Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903)
Chapter 1: Into the Primitive
characters:
Buck - 4 yr. old dog, son of Elmo (a St. Bernard) and a Scotch Shepherd dog, 140 lbs
Toots - Japanese pug
Ysbabel - Mexican hairless
fox terriers
Mollie and Alice - Judge's daughters, Buck escorts on walks
Judge Miller
Judge's grandsons - ride on Buck's back
Elmo - Buck's father, a St. Bernard and the Judge's inseparable companion
Manuel - gardener's helper who loves to play Chinese lottery
kidnapper - paid $50 to transport Buck
saloon-keeper - on SF waterfront, talks to Buck's kidnapper
man in the red sweater - a dog breaker
Perrault - buys Buck to carry mail for the Canadian Government, french-canadian
Curly - good-natured Newfoundland Perrault buys along with Buck
Francois - Frenh-Canadian half-breed
Dave - gloomy, morose dog, unperturbed by surroundings
Spitz - white dog who cad been brought from Spitzbergen by a whaling captain and gone with a Geological Survey to the Barrens
setting:
Judge Miller's place, Santa Clara Valley
fall 1897 - Klondike gold strike is going on in the North
College Park - flag station where Manuel sells Buck
San Francisco - shed behind a saloon
express car to Seattle
Seattle - backyard of the man with the red sweater
Narwhal - ship that takes Buck to Canada
plot:
Buck spends the first four years of his life on Judge Miller's place in the Santa Clara Valley and rules over it. One day when the Judge is at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association Buck takes a walk with Manuel, the gardener's helper, to a little flag station called College Park. Manuel has a taste for the Chinese lottery that his wages will not support, and sells Buck for a hundred dollars. When Manuel puts a rope around Buck's neck and then hands it to the stranger, Buck growls and then attacks when the rope is tightened. The rope strangles Buck and he is senseless when they put him into the baggage car. He wakes up on the train ride and bites the man's arm before being strangled again. Buck's kidnapper leaves him in a crate at a San Francisco saloon, and the next morning he is picked up by four men and he moves from an express office to wagon to a truck and finally an express railway car where he does not eat or drink for two days.
Reaching Seattle, Buck is carried in his crate to the backyard of a man with a red sweater. Buck charges the man as soon as the crate is open, but learns that he cannot win against a man wielding a club. The man can pat Buck fearlessly and Buck drinks the water he brings and eats from his hand. Watching other dogs come through the dog breaker's yard, Buck learns that "a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed, though not necessarily conciliated." The narrator observes, "That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused."
Buck sees man come to buy dogs, and eventually he and another dog named Curly are bought by Perrault, who's buying mail dogs for the Canadian Govt. Although Buck develops no affection for them, Perrault and his partner Francois are fair. Buck is confused when he first sees snow, and onlookers laugh.
Chapter 2: The Law of Club and Fang
characters:
Billee - husky, Joe's brother, excessively good-natured
Joe - husky, Billee's brother, sour tempered
Sol-leks (Angry One) - lean and gaunt husky missing one eye
Pike - a new dog from whom Buck learns to steal Francois' beacon
Dub - always gets caught stealing
Dolly - last husky added to the team at Yea
setting:
Yea beach
up Yea Canyon trail. through Sheep Camp, past the Scales and the timber line, and over the Chilcoot Divide, and to a huge camp at the foot of Lake Bennet
plot:
Buck's first day at Yea beach is frightening - "He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial." He must be constantly alert among men and dogs "who knew no law but the law of club and fang." The dogs here fight like wolves, differently than any he has seen. He learns this when Curly is friendly toward a husky dog who strikes without warning and leaps away. A circle of dogs gathers around, and when the husky knocks curly from her feet they close in and kill her. Spitz laughs at Curly's death, and this makes Buck hate him.
Francois puts Buck in a harness and brings him to get firewood with Spitz as the leader and Dave as the wheeler. Between Francois' whip and the other two dogs' reprimands, Buck learns quickly. Francois brings Billee and Joe to the camp and then Sol-leks. Buck is not allowed in the tent and is unsure how to sleep in the cold until he falls into a hole Billee has dug to sleep in. Buck does the same for himself. Francois comments that Buck learns fast.
The next day, three more huskies are added to the team and they take the trail toward Yea Canyon with Dave as wheeler or sled dog, Buck in front of him and then Sol-leks, and the rest of the team single file ahead, led by Spitz. Buck is exhausted at the end of the day and, constantly hungry, learns to eat his food quickly to protect it from other dogs and to steal food when he can. "This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feeling; but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whosoever took such things into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper."
Buck's adjustments to his present environment are made for efficiency - "In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them." In addition to his learning from experience, Buck benefits from long dead instincts that reawaken. "Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged through him and he came into his own again; and he came because men had found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was a gardener's helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife and divers small copies of himself."
Chapter 3: The Dominant Primordial Beast
characters:
setting:
Trail to Dawson: Lake Le Barge, Thirty Mile River, the Pelly, Dawson
Trail to Yea and Salt Water: Yukon Trail, mouth of the Tahkeena
plot:
Although he hates Spitz, Buck deliberately avoids fighting with the other dog. Spitz, meanwhile, strives to start a fight that would end in one of their deaths. Early in the trip, at a miserable camping spot on Lake Le Barge, Spitz steals Buck's sleeping nest and the two are fighting when the camp is beset by four or five score of starving huskies. The huskies take all the food and injure all of the dogs, and Francois and Perrault worry about madness breaking out among their dogs. They are 400 miles from Dawson.
It takes them six days to cover the Thirty Mile River, with may close calls where Perrault or dogs fall through ice and have to be thawed by a fire. Buck's feet are softer than the other dogs, and they get so sore that Francois makes him four mocassins from the tops of his own. Eventually Buck's feet harden.
At the Pelly one morning, Dolly suddenly goes mad and chases Buck, who runs from her instinctively until Francois calls him back and after Buck rushes past him crashes an axe down on Dolly's head. Spitz takes advantage of Buck's exhaustion to attack him, and receives the severest whipping Francois has given. Buck and Spitz are now at war, with Buck subverting Spitz's leadership whenever he can by interfering with his disciplining of the other dogs. They reach Dawson without incident.
Seven days after arriving in Dawson, the team pulls out on the Yukon Trail for Yea and Salt Water carrying dispatches. The trail should be packed now and the police have left deposits of supplies along the trail to lighten their load, so Perrault hopes to make record time. The team does not pull as one like they used too, and Buck's encouragement of revolt has diminished Spitz's authority. The dogs, except for Dave and Sol-Leks who are unchanged, also fight more amongst themselves.
At the mouth of the Tahkeena Dub finds a snowshoe rabbit and the dogs give chase, joined by fifty Police dogs. While Buck chases the rabbit, Spitz cuts in front of it and kills it first. Buck attacks Spitz and knows instantly that it will be a fight to the death. Spitz is an experienced fighter and soon Buck is winded and bleeding, but he has imagination and is able to break Spitz's foreleg with his jaw after faking a rush. Buck breaks the other leg and then knocks Spitz down, and the pack descends on him.
Chapter 4: Who Has Won to Mastership
characters:
Teek - natuve husky added to the team at the Rink Rapids
Koona - native husky added to the team at the Rink Rapids
Scotch half-breed - new driver
setting:
Yukon trail from Dawson to Yea
plot:
When Francois brings Sol-leks to take Spitz's place at the lead, Buck attacks the other dog. Francois disciplines Buck and puts Sol-leks in the lead, but the old dog is afraid of Buck who drives him away again. Buck leaves Sol-leks alone when Francois shows him a club, but refuses to take Sol-leks old place, and Perrault and Francois chasing him costs the team an hour of travel time before Francois finally removes Sol-leks and gives Buck the spot at the front.
As lead dog, Buck shows himself to be superior even to Spitz, and he quickly has the team pulling better than before. They add two dogs to the team at Rink Rapids, and make the run to Skaguay in record time. Francois and Perrault enjoy their glory in the town for a few days, and then receive orders that leave the team in charge of a Scotch half-breed.
This time on the trail to Dawson the team, along with a dozen other dog teams, takes the main road and carries a heavy load. Buck estabishes his dominance in the new larger group. Sitting by the fire at night he remembers Judge Miller's only dimly, and sometimes instead of the half-breed by the fire sees a more primative man "shorter of leg and longer of arm, with muscles that were stringy and knotty . . . about his body there was a peculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike, and a quick alertness as of one who lived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen."
The dogs were in poor condition when they reached Dawson but turned around again in bad weather after only two days. The work is hard but the drivers do their best to take care of the dogs. Dave becomes ill and the drivers are unable to find what's wrong. He is falling repeatedly by the time they reach Cassiar Bar, he is so weak the driver takes him from the harness and puts Sol-leks in his spot. Dave does not like to be taken from his spot and refuses to run quietly behind the sled. The drivers recall dogs who could break their hearts when denied the work that would kill them, and after Buck chews away Sol-Lek's traces to take his place, he is allowed to pull with his team. The next day Dave is too weak to stand, and the driver returns to shoot him after taking the team out of sight.
Chapter 5: The Toil of Trace and Trail
characters:
Hal - from the States, about 20 yrs, he and Charles out of place here
Charles - from the states, middle-aged, light, weak watery eyes and a drooping lip, out of place
Mercedes - Charles's wife, Hal's sister
Indian woman - trades Hal some frozen horse hide for his gun
John Thorton - warns Hal against continuing on the trail, saves Buck
setting:
Skaguay, trail toward Dawson, John Thorton's camp at White River
plot:
The team reaches Skaguay in bad shape after thirty days, but the mail to and from those who have rushed into the Klondike is piling up, and the couriers have their orders to sell the dogs and leave again with a fresh batch of Hudson Bay dogs. Buck's team is bought for a song by two men "Hal" and "Charles" who seem out of place in the North. Arriving at the new owners' camp, Buck finds it slovenly.
Charles, Hal and Mercedes are inefficient and unskilled at packing, and some men from a neighboring tent advise them to leave the tent behind. The men try to give some cautionary advice about the load, but are rebuffed. The dogs strain hard for a few minutes to move the load when Charles asks, but it is too heavy. Charles is going to beat the dogs but Mercedes protests, and when Charles turns to the onlookers for affirmation they say that the dogs are tired out and need a rest. Hal rejects this idea and whips the dogs, Mercedes interferes, and an onlooker suggests that the men can help by breaking out the sled for the dogs. The load tips on a steep slope after 100 yards, and the dogs run around until they are caught and returned.
Citizens advise the travelers to take half the load and twice the dogs, and help to overhaul the outfit. Charles and Hal buy six Outside dogs, bringing the number to 14, which it more dogs than a sled can carry food for. Hal hastens this problem by overfeeding, and Mercedes still more by feeding the dogs on the sly. They make only 10 miles a day because of the humans' inefficiency, but the heavy load tires the dogs quickly. Hal cuts the dogs' food ration when he realizes it is half gone with only 1/4 the distance covered and tries to increase the distance they cover each day, but the dogs are tired and dying off (first Dub with his untreated and wrenched shoulder and then the outside dogs not used to getting by on little food) and the family is unable to learn to be efficient.
They quarrel: "Starting from a dispute as to which should chop a few sticks for fire (a dispute which concerned only Charles and Hal), presently would be lugged in the rest of the family, fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, people thousands of miles away, and some of them dead." Mercedes has been used to chivalrous treatment and, tired, sore, resenting her current predicament, insists on riding in the sled. At Five Fingers the food gives out and Hal trades his revolver for a few pounds of frozen horsehide that's hard for the dogs to digest. The dogs are walking skeletons. Billee falls and is killed and cut from the traces. Koona dies next and only Joe, Pike, Sol-leks, Teek and Buck remain.
They arrive at John Thorton's camp at White River in a sorry state. John recognizes their type, and gives advice certain that it will be ignored. Thorton warns that the bottom will fall out of the trail, and adviseWhen Hal, ignoring John Thorton's advice, tries to rouse the dogs to pull, Buck has decided not to get up. Hal is beating Buck to death when John Thorton stops him, threatening to kill Hal if he hits the dog again.
A search of Buck's body reveals no broken bones, and when the sled is a quarter of a mile away Buck and John Thorton watch the sled disappear, hear Mercedes scream, and see Charles take a step back and then disappear. The bottom had fallen out of the trail in the Sping weather, just as John Thorton had warned.
Chapter 6: For The Love of a Man
characters:
Skeet - Irish setter, Buck's self-appointed nurse
Nig - black bloodhound/deerhound
Hans - John Thorton's partner
Pete - John Thorton's partner
"Black" Burton - Buck attacks for striking John Thorton
Mathewson - Bonanza king
Jim O'Brien - Mastodon king
Skookum Bench king
setting:
Circle CIty
Forty Mile Creek
Eldorado Saloon, Dawson
plot:
John Thorton has been left by his partners to get well after freezing his feet the previous December. Buck gets better and plays with John Thorton and his two dogs Skeet and Nig. Buck loves John Thorton, who has saved his life and is also the ideal master, taking care of the dogs as though they are his children. John Thorton calls Buck bad names lovingly while shaking his head back and forth, and Buck expresses his love for Thorton by holding the man's hand hard in his mouth. Unlike Skeet and Nig who seek to be near John Thorton, Buck adores him from a distance.
"But in spite of this great love he bore John Thorton, which seemed to bespeak the soft civilizing influence, the strain of the primitive, which the Northland had aroused in him, remained alive and active. Faithfulnes and devotion, things born of fire and roof, were his; yet he retained his wildness and willingness." Buck gets along well with Skeet and Nig, but other dogs quickly acknowledge his mastery or found themselves struggling for their lives with a merciless foe. "Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstanding made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down from the depths of Time, he obeyed."
Buck stays with John Thorton but "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 Thorton drew him back to the fire again." Buck is indifferent to other men, and refuses to notice Thorton's partners Hans and Pete until he understands that they are close to Thorton. Buck is fiercely loyal to Thorton, and will do anything he asks.
At Circle City that same year, John Thorton intervenes in a fight "Black" Burton is picking with a tenderfoot, and Burton strikes at him without warning. Buck dives straight for the man's throat and wounds him badly. He is cleared of the charge and his fame secured when a miner's meeting decides that he has sufficient provocation.
Later that year, an accident lands Thorton in the river out of his boat, and Buck swims to where Thorton grabs his tail and drags his master to a rock where he can cling. Thorton orders Buck back to the shore, and Hans and Pete attach a rope and send Buck back out. Buck miscalculates the strength of the current on his first try, and Hans snubs with the rope as though Buck were a boat, dragging him back to shore. Hans and Pete pound the breath back into Buck, and Thorton's weak voice brings him to his feet. He calculates better this time, and when the current rams him into Thorton the man wraps his arms around the dog's neck and the two are dragged to shore. Pete and Hans revive Thorton, who finds that Buck has three broken ribs. They camp there until Buck is better.
That winter at Dawson, John Thorton brags that Buck can start a thousand pound load, break it out, and walk off with it a hundred yards. The Bonanza king Mathewson bets a thousand dollars that Buck can't. Thorton borrows the money from Jim O'Brien, and another six hundred from Hans and Pete at three-to-one odds. A man who made money at Skookum Benches offers $800 for Buck. Thorton says, "As you love me, Buck. As you love me." Buck accomplishes the feat to much cheering and Thorton responds to the Skookum Bench king's offers of $1000 and $1200 that he can go to hell.
Chapter 7: The Sounding of the Call
characters:
wild brother - timber wolf that befriends Buck
Yeehats - Indigenous tribe, kill Hans, Pete and John Thorton
setting:
search for a lost mine to the east - trail 70 miles up the Yukon, left into the Stewart River, past the Mayo and the McQuestion, and threading the peaks that form the backbone of the continent
plot:
Buck earned John Thorton 1600 dollars by pulling the sled, and made it possible for he and his partners to pay off debts and head east after a fabled mine. They travel hunting their food as they travel for months. The second spring, the men come to a place where each day's panning for gold earns a thousand dollars. There is little for Buck to do, and as he sits by the fire he wanders with the vision of the short-legged primitive man into "that other world which he remembered."
One night Buck wakes to a sound he knows "in the old familiar way, as a sound heard before" and finds a lean timber wolf. The timber wolf flees and snarls at Buck, but Buck does not attack and makes friendly advances and the wolf finally accepts him, and the two run together side by side. Buck, remembering John Thorton, finally turns around, and the wolf runs with him whining for about an hour then howls and continues on his way. Buck stays in camp for two days and nights and then begins to sleep out again, looking for the wolf. Buck kills a bear and then two of the wolverines he finds feasting on it. He feels pride and the desire to hunt. Buck marches in the camp and the men admire him, and as soon as he is in the forest he becomes a wild predator.
In the fall, Buck stalks kills a bull moose that has an arrow in its flank. The herd, knowing only one of them must die, leaves the injured bull. Buck does not leave his prey, wearing him down and attacking him when he tries to eat or drink. Buck senses another kind of life coming to the forest along with the moose and decides to investigate it when his kill is done. Buck kills the moose on the fourth day and remained by it for a day and a night eating and sleeping.
As he returns to the camp Buck is even more aware of the new presence in the forest, and he finds Nig's body dead from arrow shots and another dog in his death struggle, then sees Hans dead and full of arrows. Buck attacks the Yeehats savagely, ripping out the throat of their chief and then another man as they shoot and spear one another in confusion and finally flee claiming to have fled the Evil Spirit. He finds Skeet dead at the water's edge into which John Thorton's scent disappears. He feels a void at the loss of John Thorton and also pride at having killed the Yeehats and knows that man is powerless without their arrows, spears and clubs.
The wolves are following the same herd of moose as the Yeehats, and after a vicious fight with individuals and then the whole pack until the wild brother he had run with and then an older wolf sniff noses with him, and he becomes their leader. Soon the Yeehats note a change in the timber wolves, who have splashes of brown on the head and muzzle and a rift of white down the chest, and they tell of a Ghost Dog who leads the pack. They never enter the valley where they had first encountered Buck, although Buck returns there each summer, perhaps with his pack, and howls mournfully before departing.