Februari 02, 2017
chapter vii.the sounding of the call when buck earned sixteen hundred dollars infive minutes for john thornton, he made it possible for his master to pay off certaindebts and to journey with his partners into the east after a fabled lost mine, the history of which was as old as the historyof the country. many men had sought it; few had found it;and more than a few there were who had never returned from the quest. this lost mine was steeped in tragedy andshrouded in mystery. no one knew of the first man.the oldest tradition stopped before it got
back to him. from the beginning there had been anancient and ramshackle cabin. dying men had sworn to it, and to the minethe site of which it marked, clinching their testimony with nuggets that wereunlike any known grade of gold in the northland. but no living man had looted this treasurehouse, and the dead were dead; wherefore john thornton and pete and hans, with buckand half a dozen other dogs, faced into the east on an unknown trail to achieve where men and dogs as good as themselves hadfailed.
they sledded seventy miles up the yukon,swung to the left into the stewart river, passed the mayo and the mcquestion, andheld on until the stewart itself became a streamlet, threading the upstanding peakswhich marked the backbone of the continent. john thornton asked little of man ornature. he was unafraid of the wild. with a handful of salt and a rifle he couldplunge into the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as hepleased. being in no haste, indian fashion, hehunted his dinner in the course of the day's travel; and if he failed to find it,like the indian, he kept on travelling,
secure in the knowledge that sooner orlater he would come to it. so, on this great journey into the east,straight meat was the bill of fare, ammunition and tools principally made upthe load on the sled, and the time-card was drawn upon the limitless future. to buck it was boundless delight, thishunting, fishing, and indefinite wandering through strange places. for weeks at a time they would hold onsteadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end they would camp, here and there, thedogs loafing and the men burning holes through frozen muck and gravel and washing
countless pans of dirt by the heat of thefire. sometimes they went hungry, sometimes theyfeasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortune ofhunting. summer arrived, and dogs and men packed ontheir backs, rafted across blue mountain lakes, and descended or ascended unknownrivers in slender boats whipsawed from the standing forest. the months came and went, and back andforth they twisted through the uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet wheremen had been if the lost cabin were true. they went across divides in summerblizzards, shivered under the midnight sun
on naked mountains between the timber lineand the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers pickedstrawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the southland could boast. in the fall of the year they penetrated aweird lake country, sad and silent, where wildfowl had been, but where then there wasno life nor sign of life--only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholyrippling of waves on lonely beaches. and through another winter they wandered onthe obliterated trails of men who had gone
before. once, they came upon a path blazed throughthe forest, an ancient path, and the lost cabin seemed very near. but the path began nowhere and endednowhere, and it remained mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made itremained mystery. another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage of a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets johnthornton found a long-barrelled flint-lock. he knew it for a hudson bay company gun ofthe young days in the northwest, when such a gun was worth its height in beaver skinspacked flat, and that was all--no hint as
to the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gun among theblankets. spring came on once more, and at the end ofall their wandering they found, not the lost cabin, but a shallow placer in a broadvalley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing-pan. they sought no farther. each day they worked earned them thousandsof dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked every day. the gold was sacked in moose-hide bags,fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so
much firewood outside the spruce-boughlodge. like giants they toiled, days flashing onthe heels of days like dreams as they heaped the treasure up. there was nothing for the dogs to do, savethe hauling in of meat now and again that thornton killed, and buck spent long hoursmusing by the fire. the vision of the short-legged hairy mancame to him more frequently, now that there was little work to be done; and often,blinking by the fire, buck wandered with him in that other world which heremembered. the salient thing of this other worldseemed fear.
when he watched the hairy man sleeping bythe fire, head between his knees and hands clasped above, buck saw that he sleptrestlessly, with many starts and awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully into the darkness and fling morewood upon the fire. did they walk by the beach of a sea, wherethe hairy man gathered shellfish and ate them as he gathered, it was with eyes thatroved everywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like the wind at itsfirst appearance. through the forest they crept noiselessly,buck at the hairy man's heels; and they were alert and vigilant, the pair of them,ears twitching and moving and nostrils
quivering, for the man heard and smelled askeenly as buck. the hairy man could spring up into thetrees and travel ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb tolimb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, nevermissing his grip. in fact, he seemed as much at home amongthe trees as on the ground; and buck had memories of nights of vigil spent beneathtrees wherein the hairy man roosted, holding on tightly as he slept. and closely akin to the visions of thehairy man was the call still sounding in the depths of the forest.it filled him with a great unrest and
strange desires. it caused him to feel a vague, sweetgladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew notwhat. sometimes he pursued the call into theforest, looking for it as though it were a tangible thing, barking softly ordefiantly, as the mood might dictate. he would thrust his nose into the cool woodmoss, or into the black soil where long grasses grew, and snort with joy at the fatearth smells; or he would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behind fungus-covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to all that moved and sounded about
him.it might be, lying thus, that he hoped to surprise this call he could not understand. but he did not know why he did thesevarious things. he was impelled to do them, and did notreason about them at all. irresistible impulses seized him. he would be lying in camp, dozing lazily inthe heat of the day, when suddenly his head would lift and his ears cock up, intent andlistening, and he would spring to his feet and dash away, and on and on, for hours, through the forest aisles and across theopen spaces where the niggerheads bunched.
he loved to run down dry watercourses, andto creep and spy upon the bird life in the woods. for a day at a time he would lie in theunderbrush where he could watch the partridges drumming and strutting up anddown. but especially he loved to run in the dimtwilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of theforest, reading signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called--called, waking orsleeping, at all times, for him to come. one night he sprang from sleep with astart, eager-eyed, nostrils quivering and
scenting, his mane bristling in recurrentwaves. from the forest came the call (or one noteof it, for the call was many noted), distinct and definite as never before,--along-drawn howl, like, yet unlike, any noise made by husky dog. and he knew it, in the old familiar way, asa sound heard before. he sprang through the sleeping camp and inswift silence dashed through the woods. as he drew closer to the cry he went moreslowly, with caution in every movement, till he came to an open place among thetrees, and looking out saw, erect on haunches, with nose pointed to the sky, along, lean, timber wolf.
he had made no noise, yet it ceased fromits howling and tried to sense his presence. buck stalked into the open, half crouching,body gathered compactly together, tail straight and stiff, feet falling withunwonted care. every movement advertised commingledthreatening and overture of friendliness. it was the menacing truce that marks themeeting of wild beasts that prey. but the wolf fled at sight of him. he followed, with wild leapings, in afrenzy to overtake. he ran him into a blind channel, in the bedof the creek where a timber jam barred the
way. the wolf whirled about, pivoting on hishind legs after the fashion of joe and of all cornered husky dogs, snarling andbristling, clipping his teeth together in a continuous and rapid succession of snaps. buck did not attack, but circled him aboutand hedged him in with friendly advances. the wolf was suspicious and afraid; forbuck made three of him in weight, while his head barely reached buck's shoulder. watching his chance, he darted away, andthe chase was resumed. time and again he was cornered, and thething repeated, though he was in poor
condition, or buck could not so easily haveovertaken him. he would run till buck's head was even withhis flank, when he would whirl around at bay, only to dash away again at the firstopportunity. but in the end buck's pertinacity wasrewarded; for the wolf, finding that no harm was intended, finally sniffed noseswith him. then they became friendly, and played aboutin the nervous, half-coy way with which fierce beasts belie their fierceness. after some time of this the wolf startedoff at an easy lope in a manner that plainly showed he was going somewhere.
he made it clear to buck that he was tocome, and they ran side by side through the sombre twilight, straight up the creek bed,into the gorge from which it issued, and across the bleak divide where it took itsrise. on the opposite slope of the watershed theycame down into a level country where were great stretches of forest and many streams,and through these great stretches they ran steadily, hour after hour, the sun risinghigher and the day growing warmer. buck was wildly glad. he knew he was at last answering the call,running by the side of his wood brother toward the place from where the call surelycame.
old memories were coming upon him fast, andhe was stirring to them as of old he stirred to the realities of which they werethe shadows. he had done this thing before, somewhere inthat other and dimly remembered world, and he was doing it again, now, running free inthe open, the unpacked earth underfoot, the wide sky overhead. they stopped by a running stream to drink,and, stopping, buck remembered john thornton.he sat down. the wolf started on toward the place fromwhere the call surely came, then returned to him, sniffing noses and making actionsas though to encourage him.
but buck turned about and started slowly onthe back track. for the better part of an hour the wildbrother ran by his side, whining softly. then he sat down, pointed his nose upward,and howled. it was a mournful howl, and as buck heldsteadily on his way he heard it grow faint and fainter until it was lost in thedistance. john thornton was eating dinner when buckdashed into camp and sprang upon him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him,scrambling upon him, licking his face, biting his hand--"playing the general tom- fool," as john thornton characterized it,the while he shook buck back and forth and
cursed him lovingly.for two days and nights buck never left camp, never let thornton out of his sight. he followed him about at his work, watchedhim while he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them in the morning.but after two days the call in the forest began to sound more imperiously than ever. buck's restlessness came back on him, andhe was haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling land beyond thedivide and the run side by side through the wide forest stretches. once again he took to wandering in thewoods, but the wild brother came no more;
and though he listened through long vigils,the mournful howl was never raised. he began to sleep out at night, stayingaway from camp for days at a time; and once he crossed the divide at the head of thecreek and went down into the land of timber and streams. there he wandered for a week, seekingvainly for fresh sign of the wild brother, killing his meat as he travelled andtravelling with the long, easy lope that seems never to tire. he fished for salmon in a broad stream thatemptied somewhere into the sea, and by this stream he killed a large black bear,blinded by the mosquitoes while likewise
fishing, and raging through the foresthelpless and terrible. even so, it was a hard fight, and itaroused the last latent remnants of buck's ferocity. and two days later, when he returned to hiskill and found a dozen wolverenes quarrelling over the spoil, he scatteredthem like chaff; and those that fled left two behind who would quarrel no more. the blood-longing became stronger than everbefore. he was a killer, a thing that preyed,living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength andprowess, surviving triumphantly in a
hostile environment where only the strongsurvived. because of all this he became possessed ofa great pride in himself, which communicated itself like a contagion to hisphysical being. it advertised itself in all his movements,was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainly as speech in the way hecarried himself, and made his glorious furry coat if anything more glorious. but for the stray brown on his muzzle andabove his eyes, and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost down his chest, hemight well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf, larger than the largest ofthe breed.
from his st. bernard father he hadinherited size and weight, but it was his shepherd mother who had given shape to thatsize and weight. his muzzle was the long wolf muzzle, savethat it was larger than the muzzle of any wolf; and his head, somewhat broader, wasthe wolf head on a massive scale. his cunning was wolf cunning, and wildcunning; his intelligence, shepherd intelligence and st. bernard intelligence;and all this, plus an experience gained in the fiercest of schools, made him as formidable a creature as any that roamedthe wild. a carnivorous animal living on a straightmeat diet, he was in full flower, at the
high tide of his life, overspilling withvigor and virility. when thornton passed a caressing hand alonghis back, a snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharging its pentmagnetism at the contact. every part, brain and body, nerve tissueand fibre, was keyed to the most exquisite pitch; and between all the parts there wasa perfect equilibrium or adjustment. to sights and sounds and events whichrequired action, he responded with lightning-like rapidity. quickly as a husky dog could leap to defendfrom attack or to attack, he could leap twice as quickly.
he saw the movement, or heard sound, andresponded in less time than another dog required to compass the mere seeing orhearing. he perceived and determined and respondedin the same instant. in point of fact the three actions ofperceiving, determining, and responding were sequential; but so infinitesimal werethe intervals of time between them that they appeared simultaneous. his muscles were surcharged with vitality,and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs. life streamed through him in splendidflood, glad and rampant, until it seemed
that it would burst him asunder in sheerecstasy and pour forth generously over the world. "never was there such a dog," said johnthornton one day, as the partners watched buck marching out of camp."when he was made, the mould was broke," said pete. "py jingo!i t'ink so mineself," hans affirmed. they saw him marching out of camp, but theydid not see the instant and terrible transformation which took place as soon ashe was within the secrecy of the forest. he no longer marched.
at once he became a thing of the wild,stealing along softly, cat-footed, a passing shadow that appeared anddisappeared among the shadows. he knew how to take advantage of everycover, to crawl on his belly like a snake, and like a snake to leap and strike. he could take a ptarmigan from its nest,kill a rabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing a secondtoo late for the trees. fish, in open pools, were not too quick forhim; nor were beaver, mending their dams, too wary.he killed to eat, not from wantonness; but he preferred to eat what he killed himself.
so a lurking humor ran through his deeds,and it was his delight to steal upon the squirrels, and, when he all but had them,to let them go, chattering in mortal fear to the treetops. as the fall of the year came on, the mooseappeared in greater abundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lowerand less rigorous valleys. buck had already dragged down a stray part-grown calf; but he wished strongly for larger and more formidable quarry, and hecame upon it one day on the divide at the head of the creek. a band of twenty moose had crossed overfrom the land of streams and timber, and
chief among them was a great bull. he was in a savage temper, and, standingover six feet from the ground, was as formidable an antagonist as even buck coulddesire. back and forth the bull tossed his greatpalmated antlers, branching to fourteen points and embracing seven feet within thetips. his small eyes burned with a vicious andbitter light, while he roared with fury at sight of buck. from the bull's side, just forward of theflank, protruded a feathered arrow-end, which accounted for his savageness.
guided by that instinct which came from theold hunting days of the primordial world, buck proceeded to cut the bull out from theherd. it was no slight task. he would bark and dance about in front ofthe bull, just out of reach of the great antlers and of the terrible splay hoofswhich could have stamped his life out with a single blow. unable to turn his back on the fangeddanger and go on, the bull would be driven into paroxysms of rage. at such moments he charged buck, whoretreated craftily, luring him on by a
simulated inability to escape. but when he was thus separated from hisfellows, two or three of the younger bulls would charge back upon buck and enable thewounded bull to rejoin the herd. there is a patience of the wild--dogged,tireless, persistent as life itself--that holds motionless for endless hours thespider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it huntsits living food; and it belonged to buck as he clung to the flank of the herd,retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying the cows with their half-
grown calves, and driving the wounded bullmad with helpless rage. for half a day this continued. buck multiplied himself, attacking from allsides, enveloping the herd in a whirlwind of menace, cutting out his victim as fastas it could rejoin its mates, wearing out the patience of creatures preyed upon, which is a lesser patience than that ofcreatures preying. as the day wore along and the sun droppedto its bed in the northwest (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were sixhours long), the young bulls retraced their steps more and more reluctantly to the aidof their beset leader.
the down-coming winter was harrying them onto the lower levels, and it seemed they could never shake off this tirelesscreature that held them back. besides, it was not the life of the herd,or of the young bulls, that was threatened. the life of only one member was demanded,which was a remoter interest than their lives, and in the end they were content topay the toll. as twilight fell the old bull stood withlowered head, watching his mates--the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered,the bulls he had mastered--as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the fadinglight. he could not follow, for before his noseleaped the merciless fanged terror that
would not let him go. three hundredweight more than half a ton heweighed; he had lived a long, strong life, full of fight and struggle, and at the endhe faced death at the teeth of a creature whose head did not reach beyond his greatknuckled knees. from then on, night and day, buck neverleft his prey, never gave it a moment's rest, never permitted it to browse theleaves of trees or the shoots of young birch and willow. nor did he give the wounded bullopportunity to slake his burning thirst in the slender trickling streams they crossed.often, in desperation, he burst into long
stretches of flight. at such times buck did not attempt to stayhim, but loped easily at his heels, satisfied with the way the game was played,lying down when the moose stood still, attacking him fiercely when he strove toeat or drink. the great head drooped more and more underits tree of horns, and the shambling trot grew weak and weaker. he took to standing for long periods, withnose to the ground and dejected ears dropped limply; and buck found more time inwhich to get water for himself and in which to rest.
at such moments, panting with red lollingtongue and with eyes fixed upon the big bull, it appeared to buck that a change wascoming over the face of things. he could feel a new stir in the land. as the moose were coming into the land,other kinds of life were coming in. forest and stream and air seemed palpitantwith their presence. the news of it was borne in upon him, notby sight, or sound, or smell, but by some other and subtler sense. he heard nothing, saw nothing, yet knewthat the land was somehow different; that through it strange things were afoot andranging; and he resolved to investigate
after he had finished the business in hand. at last, at the end of the fourth day, hepulled the great moose down. for a day and a night he remained by thekill, eating and sleeping, turn and turn about. then, rested, refreshed and strong, heturned his face toward camp and john thornton. he broke into the long easy lope, and wenton, hour after hour, never at loss for the tangled way, heading straight home throughstrange country with a certitude of direction that put man and his magneticneedle to shame.
as he held on he became more and moreconscious of the new stir in the land. there was life abroad in it different fromthe life which had been there throughout the summer.no longer was this fact borne in upon him in some subtle, mysterious way. the birds talked of it, the squirrelschattered about it, the very breeze whispered of it. several times he stopped and drew in thefresh morning air in great sniffs, reading a message which made him leap on withgreater speed. he was oppressed with a sense of calamityhappening, if it were not calamity already
happened; and as he crossed the lastwatershed and dropped down into the valley toward camp, he proceeded with greatercaution. three miles away he came upon a fresh trailthat sent his neck hair rippling and bristling, it led straight toward camp andjohn thornton. buck hurried on, swiftly and stealthily,every nerve straining and tense, alert to the multitudinous details which told astory--all but the end. his nose gave him a varying description ofthe passage of the life on the heels of which he was travelling.he remarked the pregnant silence of the forest.
the bird life had flitted.the squirrels were in hiding. one only he saw,--a sleek gray fellow,flattened against a gray dead limb so that he seemed a part of it, a woody excrescenceupon the wood itself. as buck slid along with the obscureness ofa gliding shadow, his nose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positiveforce had gripped and pulled it. he followed the new scent into a thicketand found nig. he was lying on his side, dead where he haddragged himself, an arrow protruding, head and feathers, from either side of his body. a hundred yards farther on, buck came uponone of the sled-dogs thornton had bought in
dawson. this dog was thrashing about in a death-struggle, directly on the trail, and buck passed around him without stopping. from the camp came the faint sound of manyvoices, rising and falling in a sing-song chant. bellying forward to the edge of theclearing, he found hans, lying on his face, feathered with arrows like a porcupine. at the same instant buck peered out wherethe spruce-bough lodge had been and saw what made his hair leap straight up on hisneck and shoulders.
a gust of overpowering rage swept over him. he did not know that he growled, but hegrowled aloud with a terrible ferocity. for the last time in his life he allowedpassion to usurp cunning and reason, and it was because of his great love for johnthornton that he lost his head. the yeehats were dancing about the wreckageof the spruce-bough lodge when they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon theman animal the like of which they had never seen before. it was buck, a live hurricane of fury,hurling himself upon them in a frenzy to destroy.
he sprang at the foremost man (it was thechief of the yeehats), ripping the throat wide open till the rent jugular spouted afountain of blood. he did not pause to worry the victim, butripped in passing, with the next bound tearing wide the throat of a second man.there was no withstanding him. he plunged about in their very midst,tearing, rending, destroying, in constant and terrific motion which defied the arrowsthey discharged at him. in fact, so inconceivably rapid were hismovements, and so closely were the indians tangled together, that they shot oneanother with the arrows; and one young hunter, hurling a spear at buck in mid air,
drove it through the chest of anotherhunter with such force that the point broke through the skin of the back and stood outbeyond. then a panic seized the yeehats, and theyfled in terror to the woods, proclaiming as they fled the advent of the evil spirit. and truly buck was the fiend incarnate,raging at their heels and dragging them down like deer as they raced through thetrees. it was a fateful day for the yeehats. they scattered far and wide over thecountry, and it was not till a week later that the last of the survivors gatheredtogether in a lower valley and counted
their losses. as for buck, wearying of the pursuit, hereturned to the desolated camp. he found pete where he had been killed inhis blankets in the first moment of surprise. thornton's desperate struggle was fresh-written on the earth, and buck scented every detail of it down to the edge of adeep pool. by the edge, head and fore feet in thewater, lay skeet, faithful to the last. the pool itself, muddy and discolored fromthe sluice boxes, effectually hid what it contained, and it contained john thornton;for buck followed his trace into the water,
from which no trace led away. all day buck brooded by the pool or roamedrestlessly about the camp. death, as a cessation of movement, as apassing out and away from the lives of the living, he knew, and he knew john thorntonwas dead. it left a great void in him, somewhat akinto hunger, but a void which ached and ached, and which food could not fill, attimes, when he paused to contemplate the carcasses of the yeehats, he forgot the pain of it; and at such times he was awareof a great pride in himself,--a pride greater than any he had yet experienced.
he had killed man, the noblest game of all,and he had killed in the face of the law of club and fang.he sniffed the bodies curiously. they had died so easily. it was harder to kill a husky dog thanthem. they were no match at all, were it not fortheir arrows and spears and clubs. thenceforward he would be unafraid of themexcept when they bore in their hands their arrows, spears, and clubs. night came on, and a full moon rose highover the trees into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day.
and with the coming of the night, broodingand mourning by the pool, buck became alive to a stirring of the new life in the forestother than that which the yeehats had made, he stood up, listening and scenting. from far away drifted a faint, sharp yelp,followed by a chorus of similar sharp yelps.as the moments passed the yelps grew closer and louder. again buck knew them as things heard inthat other world which persisted in his memory.he walked to the centre of the open space and listened.
it was the call, the many-noted call,sounding more luringly and compellingly than ever before.and as never before, he was ready to obey. john thornton was dead. the last tie was broken.man and the claims of man no longer bound him. hunting their living meat, as the yeehatswere hunting it, on the flanks of the migrating moose, the wolf pack had at lastcrossed over from the land of streams and timber and invaded buck's valley. into the clearing where the moonlightstreamed, they poured in a silvery flood;
and in the centre of the clearing stoodbuck, motionless as a statue, waiting their coming. they were awed, so still and large hestood, and a moment's pause fell, till the boldest one leaped straight for him.like a flash buck struck, breaking the neck. then he stood, without movement, as before,the stricken wolf rolling in agony behind three others tried it in sharp succession;and one after the other they drew back, streaming blood from slashed throats orshoulders. this was sufficient to fling the whole packforward, pell-mell, crowded together,
blocked and confused by its eagerness topull down the prey. buck's marvellous quickness and agilitystood him in good stead. pivoting on his hind legs, and snapping andgashing, he was everywhere at once, presenting a front which was apparentlyunbroken so swiftly did he whirl and guard from side to side. but to prevent them from getting behindhim, he was forced back, down past the pool and into the creek bed, till he brought upagainst a high gravel bank. he worked along to a right angle in thebank which the men had made in the course of mining, and in this angle he came tobay, protected on three sides and with
nothing to do but face the front. and so well did he face it, that at the endof half an hour the wolves drew back discomfited. the tongues of all were out and lolling,the white fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight. some were lying down with heads raised andears pricked forward; others stood on their feet, watching him; and still others werelapping water from the pool. one wolf, long and lean and gray, advancedcautiously, in a friendly manner, and buck recognized the wild brother with whom hehad run for a night and a day.
he was whining softly, and, as buck whined,they touched noses. then an old wolf, gaunt and battle-scarred,came forward. buck writhed his lips into the preliminaryof a snarl, but sniffed noses with him, whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointednose at the moon, and broke out the long wolf howl. the others sat down and howled.and now the call came to buck in unmistakable accents.he, too, sat down and howled. this over, he came out of his angle and thepack crowded around him, sniffing in half- friendly, half-savage manner.the leaders lifted the yelp of the pack and
sprang away into the woods. the wolves swung in behind, yelping inchorus. and buck ran with them, side by side withthe wild brother, yelping as he ran. and here may well end the story of buck. the years were not many when the yeehatsnoted a change in the breed of timber wolves; for some were seen with splashes ofbrown on head and muzzle, and with a rift of white centring down the chest. but more remarkable than this, the yeehatstell of a ghost dog that runs at the head of the pack.
they are afraid of this ghost dog, for ithas cunning greater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters, robbingtheir traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravest hunters. nay, the tale grows worse. hunters there are who fail to return to thecamp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen found with throats slashedcruelly open and with wolf prints about them in the snow greater than the prints ofany wolf. each fall, when the yeehats follow themovement of the moose, there is a certain valley which they never enter.
and women there are who become sad when theword goes over the fire of how the evil spirit came to select that valley for anabiding-place. in the summers there is one visitor,however, to that valley, of which the yeehats do not know.it is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. he crosses alone from the smiling timberland and comes down into an open space among the trees. here a yellow stream flows from rottedmoose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it andvegetable mould overrunning it and hiding
its yellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once, long andmournfully, ere he departs. but he is not always alone. when the long winter nights come on and thewolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the headof the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow ashe sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.
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