Chapter VI. For the Love of a Man

When John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December hispartners had made him comfortable and left him to get well, goingon themselves up the river to get out a raft of saw-logs forDawson. He was still limping slightly at the time he rescuedBuck, but with the continued warm weather even the slight limpleft him. And here, lying by the river bank through the longspring days, watching the running water, listening lazily to thesongs of birds and the hum of nature, Buck slowly won back hisstrength. A rest comes very good after one has travelled three thousandmiles, and it must be confessed that Buck waxed lazy as his woundshealed, his muscles swelled out, and the flesh came back to coverhis bones. For that matter, they were all loafing,--Buck, JohnThornton, and Skeet and Nig,--waiting for the raft to come thatwas to carry them down to Dawson. Skeet was a little Irish setterwho early made friends with Buck, who, in a dying condition, wasunable to resent her first advances. She had the doctor traitwhich some dogs possess; and as a mother cat washes her kittens,so she washed and cleansed Buck's wounds. Regularly, each morningafter he had finished his breakfast, she performed her self-appointed task, till he came to look for her ministrations as muchas he did for Thornton's. Nig, equally friendly, though lessdemonstrative, was a huge black dog, half bloodhound and halfdeerhound, with eyes that laughed and a boundless good nature. To Buck's surprise these dogs manifested no jealousy toward him.They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of JohnThornton. As Buck grew stronger they enticed him into all sortsof ridiculous games, in which Thornton himself could not forbearto join; and in this fashion Buck romped through his convalescenceand into a new existence. Love, genuine passionate love, was hisfor the first time. This he had never experienced at JudgeMiller's down in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. With theJudge's sons, hunting and tramping, it had been a workingpartnership; with the Judge's grandsons, a sort of pompousguardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately and dignifiedfriendship. But love that was feverish and burning, that wasadoration, that was madness, it had taken John Thornton to arouse. This man had saved his life, which was something; but, further, hewas the ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogsfrom a sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to thewelfare of his as if they were his own children, because he couldnot help it. And he saw further. He never forgot a kindlygreeting or a cheering word, and to sit down for a long talk withthem ("gas" he called it) was as much his delight as theirs. Hehad a way of taking Buck's head roughly between his hands, andresting his own head upon Buck's, of shaking him back and forth,the while calling him ill names that to Buck were love names.Buck knew no greater joy than that rough embrace and the sound ofmurmured oaths, and at each jerk back and forth it seemed that hisheart would be shaken out of his body so great was its ecstasy.And when, released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, hiseyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and inthat fashion remained without movement, John Thornton wouldreverently exclaim, "God! you can all but speak!" Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt. Hewould often seize Thornton's hand in his mouth and close sofiercely that the flesh bore the impress of his teeth for sometime afterward. And as Buck understood the oaths to be lovewords, so the man understood this feigned bite for a caress. For the most part, however, Buck's love was expressed inadoration. While he went wild with happiness when Thorntontouched him or spoke to him, he did not seek these tokens. UnlikeSkeet, who was wont to shove her nose under Thornton's hand andnudge and nudge till petted, or Nig, who would stalk up and resthis great head on Thornton's knee, Buck was content to adore at adistance. He would lie by the hour, eager, alert, at Thornton'sfeet, looking up into his face, dwelling upon it, studying it,following with keenest interest each fleeting expression, everymovement or change of feature. Or, as chance might have it, hewould lie farther away, to the side or rear, watching the outlinesof the man and the occasional movements of his body. And often,such was the communion in which they lived, the strength of Buck'sgaze would draw John Thornton's head around, and he would returnthe gaze, without speech, his heart shining out of his eyes asBuck's heart shone out. For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton toget out of his sight. From the moment he left the tent to when heentered it again, Buck would follow at his heels. His transientmasters since he had come into the Northland had bred in him afear that no master could be permanent. He was afraid thatThornton would pass out of his life as Perrault and Francois andthe Scotch half-breed had passed out. Even in the night, in hisdreams, he was haunted by this fear. At such times he would shakeoff sleep and creep through the chill to the flap of the tent,where he would stand and listen to the sound of his master'sbreathing. But in spite of this great love he bore John Thornton, whichseemed to bespeak the soft civilizing influence, the strain of theprimitive, which the Northland had aroused in him, remained aliveand active. Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire androof, were his; yet he retained his wildness and wiliness. He wasa thing of the wild, come in from the wild to sit by JohnThornton's fire, rather than a dog of the soft Southland stampedwith the marks of generations of civilization. Because of hisvery great love, he could not steal from this man, but from anyother man, in any other camp, he did not hesitate an instant;while the cunning with which he stole enabled him to escapedetection. His face and body were scored by the teeth of many dogs, and hefought as fiercely as ever and more shrewdly. Skeet and Nig weretoo good-natured for quarrelling,--besides, they belonged to JohnThornton; but the strange dog, no matter what the breed or valor,swiftly acknowledged Buck's supremacy or found himself strugglingfor life with a terrible antagonist. And Buck was merciless. Hehad learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewentan advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way toDeath. He had lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fightingdogs of the police and mail, and knew there was no middle course.He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness.Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstoodfor fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or bekilled, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down outof the depths of Time, he obeyed. He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he haddrawn. He linked the past with the present, and the eternitybehind him throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which heswayed as the tides and seasons swayed. He sat by John Thornton'sfire, a broad-breasted dog, white-fanged and long-furred; butbehind him were the shades of all manner of dogs, half-wolves andwild wolves, urgent and prompting, tasting the savor of the meathe ate, thirsting for the water he drank, scenting the wind withhim, listening with him and telling him the sounds made by thewild life in the forest, dictating his moods, directing hisactions, lying down to sleep with him when he lay down, anddreaming with him and beyond him and becoming themselves the stuffof his dreams. So peremptorily did these shades beckon him, that each day mankindand the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in theforest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call,mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn hisback upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plungeinto the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor didhe wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in theforest. But as often as he gained the soft unbroken earth and thegreen shade, the love for John Thornton drew him back to the fireagain. Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing.Chance travellers might praise or pet him; but he was cold underit all, and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walkaway. When Thornton's partners, Hans and Pete, arrived on thelong-expected raft, Buck refused to notice them till he learnedthey were close to Thornton; after that he tolerated them in apassive sort of way, accepting favors from them as though hefavored them by accepting. They were of the same large type asThornton, living close to the earth, thinking simply and seeingclearly; and ere they swung the raft into the big eddy by the saw-mill at Dawson, they understood Buck and his ways, and did notinsist upon an intimacy such as obtained with Skeet and Nig. For Thornton, however, his love seemed to grow and grow. He,alone among men, could put a pack upon Buck's back in the summertravelling. Nothing was too great for Buck to do, when Thorntoncommanded. One day (they had grub-staked themselves from theproceeds of the raft and left Dawson for the head-waters of theTanana) the men and dogs were sitting on the crest of a cliffwhich fell away, straight down, to naked bed-rock three hundredfeet below. John Thornton was sitting near the edge, Buck at hisshoulder. A thoughtless whim seized Thornton, and he drew theattention of Hans and Pete to the experiment he had in mind."Jump, Buck!" he commanded, sweeping his arm out and over thechasm. The next instant he was grappling with Buck on the extremeedge, while Hans and Pete were dragging them back into safety. "It's uncanny," Pete said, after it was over and they had caughttheir speech. Thornton shook his head. "No, it is splendid, and it is terrible,too. Do you know, it sometimes makes me afraid." "I'm not hankering to be the man that lays hands on you while he'saround," Pete announced conclusively, nodding his head towardBuck. "Py Jingo!" was Hans's contribution. "Not mineself either." It was at Circle City, ere the year was out, that Pete'sapprehensions were realized. "Black" Burton, a man evil-temperedand malicious, had been picking a quarrel with a tenderfoot at thebar, when Thornton stepped good-naturedly between. Buck, as washis custom, was lying in a corner, head on paws, watching hismaster's every action. Burton struck out, without warning,straight from the shoulder. Thornton was sent spinning, and savedhimself from falling only by clutching the rail of the bar. Those who were looking on heard what was neither bark nor yelp,but a something which is best described as a roar, and they sawBuck's body rise up in the air as he left the floor for Burton'sthroat. The man saved his life by instinctively throwing out hisarm, but was hurled backward to the floor with Buck on top of him.Buck loosed his teeth from the flesh of the arm and drove in againfor the throat. This time the man succeeded only in partlyblocking, and his throat was torn open. Then the crowd was uponBuck, and he was driven off; but while a surgeon checked thebleeding, he prowled up and down, growling furiously, attemptingto rush in, and being forced back by an array of hostile clubs. A"miners' meeting," called on the spot, decided that the dog hadsufficient provocation, and Buck was discharged. But hisreputation was made, and from that day his name spread throughevery camp in Alaska. Later on, in the fall of the year, he saved John Thornton's lifein quite another fashion. The three partners were lining a longand narrow poling-boat down a bad stretch of rapids on the Forty-Mile Creek. Hans and Pete moved along the bank, snubbing with athin Manila rope from tree to tree, while Thornton remained in theboat, helping its descent by means of a pole, and shoutingdirections to the shore. Buck, on the bank, worried and anxious,kept abreast of the boat, his eyes never off his master. At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submergedrocks jutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and,while Thornton poled the boat out into the stream, ran down thebank with the end in his hand to snub the boat when it had clearedthe ledge. This it did, and was flying down-stream in a currentas swift as a mill-race, when Hans checked it with the rope andchecked too suddenly. The boat flirted over and snubbed in to thebank bottom up, while Thornton, flung sheer out of it, was carrieddown-stream toward the worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wildwater in which no swimmer could live. Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundredyards, amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When hefelt him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming withall his splendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow;the progress down-stream amazingly rapid. From below came thefatal roaring where the wild current went wilder and was rent inshreds and spray by the rocks which thrust through like the teethof an enormous comb. The suck of the water as it took thebeginning of the last steep pitch was frightful, and Thornton knewthat the shore was impossible. He scraped furiously over a rock,bruised across a second, and struck a third with crushing force.He clutched its slippery top with both hands, releasing Buck, andabove the roar of the churning water shouted: "Go, Buck! Go!" Buck could not hold his own, and swept on down-stream, strugglingdesperately, but unable to win back. When he heard Thornton'scommand repeated, he partly reared out of the water, throwing hishead high, as though for a last look, then turned obedientlytoward the bank. He swam powerfully and was dragged ashore byPete and Hans at the very point where swimming ceased to bepossible and destruction began. They knew that the time a man could cling to a slippery rock inthe face of that driving current was a matter of minutes, and theyran as fast as they could up the bank to a point far above whereThornton was hanging on. They attached the line with which theyhad been snubbing the boat to Buck's neck and shoulders, beingcareful that it should neither strangle him nor impede hisswimming, and launched him into the stream. He struck out boldly,but not straight enough into the stream. He discovered themistake too late, when Thornton was abreast of him and a barehalf-dozen strokes away while he was being carried helplesslypast. Hans promptly snubbed with the rope, as though Buck were a boat.The rope thus tightening on him in the sweep of the current, hewas jerked under the surface, and under the surface he remainedtill his body struck against the bank and he was hauled out. Hewas half drowned, and Hans and Pete threw themselves upon him,pounding the breath into him and the water out of him. Hestaggered to his feet and fell down. The faint sound ofThornton's voice came to them, and though they could not make outthe words of it, they knew that he was in his extremity. Hismaster's voice acted on Buck like an electric shock, He sprang tohis feet and ran up the bank ahead of the men to the point of hisprevious departure. Again the rope was attached and he was launched, and again hestruck out, but this time straight into the stream. He hadmiscalculated once, but he would not be guilty of it a secondtime. Hans paid out the rope, permitting no slack, while Petekept it clear of coils. Buck held on till he was on a linestraight above Thornton; then he turned, and with the speed of anexpress train headed down upon him. Thornton saw him coming, and,as Buck struck him like a battering ram, with the whole force ofthe current behind him, he reached up and closed with both armsaround the shaggy neck. Hans snubbed the rope around the tree,and Buck and Thornton were jerked under the water. Strangling,suffocating, sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other,dragging over the jagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags,they veered in to the bank. Thornton came to, belly downward and being violently propelledback and forth across a drift log by Hans and Pete. His firstglance was for Buck, over whose limp and apparently lifeless bodyNig was setting up a howl, while Skeet was licking the wet faceand closed eyes. Thornton was himself bruised and battered, andhe went carefully over Buck's body, when he had been broughtaround, finding three broken ribs. "That settles it," he announced. "We camp right here." And campthey did, till Buck's ribs knitted and he was able to travel. That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another exploit, not soheroic, perhaps, but one that put his name many notches higher onthe totem-pole of Alaskan fame. This exploit was particularlygratifying to the three men; for they stood in need of the outfitwhich it furnished, and were enabled to make a long-desired tripinto the virgin East, where miners had not yet appeared. It wasbrought about by a conversation in the Eldorado Saloon, in whichmen waxed boastful of their favorite dogs. Buck, because of hisrecord, was the target for these men, and Thornton was drivenstoutly to defend him. At the end of half an hour one man statedthat his dog could start a sled with five hundred pounds and walkoff with it; a second bragged six hundred for his dog; and athird, seven hundred. "Pooh! pooh!" said John Thornton; "Buck can start a thousandpounds." "And break it out? and walk off with it for a hundred yards?"demanded Matthewson, a Bonanza King, he of the seven hundredvaunt. "And break it out, and walk off with it for a hundred yards," JohnThornton said coolly. "Well," Matthewson said, slowly and deliberately, so that allcould hear, "I've got a thousand dollars that says he can't. Andthere it is." So saying, he slammed a sack of gold dust of thesize of a bologna sausage down upon the bar. Nobody spoke. Thornton's bluff, if bluff it was, had been called.He could feel a flush of warm blood creeping up his face. Histongue had tricked him. He did not know whether Buck could starta thousand pounds. Half a ton! The enormousness of it appalledhim. He had great faith in Buck's strength and had often thoughthim capable of starting such a load; but never, as now, had hefaced the possibility of it, the eyes of a dozen men fixed uponhim, silent and waiting. Further, he had no thousand dollars; norhad Hans or Pete. "I've got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fiftypoundsacks of flour on it," Matthewson went on with brutal directness;"so don't let that hinder you." Thornton did not reply. He did not know what to say. He glancedfrom face to face in the absent way of a man who has lost thepower of thought and is seeking somewhere to find the thing thatwill start it going again. The face of Jim O'Brien, a MastodonKing and old-time comrade, caught his eyes. It was as a cue tohim, seeming to rouse him to do what he would never have dreamedof doing. "Can you lend me a thousand?" he asked, almost in a whisper. "Sure," answered O'Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack by theside of Matthewson's. "Though it's little faith I'm having, John,that the beast can do the trick." The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see thetest. The tables were deserted, and the dealers and gamekeeperscame forth to see the outcome of the wager and to lay odds.Several hundred men, furred and mittened, banked around the sledwithin easy distance. Matthewson's sled, loaded with a thousandpounds of flour, had been standing for a couple of hours, and inthe intense cold (it was sixty below zero) the runners had frozenfast to the hard-packed snow. Men offered odds of two to one thatBuck could not budge the sled. A quibble arose concerning thephrase "break out." O'Brien contended it was Thornton's privilegeto knock the runners loose, leaving Buck to "break it out" from adead standstill. Matthewson insisted that the phrase includedbreaking the runners from the frozen grip of the snow. A majorityof the men who had witnessed the making of the bet decided in hisfavor, whereat the odds went up to three to one against Buck. There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat.Thornton had been hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt; andnow that he looked at the sled itself, the concrete fact, with theregular team of ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the moreimpossible the task appeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant. "Three to one!" he proclaimed. "I'll lay you another thousand atthat figure, Thornton. What d'ye say?" Thornton's doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spiritwas aroused--the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails torecognize the impossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor forbattle. He called Hans and Pete to him. Their sacks were slim,and with his own the three partners could rake together only twohundred dollars. In the ebb of their fortunes, this sum was theirtotal capital; yet they laid it unhesitatingly againstMatthewson's six hundred. The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his ownharness, was put into the sled. He had caught the contagion ofthe excitement, and he felt that in some way he must do a greatthing for John Thornton. Murmurs of admiration at his splendidappearance went up. He was in perfect condition, without an ounceof superfluous flesh, and the one hundred and fifty pounds that heweighed were so many pounds of grit and virility. His furry coatshone with the sheen of silk. Down the neck and across theshoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled and seemedto lift with every movement, as though excess of vigor made eachparticular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavy forelegs were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body,where the muscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Menfelt these muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the oddswent down to two to one. "Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" stuttered a member of the latest dynasty, aking of the Skookum Benches. "I offer you eight hundred for him,sir, before the test, sir; eight hundred just as he stands." Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck's side. "You must stand off from him," Matthewson protested. "Free playand plenty of room." The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of thegamblers vainly offering two to one. Everybody acknowledged Bucka magnificent animal, but twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulkedtoo large in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch-strings. Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head in his twohands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him,as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered inhis ear. "As you love me, Buck. As you love me," was what hewhispered. Buck whined with suppressed eagerness. The crowd was watching curiously. The affair was growingmysterious. It seemed like a conjuration. As Thornton got to hisfeet, Buck seized his mittened hand between his jaws, pressing inwith his teeth and releasing slowly, half-reluctantly. It was theanswer, in terms, not of speech, but of love. Thornton steppedwell back. "Now, Buck," he said. Buck tightened the traces, then slacked them for a matter ofseveral inches. It was the way he had learned. "Gee!" Thornton's voice rang out, sharp in the tense silence. Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a plunge that tookup the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred andfifty pounds. The load quivered, and from under the runners arosea crisp crackling. "Haw!" Thornton commanded. Buck duplicated the manoeuvre, this time to the left. Thecrackling turned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and therunners slipping and grating several inches to the side. The sledwas broken out. Men were holding their breaths, intenselyunconscious of the fact. "Now, MUSH!" Thornton's command cracked out like a pistol-shot. Buck threwhimself forward, tightening the traces with a jarring lunge. Hiswhole body was gathered compactly together in the tremendouseffort, the muscles writhing and knotting like live things underthe silky fur. His great chest was low to the ground, his headforward and down, while his feet were flying like mad, the clawsscarring the hard-packed snow in parallel grooves. The sledswayed and trembled, half-started forward. One of his feetslipped, and one man groaned aloud. Then the sled lurched ahead inwhat appeared a rapid succession of jerks, though it never reallycame to a dead stop again...half an inch...an inch... twoinches... The jerks perceptibly diminished; as the sled gainedmomentum, he caught them up, till it was moving steadily along. Men gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that for a momentthey had ceased to breathe. Thornton was running behind,encouraging Buck with short, cheery words. The distance had beenmeasured off, and as he neared the pile of firewood which markedthe end of the hundred yards, a cheer began to grow and grow,which burst into a roar as he passed the firewood and halted atcommand. Every man was tearing himself loose, even Matthewson.Hats and mittens were flying in the air. Men were shaking hands,it did not matter with whom, and bubbling over in a generalincoherent babel. But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck. Head was againsthead, and he was shaking him back and forth. Those who hurried upheard him cursing Buck, and he cursed him long and fervently, andsoftly and lovingly. "Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" spluttered the Skookum Bench king. "I'llgive you a thousand for him, sir, a thousand, sir--twelve hundred,sir." Thornton rose to his feet. His eyes were wet. The tears werestreaming frankly down his cheeks. "Sir," he said to the SkookumBench king, "no, sir. You can go to hell, sir. It's the best Ican do for you, sir." Buck seized Thornton's hand in his teeth. Thornton shook him backand forth. As though animated by a common impulse, the onlookersdrew back to a respectful distance; nor were they again indiscreetenough to interrupt.