Chapter I. Into the Primitive
"Old longings nomadic leap,
Chafing at custom's chain;
Again from its brumal sleep
Wakens the ferine strain."
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble
was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong
of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.
Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal,
and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the
find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted
dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by
which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge
Miller's place, it was called. It stood back from the road, half hidden
among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide
cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached by
gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and
under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At the rear things were on
even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables,
where a dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants'
cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors,
green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping
plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge
Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot
afternoon.
And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he
had lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were other
dogs, There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they did
not count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or lived
obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of Toots, the
Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless,--strange creatures that
rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground. On the other hand,
there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who yelped
fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of the windows at them
and protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
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