Chapter Chapter 2 · The Law of Club and Fang

. The Law of Club and Fang

Buck’s first day on the Dyea beach was like a nightmare. Every hour was

filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked from the

heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial. No

lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do but loaf and be

bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment’s safety. All was

confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril.

There was imperative need to be constantly alert; for these dogs and

men were not town dogs and men. They were savages, all of them, who

knew no law but the law of club and fang.

He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his

first experience taught him an unforgetable lesson. It is true, it was

a vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it.

Curly was the victim. They were camped near the log store, where she,

in her friendly way, made advances to a husky dog the size of a

full-grown wolf, though not half so large as she. There was no warning,

only a leap in like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out

equally swift, and Curly’s face was ripped open from eye to jaw.

It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away; but there

was more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and

surrounded the combatants in an intent and silent circle. Buck did not

comprehend that silent intentness, nor the eager way with which they

were licking their chops. Curly rushed her antagonist, who struck again

and leaped aside. He met her next rush with his chest, in a peculiar

fashion that tumbled her off her feet. She never regained them. This

was what the onlooking huskies had waited for. They closed in upon her,

snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming with agony, beneath

the bristling mass of bodies.

So sudden was it, and so unexpected, that Buck was taken aback. He saw

Spitz run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing; and he

saw François, swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Three men

with clubs were helping him to scatter them. It did not take long. Two

minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her assailants were

clubbed off. But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody,

trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breed

standing over her and cursing horribly. The scene often came back to

Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the way. No fair play.

Once down, that was the end of you. Well, he would see to it that he

never went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again, and from

that moment Buck hated him with a bitter and deathless hatred.

Before he had recovered from the shock caused by the tragic passing of

Curly, he received another shock. François fastened upon him an

arrangement of straps and buckles. It was a harness, such as he had

seen the grooms put on the horses at home. And as he had seen horses

work, so he was set to work, hauling François on a sled to the forest

that fringed the valley, and returning with a load of firewood. Though

his dignity was sorely hurt by thus being made a draught animal, he was

too wise to rebel. He buckled down with a will and did his best, though

it was all new and strange. François was stern, demanding instant

obedience, and by virtue of his whip receiving instant obedience; while

Dave, who was an experienced wheeler, nipped Buck’s hind quarters

whenever he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced,

and while he could not always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof now

and again, or cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck

into the way he should go. Buck learned easily, and under the combined

tuition of his two mates and François made remarkable progress. Ere

they returned to camp he knew enough to stop at “ho,” to go ahead at

“mush,” to swing wide on the bends, and to keep clear of the wheeler

when the loaded sled shot downhill at their heels.

“T’ree vair’ good dogs,” François told Perrault. “Dat Buck, heem pool

lak hell. I tich heem queek as anyt’ing.”

By afternoon, Perrault, who was in a hurry to be on the trail with his

despatches, returned with two more dogs. “Billee” and “Joe” he called

them, two brothers, and true huskies both. Sons of the one mother

though they were, they were as different as day and night. Billee’s one

fault was his excessive good nature, while Joe was the very opposite,

sour and introspective, with a perpetual snarl and a malignant eye.

Buck received them in comradely fashion, Dave ignored them, while Spitz

proceeded to thrash first one and then the other. Billee wagged his

tail appeasingly, turned to run when he saw that appeasement was of no

avail, and cried (still appeasingly) when Spitz’s sharp teeth scored

his flank. But no matter how Spitz circled, Joe whirled around on his

heels to face him, mane bristling, ears laid back, lips writhing and

snarling, jaws clipping together as fast as he could snap, and eyes

diabolically gleaming—the incarnation of belligerent fear. So terrible

was his appearance that Spitz was forced to forego disciplining him;

but to cover his own discomfiture he turned upon the inoffensive and

wailing Billee and drove him to the confines of the camp.

By evening Perrault secured another dog, an old husky, long and lean

and gaunt, with a battle-scarred face and a single eye which flashed a

warning of prowess that commanded respect. He was called Sol-leks,

which means the Angry One. Like Dave, he asked nothing, gave nothing,

expected nothing; and when he marched slowly and deliberately into

their midst, even Spitz left him alone. He had one peculiarity which

Buck was unlucky enough to discover. He did not like to be approached

on his blind side. Of this offence Buck was unwittingly guilty, and the

first knowledge he had of his indiscretion was when Sol-leks whirled

upon him and slashed his shoulder to the bone for three inches up and

down. Forever after Buck avoided his blind side, and to the last of

their comradeship had no more trouble. His only apparent ambition, like

Dave’s, was to be left alone; though, as Buck was afterward to learn,

each of them possessed one other and even more vital ambition.

That night Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent,

illumined by a candle, glowed warmly in the midst of the white plain;

and when he, as a matter of course, entered it, both Perrault and

François bombarded him with curses and cooking utensils, till he

recovered from his consternation and fled ignominiously into the outer

cold. A chill wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit with

especial venom into his wounded shoulder. He lay down on the snow and

attempted to sleep, but the frost soon drove him shivering to his feet.

Miserable and disconsolate, he wandered about among the many tents,

only to find that one place was as cold as another. Here and there

savage dogs rushed upon him, but he bristled his neck-hair and snarled

(for he was learning fast), and they let him go his way unmolested.

Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own

team-mates were making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared.

Again he wandered about through the great camp, looking for them, and

again he returned. Were they in the tent? No, that could not be, else

he would not have been driven out. Then where could they possibly be?

With drooping tail and shivering body, very forlorn indeed, he

aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave way beneath his fore

legs and he sank down. Something wriggled under his feet. He sprang

back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown. But a

friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to investigate. A

whiff of warm air ascended to his nostrils, and there, curled up under

the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. He whined placatingly, squirmed

and wriggled to show his good will and intentions, and even ventured,

as a bribe for peace, to lick Buck’s face with his warm wet tongue.

Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buck confidently

selected a spot, and with much fuss and waste effort proceeded to dig a

hole for himself. In a trice the heat from his body filled the confined

space and he was asleep. The day had been long and arduous, and he

slept soundly and comfortably, though he growled and barked and

wrestled with bad dreams.

Nor did he open his eyes till roused by the noises of the waking camp.

At first he did not know where he was. It had snowed during the night

and he was completely buried. The snow walls pressed him on every side,

and a great surge of fear swept through him—the fear of the wild thing

for the trap. It was a token that he was harking back through his own

life to the lives of his forebears; for he was a civilized dog, an

unduly civilized dog, and of his own experience knew no trap and so

could not of himself fear it. The muscles of his whole body contracted

spasmodically and instinctively, the hair on his neck and shoulders

stood on end, and with a ferocious snarl he bounded straight up into

the blinding day, the snow flying about him in a flashing cloud. Ere he

landed on his feet, he saw the white camp spread out before him and

knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from the time he

went for a stroll with Manuel to the hole he had dug for himself the

night before.

A shout from François hailed his appearance. “Wot I say?” the

dog-driver cried to Perrault. “Dat Buck for sure learn queek as

anyt’ing.”

Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the Canadian Government,

bearing important despatches, he was anxious to secure the best dogs,

and he was particularly gladdened by the possession of Buck.

Three more huskies were added to the team inside an hour, making a

total of nine, and before another quarter of an hour had passed they

were in harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Cañon. Buck

was glad to be gone, and though the work was hard he found he did not

particularly despise it. He was surprised at the eagerness which

animated the whole team and which was communicated to him; but still

more surprising was the change wrought in Dave and Sol-leks. They were

new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness and

unconcern had dropped from them. They were alert and active, anxious

that the work should go well, and fiercely irritable with whatever, by

delay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces seemed

the supreme expression of their being, and all that they lived for and

the only thing in which they took delight.

Dave was wheeler or sled dog, pulling in front of him was Buck, then

came Sol-leks; the rest of the team was strung out ahead, single file,

to the leader, which position was filled by Spitz.

Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so that he

might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they were equally

apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error, and enforcing

their teaching with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and very wise. He

never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to nip him when he

stood in need of it. As François’s whip backed him up, Buck found it to

be cheaper to mend his ways than to retaliate. Once, during a brief

halt, when he got tangled in the traces and delayed the start, both

Dave and Sol-leks flew at him and administered a sound trouncing. The

resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took good care to keep the

traces clear thereafter; and ere the day was done, so well had he

mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging him. François’s whip

snapped less frequently, and Perrault even honored Buck by lifting up

his feet and carefully examining them.

It was a hard day’s run, up the Cañon, through Sheep Camp, past the

Scales and the timber line, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of

feet deep, and over the great Chilcoot Divide, which stands between the

salt water and the fresh and guards forbiddingly the sad and lonely

North. They made good time down the chain of lakes which fills the

craters of extinct volcanoes, and late that night pulled into the huge

camp at the head of Lake Bennett, where thousands of goldseekers were

building boats against the break-up of the ice in the spring. Buck made

his hole in the snow and slept the sleep of the exhausted just, but all

too early was routed out in the cold darkness and harnessed with his

mates to the sled.

That day they made forty miles, the trail being packed; but the next

day, and for many days to follow, they broke their own trail, worked

harder, and made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault travelled ahead of

the team, packing the snow with webbed shoes to make it easier for

them. François, guiding the sled at the gee-pole, sometimes exchanged

places with him, but not often. Perrault was in a hurry, and he prided

himself on his knowledge of ice, which knowledge was indispensable, for

the fall ice was very thin, and where there was swift water, there was

no ice at all.

Day after day, for days unending, Buck toiled in the traces. Always,

they broke camp in the dark, and the first gray of dawn found them

hitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them. And always

they pitched camp after dark, eating their bit of fish, and crawling to

sleep into the snow. Buck was ravenous. The pound and a half of

sun-dried salmon, which was his ration for each day, seemed to go

nowhere. He never had enough, and suffered from perpetual hunger pangs.

Yet the other dogs, because they weighed less and were born to the

life, received a pound only of the fish and managed to keep in good

condition.

He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterized his old

life. A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed

him of his unfinished ration. There was no defending it. While he was

fighting off two or three, it was disappearing down the throats of the

others. To remedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did

hunger compel him, he was not above taking what did not belong to him.

He watched and learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clever

malingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon when Perrault’s back

was turned, he duplicated the performance the following day, getting

away with the whole chunk. A great uproar was raised, but he was

unsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always getting

caught, was punished for Buck’s misdeed.

This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland

environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself

to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and

terrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his

moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for

existence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of

love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings;

but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took such

things into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them he

would fail to prosper.

Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, and

unconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. All his

days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. But the

club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more

fundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a

moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller’s riding-whip; but

the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability

to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide.

He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his

stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out

of respect for club and fang. In short, the things he did were done

because it was easier to do them than not to do them.

His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles became hard

as iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an

internal as well as external economy. He could eat anything, no matter

how loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his

stomach extracted the last least particle of nutriment; and his blood

carried it to the farthest reaches of his body, building it into the

toughest and stoutest of tissues. Sight and scent became remarkably

keen, while his hearing developed such acuteness that in his sleep he

heard the faintest sound and knew whether it heralded peace or peril.

He learned to bite the ice out with his teeth when it collected between

his toes; and when he was thirsty and there was a thick scum of ice

over the water hole, he would break it by rearing and striking it with

stiff fore legs. His most conspicuous trait was an ability to scent the

wind and forecast it a night in advance. No matter how breathless the

air when he dug his nest by tree or bank, the wind that later blew

inevitably found him to leeward, sheltered and snug.

And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became

alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways

he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs

ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as

they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and

slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought forgotten

ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks

which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks.

They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been

his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at

a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and

dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and

through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which

voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stiffness, and

the cold, and dark.

Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged

through him and he came into his own again; and he came because men had

found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was a gardener’s

helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife and divers

small copies of himself.