Chapter I. Into the Primitive

↑

Стр 1 из 7Следующая ⇒

Jack London. The Call of the Wild

Contents

I Into the PrimitiveII The Law of Club and FangIII The Dominant Primordial BeastIV Who Has Won to MastershipV The Toil of Trace and TailVI For the Love of a ManVII The Sounding of the Call

Jack London. The Call of the Wild

Contents

I Into the PrimitiveII The Law of Club and FangIII The Dominant Primordial BeastIV Who Has Won to MastershipV The Toil of Trace and TailVI For the Love of a ManVII The Sounding of the Call

Chapter I. Into the Primitive

"Old longings nomadic leap, Chafing at custom's chain; Again from its brumal sleep Wakens the ferine strain." Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known thattrouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from PugetSound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness,had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportationcompanies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushinginto the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs theywanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, andfurry coats to protect them from the frost. Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley.Judge Miller's place, it was called. It stood back from the road,half hidden among the trees, through which glimpses could becaught of the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides.The house was approached by gravelled driveways which wound aboutthrough wide-spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs oftall poplars. At the rear things were on even a more spaciousscale than at the front. There were great stables, where a dozengrooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages,an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors,green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was thepumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank whereJudge Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in thehot afternoon. And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, andhere he had lived the four years of his life. It was true, therewere other dogs, There could not but be other dogs on so vast aplace, but they did not count. They came and went, resided in thepopulous kennels, or lived obscurely in the recesses of the houseafter the fashion of Toots, the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, theMexican hairless,--strange creatures that rarely put nose out ofdoors or set foot to ground. On the other hand, there were the foxterriers, a score of them at least, who yelped fearful promises atToots and Ysabel looking out of the windows at them and protectedby a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops. But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realmwas his. He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting withthe Judge's sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge'sdaughters, on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintrynights he lay at the Judge's feet before the roaring library fire;he carried the Judge's grandsons on his back, or rolled them inthe grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild adventuresdown to the fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond, wherethe paddocks were, and the berry patches. Among the terriers hestalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, forhe was king,--king over all creeping, crawling, flying things ofJudge Miller's place, humans included. His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge'sinseparable companion, and Buck bid fair to follow in the way ofhis father. He was not so large,--he weighed only one hundred andforty pounds,--for his mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherddog. Nevertheless, one hundred and forty pounds, to which wasadded the dignity that comes of good living and universal respect,enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion. During thefour years since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a satedaristocrat; he had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifleegotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes become because oftheir insular situation. But he had saved himself by not becominga mere pampered house-dog. Hunting and kindred outdoor delightshad kept down the fat and hardened his muscles; and to him, as tothe cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and ahealth preserver. And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, whenthe Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozenNorth. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not knowthat Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirableacquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to playChinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besettingweakness--faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain.For to play a system requires money, while the wages of agardener's helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerousprogeny. The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, andthe boys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorablenight of Manuel's treachery. No one saw him and Buck go offthrough the orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll.And with the exception of a solitary man, no one saw them arriveat the little flag station known as College Park. This man talkedwith Manuel, and money chinked between them. "You might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'm," the strangersaid gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope aroundBuck's neck under the collar. "Twist it, an' you'll choke 'm plentee," said Manuel, and thestranger grunted a ready affirmative. Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it wasan unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men heknew, and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached hisown. But when the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger'shands, he growled menacingly. He had merely intimated hisdispleasure, in his pride believing that to intimate was tocommand. But to his surprise the rope tightened around his neck,shutting off his breath. In quick rage he sprang at the man, whomet him halfway, grappled him close by the throat, and with a defttwist threw him over on his back. Then the rope tightenedmercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lollingout of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never inall his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all hislife had he been so angry. But his strength ebbed, his eyesglazed, and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the twomen threw him into the baggage car. The next he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurtingand that he was being jolted along in some kind of a conveyance.The hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing told himwhere he was. He had travelled too often with the Judge not toknow the sensation of riding in a baggage car. He opened hiseyes, and into them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king.The man sprang for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him.His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they relax till his senseswere choked out of him once more. "Yep, has fits," the man said, hiding his mangled hand from thebaggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle."I'm takin' 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco. A crack dog-doctorthere thinks that he can cure 'm." Concerning that night's ride, the man spoke most eloquently forhimself, in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Franciscowater front. "All I get is fifty for it," he grumbled; "an' I wouldn't do itover for a thousand, cold cash." His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the righttrouser leg was ripped from knee to ankle. "How much did the other mug get?" the saloon-keeper demanded. "A hundred," was the reply. "Wouldn't take a sou less, so helpme." "That makes a hundred and fifty," the saloon-keeper calculated;"and he's worth it, or I'm a squarehead." The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at hislacerated hand. "If I don't get the hydrophoby--" "It'll be because you was born to hang," laughed the saloon-keeper. "Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight," headded. Dazed, suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with thelife half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face histormentors. But he was thrown down and choked repeatedly, tillthey succeeded in filing the heavy brass collar from off his neck.Then the rope was removed, and he was flung into a cagelike crate. There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing hiswrath and wounded pride. He could not understand what it allmeant. What did they want with him, these strange men? Why werethey keeping him pent up in this narrow crate? He did not knowwhy, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense of impendingcalamity. Several times during the night he sprang to his feetwhen the shed door rattled open, expecting to see the Judge, orthe boys at least. But each time it was the bulging face of thesaloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of atallow candle. And each time the joyful bark that trembled inBuck's throat was twisted into a savage growl. But the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four menentered and picked up the crate. More tormentors, Buck decided,for they were evil-looking creatures, ragged and unkempt; and hestormed and raged at them through the bars. They only laughed andpoked sticks at him, which he promptly assailed with his teethtill he realized that that was what they wanted. Whereupon he laydown sullenly and allowed the crate to be lifted into a wagon.Then he, and the crate in which he was imprisoned, began a passagethrough many hands. Clerks in the express office took charge ofhim; he was carted about in another wagon; a truck carried him,with an assortment of boxes and parcels, upon a ferry steamer; hewas trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot, andfinally he was deposited in an express car. For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at thetail of shrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buckneither ate nor drank. In his anger he had met the first advancesof the express messengers with growls, and they had retaliated byteasing him. When he flung himself against the bars, quiveringand frothing, they laughed at him and taunted him. They growledand barked like detestable dogs, mewed, and flapped their arms andcrowed. It was all very silly, he knew; but therefore the moreoutrage to his dignity, and his anger waxed and waxed. He did notmind the hunger so much, but the lack of water caused him severesuffering and fanned his wrath to fever-pitch. For that matter,high-strung and finely sensitive, the ill treatment had flung himinto a fever, which was fed by the inflammation of his parched andswollen throat and tongue. He was glad for one thing: the rope was off his neck. That hadgiven them an unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he wouldshow them. They would never get another rope around his neck.Upon that he was resolved. For two days and nights he neither atenor drank, and during those two days and nights of torment, heaccumulated a fund of wrath that boded ill for whoever first fellfoul of him. His eyes turned blood-shot, and he was metamorphosedinto a raging fiend. So changed was he that the Judge himselfwould not have recognized him; and the express messengers breathedwith relief when they bundled him off the train at Seattle. Four men gingerly carried the crate from the wagon into a small,high-walled back yard. A stout man, with a red sweater thatsagged generously at the neck, came out and signed the book forthe driver. That was the man, Buck divined, the next tormentor,and he hurled himself savagely against the bars. The man smiledgrimly, and brought a hatchet and a club. "You ain't going to take him out now?" the driver asked. "Sure," the man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for apry. There was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who hadcarried it in, and from safe perches on top the wall they preparedto watch the performance. Buck rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it,surging and wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on theoutside, he was there on the inside, snarling and growling, asfuriously anxious to get out as the man in the red sweater wascalmly intent on getting him out. "Now, you red-eyed devil," he said, when he had made an openingsufficient for the passage of Buck's body. At the same time hedropped the hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand. And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself togetherfor the spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter inhis blood-shot eyes. Straight at the man he launched his onehundred and forty pounds of fury, surcharged with the pent passionof two days and nights. In mid air, just as his jaws were aboutto close on the man, he received a shock that checked his body andbrought his teeth together with an agonizing clip. He whirledover, fetching the ground on his back and side. He had never beenstruck by a club in his life, and did not understand. With asnarl that was part bark and more scream he was again on his feetand launched into the air. And again the shock came and he wasbrought crushingly to the ground. This time he was aware that itwas the club, but his madness knew no caution. A dozen times hecharged, and as often the club broke the charge and smashed himdown. After a particularly fierce blow, he crawled to his feet, toodazed to rush. He staggered limply about, the blood flowing fromnose and mouth and ears, his beautiful coat sprayed and fleckedwith bloody slaver. Then the man advanced and deliberately dealthim a frightful blow on the nose. All the pain he had endured wasas nothing compared with the exquisite agony of this. With a roarthat was almost lionlike in its ferocity, he again hurled himselfat the man. But the man, shifting the club from right to left,coolly caught him by the under jaw, at the same time wrenchingdownward and backward. Buck described a complete circle in theair, and half of another, then crashed to the ground on his headand chest. For the last time he rushed. The man struck the shrewd blow hehad purposely withheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up and wentdown, knocked utterly senseless. "He's no slouch at dog-breakin', that's wot I say," one of the menon the wall cried enthusiastically. "Druther break cayuses any day, and twice on Sundays," was thereply of the driver, as he climbed on the wagon and started thehorses. Buck's senses came back to him, but not his strength. He laywhere he had fallen, and from there he watched the man in the redsweater. " 'Answers to the name of Buck,' " the man soliloquized, quotingfrom the saloon-keeper's letter which had announced theconsignment of the crate and contents. "Well, Buck, my boy," hewent on in a genial voice, "we've had our little ruction, and thebest thing we can do is to let it go at that. You've learned yourplace, and I know mine. Be a good dog and all 'll go well and thegoose hang high. Be a bad dog, and I'll whale the stuffin' outayou. Understand?" As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilesslypounded, and though Buck's hair involuntarily bristled at touch ofthe hand, he endured it without protest. When the man brought himwater he drank eagerly, and later bolted a generous meal of rawmeat, chunk by chunk, from the man's hand. He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, oncefor all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. Hehad learned the lesson, and in all his after life he never forgotit. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to thereign of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. Thefacts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced thataspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of hisnature aroused. As the days went by, other dogs came, in cratesand at the ends of ropes, some docilely, and some raging androaring as he had come; and, one and all, he watched them passunder the dominion of the man in the red sweater. Again andagain, as he looked at each brutal performance, the lesson wasdriven home to Buck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master tobe obeyed, though not necessarily conciliated. Of this last Buckwas never guilty, though he did see beaten dogs that fawned uponthe man, and wagged their tails, and licked his hand. Also he sawone dog, that would neither conciliate nor obey, finally killed inthe struggle for mastery. Now and again men came, strangers, who talked excitedly,wheedlingly, and in all kinds of fashions to the man in the redsweater. And at such times that money passed between them thestrangers took one or more of the dogs away with them. Buckwondered where they went, for they never came back; but the fearof the future was strong upon him, and he was glad each time whenhe was not selected. Yet his time came, in the end, in the form of a little weazenedman who spat broken English and many strange and uncouthexclamations which Buck could not understand. "Sacredam!" he cried, when his eyes lit upon Buck. "Dat one dambully dog! Eh? How moch?" "Three hundred, and a present at that," was the prompt reply ofthe man in the red sweater. "And seem' it's government money, youain't got no kick coming, eh, Perrault?" Perrault grinned. Considering that the price of dogs had beenboomed skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sumfor so fine an animal. The Canadian Government would be no loser,nor would its despatches travel the slower. Perrault knew dogs,and when he looked at Buck he knew that he was one in a thousand--"One in ten t'ousand," he commented mentally. Buck saw money pass between them, and was not surprised whenCurly, a good-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by thelittle weazened man. That was the last he saw of the man in thered sweater, and as Curly and he looked at receding Seattle fromthe deck of the Narwhal, it was the last he saw of the warmSouthland. Curly and he were taken below by Perrault and turnedover to a black-faced giant called Francois. Perrault was aFrench-Canadian, and swarthy; but Francois was a French-Canadianhalf-breed, and twice as swarthy. They were a new kind of men toBuck (of which he was destined to see many more), and while hedeveloped no affection for them, he none the less grew honestly torespect them. He speedily learned that Perrault and Francois werefair men, calm and impartial in administering justice, and toowise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs. In the 'tween-decks of the Narwhal, Buck and Curly joined twoother dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow fromSpitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, andwho had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens.He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one'sface the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, forinstance, when he stole from Buck's food at the first meal. AsBuck sprang to punish him, the lash of Francois's whip sangthrough the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remainedto Buck but to recover the bone. That was fair of Francois, hedecided, and the half-breed began his rise in Buck's estimation. The other dog made no advances, nor received any; also, he did notattempt to steal from the newcomers. He was a gloomy, morosefellow, and he showed Curly plainly that all he desired was to beleft alone, and further, that there would be trouble if he werenot left alone. "Dave" he was called, and he ate and slept, oryawned between times, and took interest in nothing, not even whenthe Narwhal crossed Queen Charlotte Sound and rolled and pitchedand bucked like a thing possessed. When Buck and Curly grewexcited, half wild with fear, he raised his head as thoughannoyed, favored them with an incurious glance, yawned, and wentto sleep again. Day and night the ship throbbed to the tireless pulse of thepropeller, and though one day was very like another, it wasapparent to Buck that the weather was steadily growing colder. Atlast, one morning, the propeller was quiet, and the Narwhal waspervaded with an atmosphere of excitement. He felt it, as did theother dogs, and knew that a change was at hand. Francois leashedthem and brought them on deck. At the first step upon the coldsurface, Buck's feet sank into a white mushy something very likemud. He sprang back with a snort. More of this white stuff wasfalling through the air. He shook himself, but more of it fellupon him. He sniffed it curiously, then licked some up on histongue. It bit like fire, and the next instant was gone. Thispuzzled him. He tried it again, with the same result. Theonlookers laughed uproariously, and he felt ashamed, he knew notwhy, for it was his first snow.

12 3 4 5 6 7 Следующая ⇒

Познавательные статьи:

Где возникла философия и почему?

Относительная высота сжатой зоны бетона

Сущность проекции Гаусса-Крюгера и использование ее в геодезии

Тарифы на перевозку пассажиров

Последнее изменение этой страницы: 2016-04-08; просмотров: 330; Нарушение авторского права страницы; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!

infopedia.su Все материалы представленные на сайте исключительно с целью ознакомления читателями и не преследуют коммерческих целей или нарушение авторских прав. Обратная связь - 216.73.217.128 (0.01 с.)