Buck still felt the past living in him, and when he sat by John Thornton's fire at night he felt every kind of dog behind him. Half-wolves and wild wolves were all there like shadows in the dark, tasting the meat he eat, thirsty for the water he drank. They smelled the wind with him, lay down to sleep with him and dreamed with him. These shadows seemed to pull him away,and often in his mind he heard a call from deep in the forest,until his love for John Thornton pulled him back to the fire again.