Chapter 9 The Bet That winter in Dawson Buck did another amazing thing that made him even more famous.
It all started during a conversation in the El Dorado Hotel, where some men were telling each other about their favorite dogs.
Buck was the most famous, but these men said that he was not so great.
Thornton argued with him.
One man said that his dog could pull a sled with 500 pounds on it.
Another man said 600 for his dog, and a third said 700.
That's nothing, said John Thornton.
Buck can pull a sled with a thousand pounds on it.
And break it out of the ice and walk off with it for a hundred yards, asked Mathewson, who had claimed 700 pounds for his dog.
And break it out and walk off with it for a hundred yards, said John Thornton coolly.
Well, Mathewson said slowly and deliberately so that everyone could hear.
I've got a thousand dollars, saying he can.
And there it is.
He slammed a sack of gold dust the size of a sausage on the bar.
Nobody spoke.
Thornton could feel himself blush.
He had spoken too soon.
He did not know if Buck could pull that much. thousand pounds.
The size of it made him feel sick.
He was certain that Buck had great strength and he had thought many times that Buck might be able to pull such a load, but now he had to do it.
The whole town was waiting and watching.
Even worse, Thornton did not have a thousand dollars.
Neither did Hans nor Pete.
I've got a sled standing outside now with twenty-five pound sacks of flour on it.
Mathewson went on, sounding mean.
That's a thousand pounds.
So we can go right now.
Thornton did not reply.
He did not know what to say.
He looked from face to face and saw an old friend, Jim O'Brien.
Can you lend me a thousand?
Thornton asked, almost in a whisper.
Sure, answered O'Brien, thumping down a sack right next to Mathewson's.
I'm putting my faith in you, John, that the beast can do the trick.
Don't worry.
That dog can do miracles, Thornton said.
He even saved my life once.
And he'd do it again, Pete said.
Thinking back to the time when Buck almost jumped over the cliff on Thornton's command.
He added I've never seen a dog so devoted to his master.
If Buck can't do it, it can't be done.
O'Brien nodded his head in agreement.
I've heard about this one and what he can do, he said, pointing to Buck.
I know it's a risk, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.
Matthew's son is a big talker, but Buck's the one who can get things done.
Everyone left the Eldorado and stood on the street outside.
Several hundred men wearing furs and mittens stood around Mathewson's sled.
It was loaded with a thousand pounds of flour and had been sitting there for several hours.
In the cold, the sled had frozen to the hard-packed snow.
Most men were betting that Buck could not budge the sled.
Even John Thornton felt terrible that he had rushed into the bed once he looked at the sled with its regular team of ten dogs lying in the snow in front of it.
Buck's task seemed next to impossible.
Mathewson, however, was happy.
"'Three to one!' he yelled.
"'I'll bet you another thousand at that figure, Thornton.
What do you say?'
Thornton looked worried, but his fighting spirit was aroused.
He called Hans and Pete to him.
Together the men had only $200.
It was everything they had, and they bet it all.
The team of dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his own harness, was connected to the sled.
He had felt the excitement around him and he knew that in some way he had to do a great thing for John Thornton.
The crowd talked about how great Buck looked.
He was in perfect shape, 150 pounds of pure strength, and his furry coat shone like silk.
Men felt his muscles and said they were hard as iron, and the odds went down to two to one.
Sir, exclaimed one member of the crowd to Thornton.
I'll offer you eight hundred for him, sir.
Before the test of his strength, eight hundred for him right now.
Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck's side.
You must stay away from him as he pulls, Mathewson said.
Give him plenty of room.
The crowd fell silent.
Everybody agreed that Buck was a magnificent animal, but they thought 1000 pounds was just too much for one dog to pull and no one else would bet that he could do it.
Thornton knelt next to Buck.
He took his head in his two hands and rested his cheek on Buck's.
He did not playfully shake his head or call him names as Buck would have liked him to do.
Instead, he whispered in Buck's ear, As you love me, Buck.
As you love me. was what he whispered.
Buck whined with eagerness that he could barely hold inside.
The crowd was watching curiously.
It seemed like something magical was happening.
As Thornton stood, Buck grabbed his hand between his jaws, pressing in with his teeth and releasing slowly.
It was his answer, showing how much he loved the man.
Thornton stepped back.
Now, Buck, he said.
Buck tightened the harness and then let it go loose by a few inches.
It was the way he had learned to do it.
Gee, Thornton yelled.
It was one of the special calls drivers used with their dogs.
Buck swung to the right, pulling the harness tight with a sudden jerk.
The sled shook, and there was the sound of ice crackling.
Ha-ha!
Thornton commanded.
Buck jumped again, this time to the left.
The crackling turned into a snapping sound and the sled moved several inches to the side.
The sled was broken out of the ice.
Men were holding their breaths without knowing it.
Now, whoosh!
Thornton's command cracked out like a gunshot.
Buck threw himself forward, tightening the harness straps.
His whole body shook from under the effort, his muscles tightening and moving under the silky fur.
His great chest was close to the ground, his head forward and down, while his feet were moving fast, the claws scraping the hard-packed snow.
The sled trembled and started a small bit forward.
One of his feet slipped, and one man groaned.
Then the sled lurched ahead in a series of jerks and never came to a stop again.
Half an inch, an inch, two inches.
The jerks ended as the sled gained speed until it was moving steadily.
Men gasped and began to breathe again.
Thornton was running behind, cheering Buck on.
The distance for the bed had been marked with a pile of firewood and a cheer began to grow and it turned into a roar as Buck passed the firewood and stopped at Thornton's command.
Every man was throwing his hat and mittens in the air, even Mathewson.
Men were shaking hands with each other and laughing, but Thornton was on his knees beside Buck.
Their heads were against each other, and he was shaking him back and forth.
The men who hurried up to them heard him calling Buck bad names in a soft, loving voice.
By God, sir, sputtered the man who had offered to buy Buck.
I'll give you a thousand dollars for him, sir.
A thousand, sir.
Make it twelve hundred, sir.
Thornton stood silently, his eyes were wet, and tears were streaming down his face.
Fourteen hundred, then, the man cried.
No, sir, Thornton said when he finally felt able to speak.
Not for all the gold in Alaska.
Buck seized Thornton's hand again in his teeth.
Thornton shook Buck's head back and forth.
The crowd moved back from them, and no one interrupted them again.
By winning the bet, Buck earned $1,600 and five minutes for John Thornton.
The money made it possible for Thornton to pay off his debts and to travel with his partners into the East after a famous lost mine.
Many men had searched for it, and there were many stories told about it.
No one knew who had found it first.
There had been talk of an old cabin that was near the mine.
There were gold nuggets that people said were from there and they were different from the gold found anywhere else in the north.
John Thornton, Pete and Hans took Buck and half a dozen other dogs with them and headed east on an unknown trail to find the lost mine.
They traveled seventy miles up the Yukon River, swung to the left into the Stewart River, passed the Mayo and McQuestion Rivers and kept going until Stewart was nothing but a small stream in the tall mountains.
John Thornton did not need much to survive, and he was not afraid of the wild.
With a handful of salt and a rifle, he could plunge into the wilderness and live as long as he wanted.
He was in no hurry and hunted like the natives while he traveled.
If he could not catch his dinner then, like the natives, he would keep on traveling, certain that sooner or later he would catch something.
So on this great journey into the east, the men and dogs ate meat regularly.
The sled was loaded with ammunition and tools, and they took their time traveling.
Buck loved all this hunting, fishing, wandering through strange places.
For weeks at a time, they would travel day after day.
For weeks on end they would camp here and there, the dogs being lazy and the men, burning holes through the ice and gravel and panning for gold by the heat of the fire.
Sometimes they went hungry.
Sometimes they ate until they were full.
Summer arrived and the dogs and men carried packs on their backs, rode rafts across mountain lakes and traveled along rivers in small boats they made from trees in the forest.
Months came and went, and their path twisted back and forth through the land where no men lived.
They wandered on the old trails through the winter, and in the spring they finally found something.
It was not the lost mine or the lost cabin, but a shallow river in a deep valley.
The rocks in this river were full of gold.
The team stopped searching and stayed there.
Each day they found thousands of dollars worth of gold dust and nuggets in the river.
They put the gold in sacks fifty pounds to each bag and they piled them like firewood outside of the small cabin they had made.
There was nothing for the dogs to do but haul in the game that Thornton caught, so Buck spent many hours dreaming by the fire.
Buck dreamed that he could hear something calling to him from the forest.
He felt happy, and he wanted to do something important, but he did not know what it was.
Sometimes he chased the call into the forest, looking for it as if it were an animal.
He would push his nose into the cool moss or into the black soil where long grasses grew.
Or he would crouch for hours hiding behind the trunks of fallen trees, watching and listening to everything that moved or made a sound near him.
He did not know why he was doing these things.
He only knew that he had to do them, and he did not ask himself why.
Sometimes he would be lying in the camp sleeping in the heat of the day, when suddenly he would lift his head as if he had heard something.
Then he would spring to his feet and dash away.
On and on, for hours, through the forest and across open spaces he would run.
He would lie in the bushes for days at a time, where he could watch the birds.
He loved to run at midnight in the summertime.
Buck always kept looking for the mysterious thing that called for him to come.
