Chapter 6.
New Trials After a few days, the celebrations ended and everyone got back to business.
Official orders came calling Francois and Perrault to new places and they had to leave their team.
Francois called Buck to him, threw his arms around him, and cried over him.
That was the last time Buck saw Francois and Perrault.
Like other men, they passed out of Buck's life for good.
A Scottish man took charge of Buck and his teammates and along with a dozen other dog teams he started back over the trail to Dawson.
There was no light running.
Now, no trying for a record time, only hard work each day with a heavy load in the sled.
This was the main trail that carried letters to the men who looked for gold.
Buck did not like it, but he could do the work and took pride in it the same way Dave and Solix did.
And Buck made sure that his teammates whether or not they also took pride in it did their fair share of work.
It was a boring life, and one day was very much like another.
At certain time each morning, the cooks woke up, built the fires, and cooked breakfast.
Then, while some men packed up the camp, others harnessed the dogs, and they were on their way an hour or so before dawn.
At night, they made camp again.
Some men made fires, others cut firewood, and still others carried water or ice for the cooks.
Also the dogs were fed.
To the dogs.
This was the most interesting part of the day, but it was also good to loaf around after the fish was eaten for an hour or so with the other dogs.
There were dozens of them.
There were fierce fighters among them, but after three fights with the fiercest dogs, Buck became an unbeatable fighter.
When he bristled and showed his teeth, all of the dogs got out of his way.
Perhaps best of all, Buck loved to lie near the fire.
Hind legs crouched under him, forelegs stretched out in front, head raised and eyes blinking dreamily at the flames.
Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller's big house in the sunny Santa Clara Valley and of the cement swimming tank and Isabel and the Mexican hairless and toots, the Japanese pug.
But more often he remembered the man in the red sweater Curly being hurt, the great bite with spits and the good things he had eaten or would like to eat.
He was not homesick.
The South was far away and memories of it did not affect him.
More important were the instincts he felt.
They made things he had never seen seem familiar.
It was a hard trip, with all the mail in the sled, and the work wore all the dogs down.
They were weak when they arrived in Dawson and should have had at least a week or ten days to rest, but after only two days they started down the Yukon River loaded with letters again.
The dogs were tired, the drivers grumbling, and to make things worse, it snowed every day.
This made the trail soft so the sled could not slide as easily, which meant even heavier pulling for the dogs.
Although it was hard, the drivers were fair through it all, and they did their best for the animals.
Each night the dogs were looked after first.
They ate before the drivers ate, and no man set up his sleeping bag until he had looked after the feet of the dogs he drove.
Still, their strength went down.
Since the beginning of winter they had traveled 1800 miles, dragging sleds the whole distance.
And 1800 miles will wear down even the toughest dogs.
Buck kept at it, keeping his teammates up to their work and working together, even though he was also very tired.
Billy cried and whimpered in his sleep each night.
Joe was meaner than ever, and Solex was unapproachable from any side.
But of all the dogs in the team, it was Dave who suffered most.
Something had gone wrong with him.
He became more unhappy and angry and as soon as camp was set up he would dig his sleeping hole where his driver fed him.
Once out of the harness and lying down, he did not get up again until harness time in the morning.
Sometimes in the harness, when he pulled hard, he would cry out in pain.
The driver examined him but could find nothing wrong.
By the time they reached Cassiar Bar, Dave was so weak that he was falling down in the harness.
The Scottish driver stopped the dogs and took Dave out of the team.
He wanted to rest Dave and let him run free behind the sled.
Sick as he was, Dave did not like being taken out.
He grunted and howled while the harness was taken off and he whimpered sadly when he saw Solix in the position he held for so long.
Dave felt proud of his work and even though he was sick, he could not stand to see another dog doing his work.
When the sled started up again, Dave ran in the snow, barking at Solex and trying to push him out of the way.
The driver tried to make Dave stay away from the harness, but he could not, and this made him very sad.
He could see how much Dave wanted to be on the team.
Dave refused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going was easy.
He continued to run next to the sled in the soft snow, where it was more difficult to run, until he was exhausted.
Then he lay down and rested while the other sleds passed by.
With the last of his strength he managed to catch up to the sleds where they had made a rest stop, and he walked past the other sleds until he found his own.
Then he stood next to Solex.
The driver was away for a few moments, getting a light for his pipe from the man behind him.
Then he came back to the sled and started the dogs.
They ran out onto the trail easily, turned their heads, and stopped in surprise.
The driver was surprised, too.
The sled had not moved.
He called the other drivers over to see what had happened.
Dave had bitten through the harness that connected Solex to the other dogs and to the sled and was standing right in front of the sled.
He pleaded with his eyes to stay there.
The driver did not know what to do.
The other drivers talked about how it could make a dog sad to be taken away from the work that it loved, and they talked about other dogs that had done similar things.
They decided that, even though Dave was sick and injured, they should let him do the work if he wanted it.
So they harnessed him in again and he pulled as he did before, but more than once he cried out in pain as he worked.
Several times he fell down while they ran.
He held out until they set up their camp that night, where the driver made a place for him by the fire.
In the morning.
He was too weak to travel and the driver had to leave him behind to rest and get better.
The last time his teammates saw him, he was lying in the snow and watching them leave on the trail.
They could hear him howling sadly until they passed out of sight behind some trees by the river.
