Call of the Wild: Chapter 1

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox dot
Blogsam dot com. This reading by Gordon Mackenzie The Call
of the Wild by Jack London, Chapter one into the

(00:21):
primitive Old Longing's nomadic leap, chafing at customs chain again
from its broomal 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

(00:43):
tide water dog, strong of muscle, 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
the men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs,

(01:04):
and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong
mussels 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, stood back from the road, half hidden
among the trees through which glimpses could be caught of

(01:25):
the wide, cool veranda that ran around its four sides.
The house was approached by a gravel driveway 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,

(01:49):
rows of vine clad servants, cottages, an endless and orderly
array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures or 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

(02:12):
hot afternoon. And over this great domain 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 in so vast
a place, but they did not count. They came and went,
resided in the populous kennels, or lived obscurely in the

(02:34):
recesses of the house. After the fashion of Tutz the
Japanese pug or Isabel 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
Tutz and Isabel, looking out of the windows at them,

(02:56):
and protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms
and mops. But Buck was neither house dog nor kennel dog.
The whole realm was his. He plunged into the swimming tank,
or went hunting with the judges sons. He escorted Molly
and Alice, the Judge's daughters, on long twilight or early
morning rambles. On wintry nights, he lay at the Judge's

(03:19):
feet before the roaring library fire. He carried the Judge's
grandsons on his back, or rolled them in the grass,
and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the
fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond, where the
paddocks were and the berry patches. Among the terriers he
stalked imperiously, and Tuts and Isabel he utterly ignored, for

(03:43):
he was king, king over all creeping, crawling, flying things
of Judge Miller's place. Humans included his father, Elmo, a
huge saint. Bernard had been the judge's inseparable companion, and
Buck bid fair to follow in the way of his father.
He was not so large. He weighed only one hundred

(04:04):
forty pounds. For his mother, shep had been a Scotch
shepherd dog. Nevertheless, one hundred forty pounds to which was
added the dignity that comes of good living and universal
respect enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion.
During the four years since his puppyhood, he had lived
the life of a sated aristocrat. He had a fine

(04:26):
pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country
gentlemen sometimes become because of their insular situation. But he
had saved himself by not becoming a mere pampered house dog.
Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat
and hardened his muscles. And to him, as to the
cold tubbing races, the love of water had been a

(04:49):
tonic and a health preserver, and this was a manner
of dog. Buck was in the fall of eighteen ninety seven,
when the Klondike Strike dragged men from all the world
into the frozen noise. But Buck did not read the newspapers,
and he did not know that Manuel, one of the
gardener's helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin.

(05:13):
He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also in his gambling,
he had one besetting weakness, faith in a system. And
this made his damnation certain, for to play a system
requires money, while the wages of a gardener's helper do
not lap over the needs of a wife and numerous progeny.
The judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers Association,

(05:35):
and the boys were busy organizing an athletic club. On
the memorable night of Manuel's treachery, no one saw him
and Buck go off through the orchard on what Buck
imagined was merely a stroll, And with the exception of
a solitary man, no one saw them arrive at the
little flag station known as College Park. This man talked
with Manuel, and money chinked between them. You might wrap

(05:58):
up the goods before you deliver, the stranger said, gruffly,
and Manoel doubled a piece of stout rope around Buck's
neck under the collar. Twist it and you'll choke him plenty,
said Manoel, 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

(06:19):
trust in men he knew, and to give them credit
for a wisdom that had reached 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 round his neck, shutting
off his breath. In quick rage, he sprang at the

(06:42):
man who met him half way, 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

(07:03):
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. The next thing he knew,
he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting, and
that he was being jolted along in some kind of conveyance.

(07:24):
The hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing told
him where he was. He had traveled 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

(07:47):
till his senses were choked out of him once more.
Yep has fits, the man said, hiding his mangled hand
from the baggage man, who had been attracted by the
sounds of a struggle. I'm takin em up for the
boss to Frisco. A cracked dog doctor there thinks he
can cure 'em. Concerning that knight's ride, the man spoke

(08:09):
most eloquently for himself in a little shed back of
a saloon on the San Francisco waterfront. All I get
is fifty for it, he grumbled, and I wouldn't do
it over for a thousand cold cash. His hand was
wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right trouser leg
was ripped from knee to ankle. How much did the

(08:29):
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 square head. The
kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his lacerated hand.
If I don't get the hydrophoby, it'll be because you

(08:53):
was born to hang, laughed the saloon keeper. Yer, lend
me a hand before you pull your freight, he added. Dazed,
suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with a life
half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors,
but he was thrown down and choked repeatedly till they

(09:13):
succeeded in filing the heavy brass collar from off his neck.
Then the rope was removed and he was flung into
a cage like crate. There he lay for the remainder
of the weary night, nursing his wrath and wounded pride.
He could not understand what it all meant. What did

(09:33):
they want with him, these strange men. Why were they
keeping him pent up in this narrow crate. He did
not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague
sense of impending calamity. Several times during the night he
sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled open,
expecting to see the judge or the boys at least,

(09:54):
But each time it was the bulging face of the
saloon keeper that peered in at him by the sickly
light of a tallow candle, And each time the joyful
bark that had trembled in Buck's throat was twisted into
a savage growl. But the saloon keeper let him alone,
and in the morning four men entered and picked up

(10:15):
the crate, more tormentors, Buck decided, for they were evil
looking creatures, ragged and unkempt, and he stormed and raged
at them through the bars. They only laughed and poked
sticks at him, which he promptly assailed with his teeth,
till he realized that was what they wanted. Whereupon he
lay down sullenly, and allowed the crate to be lifted

(10:37):
into a wagon. Then he and the crate in which
he was imprisoned began a passage through many hands. Clerks
in the express office took charge of him. He was
carted about in another wagon. A truck carried him with
an assortment of boxes and parcels upon a fairy steamer.
He was trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot,

(10:58):
and finally he was to posited in an express car
for two days and nights. This express car was dragged
along at the tail of shrieking locomotives, and for two
days and nights Buck neither ate nor drank. In his anger,
he had met the first advances of the express messengers
with growls, and they had retaliated by teasing him. When

(11:20):
he flung himself against the bars, quivering and frothing, they
laughed at him and taunted him. They growled and barked
like detestable dogs, mewed and flapped their arms and crowed.
It was all very silly, he knew, But therefore the
more outrage to his dignity, and his anger waxed and waxed.

(11:42):
He did not mind the hunger so much, but the
lack of water caused him severe suffering and fanned his
wrath to fever. Pitch for that matter, high strung and
finally sensitive, the ill treatment had flung him into a fever,
which was fed by the inflammation of his parched and
swollen throat and tongue. He was glad for one thing.

(12:05):
The rope was off his neck. That had given them
an unfair advantage. But now that it was off, he
would show them they would never get another rope around
his neck. Upon that he was resolved. For two days
and nights he neither ate nor drank, and during those
two days and nights of torment he accumulated a fund
of wrath that boded ill for whoever first fell foul

(12:29):
of him. His eyes turned bloodshot, and he was metamorphosed
into a raging fiend. So changed was he that the
judge himself would not have recognized him, and the express
messengers breathed with relief when they bundled him off the
train At Seattle. Four men gingerly carried the crate from
the wagon into a small, high walled back yard. A

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stout man with a red sweater that sagged generously at
the neck, came out and signed the book for the driver.
That was the man. Buck divined the next tormentor, and
he hurled himself savagely against the bars. The man smiled
grimly and brought a hatchet and a club. Ye ain't

(13:13):
gonna take him out now, the driver asked, sure. The
man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for a prye.
There was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who
had carried it in, and from safe perches on top
the wall, they prepared to watch the performance. Buck rushed
at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into its surging

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and wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on the outside,
he was there on the inside, snarling and growling, as
furiously anxious to get out as the man in the
red sweater was calmly intent on getting him out. Now
you read a devil, he said, when he had made
an opening sufficient for the passage of Buck's body. At

(13:56):
the same time, he dropped the hatchet and shifted the
club to his right hand. And Buck was truly a
red eyed devil. As he drew himself together for the spring, hair, bristling, mouth,
foaming a mad glitter in his bloodshot eyes, straight at
the man. He launched his one hundred and forty pounds
of fury, surcharged with the pent passion of two days

(14:19):
and nights in mid air. Just as his jaws were
about to close on the man, he received a shock
that checked his body and brought his teeth together with
an agonizing clip. He whirled over, fetching the ground on
his back and side. He had never been struck by
a club in his life and did not understand but

(14:39):
the snarl that was part bark and more scream. He
was again on his feet and launched into the air,
and again the shock came and he was brought crushingly
to the ground. This time he was aware that it
was the club, but his madness knew no caution. A
dozen times he charged, and as often the club broke
the charge and smashed him down. After a particularly fierce blow,

(15:05):
he crawled to his feet, too dazed to rush. He
staggered limply about the blood flowing from nose and mouth
and ears, His beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with bloody slaver.
Then the man advanced and deliberately dealt him a frightful
blow on the nose. All the pain he had endured

(15:27):
was as nothing compared with the exquisite agony of this.
With a roar that was almost lionlike in its ferocity,
he again hurled himself at the man, but the man,
shifting the club from right to left, coolly, caught him
by the under jaw at the same time. Wrenching downward
and backward. Buck described a complete circle in the air

(15:51):
and half of another, then crashed to the ground on
his head and chest. For the last time. He rushed,
struck the shrewd blow he had purposely withheld for so long,
and Buck crumpled up and went down, knocked utterly senseless.

(16:11):
He's no slouch at dog breakin, That's what I say,
one of the men on the walls, cried, enthusiastically. D
Rather break chauses any day and twice on Sunday, was
the reply of the driver, as he climbed on the
wagon and started the horses. Buck's senses came back to him,
but not his strength. He lay where he had fallen,

(16:33):
and from there he watched the man in the red
sweater answers to the name of Buck. The man soliloquized,
quoting from the saloon keeper's letter, which had announced the
consignment of the crate and contents. Well, Buck, my boy,
he went on, in a genial voice. We've had our
little ruction, and the best thing we can do is

(16:55):
to let it go at that you've learned your place,
and I know mine. Be a good dog and all'll
go well, and the goose hang high. Be a bad dog,
and I'll wail the stuffin out of you. Understand. As
he spoke, he fearlessly patted the head he had so
mercilessly pounded, and though Buck's hair involuntarily bristled at the

(17:20):
touch of the hand, he endured it without protest. When
the man brought him water, he drank eagerly, and later
bolted a generous meal of raw meat, chunk by chunk
from the man's hand. He was beaten, he knew that,
but he was not broken. He saw once for all

(17:42):
that he stood no chance against a man with a club.
He had learned the lesson, and in all his after
life he never forgot it. That club was a revelation.
It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law,
and he met the introduction half way the facts of
life took on a fiercer aspect, and while he faced

(18:03):
that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent
cunning of his nature aroused. As the days went by,
other dogs came and crates at the ends of ropes,
some docilely and some raging and roaring as he had come,
And one and all he watched them pass under the
dominion of the man in the red sweater again and again.

(18:27):
As he looked at each brutal performance, the lesson was
driven home to Buck. A man with a club was
a law giver, a master to be obeyed, though not
necessarily conciliated. Of this last, Buck was never guilty, though
he did see beaten dogs that fawned upon the man
and wagged their tails and licked his hand. Also he

(18:51):
saw one dog they would neither conciliate nor obey, finally
killed in the struggle for mastery. Now and again men
came strangers who talked excitedly, wheedlingly, and in all kinds
of fashions to the man in the red sweater. And
at such times that money passed between them, the strangers

(19:14):
took one or more of the dogs away with them.
Buck wondered where they went, for they never came back.
But the fear of the future was strong upon him,
and he was glad each time when he was not selected.
Yet his time came in the end in the form
of a little weazened man who spat broken English and

(19:35):
many strange and uncouth exclamations which Buck could not understand. Sacradam,
he cried when his eyes lit upon Buck, that one
damn bully dog? Eh, how much three hundred and a present?
At that was the prompt reply of the man in
the red sweater, and seem its government money. You ain't

(19:58):
got no kick comin eh piaut. Peraut grinned, considering that
the price of dogs had been boomed skyward by the
unwonted demand. It was not an unfair sum for so
fine an animal. The Canadian government would be no loser,
nor would its despatches travel the slower. Peraut knew dogs,

(20:20):
and when he looked at Buck, he knew that he
was one in a thousand, one in ten thousand, he
commented mentally. Buck saw money passed between them, and was
not surprised when Curley, a good natured Newfoundland, and he
were led away by the little weasoned man. That was
the last he saw of the man in the red sweater,
and as Curley and he looked at receding seattle from

(20:42):
the deck of the Narwhale, it was the last he
saw of the warm southland. Curley and he were taken
below by Perrault and turned over to a black faced
giant called Francois. Peraut was a French Canadian and swarthy,
but Francois was a French Canadian half breed and twice
as swarthy. They were a new kind of men to Buck,

(21:05):
of which he was destined to see many more. And
while he developed no affection for them, he none the
less grew honestly to respect them. He speedily learned that
Perrault and Francois were fair men, calm and impartial in
administering justice, and too wise in the ways of dogs
to be fooled by dogs. In the tween decks of

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the Narwhale, Buck and Curly joined two other dogs. One
of them was a big snow white fellow from Spitzbergen
who had been brought away by a wailing captain, and
who had later accompanied a geological survey into the Barons.
He was friendly in a treacherous sort of way, smiling
into one's face. The while he meditated some underhand trick,

(21:51):
as for instance, when he stole from Buck's food at
the first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him, the
lash of Francois's whip sang through the air, reaching the
culprit first, and nothing remained to Buck, but to recover
the bone that was fair of Francois, he decided, and
the half breed began to rise in Buck's estimation. The

(22:14):
other dog made no advances, nor received any. Also, he
did not attempt to steal from the newcomers. He was
a gloomy, morose fellow, and he showed Curly plainly that
all he desired was to be left alone, and further
that there would be trouble if he were not left alone.
Dave he was called, and he ate and slept or

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yawned between times, and took interest in nothing, not even
when the narwhale crossed Queen Charlotte's sound, and rolled and
pitched and bucked like a thing possessed. When Buck and
Curly grew excited, half wild with fear, he raised his
head as though annoyed, favored them with an incurious glance,
yawned and went to sleep again. Day and night the

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ship throbbed to the wireless pulse of the propeller, and
though one day was very like another, it was apparent
to Buck that the weather was steadily growing colder. At last,
one morning, the propeller was quiet and the narwhale was
pervaded with an atmosphere of excitement. He felt it, as

(23:18):
did the other dogs, and knew that a change was
at hand. Francois leashed them and brought them to the deck.
At the first step upon the cold surface, Buck's feet
sank into a white, mushy, something very like mud. He
sprang back with a snort. More of this white stuff
was falling through the air. He shook himself, but more

(23:41):
of it fell upon him. He sniffed it curiously, then
licked some up on his tongue. It bit like fire,
and the next instant was gone. This puzzled him. He
tried it again with the same result. The onlookers laughed uproariously,
and he felt ashamed. He knew not why, for it
was his first snow. End of chapter one