The Call of the Wild

He walked to the cen­tre of the open space and lis­tened. It was the call, the many-noted call, sound­ing more lur­ingly and com­pellingly than ever be­fore. And as never be­fore, he was ready to obey. John Thorn­ton was dead. The last tie was bro­ken. Man and the claims of man no longer bound him.

wide-spread­ing lawns

Dazed, suf­fer­ing in­tol­er­a­ble pain from throat and tongue, with the life half throt­tled out of him, Buck at­tempted to face his tor­men­tors. But he was thrown down and choked re­peat­edly, till they suc­ceeded in fil­ing the heavy brass col­lar from off his neck. Then the rope was re­moved, and he was flung into a cage­like crate.

His hand was wrapped in a bloody hand­ker­chief, and the right trouser leg was ripped from knee to an­kle.

“How much did the other mug get?” the sa­loon-keeper de­manded.

“A hun­dred,” was the re­ply. “Wouldn’t take a sou less, so help me.”

“That makes a hun­dred and fifty,” the sa­loon-keeper cal­cu­lated; “and he’s worth it, or I’m a square­head.”

The kid­nap­per un­did the bloody wrap­pings and looked at his lac­er­ated hand. “If I don’t get the hy­drophoby—”

“It’ll be be­cause you was born to hang,” laughed the sa­loon-keeper. “Here, lend me a hand be­fore you pull your freight,” he added.

“All I get is fifty for it,” he grum­bled; “an’ I wouldn’t do it over for a thou­sand, cold cash.”

Con­cern­ing that night’s ride, the man spoke most elo­quently for him­self, in a lit­tle shed back of a sa­loon on the San Fran­cisco wa­ter front.

“Yep, has fits,” the man said, hid­ing his man­gled hand from the bag­gage­man, who had been at­tracted by the sounds of strug­gle. “I’m takin’ ’m up for the boss to ’Frisco. A crack dog-doc­tor there thinks that he can cure ’m.”

The next he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurt­ing and that he was be­ing jolted along in some kind of a con­veyance. The hoarse shriek of a lo­co­mo­tive whistling a cross­ing told him where he was. He had trav­elled too of­ten with the Judge not to know the sen­sa­tion of rid­ing in a bag­gage car. He opened his eyes, and into them came the un­bri­dled anger of a kid­napped king. The man sprang for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him. His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they re­lax till his senses were choked out of him once more.

In quick rage he sprang at the man, who met him half­way, grap­pled him close by the throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Then the rope tight­ened mer­ci­lessly, while Buck strug­gled in a fury, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his great chest pant­ing fu­tilely. Never in all his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his life had he been so an­gry. But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knew noth­ing when the train was flagged and the two men threw him into the bag­gage car.

“Twist it, an’ you’ll choke ’m plen­tee,” said Manuel, and the stranger grunted a ready af­fir­ma­tive.

Buck had ac­cepted the rope with quiet dig­nity. To be sure, it was an un­wonted per­for­mance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew, and to give them credit for a wis­dom that out­reached his own. But when the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger’s hands, he growled men­ac­ingly. He had merely in­ti­mated his dis­plea­sure, in his pride be­liev­ing that to in­ti­mate was to com­mand. But to his sur­prise the rope tight­ened around his neck, shut­ting off his breath.