Chapter VII. The Sounding of the Call

When Buck earned sixteen hundred dollars in five minutes for JohnThornton, he made it possible for his master to pay off certaindebts and to journey with his partners into the East after afabled lost mine, the history of which was as old as the historyof the country. Many men had sought it; few had found it; andmore than a few there were who had never returned from the quest.This lost mine was steeped in tragedy and shrouded in mystery. Noone knew of the first man. The oldest tradition stopped before itgot back to him. From the beginning there had been an ancient andramshackle cabin. Dying men had sworn to it, and to the mine thesite of which it marked, clinching their testimony with nuggetsthat were unlike any known grade of gold in the Northland. But no living man had looted this treasure house, and the deadwere dead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buckand half a dozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknowntrail to achieve where men and dogs as good as themselves hadfailed. They sledded seventy miles up the Yukon, swung to theleft into the Stewart River, passed the Mayo and the McQuestion,and held on until the Stewart itself became a streamlet, threadingthe upstanding peaks which marked the backbone of the continent. John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid ofthe wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge intothe wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as hepleased. Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinnerin the course of the day's travel; and if he failed to find it,like the Indian, he kept on travelling, secure in the knowledgethat sooner or later he would come to it. So, on this greatjourney into the East, straight meat was the bill of fare,ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the sled, andthe time-card was drawn upon the limitless future. To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, andindefinite wandering through strange places. For weeks at a timethey would hold on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon endthey would camp, here and there, the dogs loafing and the menburning holes through frozen muck and gravel and washing countlesspans of dirt by the heat of the fire. Sometimes they went hungry,sometimes they feasted riotously, all according to the abundanceof game and the fortune of hunting. Summer arrived, and dogs andmen packed on their backs, rafted across blue mountain lakes, anddescended or ascended unknown rivers in slender boats whipsawedfrom the standing forest. The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted throughthe uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men hadbeen if the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides insummer blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on nakedmountains between the timber line and the eternal snows, droppedinto summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in theshadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe andfair as any the Southland could boast. In the fall of the yearthey penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wild-fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life--only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in shelteredplaces, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches. And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trailsof men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazedthrough the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemedvery near. But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and itremained mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made itremained mystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-gravenwreckage of a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rottedblankets John Thornton found a long-barrelled flint-lock. He knewit for a Hudson Bay Company gun of the young days in theNorthwest, when such a gun was worth its height in beaver skinspacked flat, And that was all--no hint as to the man who in anearly day had reared the lodge and left the gun among theblankets. Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wanderingthey found, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broadvalley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottomof the washing-pan. They sought no farther. Each day they workedearned them thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets, andthey worked every day. The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags,fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outsidethe spruce-bough lodge. Like giants they toiled, days flashing onthe heels of days like dreams as they heaped the treasure up. There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meatnow and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hoursmusing by the fire. The vision of the short-legged hairy man cameto him more frequently, now that there was little work to be done;and often, blinking by the fire, Buck wandered with him in thatother world which he remembered. The salient thing of this other world seemed fear. When hewatched the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his kneesand hands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, withmany starts and awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfullyinto the darkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did theywalk by the beach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell-fish and ate them as he gathered, it was with eyes that rovedeverywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run likethe wind at its first appearance. Through the forest they creptnoiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and they were alertand vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving andnostrils quivering, for the man heard and smelled as keenly asBuck. The hairy man could spring up into the trees and travelahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb tolimb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, neverfalling, never missing his grip. In fact, he seemed as much athome among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories ofnights of vigil spent beneath trees wherein the hairy man roosted,holding on tightly as he slept. And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the callstill sounding in the depths of the forest. It filled him with agreat unrest and strange desires. It caused him to feel a vague,sweet gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirringsfor he knew not what. Sometimes he pursued the call into theforest, looking for it as though it were a tangible thing, barkingsoftly or defiantly, as the mood might dictate. He would thrusthis nose into the cool wood moss, or into the black soil wherelong grasses grew, and snort with joy at the fat earth smells; orhe would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behind fungus-covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to allthat moved and sounded about him. It might be, lying thus, thathe hoped to surprise this call he could not understand. But hedid not know why he did these various things. He was impelled todo them, and did not reason about them at all. Irresistible impulses seized him. He would be lying in camp,dozing lazily in the heat of the day, when suddenly his head wouldlift and his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he wouldspring to his feet and dash away, and on and on, for hours,through the forest aisles and across the open spaces where theniggerheads bunched. He loved to run down dry watercourses, andto creep and spy upon the bird life in the woods. For a day at atime he would lie in the underbrush where he could watch thepartridges drumming and strutting up and down. But especially heloved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights,listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, readingsigns and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for themysterious something that called--called, waking or sleeping, atall times, for him to come. One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrilsquivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves.From the forest came the call (or one note of it, for the call wasmany noted), distinct and definite as never before,--a long-drawnhowl, like, yet unlike, any noise made by husky dog. And he knewit, in the old familiar way, as a sound heard before. He sprangthrough the sleeping camp and in swift silence dashed through thewoods. As he drew closer to the cry he went more slowly, withcaution in every movement, till he came to an open place among thetrees, and looking out saw, erect on haunches, with nose pointedto the sky, a long, lean, timber wolf. He had made no noise, yet it ceased from its howling and tried tosense his presence. Buck stalked into the open, half crouching,body gathered compactly together, tail straight and stiff, feetfalling with unwonted care. Every movement advertised commingledthreatening and overture of friendliness. It was the menacingtruce that marks the meeting of wild beasts that prey. But thewolf fled at sight of him. He followed, with wild leapings, in afrenzy to overtake. He ran him into a blind channel, in the bedof the creek where a timber jam barred the way. The wolf whirledabout, pivoting on his hind legs after the fashion of Joe and ofall cornered husky dogs, snarling and bristling, clipping histeeth together in a continuous and rapid succession of snaps. Buck did not attack, but circled him about and hedged him in withfriendly advances. The wolf was suspicious and afraid; for Buckmade three of him in weight, while his head barely reached Buck'sshoulder. Watching his chance, he darted away, and the chase wasresumed. Time and again he was cornered, and the thing repeated,though he was in poor condition, or Buck could not so easily haveovertaken him. He would run till Buck's head was even with hisflank, when he would whirl around at bay, only to dash away againat the first opportunity. But in the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded; for the wolf,finding that no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him.Then they became friendly, and played about in the nervous, half-coy way with which fierce beasts belie their fierceness. Aftersome time of this the wolf started off at an easy lope in a mannerthat plainly showed he was going somewhere. He made it clear toBuck that he was to come, and they ran side by side through thesombre twilight, straight up the creek bed, into the gorge fromwhich it issued, and across the bleak divide where it took itsrise. On the opposite slope of the watershed they came down into a levelcountry where were great stretches of forest and many streams, andthrough these great stretches they ran steadily, hour after hour,the sun rising higher and the day growing warmer. Buck was wildlyglad. He knew he was at last answering the call, running by theside of his wood brother toward the place from where the callsurely came. Old memories were coming upon him fast, and he wasstirring to them as of old he stirred to the realities of whichthey were the shadows. He had done this thing before, somewherein that other and dimly remembered world, and he was doing itagain, now, running free in the open, the unpacked earthunderfoot, the wide sky overhead. They stopped by a running stream to drink, and, stopping, Buckremembered John Thornton. He sat down. The wolf started ontoward the place from where the call surely came, then returned tohim, sniffing noses and making actions as though to encourage him.But Buck turned about and started slowly on the back track. Forthe better part of an hour the wild brother ran by his side,whining softly. Then he sat down, pointed his nose upward, andhowled. It was a mournful howl, and as Buck held steadily on hisway he heard it grow faint and fainter until it was lost in thedistance. John Thornton was eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp andsprang upon him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him,scrambling upon him, licking his face, biting his hand--"playingthe general tom-fool," as John Thornton characterized it, thewhile he shook Buck back and forth and cursed him lovingly. For two days and nights Buck never left camp, never let Thorntonout of his sight. He followed him about at his work, watched himwhile he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of themin the morning. But after two days the call in the forest beganto sound more imperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came backon him, and he was haunted by recollections of the wild brother,and of the smiling land beyond the divide and the run side by sidethrough the wide forest stretches. Once again he took towandering in the woods, but the wild brother came no more; andthough he listened through long vigils, the mournful howl wasnever raised. He began to sleep out at night, staying away from camp for days ata time; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the creekand went down into the land of timber and streams. There hewandered for a week, seeking vainly for fresh sign of the wildbrother, killing his meat as he travelled and travelling with thelong, easy lope that seems never to tire. He fished for salmon ina broad stream that emptied somewhere into the sea, and by thisstream he killed a large black bear, blinded by the mosquitoeswhile likewise fishing, and raging through the forest helpless andterrible. Even so, it was a hard fight, and it aroused the lastlatent remnants of Buck's ferocity. And two days later, when hereturned to his kill and found a dozen wolverenes quarrelling overthe spoil, he scattered them like chaff; and those that fled lefttwo behind who would quarrel no more. The blood-longing became stronger than ever before. He was akiller, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived,unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess,surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only thestrong survived. Because of all this he became possessed of agreat pride in himself, which communicated itself like a contagionto his physical being. It advertised itself in all his movements,was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainly as speechin the way he carried himself, and made his glorious furry coat ifanything more glorious. But for the stray brown on his muzzle andabove his eyes, and for the splash of white hair that ran midmostdown his chest, he might well have been mistaken for a giganticwolf, larger than the largest of the breed. From his St. Bernardfather he had inherited size and weight, but it was his shepherdmother who had given shape to that size and weight. His muzzlewas the long wolf muzzle, save that was larger than the muzzle ofany wolf; and his head, somewhat broader, was the wolf head on amassive scale. His cunning was wolf cunning, and wild cunning; his intelligence,shepherd intelligence and St. Bernard intelligence; and all this,plus an experience gained in the fiercest of schools, made him asformidable a creature as any that intelligence roamed the wild. Acarnivorous animal living on a straight meat diet, he was in fullflower, at the high tide of his life, overspilling with vigor andvirility. When Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back, asnapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharing itspent magnetism at the contact. Every part, brain and body, nervetissue and fibre, was keyed to the most exquisite pitch; andbetween all the parts there was a perfect equilibrium oradjustment. To sights and sounds and events which requiredaction, he responded with lightning-like rapidity. Quickly as ahusky dog could leap to defend from attack or to attack, he couldleap twice as quickly. He saw the movement, or heard sound, andresponded in less time than another dog required to compass themere seeing or hearing. He perceived and determined and respondedin the same instant. In point of fact the three actions ofperceiving, determining, and responding were sequential; but soinfinitesimal were the intervals of time between them that theyappeared simultaneous. His muscles were surcharged with vitality,and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs. Life streamedthrough him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it seemedthat it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forthgenerously over the world. "Never was there such a dog," said John Thornton one day, as thepartners watched Buck marching out of camp. "When he was made, the mould was broke," said Pete. "Py jingo! I t'ink so mineself," Hans affirmed. They saw him marching out of camp, but they did not see theinstant and terrible transformation which took place as soon as hewas within the secrecy of the forest. He no longer marched. Atonce he became a thing of the wild, stealing along softly, cat-footed, a passing shadow that appeared and disappeared among theshadows. He knew how to take advantage of every cover, to crawlon his belly like a snake, and like a snake to leap and strike.He could take a ptarmigan from its nest, kill a rabbit as itslept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing a secondtoo late for the trees. Fish, in open pools, were not too quickfor him; nor were beaver, mending their dams, too wary. He killedto eat, not from wantonness; but he preferred to eat what hekilled himself. So a lurking humor ran through his deeds, and itwas his delight to steal upon the squirrels, and, when he all buthad them, to let them go, chattering in mortal fear to thetreetops. As the fall of the year came on, the moose appeared in greaterabundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower andless rigorous valleys. Buck had already dragged down a straypart-grown calf; but he wished strongly for larger and moreformidable quarry, and he came upon it one day on the divide atthe head of the creek. A band of twenty moose had crossed overfrom the land of streams and timber, and chief among them was agreat bull. He was in a savage temper, and, standing over sixfeet from the ground, was as formidable an antagonist as even Buckcould desire. Back and forth the bull tossed his great palmatedantlers, branching to fourteen points and embracing seven feetwithin the tips. His small eyes burned with a vicious and bitterlight, while he roared with fury at sight of Buck. From the bull's side, just forward of the flank, protruded afeathered arrow-end, which accounted for his savageness. Guided bythat instinct which came from the old hunting days of theprimordial world, Buck proceeded to cut the bull out from theherd. It was no slight task. He would bark and dance about infront of the bull, just out of reach of the great antlers and ofthe terrible splay hoofs which could have stamped his life outwith a single blow. Unable to turn his back on the fanged dangerand go on, the bull would be driven into paroxysms of rage. Atsuch moments he charged Buck, who retreated craftily, luring himon by a simulated inability to escape. But when he was thusseparated from his fellows, two or three of the younger bullswould charge back upon Buck and enable the wounded bull to rejointhe herd. There is a patience of the wild--dogged, tireless, persistent aslife itself--that holds motionless for endless hours the spider inits web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade;this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its livingfood; and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of theherd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worryingthe cows with their half-grown calves, and driving the woundedbull mad with helpless rage. For half a day this continued. Buckmultiplied himself, attacking from all sides, enveloping the herdin a whirlwind of menace, cutting out his victim as fast as itcould rejoin its mates, wearing out the patience of creaturespreyed upon, which is a lesser patience than that of creaturespreying. As the day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed in thenorthwest (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were sixhours long), the young bulls retraced their steps more and morereluctantly to the aid of their beset leader. The down-comingwinter was harrying them on to the lower levels, and it seemedthey could never shake off this tireless creature that held themback. Besides, it was not the life of the herd, or of the youngbulls, that was threatened. The life of only one member wasdemanded, which was a remoter interest than their lives, and inthe end they were content to pay the toll. As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watchinghis mates--the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, thebulls he had mastered--as they shambled on at a rapid pace throughthe fading light. He could not follow, for before his nose leapedthe merciless fanged terror that would not let him go. Threehundredweight more than half a ton he weighed; he had lived along, strong life, full of fight and struggle, and at the end hefaced death at the teeth of a creature whose head did not reachbeyond his great knuckled knees. From then on, night and day, Buck never left his prey, never gaveit a moment's rest, never permitted it to browse the leaves oftrees or the shoots of young birch and willow. Nor did he give thewounded bull opportunity to slake his burning thirst in theslender trickling streams they crossed. Often, in desperation, heburst into long stretches of flight. At such times Buck did notattempt to stay him, but loped easily at his heels, satisfied withthe way the game was played, lying down when the moose stoodstill, attacking him fiercely when he strove to eat or drink. The great head drooped more and more under its tree of horns, andthe shambling trot grew weak and weaker. He took to standing forlong periods, with nose to the ground and dejected ears droppedlimply; and Buck found more time in which to get water for himselfand in which to rest. At such moments, panting with red lollingtongue and with eyes fixed upon the big bull, it appeared to Buckthat a change was coming over the face of things. He could feel anew stir in the land. As the moose were coming into the land,other kinds of life were coming in. Forest and stream and airseemed palpitant with their presence. The news of it was borne inupon him, not by sight, or sound, or smell, but by some other andsubtler sense. He heard nothing, saw nothing, yet knew that theland was somehow different; that through it strange things wereafoot and ranging; and he resolved to investigate after he hadfinished the business in hand. At last, at the end of the fourth day, he pulled the great moosedown. For a day and a night he remained by the kill, eating andsleeping, turn and turn about. Then, rested, refreshed andstrong, he turned his face toward camp and John Thornton. Hebroke into the long easy lope, and went on, hour after hour, neverat loss for the tangled way, heading straight home through strangecountry with a certitude of direction that put man and hismagnetic needle to shame. As he held on he became more and more conscious of the new stir inthe land. There was life abroad in it different from the lifewhich had been there throughout the summer. No longer was thisfact borne in upon him in some subtle, mysterious way. The birdstalked of it, the squirrels chattered about it, the very breezewhispered of it. Several times he stopped and drew in the freshmorning air in great sniffs, reading a message which made him leapon with greater speed. He was oppressed with a sense of calamityhappening, if it were not calamity already happened; and as hecrossed the last watershed and dropped down into the valley towardcamp, he proceeded with greater caution. Three miles away he came upon a fresh trail that sent his neckhair rippling and bristling, It led straight toward camp and JohnThornton. Buck hurried on, swiftly and stealthily, every nervestraining and tense, alert to the multitudinous details which tolda story--all but the end. His nose gave him a varying descriptionof the passage of the life on the heels of which he wastravelling. He remarked die pregnant silence of the forest. Thebird life had flitted. The squirrels were in hiding. One only hesaw,--a sleek gray fellow, flattened against a gray dead limb sothat he seemed a part of it, a woody excrescence upon the wooditself. As Buck slid along with the obscureness of a gliding shadow, hisnose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positive forcehad gripped and pulled it. He followed the new scent into athicket and found Nig. He was lying on his side, dead where hehad dragged himself, an arrow protruding, head and feathers, fromeither side of his body. A hundred yards farther on, Buck came upon one of the sled-dogsThornton had bought in Dawson. This dog was thrashing about in adeath-struggle, directly on the trail, and Buck passed around himwithout stopping. From the camp came the faint sound of manyvoices, rising and falling in a sing-song chant. Bellying forwardto the edge of the clearing, he found Hans, lying on his face,feathered with arrows like a porcupine. At the same instant Buckpeered out where the spruce-bough lodge had been and saw what madehis hair leap straight up on his neck and shoulders. A gust ofoverpowering rage swept over him. He did not know that hegrowled, but he growled aloud with a terrible ferocity. For thelast time in his life he allowed passion to usurp cunning andreason, and it was because of his great love for John Thorntonthat he lost his head. The Yeehats were dancing about the wreckage of the spruce-boughlodge when they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon theman animal the like of which they had never seen before. It wasBuck, a live hurricane of fury, hurling himself upon them in afrenzy to destroy. He sprang at the foremost man (it was thechief of the Yeehats), ripping the throat wide open till the rentjugular spouted a fountain of blood. He did not pause to worrythe victim, but ripped in passing, with the next bound tearingwide the throat of a second man. There was no withstanding him.He plunged about in their very midst, tearing, rending,destroying, in constant and terrific motion which defied thearrows they discharged at him. In fact, so inconceivably rapidwere his movements, and so closely were the Indians tangledtogether, that they shot one another with the arrows; and oneyoung hunter, hurling a spear at Buck in mid air, drove it throughthe chest of another hunter with such force that the point brokethrough the skin of the back and stood out beyond. Then a panicseized the Yeehats, and they fled in terror to the woods,proclaiming as they fled the advent of the Evil Spirit. And truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels anddragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees. Itwas a fateful day for the Yeehats. They scattered far and wideover the country, and it was not till a week later that the lastof the survivors gathered together in a lower valley and countedtheir losses. As for Buck, wearying of the pursuit, he returnedto the desolated camp. He found Pete where he had been killed inhis blankets in the first moment of surprise. Thornton'sdesperate struggle was fresh-written on the earth, and Buckscented every detail of it down to the edge of a deep pool. Bythe edge, head and fore feet in the water, lay Skeet, faithful tothe last. The pool itself, muddy and discolored from the sluiceboxes, effectually hid what it contained, and it contained JohnThornton; for Buck followed his trace into the water, from whichno trace led away. All day Buck brooded by the pool or roamed restlessly about thecamp. Death, as a cessation of movement, as a passing out andaway from the lives of the living, he knew, and he knew JohnThornton was dead. It left a great void in him, somewhat akin tohunger, but a void which ached and ached, and which food could notfill, At times, when he paused to contemplate the carcasses of theYeehats, he forgot the pain of it; and at such times he was awareof a great pride in himself,--a pride greater than any he had yetexperienced. He had killed man, the noblest game of all, and hehad killed in the face of the law of club and fang. He sniffedthe bodies curiously. They had died so easily. It was harder tokill a husky dog than them. They were no match at all, were itnot for their arrows and spears and clubs. Thenceforward he wouldbe unafraid of them except when they bore in their hands theirarrows, spears, and clubs. Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into thesky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day. And withthe coming of the night, brooding and mourning by the pool, Buckbecame alive to a stirring of the new life in the forest otherthan that which the Yeehats had made, He stood up, listening andscenting. From far away drifted a faint, sharp yelp, followed bya chorus of similar sharp yelps. As the moments passed the yelpsgrew closer and louder. Again Buck knew them as things heard inthat other world which persisted in his memory. He walked to thecentre of the open space and listened. It was the call, the many-noted call, sounding more luringly and compellingly than everbefore. And as never before, he was ready to obey. John Thorntonwas dead. The last tie was broken. Man and the claims of man nolonger bound him. Hunting their living meat, as the Yeehats were hunting it, on theflanks of the migrating moose, the wolf pack had at last crossedover from the land of streams and timber and invaded Buck'svalley. Into the clearing where the moonlight streamed, theypoured in a silvery flood; and in the centre of the clearing stoodBuck, motionless as a statue, waiting their coming. They wereawed, so still and large he stood, and a moment's pause fell, tillthe boldest one leaped straight for him. Like a flash Buckstruck, breaking the neck. Then he stood, without movement, asbefore, the stricken wolf rolling in agony behind him. Threeothers tried it in sharp succession; and one after the other theydrew back, streaming blood from slashed throats or shoulders. This was sufficient to fling the whole pack forward, pell-mell,crowded together, blocked and confused by its eagerness to pulldown the prey. Buck's marvellous quickness and agility stood himin good stead. Pivoting on his hind legs, and snapping andgashing, he was everywhere at once, presenting a front which wasapparently unbroken so swiftly did he whirl and guard from side toside. But to prevent them from getting behind him, he was forcedback, down past the pool and into the creek bed, till he broughtup against a high gravel bank. He worked along to a right anglein the bank which the men had made in the course of mining, and inthis angle he came to bay, protected on three sides and withnothing to do but face the front. And so well did he face it, that at the end of half an hour thewolves drew back discomfited. The tongues of all were out andlolling, the white fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight.Some were lying down with heads raised and ears pricked forward;others stood on their feet, watching him; and still others werelapping water from the pool. One wolf, long and lean and gray,advanced cautiously, in a friendly manner, and Buck recognized thewild brother with whom he had run for a night and a day. He waswhining softly, and, as Buck whined, they touched noses. Then an old wolf, gaunt and battle-scarred, came forward. Buckwrithed his lips into the preliminary of a snarl, but sniffednoses with him, Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose atthe moon, and broke out the long wolf howl. The others sat downand howled. And now the call came to Buck in unmistakableaccents. He, too, sat down and howled. This over, he came out ofhis angle and the pack crowded around him, sniffing in half-friendly, half-savage manner. The leaders lifted the yelp of thepack and sprang away into the woods. The wolves swung in behind,yelping in chorus. And Buck ran with them, side by side with thewild brother, yelping as he ran. * * * And here may well end the story of Buck. The years were not manywhen the Yeehats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves; forsome were seen with splashes of brown on head and muzzle, and witha rift of white centring down the chest. But more remarkable thanthis, the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of thepack. They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunninggreater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters,robbing their traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravesthunters. Nay, the tale grows worse. Hunters there are who fail to returnto the camp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmenfound with throats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints aboutthem in the snow greater than the prints of any wolf. Each fall,when the Yeehats follow the movement of the moose, there is acertain valley which they never enter. And women there are whobecome sad when the word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spiritcame to select that valley for an abiding-place. In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, ofwhich the Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coatedwolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alonefrom the smiling timber land and comes down into an open spaceamong the trees. Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growingthrough it and vegetable mould overrunning it and hiding itsyellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once,long and mournfully, ere he departs. But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come onand the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may beseen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight orglimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his greatthroat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which isthe song of the pack.