Buck was ravenous. The pound and a half
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: of sun dried salmon, which was his ration for each day,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: seemed to go nowhere. He never had enough and suffered
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: from perpetual hunger pangs. Yet the other dogs, because they
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: weighed less and were born to the life, received a
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: pound only of the fish and managed to keep in
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: good condition. He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterized
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: his old life. A dainty eater, he found that his mates,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: finishing first, robbed him of his unfinished ration. There was
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: no defending it. While he was fighting off two or three,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it was disappearing down the throats of the others. To
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: remedy this, he ate as fast as they, and so
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: greatly did hunger compel him. He was not above taking
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: what did not belong to him. Hedched and learned when
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clever
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: malinger and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon. When
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Pirout's back was turned. He duplicated the performance the following day,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: getting away with the whole chunk. A great uproar was raised,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: but he was unsuspected, while Dubb, an awkward blunderer who
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: was always getting caught, was punished for Buck's misdeed. This
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: hostile Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: have meant swift and terrible death. It marked further the
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: It was all well enough in the Southland under the
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: law of love and fellowship to respect private property and
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: personal feelings. But in the Northland, under the law of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: club and fong, whoso took such things into account was
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a fool, and in so far as he observed them,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: he would fail to prosper. Not that Buck reasoned it out.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: He was fit, that was all, And unconsciously he accommodated
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: himself to the new mode of life all his days,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: no matter what the odds. He had never run from
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: a fight, but the club of the man in the
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: red sweater had beaten into him a more fundamental and
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: primitive code civilized. He could have died for a moral consideration,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: say the defense of Judge Miller's riding whip. But the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: to flee from the defense of a moral consideration and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: so save his hide. He did not steal for joy
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: he did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: out of respect for club and fawn. In short, the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: things he did were done because it was easier to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: do them than not to do them. His development or
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: retrogression was rapid. His muscles became hard as iron, and
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: internal as well as external economy. He could eat anything,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: no matter how loathsome or indigestible, and once eaten, the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: juices of his stomach extracted the last least particle of nutriment,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: and his blood carried it to the farthest reaches of
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest of tissues.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearing developed
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: sound and knew whether it heralded peats or peril. He
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: learned to bite the ice out with his teeth when
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: it collected between his toes, and when he was thirsty
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and there was a thick scum of ice over the
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: water hole, he would break it by rearing and striking
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: it with stiff fore legs. His most conspicuous trait was
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: an ability to scent the wind and forecast at a
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: night in advance, no matter how breathless the air. When
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: he dug his nest by tree or bank, the wind
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: that later blew inevitably found him to leeward, sheltered and snout,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: him in vague ways he remembered back to the youth
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: as they ran it down. It was no task for
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: him to learn to fight with cut and slash and
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: They quickened the old life within him. And the old
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: or discovery, as though they had been his always. And
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: when on the still cold nights he pointed his nose
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: at a star and howled long and wolf like, it
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: and howling down. Through the sentries and through him and
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced their
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: woe and what to them was the meaning of the
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: stiffness and the cold and dark. Thus, as token of
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: through him, and he came into his own again. And
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: he came because men had found a yellow metal in
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: the north, and because Manuel was a gardener's helper whose
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: wages did not lap over the needs of his wife,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and diverse small copies of himself. Chapter three, The dominant
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Primordial Beast. The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and under the fierce conditions of trail life, it grew
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and grew. Yet it was a secret growth. His newborn
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: cunning gave him poise and control. He was too busy
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: And not only did he not pick fights, but he
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: avoided them whenever possible. A certain deliberateness characterized his attitude.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: He was not prone to rashness and precipitate action, and
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: in the bitter hatred between him and Spits, he betrayed
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: no impatience shunned all offensive acts. On the other hand,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous rival, Spits
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He even
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: went out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: to start the fight, which could end only in the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: death of one or the other. Early in the trip,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: this might have taken place had it not been for
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: an unwonted accident. At the end of this day, they
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Lake Lebarge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: white hot knife, and darkness had forced them to grope
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Perrault and Francois were compelled to make their fire and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the tent they had discarded at Dai in order to
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: travel light. A few sticks of driftwood furnished them with
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: a fire that thawed down through the ice and left
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: them to eat supper in the dark. Close in under
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the sheltering rock, Buck made his nest. So snug and
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: warm was it that he was loath to leave it
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: when Francois distributed the fish which he had first thawed
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: over the fire. But when Buck finished his ration and returned,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: he found his nest occupied. A warning snarl told him
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: that the trespasser was spits. Till now, Buck had avoided
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: trouble with his enemy, but this was too much. The
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: beast in him roared. He sprang upon Spits with a
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: fury which surprised them both, and Spits, particularly for his
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: whole experience with Buck, had gone to teach him that
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: his rival was an unusually timid dog who managed to
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: hold his own only because of his great weight and size.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Francois was surprised too when they shot out in a
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: tangle from the disrupted nest, and he divined the cause
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: of the trouble. Ee a ah, he cried to Buck,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: jiffit to him, by gar jiff it to him the
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: dirty tea eth. Spitz was equally willing. He was crying
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: with sheer rage and eagerness as he circled back and
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: forth for a chance to spring in. Buck was no
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: less eager and no less cautious, as he likewise circled
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: back and forth for the advantage. But it was then
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: that the unexpected happened. The thing which projected their struggle
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: for supremacy far into the future, passed many a weary
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: mile of trail and toil an oath from pieraut. The
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: resounding impact of a club upon a bony frame and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: a shrill yelp of pain heralded the breaking forth of pandemonium.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: The camp was suddenly discovered to be alive, with skulking
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: furry forms, starving huskies for a five score of them,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: who had scented the camp from some Indian village. They
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: had crept in while Buck and Spits were fighting, and
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: when the two men sprang among them with stout clubs,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: they showed their teeth and fought back. They were crazed
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: by the smell of the food. Piaut found one with
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: head buried in the grub box. His club landed heavily
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: on the gaunt ribs, and the grub box was capsized
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: on the ground. On the instant. A score of the
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: famished brutes were scrambling for the bread and bacon. The
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: clubs fell upon them unheeded. They yelped and howled under
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the rain of blows, but struggled none the less madly
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: till the last crumb had been devoured. In the meantime,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: the astonished team dogs had burst out of their nests,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: only to be set upon by the fierce invaders. Never
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: had Buck seen such dogs. It seemed as though their
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: bones would burst through their skins. They were mere skeletons,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: draped loosely in draggled hides, with blazing eyes and slavered fangs.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: But the hunger madness made them terrifying, irresistible. There was
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: no opposing them. The team dogs were swept back against
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: the cliff. At the first onset, Buck was beset by
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: three huskies, and in a trice his head and shoulders
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: were ripped and slashed. The din was frightful, Billy was
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: crying as usual. Dave and Solex, dripping blood from a
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: score of wounds, were fighting bravely side by side. Joe
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: was snapping like a demon. Once his teeth closed on
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the fore leg of a husky and he crunched down
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: through the bone pike. The malingerer leaped upon the crippled animal,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: breaking its neck with a quick flash of teeth and
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: a jerk bucked out a frothing adversary by the throat
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and was sprayed with blood. When his teeth sank through
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: the jugular, the warm taste of it in his mouth
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: goaded him to greater fierceness. He flung himself upon another,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: and at the same time felt teeth sink into his
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: own throat. It was spits treacherously attacking from the side.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Perrault and Francois, having cleaned out their part of the camp,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: hurried to save their sled dogs. The wild wave of
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: famished beasts rolled back before them, and Buck shook himself free,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: but it was only for a moment. The two men
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: were compelled to run back to save the grub, upon
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: which the huskies returned to the attack on the team.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Bill Lee, terrified into bravery, sprang through the savage circle
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: and fled away over the ice pike, and Dub followed
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: on his heels, with the rest of the team behind.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: As Buck drew himself together to spring after them, out
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: of the tail of his eye, he saw Spits rush
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: upon him with the evident intention of overthrowing him. Once
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: off his feet and under that mass of huskies, there
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: was no hope for him, but he braced himself to
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: the shock of Spitz's charge, then joined the flight out
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: on the lake. Later, the nineteen dogs gathered together and
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: sought shelter in the forest, though unpursued. They were in
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: a sorry plight. There was not one who was not
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: wounded in four or five places, while some were wounded grievously.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Dub was badly injured in a hind leg. Dolly, the
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: last husky added to the team at day, had a
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: badly torn throat, Joe had lost an eye, while Bill
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Lee the good Nature, with an ear chewed and rent
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: to ribbons, cried and whimpered throughout the night. At daybreak,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: they limped wearily back to camp to find the marauders
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: gone and the two men in bad tempers. Fully half
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: their grub supply was gone. The huskies had chewed through
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: the sledge lashings and canvas coverings. In fact, nothing no
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: matter how remotely eatable, had escaped them. They had eaten
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: a pair of Perout's moose hide, moccasins, chunks out of
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the leather traces, and even two feet of lash from
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the end of Francois's whip. He broke from a mournful
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: contemplation of it to look over his wounded dogs. Ah,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: my friends, he said, softly, mebit mech you mad dog
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: dosed many bites meb all mad dog? Sacradan what you
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: ta ink? Eh? Peroult the courier shook his head dubiously.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: With four hundred miles of trail still between him and Dawson,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: he could ill afford to have madness break out among
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: his dogs. Two hours of cursing and exertion got the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: harnesses into shape, and the wound stiffened team was under way,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: had yet encountered, and for that matter, the hardest between
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: them and Dawson. The thirty mile river was wide open,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Its wild water defied the frost, and it was in
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: the eddies only, and in the quiet places that the
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: ice held at all. Six days of exhausting toil were
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: required to cover those thirty terrible miles, and terrible they were,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: for every foot of them was accomplished at the risk
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: of life to dog and man. A dozen times, Pirot,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: nosing the way, broke through the ice bridges, being saved
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: by the long pole he carried, which he so held
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: that it fell each time across the hole made by
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: his body. But a cold snap was on the thermometer, registering
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: fifty below zero, and each time he broke through he
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: was compelled for very life to build a fire and
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: dry his garments. Nothing daunted him. It was because nothing
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: daunted him that he had been chosen for government courier.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: He took all manner of risks, resolutely, thrusting his little
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: weasoned face into the frost, and struggling on from dim
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: dawn to dark, he skirted the frowning shores on rim
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: ice that bent and crackled under foot, and upon which
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: they dared not halt. Once the sled broke through with
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Dave and Buck, and they were half frozen and all
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: but drowned by the time they were dragged out. The
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: usual fire was necessary to save them. They were coated
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: solidly with ice, and the two men kept them on
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: the run around the fire, sweating and thawing, so close
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: that they were singed by the flames. At another time,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Spits went through, dragging the whole team after him, up
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: to Buck, who strained backward with all his strength, his
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: fore paws on the slippery edge, and the ice quivering
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: and snapping all around. But behind him was Dave, likewise
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: straining backward, and behind the sled was Francois, pulling till
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: his tendons cracked again. The rim ice broke away before
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: and behind, and there was no escape except up the cliff.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Perrault scaled it by a miracle, while Francois prayed for
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: just that miracle, and with every thong and sled lashing,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: the last bit of harness rove into a long rope
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: the dogs were hoisted one by one to the cliff crest.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Francois came up last after the sled and load. Then
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: came the search for a place to descend, which descent
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: was ultimately made by the aid of the rope, and
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: night found them back on the river with a quarter
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: of a mile to the day's credit. By the time
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: they made the Hutulinqua and good ice, Buck was played out.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: The rest of the dogs were in like condition, but
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Perraut to make up lost time, pushed them late and early.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: The first day they covered thirty five miles to the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: big salmon, the next day thirty five more to the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: little salmon, the third day forty miles, which brought them
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: well up toward the five fingers. Buck's feet were not
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: so compact and heart as the feet of the huskies.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: His head softened during the many generations since the day
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: his last wild ancestor was tamed by a cave dweller
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: or river man. All day long, he limped in agony
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and camp once made lay down like a dead dog.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Hungry as he was, he would not move to receive
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: his ration of fish, which Francois had to bring to him. Also,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the dog driver rubbed Buck's feet for half an hour
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: each night after supper, and sacrificed the tops of his
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: own moccasins to make for moccasins for Buck. This was
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: a great relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: of Perrault to twist itself into a grin. One morning,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: when Francois forgot the moccasins, and Buck lay on his back,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: to budge without them. Later, his feet grew hard to
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the trail and the worn out foot gear was thrown
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: away at the pelly. One morning, as they were harnessing up, Dolly,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: who had never been conspicuous for anything, went suddenly mad.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: She announced her condition by a long, heart breaking wolf
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: howl that sent every dog bristling with fear, then sprang
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: straight for Buck. He had never seen a dog go mad,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: nor did he have any reason to fear madness. Yet
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: he knew that here was horror, and fled away from
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: it in a panic straightway. He raced with Dolly, panting
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and frothing, one leap behind. Nor could she gain on him,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: so great was his terror, nor could he leave her
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: so great was her madness. He plunged through the wooded
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: breast of the island, flew down to the lower end,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: crossed a back channel filled with rough ice to another island,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: gained the third island, curved back to the main river,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: and in desperation, started to cross it. And all the time,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: though he did not look, he could hear her snarling
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: just one leap behind. Francois called to him a quarter
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: of a mile away, and he doubled back, still one
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: leap ahead, gasping painfully for air and putting all his
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: faith in that Francois would save him. The dog driver
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: held the axe poised in his hand, and as Buck
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: shot past him, the axe crashed down upon Mad Dolly's head.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath, helpless.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: This was Spitz's opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: tore the flesh to the bone. Then Francois lash descended,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: and Buck had the satisfaction of watching Spits received the
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: worst whipping as yet administered to any of the teams.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: One devil dat Spitz remarked, Perrot, some damn dhim keeled
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: dat Buck, dat Buck two devils was Francois's rejoinder, all
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the tam I watched dat Buck. I know for sure
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Lisen some damn fine day him get mad lack Helen
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: dan Heim chew dat spits all up and spit him
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: out on the snow. Sure I know from then on
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: it was war between them. Spits as lead dog and
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: acknowledged master of the team, felt his supremacy threatened by
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: this strange Southland dog, and strange Buck was to him.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: For of the many Southland dogs he had known, not
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: one had shown up worthily in camp and on trail.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: They were all too soft, dying under the toil, the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: frost and starvation. Buck was the exception. He alone endured
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: and prospered, matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: Then he was a masterful dog, and what made him
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: dangerous was the fact that the club of the Man
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: in the Red Sweater had knocked all blind, pluck and
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: rashness out of his desire for mastery. He was pre
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: eminently cunning and could bide his time with a patience
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: that was nothing less than primitive, it was inevitable that
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: the clash for leadership should come. Buck wanted it. He
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: wanted it because it was his nature, because he had
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: been gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: trail and trace, that pride which holds dogs in the
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: toil to the last gasp, which lures them to die
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: joyfully in the harness, and breaks their hearts if they
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: are cut out of the harness. This was the pride
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: of Dave as will dog of Solex, as he pulled
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: with all his strength. The pride that laid hold of
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: them at break of camp, transforming them from sour and
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: sullen brutes into straining, eager, ambitious creatures. The pride that
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: spurred them on all day and dropped them at pitch
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: of camp at night, letting them fall back into gloomy,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: unrest and uncontent. This was the pride that bore up
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: spits and made him thrash the sled dogs who blundered
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: and shirked in the traces or hid away at harness
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: up time in the morning. Likewise, it was this pride
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: that made him fear Buck as a possible lead dog.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: And this was Buck's pride too. He openly threatened the
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: other's leadership. He came between him and the Shirks. He
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: should have punished, and he did it deliberately. One night
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: there was a heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: the malingerer, did not appear. He was securely hidden in
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: his nest under a foot of snow. Francois called him
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and sought him in vain. Spitz was wild with wrath.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: He raged through the camp, smelling and digging in every
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: likely place, snarling so frightfully that Pike heard and shivered
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: in his hiding place. But when he was at last
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: unearthed and Spits flew at him to punish him, Buck
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: flew with equal rage in between. So unexpected was it,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: and so shrewdly managed that Spitz was hurled backward and
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: off his feet. Pike, who had been trembling, abjectly took
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: heart at this open mutiny, and sprang upon his overthrown leader, Buck,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: to whom fair play was a forgotten code, likewise sprang
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: upon Spits. But Francois, chuckling at the incident, while unswerving
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: in the administration of justice, brought his lash down upon
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Buck with all his might. This failed to drive Buck
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: from his prostrate rival, and the butt of the whip
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: was brought into play. Half stunned by the blow, Buck
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: was knocked backward and the lash laid upon him again
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: and again, while Spit soundly punished the many times offending Pike.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Buck still continued to interfere between Spits and the culprits,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: but he did it craftily when Francois was not around.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: With the covert mutiny of Buck, a general insubordination sprang
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: up and increased. Dave and Soles were unaffected, but the
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: rest of the team went from bad to worse. Things
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: no longer went right. There was continual bickering and jangling.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Trouble was always afoot, and at the bottom of it
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: was Buck. He kept Francois busy, for the dog driver
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: was in constant apprehension of the life and death struggle
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: between the two, which he knew must take place sooner
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: or later, And on more than one night, the sounds
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: of quarreling and strife among the other dogs earn him
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: out of his sleeping robe, fearful that Buck and Spits
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: were at it, but the opportunity did not present itself,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: and they pulled into Dawson one dreary afternoon, with the
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: great fight still to come. Here were many men and
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: countless dogs, and Buck found them all at work. It
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: seemed the ordained order of things that dogs should work
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: all day. They swung up and down the main street
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: in long teams, and in the night their jingling bells
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: still went by. They hauled cabin logs and firewood, freighted
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: up to the mines, and did all manner of work
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: that horses did in the Santa Clara Valley. Here and
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: there Buck met Southland dogs, but in the main they
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: were the wild wolf. Husky breed every night, regularly at nine,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: at twelve at three they lifted a nocturnal song, a
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: weird and eerie chant, in which it was Buck's delight
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: to join with the Aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: numb and frozen under its pall of snow. This song
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: of the huskies might have been the defiance of life,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: only it was pitched in minor key, with long drawn
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: wailings and half sobs, and was more the pleading of life,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: old as the breed itself, one of the first songs
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: of the younger world, in a day when songs were sad.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: plaint by which Buck was so strangely stirred when he
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: moaned and sobbed. It was with the pain of living
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: that was of old, the pain of his wild fathers,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: that was to them fear and mystery, And that he
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: should be stirred by it marked the completeness with which
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: he harked back through the ages of fire and roof
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: dropped down the steep bank by the barracks to the
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Yukon Trail and pulled for Dayee and Salt Water. Perot
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: was carrying dispatches, if anything, more urgent than those he
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: had brought in. Also, the travel pride had gripped him,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: and he purposed to make the record trip of the year.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Several things favored him in this. The week's rest had
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: recuperated the dogs and put them in thorough trim. The
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: trail they had broken into the country was packed hard
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: by later journeyers, and further the police had arranged in
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: two or three places deposits of grub for dog and man,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: and he was traveling light. They made sixty mile, which
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: is a fifty mile run, on the first day, and
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: the second day saw them booming up the Yukon well
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: on their way to Pelly. But such splendid running was
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: achieved not without great trouble and vexation on the part
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: of Francois. The insidious revolt led by Buck had destroyed
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: the solidarity of the team. It no longer was as
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: one dog leaping in the traces. The encouragement Buck gave
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: the rebels led them into all kinds of petty misdemeanors.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: No more was It's a leader greatly to be feared.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: The old awe departed, and they grew equal to challenging
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: his authority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: night and gulped it down under the protection of Buck.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Another knight, Dub and Joe fought Spits and made him
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: forego the punishment they deserved. And even bill Lee, the
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: good natured, was less good natured, and whined not half
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: so placatingly as in former days. Buck never came near
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Spitz without snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact, his conduct
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: approached that of a bully, and he was given to
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: swaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose. The breaking
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in their relations
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: with one another. They quarreled and bickered more than ever
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling bedlam.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Dave and Soles alone were unaltered, though they were made
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: irritable by the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange, barbarous oaths,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: and stamped the snow in feudal rage, and tore his hair.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: His lash was always singing among the dogs, but it
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: was of small avail. Directly his back was turned, they
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: were at it again. He backed up Spits with his whip,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: while Buck backed up the remainder of the team. Francois
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: knew he was behind all the trouble, and Buck knew
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: he knew. But Buck was too clever, ever again to
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: be caught red handed. He worked faithfully in the harness,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: for the toil had become a delight to him. Yet
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: amongst his mates entangle the traces. At the mouth of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: the Tequina. One night, after supper dove turned up, a
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: snowshoe rabbit blundered it and missed. In a second. The
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: whole team was in full cry. A hundred yards away
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: was a camp of the Northwest Police with fifty dogs huskies,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: all who joined the chase. The rabbit sped down the river,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: turned off into a small creek, up the frozen bed
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: surface of the snow, while the dogs plowed through by
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: main strength. Buck led the pack sixty strong around, bend
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: after bend, but he could not gain. He laid down
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: forward leap by leap in the wan white moonlight, and
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: leap by leap like some pale frost wraith. The snowshoe
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: rabbit flashed on ahead, all that stirring of old instincts
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: cities to forest and plan to kill things by chemically
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: propelled leaden pellets. The blood lust, the joy to kill
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: all this was Buck's only it was infinitely more intimate.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: He was ranging at the head of the pack, running
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the wild thing down, the living meat to kill with
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: his own teeth, and wash his muzzle to the eyes
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: in warm blood. There is an ecstasy that marks the
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: such is the paradox of living. This ecstasy comes when
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: one is most alive, and it comes as a complete
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: in a sheet of flame. It comes to the soldier
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: war mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter. And
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: cry straining after the food that was alive and that
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: his nature that were deeper than he. Going back into
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: the womb of time. He was mastered by the sheer
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: joy of each separate muscle, joint and sinew in that
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: it was everything that was not death, that it was
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: a glow and rampant expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: under the stars and over the face of dead matter
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: that did not move but spits, cold and calculating, even
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: in his supreme moods. Left the pack and cut across
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: a narrow neck of life land, where the creek made
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: a long bend around. Buck did not know of this,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: and as he rounded the bend, the frost wraith of
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: a rabbit still flitting before him, he saw another larger
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into the immediate
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: path of the rabbit. It was spits. The rabbit could
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: not turn, and as the white teeth broke its back
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: in mid air, it shrieked as loudly as a stricken
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: man may shriek. At sound of this, the cry of
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: life plunging down from life's apex in the grip of death.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: The full pack at Buck's heels raised a hell's chorus
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: of delight. Buck did not cry out, He did not
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: check himself, but drove in upon Spits, shoulder to shoulder,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: so hard that he missed the throat. They rolled over
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: and over in the powdery snow. Spits gained his feet
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: almost as though he had not been overthrown, slashing Buck
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: down the shoulder and leaping clear twice. His teeth clipped
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: together like the steel jaws of a trap as he
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: backed away for better footing, with lean and lifting lips
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: that writhed and snarled. In a flash, Buck knew it
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: the time had come. It was to the death. As
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: they circled about, snarling ears, laid back, keenly, watchful for
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: the advantage. The scene came to Buck with a sense
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: of familiarity. He seemed to remember it all, the white
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: woods and earth and moonlight, and the thrill of battle.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: Over the whiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm. There
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: was not the faintest whisper of air. Nothing moved, not
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: a leaf quivered, the visible breaths of the dogs, rising
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: slowly and lingering in the frosty air. They had made
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: short work of the snowshoe rabbit, These dogs that were
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: ill tamed wolves, and they were now drawn up in
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: an expectant circle. They too were silent, their eyes only
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: gleaming in their breaths, drifting slowly upward to Bucket. Was
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: nothing new or strange, this scene of old time. It
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: was as though it had always bin the wonted way
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: of things. Spits was a practiced fighter from Spitzbergen, through
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the Arctic and across Canada and the Barons. He had
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: held his own with all manner of dogs, and achieved
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: to mastery over them. Bitter rage was his, but never
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: blind rage. In passion to rend and destroy, he never
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: forgot that his enemy was in like passion to rend
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: and destroy. He never rushed till he was prepared to
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: receive a rush, never attacked till he had first offended
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: that attack. In vain, Buck strove to sink his teeth
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: in the neck of the big white dog. Wherever his
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: fang struck for the softer flesh, they were countered by
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: the fangs of Spits. Fong clashed, fawn, and lips were
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: cut and bleeding. But Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Then he warmed up and enveloped Spits in a whirlwind
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: of rushes. Time and time again, he tried for the
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: snow white throat where life bubbled near to the surface,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: and each time and every time, Spits slashed him and
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: got away. Then Buck took to rushing, as though for
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: the throat, when suddenly drawing back his head and curving
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: in from the side, he would drive his shoulder at
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: the shoulder of Spits as a ram by which to
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: overthrow him. But instead Buck's shoulder was slashed down each
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: time as Spits leaped lightly away, Spits was untouched while
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: Buck was streaming with blood and panting hard. The fight
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: was growing desperate, and all the while the silent and
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: As Buck grew winded, Spits took to rushing, and he
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: kept him staggering for footing. Once Buck went over, and
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: the whole circle of sixty dogs started up, but he
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: recovered himself almost in mid air, and the circle sank
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: down again and waited. But Buck possessed a quality that
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: made for greatness imagination. He fought by instinct, but he
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: could fight by head as well. He rushed as though
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last instant
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: swept low to the snow and in his teeth closed
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: on Spitz's left fore leg. There was a crunch of
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on three legs.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: trick and broke the right four leg. Despite the pain
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: and helplessness, Spit struggled madly to keep up. He saw
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: the silent circle, with gleaming eyes, lolling tongues, and silvery
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: breaths drifting upward, closing in upon him, as he had
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: seen similar circles close in upon beaten antagonists in the past,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: only this time he was the one who was beaten.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: was a thing reserved for gentler climbs. He maneuvered for
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: the final rush. The circle had tightened till he could
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: feel the breaths of the huskies on his flanks. He
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: could see them beyond Spits and to either side, half
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: crouching for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: pause seemed to fall. Every animal was motionless, as though
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: turned to stone. Only Spits quivered and bristled as he
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: staggered back and forth, snarling with horrible menace, as though
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: to frighten off, impending death. Then Buck sprang in and out,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: but while he was in shoulder had at last squarely
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot on the
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: moon flooded snow. As Spits disappeared from view, Buck stood
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: and looked on the successful champion, the dominant primordial beast,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: who had made his kill and found it good. Chapter four,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Who has won to mastership? Eh? What I say I
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: spic true? W N I say dat Buck two devils?
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: This was Francois's speech next morning, when he discovered Spits
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: missing and Buck covered with wounds, he drew him to
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: the fire and by its light, pointed them out. Dat
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: Spitz fight lack hell, said Pierrot as he surveyed the
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: gaping rigs and cuts, and d buck fight lack two
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: hells was Francois's answer. And now we make good time.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: No more Spitz, no more trouble. Sure. While Perrault packed
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: the camp outfit and loaded the sled, the dog driver
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: proceeded to harness the dogs. Buck trotted up to the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: place Spits would have occupied as leader, but Francois, not
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: noticing him, brought Soles to the coveted position. In his judgment,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: Solex was the best lead dog left. Buck sprang upon
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: Soles in a fury, driving him back and standing in
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: his place. Eh eh, Francois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Look at d Buck. Heen keeled, Dat spits hein tee
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: ink to take the job, Go way, chook, he cried,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: but Buck refused to budge. He took Buck by the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: scruff of the neck, and though the dog growled threateningly,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: dragged to one side and replaced Solex. The old dog
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: did not like it and showed plainly that he was
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: afraid of Buck. Francois was obdurate, but when he turned
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: his back, Buck again displaced Solex, who was not at
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: all unwilling to go. Francois was angry now by gar,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: I fix you, he cried, coming back with a heavy
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: club in his hand. Buck remembered the man in the
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: red sweater and retreated slowly. Nor did he attempt to
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: charge in when Solex was once more brought forward, but
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: he circled just beyond the range of the club, snarling
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: with bitterness and rage. And while he circled, he watched
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: the club so as to dodge it. If thrown by Francois,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: for he was become wise in the way of clubs.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: The driver went about his work, and he called to
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Buck when he was ready to put him in his
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: old place in front of Dave. Buck retreated two or
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: three steps. Francois followed him up, whereupon he again retreated.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: After some time of this, Francois threw down the club,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: thinking that Buck feared a thrashing. But Buck was in
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: open revolt. He wanted not to escape a clubbing, but
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: to have the leadership. It was his by right, he
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: had earned it, and he would not be content with less.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: Pieraut took a hand between them. They ran him about
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: for the better part of an hour. They threw clubs
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: at him. He dodged. They cursed him, and his fathers
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: and mothers before him, and all his seed to come
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: after him, down to the remotest generation, and every hair
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: on his body and drop of blood in his veins.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: And he answered curse with snarl and kept out of
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: their reach. He did not try to run away, but
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: retreated around and around the camp, advertising plainly that when
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: his desire was met, he would come in and be good.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: Francois sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: his watch and swore time was flying and they should
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: have been on the trail an hour gone. Francois scratched
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: his head again. He shook it and grinned sheepishly at
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: the courier, who shrugged his shoulders in sign that they
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: were beaten. Then Francois went up to where Solek stood
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: and called to Buck. Buck laughed as dogs laugh, yet
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: kept his distance. Francois unfastened Solek's as traces and put
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: him back in his old place. The team stood harnessed
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: to the sled in an unbroken line, ready for the trail.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: There was no place for Buck save at the front.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: Once more Francois called, and once more Buck laughed and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: kept away, trode down the club. Perrot commanded. Francois complied,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: whereupon Buck trotted in, laughing triumphantly, and swung around into
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: position at the head of the team. His traces were fastened.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: The sled broken out, and with both men running, they
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: dashed out on to the river trail. Highly as the
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: dog driver had four valued Buck with his two devils,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: he found, while the day was yet young, that he
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: had undervalued. At a bound, Buck took up the duties
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: of leadership, and where judgment was required, and quick thinking
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: and quick acting, he showed himself the superior even of Spits,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: of whom Francois had never seen an equal. But it
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: was in giving the law and making his mates live
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: up to it that Buck excelled. Dave and Solex did
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: not mind the change in leadership. It was none of
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: their business. Their business was to toil, and toil mightily
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: in the traces. So long as that were not interfered with,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: they did not care what happened. Bill Lee, the good natured,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: could lead for all they cared, so long as he
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: kept order. The rest of the team, however, had grown
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: unruly during the last days of Spits, and their surprise
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: was great now that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape. Pike,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: ounce more of his weight against the breast band than
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: he was compelled to do, was swiftly and repeatedly shaken
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: for loafing, and ere the first day was done, he
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: was pulling more than ever before in his life. The
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: first night in camp, Joe the sour One was punished roundly.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: A thing that spits had never succeeded in doing. Buck
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: simply smothered him by virtue of superior weight and cut
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: him up till he ceased snapping and began to whine
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: for mercy. The general tone of the team picked up immediately.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: It recovered its old time solidarity, and once more the
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: dogs leaped as one dog in the traces at the
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: rink rapids. Two native huskies, Teek and Cunna, were added,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: and the celerity with which Buck broke them and took
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: away Francois breath navere such a dog as dat Buck?
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: He cried, No, navere, He worth one t thousand dull
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: air by gar Eh what you say, Perot? And Perot nodded.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: He was ahead of the record then, and day by
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: day the trail was in excellent condition, well packed and hard,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: and there was no new fallen snow with which to contend.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: It was not too cold. The temperature dropped to fifty
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: below zero and remained there the whole trip. The men
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: rode and ran by turn, and the dogs were kept
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: on the jump with but infrequent stoppages. The thirty mile
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: river was comparatively coated with ice, and they covered in
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: one day going out what had taken them ten days
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: coming in. In one run, they made a sixty mile
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: dash from the foot of Lake Lobarge to the White
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: Horse Rapids, across Marsh, Taggish and Bennett, seventy miles of lakes.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: They flew so fast that the man whose turn it
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: was to run towed behind the sled at the end
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: of a rope. And on the last night of the
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: second week, they topped White Pass and dropped down the
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: sea slope with the lights of Skagway and of the
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: shipping at their feet. It was a record run. Each
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: day for fourteen days, they had averaged forty miles. For
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: three days, Perrault and Froncois threw chests up and down
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: the main street of Skagway and were deluged with invitations
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: to drink while the team was the constant center of
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: a worshipful crowd of dog busters and mushers. Then three
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: or four Western bad men aspired to clean out the town.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: Were riddled like pepper boxes for their pains, and public
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: interest turned to other idols. Next came official orders. Francois
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: called Buck to him, threw his arms around him, wept
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: over him, and that was the last of Francois and Perault.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: Like other men, they passed out of Buck's life for good.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: A Scotch half breed took charge of him and his mates,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: and in company with a dozen other dog teams, he
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: started back over the weary trail to Dawson. It was
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: no light running now, nor record time, but heavy toil
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: each day with a heavy load behind, For this was
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: the mail train, carrying word from the world to the
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: men who sought gold under the shadow of the pole.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: Buck did not like it, but he bore up well
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: to the work, taking pride in it after the manner
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: of Dave and Soles, and seeing that his mates, whether
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: they prided in it or not, did their fair share.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: It was a monotonous life, operating with machine like regularity.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: One day was very like another. At a certain time
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: each morning, the cooks turned out, fires were built, and
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: breakfast was eaten. Then while some broke camp, others harnessed
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: the dogs, and they were under weigh an hour or
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: so before the darkness fell, which gave warning of dawn.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: At night, camp was made. Some pitched the flies, others
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: cut firewood and pine boughs for the beds, and still
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: others carried water or ice for the cooks. Also the
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: dogs were fed to them. This was the one feature
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: of the day, though it was good to loaf around
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: after the fish was eaten for an hour or so
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: with the other dogs, of which there were fivescore and odd.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: There were fierce fighters among them, but three battles with
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: the fiercest brought but to mastery, so that when he
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: bristled and showed his teeth, they got out of his way.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Best of all, perhaps he loved to lie near the fire,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: hind legs crouched under him, for legs stretched out in
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: front had raised and eyes blinking dreamily at the flames.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's big house in the
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: sun kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the cement swimming tank,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: and Isabel the Mexican hairless and Toots the Japanese pug.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: But oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: the death of Curly, the great fight with spits, and
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: the good things he had eaten or would like to eat.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: He was not homesick. The sunland was very dim and distant,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: and such memories had no power over him. Far more
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: he had never seen before a seeming familiarity. The instincts
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: which were but the memories of his ancestors become habits
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: which had lapsed in later days and still later in him,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: quickened and become alive again. Sometimes, as he crouched there,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: blinking dreamily at the flames, it seemed that the flames
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: were of another fire, and that as he crouched by
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: this other fire, he saw another, in different man from
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: the half breed cook before him. This other man was
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: shorter of leg and longer of arm, with muscles that
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and swelling. The
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: hair of this man was long and matted, and his
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: head slanted back under it from the eyes. He uttered
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: strange sounds, and seemed very much afraid of the darkness
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: into which he peered, continually, clutching in his hand, which
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with a
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: heavy stone made fast to the end. He was all
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: but naked, a ragged and fire scorched skin hanging part
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: way down his back, but on his body there was
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: much hair in some places across the chest and shoulders,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: and down the outside of the arms and thighs. It
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: was matted into all, almost a thick fur. He did
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: not stand erect, but with trunk inclined forward from the
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: hips on legs that bent at the knees. About his
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: body there was a peculiar springiness or resiliency, almost catlike,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: and a quick alertness, as of one who lived in
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: perpetual fear of things seen and unseen. At other times,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: this hairy man squatted by the fire with head between
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: his legs, and slept. On such occasions, his elbows were
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: on his knees, his hands clasped above his head, as
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: though to shed rain by the hairy arms. And beyond
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see many
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: gleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: he knew to be the eyes of great beasts of prey,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: and he could hear the crashing of their bodies through
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: the undergrowth, and the noises they made in the night.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: And dreaming there by the Yukon bank with lazy eyes
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: blinking at the fire, these sounds and sights of another
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: world would make the hair to rise along his back
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: and stand on end, across his shoulders and up his neck,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: till he whimpered low and suppressedly, or growled softly, and
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: the half breed cook shouted at him, hey, you buck,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: wake up, whereupon the other world would vanish, and the
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: real world come into his eyes, and he would get
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: up and yawn and stretch as though he had been asleep.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: It was a hard trip with the mail behind them,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: and the heavy work wore them down. They were short
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: of weight and in poor condition when they made Dawson,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: and should have had a ten days or a week's
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: rest at least, But in two days time they dropped
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: down the Yukon Bank from the barracks, loaded with letters
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: for the outside. The dogs were tired, the drivers grumbling,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: and to make matters worse, it snowed every day. This
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: meant a soft trail, greater friction on the runners, and
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: heavier pulling for the dogs. Yet the drivers were fair
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: through it all and did their best for the animals.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: Each night the dogs were attended to first. They ate
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: before the drivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: robe till he had seen to the feet of the
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: dogs he drove. Still, their strength went down since the
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: beginning of the winter, they had traveled eighteen hundred miles
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: dragging sleds the whole weary distance, and eighteen hundred miles
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: will tell upon life of the toughest buck stood it,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: keeping his mates up to their work and maintaining discipline,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: though he too was very tired. Billy cried and whimpered
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: regularly in his sleep each night. Joe was sourer than ever,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: and Soleks was unapproachable blind side or other side. But
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: gone wrong with him. He became more morose and irritable,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: and when camp was pitched at once made his nest
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: where his driver fed him. Once out of the harness
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: and down, he did not get on his feet again
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: till harness up time in the morning. Sometimes in the traces,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: when jerked by a sudden stoppage of the sledge or
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: by staning to start it, he would cry out with pain.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: The driver examined him, but could find nothing. All the
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: drivers became interested in his case. They talked it over
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: at meal time and over their last pipes before going
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: to bed, and one night they held a consultation. He
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: was brought from his nest to the fire and was
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: pressed and prodded till he cried out many times something
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: was wrong inside, but they could locate no broken bones
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: could not make it out. By the time cassiar bar
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: was reached, he was so weak that he was falling
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half breed called a
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: halt and took him out of the team, making the
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: next dog, Soles fast to the sled. His intention was
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: to rest Dave, letting him run free behind the sled.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: Sick as he was. Dave resented being taken out, grunting
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: and growling while the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: heartedly when he saw Soles in the position he had
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: held and served so long for the pride of trace
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: and trail was his, and sick unto death, he could
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: not bear that another dog should do his work. When
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: the sledge started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: the beaten trail, attacking Soleks with his teeth, rushing against
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: him and trying to thrust him off into the soft
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: snow on the other side, striving to leap inside his
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: traces and get between him and the sled, and all
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: the while whining, yelping, and crying with grief and pain.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: The half breed tried to drive him away with the whip,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: but he paid no heed to the stinging lash, and
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: the man had not the heart to strike harder. Dave
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: refused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: where the going was easy, but continued to flounder alongside
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: in the soft snow, where the going was most difficult,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: till exhausted. Then he fell and lay where he fell,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: With the last remnant of his strength, he managed to
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: stagger along behind till the train made another stop. When
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: he floundered past the sledge to his own, where he
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: stood alongside Soleks. His driver lingered a moment to get
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: he returned and started his dogs. They swung out on
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: the trail with remarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: and stopped in surprise. The driver was surprised too, the
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: sled had not moved. He called his comrades to witness
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: the sight. Dave had bitten through both of Soleks as traces,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: and was standing directly in front of the sled in
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: his proper place. He pleaded with his eyes to remain there.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: The driver was perplexed. His comrades talked of how a
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: dog could break its heart through being denied the work
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: that killed it, and recalled instances they had known where
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: dogs too old for the toil or injured had died
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: held it a mercy, since Dave was to die any
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: that he should die in the traces, heart easy in content,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: so he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: as of old, though more than once he cried out
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: once the sledge ran upon him, so that he lint
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: thereafter in one of his hind legs. But he held
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: out till camp was reached, when his driver made a
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: place for him by the fire. Morning found him too
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: weak to travel at harness up time, he tried to
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: crawl to his driver by convulsive efforts. He got on
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being put on
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: his mates. He would advance his four legs and drag
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: up his body with a sort of hitching movement. When
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: he would advance his four legs and hitch a head
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: again for a few more inches. His strength left him,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: and the last his mate saw of him, he lay
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: gasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But they
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: could hear him mournfully howling till they passed out of
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: sight behind a belt of river timber. Here the train
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: was halted. The Scotch half breed slowly retraced his steps
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: A revolver shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: The whip snapped, the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds churned
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: along the trail. But Buck knew, and every dog knew
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: what had taken place behind the belt of river trees.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: Chapter five, The Toil of Trace and Trail. Thirty days
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: from the time it left Dawson, the Salt Water Mail
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: with Buck and his mates at the fore arrived at Skagway.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: They were in a wretched state, worn out and worn down.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: Buck's one hundred and forty pounds had dwindled to one
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen. The rest of his mates, though lighter dogs,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: had relatively lost more weight than he. Pike, the malingerer,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: who in his lifetime of deceit had often successfully feigned
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest. Soleks was limping,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: and Dub was suffering from a wrenched shoulder blade. They
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: were all terribly footsore. No spring or rebound was left
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: in them. Their feet fell heavily on the trail, jarring
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: their bodies and doubling the fatigue of a day's travel.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: There was nothing the matter with them except that they
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: were dead tired. It was not the dead tiredness that
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: comes through brief and excessive effort, from which recovery is
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: a matter of hours. But it was the dead tiredness
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: months of toil. There was no power of recuperation left,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: no reserve strength to call upon. It had been all used,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: the last least bit of it. Every muscle, every fiber,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: every cell was tired, dead tired, and there was reason
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: for it. In less than five months they had traveled
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: twenty five hundred miles during the last eighteen hundred, of
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: which they had had but five days rest. When they
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: arrived at Skagway, they were apparently on their last legs.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: They could barely keep the traces taut, and on the
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: down grades just managed to keep out of the way
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: of the sled mush on poor sore feats. The driver
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: encouraged them as they tottered down the main street of Skagway.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: This is the loss. Then we get one long res eh,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: for sure, one bully long res The drivers confidently expected
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: a long stopover themselves. They had covered twelve hundred miles
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: with two days rest, and in the nature of reason
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: and common justice, they deserved an interval of loafing. But
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: so many were the men who had rushed into the Klondike,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: and so many were the sweethearts, wives and kin that
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: had not rushed in that the congested male was taking
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: on alpine proportions. Also there were official orders. Fresh batches
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: of huts and bay dogs were to take the place
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: of those worthless for the trail. The worthless ones were
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: to be got rid of, and since dogs count for
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: little against dollars, they were to be sold three days passed,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: by which time Buck and his mates found how really
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: tired and weak they were. Then, on the morning of
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: the fourth day, two men from the States came along
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: and bought them harness and all for a song. The
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: men addressed each other as Hal and Charles. Charles was
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: a middle aged, lightish colored man with weak and watery
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: eyes and a mustache that twisted fiercely and vigorously up,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: giving the lie to the limply drooping lip it concealed.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: Hal was a youngster of nineteen or twenty, with a
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: big Colt's revolver and a hunting knife strapped about him
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: on a belt that fairly bristled with cartridges. This belt
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: was the most salient thing about him. It advertised his calonics,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: a calonice sheer and unutterable. Both men were manifestly out
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: of place, and why such as they should advent the
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: north is part of the mystery of things that passes understanding.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: Buck heard the chaffering, saw the money pass between the
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: man and the government agent, and knew that the Scotch
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: half breed and the mail train drivers were passing out
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: of his life on the heels of Perrault and Francois
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: and the others who had gone before. When driven with
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: his mates to the new owner's camp, Buck saw a
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: slip shot and slovenly affair tent, half stretched dishes, unwashed,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: everything in disorder. Also he saw a woman, Mercedes. The
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: men called her. She was Charles's wife and Hal's sister.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: A nice family party. Buck watched them apprehensively as they
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: proceeded to take down the tent and load the sled.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: There was a great deal of effort about their manner,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: but no businesslike method. The tent was rolled into an
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: awkward bundle three times as large as it should have been.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: The tin dishes were packed away unwashed. Mercedes continually fluttered
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: in the way of her men and kept up an
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: unbroke and chattering of remonstrance and advice. When they put
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: a clothes sack on the front of the sled, she
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: suggested it should go on the back, And when they
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: had put it on the back and covered it over
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: with a couple of other bundles, she discovered overlooked articles
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: which could abide nowhere else but in that very sack,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: And they unloaded again. Three men from a neighboring tent
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: came out and looked on, grinning and winking at one another.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: You've got a right smart load, as it is, said
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: one of them. And it's not me should tell you
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: your business. But I wouldn't tote that tent along if
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: I was you, undreamed of, cried Mercedes, throwing up her
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: hands in dainty dismay. However in the world could I
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: manage without a tent. It's springtime and you won't get
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: any more cold weather, the man replied. She shook her
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: head decidedly. And Charles and how put the last odds
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: and ends on top the mountainous load. Think it'll ride?
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: One of the men asked, why shouldn't it, Charles demanded,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: rather shortly. Oh that's all right, that's all right. The
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: man hastened meekly to say, I was just a wonderin
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: that is all. It seemed a mite top heavy. Charles
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: turned his back and drew the lashings down as well
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: as he could, which was not in the least well.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: And of course the dogs can hike along all day
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: with that contraption behind them, affirmed a second of the men, certainly, said,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: hal with freezing politeness, taking hold of the g pull
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: with one hand and swinging his whip from the other
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: mush He shouted, mush on there. The dogs sprang against
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: the breast bands, strained hard for a few moments, then relaxed.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: They were unable to move. The sled the lazy brutes.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: I'll show them, he cried, preparing to lash out at
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: them with the whip, but Mercedes interfered, crying, oh, Hal,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: you mustn't, as she caught hold of the whip and
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: wrenched it from him. The poor DearS. Now you must
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: promise you won't be harsh with them for the rest
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: of the trip, or I won't go a step, precious lot,
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: you know about dogs. Her brother sneered, and I wish
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: you'd leave me alone. They're lazy, I tell you, and
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: you've got to whip them to get anything out of them.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: That's their way. You ask any one, ask one of
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: those men. Mercedes looked at them imploringly, untold repugnance at
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: sight of pain written in her pretty face. They're weak
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: as water, if you want to know, came the reply
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: from one of the men. Plum tuckered out. That's what's
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: the matter. They need a rest rest be blanked, said
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: Hal with his beardless lips. And Mercedes said, oh, in
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: pain and sorrow at the oath. But she was a
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: clannish creature and rushed at once to the defense of
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: her brother. Never mind that man, she said, pointedly. You're
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: driving our dogs, and you do what you think best
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: with them. Again, Howl's whip fell upon the dogs. They
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: threw themselves against the breast bands, dug their feet into
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: the packed snow, got down low to it, and put
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: forth all their strength. The sled held as though it
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: were an anchor. After two efforts, they stood still, panting.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: The whip was whistling savagely. When once more Mercedes interfered.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: She dropped on her knees before Buck, with tears in
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: her eyes, and put her arms around his neck. You poor,
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: poor DearS, she cried sympathetically. Why don't you pull hard,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: then you wouldn't be whipped. Buck did not like her,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: but he was feeling too miserable to resist her, taking
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: it as part of the day's miserable work. One of
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: the onlookers, who had been clenching his teeth to suppress
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: hot speech, now spoke up. It's not that I care
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: a whoop what becomes of you, but for the dog's sakes.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: I just want to tell you you can help them
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: a mighty lot by breaking out that sled. The runners
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: are froze fast, throw your weight against the geep pole
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: right and left and break it out. A third time
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: the attempt was made, but this time, following the advice,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: How broke out the runners, which had been frozen to
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: the snow. The overloaded and unwieldy sled forged ahead. Buck
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: and his mate struggling frantically under the rain of blows.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: A hundred yards ahead, the path turned and sloped steeply
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: into the main street. It would have required an experienced
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: man to keep the top heavy sled upright, and How
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: was not such a man. As they swung on the turn,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: the sled went over, spilling half its load through the
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: loose lashings. The dogs never stopped. The lightened sled bounded
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: on its side behind them. They were angry because of
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: the ill treatment they had received and the unjust load.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: Buck was raging. He broke into a run. The team
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: following his lead, How cried woe, woe, but they gave
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: no heed. He tripped and was pulled off his feet.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: The capsized sled ground over him and the dogs dashed
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: on up the street, adding to the gaiety of Skagway.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: As they scattered the remainder of the outfit along its
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: chief thoroughfare. Kind hearted citizens caught the dogs and gathered
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: up the scattered belongings. Also they gave advice half the
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: load and twice the dogs if they ever expected to
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: reach Dawson. Was what was said. Hal and his sister
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: and brother in law listened unwillingly, pitched tent and overhauled
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: the outfit. Canned goods were turned out. That made men laugh.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: For canned goods on the long trail is a thing
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: to dream about. Blankets for a hotel, quoth one of
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: the men who laughed and helped half as many is
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: too much. Get rid of them, Throw away that tent
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: and all those dishes. Who's going to wash them anyway?
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: Good lord, do you think you're traveling on a pullman?
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: And so it went the inexorable elimination of the superfluous.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: Mercedes cried when her clothes bags were dumped on the ground,
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: and article after article was thrown out. She cried in general,
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: and she cried in particular over each discarded thing. She
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: clasped hands about, knees, Rocking back and forth broken heartedly,
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: she averreed she would not go an inch, not for
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: a dozen Charleses. She appealed to everybody and to everything,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: finally wiping her eyes and proceeding to cast out even
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: articles of apparel that were imperative necessaries and in her zeal.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: When she had finished with her own, she attacked the
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: belongings of her men and went through them like a tornado.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: This accomplished the outfit, though cut in half, was still
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: a formidable bulk. Charles and How went out in the
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: evening and bought six outside dogs. These added to the
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: six of the original team, and Teek and Cunna. The
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: Huskies obtained that the rink rapids on the record trip
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: brought the team up to fourteen. But the outside dogs,
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: though practically broken in since their landing did not amount
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: to much. Three were short haired pointers, one was a Newfoundland,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: and the other two were mongrels of indeterminate breed. They
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: did not seem to know anything these newcomers. Buck and
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: his comrades looked upon them with disgust, and though he
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: speedily taught them their places and what not to do,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: he could not teach them what to do. They did
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: not take kindly to trace and trail, with the exception
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: of the two mongrels. They were bewildered and spirit broken
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: by the strange, savage environment in which they found themselves
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: and by the ill treatment they had received. The two
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: mongrels were without spirit at all. Bones were the only
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: things breakable about them. With the newcomers hopeless and forlorn,
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: and the old team worn out by twenty five hundred
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: miles of continuous trail, the outlook was anything but bright.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: The two men, however, were quite cheerful, and they were
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: proud too. They were doing the thing in style with
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: fourteen dogs. They had seen other sleds to part over
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: the pass for Dawson or come in from Dawson, but
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: never had they seen a sled with so many as
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: fourteen dogs. In the nature of Arctic travel, there was
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: a reason why fourteen dogs should not drag one sled,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: and that was that one sled could not carry the
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: food for fourteen dogs. But Charles and Hal did not
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: know this. They had worked the trip out with a pencil,
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: so much to a dog, so many dogs, so many
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: days kwi ed Mercedes looked over their shoulders and nodded. Comprehensively.
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: It was all so very simple. Late next morning, Buck
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: led the long team up the street. There was nothing
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: lively about it, no snap or go in him and
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: his fellows. They were starting dead, weary for times he
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: had covered the distance between Salt Water and Dawson, and
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: the knowledge that, jaded and tired he was facing the
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: seme same trail once more made him bitter. His heart
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: was not in the work, nor was the heart of
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: any dog. The outsides were timid and frightened, the insides
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: without confidence in their masters, Buck felt vaguely that there
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: was no depending upon these two men and the woman.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: They did not know how to do anything, and as
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: the days went by it became apparent that they could
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: not learn. They were slack in all things, without order
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: or discipline. It took them half the night to pitch
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: a slovenly camp, and half the morning to break that
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: camp and get the sled loaded in fashion so slovenly
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: that for the rest of the day they were occupied
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: in stopping and re arranging the load. Some days they
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: did not make ten miles. On other days they were
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: unable to get started at all, And on no day
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: did they succeed in making more than half the distance
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: used by the men as a basis in their dog
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: food computation, it was inevitable that they should go short
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: on dog food, but they hastened by overfeeding, bringing the
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: day nearer when undefeeding would commence. The outside dogs, whose
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: digestions had not been trained by chronic famine to make
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: the most of little, had voracious appetites, and when in
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: addition to this, the worn out huskies pulled weakly, how
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: decided that the Orthodox ration was too small, he doubled it,
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: and to cap it all. When Mercedes, with tears in
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: her pretty eyes and a quaver in her throat, could
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: not cajole him into giving the dogs still more, she
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: stole from the fish sacks and fed them slyly. But
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: it was not food that Buck and the huskies needed,
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: but rest, and though they were making poor time, the
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: heavy load they dragged sapped their strength severely. Then came
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: the underfeeding hal awoke one day to the fact that
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: his dog food was half gone and the distance only
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: quarter covered. Further, that for love or money, no additional
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: dog food was to be obtained, so he cut down
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: even the Orthodox ration and tried to increase the day's travel.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: His sister and brother in law seconded him, but they
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: were frustrated by their heavy outfit and their own incompetence.
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: It was a simple matter to give the dogs less food,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: but it was impossible to make the dogs travel faster,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: while their own inability to get under way earlier in
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: the morning prevented them from traveling longer hours. Not only
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: did they not know how to work dogs, but they
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: did not know how to work themselves. The first to
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: go was dub poor blundering thief that he was always
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: getting caught and punished, he had none the less been
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: a faithful worker. His wrenched shoulder blade, untreated and unrest
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: went from bad to worse, till finally hal shot him
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: with the big Colt's revolver. It is a saying of
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: the country that an outside dog starves to death on
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: the ration of the husky, So the six outside dogs
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: under Buck could do no less than die on half
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: the ration of the husky. The Newfoundland went first, followed
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: by the three short haired pointers, the two mongrels, hanging
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: more grittily on to life, but going in the end.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: By this time, all the amenities and gentlenesses of the
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: Southland had fallen away from the three people. Shorn of
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: its glamor and romance. Arctic travel became to them a
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: reality too harsh for their manhood and womanhood. Mercedes ceased
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: weeping over the dogs, being too occupied with weeping over
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: herself and with quarreling with her husband and brother. To
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: quarrel was the one thing they were never too weary
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: to do. Their irritability arose out of their misery, increased
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: with it, doubled upon it, outdistanced it. The wonderful patience
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: of the trail, which comes to men who toil hard
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: and suffer sore, and remain sweet of speech and kindly,
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: did not come to these two men and the woman.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: They had no inkling of such a patience. They were
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: stiff and in pain, their muscles ached, their bones ached,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: their very hearts ached. And because of this they became
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: sharp of speech, and hard words were first on their
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: lips in the morning and last at night. Charles and
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: How wrangled whenever Mercedes gave them a chance. It was
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: the cherished belief of each that he did more than
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: his share of the work, and neither forebore to speak.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: This belief at every opportunity. Sometimes Mercedes sided with her husband,
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: sometimes with her brother. The result was a beautiful and
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: unending family quarrel, starting from a dispute as to which
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: should chop a few sticks for the fire, a dispute
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: which concerned only Charles, and how presently would be lugged
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: in the rest of the family fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: people thousands of miles away, and some of them dead.
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: That Howe's views on art or the sort of society
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: plays his mother's brother wrote, should have anything to do
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: with the chopping of a few sticks of firewood passes comprehension. Nevertheless,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: the quarrel was as likely to tend in that direction
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: as in the direction of Charles's political prejudices. And that
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: Charles's sister's tale bearing tongue should be relay and to
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: the building of a Yukon fire was apparent only to Mercedes,
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: who disburned herself of copious opinions upon that topic, and incidentally,
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: upon a few other traits unpleasantly peculiar to her husband's family.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, the fire remained unbuilt, the camp half pitched,
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: and the dogs unfed. Mercedes nursed a special grievance, the
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: grievance of sex. She was pretty and soft and had
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: been chivalrously treated all her days, but the present treatment
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: by her husband and brother was everything save chivalrous. It
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: was her custom to be helpless. They complained upon which
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: impeachment of what to her was her most essential sex prerogative.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: She made their lives unendurable. She no longer considered the dogs,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: and because she was sore and tired, she persisted in
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: riding on the sledge. She was pretty and soft, but
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: she weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, a lusty last
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: straw to the load. Dragged by the weak and starving animals,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: she rode for days till they fell in the traces
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: and the sledge stood still. Charles and How begged her
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: to get off and walk, pleaded with her, entreated though
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: while she wept and importuned Heaven with a recital of
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: their brutality. On one occasion they took her off the
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: sled by main strength. They never did it again. She
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: let her legs go limp like a spoiled child, and
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: sat down on the trail. They went on their way,
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: but she did not move. After they had traveled three miles,
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: They unloaded the sled, came back for her, and by
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: main strength, put her on the sled again. In the
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: excess of their own misery, they were callous to the
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: suffering of their animals. Hal's theory, which he practiced on others,
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: was that one must get hardened. He had started out
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: preaching it to his sister and brother in law. Failing there,
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: he hammered it into the dogs with a club at
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: the five fingers. The dog food gave out, and a
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: toothless old squaw offered to trade them a few pounds
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: of frozen horse hide for the colt's revolver that kept
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: the big hunting knife company at How's hip. A poor
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: substitute for food was this hide, just as it had
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: been stripped from the starved horses of the cattleman six
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: months back. In its frozen state, it was more like
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: strips of galvanized iron, and when a dog wrestled it
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: into his stomach, it thawed into thin and innutritious leathery strings,
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: and into a mass of short hair, irritating and indigestible.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: And through it all bucks staggered along at the head
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: of the team, as in a nightmare. He pulled when
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: he could. When he could no longer pull, he fell
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: down and remained down till blows from whip or club
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: drove him to his feet again. All the stiffness and
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: gloss had gone out of his beautiful furry coat. The
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: hair hung down, limp and draggled or matted with dried blood.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: Where How's club had bruised him, his muscles had wasted
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: away to knotty strings, and the flesh pads had disappeared,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: so that each rib and every bone in his frame
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: were outlined clanely through the loose hide that was wrinkled
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: in folds of emptiness. It was heart breaking. Only Buck's
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: heart was unbreakable. The man in the red sweater had
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: proved that, as it was with Buck, so was it
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: with his mates. They were perambulating skeletons. There were seven altogether,
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: including him. In their very great misery, they had become
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: insensible to the bite of the lash or the bruise
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: of the club. The pain of the beating was dull
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: and distant, just as the things their eyes saw and
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: their ears heard seemed dull and distant. They were not
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: half living or quarter living. They were simply so many
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: bags of bones in which sparks of life fluttered faintly.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: When a halt was made, they dropped down in the
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: traces like dead dogs, and the spark dimmed and paled
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: and seemed to go out. And when the club or
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: whip fell upon them, the spark fluttered feebly up, and
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: they tottered to their feet and staggered on. There came
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: a day when bill Lee, the good natured, fell and
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: could not rise. Hal had traded off his revolver, so
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: he took the axe and knocked Billy on the head
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: as he lay in the traces, then cut the carcass
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: out of the harness and dragged it to one side.
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: Buck saw, and his mates saw, and they knew that
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: this thing was very close to them. On the next day,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: Kuna went, and but five of them remained. Joe too
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: far gone to be malignant, Pike crippled and limping, only
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: half conscious, and not conscious enough longer to malinger. Solex
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: the one eyed, still faithful to the toil of trace
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: and trail, and mournful in that he had so little
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: strength with which to pull Teek, who had not traveled
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: so far that winter, and who was now beaten more
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: than the others, because he was fresher and buck still
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: at the head of the team, but no longer enforcing discipline,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: were striving to enforce it, blind with weakness, half the time,
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: in keeping the trail by the loom of it and
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: by the dim feel of his feet. It was beautiful
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: spring weather, but neither dogs nor humans were aware of it.
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: Each day the sun rose earlier and set later. It
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: was dawned by three in the morning, and twilight lingered
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: till nine at night. The whole long day was a
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: blaze of sunshine. The ghostly winter silence had given way
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: to the great spring murmur of awakening life. This murmur
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: arose from all the land, fraught with the joy of living.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: It came from the things that lived and moved again,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: things which had been as dead and which had not
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: moved during the long months of frost. The sap was
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: rising in the pines. The willows and aspens were bursting
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: out in young buds. Shrubs and vines were putting on
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: fresh garbs of green. Crickets sang in the nights, and
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: in the days. All manner of creeping, crawling things rustled
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: forth into the sun partridges and woodpeckers were booming and
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: knocking in the forest. Squirrels were chattering, birds singing, and
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: overhead honked the wild fowl driving up from the south,
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: in and cunning wedges that split the air. From every
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: hill slope came the trickle of running water, the music
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: of unseen fountains. All things were thawing, bending, snapping. The
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: yukon was straining to break loose the ice that bounded
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: down it ate away from beneath the sun ate from above.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: Airholes formed, fissures, sprang and spread apart, while thin sections
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: of ice fell through bodily into the river. And amid
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: all this bursting, rending, throbbing of awakening life under the
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: blazing sun and through the soft, sighing breezes, Like wayfarers
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: to death staggered the two men, the woman and the huskies,
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: With the dogs falling, Mercedes weeping and riding, Holse swearing innocuously,
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: and Charles's eyes wistfully watering, they staggered into John Thornton's
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: camp at the mouth of White River. When they halted,
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: the dogs dropped down as though they had all been
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: struck dead. Mercedes dried her eyes and looked at John Thornton.
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: Charles sat down on a log to rest. He sat down,
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: very slowly and painstakingly. What of his great stiffness? How
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: did the talking? John Thornton was whittling the last touches
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: on an axe handle he had made from a stick
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: of birch. He whittled and listened, gave monosyllabic replies, and
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: when it was asked terse advice. He knew the breed,
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: and he gave his advice in a certainty that it
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: would not be followed. They told us up above that
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: the bottom was dropping out of the trail, and that
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: the best thing for us to do was to lay over.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: Hal said, in response to Thornton's warning to take no
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: more chances on the rotten ice. They told us we
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: couldn't make White River. And here we are, this last
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: with a sneering ring of triumph in it. And they
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: told you true, John Thornton answered, the bottoms likely to
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: drop out at any moment. Only fools, with the blind
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: luck of fools, could have made it. I tell you straight,
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: I couldn't risk my carcass on that ice for all
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: the gold in Alaska. That's because you're not a fool,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: I suppose, said Hal, all the same will go on
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: to Dawson. He uncoiled his whip. Get up there, Buck Hi,
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: get up there, mush On. Thornton went on whittling. It
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: was idle he knew to get between a fool and
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: his folly, while two or three fools more or less
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: would not alter the scheme of things. But the team
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: did not get up at the command. It had long
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: since passed into the stage where blows were required to
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: rouse it. The whip flashed out here and there on
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: its merciless errands. John Thornton compressed his lips Solex was
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: the first to crawl to his feet. Teak followed. Joe
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: came next, yelping with pain. Pike made painful efforts. Twice
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: he fell over when half up, and on the third,
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: at tempt managed to rise. Buck made no effort. He
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: lay quietly where he had fallen. The lash bit into
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: him again and again, but he neither whined nor struggled.
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: Several times Thornton started as though to speak, but changed
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: his mind. A moisture came into his eyes, and as
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: the whipping continued, he arose and walked irresolutely up and down.
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: This was the first time Buck had failed, in itself,
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: a sufficient reason to drive Hal into a rage. He
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: exchanged the whip for the customary club. Buck refused to
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: move under the rain of heavier blows which now fell
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: upon him. Like his mates, he was barely able to
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: get up, But unlike them, he had made up his
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: mind not to get up. He had a vague feeling
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: of impending doom. This had been strong upon him when
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: he pulled into the bank, and it had not departed
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: from him. What of the thin and rotten eyes he
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: had felt under his feet all day, It seemed that
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: he sensed his disster closed at hand. Out there ahead
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: on the ice, where his master was trying to drive him.
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: He refused to stir. So greatly had he suffered, and
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: so far gone was he that the blows did not
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: hurt much. And as they continued to fall upon him,
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: the spark of life within flickered and went down. It
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: was nearly out. He felt strangely numb, as though from
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: a great distance he was aware that he was being beaten.
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: The last sensations of pain left him. He no longer
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: felt anything, though very faintly he could hear the impact
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: of the club upon his body, but it was no
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: longer his body. It seemed so far away. And then, suddenly,
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: without warning, uttering a cry that was inarticulate and more
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: like the cry of an animal, John Thornton sprang upon
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: the man who wielded the club. Hal was hurled backward
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: as though struck by a falling tree. Mercedes screamed. Charles
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: looked on, Whi fully wiped his watery eyes, but did
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: not get up because of his stiffness. John Thornton stood
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: over Buck, struggling to control himself, too convulsed with rage
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: to speak. If you strike that dog again, I'll kill you.
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: He at last managed to say, in a choking voice,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: it's my dog. Hal replied, wiping the blood from his
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: mouth as he came back. Get out of my way,
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: or I'll fix you. I'm going to Dawson. Thornton stood
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: between him and Buck, and evinced no intention of getting
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: out of the way. Hal drew his long hunting knife.
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: Mercedes screamed, cried, laughed, and manifested the chaotic abandonment of hysteria.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: Thornton rapped Hal's knuckles with the axe handle, knocking the
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: knife to the ground. He rapped his knuckles again as
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: he tried to pick it up. Then he stooped, picked
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: it up himself, and with two strokes cut Buck's traces.
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: How had no fight left in him besides, his hands
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: were full with his sister or his arms rather, while
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: Buck was too near dead to be of further use
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: in hauling the sled. A few minutes later they pulled
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: out from the bank and down the river. Buck heard
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: them go and raised his head to see. Pike was leading,
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: Soleks was at the wheel, and between were Joe and Teak.
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: They were limping and staggering. Mercedes was riding the loaded sled.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: Hal guided at the geep hole, and Charles stumbled along
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: in the rear. As Buck watched them, Thornton knelt beside
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: him and with rough, kindly hands searched for broken bones.
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: By the time his search had disclosed nothing more than
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: many bruises and a state of terrible starvation. The sled
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: was a quarter of a mile away. Dog and man
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: watched it crawling along over the ice. Suddenly they saw
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: its back end drop down as into a rut, and
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: the geepole, with How clinging to it, jerk into the air.
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: Mercedes is dream came to their ears. They saw Charles
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: turn and make one step to run back, and then
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: a whole section of ice give way, and dogs and
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: humans disappear. A yawning hole was all that was to
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: be seen. The bottom had dropped out of the trail.
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: John Thornton and Buck looked at each other, You poor devil,
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: said John Thornton, and Buck licked his hand. Chapter six,
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: For the Love of a Man. When John Thornton froze
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: his feet in the previous December, his partners had made
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: him comfortable and left him to get well, going on
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: themselves up the river to get out a raft of
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: sulogs for Dawson. He was still limping slightly at the
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: time he rescued Buck, but with the continued warm weather,
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: even the slight limp left him. And here, lying by
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: the river bank through the long spring days, watching the
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: running water, listening lazily to the songs of birds and
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: the hum of nature, Buck slowly won back his strength.
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: A rest comes very good after one has traveled three
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: thousand miles. And it must be confessed that Buck waxed
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: lazy as his wounds healed, his muscles swelled out, and
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: the flesh came back to cover his bones. For that matter,
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: they were all loafing Buck, John Thornton, and Skeat and Nig,
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: waiting for the raft to come that was to carry
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: them down to Dawson. Skeat was a little Irish setter
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: who early made friends with Buck, who, in a dying condition,
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: was unable to resent her first advances. She had the
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: doctor trait which some dogs possess, and as a mother
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: cat washes her kittens, so she washed and cleansed Buck's
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: wounds regularly each morning after he had finished his breakfast.
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: She performed herself appointed task till he came to look
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: for her ministrations as much as he did for Thornton's. Nig.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: Equally friendly, though less demonstrative, was a huge black dog,
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: half bloodhound and half deerhound, with eyes that laughed in
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: a boundless good nature. To buck surprise, these dogs manifested
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: no jealousy toward him. They seemed to share the kindliness
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: and largeness of John Thornton. As Buck grew stronger, they
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: enticed him into all sorts of ridiculous games in which
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: Thornton himself could not forbear to join. And in this
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: fashion Buck romped through his convalescence and into a new existence. Love,
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: genuine passionate love, was his for the first time. This
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: he had never experienced. At Judge Miller's down in the
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: sun kissed Santa Clara Valley, with the judge's sons hunting
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: and tramping. It had been a working partnership with the
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: judge's grandsons a sort of pompous guardianship, and with the
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: Judge himself a stately, indignified friendship. But love that was
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: feverish and burning. That was adoration. That was madness. It
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: had taken John Thornton to arouse. This man had saved
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: his life, which was something. But further, he was the
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: dogs from a sense of duty and business expediency. He
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 1: saw out to the welfare of his as if they
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: were his own children, because he could not help it.
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: And he saw further, he never forgot a kindly greeting
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: or a cheering word, And to sit down for a
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: long talk with them gas he called it was as
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: much his delight as theirs. He had a way of
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: taking Buck's head roughly between his hands and resting his
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: own head upon Buck's of shaking him back and forth,
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: though while calling him ill names that to Buck were
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: love names. Buck knew no greater joy than that rough
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: embrace and the sound of murmured oaths. And at each
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: jerk back and forth, it seemed that his heart would
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: be shaken out of his body, so great was its ecstasy.
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: And when released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing,
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: his eyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: in that fashion remained without movement. John Thornton would reverently exclaim, God,
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: you can all but speak. Buck had a trick of
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: love expression that was akin to hurt. He would often
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: one sees Thornton's hand in his mouth and close so
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: fiercely that the flesh bore the impress of his teeth
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: for some time afterward, And as Buck understood the oathes
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: to be love words, so the man understood this feined
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: bite for a caress. For the most part, however, Buck's
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: love was expressed in adoration, while he went wild with
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: happiness when Thornton touched him or spoke to him. He
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: did not seek these tokens, unlike Skeet, who was wont
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: to shove her nose under Thornton's hand and nudge and nudge,
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: till petted or nig who would stalk up and rest
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: his great head on Thornton's knee. Buck was content to
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: adore at a distance. He would lie by the hour,
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: eager alert, at Thornton's feet, looking up into his face,
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: dwelling upon it, studying it, following with keenest interest each
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: fleeting expression, every movement or change of feature, or, as
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: chance might have it, he would lie farther away to
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: the side or rear, watching the outlines of the man,
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: the occasional movements of his body, and often such was
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: the communion in which they lived. The strength of Buck's
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: gaze would draw John Thornton's head around, and he would
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: return the gaze without speech, his heart shining out of
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: his eyes as Buck's heart shone out. For a long
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton to
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: get out of his sight. From the moment he left
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: the tent to when he entered it again, Buck would
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: follow at his heels. His transient masters since he had
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: come into the Northland had bred in him a fear
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: that no master could be permanent. He was afraid that
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: Thornton would pass out of his life as Perrault and Francois,
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: and the Scotch half breed had passed out. Even in
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: the night in his dreams, he was haunted by this fear.
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: At such times he would shake off sleep and creep
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: through the chill to the flap of the tent, where
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: he would stand and listen to the sound of his
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: master's breathing. But in spite of this great love he
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: bore John Thornton, which seemed to bespeak the soft civilizing influence,
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: the strain of the primitive which the Northland had aroused
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: in him, remained alive and active. Faithfulness and devotion, things
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: born of fire and roof were his. Yet he retained
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: his wildness and williness. He was a thing of the wild,
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: come in from the wild to sit by John Thornton's fire,
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: rather than a dog of the soft Southland, stamped with
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: the marks of generations of civilization. Because of his very
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: great love, he could not steal from this man, but
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: from any other man in any other camp. He did
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: not hesitate an instant. While the cunning with which he
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: stole enabled him to escape detection, his face and body
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: were scored by the teeth of many dogs, and he
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: fought as fiercely as ever and more shrewdly. Skeat and
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: Nig were too good natured for quarreling. Besides, they belonged
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: to John Thornton. But the strange dog, no matter what
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: the breed or valor, swiftly acknowledged Buck's supremacy, or found
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: himself struggling for life with a terrible antagonist. And Buck
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: was merciless. He had learned well the law of club
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: and fawn, and he never forewent an advantage or drew
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: back from a foe. He had started on the way
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: to death. He had lessened from spits and from the
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: chief fighting dogs of the police and male, and knew
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: there was no middle course. He must master or be mastered.
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: While to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear,
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed,
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: eat or be eaten was the law, and this mandate
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: down out of the depths of time, he obeyed. He
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: was older than the days he had seen and the
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: breaths he had drawn. He linked the past with the
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: present and the eternity behind him, throbbed, threw him in
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: a mighty rhythm, to which he swayed as the tides
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: and season swayed. He sat by John Thornton's fire, a
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: broad breasted dog, white fanged, and longforred. But behind him
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: were the shades of all manner of dogs, half wolves,
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: and wild wolves, urgent and prompting, tasting the savor of
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank,
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: scenting the wind with him, listening with him and telling
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: him the sounds made by the wild life in the forest,
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: dictating his moods, directing his actions, lying down to sleep
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: with him when he lay down, and dreaming with him
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: and beyond him, and becoming themselves the stuff of his dreams.
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: So peremptorily did these shades beckon him, that each day
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: mankind and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him.
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: Deep in the forest, a call was sounding, And as
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring,
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: the forest, and on and on. He knew not where
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: or why, nor did he wonder where or why the
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: call sounding imperiously deep in the forest. But as often
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: as he gained the soft, unbroken earth and the green shade,
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: the love for John Thornton drew him back to the
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: fire again. Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: was as nothing. Chance travelers might praise or pet him,
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: but he was cold under it all, and from a
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: too demonstrative man, he would get up and walk away.
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: When Thornton's partners, Hans and Pete arrived on the long
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: expected raft, Buck refused to notice them till he learned
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: they were close to Thornton. After that he tolerated them
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: in a passive sort of way, accepting favors from them
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: as though he favored them by accepting they were of
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: the same large type as Thornton, living close to the earth,
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: thinking simply and seeing clearly, and ere they swung the
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: raft into the big Eddy by the sawmill at Dawson.
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: They understood Buck and his ways and did not insist
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: upon an intimacy such as obtained with Skeet and Nigeria.
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: For Thornton, however, his love seemed to grow and grow.
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: He alone among men could put a pack upon Buck's back.
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: In the summer traveling, nothing was too great for Buck
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: to do when Thornton commanded. One day, they had grubstaked
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: themselves from the proceeds of the raft and left Dawson
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: for the head waters of the Tanninaw. The men and
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: dogs were sitting on the crest of a cliff which
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: fell away straight down to naked bed rock three hundred
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: feet below. John Thornton was sitting near the edge, Buck
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: at his shoulder. A thoughtless whim seized Thornton, and he
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: drew the attention of Hans and Pete to the experiment
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: he had in mind. Jump Buck, he commanded, sweeping his
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: arm out and over the chasm. The next instant he
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: was grappling with Buck on the extreme edge, while Hans
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: and Pete were dragging them back into safety. It's uncanny,
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: Pete said, after it was over and they had caught
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: their speech. Thornton shook his head. No, it is splendid,
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: and it is terrible too. Do you know it sometimes
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: makes me afraid. I'm not hankering to be the man
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: that lays hands on you while he's around, Pete announced, conclusively,
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: nodding his head. Toward Buck. P y Jingo was Hans's contribution,
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: not mine self either. It was at Circle City ere
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: the year was out that Pete's apprehensions were realized. Black Burton,
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: a man evil tempered and malicious, had been picking a
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: quarrel with a tenderfoot at the bar when Thornton stepped
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: good naturedly between Buck, as was his custom, was lying
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: in a corner, head on pause, watching his master's every action.
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: Burton struck out without warning, straight from the shoulder. Thornton
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: was sent spinning and saved himself from falling only by
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: clutching the rail of the bar. Those who were looking
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: on heard what was neither bark nor yelp, but a
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: something which is best described as a roar, and they
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: saw Buck's body rise up in the air as he
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: left the floor for Burton's throat. The man saved his
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: life by instinctively throwing out his arm, but was hurled
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: backward to the floor with Buck on top of him.
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: Buck loosed his teeth from the floor bush of the arm,
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: and drove in again for the throat. This time the
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: man succeeded only in partly blocking, and his throat was
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: torn open. Then the crowd was upon Buck and he
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: was driven off, but while a surgeon checked the bleeding,
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: he prowled up and down, growling furiously, attempting to rush
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: in and being forced back by an array of hostile clouds.
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: A miners meeting called on the spot decided that the
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: dog had sufficient provocation, and Buck was discharged, But his
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: reputation was made, and from that day his name spread
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: through every camp in Alaska. Later on, in the fall
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: of the year, he saved John Thornton's life in quite
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: another fashion. The three partners were lining a long and
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: narrow pulling boat down a bad stretch of rapids on
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: the forty Mile Creek. Hans and Pete moved along the bank,
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: snubbing with a thin Manila rope from tree to tree,
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: while Thornton remained in the boat, helping its descent by
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: means of a pole and shouting directions to the shore.
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: Buck on the bank, worried and anxious, kept abreast of
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: the boat, his eyes never off his master. At a
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged rocks
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: jutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: and while Thornton pulled the boat out into the stream,
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: ran down the bank with the end in his hand
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge.
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: This it did, and was flying downstream in a current
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: as swift as a mill race when Hans checked it
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: with the rope and checked too. Suddenly the boat flirted
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: over and snubbed into the bank bottom up, while Thornton
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: flung sheer out of it was carried downstream toward the
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wild water
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: in which no swimmer could live. Buck had sprung in
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: on the instant, and at the end of three hundred yards,
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: he felt him grasp his tail. Buck headed for the bank,
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: swimming with all his splendid strength, but the progress shoreward
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: was low. The progressed downstream amazingly rapid. From below came
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: the fatal roaring ere. The wild current went wilder and
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: was rent in shreds and spray by the rocks, which
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: thrust through like the teeth of an enormous comb. The
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: suck of the water as it took the beginning of
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: the last steep pitch was frightful and Thornton knew that
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: the shore was impossible. He scraped furiously over a rock,
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: bruised across a second, and struck a third with crushing force.
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: He clutched its slippery top with both hands, releasing Buck,
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: and above the roar of the churning water, shouted, go Buck, Go.
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: Buck could not hold his own and swept on downstream,
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: struggling desperately but unable to win back. When he heard
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: Thornton's command repeated, he partly reared out of the water,
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: throwing his head high as though for a last look,
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: then turned obediently toward the bank. He swam powerfully and
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at the very
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: point where swimming ceased to be possible and destruction began.
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: They knew that the time a man could cling to
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: a slippery rock in the face of that driving current
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: was a matter of minutes, and they ran as fast
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: as they could up the bank to a point far
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 1: above where Thornton was hanging on. They attached the line
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: with which they had been snubbing the boat to Buck's
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: neck and shoulders, being careful that it should neither strangle
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: him nor impede his swimming and launched him into the stream.
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: He struck out boldly, but not straight enough into the stream.
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: He discovered the mistake too late, when Thornton was abreast
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: of him and a bare half dozen strokes away. While
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 1: he was being carried helplessly past, Hans promptly snubbed with
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: the rope as though Buck were a boat. The rope
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: thus tightening on him. In the sweep of the current,
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: he was jerked under the surface, and under the surface
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: he remained till his body struck against the bank and
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: he was hauled out. He was half drowned, and Hans
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: and Pete threw themselves upon him, pounding the breath into
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: him and the water out of him. Daggered to his
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: feet and fell down. The faint sound of Thornton's voice
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: came to them, and though they could not make out
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: the words of it, they knew that he was in
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: his extremity. His master's voice acted on Buck like an
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: electric shock. He sprang to his feet and ran up
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: the bank ahead of the men, to the point of
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: his previous departure. Again, the rope was attached and he
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: was launched, and again he struck out, but this time
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: strayed into the stream. He had miscalculated once, but he
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: would not be guilty of it a second time. Hans
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: paid out the rope, permitting no slack, while Pete kept
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: it clear of coils. Buck held on till he was
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: on a line straight above Thornton. Then he turned and,
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: with the speed of an express train, headed down upon him.
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: Thornton saw him coming, and as Buck struck him like
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: a battering ram with the whole force of the current
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: behind him, he reached up and closed with both arms
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: around the shaggy neck. Hans snubbed the rope around the tree,
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: and Buck and Thornton were jerked under the water, strangling, suffocating,
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other, dragging over the
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: jagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags. They veered into
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: the bank. Thornton came to belly downward and being violently
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: propelled back and forth across a drift log by Hans
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: and Pete. His first glance was for Buck, over whose
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: limp and apparently lifeless body Nig was setting up a
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: howl while Skeet was licking the wet face and closed eyes.
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: Thornton was himself bruised and battered, and he went carefully
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: over Buck's body when he had been brought around, finding
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: three broken ribs. That settles it. He announced, we camp
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: right here, and camp they did till Buck's ribs knitted,
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: and he was able to travel that winter at Dawson,
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: but performed another exploit, not so heroic, perhaps, but one
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: that put his name many notches higher on the totem
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: pole of Alaskan fame. This exploit was particularly gratifying to
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: the three men, for they stood in need of the outfit,
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: which it furnished, and were enabled to make a long
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: desired trip into the Virgin East, where miners had not
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: yet appeared. It was brought about by a conversation in
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: the El Dorado saloon in which men waxed boastful of
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: their favorite dogs. Buck, because of his record, was the
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: target for these men, and Thornton was driven stoutly to
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: defend him. At the end of half an hour, one
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: man stated that his dog could start a sledge with
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: five hundred pounds and walk off with it. A second
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: bragged six hundred for his dog, and a third seven hundred.
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: Pooh pooh, said John Thornton, Buck can start a thousand
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: pounds and break it out and walk off with it
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: for a hundred yards, demanded Matthewson, A bonanza king, he
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: of the seven hundred vaunt and break it out and
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: walk off with it for a hundred yards. John Thornton
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: said coolly. Well, Matthewson said, slowly and deliberately, so that
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: all could hear. I've got a thousand dollars. That says
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: he can't, And there it is so, saying, he slammed
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 1: a sack of gold dust of the size of a
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: Bologna sausage down upon the bar. Nobody spoke Thornton's bluff,
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: if bluff it was had been called, He could feel
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: a flush of warm blood creeping up his face. His
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: tongue had tricked him. He did not know whether Buck
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: could start a thousand pounds half a ton. The enormousness
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: of it appalled him. He had great faith in Buck's strength,
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: and had often thought him capable of starting such a load,
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: but never as now had he faced the possibility of it.
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: The eyes of a dozen men fixed upon him, silent
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: and waiting further. He had no thousand dollars, nor had
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: Hans or Pete. I've got a sledge standing outside now
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: with twenty fifty pound sacks of flour on it. Matthewson
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: went on with brutal directness, So don't let that hinder you.
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: Thornton did not reply. He did not know what to say.
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: He glanced from face to face in the absent way
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: of a man who has lost the power of thought
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: and is seeking somewhere to find the thing that will
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: start it going again. The face of Jim O'Brien, a
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: mastodon king, an old time comrade, caught his eyes. It
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: was as a cue to him, seeming to rouse him
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: to do what he would never have dreamed of doing.
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 1: Can you lend me a thousand? He asked, almost in
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: a whisper. Sure, answered O'Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: by the side of Matthewson's. Though its little faith, I'm
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: having John that the beast can do the trick. The
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: El Dorado emptied its occupants into the street to see
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: the test. The tables were deserted, and the dealers and
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: gamekeepers came forth to see the outcome of the wager
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: and to lay odds. Several hundred men furred and mitten
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: banked a round the sled within easy distance. Matthewson's sled,
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had been standing
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: for a couple of hours, and in the intense cold
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: it was sixty below zero. The runners had frozen fast
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: to the hard packed snow. Men offered odds of two
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: to one that Buck could not budge the sled. A
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: quibble arose concerning the phrase breakout. O'Brien contended it was
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: Thornton's privilege to knock the runners loose, leaving Buck to
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: break it out from a dead standstill. Matthewson insisted that
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: the phrase included breaking the runners from the frozen grip
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: of the snow. A majority of the men who had
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: witnessed the making of the bet decided in his favor.
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: Whereat the odds went up to three to one against Buck,
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: there were no takers. Not a man believed him capable
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: of the feet. Thornton had been hurried into the wager
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: heavy with doubt, and now that he looked at the
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: sled itself, the concrete fact with the regular team of
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: more impossible the task appeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant, three to one.
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: He proclaimed, I'll lay you another thousand at that figure, Thornton,
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: what d'ye say? Thornton's doubt was strong in his face,
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: but his fighting spirit was aroused. The fighting spirit that
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: soars above odds, fails to recognize the impossible, and is
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: deaf to all save the clamor for battle. He called
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: Hans and Pete to him. Their sacks were slim, and
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: with his own, the three partners could rake together only
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: two hundred dollars in the ebb of their fortunes. This
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: sum was their total capital, yet they laid it unhesitatingly
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: against Matthewson's six hundred. The team of ten dogs was unhitched,
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: and Buck, with his own harness, was put into the sled.
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: He had caught the contagion of the excitement, and he
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: felt that in some way he must do a great
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: thing for John Thornton. Murmurs of admiration at his splendid
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 1: appearance went up. He was in perfect condition, without an
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: ounce of superfluous flesh, and the one hundred and fifty
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: pounds that he weighed worth so many pounds of grit
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 1: and virility. His furry coat shone with the sheen of
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: silk down the neck and across the shoulders. His mane
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: in repose, as it was half bristled, and seemed to
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: lift with every movement, as though excess of vigor made
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: each particular hair alive and active. The great breast and
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: heavy fore legs were no more than in proportion with
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: the rest of the body, where the muscles showed in
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt these muscles and
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went down
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: to two to one. Gad, Sir, Gad, Sir, stuttered a
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: member of the latest dynasty, a king of the Scuokum benches.
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: I offer you eight hundred for him, sir, before the test, Sir,
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: eight hundred, just as he stands Thornton shook his head
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: and stepped to Buck's side. You must stand off from him.
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: Matthewson protested free play and plenty of room. The crowd
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: fell silent, only could be heard the voices of the gamblers,
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: vainly offering two to one. Everybody acknowledged Buck a magnificent animal,
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: but twenty fifty pound sacks of flower bolts too large
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch strings.
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: in his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: did not playfully shake him, as was his wont or
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: murmur soft love curses, but he whispered in his ear,
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: As you love me, Buck, As you love me was
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: what he whispered. Buck whined with suppressed eagerness. The crowd
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: was watching curiously. The affair was growing mysterious. It seemed
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: like a conjuration. As Thornton got to his feet, Buck
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: seized his mittened hand between his jaws, pressing in with
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: his teeth and releasing slowly, half reluctantly. It was the
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: answer in terms not of speech, but of love. Thornton
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: stepped well back now, Buck, he said. Buck tightened the traces,
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: then slacked them for a matter of several inches. It
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: was the way he had learned. Gee. Thornton's voice rang
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: out sharp in the tense silence. Buck swung to the right,
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: ending the movement in a plunge that took up the slack,
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: fifty pounds. The load quivered, and from under the runners
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 1: arose a crisp, crackling. Haul Thornton commanded Buck duplicated the maneuver,
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: this time to the left. The crackling turned into a snapping,
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: the sled pivoting, and the runners slipping and grating several
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: inches to the side. The sled was broken out. Men
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: were holding their breaths intensely, unconscious of the fact. Now
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 1: mush Thornton's command cracked out like a pistol shot. Buck
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: threw himself forward, tightening the traces with a jarring lunge.
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: His whole body was gathered compactly together in the tremendous effort,
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: the muscles writhing and nodding like live things under the
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: silky fur. His great chest was low to the ground,
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: his head forward and down, while his feet were flying
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: like mad, the claws scarring the hard packed snow in
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: parallel grooves. The sled swayed and trembled, half started forward.
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: One of his feet slipped, and one man groaned aloud.
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: Then the sled lurched ahead in what appeared a rapid
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: succession of jerks, though it never really came to a
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: dead stop again half an inch, an inch, two inches.
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: The jerks perceptibly diminished as the sled gained momentum. He
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 1: caught them up till it was moving steadily along. Men
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that for a
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: moment they had ceased to breathe. Thornton was running behind,
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: encouraging Buck with short, cheery words. The distance had been
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: measured off, and as he neared the pile of firewood
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: which marked the end of the hundred yards, a cheer
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: began to grow and grow, which burst into a roar.
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: As he passed the firewood and halted at command. Every
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: man was tearing himself loose, even Matthewson. Hats and mittens
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: were flying in the air. Men were shaking hands, it
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: did not matter with whom, and bubbling over in a general,
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: incoherent babble. But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck.
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: Head was against head, and he was shaking him back
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: and forth. Those who hurried up heard him cursing Buck,
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: and he cursed him long and fervently and softly and lovingly. Gad, Sir, Gad, sir,
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: spluttered the scuokum bench king. I'll give you a thousand
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: for him, sir, A thousand, sir, twelve hundred. Sir Thornton
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: rose to to his feet. His eyes were wet, the
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: tears were streaming frankly down his cheeks. Sir, he said
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: to the Scuokham bench king, No, sir, you can go
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: to Hell, Sir, It's the best I can do for you. Sir.
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: Buck seized Thornton's hand in his teeth. Thornton shook him
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: back and forth, as though animated by a common impulse.
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: The onlookers drew back to a respectful distance, nor were
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: they again indiscreet enough to interrupt Chapter seven the sounding
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: of the Call. When Buck earned sixteen hundred dollars in
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: five minutes for John Thornton, he made it possible for
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 1: his master to pay off certain debts and to journey
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: with his partners into the east after a fabled lost mind,
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: the history of which was as old as the history
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: of the country. Many men had sought it, few had
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: found it, and more than a few there were who
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: had never returned from the quest. This lost mine was
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: steeped in tragedy and shrouded in mystery. No one knew
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: of the first man the oldest tradition stopped before it
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: got back to him from the beginning there had been
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: an ancient and ramshackle cabin dying. Men had sworn to
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: it and to the mind the sight of which it marked,
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: clinching their testimony with nuggets that were unlike any known
• 2:31:17
  Speaker 1: grade of gold in the Northland. But no living man
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: had looted this treasure house, and the dead were dead.
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: Wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans with Buck and
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: half a dozen other dogs faced into the east on
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: an unknown trail to achieve where men and dogs as
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: good as themselves had failed. They sled seventy miles up
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: the Yukon, swung to the left into the Stuart River,
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: past the Mayo and the Ma Question, and held on
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: until the Steward itself became a streamlet threading the upstanding
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: peaks which marked the backbone of the continent. John Thornton
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: the wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle,
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 1: he could plunge into the wilderness and fair wherever he pleased,
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: and as long as he pleased, being in no haste
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the course of
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: the day's travel, and if he failed to find it.
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: Like the Indian, he kept on traveling, secure in the
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: knowledge that sooner or later he would come to it.
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: So on this great journey into the East, straight meat
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 1: was the bill of fare. Ammunition and tools principally made
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: up the load on the sled, and the time card
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: was drawn upon the limitless future. To bucket was boundless delight.
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: This hunting, fishing, and indefinite wandering through strange places. For
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: weeks at a time they would hold on steadily, day
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: after day, and for weeks upon end they would camp
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 1: here and there, the dogs loafing in, the men burning
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: holes through frozen muck and gravel, and washing countless pans
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: of dirt by the heat of the fire. Sometimes they
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: went hungry, sometimes they feasted riotously, all according to the
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: abundance of game and the fortune of hunting. Summer arrived,
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: and dogs and men packed on their backs, rafted across
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: blue mountain lakes and descended or ascended unknown rivers in
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: slender boats whipsawed from the standing forest. The months came
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: and went, and back and forth they twisted through the
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: uncharted vastness where no men were, and yet where men
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: had been. If the lost cabin were true. They went
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: across divides in summer blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: on naked mountains between the timber line and the eternal snows,
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 1: dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. In
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: the fall of the year, they penetrated a weird lake country,
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: sad and silent where wild fowl had been, but where
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: then there was no life nor sign of life, only
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: of men who had gone before. Once they came upon
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: a path blazed through the forest, an ancient path, and
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: the lost cabin seemed very near. But the path began
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remained mystery, as the
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 1: man who made it, and the reason he made it,
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 1: remained mystery. Another time they chanced upon the time graven
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 1: wreckage of a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: rotted blankets. John Thornton found a long barreled flintlock. He
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: knew it for a Hudson Bay Company gun of the
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: young days in the Northwest, when such a gun was
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: worth its height in beaver skins packed flat. And that
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 1: was all no hint as to the man who, in
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: an early day had reared the lodge and left the
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 1: gun among the blankets. Spring came on once more, and
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: at the end of all their wandering they found not
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: the lost cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley,
• 2:34:48
  Speaker 1: where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: of the washing pan. They sought no farther. Each day
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: they worked earned them thousands of dollars in clean dust
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 1: and nuggets, and they were every day. The gold was
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: sacked in moose hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag,
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce bough lodge.
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: Like giants. They toiled days, flashing on the heels of
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: days like dreams, as they heaped the treasure up. There
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: was nothing for the dogs to do save the hauling
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: in of meat. Now and again that Thornton killed and
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: buck spent long hours musing by the fire. The vision
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: of the short legged hairy Man came to him more
• 2:35:28
  Speaker 1: frequently now that there was little work to be done,
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: and often blinking by the fire, Buck wandered with him
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: in that other world which he remembered. The salient thing
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: of this other world seemed fear. When he watched the
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: hairy Man sleeping by the fire head between his knees
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: and hands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly,
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: with many starts and awakenings, at which times he would
• 2:35:51
  Speaker 1: peer fearfully into the darkness and fling morewood upon the fire.
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: Did they walk by the beach of a sea, where
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: the hairy Man gathered shelf fish and ate them as
• 2:36:01
  Speaker 1: he gathered. It was with eyes that roved everywhere for
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: hidden danger, and with legs prepared to run like the
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: wind at its first appearance through the forest. They crept noiselessly,
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: Buck at the hairy Man's heels, and they were alert
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: and vigilant, the pair of them ears twitching and moving
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 1: in nostrils quivering for the man heard and smelt as
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 1: keenly as Buck. The hairy Man could spring up into
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: the trees and travel ahead as fast as on the ground,
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: swinging by the arms from limb to limb, sometimes a
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 1: dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, never
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: missing his grip. In fact, he seemed as much at
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: home among the trees as on the ground, and Buck
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: had memories of knights of vigils spent beneath trees wherein
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: the hairy Man roost, holding on tightly as he slept,
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: and closely akin to the visions of the hairy Man.
• 2:36:49
  Speaker 1: Was the call still sounding in the depths of the forest.
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: It filled him with a great unrest and strange desires.
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: It caused him to feel a vague, sweet gladness, and
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings, for he
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 1: knew not what. Sometimes he pursued the call into the forest,
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: looking for it as though it were a tangible thing,
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: barking softly or defiantly, as the mood might dictate. He
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: would thrust his nose into the cool with moss, or
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: into the black soil where long grasses grew, and snort
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: with joy at the fat earth smells. Or he would
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 1: crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behind fungus covered
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: trunks of fallen trees, wide eyed and wide eared to
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: all that moved and sounded about him. It might be
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: lying thus that he hoped to surprise. This call he
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: could not understand. But he did not know why he
• 2:37:40
  Speaker 1: did these various things. He was impelled to do them,
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: and did not reason about them at all. Irresistible impulses
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: seized him. He would be lying in camp, dozing lazily
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: in the heat of the day, when suddenly his head
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: would lift and his ears cock up, intent and listening,
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: and he would spring to his feet and dash away,
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: and on and on for hours through the forest aisles
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: and across the open spaces where the niggerheads bunched. He
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: loved to run down dry water courses and to creep
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: and spy upon the bird life in the woods. For
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: a day at a time he would lie in the underbrush,
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 1: where he could watch the partridges drumming and strutting up
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: and down. But especially he loved to run in the
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 1: as man may read a book, and seeking for the
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 1: mysterious something that called called waking or sleeping at all
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: times for him to come. One night, he sprang from
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: sleep with a start, eager eyed, nostrils quivering and scenting,
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: his main bristling in recurrent waves from the forest, came
• 2:38:47
  Speaker 1: the call, or one note of it. For the call
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 1: was many noted, distinct and definite as never before, a
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 1: long drawn howl, like yet unlike any noise made by
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: husky dog. And he knew it in the old familiar
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: way as a sound heard before. He sprang through the
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: sleeping camp, and in swift silence, dashed through the woods.
• 2:39:09
  Speaker 1: As he drew closer to the cry, he went more slowly,
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: with caution in every movement, till he came to an
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: open place among the trees, and looking out, saw erect
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: on haunches with nose pointed to the sky, a long,
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: lean timber wolf. He had made no noise, yet it
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 1: ceased from its howling and tried to sense his presence.
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: Buck stalked into the open, half crouching, body gathered compactly together,
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: tail straight and stiff, feet falling with unwonted care. Every
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 1: movement advertised, commingled, threatening and overture of friendliness. It was
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: the menacing truce that marks the meeting of wild beasts
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: that prey, but the wolf fled at sight of him.
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: He followed with wild leapings in a frenzy to overtake.
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: He ran him into a blind channel in the bed
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: of the creek, where a timber jam barred the way.
• 2:40:00
  Speaker 1: The wolf whirled about, pivoting on his hind legs after
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 1: the fashion of Joe and of all cornered husky dogs,
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 1: snarling and bristling, clipping his teeth together in a continuous
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: and rapid succession of snaps. Buck did not attack, but
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 1: circled him about and hedged him in with friendly advances.
• 2:40:18
  Speaker 1: The wolf was suspicious and afraid, for Buck made three
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: of him in weight while his head barely reached Buck's shoulder.
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 1: Watching his chance, he darted away, and the chase was
• 2:40:29
  Speaker 1: resumed time and again. He was cornered, and the thing repeated.
• 2:40:34
  Speaker 1: Though he was in poor condition or Buck could not
• 2:40:36
  Speaker 1: so easily have overtaken him. He would run till Buck's
• 2:40:40
  Speaker 1: head was even with his flank, when he would whirl
• 2:40:43
  Speaker 1: around at bay, only to dash away again at the
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: first opportunity. But in the end Buck's prdnacity was rewarded
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: for the wolf, finding that no harm was intended. Finally
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: sniffed noses with him. Then they became friendly and played
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: about in the nervous half way with which fierce beasts
• 2:41:01
  Speaker 1: belie their fierceness. After some time of this, the wolf
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: started off at an easy lope, in a manner that
• 2:41:07
  Speaker 1: plainly showed he was going somewhere. He made it clear
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: to Buck that he was to come, and they ran
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: side by side through the somber twilight, straight up the
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 1: creek bed into the gorge from which it issued, and
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: across the bleak divide, where it took its rise on
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: the opposite slope of the watershed. They came down into
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: a level country where were great stretches of forest and
• 2:41:28
  Speaker 1: many streams. And through these great stretches they ran steadily,
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: hour after hour, the sun rising higher in the day,
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: growing warmer. Buck was wildly glad. He knew he was
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 1: at last answering the call, running by the side of
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: his brother toward the place from where the call Shirley came.
• 2:41:46
  Speaker 1: Old memories were coming upon him fast, and he was
• 2:41:49
  Speaker 1: stirring to them as of old. He stirred to the
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: realities of which they were the shadows. He had done
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: this thing before, somewhere in that other and dimly remembered world,
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: and he was doing it again, now running free in
• 2:42:01
  Speaker 1: the open, the unpacked earth underfoot, the wide sky overhead.
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: They stopped by a running stream to drink, and stopping,
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: Buck remembered John Thornton. He sat down. The wolf started
• 2:42:15
  Speaker 1: on toward the place from where the call surely came,
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: then returned to him, sniffing noses and making actions as
• 2:42:21
  Speaker 1: though to encourage him. But Buck turned about and started
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: slowly on the back track. For the better part of
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: an hour. The wild brother ran by his side, whining softly.
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: Then he sat down, pointed his nose upward, and howled.
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: It was a mournful howl, and as Buck held steadily
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: on his way, he heard it grow faint and fainter,
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 1: until it was lost in the distance. John Thornton was
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp and sprang upon
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him, scrambling upon him,
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: licking his face, biting his hand, playing the general tom fool,
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: as John Thornton characterized it. The wild He shook Buck
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: back and forth and cursed him lovingly. For two days
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: and night's Buck never left camp, never let Thornton out
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: of his sight. He followed him about at his work,
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: watched him while he ate, saw him into his blankets
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: at night and out of them in the morning. But
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 1: after two days the call in the forest began to
• 2:43:18
  Speaker 1: sound more imperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came back on him,
• 2:43:23
  Speaker 1: and he was haunted by recollections of the wild Brother,
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 1: and of the smiling land beyond the divide, and the
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: run side by side through the wide forest stretches. Once again,
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: he took to wandering in the woods, but the wild
• 2:43:36
  Speaker 1: Brother came no more, and though he listened through long vigils,
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 1: the mournful howl was never raised. He began to sleep
• 2:43:44
  Speaker 1: out at night, staying away from camp for days at
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: a time, and once he crossed the divide at the
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: head of the creek and went down into the land
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 1: of timber and streams. There he wandered for a week,
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: seeking vainly for fresh sign of the wild Brother, killing
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: his meat as he traveled and trackedveling with the long,
• 2:44:01
  Speaker 1: easy lope that seems never to tire. He fished for
• 2:44:05
  Speaker 1: salmon in a broad stream that emptied somewhere into the sea,
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 1: and by this stream, he killed a large black bear,
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: blinded by the mosquitoes, while likewise fishing and raging through
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: the forest, helpless and terrible. Even so, it was a
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: hard fight, and it aroused the last latent remnants of
• 2:44:21
  Speaker 1: Buck's ferocity. And two days later, when he returned to
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 1: his kill and found a dozen wolverines quarreling over the spoil,
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: he scattered them like chaff, and those that fled left
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: two behind who would quarrel no more. The blood longing
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: became stronger than ever before. He was a killer, a
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 1: thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: alone by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 1: triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived.
• 2:44:51
  Speaker 1: Because of all this, he became possessed of a great
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: pride in himself, which communicated itself like a contagion to
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: his physical being. It advert tized itself in all his movements,
• 2:45:02
  Speaker 1: was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainly
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: as speech, in the way he carried himself, and made
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: his glorious furry coat if anything more glorious, but for
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: the stray brown on his muzzle and above his eyes,
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: down his chest, he might well have been mistaken for
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: a gigantic wolf, larger than the largest of the breed.
• 2:45:24
  Speaker 1: From his Saint Bernard father, he had inherited size and weight,
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: but it was his shepherd mother who had given shape
• 2:45:29
  Speaker 1: to that size and weight. His muzzle was the long
• 2:45:33
  Speaker 1: wolf muzzle, save that it was larger than the muzzle
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: of any wolf, and his head, somewhat broader, was the
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 1: wolf head on a massive scale. His cunning was wolf
• 2:45:42
  Speaker 1: cunning and wild cunning. His intelligence shepherd intelligence and Saint
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: Bernard intelligence. And all this, plus an experience gained in
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: the fiercest of schools, made him as formidable a creature
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: as any that roamed the wild. A carnivorous animal living
• 2:45:58
  Speaker 1: on a straight meat diet, he was in full flower
• 2:46:01
  Speaker 1: at the high tide of his life, overspilling with vigor
• 2:46:04
  Speaker 1: and virility. When Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back,
• 2:46:08
  Speaker 1: a snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharging
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: its pent magnetism at the contact. Every part brain and body, nerve,
• 2:46:17
  Speaker 1: tissue and fiber was keyed to the most exquisite pitch
• 2:46:20
  Speaker 1: and between all the parts, there was a perfect equilibrium
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: or adjustment to sights and sounds and events which required action.
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 1: He responded with lightning like rapidity, quickly as a husky
• 2:46:32
  Speaker 1: dog could leap to defend from attack or to attack.
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: He could leap twice as quickly. He saw the movement
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 1: or heard sound, and responded in less time than another
• 2:46:42
  Speaker 1: dog required to compass the mere seeing or hearing. He
• 2:46:46
  Speaker 1: perceived and determined and responded in the same instant. In
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: point of fact, the three actions of perceiving, determining, and
• 2:46:54
  Speaker 1: responding were sequential, but so infinitesimal were the intervals of
• 2:46:58
  Speaker 1: time between them that they appeared simultaneous. His muscles were
• 2:47:02
  Speaker 1: surcharged with vitality and snapped into place sharply like steel springs.
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: Life streamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant,
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: until it seemed that it would burst him asunder in
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: sheer ecstasy, and pour forth generously over the world. Never
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 1: was there such a dog, said John Thornton one day,
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: as the partners watched Buck marching out of camp. When
• 2:47:25
  Speaker 1: he was made the mold was broke, said Pete p
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 1: y Jingo, I te ink so mine self. Hans affirmed
• 2:47:34
  Speaker 1: they saw him marching out of camp, but they did
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 1: not see the instant in terrible transformation which took place.
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: As soon as he was within the secrecy of the forest.
• 2:47:43
  Speaker 1: He no longer marched at once. He became a thing
• 2:47:47
  Speaker 1: of the wild, stealing along softly, cat footed, a passing
• 2:47:51
  Speaker 1: shadow that appeared and disappeared Among the shadows. He knew
• 2:47:55
  Speaker 1: how to take advantage of every cover, to crawl on
• 2:47:58
  Speaker 1: his belly like a snake, and like a snake, to
• 2:48:00
  Speaker 1: leap and strike. He could take a ptarmigan from its nest,
• 2:48:04
  Speaker 1: kill a rabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air,
• 2:48:07
  Speaker 1: the little chipmunks fleeing a second too late for the trees.
• 2:48:11
  Speaker 1: Fish in open pools were not too quick for him,
• 2:48:15
  Speaker 1: nor were beaver mending their dams too wary. He killed
• 2:48:19
  Speaker 1: to eat, not from wantonness, but he preferred to eat
• 2:48:22
  Speaker 1: what he killed himself. So a lurking humor ran through
• 2:48:26
  Speaker 1: his deeds, and it was his delight to steal upon
• 2:48:28
  Speaker 1: the squirrels, and when he all but had them, to
• 2:48:32
  Speaker 1: let them go chattering in mortal fear to the tree tops.
• 2:48:36
  Speaker 1: As the fall of the year came on, the moose
• 2:48:38
  Speaker 1: appeared in greater abundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter.
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 1: In the lower and less rigorous valleys. Buck had already
• 2:48:46
  Speaker 1: dragged down a stray, part grown calf, but he wished
• 2:48:48
  Speaker 1: strongly for larger and more formidable quarry, and he came
• 2:48:52
  Speaker 1: upon it one day. On the divide at the head
• 2:48:54
  Speaker 1: of the creek, a band of twenty moose had crossed
• 2:48:57
  Speaker 1: over from the land of streams and timber, and chief
• 2:49:00
  Speaker 1: among them was a great bull. He was in a
• 2:49:03
  Speaker 1: savage temper, and standing over six feet from the ground,
• 2:49:07
  Speaker 1: was as formidable an antagonist as even Buck could desire.
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: Back and forth, the bull tossed his great palmate antlers,
• 2:49:14
  Speaker 1: branching to fourteen points and embracing seven feet within the tips.
• 2:49:19
  Speaker 1: His small eyes burned with a vicious and bitter light,
• 2:49:22
  Speaker 1: while he roared with fury at sight of Buck. From
• 2:49:25
  Speaker 1: the bull's side, just forward of the flank protruded a
• 2:49:29
  Speaker 1: feathered arrow end, which accounted for his savageness. Guided by
• 2:49:33
  Speaker 1: that instinct which came from the old hunting days of
• 2:49:36
  Speaker 1: the primordial world, Buck proceeded to cut the bull out
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: from the herd. It was no slight task. He would
• 2:49:43
  Speaker 1: bark and dance about in front of the bull, just
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: out of reach of the great antlers and of the
• 2:49:48
  Speaker 1: terrible splay hoofs, which could have stamped his life out
• 2:49:50
  Speaker 1: with a single blow. Unable to turn his back on
• 2:49:54
  Speaker 1: the fanged danger and go on, the bull would be
• 2:49:56
  Speaker 1: driven into paroxysms of rage. At s such moments, he
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 1: charged Buck, who retreated craftily, luring him on by a
• 2:50:04
  Speaker 1: simulated inability to escape. But when he was thus separated
• 2:50:08
  Speaker 1: from his fellows, two or three of the younger bulls
• 2:50:11
  Speaker 1: would charge back upon Buck and enable the wounded bull
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 1: to rejoin the herd. There is a patience of the
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: wild dogged tireless, persistent as life itself, that holds motionless
• 2:50:22
  Speaker 1: for endless hours, the spider in its web, the snake
• 2:50:25
  Speaker 1: in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade. This patience
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 1: belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food,
• 2:50:32
  Speaker 1: and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the
• 2:50:34
  Speaker 1: flank of the herd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls,
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: worrying the cows with their half grown calves, and driving
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: the wounded bull mad with helpless rage. For half a day.
• 2:50:46
  Speaker 1: This continued, Buck multiplied himself, attacking from all sides, enveloping
• 2:50:52
  Speaker 1: the herd in a whirlwind of menace, cutting out his
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: victim as fast as it could rejoin its mates, wearing
• 2:50:57
  Speaker 1: out the patience of creatures preyed upon, which which is
• 2:51:00
  Speaker 1: a lesser patience than that of creature's praying. As the
• 2:51:03
  Speaker 1: day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed
• 2:51:06
  Speaker 1: in the northwest, the darkness had come back, and the
• 2:51:09
  Speaker 1: fall nights were six hours long. The young bulls retraced
• 2:51:12
  Speaker 1: their steps more and more reluctantly to the aid of
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: their beset leader. The downcoming winter was harrying them on
• 2:51:19
  Speaker 1: to the lower levels, and it seemed they could never
• 2:51:21
  Speaker 1: shake off this tireless creature that held them back. Besides,
• 2:51:25
  Speaker 1: it was not the life of the herd or of
• 2:51:27
  Speaker 1: the young bulls that was threatened. The life of only
• 2:51:31
  Speaker 1: one member was demanded, which was a remoter interest than
• 2:51:34
  Speaker 1: their lives, and in the end they were content to
• 2:51:37
  Speaker 1: pay the toll. As twilight fell, the old bull stood
• 2:51:40
  Speaker 1: with lowered head, watching his mates. The cows he had known,
• 2:51:44
  Speaker 1: the calves he had fathered, the bulls he had mastered.
• 2:51:47
  Speaker 1: As they shambled on at a rapid pace through the
• 2:51:50
  Speaker 1: fading light. He could not follow, for before his nose
• 2:51:54
  Speaker 1: leaped the merciless, fanged terror that would not let him go.
• 2:51:57
  Speaker 1: Three hundredweight more than half a ton, he wold he
• 2:52:00
  Speaker 1: had lived a long, strong, life, full of fight and struggle,
• 2:52:04
  Speaker 1: and at the end he faced death at the teeth
• 2:52:06
  Speaker 1: of a creature whose head did not reach beyond his
• 2:52:09
  Speaker 1: great knuckled knees. From then on, night and day, Buck
• 2:52:13
  Speaker 1: never left his prey, never gave it a moment's rest,
• 2:52:16
  Speaker 1: never permitted it to browse the leaves of trees or
• 2:52:19
  Speaker 1: the shoots of young birch and willow. Nor did he
• 2:52:22
  Speaker 1: give the wounded bull opportunity to slake his burning thirst
• 2:52:25
  Speaker 1: in the slender, trickling streams they crossed. Often in desperation,
• 2:52:30
  Speaker 1: he burst into long stretches of flight. At such times,
• 2:52:34
  Speaker 1: Buck did not attempt to stay him, but loped easily
• 2:52:37
  Speaker 1: at his heels, satisfied with the way the game was played,
• 2:52:40
  Speaker 1: lying down when the moose stood still, attacking him fiercely
• 2:52:44
  Speaker 1: when he strove to eat or drink. The great head
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: drooped more and more under its tree of horns, and
• 2:52:50
  Speaker 1: the shambling trot grew weak and weaker, he took to
• 2:52:53
  Speaker 1: standing for long periods with nose to the ground and dejected.
• 2:52:57
  Speaker 1: Ears dropped limply, and Buck found more time in which
• 2:53:00
  Speaker 1: to get water for himself and in which to rest.
• 2:53:03
  Speaker 1: At such moments, panting with red lolling tongue, and with
• 2:53:06
  Speaker 1: eyes fixed upon the big bull, it appeared to Buck
• 2:53:09
  Speaker 1: that a change was coming over the face of things.
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: He could feel a new stir in the land. As
• 2:53:15
  Speaker 1: the moose were coming into the land. Other kinds of
• 2:53:18
  Speaker 1: life were coming in forest and stream, and air seemed
• 2:53:22
  Speaker 1: palpitant with their presence. The news of it was borne
• 2:53:26
  Speaker 1: in upon him, not by sight or sound or smell,
• 2:53:29
  Speaker 1: but by some other and subtler sense. He heard nothing,
• 2:53:33
  Speaker 1: saw nothing, yet knew that the land was somehow different,
• 2:53:37
  Speaker 1: that through its strange things were afoot and ranging, and
• 2:53:40
  Speaker 1: he resolved to investigate. After he had finished the business
• 2:53:42
  Speaker 1: in hand. At last, at the end of the fourth day,
• 2:53:46
  Speaker 1: he pulled the great moose down. For a day and
• 2:53:50
  Speaker 1: a night, he remained by the kill, eating and sleeping,
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 1: turn and turn about. Then rested, refreshed and strong, he
• 2:53:58
  Speaker 1: turned his face toward camp and John toe Thornton. He
• 2:54:01
  Speaker 1: broke into the long easy lope, and went on hour
• 2:54:04
  Speaker 1: after hour, never at loss for the tangled way, heading
• 2:54:07
  Speaker 1: straight home through strange country, with a certitude of direction
• 2:54:10
  Speaker 1: that put man in his magnetic needle to shame. As
• 2:54:14
  Speaker 1: he held on, he became more and more conscious of
• 2:54:16
  Speaker 1: the new stir in the land. There was life abroad
• 2:54:20
  Speaker 1: in it, different from the life which had been there
• 2:54:22
  Speaker 1: throughout the summer. No longer was this fact borne and
• 2:54:25
  Speaker 1: upon him in some subtle, mysterious way. The birds talked
• 2:54:29
  Speaker 1: of it, the squirrels chattered about it, the very breeze
• 2:54:33
  Speaker 1: whispered of it. Several times he stopped and drew in
• 2:54:36
  Speaker 1: the fresh morning air in great sniffs, reading a message
• 2:54:39
  Speaker 1: which made him leap on with greater speed. He was
• 2:54:43
  Speaker 1: oppressed with a sense of calamity happening, if it were
• 2:54:45
  Speaker 1: not calamity already happened. And as he crossed the last
• 2:54:49
  Speaker 1: watershed and dropped down into the valley toward Camp, he
• 2:54:52
  Speaker 1: proceeded with greater caution. Three miles away he came upon
• 2:54:56
  Speaker 1: a fresh trail that sent his neck hair rippling and bristling.
• 2:54:59
  Speaker 1: It led straight toward Camp, and John Thornton Buck hurried
• 2:55:03
  Speaker 1: on swiftly and stealthily every nerve, straining intense alert to
• 2:55:08
  Speaker 1: the multitudinous details which told a story all but the end.
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 1: His nose gave him a varying description of the passage
• 2:55:15
  Speaker 1: of the life on the heels of which he was traveling.
• 2:55:18
  Speaker 1: He remarked the pregnant silence of the forest. The bird
• 2:55:22
  Speaker 1: life had flitted, the squirrels were in hiding. One only
• 2:55:27
  Speaker 1: he saw a sleek gray fellow flattened against a gray
• 2:55:30
  Speaker 1: dead limb, so that he seemed a part of it,
• 2:55:33
  Speaker 1: a woody excrescence upon the wood itself. As Buck slid
• 2:55:37
  Speaker 1: along with the obscureness of a gliding shadow, his nose
• 2:55:40
  Speaker 1: was jerked suddenly to the side, as though a positive
• 2:55:42
  Speaker 1: force had gripped and pulled it. He followed the new
• 2:55:46
  Speaker 1: scent into a thicket and found Nigeria. He was lying
• 2:55:50
  Speaker 1: on his side, dead, where he had dragged himself an
• 2:55:53
  Speaker 1: arrow protruding head and feathers from either side of his body.
• 2:55:57
  Speaker 1: A hundred yards farther on, Buck came upon on one
• 2:56:00
  Speaker 1: of the sled dogs Thornton had bought in Dawson. This
• 2:56:04
  Speaker 1: dog was thrashing about in a death struggle directly on
• 2:56:07
  Speaker 1: the trail, and Buck passed around him without stopping. From
• 2:56:11
  Speaker 1: the camp came the faint sound of many voices rising
• 2:56:14
  Speaker 1: and falling in a sing song chant. Bellying forward to
• 2:56:18
  Speaker 1: the edge of the clearing, he found Hans lying on
• 2:56:21
  Speaker 1: his face, feathered with arrows like a porcupine. At the
• 2:56:25
  Speaker 1: same instant, Buck peered out where the spruce bough lodge
• 2:56:28
  Speaker 1: had been and saw what made his hair leap straight
• 2:56:30
  Speaker 1: up on his neck and shoulders. A gust of overpowering
• 2:56:34
  Speaker 1: rage swept over him. He did not know that he growled,
• 2:56:38
  Speaker 1: but he growled aloud with a terrible ferocity. For the
• 2:56:41
  Speaker 1: last time in his life, he allowed passion to usurp
• 2:56:44
  Speaker 1: cunning and reason, and it was because of his great
• 2:56:47
  Speaker 1: love for John Thornton that he lost his head. The
• 2:56:50
  Speaker 1: yee Hats were dancing about the wreckage of the spruce
• 2:56:52
  Speaker 1: bough lodge when they heard a fearful roaring, and saw
• 2:56:55
  Speaker 1: rushing upon them an animal the like of which they
• 2:56:57
  Speaker 1: had never seen before. It was Buck, a live hurricane
• 2:57:01
  Speaker 1: of fury, hurling himself upon them in a frenzy to destroy.
• 2:57:05
  Speaker 1: He sprang at the foremost man. It was the chief
• 2:57:08
  Speaker 1: of the ye Hats, ripping the throat wide open till
• 2:57:11
  Speaker 1: the rent jugular spouted a fountain of blood. He did
• 2:57:14
  Speaker 1: not pause to worry the victim, but ripped in passing
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: with the next bound, tearing wide the throat of a
• 2:57:20
  Speaker 1: second man. There was nowithstanding him. He plunged about in
• 2:57:25
  Speaker 1: their very midst tearing, rending, destroying, in constant and terrific motion,
• 2:57:30
  Speaker 1: which defied the arrows they discharged at him. In fact,
• 2:57:34
  Speaker 1: so inconceivably rapid were his movements, and so closely were
• 2:57:38
  Speaker 1: the Indians tangled together, that they shot one another with
• 2:57:41
  Speaker 1: the arrows, and one young hunter, hurling a spirit buck
• 2:57:44
  Speaker 1: in mid air, drove it through the chest of another
• 2:57:47
  Speaker 1: hunter with such force that the point broke through the
• 2:57:49
  Speaker 1: skin of the back and stood out beyond. Then a
• 2:57:52
  Speaker 1: panic seized the yee Hats, and they fled in terror
• 2:57:55
  Speaker 1: to the woods, proclaiming as they fled the advent of
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 1: the evil spirit, and truly buck was the fiend incarnate,
• 2:58:03
  Speaker 1: raging at their heels and dragging them down like deer
• 2:58:05
  Speaker 1: as they raced through the trees. It was a fateful
• 2:58:09
  Speaker 1: day for the yee Hats. They scattered far and wide
• 2:58:12
  Speaker 1: over the country, and it was not till a week
• 2:58:15
  Speaker 1: later at the last of the survivors gathered together in
• 2:58:17
  Speaker 1: a lower valley and counted their losses. As for Buck,
• 2:58:21
  Speaker 1: wearying of the pursuit, he returned to the desolated camp.
• 2:58:26
  Speaker 1: He found Pete where he had been killed, in his blankets.
• 2:58:28
  Speaker 1: In the first moment of surprise. Thornton's desperate struggle was
• 2:58:32
  Speaker 1: fresh written on the earth, and Buck scented every detail
• 2:58:35
  Speaker 1: of it, down to the edge of a deep pool.
• 2:58:38
  Speaker 1: By the edge head and four feet in the water
• 2:58:41
  Speaker 1: lay skeet, faithful to the last. The pool itself, muddy
• 2:58:46
  Speaker 1: and discolored from the sluice boxes, effectually hid what it contained,
• 2:58:50
  Speaker 1: and it contained John Thornton. For Buck followed his trace
• 2:58:53
  Speaker 1: into the water, from which no trace led away. All day,
• 2:58:57
  Speaker 1: Buck brooded by the pool, or roamed restlessly about the camp.
• 2:59:01
  Speaker 1: Death as a cessation of movement, as a passing out
• 2:59:05
  Speaker 1: and away from the lives of the living. He knew,
• 2:59:07
  Speaker 1: and he knew John Thornton was dead. It left a
• 2:59:11
  Speaker 1: great void in him, somewhat akin to hunger, but a
• 2:59:14
  Speaker 1: void which ached and ached, and which food could not fill.
• 2:59:18
  Speaker 1: At times when he paused to contemplate the carcasses of
• 2:59:21
  Speaker 1: the yeehats, he forgot the pain of it, and at
• 2:59:24
  Speaker 1: such times he was aware of a great pride in himself,
• 2:59:27
  Speaker 1: a pride greater than any he had yet experienced. He
• 2:59:31
  Speaker 1: had killed man, the noblest game of all, and he
• 2:59:33
  Speaker 1: had killed in the face of the law of club
• 2:59:35
  Speaker 1: and fawn. He sniffed the bodies curiously. They had died
• 2:59:41
  Speaker 1: so easily. It was harder to kill a husky dog
• 2:59:44
  Speaker 1: than them. They were no match at all, were it
• 2:59:47
  Speaker 1: not for their arrows and spears and clubs. Thenceforward he
• 2:59:51
  Speaker 1: would be unafraid of them, except when they bore in
• 2:59:54
  Speaker 1: their hands their arrows, spears, and clubs. Night came on,
• 2:59:58
  Speaker 1: and a full moon rose rose high over the trees
• 3:00:01
  Speaker 1: into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed
• 3:00:04
  Speaker 1: in ghostly day, and with the coming of the night,
• 3:00:07
  Speaker 1: brooding and mourning by the pool, Buck became alive to
• 3:00:10
  Speaker 1: a stirring of the new life in the forest other
• 3:00:12
  Speaker 1: than that which the ye hats had made. He stood up,
• 3:00:15
  Speaker 1: listening and scenting. From far away, drifted a faint, sharp yelp,
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: followed by a chorus of similar sharp yelps. As the
• 3:00:24
  Speaker 1: moments passed, the yelps grew closer and louder. Again, Buck
• 3:00:28
  Speaker 1: knew them as things heard in that other world which
• 3:00:30
  Speaker 1: persisted in his memory. He walked to the center of
• 3:00:33
  Speaker 1: the open space and listened. It was the call, the
• 3:00:37
  Speaker 1: many noted call, sounding more luringly and compellingly than ever before,
• 3:00:42
  Speaker 1: and as never before, he was ready to obey. John
• 3:00:46
  Speaker 1: Thornton was dead. The last tie was broken man, and
• 3:00:51
  Speaker 1: the claims of man no longer bound him hunting their
• 3:00:55
  Speaker 1: living meat as the ye hats were hunting it on
• 3:00:58
  Speaker 1: the flanks of the migrating moose. The wolf pack had
• 3:01:01
  Speaker 1: at last crossed over from the land of streams and
• 3:01:03
  Speaker 1: timber and invaded Buck's valley into the clearing where the
• 3:01:07
  Speaker 1: moonlight streamed. They poured in a silvery flood, and in
• 3:01:10
  Speaker 1: the center of the clearing stood Buck, motionless as a statue,
• 3:01:14
  Speaker 1: waiting their coming. They were awed so still and large
• 3:01:17
  Speaker 1: he stood, and a moment's paws fell till the boldest
• 3:01:20
  Speaker 1: one leaped straight for him like a flash. Buck struck,
• 3:01:24
  Speaker 1: breaking the neck. Then he stood without movement as before,
• 3:01:29
  Speaker 1: the stricken wolf rolling in agony behind him. Three others
• 3:01:33
  Speaker 1: tried it in sharp succession, and one after the other
• 3:01:36
  Speaker 1: they drew back, streaming blood from slashed throats, or shoulders.
• 3:01:41
  Speaker 1: This was sufficient to fling the whole pack forward. Pell
• 3:01:44
  Speaker 1: Mell crowded together, blocked and confused by its eagerness to
• 3:01:48
  Speaker 1: pull down the prey. Buck's marvelous quickness and agility stood
• 3:01:52
  Speaker 1: him in good stead. Pivoting on his hind legs and
• 3:01:56
  Speaker 1: snapping and gashing, he was everywhere at once, presenting a
• 3:01:59
  Speaker 1: front which was apparently unbroken. So swiftly did he whirl
• 3:02:03
  Speaker 1: and guard from side to side. But to prevent them
• 3:02:06
  Speaker 1: from getting behind him, he was forced back down past
• 3:02:09
  Speaker 1: the pool and into the creek bed, till he brought
• 3:02:12
  Speaker 1: up against a high gravel bank. He worked along to
• 3:02:16
  Speaker 1: a right angle in the bank which the men had
• 3:02:18
  Speaker 1: made in the course of mining. And in this angle
• 3:02:20
  Speaker 1: he came to bay, protected on three sides, and with
• 3:02:23
  Speaker 1: nothing to do but face the front. And so well
• 3:02:27
  Speaker 1: did he face it that at the end of half
• 3:02:29
  Speaker 1: an hour the wolves drew back, discomfited. The tongues of
• 3:02:33
  Speaker 1: all were out and lolling, the white fangs showing cruelly
• 3:02:36
  Speaker 1: white in the moonlight. Some were lying down with heads
• 3:02:40
  Speaker 1: raised and ears pricked forward. Others stood on their feet
• 3:02:43
  Speaker 1: watching him, and still others were lapping water from the pool.
• 3:02:48
  Speaker 1: One wolf, long and lean and gray, advanced cautiously in
• 3:02:52
  Speaker 1: a friendly manner, and Buck recognized the wild brother with
• 3:02:55
  Speaker 1: whom he had run for a night and a day.
• 3:02:58
  Speaker 1: He was whining softly, and as Buck whined, they touched noses.
• 3:03:03
  Speaker 1: Then an old wolf, gaunt and battle scarred, came forward.
• 3:03:08
  Speaker 1: Buck writhed his lips into the preliminary of a snarl,
• 3:03:11
  Speaker 1: but sniffed noses with him, whereupon the old wolf sat down,
• 3:03:14
  Speaker 1: pointed nose at the moon, and broke out the long
• 3:03:17
  Speaker 1: wolf howl. The others sat down and howled, and now
• 3:03:22
  Speaker 1: the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents. He too
• 3:03:26
  Speaker 1: sat down and howled. This over, he came out of
• 3:03:30
  Speaker 1: his angle, and the pack crowded around him, sniffing in
• 3:03:33
  Speaker 1: half friendly, half savage manner. The leaders lifted the yelp
• 3:03:38
  Speaker 1: of the pack and sprang away into the woods. The
• 3:03:41
  Speaker 1: wolf swung in behind, yelping in chorus, and Buck ran
• 3:03:45
  Speaker 1: with them, side by side, with the wild brother, yelping
• 3:03:49
  Speaker 1: as he ran. And here may well end the story
• 3:03:52
  Speaker 1: of Buck. The years were not many when the yee
• 3:03:55
  Speaker 1: hats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves,
• 3:03:58
  Speaker 1: for some were seen with splashes of brown on head
• 3:04:01
  Speaker 1: and muzzle, and with a rift of white centering down
• 3:04:03
  Speaker 1: the chest. But more remarkable than this, the ye hats
• 3:04:07
  Speaker 1: tell of a ghost dog that runs at the head
• 3:04:09
  Speaker 1: of the pack. They are afraid of this ghost dog,
• 3:04:13
  Speaker 1: for it is cunning, greater than they, stealing from their
• 3:04:15
  Speaker 1: camps in fierce winters, robbing their traps, slaying their dogs,
• 3:04:20
  Speaker 1: and defying their bravest hunters. Nay, the tail grows worse.
• 3:04:25
  Speaker 1: Hunters there are who fail to return to the camp,
• 3:04:28
  Speaker 1: And hunters there have been whom their tribesmen found with
• 3:04:30
  Speaker 1: throats slashed cruelly open, and with wolf prints about them
• 3:04:33
  Speaker 1: in the snow, greater than the prince of any wolf.
• 3:04:36
  Speaker 1: Each fall, when the yee hats follow the movement of
• 3:04:39
  Speaker 1: the moose, there is a certain valley which they never enter,
• 3:04:43
  Speaker 1: And women there are who become sad when the word
• 3:04:46
  Speaker 1: goes over the fire of how the evil spirit came
• 3:04:48
  Speaker 1: to select that valley for an abiding place in the summers.
• 3:04:52
  Speaker 1: There is one visitor, however, to that valley, of which
• 3:04:55
  Speaker 1: the ye hats do not know. It is a great,
• 3:04:59
  Speaker 1: gloriously coated wolf like and yet unlike all other wolves,
• 3:05:04
  Speaker 1: he crosses alone from the smiling timber land and comes
• 3:05:07
  Speaker 1: down into an open space among the trees. Here a
• 3:05:10
  Speaker 1: yellow stream flows from rotted moose hide sacks and sinks
• 3:05:14
  Speaker 1: into the ground, with long grasses growing through it in
• 3:05:17
  Speaker 1: vegetable mold, overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun.
• 3:05:20
  Speaker 1: And here he muses for a time, howling once long
• 3:05:24
  Speaker 1: and mournfully. Ere he departs, but he is not always alone.
• 3:05:30
  Speaker 1: When the long winter nights come on and the wolves
• 3:05:32
  Speaker 1: follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be
• 3:05:35
  Speaker 1: seen running at the head of the pack through the
• 3:05:37
  Speaker 1: pale moonlight, or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows,
• 3:05:43
  Speaker 1: his great throat a bellow as he sings a song
• 3:05:45
  Speaker 1: of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.
• 3:05:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.