Chapter I. Into the Primitive

*Old longings nomadic leap,
Chafing at custom's chain;
Again from its brumal sleep
Wakens the ferine strain.*

Buck didn't read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was coming—not just for him, but for every strong, thick-coated dog living along the coast from Puget Sound to San Diego. Men digging in the darkness of the Arctic had found gold, and steamship and transportation companies were advertising the discovery everywhere. Thousands of men were rushing north to find their fortune. These men needed dogs—big, muscular dogs that could work hard and had thick fur to survive the freezing cold.

Buck lived in a large house in California's sunny Santa Clara Valley, a place known as Judge Miller's estate. The house sat back from the road, half-hidden by trees, with glimpses of a wide, shaded porch wrapping around all four sides visible through the branches. Gravel driveways curved through spreading lawns and beneath tall, overlapping poplar trees. The back of the property was even grander than the front: huge stables staffed by a dozen grooms and stable boys, rows of vine-covered servants' cottages, endless neatly arranged outbuildings, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. There was also a pump house for the artesian well (a well where water rises naturally from underground pressure) and a large cement pool where the Judge's sons swam each morning and cooled off on hot afternoons.

Buck ruled over this entire estate. He had been born here and had lived here all four years of his life. True, other dogs lived on the property too—a place this large couldn't help but have several—but they didn't matter much. They came and went, living in the crowded kennels or staying hidden away inside the house, like Toots the Japanese pug or Ysabel the Mexican hairless dog—odd little creatures that rarely stepped outside or touched the ground. Then there were the fox terriers, at least twenty of them, who barked fierce threats at Toots and Ysabel through the windows, protected by an army of maids armed with brooms and mops.

But Buck was neither a house dog nor a kennel dog. The whole estate belonged to him. He dove into the swimming pool or went hunting with the Judge's sons; he walked with Mollie and Alice, the Judge's daughters, on long evening or early morning strolls; on winter nights he lay at the Judge's feet in front of the roaring fireplace in the library; he carried the Judge's grandsons on his back or rolled around with them in the grass, watching over them through their wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard and even farther, to the paddocks and berry patches. He strutted among the terriers like a king, and completely ignored Toots and Ysabel—because he was king, ruling over every creature on Judge Miller's land, humans included.

His father, Elmo, a massive St. Bernard, had been the Judge's constant companion, and Buck seemed destined to follow in his father's footsteps. Buck wasn't quite as large—he weighed only one hundred and forty pounds—because his mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog. Still, one hundred and forty pounds, combined with the confidence that comes from good living and everyone's respect, let him carry himself like true royalty. For four years, since puppyhood, he had lived like a pampered aristocrat. He was proud of himself, even a bit full of himself, the way country gentlemen sometimes become when they're isolated from the wider world. But he'd saved himself from becoming a soft, spoiled house pet. Hunting and other outdoor activities had kept him lean and built up his muscles; and like people who take cold baths for their health, he loved swimming, which kept him strong and fit.

This was the kind of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when news of gold strikes in the Klondike pulled men from all over the world into the frozen North. But Buck didn't read newspapers, and he had no idea that Manuel, one of the gardener's assistants, was someone to avoid. Manuel had one major flaw: he loved playing a gambling game called Chinese lottery. Worse, he believed he had figured out a winning system—a belief that sealed his fate, since playing any system requires money, and a gardener's assistant's wages barely covered the needs of his wife and many children.

On the fateful night of Manuel's betrayal, the Judge was away at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, and the boys were busy setting up an athletic club. No one noticed Manuel and Buck walking through the orchard—a walk Buck assumed was just an ordinary stroll. And except for one man waiting there, no one saw them arrive at the small train stop called College Park. This stranger spoke with Manuel, and money changed hands between them.

"You might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'em," the stranger said roughly, and Manuel looped a thick piece of rope around Buck's neck, tucking it under his collar.

"Twist it, and you'll choke him plenty," Manuel said, and the stranger grunted in agreement.

Buck accepted the rope calmly, with dignity. It was unusual, certainly, but he had learned to trust people he knew and to assume they were wiser than he was. However, when the ends of the rope passed into the stranger's hands, Buck growled a warning. He believed that simply showing his displeasure would be enough—that his pride alone commanded obedience. But to his shock, the rope suddenly tightened around his neck, cutting off his air. Furious, he lunged at the man, who met him head-on, grabbed him by the throat, and with a quick twist threw him onto his back. Then the rope pulled mercilessly tight while Buck struggled desperately, his tongue hanging out and his chest heaving uselessly for breath. Never in his life had he been treated so brutally, and never had he felt such rage. But his strength drained away, his eyes glazed over, and he lost consciousness just as the train stopped and the two men threw him into the baggage car.

The next thing Buck knew, his tongue ached and he was being jolted around inside some kind of vehicle. The harsh whistle of a train at a crossing told him where he was. He had traveled with the Judge often enough to recognize the feeling of riding in a baggage car. He opened his eyes, filled with the fury of a captured king. The man lunged for his throat, but Buck moved faster, clamping his jaws down on the man's hand and refusing to let go until he blacked out again.

"Yep, he has fits," the man told the baggage handler, who had come to investigate the sounds of the struggle, all while hiding his torn-up hand. "I'm bringing him to my boss in San Francisco. There's a good dog doctor there who thinks he can fix him up."

Later that night, the man described the journey in vivid detail while standing in a small shed behind a saloon on the San Francisco waterfront.

"All I'm getting is fifty dollars for this," he complained. "I wouldn't do it again for a thousand, cash up front."

His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and his right pant leg was torn open from knee to ankle.

"How much did the other guy get?" the saloon owner asked.

"A hundred," came the answer. "Wouldn't take a cent less, I swear."

"That's a hundred fifty total," the saloon owner calculated. "And he's worth every penny, or I don't know dogs."

The kidnapper unwrapped the bloody bandage and examined his torn hand. "If I don't catch rabies from this—"

"If you do, it'll be because you were born to hang anyway," the saloon owner laughed. "Here, help me with this before you take off," he added.

Dazed and in agonizing pain from his throat and tongue, half-strangled, Buck tried to fight back against his tormentors. But they threw him down and choked him again and again until they managed to file off the heavy brass collar around his neck. Then they removed the rope and shoved him into a cage-like crate.

He spent the rest of that miserable night there, nursing his anger and wounded pride. He couldn't understand any of it. What did these strange men want from him? Why were they keeping him locked in this cramped box? He didn't know the reason, but he felt weighed down by a vague sense that something terrible was coming. Several times that night, when the shed door rattled open, he jumped to his feet, hoping to see the Judge or at least the boys. But each time, it was only the saloon owner's round face peering in by the dim light of a candle. And each time, the joyful bark rising in Buck's throat turned into a savage growl instead.

The saloon owner left him alone, though, and in the morning four men came in and lifted the crate. More tormentors, Buck decided—they looked rough and shabby, and he snarled and raged at them through the bars. They just laughed and poked sticks at him, which he immediately attacked with his teeth, until he realized that was exactly the reaction they wanted. So he lay down, sullen and defeated, and let them load the crate onto a wagon.

From there, Buck and his prison crate passed through many hands. Clerks at a shipping office took charge of him; another wagon carried him around; a truck hauled him, along with a mix of boxes and packages, onto a ferry; then he was carted off the ferry into a massive train station, and finally loaded into a train car meant for freight.

For two days and nights, this freight car rattled along behind screeching locomotives, and for two days and nights, Buck neither ate nor drank. Angry, he had met the first attempts of the train workers to approach him with growls, and they responded by teasing him mercilessly. When he threw himself against the bars, shaking and foaming at the mouth, they laughed and mocked him. They growled and barked back at him like awful dogs, meowed like cats, flapped their arms, and crowed like roosters. He knew it was ridiculous, but that only made it more insulting to his pride, and his anger grew and grew. He didn't mind the hunger so much, but going without water caused him real suffering and pushed his fury to a boiling point. Given how sensitive and high-strung he naturally was, the mistreatment brought on a fever, made worse by his swollen, parched throat and tongue.

At least one thing gave him comfort: the rope was gone from his neck. That rope had given his captors an unfair edge, but now that it was off, he vowed they would never get another one around his neck again. For two days and nights he refused all food and water, and through that torment he built up a store of rage that spelled danger for whoever crossed him first. His eyes turned bloodshot, and he transformed into something like a raging monster. He changed so much that even the Judge wouldn't have recognized him, and the train workers felt real relief when they finally unloaded him at Seattle.

Four men carefully carried the crate from the wagon into a small, high-walled yard behind a building. A heavy-set man wearing a red sweater that sagged loosely at the neck came out and signed the delivery paperwork for the driver. Buck sensed immediately that this man was his next tormentor, and he threw himself violently against the bars. The man just smiled coldly and went to fetch a hatchet and a club.

"You aren't going to let him out now, are you?" the driver asked.

"Sure I am," the man answered, wedging the hatchet into the crate to pry it open.

The four men who had carried the crate in scattered instantly, and from—