The wild Animal Grows
life on heard the smallest sounds, and he always knew immediately whether they were the sounds of dangerous things or good things. Buck learned to bite the ice out of his feet with his teeth, and to break the ice on a water hole with his front legs He always seemed to know where the wind would come from, and he always found the warmest place to sleep. Buck learned these things by watching, but they also came to him from his ancestors. Buck's ancestors had run wild with other dogs in the forests, and had caught and killed their own meat. Sometimes, on cold nights, Buck put his nose up to the sky and howled 2 like a wolf Buck's ancestors had howled like this before him, and it was like an old song coming through him from them. The Wild Animal Grows ife on the trail, pulling the sled, was hard. Buck was becoming a good sled dog, but he was also changing, and the wild animal inside him was growing and growing. Because he was still busy learning, he tried to stay away from fights. He was careful not to show his anger toward Spitz, but Spitz was always trying to start a fight with him. He was worried that Buck would take his place as leader of the sled team. The fight would come one day, and because both dogs were so strong and it could only end with the death of one of them.
One evening, not far into their journey, the team camped at Lake Laberge, under a cliff 4. It was dark, the snow was coming down, and the wind cut into them like a white-hot knife. Perrault and Francois made a fire on the ice of the lake, and Buck dug a warm hole for himself under the cliff.