The Call of the Wild

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 that trouble
was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog,
strong
of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.
Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal,
and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the
find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men
wanted
dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by
which to toil, and furry 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 be caught of the wide
cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached
by
gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and
under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At the rear things were
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The Call of the Wild
even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great
stables,
where a dozen grooms 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 the
pumping
plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge
Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot
afternoon.
And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he
had lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were other
dogs, There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they
did
not count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or
lived
obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of Toots, the
Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless,--strange creatures that
rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground. On the other hand,
there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who yelped
fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of the windows at
them
and protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realm was
his.
He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the Judge's
sons;
he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's daughters, on long twilight
or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the Judge's feet
before the roaring library fire; he carried the Judge's grandsons on
his
back, or rolled them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through
wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and even
beyond, where the paddocks were, and the berry patches. Among the
terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly
ignored, for he was king,--king over all creeping, crawling, flying
things of Judge Miller's place, humans included.
His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge's inseparable
companion, and Buck bid fair to follow in the way of his father. He
was
not so large,--he weighed only one hundred and forty pounds,--for his
mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog. Nevertheless, one
hundred
and forty pounds, to which was added the dignity that comes of good
living and universal respect, enabled him to carry himself in right
royal fashion. During the four years since his puppyhood he had lived
the life of a sated aristocrat; he had a fine pride in himself, was
even
a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes become because of
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The Call of the Wild
their insular situation. But he had saved himself by not becoming a
mere
pampered house-dog. Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down
the fat and hardened his muscles; and to him, as to the cold-tubbing
races, the love of water had been a tonic and a health preserver.
And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when the
Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozen North.
But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know that Manuel,
one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel
had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in his
gambling, he had one besetting weakness--faith in a system; and this
made his damnation certain. For to play a system requires money, while
the wages of a gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of a wife
and
numerous progeny.
The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, and the
boys ...