bUCK did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that
trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater
dog, strong of muscle and 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 men were rushing into
the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were
heavy dogs, with strong muscles 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. It stood back from the road, half hidden
among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide
cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached
by gravelled driveways 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, rows of vine-clad
servants’ cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape