There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable.Mercy was a thing reserved for gentler climes.He manœuvred for the final rush.The circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths of the huskies on his flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side, half crouching for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause seemed to fall. Every animal was motionless as though turned to stone. Only Spitz quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth, snarling with horrible menace, as though to frighten off impending death. Then Buck sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder had at last squarely met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot on the moon-flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from view. Buck stood and looked on, the successful champion, the dominant primordial beast who had made his kill and found it good.
Chapter IV. Who Has Won to Mastership
“Eh?Wot I say?I spik true w’en I say dat Buck two devils.” This was François’s speech next morning when he discovered Spitz missing and Buck covered with wounds. He drew him to the fire and by its light pointed them out.
“Dat Spitz fight lak hell,” said Perrault,as he surveyed the gaping rips and cuts.
“An’ dat Buck fight lak two hells,” was François’s answer. “An’ now we make good time.No more Spitz, no more trouble, sure.”
While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled,the dog-driver proceeded to harness the dogs.Buck trotted up to the place Spitz would have occupied as leader;but François, not noticing him,brought Sol-leks to the coveted position.In his judgment, Sol-leks was the best lead-dog left.Buck sprang upon Sol-leks in a fury,driving him back and standing in his place.
“Eh?eh?” François cried, slapping his thighs gleefully.“Look at dat Buck. Heem keel dat Spitz,heem t’ink to take de job.”
“Go ’way, Chook!” he cried, but Buck refused to budge.
He took Buck by the scruff of the neck,and though the dog growled threateningly,dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks.The old dog did not like it,and showed plainly that he was afraid of Buck.François was obdurate,but when he turned his back Buck again displaced Sol-leks,who was not at all unwilling to go.
François was angry. “Now, by Gar, I feex you!” he cried, coming back with a heavy club in his hand.
Buck remembered the man in the red sweater,and retreated slowly;nor did he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more brought forward.But he circled just beyond the range of the club,snarling with bitterness and rage;and while he circled he watched the club so as to dodge it if thrown by François, for he was become wise in the way of clubs. The driver went about his work, and he called to Buck when he was ready to put him in his old place in front of Dave. Buck retreated two or three steps. François followed him up, whereupon he again retreated. After some time of this, François threw down the club, thinking that Buck feared a thrashing. But Buck was in open revolt. He wanted, not to escape a clubbing, but to have the leadership. It was his by right. He had earned it, and he would not be content with less.
Perrault took a hand.Between them they ran him about for the better part of an hour.They threw clubs at him. He dodged. They cursed him,and his fathers and mothers before him,and all his seed to come after him down to the remotest generation,and every hair on his body and drop of blood in his veins;and he answered curse with snarl and kept out of their reach.He did not try to run away,but retreated around and around the camp,advertising plainly that when his desire was met,he would come in and be good.
François sat down and scratched his head.Perrault looked at his watch and swore.Time was flying, and they should have been on the trail an hour gone.François scratched his head again.He shook it and grinned sheepishly at the courier,who shrugged his shoulders in sign that they were beaten.Then François went up to where Sol-leks stood and called to Buck.Buck laughed, as dogs laugh, yet kept his distance.François unfastened Sol-leks’s traces and put him back in his old place.The team stood harnessed to the sled in an unbroken line,ready for the trail.There was no place for Buck save at the front.Once more François called,and once more Buck laughed and kept away.
“T’row down de club,” Perrault commanded.
François complied, whereupon Buck trotted in,laughing triumphantly,and swung around into position at the head of the team.His traces were fastened, the sled broken out,and with both men running they dashed out on to the river trail.
Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck,with his two devils, he found,while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued.At a bound Buck took up the duties of leadership;and where judgment was required,and quick thinking and quick acting,he showed himself the superior even of Spitz,of whom François had never seen an equal.
But it was in giving the law and making his mates live up to it,that Buck excelled.Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the change in leadership.It was none of their business.Their business was to toil, and toil mightily,in the traces. So long as that were not interfered with,they did not care what happened. Billee,the good-natured, could lead for all they cared,so long as he kept order. The rest of the team,however, had grown unruly during the last days of Spitz,and their surprise was great now that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape.
Pike, who pulled at Buck’s heels,and who never put an ounce more of his weight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do, was swiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the first day was done he was pulling more than ever before in his life. The first night in camp, Joe, the sour one, was punished roundly—a thing that Spitz had never succeeded in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of superior weight, and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to whine for mercy.
The general tone of the team picked up immediately.It recovered its old-time solidarity,and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in the traces.At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona,were added; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took away François’s breath.
“Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!” he cried. “No, nevaire!Heem worth one t’ousan’ dollair, by Gar!Eh?Wot you say, Perrault?”
And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then,and gaining day by day.The trail was in excellent condition,well packed and hard,and there was no new-fallen snow with which to contend.It was not too cold.The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remained there the whole trip.The men rode and ran by turn,and the dogs were kept on the jump,with but infrequent stoppages.
The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice,and they covered in one day going out what had taken them ten days coming in.In one run they made a sixty-mile dash from the foot of Lake Le Barge to the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, and Bennett (seventy miles of lakes), they flew so fast that the man whose turn it was to run towed behind the sled at the end of a rope. And on the last night of the second week they topped White Pass and dropped down the sea slope with the lights of Skaguay and of the shipping at their feet.