From that moment on, both night and day, Buck constantly stalks his prey, in a relentless manner, never permitting it to relax. At the end of the fourth day, Buck finally pulls the great moose down, and after enjoying the kill, he feels refreshed and renewed and decides to find John Thornton's camp. London's purpose in having Buck kill the wolverines and his stalking and killing the moose is to let the reader know that Buck has now totally mastered the ways of the wilderness; from now on, Buck will be able to survive in the wild without any help from human beings.
Returning to camp, Buck discovers a fresh trail which creates suspicion in him. Thus, he approaches the camp with a great deal of caution; there, he finds Nig, one of Thornton's dogs, lying dead from an arrow's poisoning. Farther on, Buck finds another of Thornton's dogs dead. Creeping cautiously on his belly, Buck finds the camp in shambles, and for the last time in his life he allows passion to usurp cunning and reason" — all because of his great love for John Thornton.
Suddenly, he sees the reason for the bloody chaos: the Yeehats, a band of ferocious Indians. Without caution, he begins to attack one Indian after another, tearing out their throats. His newly untamed ferocity continues until all of the Yeehats are seized with panic and flee in terror, thinking that they have seen the Great Evil Spirit.
Buck pursues the Indians briefly, then returns to the camp, where he finds Pete dead in his blankets and then he discovers Thornton's body half-submerged in water. As Buck surveys the carnage of the camp, he realizes a strange 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. When Buck attacked, the men fled in terror. And now that John Thornton is dead, Buck has no more ties with civilization.
So, as Buck stands in the center of the camp site, a great open space, he realizes that all of his ties to civilization are broken, and he hears again "the many-noted call of the wild," which sounds more luring and compelling than ever before. When a pack of wolves moves close to the camp, one of the large wolves attempts to attack Buck, and the wolf is immediately killed.
Three others attack and withdraw, streaming with blood from slashed shoulders and throats. The entire pack, then, pins Buck down so that he cannot escape, and he is forced to fight the entire pack alone.
At this point, one of the wolves advances cautiously, and in a friendly manner, he touches his nose to Buck's. It is the wolf that Buck had run with earlier. Buck has now become a member of the wolf pack, and, as London says, he "ran with them side by side.
London closes the novel by telling us that Buck becomes mythic in proportion, and a legend spreads from generation to generation. The rumor becomes so widespread, in fact, that the valley where Buck first encountered the Yeehats becomes known as the home of the Great Evil Spirit, and no one dares to approach that valley. Furthermore, over the years, Buck creates a new breed of animal — marked with light patches of hair, which is, of course, inherited from Buck.
Buck has truly answered the call of the wild; the civilized animal has become the leader of a pack of wolves. Buck does not hesitate to act; he swims out to Thornton, who knows that they are not strong enough to conquer the turbulent rapids. Thus he orders Buck back to the shore, and even though Buck hates to desert his master, he nevertheless obeys Thornton's commands.
Once on shore, Hans and Pete tie a long rope to Buck's collar and send him back into the water with it. Buck launches boldly out into the stream, but finds that he cannot travel straight enough, and he misses Thornton by only a few yards. Again, he returns to shore, where the rope is once again attached to him.
There, they discover that Buck has two broken ribs, and Thornton announces that they will not break camp until Buck's ribs are fully healed. A third episode concerning Buck's extraordinary character occurs sometime later, and it is such a feat that Buck's fame spreads throughout all Alaska. It begins in a saloon, where some men are boasting of the exploits of their dogs.
Thornton is intrigued and is driven to maintain that Buck can pull a sled with a thousand pounds on it. Furthermore, he says, Buck can break the sled loose — even if it is frozen fast — and, furthermore, that he can pull it a hundred yards. A man named Matthewson bets Thornton that Buck cannot do such an incredible feat; in fact, he is willing to bet a thousand dollars that Buck cannot do it. Thornton, at this point, momentarily becomes unsure whether or not Buck can actually perform such an enormous and appalling task, and he is confused as to what to do, since neither he, nor Hans, nor Pete has a thousand dollars.
At that moment, however, an old friend of Thornton's, Jim O'Brien, walks into the saloon and offers to lend Thornton a thousand dollars. The bet is on, and all of the occupants of the town pour into the streets, the men all placing great odds that Buck cannot budge the sled. When it is discovered that the sled's runners are, in fact, frozen to the ice, and Thornton is not able to break the sled loose, the odds soar tremendously.
Matthewson, however, offers to increase his wager by another thousand — at three to one odds — but Thornton, Hans and Pete are able to raise only two hundred dollars, which they bet against Matthewson's six hundred. As the contest is about to begin, John Thornton kneels beside Buck's head, whispering quiet statements of endearment: "As you love me, Buck. As you love me. But one of Buck's feet slips, and he suddenly falls down in the snow.
And Buck was merciless. He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death. He had lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the police and mail, and knew there was no middle course. He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness.
Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed. He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn. He linked the past with the present, and the eternity behind him throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tides and seasons swayed.
So peremptorily did these shades beckon him, that each day mankind and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. 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.
But as often as he gained the soft unbroken earth and the green shade, the love for John Thornton drew him back to the fire again. Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing. Chance travellers might praise or pet him; but he was cold under it all, and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away.
They were of the same large type as Thornton, living close to the earth, thinking simply and seeing clearly; and ere they swung the raft into the big eddy by the saw-mill at Dawson, they understood Buck and his ways, and did not insist upon an intimacy such as obtained with Skeet and Nig. For Thornton, however, his love seemed to grow and grow. Nothing was too great for Buck to do, when Thornton commanded. One day they had grub-staked themselves from the proceeds of the raft and left Dawson for the head-waters of the Tanana the men and dogs were sitting on the crest of a cliff which fell away, straight down, to naked bed-rock three hundred feet below.
John Thornton was sitting near the edge, Buck at his shoulder. A thoughtless whim seized Thornton, and he drew the attention of Hans and Pete to the experiment he had in mind. The next instant he was grappling with Buck on the extreme edge, while Hans and Pete were dragging them back into safety. Thornton shook his head.
Do you know, it sometimes makes me afraid. Burton struck out, without warning, straight from the shoulder. Thornton was sent spinning, and saved himself from falling only by clutching the rail of the bar. The man saved his life by instinctively throwing out his arm, but was hurled backward to the floor with Buck on top of him.
Buck loosed his teeth from the flesh of the arm and drove in again for the throat. This time the man succeeded only in partly blocking, and his throat was torn open. Then the crowd was upon Buck, and he was driven off; but while a surgeon checked the bleeding, he prowled up and down, growling furiously, attempting to rush in, and being forced back by an array of hostile clubs.
But his reputation was made, and from that day his name spread through every camp in Alaska. The three partners were lining a long and narrow poling-boat down a bad stretch of rapids on the Forty-Mile Creek.
Hans and Pete moved along the bank, snubbing with a thin Manila rope from tree to tree, while Thornton remained in the boat, helping its descent by means of a pole, and shouting directions to the shore.
Buck, on the bank, worried and anxious, kept abreast of the boat, his eyes never off his master. At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged rocks jutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and, while Thornton poled the boat out into the stream, ran down the bank with the end in his hand to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge. This it did, and was flying down-stream in a current as swift as a mill-race, when Hans checked it with the rope and checked too suddenly.
The boat flirted over and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, while Thornton, flung sheer out of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wild water in which no swimmer could live. Buck had sprung in on the instant; and at the end of three hundred yards, amid a mad swirl of water, he overhauled Thornton.
When he felt him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all his splendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progress down-stream amazingly rapid.
From below came the fatal roaring where the wild current went wilder and was rent in shreds and spray by the rocks which thrust through like the teeth of an enormous comb.
The suck of the water as it took the beginning of the last steep pitch was frightful, and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. He scraped furiously over a rock, bruised across a second, and struck a third with crushing force. Buck could not hold his own, and swept on down-stream, struggling desperately, but unable to win back. He swam powerfully and was dragged ashore by Pete and Hans at the very point where swimming ceased to be possible and destruction began.
They knew that the time a man could cling to a slippery rock in the face of that driving current was a matter of minutes, and they ran as fast as they could up the bank to a point far above where Thornton was hanging on. He struck out boldly, but not straight enough into the stream. He discovered the mistake too late, when Thornton was abreast of him and a bare half-dozen strokes away while he was being carried helplessly past. Hans promptly snubbed with the rope, as though Buck were a boat.
The rope thus tightening on him in the sweep of the current, he was jerked under the surface, and under the surface he remained till his body struck against the bank and he was hauled out.
He was half drowned, and Hans and Pete threw themselves upon him, pounding the breath into him and the water out of him. He staggered to his feet and fell down.
Again the rope was attached and he was launched, and again he struck out, but this time straight into the stream. He had miscalculated once, but he would not be guilty of it a second time. Hans paid out the rope, permitting no slack, while Pete kept it clear of coils. Buck held on till he was on a line straight above Thornton; then he turned, and with the speed of an express train headed down upon him.
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