Into the Primitive

Into the Primitive

“Old longings nomadic leap,

Chafing at custom’s chain;

Again from its brumal sleep

Wakens the ferine strain.”

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble wasbrewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscleand with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, gropingin the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship andtransportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushinginto the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavydogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect themfrom the frost.

Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. JudgeMiller’s place, it was called. It stood back from the road, half hiddenamong the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide coolveranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached by gravelleddriveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and under theinterlacing boughs of tall poplars. At the rear things were on even a morespacious scale than at the front. There were great stables, where a dozengrooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants’ cottages, anendless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures,orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant for the artesianwell, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller’s boys took theirmorning plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon.

And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he had livedthe four years of his life. It was true, there were other dogs, There could notbut be other dogs on so vast a place, but they did not count. They came andwent, resided in the populous kennels, or lived obscurely in the recesses ofthe house after the fashion of Toots, the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexicanhairless,—strange creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or set footto ground. On the other hand, there were the fox terriers, a score of them atleast, who yelped fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of thewindows at them and protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms andmops.

But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realm was his. Heplunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the Judge’s sons; heescorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge’s daughters, on long twilight orearly morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the Judge’s feet beforethe roaring library fire; he carried the Judge’s grandsons on his back,or rolled them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wildadventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond, where thepaddocks were, and the berry patches. Among the terriers he stalkedimperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for he wasking,—king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of JudgeMiller’s place, humans included.

His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge’s inseparablecompanion, and Buck bid fair to follow in the way of his father. He was not solarge,—he weighed only one hundred and forty pounds,—for hismother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog. Nevertheless, one hundred andforty pounds, to which was added the dignity that comes of good living anduniversal respect, enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion. Duringthe four years since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat;he had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as countrygentlemen sometimes become because of their insular situation. But he had savedhimself by not becoming a mere pampered house-dog. Hunting and kindred outdoordelights had kept down the fat and hardened his muscles; and to him, as to thecold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and a health preserver.

And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when the Klondikestrike dragged men from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck did notread the newspapers, and he did not know that Manuel, one of thegardener’s helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel had onebesetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he hadone besetting weakness—faith in a system; and this made his damnationcertain. For to play a system requires money, while the wages of agardener’s helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerousprogeny.

The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers’ Association, and theboys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorable night ofManuel’s treachery. No one saw him and Buck go off through the orchard onwhat Buck imagined was merely a stroll. And with the exception of a solitaryman, no one saw them arrive at the little flag station known as College Park.This man talked with Manuel, and money chinked between them.

“You might wrap up the goods before you deliver ’m,” thestranger said gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope aroundBuck’s neck under the collar.

“Twist it, an’ you’ll choke ’m plentee,” saidManuel, and the stranger grunted a ready affirmative.

Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an unwontedperformance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew, and to give themcredit for a wisdom that outreached his own. But when the ends of the rope wereplaced in the stranger’s hands, he growled menacingly. He had merelyintimated his displeasure, in his pride believing that to intimate was tocommand. But to his surprise the rope tightened around his neck, shutting offhis breath. In quick rage he sprang at the man, who met him halfway, grappledhim close by the throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Thenthe rope tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tonguelolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never in all hislife had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his life had he been soangry. But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knew nothing when thetrain was flagged and the two men threw him into the baggage car.

The next he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting and that hewas being jolted along in some kind of a conveyance. The hoarse shriek of alocomotive whistling a crossing told him where he was. He had travelled toooften with the Judge not to know the sensation of riding in a baggage car. Heopened his eyes, and into them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king.The man sprang for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him. His jaws closedon the hand, nor did they relax till his senses were choked out of him oncemore.

“Yep, has fits,” the man said, hiding his mangled hand from thebaggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle. “I’mtakin’ ’m up for the boss to ’Frisco. A crack dog-doctorthere thinks that he can cure ’m.”

Concerning that night’s ride, the man spoke most eloquently for himself,in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco water front.

“All I get is fifty for it,” he grumbled; “an’ Iwouldn’t do it over for a thousand, cold cash.”

His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right trouser leg wasripped from knee to ankle.

“How much did the other mug get?” the saloon-keeper demanded.

“A hundred,” was the reply. “Wouldn’t take a sou less,so help me.”

“That makes a hundred and fifty,” the saloon-keeper calculated;“and he’s worth it, or I’m a squarehead.”

The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his lacerated hand.“If I don’t get the hydrophoby—”

“It’ll be because you was born to hang,” laughed thesaloon-keeper. “Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight,”he added.

Dazed, suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with the life halfthrottled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors. But he was throwndown and choked repeatedly, till they succeeded in filing the heavy brasscollar from off his neck. Then the rope was removed, and he was flung into acagelike crate.

There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his wrath andwounded pride. He could not understand what it all meant. What did they wantwith him, these strange men? Why were they keeping him pent up in this narrowcrate? He did not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense ofimpending calamity. Several times during the night he sprang to his feet whenthe shed door rattled open, expecting to see the Judge, or the boys at least.But each time it was the bulging face of the saloon-keeper that peered in athim by the sickly light of a tallow candle. And each time the joyful bark thattrembled in Buck’s throat was twisted into a savage growl.

But the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four men entered andpicked up the crate. More tormentors, Buck decided, for they were evil-lookingcreatures, ragged and unkempt; and he stormed and raged at them through thebars. They only laughed and poked sticks at him, which he promptly assailedwith his teeth till he realized that that was what they wanted. Whereupon helay down sullenly and allowed the crate to be lifted into a wagon. Then he, andthe crate in which he was imprisoned, began a passage through many hands.Clerks in the express office took charge of him; he was carted about in anotherwagon; a truck carried him, with an assortment of boxes and parcels, upon aferry steamer; he was trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot, andfinally he was deposited in an express car.

For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the tail ofshrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buck neither ate nor drank.In his anger he had met the first advances of the express messengers withgrowls, and they had retaliated by teasing him. When he flung himself againstthe bars, quivering and frothing, they laughed at him and taunted him. Theygrowled and barked like detestable dogs, mewed, and flapped their arms andcrowed. It was all very silly, he knew; but therefore the more outrage to hisdignity, and his anger waxed and waxed. He did not mind the hunger so much, butthe lack of water caused him severe suffering and fanned his wrath tofever-pitch. For that matter, high-strung and finely sensitive, the illtreatment had flung him into a fever, which was fed by the inflammation of hisparched and swollen throat and tongue.

He was glad for one thing: the rope was off his neck. That had given them anunfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would show them. They would neverget another rope around his neck. Upon that he was resolved. For two days andnights he neither ate nor drank, and during those two days and nights oftorment, he accumulated a fund of wrath that boded ill for whoever first fellfoul of him. His eyes turned blood-shot, and he was metamorphosed into a ragingfiend. So changed was he that the Judge himself would not have recognized him;and the express messengers breathed with relief when they bundled him off thetrain at Seattle.

Four men gingerly carried the crate from the wagon into a small, high-walledback yard. A stout man, with a red sweater that sagged generously at the neck,came out and signed the book for the driver. That was the man, Buck divined,the next tormentor, and he hurled himself savagely against the bars. The mansmiled grimly, and brought a hatchet and a club.

“You ain’t going to take him out now?” the driver asked.

“Sure,” the man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for apry.

There was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who had carried it in,and from safe perches on top the wall they prepared to watch the performance.

Buck rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it, surging andwrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on the outside, he was there onthe inside, snarling and growling, as furiously anxious to get out as the manin the red sweater was calmly intent on getting him out.

“Now, you red-eyed devil,” he said, when he had made an openingsufficient for the passage of Buck’s body. At the same time he droppedthe hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand.

And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together for thespring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter in his blood-shot eyes.Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds of fury,surcharged with the pent passion of two days and nights. In mid air, just ashis jaws were about to close on the man, he received a shock that checked hisbody and brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip. He whirled over,fetching the ground on his back and side. He had never been struck by a club inhis life, and did not understand. With a snarl that was part bark and morescream he was again on his feet and launched into the air. And again the shockcame and he was brought crushingly to the ground. This time he was aware thatit was the club, but his madness knew no caution. A dozen times he charged, andas often the club broke the charge and smashed him down.

After a particularly fierce blow, he crawled to his feet, too dazed to rush. Hestaggered limply about, the blood flowing from nose and mouth and ears, hisbeautiful coat sprayed and flecked with bloody slaver. Then the man advancedand deliberately dealt him a frightful blow on the nose. All the pain he hadendured was as nothing compared with the exquisite agony of this. With a roarthat was almost lionlike in its ferocity, he again hurled himself at the man.But the man, shifting the club from right to left, coolly caught him by theunder jaw, at the same time wrenching downward and backward. Buck described acomplete circle in the air, and half of another, then crashed to the ground onhis head and chest.

For the last time he rushed. The man struck the shrewd blow he had purposelywithheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up and went down, knocked utterlysenseless.

“He’s no slouch at dog-breakin’, that’s wot Isay,” one of the men on the wall cried enthusiastically.

“Druther break cayuses any day, and twice on Sundays,” was thereply of the driver, as he climbed on the wagon and started the horses.

Buck’s senses came back to him, but not his strength. He lay where he hadfallen, and from there he watched the man in the red sweater.

“‘Answers to the name of Buck,’” the man soliloquized,quoting from the saloon-keeper’s letter which had announced theconsignment of the crate and contents. “Well, Buck, my boy,” hewent on in a genial voice, “we’ve had our little ruction, and thebest thing we can do is to let it go at that. You’ve learned your place,and I know mine. Be a good dog and all ’ll go well and the goose hanghigh. Be a bad dog, and I’ll whale the stuffin’ outa you.Understand?”

As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilessly pounded, andthough Buck’s hair involuntarily bristled at touch of the hand, heendured it without protest. When the man brought him water he drank eagerly,and later bolted a generous meal of raw meat, chunk by chunk, from theman’s hand.

He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, thathe stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned the lesson, and inall his after life he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was hisintroduction to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introductionhalfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced thataspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.As the days went by, other dogs came, in crates and at the ends of ropes, somedocilely, and some raging and roaring as he had come; and, one and all, hewatched them pass under the dominion of the man in the red sweater. Again andagain, as he looked at each brutal performance, the lesson was driven home toBuck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed, though notnecessarily conciliated. Of this last Buck was never guilty, though he did seebeaten dogs that fawned upon the man, and wagged their tails, and licked hishand. Also he saw one dog, that would neither conciliate nor obey, finallykilled in the struggle for mastery.

Now and again men came, strangers, who talked excitedly, wheedlingly, and inall kinds of fashions to the man in the red sweater. And at such times thatmoney passed between them the strangers took one or more of the dogs away withthem. Buck wondered where they went, for they never came back; but the fear ofthe future was strong upon him, and he was glad each time when he was notselected.

Yet his time came, in the end, in the form of a little weazened man who spatbroken English and many strange and uncouth exclamations which Buck could notunderstand.

“Sacredam!” he cried, when his eyes lit upon Buck. “Dat onedam bully dog! Eh? How moch?”

“Three hundred, and a present at that,” was the prompt reply of theman in the red sweater. “And seem’ it’s government money, youain’t got no kick coming, eh, Perrault?”

Perrault grinned. Considering that the price of dogs had been boomed skyward bythe unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum for so fine an animal. TheCanadian Government would be no loser, nor would its despatches travel theslower. Perrault knew dogs, and when he looked at Buck he knew that he was onein a thousand—“One in ten t’ousand,” he commentedmentally.

Buck saw money pass between them, and was not surprised when Curly, agood-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the little weazened man.That was the last he saw of the man in the red sweater, and as Curly and helooked at receding Seattle from the deck of the

Narwhal

, it was the lasthe saw of the warm Southland. Curly and he were taken below by Perrault andturned over to a black-faced giant called François. Perrault was aFrench-Canadian, and swarthy; but François was a French-Canadian half-breed,and twice as swarthy. They were a new kind of men to Buck (of which he wasdestined to see many more), and while he developed no affection for them, henone the less grew honestly to respect them. He speedily learned that Perraultand François were fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice, andtoo wise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs.

In the ’tween-decks of the

Narwhal

, Buck and Curly joined twoother dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen who hadbeen brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later accompanied aGeological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous sort ofway, smiling into one’s face the while he meditated some underhand trick,as, for instance, when he stole from Buck’s food at the first meal. AsBuck sprang to punish him, the lash of François’s whip sang through theair, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remained to Buck but to recoverthe bone. That was fair of François, he decided, and the half-breed began hisrise in Buck’s estimation.

The other dog made no advances, nor received any; also, he did not attempt tosteal from the newcomers. He was a gloomy, morose fellow, and he showed Curlyplainly that all he desired was to be left alone, and further, that there wouldbe trouble if he were not left alone. “Dave” he was called, and heate and slept, or yawned between times, and took interest in nothing, not evenwhen the

Narwhal

crossed Queen Charlotte Sound and rolled and pitchedand bucked like a thing possessed. When Buck and Curly grew excited, half wildwith fear, he raised his head as though annoyed, favored them with an incuriousglance, yawned, and went to sleep again.

Day and night the ship throbbed to the tireless pulse of the propeller, andthough one day was very like another, it was apparent to Buck that the weatherwas steadily growing colder. At last, one morning, the propeller was quiet, andthe

Narwhal

was pervaded with an atmosphere of excitement. He felt it,as did the other dogs, and knew that a change was at hand. François leashedthem and brought them on deck. At the first step upon the cold surface,Buck’s feet sank into a white mushy something very like mud. He sprangback with a snort. More of this white stuff was falling through the air. Heshook himself, but more of it fell upon him. He sniffed it curiously, thenlicked some up on his tongue. It bit like fire, and the next instant was gone.This puzzled him. He tried it again, with the same result. The onlookerslaughed uproariously, and he felt ashamed, he knew not why, for it was hisfirst snow.