18. Call of the Wild

18. The Call of the Wild – by Jack London

It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buck wanted it. He wanted it because it was in his nature, because he had been gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the trail and trace – that pride which holds dogs in the toil to the last gasp, which lures them to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their heart if they are cut out of the harness.

Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest.

Buck is master of a Judge Miller’s Santa Clara household before Manuel, a gardener’s assistant, leads him away to pay for his gambling habit. Up until this point, Buck hadn’t known men with cruel intentions or their ferocity. His long journey north toward the new gold mining enclaves nears an end when he faces the man in the red sweater. This is his “breaking in” from a domestic dog to a toiling dog at man’s command. The beating imprints a valuable lesson on him, the law of club and fang.

 His trail and toil begins at Dyea, near the town of Skagway in Alaska as part of a courier team of dogs. Most are huskies, inured to the arctic climes and diet, with few Southland dogs managing to keep up. At the behest of the dog runner, Francois, and courier, Perrault, he is trained through snaps at his heals from Dave, a senior sleigh dog. He quickly realizes the brutish nature of his new demesne through watching Curly die after making a friendly approach at one of the huskies. As soon as Curly’s back touches the ground, the wolves descend and tear her to pieces.

Although strange and primeval, Buck soon learns to take pride in the work like Dave and Sol-Leks, the older, more distant dogs. This feeling comes to be known as the pride of the trace and toil and is the sole passion of the dogs, who would rather (and often do) die in the trace than it be loosened. Buck is transformed into a merciless, cunning and domineering dog who challenge Spitz, the lead dog, for head of the team. This plays out for some weeks before they face off and Buck uses his superior weight and intelligence to first cripple and then knock Spitz over into the circle of waiting wolves.

After travelling to Dawson, high up in the Yukon, to drop mail and collect outgoing letters they make the swifter return trip with Buck as lead dog. Later he is sold to a Scotch half-breed and then a family trio oblivious to the dangers of the frozen river in Spring time. Charles, Hal and Mercedes (Charles’s wife and Hal’s sister) nevertheless make it to John Thornton’s camp after adding dogs and shedding weight from their baggage. They are slovenly, useless creatures and unfamiliar to the hardships of the North. Mercedes steals food and overfeeds the dogs at first but when she is strained by the difficult and slow trip, she resorts to sitting on the sled and will not budge. Even when the men remove her she sulks in the snow until they are forced to make a 3 mile return trip to fetch her.

Hal is especially cruel to the dogs - which are depleted in number, underfed and powerless -, even using the heavy club to get them on their feet. John Thornton comes to Buck’s rescue as Hal flogs away, by pitching Hal over and then cutting Buck loose of the trail. It came just in time because, as Thornton had warned, the ice gives way a quarter of a mile upriver and the group disappear into the freezing water.

Buck’s affection for Thornton is immense and the first love he has felt. His abounding fellowship leads him to break out (free the runners from the ice) and then pull 1,000 pounds alone, as part of a bet between Thornton and a compatriot. The winnings allow Thornthon, Pete and Hans to head East in search of a fabled gold mine.

The call of the wild grows stronger, just as the love for Thornton holds him. He feels ancient instincts and sees, in the flames of the campfire, an early human struggling in fear to survive. The voices are of the wolves first domesticated by early man and live on through Buck’s vitality and strength. He likes to hunt and eat what he kills and stays away from camp for longer and longer periods during which he stalks prey and breathes the ancient urges which arise in him. After an unusually long stay away he returns to find the men dead with feathered arrows in their midriff. Upon reaching the spruce-bough lodge, he found Yeehat Indians masquerading in loud voices after their slaughter of men and dogs. In a rare moment of wild rage, Buck bursts upon them viciously tearing out the chief’s throat before bounding to the next. The efforts to throw spears and shoot arrows at the blur of fury are in vain and only succeed in piercing their fellow Indians.

From then on the Yeehats avoid this valley of death and the legend of a Ghost Dog is born. Buck goes on to join a pack of wolves and follow moose as they migrate about. The wild is now well and truly ensconced in Buck and the voices are in full flow.