For the Love of a Man

When John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December his partners hadmade him comfortable and left him to get well, going on themselves up the riverto get out a raft of saw-logs for Dawson. He was still limping slightly at thetime he rescued Buck, but with the continued warm weather even the slight limpleft him. And here, lying by the river bank through the long spring days,watching the running water, listening lazily to the songs of birds and the humof nature, Buck slowly won back his strength.

A rest comes very good after one has travelled three thousand miles, and itmust be confessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed, his musclesswelled out, and the flesh came back to cover his bones. For that matter, theywere all loafing,—Buck, John Thornton, and Skeet and Nig,—waitingfor the raft to come that was to carry them down to Dawson. Skeet was a littleIrish setter who early made friends with Buck, who, in a dying condition, wasunable to resent her first advances. She had the doctor trait which some dogspossess; and as a mother cat washes her kittens, so she washed and cleansedBuck’s wounds. Regularly, each morning after he had finished hisbreakfast, she performed her self-appointed task, till he came to look for herministrations as much as he did for Thornton’s. Nig, equally friendly,though less demonstrative, 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. Theyseemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton. As Buck grewstronger they enticed him into all sorts of ridiculous games, in which Thorntonhimself could not forbear to join; and in this fashion Buck romped through hisconvalescence and into a new existence. Love, genuine passionate love, was hisfor the first time. This he had never experienced at Judge Miller’s downin the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. With the Judge’s sons, hunting andtramping, it had been a working partnership; with the Judge’s grandsons,a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately anddignified friendship. 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, he was theideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs from a sense of dutyand business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his as if they were his ownchildren, because he could not help it. And he saw further. He never forgot akindly greeting or a cheering word, and to sit down for a long talk with them(“gas” he called it) was as much his delight as theirs. He had away of taking Buck’s head roughly between his hands, and resting his ownhead upon Buck’s, of shaking him back and forth, the while calling himill names that to Buck were love names. Buck knew no greater joy than thatrough embrace and the sound of murmured oaths, and at each jerk back and forthit seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body so great was itsecstasy. And when, released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, hiseyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and in that fashionremained without movement, John Thornton would reverently exclaim, “God!you can all but speak!”

Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt. He would often seizeThornton’s hand in his mouth and close so fiercely that the flesh borethe impress of his teeth for some time afterward. And as Buck understood theoaths to be love words, so the man understood this feigned bite for a caress.

For the most part, however, Buck’s love was expressed in adoration. Whilehe went wild with happiness when Thornton touched him or spoke to him, he didnot seek these tokens. Unlike Skeet, who was wont to shove her nose underThornton’s hand and nudge and nudge till petted, or Nig, who would stalkup and rest his great head on Thornton’s knee, Buck was content to adoreat a distance. He would lie by the hour, eager, alert, at Thornton’sfeet, looking up into his face, dwelling upon it, studying it, following withkeenest interest each fleeting expression, every movement or change of feature.Or, as chance might have it, he would lie farther away, to the side or rear,watching the outlines of the man and the occasional movements of his body. Andoften, such was the communion in which they lived, the strength of Buck’sgaze would draw John Thornton’s head around, and he would return thegaze, without speech, his heart shining out of his eyes as Buck’s heartshone out.

For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton to get out of hissight. From the moment he left the tent to when he entered it again, Buck wouldfollow at his heels. His transient masters since he had come into the Northlandhad bred in him a fear that no master could be permanent. He was afraid thatThornton would pass out of his life as Perrault and François and the Scotchhalf-breed had passed out. Even in the night, in his dreams, he was haunted bythis fear. At such times he would shake off sleep and creep through the chillto the flap of the tent, where he would stand and listen to the sound of hismaster’s breathing.

But in spite of this great love he bore John Thornton, which seemed to bespeakthe soft civilizing influence, the strain of the primitive, which the Northlandhad aroused in him, remained alive and active. Faithfulness and devotion,things born of fire and roof, were his; yet he retained his wildness andwiliness. He was a thing of the wild, come in from the wild to sit by JohnThornton’s fire, rather than a dog of the soft Southland stamped with themarks of generations of civilization. Because of his very great love, he couldnot steal from this man, but from any other man, in any other camp, he did nothesitate an instant; while the cunning with which he stole enabled him toescape detection.

His face and body were scored by the teeth of many dogs, and he fought asfiercely as ever and more shrewdly. Skeet and Nig were too good-natured forquarrelling,—besides, they belonged to John Thornton; but the strangedog, no matter what the breed or valor, swiftly acknowledged Buck’ssupremacy or found himself struggling for life with a terrible antagonist. AndBuck was merciless. He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he neverforewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way toDeath. He had lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of thepolice and mail, and knew there was no middle course. He must master or bemastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in theprimordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings madefor death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate,down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.

He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn. He linkedthe past with the present, and the eternity behind him throbbed through him ina mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tides and seasons swayed. He sat byJohn Thornton’s fire, a broad-breasted dog, white-fanged and long-furred;but behind him were the shades of all manner of dogs, half-wolves and wildwolves, urgent and prompting, tasting the savor of the meat he ate, thirstingfor the water he drank, scenting the wind with him, listening with him andtelling him the sounds made by the wild life in the forest, dictating hismoods, directing his actions, lying down to sleep with him when he lay down,and dreaming with him and beyond him and becoming themselves the stuff of hisdreams.

So peremptorily did these shades beckon him, that each day mankind and theclaims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in the forest a call wassounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling andluring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten eartharound it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where orwhy; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in theforest. But as often as he gained the soft unbroken earth and the green shade,the love for John Thornton drew him back to the fire again.

Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing. Chance travellersmight praise or pet him; but he was cold under it all, and from a toodemonstrative man he would get up and walk away. When Thornton’spartners, Hans and Pete, arrived on the long-expected raft, Buck refused tonotice them till he learned they were close to Thornton; after that hetolerated them in a passive sort of way, accepting favors from them as thoughhe favored them by accepting. They were of the same large type as Thornton,living close to the earth, thinking simply and seeing clearly; and ere theyswung the raft into the big eddy by the saw-mill at Dawson, they understoodBuck and his ways, and did not insist upon an intimacy such as obtained withSkeet 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 summer travelling. Nothing wastoo great for Buck to do, when Thornton commanded. One day (they hadgrub-staked themselves from the proceeds of the raft and left Dawson for thehead-waters of the Tanana) the men and dogs were sitting on the crest of acliff which fell away, straight down, to naked bed-rock three hundred feetbelow. John Thornton was sitting near the edge, Buck at his shoulder. Athoughtless whim seized Thornton, and he drew the attention of Hans and Pete tothe experiment he had in mind. “Jump, Buck!” he commanded, sweepinghis arm out and over the chasm. The next instant he was grappling with Buck onthe extreme edge, while Hans and Pete were dragging them back into safety.

“It’s uncanny,” Pete said, after it was over and they hadcaught their speech.

Thornton shook his head. “No, it is splendid, and it is terrible, too. Doyou know, it sometimes makes me afraid.”

“I’m not hankering to be the man that lays hands on you whilehe’s around,” Pete announced conclusively, nodding his head towardBuck.

“Py Jingo!” was Hans’s contribution. “Not mineselfeither.”

It was at Circle City, ere the year was out, that Pete’s apprehensionswere realized. “Black” Burton, a man evil-tempered and malicious,had been picking a quarrel with a tenderfoot at the bar, when Thornton steppedgood-naturedly between. Buck, as was his custom, was lying in a corner, head onpaws, watching his master’s every action. Burton struck out, withoutwarning, 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 somethingwhich is best described as a roar, and they saw Buck’s body rise up inthe air as he left the floor for Burton’s throat. The man saved his lifeby instinctively throwing out his arm, but was hurled backward to the floorwith Buck on top of him. Buck loosed his teeth from the flesh of the arm anddrove in again for the throat. This time the man succeeded only in partlyblocking, and his throat was torn open. Then the crowd was upon Buck, and hewas driven off; but while a surgeon checked the bleeding, he prowled up anddown, growling furiously, attempting to rush in, and being forced back by anarray of hostile clubs. A “miners’ meeting,” called on thespot, decided that the dog had sufficient provocation, and Buck was discharged.But his reputation was made, and from that day his name spread through everycamp in Alaska.

Later on, in the fall of the year, he saved John Thornton’s life in quiteanother fashion. The three partners were lining a long and narrow poling-boatdown a bad stretch of rapids on the Forty-Mile Creek. Hans and Pete moved alongthe bank, snubbing with a thin Manila rope from tree to tree, while Thorntonremained in the boat, helping its descent by means of a pole, and shoutingdirections to the shore. Buck, on the bank, worried and anxious, kept abreastof the boat, his eyes never off his master.

At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged rocks jutted outinto the river, Hans cast off the rope, and, while Thornton poled the boat outinto the stream, ran down the bank with the end in his hand to snub the boatwhen it had cleared the ledge. This it did, and was flying down-stream in acurrent as swift as a mill-race, when Hans checked it with the rope and checkedtoo suddenly. The boat flirted over and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, whileThornton, flung sheer out of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst partof the rapids, a stretch of wild water in which no swimmer could live.

Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundred yards, amida mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton. When he felt him grasp his tail,Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all his splendid strength. But theprogress shoreward was slow; the progress down-stream amazingly rapid. Frombelow came the fatal roaring where the wild current went wilder and was rent inshreds and spray by the rocks which thrust through like the teeth of anenormous comb. The suck of the water as it took the beginning of the last steeppitch was frightful, and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. Hescraped furiously over a rock, bruised across a second, and struck a third withcrushing force. He clutched its slippery top with both hands, releasing Buck,and above the roar of the churning water shouted: “Go, Buck! Go!”

Buck could not hold his own, and swept on down-stream, struggling desperately,but unable to win back. When he heard Thornton’s command repeated, hepartly reared out of the water, throwing his head high, as though for a lastlook, then turned obediently toward the bank. He swam powerfully and wasdragged ashore by Pete 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 in the face ofthat driving current was a matter of minutes, and they ran as fast as theycould up the bank to a point far above where Thornton was hanging on. Theyattached the line with which they had been snubbing the boat to Buck’sneck and shoulders, being careful that it should neither strangle him norimpede his swimming, and launched him into the stream. He struck out boldly,but not straight enough into the stream. He discovered the mistake too late,when Thornton was abreast of him and a bare half-dozen strokes away while hewas being carried helplessly past.

Hans promptly snubbed with the rope, as though Buck were a boat. The rope thustightening on him in the sweep of the current, he was jerked under the surface,and under the surface he remained till his body struck against the bank and hewas hauled out. He was half drowned, and Hans and Pete threw themselves uponhim, pounding the breath into him and the water out of him. He staggered to hisfeet and fell down. The faint sound of Thornton’s voice came to them, andthough they could not make out the words of it, they knew that he was in hisextremity. His master’s voice acted on Buck like an electric shock, Hesprang to his 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 he struck out, butthis time straight into the stream. He had miscalculated once, but he would notbe guilty of it a second time. Hans paid out the rope, permitting no slack,while Pete kept it clear of coils. Buck held on till he was on a line straightabove Thornton; then he turned, and with the speed of an express train headeddown upon him. Thornton saw him coming, and, as Buck struck him like abattering ram, with the whole force of the current behind him, he reached upand closed with both arms around the shaggy neck. Hans snubbed the rope aroundthe tree, and Buck and Thornton were jerked under the water. Strangling,suffocating, sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other, dragging over thejagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags, they veered in to the bank.

Thornton came to, belly downward and being violently propelled back and forthacross a drift log by Hans and Pete. His first glance was for Buck, over whoselimp and apparently lifeless body Nig was setting up a howl, while Skeet waslicking the wet face and closed eyes. Thornton was himself bruised andbattered, and he went carefully over Buck’s body, when he had beenbrought around, finding three broken ribs.

“That settles it,” he announced. “We camp right here.”And camp they did, till Buck’s ribs knitted and he was able to travel.

That winter, at Dawson, Buck performed another exploit, not so heroic, perhaps,but one that put his name many notches higher on the totem-pole of Alaskanfame. This exploit was particularly gratifying to the three men; for they stoodin need of the outfit which it furnished, and were enabled to make along-desired trip into the virgin East, where miners had not yet appeared. Itwas brought about by a conversation in the Eldorado Saloon, in which men waxedboastful of their favorite dogs. Buck, because of his record, was the targetfor these men, and Thornton was driven stoutly to defend him. At the end ofhalf an hour one man stated that his dog could start a sled with five hundredpounds and walk off 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 hundred vaunt.

“And break it out, and walk off with it for a hundred yards,” JohnThornton said coolly.

“Well,” Matthewson said, slowly and deliberately, so that all couldhear, “I’ve got a thousand dollars that says he can’t. Andthere it is.” So saying, he slammed a sack of gold dust of the size of abologna sausage down upon the bar.

Nobody spoke. Thornton’s bluff, if bluff it was, had been called. Hecould feel a flush of warm blood creeping up his face. His tongue had trickedhim. He did not know whether Buck could start a thousand pounds. Half a ton!The enormousness of it appalled him. He had great faith in Buck’sstrength and had often thought him capable of starting such a load; but never,as now, had he faced the possibility of it, the eyes of a dozen men fixed uponhim, silent and waiting. Further, he had no thousand dollars; nor had Hans orPete.

“I’ve got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fiftypound sacksof flour on it,” Matthewson went on with brutal directness; “sodon’t let that hinder you.”

Thornton did not reply. He did not know what to say. He glanced from face toface in the absent way of a man who has lost the power of thought and isseeking somewhere to find the thing that will start it going again. The face ofJim O’Brien, a Mastodon King and old-time comrade, caught his eyes. Itwas as a cue to him, seeming to rouse him to do what he would never havedreamed of doing.

“Can you lend me a thousand?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

“Sure,” answered O’Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack bythe side of Matthewson’s. “Though it’s little faith I’mhaving, John, that the beast can do the trick.”

The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see the test. The tableswere deserted, and the dealers and gamekeepers came forth to see the outcome ofthe wager and to lay odds. Several hundred men, furred and mittened, bankedaround the sled within easy distance. Matthewson’s sled, loaded with athousand pounds of flour, had been standing for a couple of hours, and in theintense cold (it was sixty below zero) the runners had frozen fast to thehard-packed snow. Men offered odds of two to one that Buck could not budge thesled. A quibble arose concerning the phrase “break out.”O’Brien contended it was Thornton’s privilege to knock the runnersloose, leaving Buck to “break it out” from a dead standstill.Matthewson insisted that the phrase included breaking the runners from thefrozen grip of the snow. A majority of the men who had witnessed the making ofthe bet decided in his favor, whereat the odds went up to three to one againstBuck.

There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat. Thornton hadbeen hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt; and now that he looked at thesled itself, the concrete fact, with the regular team of ten dogs curled up inthe snow before it, the more impossible the task appeared. Matthewson waxedjubilant.

“Three to one!” he proclaimed. “I’ll lay you anotherthousand at that figure, Thornton. What d’ye say?”

Thornton’s doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spirit wasaroused—the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails to recognize theimpossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor for battle. He called Hans andPete to him. Their sacks were slim, and with his own the three partners couldrake together only two hundred dollars. In the ebb of their fortunes, this sumwas their total capital; yet they laid it unhesitatingly againstMatthewson’s six hundred.

The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his own harness, was putinto the sled. He had caught the contagion of the excitement, and he felt thatin some way he must do a great thing for John Thornton. Murmurs of admirationat his splendid appearance went up. He was in perfect condition, without anounce of superfluous flesh, and the one hundred and fifty pounds that heweighed were so many pounds of grit and virility. His furry coat shone with thesheen of silk. Down the neck and across the shoulders, his mane, in repose asit was, half bristled and seemed to lift with every movement, as though excessof vigor made each particular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavyfore legs were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where themuscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt these muscles andproclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went 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. “Freeplay and plenty of room.”

The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of the gamblers vainlyoffering two to one. Everybody acknowledged Buck a magnificent animal, buttwenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked too large in their eyes for them toloosen their pouch-strings.

Thornton knelt down by Buck’s side. He took his head in his two hands andrested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as was his wont, ormurmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. “As you love me,Buck. As you love me,” was what he whispered. Buck whined with suppressedeagerness.

The crowd was watching curiously. The affair was growing mysterious. It seemedlike a conjuration. As Thornton got to his feet, Buck seized his mittened handbetween his jaws, pressing in with his teeth and releasing slowly,half-reluctantly. It was the answer, in terms, not of speech, but of love.Thornton stepped well back.

“Now, Buck,” he said.

Buck tightened the traces, then slacked them for a matter of several inches. Itwas 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 took up the slackand with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty pounds. The loadquivered, and from under the runners arose a crisp crackling.

“Haw!” Thornton commanded.

Buck duplicated the manœuvre, this time to the left. The crackling turned intoa snapping, the sled pivoting and the runners slipping and grating severalinches to the side. The sled was broken out. Men were holding their breaths,intensely unconscious of the fact.

“Now, MUSH!”

Thornton’s command cracked out like a pistol-shot. Buck threw himselfforward, tightening the traces with a jarring lunge. His whole body wasgathered compactly together in the tremendous effort, the muscles writhing andknotting like live things under the silky fur. His great chest was low to theground, his head forward and down, while his feet were flying like mad, theclaws scarring the hard-packed snow in parallel grooves. The sled swayed andtrembled, half-started forward. One of his feet slipped, and one man groanedaloud. Then the sled lurched ahead in what appeared a rapid succession ofjerks, though it never really came to a dead stop again...half an inch...aninch... two inches... 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 moment they hadceased to breathe. Thornton was running behind, encouraging Buck with short,cheery words. The distance had been measured off, and as he neared the pile offirewood which marked the end of the hundred yards, a cheer began to grow andgrow, which burst into a roar as he passed the firewood and halted at command.Every man was tearing himself loose, even Matthewson. Hats and mittens wereflying in the air. Men were shaking hands, it did not matter with whom, andbubbling over in a general incoherent babel.

But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck. Head was against head, and he wasshaking him back and forth. Those who hurried up heard him cursing Buck, and hecursed him long and fervently, and softly and lovingly.

“Gad, sir! Gad, sir!” spluttered the Skookum Bench king.“I’ll give you a thousand for him, sir, a thousand,sir—twelve hundred, sir.”

Thornton rose to his feet. His eyes were wet. The tears were streaming franklydown his cheeks. “Sir,” he said to the Skookum Bench king,“no, sir. You can go to hell, sir. It’s the best I can do for you,sir.”

Buck seized Thornton’s hand in his teeth. Thornton shook him back andforth. As though animated by a common impulse, the onlookers drew back to arespectful distance; nor were they again indiscreet enough to interrupt.