Chapter IV. Who Has Won to Mastership

"Eh? Wot I say? I spik true w'en I say dat Buck two devils."This was Francois's speech next morning when he discovered Spitzmissing and Buck covered with wounds. He drew him to the fire andby its light pointed them out. "Dat Spitz fight lak hell," said Perrault, as he surveyed thegaping 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, thedog-driver proceeded to harness the dogs. Buck trotted up to theplace Spitz would have occupied as leader; but Francois, notnoticing him, brought Sol-leks to the coveted position. In hisjudgment, Sol-leks was the best lead-dog left. Buck sprang uponSol-leks in a fury, driving him back and standing in his place. "Eh? eh?" Francois cried, slapping his thighs gleefully. "Look atdat 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 growledthreateningly, dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. Theold dog did not like it, and showed plainly that he was afraid ofBuck. Francois was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buckagain displaced Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go. Francois was angry. "Now, by Gar, I feex you!" he cried, comingback 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 morebrought forward. But he circled just beyond the range of theclub, snarling with bitterness and rage; and while he circled hewatched the club so as to dodge it if thrown by Francois, for hewas become wise in the way of clubs. The driver went about hiswork, and he called to Buck when he was ready to put him in hisold place in front of Dave. Buck retreated two or three steps.Francois followed him up, whereupon he again retreated. Aftersome time of this, Francois threw down the club, thinking thatBuck feared a thrashing. But Buck was in open revolt. He wanted,not to escape a clubbing, but to have the leadership. It was hisby right. He had earned it, and he would not be content withless. Perrault took a hand. Between them they ran him about for thebetter part of an hour. They threw clubs at him. He dodged.They cursed him, and his fathers and mothers before him, and allhis seed to come after him down to the remotest generation, andevery hair on his body and drop of blood in his veins; and heanswered curse with snarl and kept out of their reach. He did nottry to run away, but retreated around and around the camp,advertising plainly that when his desire was met, he would come inand be good. Francois sat down and scratched his head. Perrault looked at hiswatch and swore. Time was flying, and they should have been onthe trail an hour gone. Francois scratched his head again. Heshook it and grinned sheepishly at the courier, who shrugged hisshoulders in sign that they were beaten. Then Francois went up towhere Sol-leks stood and called to Buck. Buck laughed, as dogslaugh, yet kept his distance. Francois unfastened Sol-leks'straces and put him back in his old place. The team stoodharnessed to the sled in an unbroken line, ready for the trail.There was no place for Buck save at the front. Once more Francoiscalled, and once more Buck laughed and kept away. "T'row down de club," Perrault commanded. Francois complied, whereupon Buck trotted in, laughingtriumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of theteam. His traces were fastened, the sled broken out, and withboth 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 wherejudgment was required, and quick thinking and quick acting, heshowed himself the superior even of Spitz, of whom Francois hadnever 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 inleadership. It was none of their business. Their business was totoil, and toil mightily, in the traces. So long as that were notinterfered with, they did not care what happened. Billee, thegood-natured, could lead for all they cared, so long as he keptorder. The rest of the team, however, had grown unruly during thelast days of Spitz, and their surprise was great now that Buckproceeded to lick them into shape. Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce moreof his weight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do,was swiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the firstday 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 simplysmothered him by virtue of superior weight, and cut him up till heceased snapping and began to whine for mercy. The general tone of the team picked up immediately. It recoveredits old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dogin the traces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek andKoona, were added; and the celerity with which Buck broke them intook away Francois's breath. "Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!" he cried. "No, nevaire! Heemworth one t'ousan' dollair, by Gar! Eh? Wot you say, Perrault?" And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then, and gainingday by day. The trail was in excellent condition, well packed andhard, and there was no new-fallen snow with which to contend. Itwas not too cold. The temperature dropped to fifty below zero andremained there the whole trip. The men rode and ran by turn, andthe dogs were kept on the jump, with but infrequent stoppages. The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and theycovered in one day going out what had taken them ten days comingin. In one run they made a sixty-mile dash from the foot of LakeLe Barge to the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, andBennett (seventy miles of lakes), they flew so fast that the manwhose turn it was to run towed behind the sled at the end of arope. And on the last night of the second week they topped WhitePass and dropped down the sea slope with the lights of Skaguay andof the shipping at their feet. It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averagedforty miles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests upand down the main street of Skaguay and were deluged withinvitations to drink, while the team was the constant centre of aworshipful crowd of dog-busters and mushers. Then three or fourwestern bad men aspired to clean out the town, were riddled likepepper-boxes for their pains, and public interest turned to otheridols. Next came official orders. Francois called Buck to him,threw his arms around him, wept over him. And that was the lastof Francois and Perrault. Like other men, they passed out ofBuck's life for good. A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and incompany with a dozen other dog-teams he started back over theweary trail to Dawson. It was no light running now, nor recordtime, but heavy toil each day, with a heavy load behind; for thiswas the mail train, carrying word from the world to the men whosought gold under the shadow of the Pole. Buck did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, takingpride in it after the manner of Dave and Sol-leks, and seeing thathis 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 thecooks turned out, fires were built, and breakfast was eaten.Then, while some broke camp, others harnessed the dogs, and theywere under way an hour or so before the darkness fell which gavewarning of dawn. At night, camp was made. Some pitched theflies, others cut firewood and pine boughs for the beds, and stillothers carried water or ice for the cooks. Also, the dogs werefed. To them, this was the one feature of the day, though it wasgood to loaf around, after the fish was eaten, for an hour or sowith the other dogs, of which there were fivescore and odd. Therewere fierce fighters among them, but three battles with thefiercest brought Buck to mastery, so that when he bristled andshowed his teeth they got out of his way. Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near the fire, hind legscrouched under him, fore legs stretched out in front, head raised,and eyes blinking dreamily at the flames. Sometimes he thought ofJudge Miller's big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, andof the cement swimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, andToots, the Japanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in thered sweater, the death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, andthe good things he had eaten or would like to eat. He was nothomesick. The Sunland was very dim and distant, and such memorieshad no power over him. Far more potent were the memories of hisheredity that gave things he had never seen before a seemingfamiliarity; the instincts (which were but the memories of hisancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later days, and stilllater, 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 hecrouched by this other fire he saw another and different man fromthe half-breed cook before him. This other man was shorter of legand longer of arm, with muscles that were stringy and knottyrather than rounded and swelling. The hair of this man was longand matted, and his head slanted back under it from the eyes. Heuttered strange sounds, and seemed very much afraid of thedarkness, into which he peered continually, clutching in his hand,which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with a heavystone made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged andfire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his bodythere was much hair. In some places, across the chest andshoulders and down the outside of the arms and thighs, it wasmatted into almost a thick fur. He did not stand erect, but withtrunk inclined forward from the hips, on legs that bent at theknees. About his body there was a peculiar springiness, orresiliency, almost catlike, and a quick alertness as of one wholived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen. At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with headbetween his legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were onhis knees, his hands clasped above his head as though to shed rainby the hairy arms. And beyond that fire, in the circlingdarkness, Buck could see many gleaming coals, two by two, alwaystwo by two, which he knew to be the eyes of great beasts of prey.And he could hear the crashing of their bodies through theundergrowth, and the noises they made in the night. And dreamingthere by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking at the fire,these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair torise along his back and stand on end across his shoulders and uphis neck, till he whimpered low and suppressedly, or growledsoftly, and the half-breed cook shouted at him, "Hey, you Buck,wake up!" Whereupon the other world would vanish and the realworld come into his eyes, and he would get up and yawn and stretchas though he had been asleep. It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy workwore them down. They were short of weight and in poor conditionwhen they made Dawson, and should have had a ten days' or a week'srest at least. But in two days' time they dropped down the Yukonbank from the Barracks, loaded with letters for the outside. Thedogs were tired, the drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse,it snowed every day. This meant a soft trail, greater friction onthe runners, and heavier pulling for the dogs; yet the driverswere fair through it all, and did their best for the animals. Each night the dogs were attended to first. They ate before thedrivers ate, and no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seento the feet of the dogs he drove. Still, their strength wentdown. Since the beginning of the winter they had travelledeighteen 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 maintainingdiscipline, though he, too, was very tired. Billee cried andwhimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe was sourer thanever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side. But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gonewrong with him. He became more morose and irritable, and whencamp 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 againtill harness-up time in the morning. Sometimes, in the traces,when jerked by a sudden stoppage of the sled, or by straining tostart it, he would cry out with pain. The driver examined him,but could find nothing. All the drivers became interested in hiscase. They talked it over at meal-time, and over their last pipesbefore going to bed, and one night they held a consultation. Hewas brought from his nest to the fire and was pressed and proddedtill he cried out many times. Something was wrong inside, butthey could locate no broken bones, could not make it out. By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he wasfalling repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called ahalt 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 runfree behind the sled. Sick as he was, Dave resented being takenout, grunting and growling while the traces were unfastened, andwhimpering broken-heartedly when he saw Sol-leks in the positionhe had held and served so long. For the pride of trace and trailwas his, and, sick unto death, he could not bear that another dogshould do his work. When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongsidethe beaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushingagainst him and trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on theother side, striving to leap inside his traces and get between himand the sled, and A the while whining and yelping and crying withgrief and pain. The half-breed tried to drive him away with thewhip; but he paid no heed to the stinging lash, and the man hadnot the heart to strike harder. Dave refused to run quietly on thetrail behind the sled, where the going was easy, but continued toflounder alongside in the soft snow, where the going was mostdifficult, 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 alongbehind till the train made another stop, when he floundered pastthe sleds to his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. Hisdriver lingered a moment to get a light for his pipe from the manbehind. Then he returned and started his dogs. They swung out onthe trail with remarkable lack of exertion, turned their headsuneasily, and stopped in surprise. The driver was surprised, too;the sled had not moved. He called his comrades to witness thesight. Dave had bitten through both of Sol-leks's traces, and wasstanding directly in front of the sled in his proper place. He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver wasperplexed. His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heartthrough being denied the work that killed it, and recalledinstances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, orinjured, had died because they were cut out of the traces. Also,they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he shoulddie in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed inagain, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once hecried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Severaltimes he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once thesled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hindlegs. But he held out till camp was reached, when his driver made aplace for him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel.At harness-up time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsiveefforts he got on his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormedhis way forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being puton his mates. He would advance his fore legs and drag up his bodywith a sort of hitching movement, when he would advance his forelegs and hitch ahead again for a few more inches. His strengthleft him, and the last his mates saw of him he lay gasping in thesnow and yearning toward them. But they could hear him mournfullyhowling till they passed out of sight behind a belt of rivertimber. Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retracedhis steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. Arevolver-shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whipssnapped, the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along thetrail; but Buck knew, and every dog knew, what had taken placebehind the belt of river trees.