Buck sat by the fire with this hairy man, and in the circling darkness beyond the fire he
could see many eyes -the eyes of hungry animals waiting to attack. And he growled softly in
his dream until the Indian cook shouted, 'Hey, Buck, wake up!' Then the strange world
disappeared and Buck's eyes saw the real fire again.
When they reached Dawson, the dogs were tired, and needed a week's rest. But in two
days they were moving south again, with another heavy load of letters. Both dogs and men
were unhappy. It snowed every day as well, and on soft new snow it was harder work pulling
the sledges.
The men took good care of their dogs. In the evenings, the dogs ate first, the men second,
and they always checked the dogs' feet before they slept. But every day the dogs became
weaker. Buck had pulled sledges for three thousand kilometres that winter, and he was as
tired as the others.
But Dave was not only tired; he was ill. Every evening he lay down the minute after the
sledge stopped, and did not stand up until morning. The men looked at him, but they could
find no broken bones. Something was wrong inside.
One day he started to fall down while in his harness. The sledge stopped, and the driver
took him out of his harness. He wanted to give him a rest, and let him run free behind the
sledge. But Dave did not want to stop working. He hated to see another dog doing his work,
so he ran along beside the sledge, trying to push Sol-leks out of his place. When the sledge
made its next stop, Dave bit through Sol-leks' harness and pushed him away. Then he stood
there, in his old place in front of the sledge, waiting for his harness and the order to start
pulling.
The driver decided it was kinder to let him work. Dave pulled all day, but the next
morning he was too weak to move. The driver harnessed up without Dave, and drove a few
hundred metres. Then he stopped, took his gun, and walked back. The dogs heard a shot, and
then the man came quickly back. The sledge started to move again; but Buck knew, and
every dog knew, what had happened.