fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it
with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused. As the days went by,
other dogs came, in crates and at the ends of ropes, some docilely, and
some raging and roaring as he had come; and, one and all, he watched
them pass under the dominion of the man in the red sweater. Again and
again, as he looked at each brutal performance, the lesson was driven
home to Buck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed,
though not necessarily conciliated. Of this last Buck was never guilty,
though he did see beaten dogs that fawned upon the man, and wagged
their tails, and licked his hand. Also he saw one dog, that would
neither conciliate nor obey, finally killed in the struggle for
mastery.
Now and again men came, strangers, who talked excitedly, wheedlingly,
and in all kinds of fashions to the man in the red sweater. And at such
times that money passed between them the strangers took one or more of
the dogs away with them. Buck wondered where they went, for they never
came back; but the fear of the future was strong upon him, and he was
glad each time when he was not selected.
Yet his time came, in the end, in the form of a little weazened man who
spat broken English and many strange and uncouth exclamations which
Buck could not understand.
Sacredam! he cried, when his eyes lit upon Buck. Dat one dam bully
dog! Eh? How moch?
Three hundred, and a present at that, was the prompt reply of the man
in the red sweater. And seem it s government money, you ain t got no
kick coming, eh, Perrault?
Perrault grinned. Considering that the price of dogs had been boomed
skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum for 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 when Curly, a
good-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the little weazened
9