Call of the Wild Chapter 7

And women there are who become sad when the word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit came to select that valley for an abiding-place.

There was life abroad in it different from the life which had been there throughout the summer.

And now the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents.

Life streamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it seemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and put forth generously over the world.

When Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back, a snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharging its pent magnetism at the contact.

A carnivorous animal, living on a straight meat diet, he was in full flower, at the high tide of his life, over-spilling with vigor and virility.

He broke into the long easy lope, and went on, hour after hour, never at loss for the tangled way, heading straight home through strange country with a certitude of direction that put man and his magnetic needle to shame.

Death, as a cessation of movement, as a passing out and away from the lives of the living, he knew, and he knew John Thornton was dead.

He took to standing for long periods, with nose to the ground and dejected ears dropped limply; and Buck found more time in which to get water for himself and in which to rest.

As for Buck, wearying of the pursuit, he returned to the desolated camp.

Every part, brain and body, nerve tissue and fiber, was keyed to the most exquisite pitch; and between all the parts there was a perfect equilibrium or adjustment.

It was a fateful day for the Yeehats.

He would run till Buck's head was even with his flank, when he would whirl around at bay, only to dash away again at the first opportunity.

He followed, with wild leapings, in a frenzy to overtake.

He made it clear to Buck that he was to come, and they ran side by side through the somber twilight, straight up the creek bed, into the gorge from which it issued, and across the bleak divide where it took its rise.

He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived.

And truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels and dragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees.

To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, and indefinite wandering through strange places.

In point of fact the three actions of perceiving, determining, and responding were sequential; but so infinitesimal were the intervals of time between them that they appeared simultaneous.

He would be lying in camp, dozing lazily in the heat of the day, when suddenly his head would lift and his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he would spring to his feet and dash away, and on and on, for hours, through the forest aisles and across the open spaces where the niggerheads bunched.

But no living man had looted this treasure house, and the dead were dead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buck and half a dozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achieve where men and dogs as good as themselves had failed.

In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wild fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life--only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.

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 tree-tops.

There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling of meat now and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musing by the fire.

He was oppressed with a sense of calamity happening, if it were not calamity already happened, and as he crossed the last watershed and dropped down into the valley toward camp, he proceeded with greater caution.

Every movement advertised commingled threatening and overture of friendliness.

There is a patience of the wild--dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself--that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its 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 bull mad with helpless rage.

From the bull's side, just forward of the flank, protruded a feathered arrow-end, which accounted for his savageness.

He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived.

Buck had already dragged down a stray part-grown calf; but he wished strongly for larger and more formidable quarry, and he came upon it one day on the divide at the head of the creek.

Buck's restlessness came back on him, and he was haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling land beyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide forest stretches.

One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrils quivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves.

One night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrils quivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves.

As the fall of the year came on, the moose appeared in greater abundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and less rigorous valleys.

In point of fact the three actions of perceiving, determining, and responding were sequential; but so infinitesimal were the intervals of time between them that they appeared simultaneous.

The pool itself, muddy and discolored from the 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.

He made it clear to Buck that he was to come, and they ran side by side through the somber twilight, straight up the creek bed, into the gorge from which it issued, and across the bleak divide where it took its rise.

Buck hurried on, swiftly and stealthily, every nerve straining and tense, alert to the multitudinous details which told a story--all but the end.

Then he stood, without movement, as before, the stricken wolf rolling in agony behind him.

For a day at a time he would lie in the underbrush where he could watch the partridges drumming and strutting up and down.

But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called--called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.

The news of it was borne in upon him, not by sight, or sound, or smell, but by some other and subtler sense.

Sometimes he pursued the call into the forest, looking for it as though it were a tangible thing, barking softly or defiantly, as the mood might dictate.

For the last time in his life he allowed passion to usurp cunning and reason, and it was because of his great love for John Thornton that he lost his head.

In fact, he seemed as much at home among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories of nights of vigil spent beneath the trees wherein the hairy man roosted, holding on tightly as he slept.

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 as keenly as Buck.

His muscles were surcharged with vitality, and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs.

There was no withstanding him.

Buck's restlessness came back on him, and he was haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling land beyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide forest stretches.