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1With the dogs falling, Mercedes weeping and riding, Hal swearing innocuously, and Charles's eyes wistfully watering,
2they staggered into John Thornton's camp at the mouth of White River. When they halted, the dogs dropped down as though
3they had all been struck dead. Mercedes dried her eyes and looked at John Thornton. Charles sat down on a log to rest.
4He sat down very slowly and painstakingly what of his great stiffness. Hal did the talking. John Thornton was whittling
5the last touches on an axe-handle he had made from a stick of birch. He whittled and listened, gave monosyllabic
6replies, and, when it was asked, terse advice. He knew the breed, and he gave his advice in the certainty that it would
7not be followed. "They told us up above that the bottom was dropping out of the trail and that the best thing for us to
8do was to lay over," Hal said in response to Thornton's warning to take no more chances on the rotten ice. "They told us
9we couldn't make White River, and here we are." This last with a sneering ring of triumph in it. "And they told you
10true," John Thornton answered. "The bottom's likely to drop out at any moment. Only fools, with the blind luck of fools,
11could have made it. I tell you straight, I wouldn't risk my carcass on that ice for all the gold in Alaska." "That's
12because you're not a fool, I suppose," said Hal. "All the same, we'll go on to Dawson." He uncoiled his whip. "Get up
13there, Buck! Hi! Get up there! Mush on!" Thornton went on whittling. It was idle, he knew, to get between a fool and his
14folly; while two or three fools more or less would not alter the scheme of things. But the team did not get up at the
15command. It had long since passed into the stage where blows were required to rouse it. The whip flashed out, here and
16there, on its merciless errands. John Thornton compressed his lips. Sol-leks was the first to crawl to his feet. Teek
17followed. Joe came next, yelping with pain. Pike made painful efforts. Twice he fell over, when half up, and on the
18third attempt managed to rise. Buck made no effort. He lay quietly where he had fallen. The lash bit into him again and
19again, but he neither whined nor struggled. Several times Thornton started, as though to speak, but changed his mind. A
20moisture came into his eyes, and, as the whipping continued, he arose and walked irresolutely up and down. This was the
21first time Buck had failed, in itself a sufficient reason to drive Hal into a rage. He exchanged the whip for the
22customary club. Buck refused to move under the rain of heavier blows which now fell upon him. Like his mates, he was
23barely able to get up, but, unlike them, he had made up his mind not to get up. He had a vague feeling of impending
24doom. This had been strong upon him when he pulled in to the bank, and it had not departed from him. What of the thin
25and rotten ice he had felt under his feet all day, it seemed that he sensed disaster close at hand, out there ahead on
26the ice where his master was trying to drive him. He refused to stir. So greatly had he suffered, and so far gone was
27he, that the blows did not hurt much. And as they continued to fall upon him, the spark of life within flickered and
28went down. It was nearly out. He felt strangely numb. As though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being
29beaten. The last sensations of pain left him. He no longer felt anything, though very faintly he could hear the impact
30of the club upon his body. But it was no longer his body, it seemed so far away. And then, suddenly, without warning,
31uttering a cry that was inarticulate and more like the cry of an animal, John Thornton sprang upon the man who wielded
32the club. Hal was hurled backward, as though struck by a falling tree. Mercedes screamed. Charles looked on wistfully,
33wiped his watery eyes, but did not get up because of his stiffness. John Thornton stood over Buck, struggling to control
34himself, too convulsed with rage to speak. "If you strike that dog again, I'll kill you," he at last managed to say in a
35choking voice. "It's my dog," Hal replied, wiping the blood from his mouth as he came back. "Get out of my way, or I'll
36fix you. I'm going to Dawson." Thornton stood between him and Buck, and evinced no intention of getting out of the way.
37Hal drew his long hunting-knife. Mercedes screamed, cried, laughed, and manifested the chaotic abandonment of hysteria.
38Thornton rapped Hal's knuckles with the axe-handle, knocking the knife to the ground. He rapped his knuckles again as he
39tried to pick it up. Then he stooped, picked it up himself, and with two strokes cut Buck's traces. Hal had no fight
40left in him. Besides, his hands were full with his sister, or his arms, rather; while Buck was too near dead to be of
41further use in hauling the sled. A few minutes later they pulled out from the bank and down the river. Buck heard them
42go and raised his head to see, Pike was leading, Sol-leks was at the wheel, and between were Joe and Teek. They were
43limping and staggering. Mercedes was riding the loaded sled. Hal guided at the gee-pole, and Charles stumbled along in
44the rear. As Buck watched them, Thornton knelt beside him and with rough, kindly hands searched for broken bones. By the
45time his search had disclosed nothing more than many bruises and a state of terrible starvation, the sled was a quarter
46of a mile away. Dog and man watched it crawling along over the ice. Suddenly, they saw its back end drop down, as into a
47rut, and the gee-pole, with Hal clinging to it, jerk into the air. Mercedes's scream came to their ears. They saw
48Charles turn and make one step to run back, and then a whole section of ice give way and dogs and humans disappear. A
49yawning hole was all that was to be seen. The bottom had dropped out of the trail. John Thornton and Buck looked at each
50other. "You poor devil," said John Thornton, and Buck licked his hand. Chapter VI. For the Love of a Man When John
51Thornton froze his feet in the previous December his partners had made him comfortable and left him to get well, going
52on themselves up the river to get out a raft of saw-logs for Dawson. He was still limping slightly at the time he
53rescued Buck, but with the continued warm weather even the slight limp left him. And here, lying by the river bank
54through the long spring days, watching the running water, listening lazily to the songs of birds and the hum of nature,
55Buck slowly won back his strength. A rest comes very good after one has travelled three thousand miles, and it must be
56confessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed, his muscles swelled out, and the flesh came back to cover his
57bones. For that matter, they were all loafing,--Buck, John Thornton, and Skeet and Nig,--waiting for the raft to come
58that was to carry them down to Dawson. Skeet was a little Irish setter who early made friends with Buck, who, in a dying
59condition, was unable to resent her first advances. She had the doctor trait which some dogs possess; and as a mother
60cat washes her kittens, so she washed and cleansed Buck's wounds. Regularly, each morning after he had finished his
61breakfast, she performed her self-appointed task, till he came to look for her ministrations as much as he did for
62Thornton's. Nig, equally friendly, though less demonstrative, was a huge black dog, half bloodhound and half deerhound,
63with eyes that laughed and a boundless good nature.
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