CHAPTER TWO

The Law of Club and Tooth

Buck's first day on Dyea beach was a nightmare. Every hour was filled with shock and surprise. He had been taken from the heart of civilization and thrown into the life of the primitive. There was no sunny, easy life, with nothing to do but lie about and be bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment was touched with danger. Buck had to be constantly alert, for these dogs and men were not city dogs and men. They were wild, and they knew no other law than the law of club and tooth.

He had never seen dogs fight like wolves before, and his first experience taught him a lesson he would never forget. Unfortunately, good-natured Curly was the victim. At camp she approached a husky (a dog breed with long hair) the size of a wolf in a friendly manner. There was no warning, only a leap as quick as lightning, a snap of the jaws, and Curly's face was ripped open frown eye to jaw.

It was the wolf manner of fighting, but there was more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and surrounded the two dogs. Buck did not understand their purpose or the way they kept licking their jaws. Curly rushed at her attacker, but he leaped to one side and she tumbled to her feet. This was what the other huskies were waiting for. They closed the circle upon her and she lay screaming with pain as they attacked and killed her.

This was so sudden that Buck was shocked. He saw that Spitz was laughing and he saw Francois run into the circle of dogs with his whip. Three other men with clubs were helping him, but it was too late. Curly lay lifeless in the snow, her body torn to pieces. So that was the way, he thought. No fair play. Once you were down on the ground, it was the end of you. Well, he would see that he never went down. Buck saw Spitz laugh again, and from that moment, he hated him with all his strength.

Then Buck received another shock. Francois put straps and a harness on him, such as the men would put on horses' back at his old home. And as he had seen horses work, so was he made to work, pulling Francois on a sled that was loaded with firewood. Though this further hurt his pride, he was too wise to fight. Francois demanded obedience with his whip. Dave, because of his experience, was placed behind Buck, and he would bite Buck's legs whenever he made an error. Spitz was the leader of the team. Buck learned easily and quickly.

"Three very good dogs," Francois told Perrault. "That Buck, he pulls like the devil. I think he's quick as anything."

By afternoon, Perrault returned with two other dogs, "Billee" and "Joe." Though they were brothers, their natures were completely different. Billie was too good-natured, while Joe was always in a sour mood. Buck received them as fellow brothers, but Spitz used the opportunity to establish his authority. Spitz attacked Billie, who was too kind to fight back, biting his leg with his sharp teeth. When Spitz tried to do the same to Joe, Joe faced him and growled so terribly that Spitz had to give up.

By evening, Perrault had bought another dog with a scarred face and only one eye. This dog was called Sol-leks, which means the Angry One. Even Spitz left him alone, Buck decided to offer his welcome, but he approached Sol-lek from his blind side, which made Sol-lek turn and give Buck a three-inch deep wound on his shoulder. From then on, Buck made sure not to approach him from his blind side.

That night at camp, Buck faced the great problem of sleeping. The tent, glowing warmly with candlelight, looked so inviting. But when Buck tried to enter it, both Francois and Perrault cursed him and threw things at him. He had no choice but to run back outside into the cold. He lay down in the snow and tried to sleep, but the cold soon drove him again to his feet. Wandering from tent to tent, he discovered that every place was just as cold.

Suddenly, he had an idea. He decided to find his other teammates and sleep with them. But they had all disappeared. He saw no sign of them anywhere. He circled around and around the tent, getting colder and colder. Suddenly, the snow under his feet fell away and something moved under his feet. He jumped back, expecting the worst. But a friendly bark gave him courage and he approached again to find Billie curled up under the mow in a comfortable ball.

Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh? Buck chose a spot and started to dig a hole for himself. Soon the heat from his body filled the hole and he was dead asleep.

The noise of the camp woke him, and at first he did not know where he was. It had snowed during the night and he was completely covered. A great feeling of fear filled him—the fear that a wild thing has for a trap. It was a sign that he was returning back to an earlier life, like those lived by his ancestors. The muscles of his body tightened, the hair stood up on his neck, and with a wild growl he leaped straight up into the air, sending the snow flying in all directions.

A shout from Francois accompanied Buck's leap. "What I say?" he cried to Perrault. "That Buck for certain learns as fast as anything."

Perrault nodded in agreement, happy to have chosen such a fine dog.

Three more huskies were added to the team, bringing the total up to nine. Soon they were harnessed and swinging up the path to Dyea Canyon. Buck was happy to have camp, and though the work was hard, he found that he did not dislike it. He was surprised at the excitement of the other dogs, and this had an effect on him. Most surprising was the change that happened in Dave and Sol-lek. They were like new dogs, changed by the harness. Alert and active, they took great delight in their work.

Buck had been placed between these two dogs on purpose. He was the student and they, the teachers. Whenever Buck made a mistake, he was quickly punished by a quick bite on his rear leg from Dave. But Dave was fair and wise. He never punished without reason, and he never failed to punish if Buck gave him a reason. Also, Buck was under the instruction of Francois' whip. These two things quickly made Buck decide that it was easier to follow their instructions than fight against them. Soon he had learned all the basic moves and commands that every sled dog needs to know. His teachers stopped correcting him so much, and Perrault even honored him by lifting up his feet and examining them at night.

The next day's run was a hard one—through Sheep Camp, past the tree line, across ice fields and snow hundreds of feet deep. They made good time down the chain of lakes that were once live volcanoes, and late at night, they pulled into the huge camp at the head of Lake Bennett. Thousands of men seeking gold were there, and Buck made his hole and slept the sleep of the truly tired. It was all too early for him when he was awakened and harnessed again to the sled.

That day they made forty miles, but the next day, and the many that followed, they made poorer time. As a rule, Perrault traveled ahead of the team, packing down the snow with his special shoes. He prided himself on his knowledge of ice, a knowledge that one cannot do without in the frozen Northland.

Day after day, Buck worked hard. They always stopped at dark and made camp, and they also woke in the dark. The first gray of dawn found them with many miles behind them. When darkness came again, they would camp again, eat their bits of fish, and dig their holes to sleep in the snow. Buck was terribly hungry most of the time. His amount of food seemed to go nowhere, even though his masters gave him more food than the other dogs. Because of his huge size, he constantly suffered from hunger pains.

He quickly lost the slowness and humbleness of his old life. When he first arrived, he learned that he had to eat quickly to stop the other dogs from stealing his food. Now he ate as fast as the other dogs, and sometimes he was so hungry that he even stole food from the other dogs. Once he saw a dog steal food from Perrault's sack of food; he quickly did the same, managing to steal a whole piece of meat. Perrault did not catch Buck, though later when he discovered the missing food he blamed another dog.

This first theft marked Buck's ability to survive in the unfriendly and unforgiving Northland. It showed his ability to change, to change himself to fit conditions. Not having these qualities meant certain death, Now, his moral nature—his decision between right and wrong—was also breaking down. It was well enough in the Southland, where law was love and friendship; but in the Northland, under the law of club and tooth, certain actions were necessary. Those who didn't follow this way were fools.

Not that Buck thought out his actions. He was fit, and unknowingly, he fitted himself to his new lifestyle. Throughout his earlier days, he had never run from a fight. But the man with the red sweater bad beaten into him a more primitive lesson than pride. His stealing was an example of this. He did not steal for the fun of it, but because of the pains in his stomach. He did not steal in the open, but secretly. In short, things were done because it was easier to do them than not to do than.

His development (or un-development) was fast. His muscles became hard as iron and ordinary pain no longer bothered him. He could eat anything, even if he hated it. Sight and smell became amazingly sharp while his hearing was so good that he could decide if the smallest sound meant help or danger. He knew how to smell the air and know which way the wind would blow during the night—a valuable gift when making camp in the wilderness.

It seemed that instincts that were long dead became alive again. Generations of being taken care of by man fell away from him. He remembered back to the early days of his kind, when wild dogs killed their own meat as they ran through the forest. It was not difficult for him to learn to fight like a wolf—cut and snap, then away again. These came to him without effort or discovery, like they had always been his. And when, on cold, still nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long like a wolf, it was his ancestors, now dead and turned to dust, pointing their noses and howling down through the centuries and through him. And his rhythm was their rhythm, the rhythm that gave voice to their pain and what to them was the meaning of the stillness, the cold, and dark.

Thus, an old song was part of Buck, and he came into his own again. He was this way because men had found gold in the North, and because Manuel was a gardener whose wages could not cover his gambling problem.

(end of section)