Chapter 7 New Masters Thirty days after they left Dawson, Buck and his teammates arrived at Skagway.
They were carrying the saltwater male.
The dogs were very tired and worn out.
Buck normally weighed 140 pounds, but now he was only 115.
Even though the other dogs were lighter than Buck, they had also lost more weight.
Pike, who often pretended to have a hurt leg so he would not have to work, was now limping for real.
Solex was also limping, and Dub's shoulder was hurt.
Their legs were all terribly sore.
There was no spring or bounce left in them.
Their feet felt heavy on the trail.
There was nothing wrong with the dogs except... that they were dead tired.
It was not the kind of tiredness that comes from a small bit of hard work, when it takes only a few hours to recover.
This was the kind of tiredness that comes after many long months of hard work.
The dogs did not have any strength left.
It had all been used, every last bit of it.
Every muscle was dead tired.
In less than five months they had traveled 2500 miles, and during the last 1800 miles they had taken only five days of rest.
When they arrived at Skagway, they looked like they were on their last legs.
They could barely pull the sled, and on the downhills they just managed to keep out of the way of the sled.
Mush on your poor, sore feet.
The driver encouraged them as they tottered down the main street of Skagway.
This is the last.
Then we will get one long rest, eh?
For sure.
One very long rest.
The drivers were sure that they would have a long rest, but there were so many men rushing into the Klondike looking for gold, and many of them did not bring their families with them, which meant that there was a lot of mail along with the official orders.
Fresh batches of Hudson Bay dogs were coming in to take the places of those who could not run the trail anymore.
The ones who could no longer run were sold.
Three days passed and Buck and his teammates found out how tired and weak they really were.
On the morning of the fourth day two men from the south came along and bought them harness and all.
The men called each other Hal and Charles.
Charles was a middle-aged man with watery eyes and a mustache that twisted up at the ends.
Hal was only 19 or 20 and carried a big gun and a hunting knife strapped to his belt.
Both men were out of place here in the north. and no one could understand why they had come.
Buck heard the men talking, saw the money pass between the man and the government agent and knew that the Scottish driver and the male train drivers were passing out of his life, just like Perrault and Francois and the others who had gone before.
When they arrived at their new camp, Buck saw a messy place.
The tent was falling down, and there were unwashed dishes.
He also saw a woman whom the men called Mercedes.
She was Charles's wife and Hal's sister.
Buck watched them nervously as they tried to take down the tent and load the sled.
They were trying hard, but they did not know what to do.
They rolled the tent into a bundle three times as large as it should have been.
They left the dishes unwashed and packed them.
Mercedes and the two men talked and argued all the time."
When they put a sack of clothes on the front of the sled, she suggested it should go on the back.
After they'd put it there and covered it with a few other bundles, she found more things they forgot to pack and that had to go into the clothes sack.
So they unloaded everything and started again.
Three men from a camp nearby came and watched, grinning and winking at each other.
You have a heavy load already, said one of them.
I shouldn't tell you your business, but I wouldn't take that tent along if I was you.
Impossible, Mercedes cried, throwing up her hands.
How in the world can we manage without a tent?
You don't need it.
It's springtime and you won't get any more cold weather, the man replied.
She shook her head as Charles and Hal put the last few items on top of the huge load.
Think it'll ride.
One of the men asked why shouldn't it?
Charles said angrily oh, that's all right, that's all right.
The man said quickly i was just wondering.
That's all seemed a little top heavy.
Charles turned his back and pulled the ropes down as well as he could, which was not very well at all.
You're sure the dogs can hike all day with that load behind them.
Another man asked.
Certainly, said Hal.
Mush, he shouted.
Mush on there.
The dogs sprang forward in the harness, strained hard for a few moments, then relaxed.
They could not move the sled.
Lazy beasts, Hal shouted.
He became angry with the dogs, but Mercedes asked him not to treat them badly.
The poor dears, she cried.
Now you must promise you won't be harsh with them the rest of the trip, or I won't go a step.
You don't know anything about dogs, her brother sneered.
They're lazy, I tell you, and you have to be mean to get anything out of them.
That's their way.
You ask anyone.
Ask any one of those men.
They're weak as water, if you want to know, said one of the men.
Plum tuckered out.
That's what's the matter.
They need a rest.
No, they don't, Hal said angrily.
They do if you want them strong enough to do their job, the other man shot back.
Why don't you leave me alone with them and let me do my job, Hal replied.
Listen, sir, I'm just trying to give you good advice.
Anyone can see these dogs need a rest.
But if you don't want to listen to me, you don't have to.
You said it, Hal answered.
For a moment, the other man seemed to grow angry.
Then his face changed and a small smile crossed his lips.
You know, he said.
On second thought, I figure you really do know what you're doing.
Then he turned his back on Hal and silently walked away.
Mercedes was embarrassed by the scene but happy that it was now over.
Never mind that man, she said to her brother.
You're driving our dogs and you do what you think is best.
Hal did everything he could to make the dogs move.
They threw themselves forward, dug their feet into the packed snow, got down low to it and used all their strength.
The sled held as though it was an anchor.
After two tries, they stood still, panting.
Hal was terribly angry with them.
He yelled and pushed and shoved them.
Then Mercedes stopped him again.
She dropped on her knees in front of Buck. with tears in her eyes and put her arms around his neck.
You poor, poor dears, she cried.
Why don't you pull hard?
Then he won't be so mean to you.
Buck did not like her, but he was feeling too miserable to resist.
One of the onlookers who had been clenching his teeth because he was so angry now spoke up.
It's not that I care what happens to you.
For the dog's sakes, I just want to tell you this.
You can help them a lot by breaking that sled out of the ice.
It's frozen to the ground.
Throw your weight against it.
Rock it right and left and break it out.
They tried a third time to move, but this time they followed the man's advice and Hal managed to break the sled loose from the ice and snow.
The overloaded and awkward sled moved forward, with Buck and his teammates struggling under the mean treatment from Hal.
A hundred yards ahead, the path turned and went downhill toward the main street.
It would have taken an experienced driver to keep the top-heavy sled upright on this turn.
Hal did not know how to do it.
As they went around the turn, the sled fell over, spilling half its load through the loose ropes.
The dogs didn't stop running and the sled bounced on its side behind them.
They were angry because of the bad treatment they had received in the heavy load.
Buck was raging mad.
He broke into a run and the team followed him.
Hal cried, whoa, whoa, but they did not stop.
He tripped and was pulled off his feet.
The dogs dashed up the street, scattering the rest of the load along the way.
Some friendly people caught the dogs and gathered up the belongings.
They also gave advice.
They told Hal, Charles and Mercedes to cut their load by half and get twice as many dogs if they ever wanted to reach Dawson as they had planned.
Hal and his sister and brother-in-law listened unwillingly, pitched their tent and went through all of their things.
They threw away canned food, which made the other men laugh, because canned food on the trail is something that people only dream about.
Those are blankets for a hotel, said one of the men who laughed and helped.
Half as many of these would still be too much.
Get rid of them.
Throw away that tent and all those dishes.
Who's going to wash them anyway?
You think you're traveling on a fancy train.
And so it went, as they tossed out everything they did not need.
Mercedes cried when her clothes bags were dumped on the ground and each piece of clothing was thrown away.
She was sad and after she went through her things she went through the men's belongings like a tornado.
Even though their load was only half as large now, it was still big.
Charles and Hal went out in the evening and bought six dogs, which were not from the North.
These added to the six on the original team and Teak and Kuna, the huskies who were brought at the Rink Rapids on the record trip, bought the team up to fourteen dogs.
But the new dogs, even though they had been trained, were not so good.
They did not seem to know anything.
Buck and his comrades did not like them.
He taught the new dogs quickly what they should not do, but he could not teach them what they should do.
They were not made for this trail and the hard work that came with it.
Most of them were confused and frightened both by the strange environment and by the bad treatment they had received.
With the newcomers hopeless and sad and the old team worn out by 2500 miles of continuous running, the outlook was anything but bright.
The two men, however, were quite cheerful, and they were proud, too.
They had never seen a sled with fourteen dogs.
In the Arctic.
There was a good reason why fourteen dogs should not drag one sled, and that was because one sled could not carry enough food for fourteen dogs.
But Charles and Hal did not know this.
They had figured out everything on paper, planning the amount of food they thought they would need.
It had all seemed very simple.
Late next morning, Buck led the long team up the street.
There was nothing lively about them, no snap or go in him and his fellows.
They were starting out, dead tired.
Four times.
Buck had covered the distance between Saltwater and Dawson, and the thought that he was going on the same trail once more when he was so tired already made him angry.
His heart was not in the work.
The newcomers were frightened, and the old team did not have confidence in their drivers.
Buck knew the dogs could not depend on these three people.
They did not know how to do anything, and as the days went by, it became clear that they could not learn.
They were lazy.
It took them half the night to set up a messy camp.
Then it took them half the morning to pack up and get the sled loaded so badly that for the rest of the day they were busy stopping and rearranging the load.
On other days they could not get started at all, so they never got as far each day as the men had planned.
They would run out of dog food soon, and the men made it happen even faster by feeding the dogs too much.
The newcomers ate too much, and when the team pulled weakly, Hal decided that it was because they were not eating enough, so he doubled their portions.
Then, when Mercedes fell bad for the dogs and could not convince her brother to give them more food, she stole food from the supplies and fed them when the men were not watching.
It was not food that Buck and the huskies needed.
They needed rest.
Hal realized one day that his dog food was already half gone and that they were only a short way into their trip.
Even worse, no more dog food could be found out there.
So he cut the rations down to very little and tried to increase each day's travel.
It was easy to give the dogs less food, but it was impossible to make them travel faster.
The men and woman were also getting angry with each other.
One day, they finally decided to leave the six new dogs behind to get rested and healed.
By this time, the three people were rude and angry with each other all the time.
Arctic travel was not a fun adventure anymore.
All they did was argue.
Their muscles ached, their bones ached, and even their hearts ached.
When Charles and Hal argued, it was because each believed he was doing more than his share of work.
Sometimes Mercedes agreed with her husband and sometimes with her brother.
The result was a family argument that would never end.
Mercedes did not like the trail.
She was also used to people helping her.
Her husband and her brother, however, did not offer to help.
Instead, they complained about her, and she treated them badly in return.
She did not care anymore about the dogs and because she was sore and tired she insisted on riding on the sled.
She was not large, but she did weigh 120 pounds, and the extra weight tired the dogs even more.
She rode for days until the dogs fell down and could not pull anymore.
Charles and Hal begged her to get off the sled and walk.
Once they picked her up and took her off the sled, they never did it again.
She sat down on the trail and was very upset with them.
They went on their way, but Mercedes did not move.
After they had traveled three miles, they unloaded the sled, came back for her, picked her up and put her back on the sled.
They were treating each other badly, but they treated their animals even worse.
Hal was mean to the dogs.
When the dog food ran out, he traded the big knife and gun on his belt for some old frozen meat.
It was a poor substitute for food, like trying to eat strips of iron.
Through it all, Buck staggered along at the head of the team as if he were in a nightmare.
He pulled when he could and when he could not, he fell down and stayed down while the people pushed and shoved him until he could get up again.
All the stiffness and shine had gone out of his beautiful furry coat.
The hair hung down and was matted together in clumps.
His muscles were gone and he was so skinny that every rib and bone of his body was outlined through his skin.
It was heartbreaking, but Buck's heart was unbreakable.
Buck's team was in just as bad a shape as Buck was.
They looked like walking skeletons.
There were seven altogether, including Buck.
When they stopped, they would drop in the harness as if they were dead.
There came a day when Billy fell, could not continue, and had to be left behind.
On the next day, Kuna also had to be left behind, and only five of them remained.
Joe, too tired to be mean.
Pike limping and sore.
Solex, the one-eyed, still wanting to work and sad that he did not have more strength.
Teak, who had not traveled far that winter and who was now even more tired than the others.
And Buck, still at the head of the team but too tired to do anything and able to stay on the trail only by the feel of his feet.
