Call of the Wild: Chapter 3

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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 see LibriVox dot blogsom
dot com. To day's reading by Kristin mc quillan, Call
of the Wild by Jack London, Chapter three, The dominant
primordial Beast. The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck,

(00:24):
and under the fierce conditions of trail life, it grew
and grew. Yet it was a secret growth. His newborn
cunning gave him poise and control. He was too busy
adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease.
And not only did he not pick fights, he avoided
them whenever possible. A certain deliberateness characterized his attitude. He
was not prone to rashness and precipitate action, and in

(00:47):
the bitter hatred between him and Spits, he betrayed no
impatience shunned all offensive acts. On the other hand, possibly
because he divined in Buck a dangerous rival, Spitz never
lost an opportune unity of showing his teeth. He even
went out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly
to start the fight, which could end only in the
death of one or the other. Early in the trip.

(01:09):
This might have taken place had it not been for
an unwonted accident. At the end of this day they
made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of
Lake le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like
a white hot knife, and darkness had forced them to
grope for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse.
At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and

(01:30):
Pierrot and Francois were compelled to make their fire and
spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself.
The tent they had discarded at die in order to
travel light. A few sticks of driftwood furnished them with
a fire that thawed down through the ice and left
them to eat supper in the dark. Close in under
the sheltering rock, Buck made his nest. So snug and
warm was it that he was loath to leave it

(01:51):
when Francois distributed the fish which he had first thought
over the fire. But when Buck finished his ration and returned,
he found his nest occupied. A warning snarl told him
that the trespasser was Spitz. Till now, Buck had avoided
trouble with his enemy, but this was too much. The
beast in him roared. He sprang upon Spitz with a fury,
which surprised them both, and Spitz, particularly for his whole

(02:15):
experience with Buck, had gone to teach him that his
rival was an unusually timid dog who managed to hold
his own only because of his great weight and size.
Francois was surprised too when they shot out in a
tangle from the disrupted nest, and he divined the cause
of the trouble. Ah. He cried to Buck, keep it
to him, by gal, keep it toul him de delty tif.

(02:37):
Spitz was equally willing. He was crying with sheer rage
and eagerness as he circled back and forth for a
chance to spring in. Buck was no less eager and
no less cautious, as he likewise circled back and forth
for the advantage. But it was then that the unexpected happened.
The thing which projected their struggle for supremacy far into
the future, passed many a weary mile of trail and toil,

(03:00):
an oath from pierrot. The resounding impact of a club
upon a bony frame, and a shrill yelp of pain
heralded the breaking forth of pandemonium. The camp was suddenly
discovered to be alive with skulking furry forms, starving huskies,
four or five score of them, who had scented the
camp from some Indian village. They had crept in while

(03:20):
Buck and Spits were fighting, and when the two men
sprang among them with stout clubs, they showed their teeth
and fought back. They were crazed by the smell of
the food. Pierrot found one with head buried in the
grub box. His club landed heavily on the gaunt ribs,
and the grub box was capsized on the ground. On
the instant. A score of the famished brutes were scrambling

(03:41):
for the bread and bacon. The clubs fell upon them unheeded.
They yelped and howled under the rain of blows, but
struggled none the less madly till the last crumb had
been devoured. In the meantime, the astonished team dogs had
burst out of their nests, only to be set upon
by the fierce invaders. Never had Buck seen such dogs.
It seemed as though their bones would burst through their skins.

(04:02):
They were mere skeletons draped loosely in draggled hides, with
blazing eyes and slavering fangs. But the hunger madness made
them terrifying, irresistible. There was no opposing them. The team
dogs were swept back against the cliff. At the first onset,
Buck was beset by three huskies, and in a trice
his head and shoulders were ripped and slashed. The din

(04:24):
was frightful, Billie was crying as usual. Dave and Soolak,
stripping blood from a score of wounds, were fighting bravely
side by side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once
his teeth closed on the foreleg of a husky and
he crunched down through the bone pike. The malingerer leaped
upon the crippled animal, breaking its neck with a quick
flash of teeth and a jerk. Buck got a frothing

(04:45):
adversary by the throat and was sprayed with blood when
his teeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of
it in his mouth goaded him to greater fierceness. He
flung himself upon another, and at the same time felt
teeth sink into his own throat. It was the spits,
treacherously attacking from the side. Pierrot and Francois, having cleaned

(05:05):
out their part of the camp, hurried to save their
sled dogs. The wild wave of famished beasts rolled back
before them, and Buck shook himself free, but it was
only for a moment. The two men were compelled to
run back to save the grub, upon which the huskies
returned to the attack on the team. Billy terrified into bravery,
sprang through the savage circle and fled away over the

(05:27):
ice pike, and Dub followed on his heels, with the
rest of the team behind. As Buck drew himself together
to spring after them, out of the tail of his eye,
he saw spits rush upon him with the evident intention
of overthrowing him. Once off his feet and under that
mask of huskies, there was no hope for him, but
he braced himself to the shock of spits charge, then

(05:48):
joined the flight out on the lake. Later, the nine
team dogs gathered together and sought shelter in the forest.
Though one pursued. They were in a sorry plight. There
was not one who was not wounded in four or
five places. While some were wounded grievously. Dub was badly
injured in a hind leg. Dolly, the last husky added

(06:08):
to the team at DAYA, had a badly torn throat.
Joe had lost an eye, while Billy, the good natured,
with a near chewed and rent to ribbons, cried and
whimpered throughout the night. At daybreak they limped warily back
to camp to find the marauders gone and the two
men in bad tempers. Fully half their grub supply was gone.
The huskies had chewed through the sled lashings and the

(06:30):
canvas coverings. In fact, nothing no matter how remotely eatable,
had escaped them. They had eaten a pair of perrose
moosehide moccasins, chunks out of the leather traces, and even
two feet of lash from the end of Francois's whip.
He broke from a mournful contemplation of it to look
over his wounded dogs. Ah, my friends, he said softly.

(06:53):
Maybe it make you mad dog dose many bites, maybe
all mad dog suckle dumb? Watch you tink eh. Perrol
the courier shook his head dubiously. With four hundred miles
of trail still between him and Dawson, he could ill
afford to have madness break out among his dogs. Two
hours of cursing and exertion got the harnesses into shape,

(07:15):
and the wound stiff and team was under weigh, struggling
painfully over the hardest part of the trail they had
yet encountered, and for that matter, the hardest between them
and Dawson. The thirty mile river was wide open, Its
wild water defied the frost, and it was in the
eddies only, and in the quiet places that the ice
held at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required

(07:38):
to cover those thirty terrible miles, and terrible they were,
for every foot of them was accomplished at the risk
of life to dog and man. A dozen times, Pirot,
nosing the way, broke through the ice bridges, being saved
by the long pole he carried, which he so held
that it fell each time across the hole made by
his body. But a cold snap was on the thermometer,

(08:00):
registering fifty below zero, and each time he broke through
he was compelled for very life to build a fire
and Drya's garments. Nothing daunted him, and it was because
nothing daunted him that he had been chosen for government courier.
He took all manner of risks, resolutely thrusting his little
weazened face into the frost, and struggling on from dim

(08:21):
dawn to dark, he skirted the frowning shores on rim
ice that bent and crackled under foot, and upon which
they dared not halt. Once the sledge broke through with
Dave and Buck, and they were half frozen and all
but drowned by the time they were dragged out. The
usual fire was necessary to save them. They were coated
solidly with ice, and the two men kept them on

(08:41):
the run around the fire, sweating and thawing, so close
that they were singed by the flames. At another time,
Spitz went through, dragging the whole team after him, up
to Buck, who strained backwards with all his strength, his
fore paws on the slippery edge and the ice quivering
and snapping all around. But behind him was Dave, likewise
straining backwards, and behind the sled was Francois, pulling till

(09:04):
his tendons cracked again. The rim ice broke away before
and behind, and there was no escape except up the cliff.
Peaut scaled it by a miracle, while Francois prayed for
just that miracle, and with every thong and sled lashing
and the last bit of harness rove into a long rope,
the dogs were hoisted one by one to the cliff crest.

(09:24):
Francois came up last after the sled and load. Then
came the search for a place to descend, which descent
was ultimately made by the aid of a rope, and
night found them back on the river with a quarter
of a mile to the day's credit. By the time
they made Hutelinka and good ice, Buck was played out.
The rest of the dogs were in like condition, but Perrault,

(09:45):
to make up lost time, pushed them late and eerily.
The first day they covered thirty five miles to the
big salmon, the next day thirty five more to the
little salmon, the third day forty miles, which brought them
well up toward five fingers. Buck's feet were not so
compact and hard as the feet of the huskies. His
had softened during the many generations since the day his

(10:07):
last wild ancestor was tamed by a cave dweller a
river man. All day long, he limped in agony and
camp once made lay down like a dead dog. Hungry
as he was, he would not move to receive his
ration of fish, which Francois had to bring him. Also,
the dog driver rubbed Buck's feet for half an hour
each night after supper, and sacrificed the tops of his

(10:29):
own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck. This was
a great relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face
of Pierrot to twist itself into a grin. One morning,
when Francois forgot the moccasins, and Buck lay on his back,
his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused
to budge without them. Later, his feet grew hard to
the trail and the worn out foot gear was thrown

(10:50):
away at the pelly. One morning, as they were harnessing up, Dolly,
who had never been conspicuous for anything, went suddenly mad.
She announced her by a long, heart breaking wolf howl
that sent every dog bristling with fear, then sprang straight
for Buck. He had never seen a dog go mad,
nor did he have any reason to fear madness. Yet

(11:12):
he knew that here was horror, and he fled away
from it in a panic straightway. He raced with Dolly,
panting and frothing, one leap behind. Nor could she gain
on him, so great was his terror, nor could he
leave her, so great was her madness. He plunged through
the wooded breast of the island, flew down to the
lower end, crossed a back channel filled with rough ice

(11:32):
to another island, gained a third island, curved back to
the main river, and in desperation, started to cross it.
And all the time, though he did not look, he
could hear her snarling, just one leap behind. Francois called
to him a quarter of a mile away, and he
doubled back, still one leap ahead, gasping painfully for air,
and putting all his faith in that Francois would save him.

(11:56):
The dog driver held the axe poised in his hand,
and his buckshot pass him. The axe crashed down upon
mad Dolly's head. Buck staggered over against the sled, exhausted,
sobbing for breath, helpless. This was Spitz's opportunity. He sprang
upon Buck, and twice his teeth sank into his unresisting
foe and ripped and tore the flesh to the bone.

(12:18):
Then Francois lash descended and Buck had the satisfaction of
watching Spits received the worst whipping as yet administered to
any of the teams. Ohn devil dat Spitz remarked, Pirot
some damn day em kill dat buck. H dat Buck
two devil was Francois rejoinder all the time I watched

(12:40):
up Buck. I know for sure listen some damn fine
day E'm get mad like Hill and Danny chew dat
spits up and spit him out on the ground. Sure,
I know. From then on it was war between them. Spitz,
as lead dog and acknowledged master of the team, felt
his supremacy. He threatened by this strange Southland dog, and

(13:02):
strange Buck was to him. For of the many Southland
dogs he'd known, not one had shown up worthily in
camp and on trail. They were all too soft, dying
under the toil, the frost, and starvation. Buck was the exception.
He alone endured and prospered, matching the husky and strength,
savagery and cunning. Then he was a masterful dog, and

(13:24):
what made him dangerous was the fact that the club
of the Man in the Red Sweater had knocked all blind,
pluck and rashness out of his desire for mastery. He
was pre eminently cunning, and could bide his time with
the patience that was nothing less than primitive. It was
inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buck wanted it.

(13:44):
He wanted it because it was his nature, because he
had been gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of
the trail and trace, That pride which holds dogs in
the toil to the last gasp, which lures them to
die joyfully in the harness and break their hearts if
there cut out of the harness. This was the pride
of Dave's wheel, dog of Solex as he pulled with

(14:07):
all his strength. The pride that laid hold of them
at break of camp, transforming them from sour and sullen
brutes into straining, eager, ambitious creatures. The pride that spurred
them on all day and dropped them at pitch of
camp at night, letting them fall back into gloomy, unrest
and uncontent. This was the pride that bore up spits
and made him thrash. The sled dogs who blundered and

(14:29):
shirked in the traces or hid away at harness up
time in the morning. Likewise, it was this pride that
made him fear Buck as a possible lead dog, and
this was Buck's pride too. He openly threatened the other's leadership.
He came between him and the Shirks. He should have punished,
and he did it deliberately. One night there was a
heavy snowfall, and in the morning Pike the malingerer, did

(14:51):
not appear. He was securely hidden in his nest under
a foot of snow. Francois called him and sought him
in vain. Spits was wild with wrath. He raged through
the camp, smelling and digging in every likely place, snarling
so frightfully that Pike heard and shivered in his hiding place.
But when he was at last unearthed and Spitz flew

(15:12):
at him to punish him, Buck flew with equal rage
in between. So unexpected was it, and so shrewdly managed
that Spitz was hurled backwards and off his feet. Pike,
who had been trembling, abjectly took heart at this open mutiny,
and sprang upon his overthrown leader, Buck, to whom fair
play was a forgotten code. Likewise, sprang upon Spits, but

(15:35):
Francois Chuckling at the incident, while unswerving in the administration
of justice, brought his lash down upon Buck with all
his might. This failed to drive Buck from his prostrate rival,
and the butt of the whip was brought into play.
Half stunned by the blow, Buck was knocked backwards and
the lash laid upon him again and again, while Spitz
soundly punished the many times offending Pike. In the days

(15:57):
that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer, Buck still
continued to interfere between Spits and the culprits, but he
did it craftily. When Francois was not around. With the
covert mutiny of Buck, a general insubordination sprang up and increased.
Dave and Soles were unaffected, but the rest of the
team went from bad to worse. Things no longer went right.

(16:19):
There was continual bickering and jangling. Trouble was always afoot,
and at the bottom of it was Buck. He kept
Francois busy, for the dog driver was in constant apprehension
of the life and death struggle between the two, which
he knew must take place sooner or later, And on
more than one night the sounds of quarreling and strife
among the other dogs turned him out of his sleeping robe,

(16:40):
fearful that Buck and Spits were at it. But the
opportunity did not present itself, and they pulled into Dawson
one dreary afternoon, with the great fight still to come.
Here were many men and countless dogs, and Buck found
them all at work. It seemed the ordained order of
things the dogs should work all day. They swung up

(17:00):
and down the main street in long teams, and in
their night their jingling bells still went by. They hauled
cabin logs and firewood, freighted up to the mines, and
did all manner of work that horses did in the
Santa Clara Valley. Here and there Buck met Southland dogs,
but in the main they were the wild wolf Husky breed.

(17:20):
Every night, regularly at nine at twelve at three they
lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eerie chant, in
which it was Buck's delight to join with the Aurora
borealis flaming coldly overhead, where the stars leaping in the
frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its
pall of snow. This song of the huskies might have

(17:41):
been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in
a minor key, with long drawn wailings and half sobs.
It was more the pleading of life, the articulate travial
of existence. It was an old song, old as the
breed itself, one of the first songs of the younger
world in a day when songs were It was invested

(18:02):
with the woe of unnumbered generations. This plaint by which
Buck was so strangely stirred when he moaned and sobbed,
It was with the pain of living that was of old,
the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and
mystery of the cold and dark that was to them
fear and mystery, And that he should be stirred by
it marked the completeness with which he harked back through

(18:24):
the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings
of life in the howling ages. Seven days from the
time they pulled into Dawson, they dropped down the steep
bank by the barracks to the Yukon Trail and polled
for dyet and salt water. Peero was carrying despatches, if anything,
more urgent than those he brought in. Also, the travel

(18:45):
pride had gripped him, and he proposed to make the
record trip of the year. Several things favored him in this.
The week's rest had recuperated the dogs and put them
in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into the
country was packed hard by later journeyers, and further the
police had arranged in two or three places deposits of
grub for dog of man, and he was traveling light.

(19:06):
They made sixty mile, which is a fifty mile run,
on the first day, and the second day saw them
booming up the Yukon well on their way to Pelly.
But such splendid running was achieved not without great trouble
and vexation on the part of Francois. The insidious revolt
led by Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team.
It no longer was as one dog leaping in the traces.

(19:28):
The encouragement Buck gave the rebels led them into all
kinds of petty misdemeanors. No more was Spitz a leader
greatly to be feared. The old awe departed, and they
grew equal to challenging his authority. Pike robbed him of
half a fish one night and gulped it down under
the protection of Buck. Another night, Dub and Joe fought
Spits and made him forego the punishment they deserved, and

(19:51):
even Billy, the good natured, was less good natured, and
whined not half so placatingly as in former days. Buck
never came near Spit without snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact,
his conduct approached that of a bully, and he was
given to swaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose.
The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in

(20:13):
their relations with one another. They quarreled and bickered more
than ever among themselves, till at times the camp was
a howling bedlam. Dave and Solex alone were unaltered, though
they were made irritable by the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange,
barbarous oaths and stamped the snow in feudal rage and
tore his hair. His lash was always singing among the dogs,

(20:35):
but it was of small avail. Directly his back was turned,
they were at it again. He backed up Spitz with
his whip, while Buck backed up the remainder of the team.
Francois knew he was behind all the trouble, and Buck
knew he knew. But Buck was too clever ever again
to be caught red handed. He worked faithfully in the harness,
for the toil had become a delight to him. Yet

(20:55):
it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight
amongst his mates, and tangled the times. At the mouth
of the Tachina. One night after supper, Dub turned up
a snowshoe rabbit blundered it and missed. In a second.
The whole team was in full cry. A hundred yards
away was a camp of Northwest police with fifty dogs huskies,
all who joined the chase. The rabbit sped down the river,

(21:19):
turned off into a small creek up the frozen bed
of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the
surface of the snow, while the dogs plowed through by
main strength. Buck led the pack sixty strong around bend
after bend, but he could not gain. He laid down
low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing
forward leap by leap in the wan white moonlight, and

(21:40):
leap by leap like some pale frost wraith. The snowshoe
rabbit flashed on ahead. All that stirring of old instincts,
which it stated periods drives men out from the sounding
cities to forest and plane, to kill things by chemically
propelled leaden pellets. The bloodlust, the joy to kill. All
this was Bucks only was infinitely more intimate. He was

(22:00):
ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild
thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth,
and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.
There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life,
and beyond which life cannot rise. In Such is the
paradox of living. This ecstasy comes when one is most alive,

(22:23):
and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.
This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist,
caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame.
It comes to the soldier war mad on a stricken
field and refusing quarter. And it came to Buck leading
the pack, sounding the old wolf, cry straining after the

(22:43):
food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him
through the moonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature,
and the parts of his nature that were deeper than
he going back to the womb of time. He was
mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave
of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint
and sinew, And that it was everything that was not death,

(23:06):
that it was a glow and rampant expressing itself in movement,
flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of
dead matter that did not move but spits, cold and calculating,
even in his supreme moods, left the pack and cut
across a narrow neck of land where the creek made
a long bend around. Buck did not know of this,

(23:27):
and as he rounded the bend, the frostrath of the
rabbit still flitting before him, he saw another and larger
frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into the immediate
path of the rabbit. It was spits. The rabbit could
not turn, and as the white teeth broke its back
in mid air, it shrieked as loudly as a stricken
man may shriek at the sound of this, the cry

(23:50):
of life plunging down from life's apex in the grip
of death. The fall pack at Buck's heels raised a
hell's chorus of delight. Buck did not cry out, He
did not check himself, but drove in upon spits, shoulder
to shoulder, so hard that he missed the throat. They
rolled over and over in the powdery snow. Spits gained

(24:11):
his feet almost as though he had not been overthrown,
slashing Buck down the shoulder and leaping clear twice. His
teeth clipped together like the steel jaws of a trap
as he backed away for better footing, with lean and
lifting lips that writhed and snarled. In a flash, Buck
knew it the time had come. It was to the death.
As they circled about, snarling ears laid back, keenly, watchful

(24:35):
for the advantage. The scene came to Buck with a
sense of familiarity. He seemed to remember it all, the
white woods and the earth, and moonlight, and the thrill
of battle. Over the whiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm.
There was not the faintest whisper of air. Nothing moved,
not a leaf quivered, the visible breaths of the dogs

(24:58):
rising slowly and linger in the frosty air. They had
made short work of the snowshoe rabbit. Those dogs that
were ill tamed wolves, and they were now drawn up
in an expectant circle. They too were silent, their eyes
only gleaming, and their breaths drifting slowly upward. To Buck.
It was nothing new or strange the scene of old time.
It was as though it had always been the wonted

(25:20):
way of things. Spitz was a practiced fighter. From Spitzenberg
through the Arctic and across Canada and the Barons. He
had held his own with all manner of dogs, and
achieved to mastery over them. Bitter rage was his, but
never blind rage. In passion to rend and destroy, he
never forgot that his enemy was in like passion to

(25:41):
rent and destroy. He never rushed until he was prepared
to receive a rush. He never attacked till he had
first defended that attack. In vain, Buck strove to sink
his teeth in the neck of the big white dog.
Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh, they were
countered by the fangs of spits. Fang clashed, bang, and

(26:01):
lips were cut and bleeding, but Buck could not penetrate
his enemy's guard. Then he warmed up and envelove spits
in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and time again, he
tried for the snow white throat where life bubbled near
to the surface, and each and every time Spitz slashed
him and got away. Then Buck took to rushing, as
though for the throat, when suddenly drawing back his head

(26:23):
and curving in from the side, he would drive his
shoulder at the shoulder of Spits as a ram by
which to overthrow him. But instead Buck's shoulder was slashed
down each time as Spits leaped lightly away, Spits was
untouched while Buck was streaming with blood and panting hard.
The fight was growing desperate, and all the while the

(26:43):
silent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog
went down. As Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing,
and he kept him staggering for footing. Once Buck went over,
and the whole circle of sixty dogs started up, but
he recovered himself almost in mid air, and the circle
sank down again and waited. But Buck possessed a quality

(27:04):
that made for greatness imagination. He fought by instinct, but
he could fight by head as well. He rushed as
though attempting the old shoulder trick, but At the last
Instant swept low to the snow, and in his teeth
closed on Spitz's left fore leg. There was a crunch
of breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on

(27:24):
three legs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then
repeated the trick and broke the right fore leg. Despite
the pain and helplessness, Spits struggled madly to keep up.
He saw the silent circle, with gleaming eyes, lolling tongues,
and silvery breaths, drifting upward, closing in upon him, as
he had seen similar circles close in upon beaten antagonists

(27:46):
in the past, only this time he was the one
who was beaten. There was no hope for him. Buck
was inexorable. Mercy was a thing reserved for gentler climes.
He maneuvered for the final rush. The circle had tightened
till he could feel the breasts of the huskies on
his flanks. He could see them beyond Spits and to
either side, half crouching for the spring, their eyes fixed

(28:09):
upon him. A pause seemed to fall. Every animal was
motionless as they turned to stone. Only Spits quivered and
bristled as he staggered back and forth. Snarling with horrible menace,
as though to frighten off impending death. Then Buck sprang
in and out, but while he was in shoulder had
last squarely met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot

(28:33):
on the moon flooded snow. As spits disappeared from view,
Buck stood and looked on the successful champion, the dominant
primordial beast, who had made his kill and found it good.
End of chapter three