Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted, sobbing for breath,
helpless. This was Spitz s opportunity. He sprang upon Buck, and twice
his teeth sank into his unresisting foe and ripped and tore the flesh
to the bone. Then Francois s lash descended, and Buck had the
satisfaction of watching Spitz receive the worst whipping as yet
administered to any of the teams.
One devil, dat Spitz, remarked Perrault. Some dam day heem keel dat
Buck.
Dat Buck two devils, was Francois s rejoinder. All de tam I watch
dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day heem get mad lak
hell an den heem chew dat Spitz all up an spit heem out on de snow.
Sure. I know.
From then on it was war between them. Spitz, as lead-dog and
acknowledged master of the team, felt his supremacy threatened by this
strange Southland dog. And strange Buck was to him, for of the many
Southland dogs he had known, not one had shown up worthily in camp and
on trail. They were all too soft, dying under the toil, the frost, and
starvation. Buck was the exception. He alone endured and prospered,
matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning. Then he was a
masterful dog, and what made him dangerous was the fact that the club
of the man in the red sweater had knocked all blind pluck and rashness
out of his desire for mastery. He was preeminently cunning, and could
bide his time with a patience that was nothing less than primitive.
It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buck
wanted it. He wanted it because it was his nature, because he had been
gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the trail and
trace that pride which holds dogs in the toil to the last gasp, which
lures them to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their hearts if
they are cut out of the harness. This was the pride of Dave as
wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with all his strength; the pride
that laid hold of them at break of camp, transforming them from sour
and sullen brutes into straining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride
that spurred them on all day and dropped them at pitch of camp at
night, letting them fall back into gloomy unrest and uncontent. This
was the pride that bore up Spitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who
blundered and shirked in the traces or hid away at harness-up time in
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