1 Kidnapped

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CHAPTER 1 Kidnapped Buck did not read the newspapers. If he did, he would have known that trouble was brewing, not only for himself, but for every dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. A little while ago, some men, who lived far north in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal that was worth a lot of money. Now, thousands of men were heading north in pursuit of that metal they called gold. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were dogs like Buck, heavy dogs with strong

muscles and furry coats to protect them from the cold. Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley in California. Judge Miller's place, as it was called, stood back from the road, half hidden among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide porch that ran around its four sides. The house was approached by gravel driveways, which wound about through wide lawns. Behind the house were great stables, where a dozen grooms and boys worked, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages, long grapevines, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. There was a large well, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller's boys took their morning swim and kept cool in the hot afternoon. And over this great estate Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he had lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were other

dogs, there could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they did not count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or lived quietly in the corners of the house like Toots, the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless—strange creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground. On the other hand, there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who yelped fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of the windows at them and protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops. But Buck was not a house dog or a kennel dog. He looked after the entire place. He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the Judge's sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's daughters, on long twilight or earlymorning walks around the estate; on wintry nights he lay at the Judge's feet before the roaring library fire. He

carried the Judge's grandsons on his back, rolled them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond, where the horse stables stood, and the berry patches grew. He walked like a king past the kennel dogs and utterly ignored Toots and Ysabel because he was king—king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's place, humans included. Buck's father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge's close friend, and Buck tried to follow in the way of his father. He was not so large—he weighed only one hundred and forty pounds—for his mother, Shep, had been a smaller Scotch shepherd dog. Still, one hundred and forty pounds, to which was added the dignity that comes of good living and universal respect, enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion. During the four years since his puppyhood,

he had a fine pride in himself, and was even a trifle bit arrogant, as country gentlemen can sometimes become. But he had saved himself by not becoming a mere pampered house dog. Hunting and running outdoors had kept down the fat and hardened his muscles. He also loved to play and swim. This was the kind of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when the Klondike gold rush dragged men from all over the world into the frozen North. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know that Manuel, one of the gardeners, had one dangerous problem: he loved to gamble. One night when the Judge was at a meeting, and the boys were busy—on the memorable night of Manuel's treachery—no one saw him and Buck go off through the orchard on what Buck imagined was just a stroll. And except for one other man, no one saw them arrive at the tiny trail station