[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
behind; for this was the mail train, carrying word from the world to the men who
sought gold under the shadow of the Pole.
Buck did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, taking pride in it after the
manner of Dave and Sol-leks, and seeing that his mates, whether they prided in it
or not, did their fair share. It was a monotonous life, operating with machine-like
regularity. One day was very like another. At a certain time each morning the
cooks turned out, fires were built, and breakfast was eaten. Then, while some
broke camp, others harnessed the dogs, and they were under way an hour or so
before the darkness fell which gave warning of dawn. At night, camp was made.
Some pitched the flies, others cut firewood and pine boughs for the beds, and still
others carried water or ice for the cooks. Also, the dogs were fed. To them, this
was the one feature of the day, though it was good to loaf around, after the fish
was eaten, for an hour or so with the other dogs, of which there were fivescore
and odd. There were fierce fighters among them, but three battles with the fiercest
brought Buck to mastery, so that when he bristled and showed his teeth they got
out of his way.
Best of all, perhaps, he loved to lie near the fire, hind legs crouched under him,
fore legs stretched out in front, head raised, and eyes blinking dreamily at the
flames. Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's big house in the sun-kissed Santa
Clara Valley, and of the cement swimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless,
and Toots, the Japanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red
sweater, the death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he had
eaten or would like to eat. He was not homesick. The Sunland was very dim and
distant, and such memories had no power over him. Far more potent were the
memories of his heredity that gave things he had never seen before a seeming
familiarity; the instincts (which were but the memories of his ancestors become
habits) which had lapsed in later days, and still later, in him, quickened and
become alive again.
Sometimes as he crouched there, blinking dreamily at the flames, it seemed that
the flames were of another fire, and that as he crouched by this other fire he saw
another and different man from the half-breed cook before him. This other man
was shorter of leg and longer of arm, with muscles that were stringy and knotty
rather than rounded and swelling. The hair of this man was long and matted, and
his head slanted back under it from the eyes. He uttered strange sounds, and
seemed very much afraid of the darkness, into which he peered continually,
clutching in his hand, which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with a
heavy stone made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged and fire-
scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his body there was much
hair. In some places, across the chest and shoulders and down the outside of the
arms and thighs, it was matted into almost a thick fur. He did not stand erect, but
with trunk inclined forward from the hips, on legs that bent at the knees. About
his body there was a peculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike, and a
quick alertness as of one who lived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen.
At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head between his legs
and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, his hands clasped
above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms. And beyond that fire, in
the circling darkness, Buck could see many gleaming coals, two by two, always
two by two, which he knew to be the eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could
hear the crashing of their bodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they
made in the night. And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking
at the fire, these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair to rise
along his back and stand on end across his shoulders and up his neck, till he
whimpered low and suppressedly, or growled softly, and the half-breed cook
shouted at him, "Hey, you Buck, wake up!" Whereupon the other world would
vanish and the real world come into his eyes, and he would get up and yawn and
stretch as though he had been asleep.
It was a hard trip, with the mail behind them, and the heavy work wore them
down. They were short of weight and in poor condition when they made Dawson,
and should have had a ten days' or a week's rest at least. But in two days' time
they dropped down the Yukon bank from the Barracks, loaded with letters for the
outside. The dogs were tired, the drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it
snowed every day. This meant a soft trail, greater friction on the runners, and
heavier pulling for the dogs; yet the drivers were fair through it all, and did their
best for the animals.
Each night the dogs were attended to first. They ate before the drivers ate, and
no man sought his sleeping-robe till he had seen to the feet of the dogs he drove.
Still, their strength went down. Since the beginning of the winter they had
travelled eighteen hundred miles, dragging sleds the whole weary distance; and
eighteen hundred miles will tell upon life of the toughest. Buck stood it, keeping
his mates up to their work and maintaining discipline, though he, too, was very
tired. Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe was sourer
than ever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.
But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gone wrong with him.
He became more morose and irritable, and when camp was pitched at once made
his nest, where his driver fed him. Once out of the harness and down, he did not
get on his feet again till harness-up time in the morning. Sometimes, in the traces,
when jerked by a sudden stoppage of the sled, or by straining to start it, he would
cry out with pain. The driver examined him, but could find nothing. All the
drivers became interested in his case. They talked it over at meal-time, and over
their last pipes before going to bed, and one night they held a consultation. He
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]