More Reading

From

    The Call of the Wild      

For the Love of a Man

    John Thornton had been ill in December, and his two friends had had to leave him at White River and go on to Dawson. They left him in the camp with plenty of food, and with his two dogs, Skeet and Blackie. Now the spring had come, and he was almost well. He lay in the sun by the river with, watching the water and listening to the birds, slowly getting stronger and stronger.

    A rest is very welcome after running five thousand kilometers， and Buck slowly got fatter and stronger. It was a peaceful, lazy time for both man and dogs while they waited for Thornton's friends to return from Dawson.

    Skeet made friends with Buck immediately, and while Buck was still very ill, every morning she washed his cuts carefully with her tongue. Blackie, too, was friendly, and as Buck grew stronger, the three dogs often played games together. Sometimes Thornton joined the games too.

    The days passed very happily, and for the first time, Buck learned to love, he had never loved a man before. He and Mr. Miller in the Santa Clara valley had been very good friends, but Buck had not loved him. John Thornton had had saved his life, but he was also a man who was naturally kind to animals. He took very good care of his dogs, not because it was sensible to do that, but because he felt they were his children. He was always talking to Buck, holding his head and shaking it lovingly. In answer, Buck liked to take Thornton's hand gently in his mouth.

    Buck was happy to lie on the ground all day and watch Thornton. And when Thornton spoke to him or touched him, Buck went wild with happiness. At first, he was afraid that Thornton was going to disappear, like Perrault and Francois, and at night he sometimes woke up and went to the tent to make sure that he was still there.

    But something was changing in Buck. He had lived in the north a long time now, and he was almost a wild dog. He was happy to sit by Thornton's fire, but he sat as wild animal, and his dreams were filled with other animals-dogs, half-wolves, and wild wolves. They seemed to call him into the forest, and sometimes Buck wanted to leave the fire and answer the call. But every time he went into the trees, his love for Thornton brought him back.

    It was only Thornton who stopped him going into the forest. Other men did not interest him. Visitors to the camp tried to make friends with him, but Buck stayed cold. When Thornton's two friends, Hans and Pete, arrived from Dawson, Buck refused to notice them at first. Then he saw that they were friends of Thornton's and after that he accepted them; but they were not his friends. They were, like Thornton, kind men, and they understood that Buck loved Thornton, and him alone.

    Thornton, too, understood Buck. One day, Buck and the three men were sitting on some high rocks, a hundred metres above the river. Thornton wondered if Buck would obey any order, even a crazy one.‘Jump, Buck!' he shouted, pointing down to the river. A second later the three men were holding Buck back as he tried to jump.

    “That was very strange, ” said Pete, when they had sat down again.

    "Not strange; wonderful," said Thornton. "Terrible, too. Sometimes it frightens me."

    "Yes. I feel sorry for any man who hits you when Buck's near," said Pete.

    "So do I," said Hans.

    It happened in the autumn in Circle City. A man called Burton was starting a fight with another man in a bar. Thornton stepped between them to try to stop them. Buck was, as usual, lying in the corner watching. Burton hit Thornton and he nearly fell, just catching a table. Buck flew through the air at Burton's throat. Burton saved his life by putting up his arm, and was thrown on to ground, with Buck on top of him. Buck took his teeth out of the man's arm and this time bit into his throat. Then a crowd of people pulled Buck off, and a doctor was called. Everyone agreed that Buck had only attacked because he saw Thornton in danger, and from that day Buck's name became famous all over the north.

    Later that year, Buck saved Thornton in a different way. The three men were taking a boat down a fast and rocky river. Thornton was in the boat, while Hans and Peter moved along the river bank, holding the boat with a rope. Buck followed them, keeping a worried eye on Thornton.

    They came to a more dangerous part of the river, and the boat started to go too quickly. Hans pulled on the rope to stop it, and pulled too hard. The boat turned over, and Thornton was thrown into the water and carried down river towards rocks where no swimmer could live.

    Buck jumped in immediately and swam three hundred metres until he reached Thornton. Then he turned, and with Thornton holding his tail, Buck swam towards the river bank. But they moved slowly, and all the time the river was carrying them towards the place where the water crashed twenty metres down onto rocks. Thornton knew that they would not get to the bank quickly enough, so he let go of Buck, held on to a rock in the middle of the water, and shouted, 'Go, Buck, go!'

    Buck swam as hard as he could to the bank, and Pete and Hans pulled him out.

    It was hard for Thornton to hold on to his rock in that wild water, and his friends knew they had only a few minutes to save him. They tied their rope round Buck, who at once jumped into the river and tried to swim to Thornton. The first time, the water took him past the rock, and Pete and Hans had to pull him back. The second time, he swam higher up the river, and the water brought him down to Thornton. Thornton held on to Buck, and Hans and Pete pulled the rope as hard as they could. Man and dog disappeared under the water, banging into rocks, turning over and over, sometimes with Buck on top, sometimes Thornton. When Hans and Pete finally pulled them out, both seemed more dead than alive. But after a while their eyes opened and life returned.
    That winter, at Dawson, Buck did something that made him even more famous in the north. It was also very helpful to the three men. They wanted to make a journey to look for gold in the east, and they needed money. They were in a bar one day when some of the men started to talk about dogs. One man said that he had a dog who was strong enough to pull a sledge with two hundred kilos on it. Another said his dog could pull two hundred and fifty. A third man, called Matthewson, said his dog could pull three hundred kilos.

    "That's nothing," said Thornton. "Buck can pull three hundred and fifty."

    "Can he break the sledge out when it's frozen to the ice and then start it moving? And pull it a hundred metres?" asked Matthewson.

    "He can break it out, and start it, and pull it a hundred metres," said Thornton.

    "Well," said Matthewson, speaking slowly and loudly, "I've got a thousand dollars here, and I say he can't." As he spoke, he took a bag of gold and put it down on the table.

    Suddenly Thornton was worried. He knew Buck was strong, but was he strong enough? Now ten men were watching him and waiting. He didn't have a thousand dollars, and neither did Hans or Pete.

    "I've got a sledge outside with three hundred and fifty kilos on it," said Matthewson. "So it's easy if you want to try."

    Thornton didn't know what to say. He looked at the other men in the bar. One of them was an old friend, Jim O'Brien.

    "Can you lend me a thousand dollars, Jim?"

    "Sure, said O'Brien, putting another bag of gold next to Matthewson's. But I don't think the dog can do it, John."

    Everybody went out into the street. There were two or three hundred men around Matthewson's sledge. The sledge had been outside the bar for two hours, and it was frozen to the ice, in a temperature of 500 below zero. Most of the men thought that Buck was not strong enough, and Matthewson smiled happily.

    "Shall we make it two thousand dollars?" he asked.

    Thornton, Hans and Pete talked for a minute. They had only four hundred dollars, but they added this to O' Brien's thousand. Matthewson, very sure of winning, also put down another four hundred dollars.

    Matthewson's ten dogs were taken away, and Buck, who could feel the excitement in the air, was harnessed to the sledge. Buck was, without question, a very fine animal-bright-eyed, intelligent, his thick coat shining with health. And he looked as strong as a horse.

    One man went up to Thornton. "I'll buy him now," he said. "I'll give you eight hundred dollars for him."

    Thornton shook his head and sat down on the snow next to Buck. He held Buck's head in his hands and spoke softly into his ear. "If you love me, Buck. If you love me."

    Buck took Thornton's hand between his teeth, then let go, and Thornton stood up and stepped back.

    "Ready, Buck," he said.

    Buck pulled on the harness a little, getting ready.

    "Right!" cried Thornton.

    Buck pulled to the right, hard, stopped suddenly, and the ice under the sledge began to break.

    "Now, left!" called Thornton, and Buck pulled to the left, breaking more of the ice.

    "Now, pull!"

    Buck threw himself against his harness, and pulled. He held his body low to the ground, his head down and forward, and his feet dug into the hard snow. Harder and harder he pulled. Suddenly, the sledge moved a centimeter...two...three...and, little by little, it started to go forward across forward across the snow. With each second it went a little faster, and Thornton ran behind, calling to Buck as he pulled the sledge towards the end of the hundred metres. The watching men were shouting and throwing their hats in the air; Buck had won.

    Then Thornton was on the snow next to Buck again, talking to him, and Buck had Thornton's hand in his teeth.

The Call of the Wild

    In five minutes Buck had made fourteen hundred dollars for Thornton and his friends. The money made it possible for them to travel east, where they wanted to look for a lost gold mine. Men said that this mine had more gold than any other mine in the north. Many had looked for it, and some had died looking for it. The only men who knew where it was were now dead.

    Thornton, Pete and Hans, with Buck and six other dogs, started off to the east in the spring. They traveled up the Stewart River and crossed the Mackenzie Mountains. They did not move quickly; the weather was good, and the men shot animals for food when they needed it. Sometimes they traveled for food when they needed it. Sometimes they traveled for a week, and sometimes they stopped for a week and searched for gold in the ground. Sometimes they were hungry, and sometimes they had lots of food. They spent all the summer in the mountains, carrying everything they needed on their backs, sometimes making boats to go down rivers or across lakes.

    In the autumn they came to a strange, flat country, with many lakes. They traveled on through the winter and met nobody, but once they found an old wooden house, with an old gun in it.

    When the spring came, they found, not the lost mine, but a lake in a wide valley. Through the shallow water the gold showed like yellow butter, and here their search ended. There was gold worth thousands of dollars in the lake, and they worked every day, filling bag after bag with gold.

    The dogs had nothing to do except watch the men and eat the food which the men shot for them. Buck spent many evenings sitting by the fire.

    As he sat, he saw again his dream world, where the strange hairy man sat next to him. He also heard something calling him into the forest. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, he lifted his head and listened, and then ran off into the forest.
One night he woke up and heard the call again, a long howl. He ran into the forest, following the sound, and came to an open place in the trees. And there, his nose pointing to the sky, sat a wolf.

    The wolf stopped howling and Buck walked slowly towards him. The wolf ran, and Buck followed. After a time, the wolf stopped and waited, watching Buck, ready to attack. But Buck did not want to fight, and soon the wolf realized this, and the two animals became friendly. Then the wolf started to run again, and he clearly wanted Buck to follow him. They ran for hours through the forest, and Buck remembered again his dream world where he, and others like him, hade run through a much older forest.

    Then they stopped to drink, and Buck remembered John Thornton. He turned and started to run back. The wolf followed him, then stopped and howled, but Buck ran on and did not turn.

    Thornton was eating dinner when Buck returned. Buck jumped all over him, and for two days never left this side. He followed him every where, watching him while he ate and while he slept. But after two days the call of the wild came again, and he remembered the forest and the wolf who had run beside him.

   He started to sleep out in the forest at night, sometimes staying out for three or four days. Once he was away for a week, fishing and killing animals for food. He ate well, and he grew stronger and quicker and more alive. His golden-brown coat shone with health as he ran through the forest, learning its every secret, every smell, and every sound.

    "He's the finest dog that I've ever seen," said Thornton to his friends one day as they watched Buck walking out of camp.
"There'll never be another dog like him," said Pete.

    They saw him walking out of camp but they didn't see the change that happened when he was inside the forest. At once he became a thing of the wild, stepping softly and silently, a passing shadow among the trees.

    In the autumn, Buck started to see moose in the forest. One day he met a group of about twenty. The largest was two metres tall, and his antlers were more than two metres across. When he saw Buck, he got very angry. For hours Buck followed the moose; he wanted the big one, but he want him alone. By the evening Buck had driven the big old moose away from the others, and then he began his attack. The animal weighed six hundred and fifty kilos ─ he was big enough and strong enough to kill Buck in seconds. Patiently, Buck followed him for four days, attacking and then jumping away. He gave him no peace, no time to eat or drink or rest, and slowly the moose became weaker. At the end of the fourth day Buck pulled the moose down and killed him. He stayed by the dead animal for a day and a half, eating, and then turned towards camp and John Thornton.

    Five kilometres from the camp, he smelt something strange. Something was wrong. He started to run. After a few hundred metres he found the dead body of Blackie, with an arrow through his side. The he found another sledge-dog, dying, with an arrow in his neck.

    Buck was near the camp now, and he could hear voices singing. Then he saw the body of Hans, lying on his face, with ten or fifteen arrows in his back. Buck was suddenly filled with a wild, burning anger.

   The yeehats were dancing around the camp, when they heard a deep and terrible growling. Buck came out of the trees faster than the north wind, and threw himself on the Yeehats like a mad dog. He jumped at the first man, and tore out his throat, killing him at once. He jumped onto a second, then a third man, going each time for the throat. The Yeehats could neither escape nor use their arrows. Buck moved like a storm among them, tearing, biting, destroying, in a madness that he had never known before. Nothing could stop him, and soon the Yeehats were running, wild with fear, back to the forest. Buck followed for some time, then returned to the camp.

    He found Pete, killed in his bed. He followed Thornton's smell to a deep pool, and found Skeet lying dead by the edge. Thornton's body was somewhere under the water.

    All day Buck stayed by the pool or walked restlessly round the camp. But when the evening came, he heard new sounds from the forest; the wolves had come south for the winter, and were moving into Buck's valley. They came into the camp in the moonlight, and Buck stood silently, waiting for them. Suddenly, the bravest wolf jumped at Buck. In a second, Buck had bitten, and then stood still again. The wolf was dead behind him. Three more wolves jumped at him, and were killed.

    Then the pack attacked in a crowd all at once. But not one of them could bring Buck down; he was too quick, too strong, too clever for them all. After half an hour the pack stopped attacking and moved away. Then one wolf moved forward slowly, in a friendly way; it was the wolf that Buck had met before in the forest. They touched noses. Then another wolf came forward to make friends, and another. Soon the pack was all around Buck, and the call of the wild was loud in Buck's ears. And when the wolves moved on, back into the forest, Buck ran with them, side by side.

    That is perhaps the end of Buck's story. But after a few years, the Yeehats noticed that some of the wolves had golden-brown in their grey coats. They also talked of a Ghost Dog that ran at the head of the pack.

    And sometimes men were found dead, killed by the teeth of a terrible animal. And each autumn, when the Yeehats follow the moose, there is one valley that they will not go into.

    In the summers there is one visitor to that valley: a large, gold-brown wolf, large than any other wolf. He walks alone round the lake where the yellow gold shines in the water, and howls. But he is not always alone. In the long winter nights, he runs at the head of the wolf pack through the moonlight, calling into the night with them, singing a song from a young world.

TOP