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Chapter IV. Who Has Won to Mastership "Eh? Wot I say? I *** true w'en I say dat
Buck two devils." This was Francois's speech next morning when he discovered Spitz missing
and Buck covered with wounds. He drew him to the fire and by its light pointed them
out. "Dat Spitz fight lak hell," said Perrault,
as he surveyed the gaping rips and cuts. "An' dat Buck fight lak two hells," was Francois's
answer. "An' now we make good time. No more Spitz, no more trouble, sure."
While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled, the dog-driver proceeded
to harness the dogs. Buck trotted up to the place Spitz would have occupied as leader;
but Francois, not noticing him, brought Sol-leks to the coveted position. In his judgment,
Sol-leks was the best lead-dog left. Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury, driving him
back and standing in his place. "Eh? eh?" Francois cried, slapping his thighs
gleefully. "Look at dat Buck. Heem keel dat Spitz, heem t'ink to take de job."
"Go 'way, Chook!" he cried, but Buck refused to budge.
He took Buck by the scruff of the neck, and though the dog growled threateningly, dragged
him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. The old dog did not like it, and showed plainly
that he was afraid of Buck. Francois was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck again displaced
Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.
Francois was angry. "Now, by Gar, I feex you!" he cried, coming back with a heavy club in
his hand. Buck remembered the man in the red sweater,
and retreated slowly; nor did he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more brought
forward. But he circled just beyond the range of the club, snarling with bitterness and
rage; and while he circled he watched the club so as to dodge it if thrown by Francois,
for he was become wise in the way of clubs. The driver went about his work, and he called
to Buck when he was ready to put him in his old place in front of Dave. Buck retreated
two or three steps. Francois followed him up, whereupon he again retreated. After some
time of this, Francois threw down the club, thinking that Buck feared a thrashing. But
Buck was in open revolt. He wanted, not to escape a clubbing, but to have the leadership.
It was his by right. He had earned it, and he would not be content with less.
Perrault took a hand. Between them they ran him about for the better part of an hour.
They threw clubs at him. He dodged. They cursed him, and his fathers and mothers before him,
and all his seed to come after him down to the remotest generation, and every hair on
his body and drop of blood in his veins; and he answered curse with snarl and kept out
of their reach. He did not try to run away, but retreated around and around the camp,
advertising plainly that when his desire was met, he would come in and be good.
Francois sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at his watch and swore. Time
was flying, and they should have been on the trail an hour gone. Francois scratched his
head again. He shook it and grinned sheepishly at the courier, who shrugged his shoulders
in sign that they were beaten. Then Francois went up to where Sol-leks stood and called
to Buck. Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept his distance. Francois unfastened Sol-leks's
traces and put him back in his old place. The team stood harnessed to the sled in an
unbroken line, ready for the trail. There was no place for Buck save at the front. Once
more Francois called, and once more Buck laughed and kept away.
"T'row down de club," Perrault commanded. Francois complied, whereupon Buck trotted
in, laughing triumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of the team. His
traces were fastened, the sled broken out, and with both men running they dashed out
on to the river trail. Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck,
with his two devils, he found, while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued. At
a bound Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment was required, and quick
thinking and quick acting, he showed himself the superior even of Spitz, of whom Francois
had never seen an equal. But it was in giving the law and making his
mates live up to it, that Buck excelled. Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the change in leadership.
It was none of their business. Their business was to toil, and toil mightily, in the traces.
So long as that were not interfered with, they did not care what happened. Billee, the
good-natured, could lead for all they cared, so long as he kept order. The rest of the
team, however, had grown unruly during the last days of Spitz, and their surprise was
great now that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape.
Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce more of his weight against
the breast-band than he was compelled to do, was swiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing;
and ere the first day was done he was pulling more than ever before in his life. The first
night in camp, Joe, the sour one, was punished roundly—a thing that Spitz had never succeeded
in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of superior weight, and cut him up till he
ceased snapping and began to whine for mercy. The general tone of the team picked up immediately.
It recovered its old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in the
traces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, were added; and the celerity
with which Buck broke them in took away Francois's breath.
"Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!" he cried. "No, nevaire! Heem worth one t'ousan' dollair,
by Gar! Eh? Wot you say, Perrault?" And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record
then, and gaining day by day. The trail was in excellent condition, well packed and hard,
and there was no new-fallen snow with which to contend. It was not too cold. The temperature
dropped to fifty below zero and remained there the whole trip. The men rode and ran by turn,
and the dogs were kept on the jump, with but infrequent stoppages.
The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and they covered in one day going
out what had taken them ten days coming in. In one run they made a sixty-mile dash from
the foot of Lake Le Barge to the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett
(seventy miles of lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it was to run towed
behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the last night of the second week they
topped White Pass and dropped down the sea slope with the lights of Skaguay and of the
shipping at their feet. It was a record run. Each day for fourteen
days they had averaged forty miles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up
and down the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations to drink, while the
team was the constant centre of a worshipful crowd of dog-busters and mushers. Then three
or four western bad men aspired to clean out the town, were riddled like pepper-boxes for
their pains, and public interest turned to other idols. Next came official orders. Francois
called Buck to him, threw his arms around him, wept over him. And that was the last
of Francois and Perrault. Like other men, they passed out of Buck's life for good.
A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and in company with a dozen other
dog-teams he started back over the weary trail to Dawson. It was no light running now, nor
record time, but heavy toil each day, with a heavy load behind; for this was the mail
train, carrying word from the world to the men who sought gold under the shadow of the
Pole. Buck did not like it, but he bore up well
to the work, taking pride in it after the manner of Dave and Sol-leks, and seeing that
his mates, whether they prided in it or not, did their fair share. It was a monotonous
life, operating with machine-like regularity. One day was very like another. At a certain
time each morning the cooks turned out, fires were built, and breakfast was eaten. Then,
while some broke camp, others harnessed the dogs, and they were under way an hour or so
before the darkness fell which gave warning of dawn. At night, camp was made. Some pitched
the flies, others cut firewood and pine boughs for the beds, and still others carried water
or ice for the cooks. Also, the dogs were fed. To them, this was the one feature of
the day, though it was good to loaf around, after the fish was eaten, for an hour or so
with the other dogs, of which there were fivescore and odd. There were fierce fighters among
them, but three battles with the fiercest brought Buck to mastery, so that when he bristled
and showed his teeth they got out of his way. Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near
the fire, hind legs crouched under him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised,
and eyes blinking dreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's big
house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the cement swimming-tank, and Ysabel,
the Mexican hairless, and ***, the Japanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in
the red sweater, the death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he had
eaten or would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland was very dim and distant, and
such memories had no power over him. Far more potent were the memories of his heredity that
gave things he had never seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but
the memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later days, and still
later, in him, quickened and become alive again.
Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames, it seemed that the flames were
of another fire, and that as he crouched by this other fire he saw another and different
man from the half-breed cook before him. This other man was shorter of leg and longer of
arm, with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and swelling. The hair
of this man was long and matted, and his head slanted back under it from the eyes. He uttered
strange sounds, and seemed very much afraid of the darkness, into which he peered continually,
clutching in his hand, which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with a heavy stone
made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged and fire-scorched skin hanging part
way down his back, but on his body there was much hair. In some places, across the chest
and shoulders and down the outside of the arms and thighs, it was matted into almost
a thick fur. He did not stand erect, but with trunk inclined forward from the hips, on legs
that bent at the knees. About his body there was a peculiar springiness, or resiliency,
almost catlike, and a quick alertness as of one who lived in perpetual fear of things
seen and unseen. At other times this hairy man squatted by
the fire with head between his legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees,
his hands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms. And beyond
that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see many gleaming coals, two by two,
always two by two, which he knew to be the eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could
hear the crashing of their bodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made
in the night. And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking at the fire,
these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair to rise along his back and stand
on end across his shoulders and up his neck, till he whimpered low and suppressedly, or
growled softly, and the half-breed cook shouted at him, "Hey, you Buck, wake up!" Whereupon
the other world would vanish and the real world come into his eyes, and he would get
up and yawn and stretch as though he had been asleep.
It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy work wore them down. They were
short of weight and in poor condition when they made Dawson, and should have had a ten
days' or a week's rest at least. But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukon bank
from the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside. The dogs were tired, the drivers
grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed every day. This meant a soft trail, greater
friction on the runners, and heavier pulling for the dogs; yet the drivers were fair through
it all, and did their best for the animals. Each night the dogs were attended to first.
They ate before the drivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seen
to the feet of the dogs he drove. Still, their strength went down. Since the beginning of
the winter they had travelled eighteen hundred miles, dragging sleds the whole weary distance;
and eighteen hundred miles will tell upon life of the toughest. Buck stood it, keeping
his mates up to their work and maintaining discipline, though he, too, was very tired.
Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe was sourer than ever,
and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.
But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gone wrong with him. He became
more morose and irritable, and when camp was pitched at once made his nest, where his driver
fed him. Once out of the harness and down, he did not get on his feet again till harness-up
time in the morning. Sometimes, in the traces, when *** by a sudden stoppage of the sled,
or by straining to start it, he would cry out with pain. The driver examined him, but
could find nothing. All the drivers became interested in his case. They talked it over
at meal-time, and over their last pipes before going to bed, and one night they held a consultation.
He was brought from his nest to the fire and was pressed and prodded till he cried out
many times. Something was wrong inside, but they could locate no broken bones, could not
make it out. By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was
so weak that he was falling repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called a
halt and took him out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast to the sled.
His intention was to rest Dave, letting him run free behind the sled. Sick as he was,
Dave resented being taken out, grunting and growling while the traces were unfastened,
and whimpering broken-heartedly when he saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served
so long. For the pride of trace and trail was his, and, sick unto death, he could not
bear that another dog should do his work. When the sled started, he floundered in the
soft snow alongside the beaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him
and trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, striving to leap inside
his traces and get between him and the sled, and all the while whining and yelping and
crying with grief and pain. The half-breed tried to drive him away with the whip; but
he paid no heed to the stinging lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder.
Dave refused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going was easy, but continued
to flounder alongside in the soft snow, where the going was most difficult, till exhausted.
Then he fell, and lay where he fell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned
by. With the last remnant of his strength he managed
to stagger along behind till the train made another stop, when he floundered past the
sleds to his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered a moment to
get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then he returned and started his dogs. They
swung out on the trail with remarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily,
and stopped in surprise. The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. He called his
comrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten through both of Sol-leks's traces, and was
standing directly in front of the sled in his proper place.
He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed. His comrades talked
of how a dog could break its heart through being denied the work that killed it, and
recalled instances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died
because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die
anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed
in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily
from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times he fell down and was dragged in the
traces, and once the sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind
legs. But he held out till camp was reached, when
his driver made a place for him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. At harness-up
time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts he got on his feet, staggered, and
fell. Then he wormed his way forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being put
on his mates. He would advance his fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitching
movement, when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead again for a few more inches.
His strength left him, and the last his mates saw of him he lay gasping in the snow and
yearning toward them. But they could hear him mournfully howling till they passed out
of sight behind a belt of river timber. Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed
slowly retraced his steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A revolver-shot
rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips snapped, the bells tinkled merrily,
the sleds churned along the trail; but Buck knew, and every dog knew, what had taken place
behind the belt of river trees.