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1He openly threatened the other's leadership. He came between him and the shirks he should have punished. And he did it
2deliberately. One night there was a heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike, the malingerer, did not appear. He was
3securely hidden in his nest under a foot of snow. François called him and sought him in vain. Spitz was wild with wrath.
4He raged through the camp, smelling and digging in every likely place, snarling so frightfully that Pike heard and
5shivered in his hiding-place. But when he was at last unearthed, and Spitz flew at him to punish him, Buck flew, with
6equal rage, in between. So unexpected was it, and so shrewdly managed, that Spitz was hurled backward and off his feet.
7Pike, who had been trembling abjectly, took heart at this open mutiny, and sprang upon his overthrown leader. Buck, to
8whom fair play was a forgotten code, likewise sprang upon Spitz. But François, chuckling at the incident while
9unswerving in the administration of justice, brought his lash down upon Buck with all his might. This failed to drive
10Buck from his prostrate rival, and the butt of the whip was brought into play. Half-stunned by the blow, Buck was
11knocked backward and the lash laid upon him again and again, while Spitz soundly punished the many times offending Pike.
12In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer, Buck still continued to interfere between Spitz and the
13culprits; but he did it craftily, when François was not around, With the covert mutiny of Buck, a general
14insubordination sprang up and increased. Dave and Sol-leks were unaffected, but the rest of the team went from bad to
15worse. Things no longer went right. There was continual bickering and jangling. Trouble was always afoot, and at the
16bottom of it was Buck. He kept François busy, for the dog-driver was in constant apprehension of the life-and-death
17struggle between the two which he knew must take place sooner or later; and on more than one night the sounds of
18quarrelling and strife among the other dogs turned him out of his sleeping robe, fearful that Buck and Spitz were at it.
19But the opportunity did not present itself, and they pulled into Dawson one dreary afternoon with the great fight still
20to come. Here were many men, and countless dogs, and Buck found them all at work. It seemed the ordained order of things
21that dogs should work. All day they swung up and down the main street in long teams, and in the night their jingling
22bells still went by. They hauled cabin logs and firewood, freighted up to the mines, and did all manner of work that
23horses did in the Santa Clara Valley. Here and there Buck met Southland dogs, but in the main they were the wild wolf
24husky breed. Every night, regularly, at nine, at twelve, at three, they lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eerie
25chant, in which it was Buck's delight to join. With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in
26the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the
27defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of
28life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself--one of the first songs of the
29younger world in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by which
30Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his
31wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. And that he should be
32stirred by it marked the completeness with which he harked back through the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings
33of life in the howling ages. Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they dropped down the steep bank by the
34Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled for Dyea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches if anything more
35urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride had gripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of
36the year. Several things favored him in this. The week's rest had recuperated the dogs and put them in thorough trim.
37The trail they had broken into the country was packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the police had arranged in
38two or three places deposits of grub for dog and man, and he was travelling light. They made Sixty Mile, which is a
39fifty-mile run, on the first day; and the second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way to Pelly. But such
40splendid running was achieved not without great trouble and vexation on the part of François. The insidious revolt led
41by Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team. It no longer was as one dog leaping in the traces. The encouragement
42Buck gave the rebels led them into all kinds of petty misdemeanors. No more was Spitz a leader greatly to be feared. The
43old awe departed, and they grew equal to challenging his authority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one night, and gulped
44it down under the protection of Buck. Another night Dub and Joe fought Spitz and made him forego the punishment they
45deserved. And even Billee, the good-natured, was less good-natured, and whined not half so placatingly as in former
46days. Buck never came near Spitz without snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact, his conduct approached that of a
47bully, and he was given to swaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose. The breaking down of discipline likewise
48affected the dogs in their relations with one another. They quarrelled and bickered more than ever among themselves,
49till at times the camp was a howling bedlam. Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, though they were made irritable by
50the unending squabbling. François swore strange barbarous oaths, and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair.
51His lash was always singing among the dogs, but it was of small avail. Directly his back was turned they were at it
52again. He backed up Spitz with his whip, while Buck backed up the remainder of the team. François knew he was behind all
53the trouble, and Buck knew he knew; but Buck was too clever ever again to be caught red-handed. He worked faithfully in
54the harness, for the toil had become a delight to him; yet it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight amongst
55his mates and tangle the traces. At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turned up a snowshoe rabbit,
56blundered it, and missed. In a second the whole team was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp of the Northwest
57Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined the chase. The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a small
58creek, up the frozen bed of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the surface of the snow, while the dogs ploughed
59through by main strength. Buck led the pack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. He lay down
60low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing forward, leap by leap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap
61by leap, like some pale frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead. All that stirring of old instincts which at
62stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden
63pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill--all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at
64the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to
65the eyes in warm blood.
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