Chapter III. The Dominant Primordial Beast

The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under thefierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was asecret growth. His newborn cunning gave him poise and control.He was too busy adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease,and not only did he not pick fights, but he avoided them wheneverpossible. A certain deliberateness characterized his attitude.He was not prone to rashness and precipitate action; and in thebitter hatred between him and Spitz he betrayed no impatience,shunned all offensive acts. On the other hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerousrival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. Heeven went out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly tostart the fight which could end only in the death of one or theother. Early in the trip this might have taken place had it notbeen for an unwonted accident. At the end of this day they made ableak and miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Drivingsnow, a wind that cut like a white-hot knife, and darkness hadforced them to grope for a camping place. They could hardly havefared worse. At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock,and Perrault and Francois were compelled to make their fire andspread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself. Thetent they had discarded at Dyea in order to travel light. A fewsticks of driftwood furnished them with a fire that thawed downthrough the ice and left them to eat supper in the dark. Close in under the sheltering rock Buck made his nest. So snugand warm was it, that he was loath to leave it when Francoisdistributed the fish which he had first thawed over the fire. Butwhen Buck finished his ration and returned, he found his nestoccupied. A warning snarl told him that the trespasser was Spitz.Till now Buck had avoided trouble with his enemy, but this was toomuch. The beast in him roared. He sprang upon Spitz with a furywhich surprised them both, and Spitz particularly, for his wholeexperience with Buck had gone to teach him that his rival was anunusually timid dog, who managed to hold his own only because ofhis great weight and size. Francois was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle fromthe disrupted nest and he divined the cause of the trouble. "A-a-ah!" he cried to Buck. "Gif it to heem, by Gar! Gif it to heem,the dirty t'eef!" Spitz was equally willing. He was crying with sheer rage andeagerness as he circled back and forth for a chance to spring in.Buck was no less eager, and no less cautious, as he likewisecircled back and forth for the advantage. But it was then thatthe unexpected happened, the thing which projected their strugglefor supremacy far into the future, past many a weary mile of trailand toil. An oath from Perrault, the resounding impact of a club upon a bonyframe, and a shrill yelp of pain, heralded the breaking forth ofpandemonium. The camp was suddenly discovered to be alive withskulking furry forms, - starving huskies, four or five score ofthem, who had scented the camp from some Indian village. They hadcrept in while Buck and Spitz were fighting, and when the two mensprang among them with stout clubs they showed their teeth andfought back. They were crazed by the smell of the food. Perraultfound one with head buried in the grub-box. His club landedheavily on the gaunt ribs, and the grub-box was capsized on theground. On the instant a score of the famished brutes werescrambling for the bread and bacon. The clubs fell upon themunheeded. They yelped and howled under the rain of blows, butstruggled none the less madly till the last crumb had beendevoured. In the meantime the astonished team-dogs had burst out of theirnests only to be set upon by the fierce invaders. Never had Buckseen such dogs. it seemed as though their bones would burstthrough their skins. They were mere skeletons, draped loosely indraggled hides, with blazing eyes and slavered fangs. But thehunger-madness made them terrifying, irresistible. There was noopposing them. The team-dogs were swept back against the cliff atthe first onset. Buck was beset by three huskies, and in a tricehis head and shoulders were ripped and slashed. The din wasfrightful. Billee was crying as usual. Dave and Sol-leks,dripping blood from a score of wounds, were fighting bravely sideby side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once, his teeth closedon the fore leg of a husky, and he crunched down through the bone.Pike, the malingerer, leaped upon the crippled animal, breakingits neck with a quick flash of teeth and a jerk, Buck got afrothing adversary by the throat, and was sprayed with blood whenhis teeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of it in hismouth goaded him to greater fierceness. He flung himself uponanother, and at the same time felt teeth sink into his own throat.It was Spitz, treacherously attacking from the side. Perrault and Francois, having cleaned out their part of the camp,hurried to save their sled-dogs. The wild wave of famished beastsrolled back before them, and Buck shook himself free. But it wasonly for a moment. The two men were compelled to run back to savethe grub, upon which the huskies returned to the attack on theteam. Billee, terrified into bravery, sprang through the savagecircle and fled away over the ice. Pike and Dub followed on hisheels, with the rest of the team behind. As Buck drew himselftogether to spring after them, out of the tail of his eye he sawSpitz rush upon him with the evident intention of overthrowinghim. Once off his feet and under that mass of huskies, there wasno hope for him. But he braced himself to the shock of Spitz'scharge, then joined the flight out on the lake. Later, the nine team-dogs gathered together and sought shelter inthe forest. Though unpursued, they were in a sorry plight. Therewas not one who was not wounded in four or five places, while somewere wounded grievously. Dub was badly injured in a hind leg;Dolly, the last husky added to the team at Dyea, had a badly tornthroat; Joe had lost an eye; while Billee, the good-natured, withan ear chewed and rent to ribbons, cried and whimpered throughoutthe night. At daybreak they limped warily back to camp, to findthe marauders gone and the two men in bad tempers. Fully halftheir grub supply was gone. The huskies had chewed through thesled lashings and canvas coverings. In fact, nothing, no matterhow remotely eatable, had escaped them. They had eaten a pair ofPerrault's moose-hide moccasins, chunks out of the leather traces,and even two feet of lash from the end of Francois's whip. Hebroke from a mournful contemplation of it to look over his woundeddogs. "Ah, my frien's," he said softly, "mebbe it mek you mad dog, dosemany bites. Mebbe all mad dog, sacredam! Wot you t'ink, eh,Perrault?" The courier shook his head dubiously. With four hundred miles oftrail still between him and Dawson, he could ill afford to havemadness break out among his dogs. Two hours of cursing andexertion got the harnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffenedteam was under way, struggling painfully over the hardest part ofthe trail they had yet encountered, and for that matter, thehardest between them and Dawson. The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied thefrost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places thatthe ice held at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required tocover those thirty terrible miles. And terrible they were, forevery foot of them was accomplished at the risk of life to dog andman. A dozen times, Perrault, nosing the way broke through theice bridges, being saved by the long pole he carried, which he soheld that it fell each time across the hole made by his body. Buta cold snap was on, the thermometer registering fifty below zero,and each time he broke through he was compelled for very life tobuild a fire and dry his garments. Nothing daunted him. It was because nothing daunted him that hehad been chosen for government courier. He took all manner ofrisks, resolutely thrusting his little weazened face into thefrost and struggling on from dim dawn to dark. He skirted thefrowning shores on rim ice that bent and crackled under foot andupon which they dared not halt. Once, the sled broke through,with Dave and Buck, and they were half-frozen and all but drownedby the time they were dragged out. The usual fire was necessaryto save them. They were coated solidly with ice, and the two menkept them on the run around the fire, sweating and thawing, soclose that they were singed by the flames. At another time Spitz went through, dragging the whole team afterhim up to Buck, who strained backward with all his strength, hisfore paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering and snappingall around. But behind him was Dave, likewise straining backward,and behind the sled was Francois, pulling till his tendonscracked. Again, the rim ice broke away before and behind, and there was noescape except up the cliff. Perrault scaled it by a miracle,while Francois prayed for just that miracle; and with every thongand sled lashing and the last bit of harness rove into a longrope, the dogs were hoisted, one by one, to the cliff crest.Francois came up last, after the sled and load. Then came thesearch for a place to descend, which descent was ultimately madeby the aid of the rope, and night found them back on the riverwith a quarter of a mile to the day's credit. By the time they made the Hootalinqua and good ice, Buck wasplayed out. The rest of the dogs were in like condition; butPerrault, to make up lost time, pushed them late and early. Thefirst day they covered thirty-five miles to the Big Salmon; thenext day thirty-five more to the Little Salmon; the third dayforty miles, which brought them well up toward the Five Fingers. Buck's feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of thehuskies. His had softened during the many generations since theday his last wild ancestor was tamed by a cave-dweller or riverman. AU day long he limped in agony, and camp once made, lay downlike a dead dog. Hungry as he was, he would not move to receivehis ration of fish, which Francois had to bring to him. Also, thedog-driver rubbed Buck's feet for half an hour each night aftersupper, and sacrificed the tops of his own moccasins to make fourmoccasins for Buck. This was a great relief, and Buck caused eventhe weazened face of Perrault to twist itself into a grin onemorning, when Francois forgot the moccasins and Buck lay on hisback, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused tobudge without them. Later his feet grew hard to the trail, andthe worn-out foot-gear was thrown away. At the Pelly one morning, as they were harnessing up, Dolly, whohad never been conspicuous for anything, went suddenly mad. Sheannounced her condition by a long, heartbreaking wolf howl thatsent every dog bristling with fear, then sprang straight for Buck.He had never seen a dog go mad, nor did he have any reason to fearmadness; yet he knew that here was horror, and fled away from itin a panic. Straight away he raced, with Dolly, panting andfrothing, one leap behind; nor could she gain on him, so great washis terror, nor could he leave her, so great was her madness. Heplunged through the wooded breast of the island, flew down to thelower end, crossed a back channel filled with rough ice to anotherisland, gained a third island, curved back to the main river, andin desperation started to cross it. And all the time, though hedid not took, he could hear her snarling just one leap behind.Francois called to him a quarter of a mile away and he doubledback, still one leap ahead, gasping painfully for air and puttingall his faith in that Francois would save him. The dog-driverheld the axe poised in his hand, and as Buck shot past him the axecrashed down upon mad Dolly's head. Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing forbreath, helpless. This was Spitz's opportunity. He sprang uponBuck, and twice his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and rippedand tore the flesh to the bone. Then Francois's lash descended,and Buck had the satisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worstwhipping as yet administered to any of the teams. "One devil, dat Spitz," remarked Perrault. "Some dam day heemkeel dat Buck." "Dat Buck two devils, " was Francois's rejoinder. "All de tam Iwatch dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heemget mad lak hell an' den heem chew dat Spitz all up an) spit heemout on de snow. Sure. I know." From then on it was war between them. Spitz, as lead-dog andacknowledged master of the team, felt his supremacy threatened bythis strange Southland dog. And strange Buck was to him, for ofthe many Southland dogs he had known, not one had shown upworthily in camp and on trail. They were all too soft, dyingunder the toil, the frost, and starvation. Buck was theexception. He alone endured and prospered, matching the husky instrength, savagery, and cunning. Then he was a masterful dog, andwhat made him dangerous was the fact that the club of the man inthe red sweater had knocked all blind pluck and rashness out ofhis desire for mastery. He was preeminently cunning, and couldbide his time with a patience that was nothing less thanprimitive. It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buckwanted it. He wanted it because it was his nature, because he hadbeen gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of thetrail and trace--that pride which holds dogs in the toil to thelast gasp, which lures them to die joyfully in the harness, andbreaks their hearts if they are cut out of the harness. This wasthe pride of Dave as wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with allhis strength; the pride that laid hold of them at break of camp,transforming them from sour and sullen brutes into straining,eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on all dayand dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall backinto gloomy unrest and uncontent. This was the pride that bore upSpitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who blundered and shirkedin the traces or hid away at harness-up time in the morning.Likewise it was this pride that made him fear Buck as a possiblelead-dog. And this was Buck's pride, too. He openly threatened the other's leadership. He came between himand the shirks he should have punished. And he did itdeliberately. One night there was a heavy snowfall, and in themorning Pike, the malingerer, did not appear. He was securelyhidden in his nest under a foot of snow. Francois called him andsought him in vain. Spitz was wild with wrath. He raged throughthe camp, smelling and digging in every likely place, snarling sofrightfully that Pike heard and shivered in his hiding-place. But when he was at last unearthed, and Spitz flew at him to punishhim, Buck flew, with equal rage, in between. So unexpected wasit, and so shrewdly managed, that Spitz was hurled backward andoff his feet. Pike, who had been trembling abjectly, took heartat this open mutiny, and sprang upon his overthrown leader. Buck,to whom fair play was a forgotten code, likewise sprang uponSpitz. But Francois, chuckling at the incident while unswervingin the administration of justice, brought his lash down upon Buckwith all his might. This failed to drive Buck from his prostraterival, and the butt of the whip was brought into play. Half-stunned by the blow, Buck was knocked backward and the lash laidupon him again and again, while Spitz soundly punished the manytimes offending Pike. In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer, Buckstill continued to interfere between Spitz and the culprits; buthe did it craftily, when Francois was not around, With the covertmutiny of Buck, a general insubordination sprang up and increased.Dave and Sol-leks were unaffected, but the rest of the team wentfrom bad to worse. Things no longer went right. There wascontinual bickering and jangling. Trouble was always afoot, andat the bottom of it was Buck. He kept Francois busy, for the dog-driver was in constant apprehension of the life-and-death strugglebetween the two which he knew must take place sooner or later; andon more than one night the sounds of quarrelling and strife amongthe other dogs turned him out of his sleeping robe, fearful thatBuck and Spitz were at it. But the opportunity did not present itself, and they pulled intoDawson one dreary afternoon with the great fight still to come.Here were many men, and countless dogs, and Buck found them all atwork. It seemed the ordained order of things that dogs shouldwork. All day they swung up and down the main street in longteams, and in the night their jingling bells still went by. Theyhauled cabin logs and firewood, freighted up to the mines, and didall manner of work that horses did in the Santa Clara Valley.Here and there Buck met Southland dogs, but in the main they werethe wild wolf husky breed. Every night, regularly, at nine, attwelve, at three, they lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eeriechant, in which it was Buck's delight to join. With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the starsleaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under itspall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been thedefiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life,the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old asthe breed itself--one of the first songs of the younger world in aday when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe ofunnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangelystirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain ofliving that was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fearand mystery of the cold and dark that was to them fear andmystery. And that he should be stirred by it marked thecompleteness with which he harked back through the ages of fireand roof to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages. Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they droppeddown the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulledfor Dyea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches ifanything more urgent than those he had brought in; also, thetravel pride had gripped him, and he purposed to make the recordtrip of the year. Several things favored him in this. The week'srest had recuperated the dogs and put them in thorough trim. Thetrail they had broken into the country was packed hard by laterjourneyers. And further, the police had arranged in two or threeplaces deposits of grub for dog and man, and he was travellinglight. They made Sixty Mile, which is a fifty-mile run, on the first day;and the second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their wayto Pelly. But such splendid running was achieved not withoutgreat trouble and vexation on the part of Francois. The insidiousrevolt led by Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team. Itno longer was as one dog leaping in the traces. The encouragementBuck gave the rebels led them into all kinds of pettymisdemeanors. No more was Spitz a leader greatly to be feared.The old awe departed, and they grew equal to challenging hisauthority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one night, and gulpedit down under the protection of Buck. Another night Dub and Joefought Spitz and made him forego the punishment they deserved.And even Billee, the good-natured, was less good-natured, andwhined not half so placatingly as in former days. Buck never camenear Spitz without snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact,his conduct approached that of a bully, and he was given toswaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose. The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs intheir relations with one another. They quarrelled and bickeredmore than ever among themselves, till at times the camp was ahowling bedlam. Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, thoughthey were made irritable by the unending squabbling. Francoisswore strange barbarous oaths, and stamped the snow in futilerage, and tore his hair. His lash was always singing among thedogs, but it was of small avail. Directly his back was turned theywere at it again. He backed up Spitz with his whip, while Buckbacked up the remainder of the team. Francois knew he was behindall the trouble, and Buck knew he knew; but Buck was too cleverever again to be caught red-handed. He worked faithfully in theharness, for the toil had become a delight to him; yet it was agreater delight slyly to precipitate a fight amongst his mates andtangle the traces. At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turnedup a snowshoe rabbit, blundered it, and missed. In a second thewhole team was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp ofthe Northwest Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined thechase. The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a smallcreek, up the frozen bed of which it held steadily. It ranlightly on the surface of the snow, while the dogs ploughedthrough by main strength. Buck led the pack, sixty strong, aroundbend after bend, but he could not gain. He lay down low to therace, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing forward, leap byleap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap by leap, like somepale frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead. All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drivesmen out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to killthings by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, thejoy to kill--all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely moreintimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running thewild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth andwash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood. There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyondwhich life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, thisecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a completeforgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulnessof living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in asheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a strickenfield and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack,sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was aliveand that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He wassounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his naturethat were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time. Hewas mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave ofbeing, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinewin that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglowand rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantlyunder the stars and over the face of dead matter that did notmove. But Spitz, cold and calculating even in his supreme moods, leftthe pack and cut across a narrow neck of land where the creek madea long bend around. Buck did not know of this, and as he roundedthe bend, the frost wraith of a rabbit still flitting before him,he saw another and larger frost wraith leap from the overhangingbank into the immediate path of the rabbit. It was Spitz. Therabbit could not turn, and as the white teeth broke its back inmid air it shrieked as loudly as a stricken man may shriek. Atsound of this, the cry of Life plunging down from Life's apex inthe grip of Death, the fall pack at Buck's heels raised a hell'schorus of delight. Buck did not cry out. He did not check himself, but drove in uponSpitz, shoulder to shoulder, so hard that he missed the throat.They rolled over and over in the powdery snow. Spitz gained hisfeet almost as though he had not been overthrown, slashing Buckdown the shoulder and leaping clear. Twice his teeth clippedtogether, like the steel jaws of a trap, as he backed away forbetter footing, with lean and lifting lips that writhed andsnarled. In a flash Buck knew it. The time had come. It was to the death.As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchfulfor the advantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense offamiliarity. He seemed to remember it all,--the white woods, andearth, and moonlight, and the thrill of battle. Over thewhiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm. There was not thefaintest whisper of air--nothing moved, not a leaf quivered, thevisible breaths of the dogs rising slowly and lingering in thefrosty air. They had made short work of the snowshoe rabbit,these dogs that were ill-tamed wolves; and they were now drawn upin an expectant circle. They, too, were silent, their eyes onlygleaming and their breaths drifting slowly upward. To Buck it wasnothing new or strange, this scene of old time. It was as thoughit had always been, the wonted way of things. Spitz was a practised fighter. From Spitzbergen through theArctic, and across Canada and the Barrens, he had held his ownwith all manner of dogs and achieved to mastery over them. Bitterrage was his, but never blind rage. In passion to rend anddestroy, he never forgot that his enemy was in like passion torend and destroy. He never rushed till he was prepared to receivea rush; never attacked till he had first defended that attack. In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the big whitedog. Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh, they werecountered by the fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and lips werecut and bleeding, but Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard.Then he warmed up and enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes.Time and time again he tried for the snow-white throat, where lifebubbled near to the surface, and each time and every time Spitzslashed him and got away. Then Buck took to rushing, as though forthe throat, when, suddenly drawing back his head and curving infrom the side, he would drive his shoulder at the shoulder ofSpitz, as a ram by which to overthrow him. But instead, Buck'sshoulder was slashed down each time as Spitz leaped lightly away. Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood andpanting hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the whilethe silent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dogwent down. As Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and hekept him staggering for footing. Once Buck went over, and thewhole circle of sixty dogs started up; but he recovered himself,almost in mid air, and the circle sank down again and waited. But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness--imagination. He fought by instinct, but he could fight by head aswell. He rushed, as though attempting the old shoulder trick, butat the last instant swept low to the snow and in. His teethclosed on Spitz's left fore leg. There was a crunch of breakingbone, and the white dog faced him on three legs. Thrice he triedto knock him over, then repeated the trick and broke the rightfore leg. Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitz struggledmadly to keep up. He saw the silent circle, with gleaming eyes,lolling tongues, and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing inupon him as he had seen similar circles close in upon beatenantagonists in the past. Only this time he was the one who wasbeaten. There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy was athing reserved for gender climes. He manoeuvred for the finalrush. The circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths ofthe huskies on his flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and toeither side, half crouching for the spring, their eyes fixed uponhim. A pause seemed to fall. Every animal was motionless asthough turned to stone. Only Spitz quivered and bristled as hestaggered back and forth, snarling with horrible menace, as thoughto frighten off impending death. Then Buck sprang in and out; butwhile he was in, shoulder had at last squarely met shoulder. Thedark circle became a dot on the moon-flooded snow as Spitzdisappeared from view. Buck stood and looked on, the successfulchampion, the dominant primordial beast who had made his kill andfound it good.