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Jack London – from The Call of the Wild – Jack London (1876–1916), was one of the most popular American novelists and short-story writers of his time. Born to a working-class unmarried mother, London was a lifelong socialist. He left school in his teens in search of adventure and by the age of twenty-two he had worked on a sealing ship, and followed the gold rush to the Yukon. In London’s novel White Fang, the canine hero makes the transition from wolf to domesticated dog, while in The Call of the Wild the loyal and tireless Buck reclaims his wolf heritage. A t last, at the end of the fourth day, he pulled the great moose down. For a day and a night, he remained by the kill, eating and sleeping, turn and turn about. Then, rested, refreshed and strong, he turned his face toward camp and John Thornton. He broke into the long easy lope, and went on, hour after hour, never at loss for the tangled way, heading straight home through strange country with a certitude of direction that put man and his magnetic needle to shame. As he held on he became more and more conscious of the new stir in the land. There was life abroad in it different from the life which had been there throughout the summer. No longer was this 158
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fact borne in upon him in some subtle, mysterious way. The birds talked of it, the squirrels chattered about it, the very breeze whispered of it. Several times he stopped and drew in the fresh morning air in great sniffs, reading a message which made him leap on with greater speed. He was oppressed with a sense of calamity happening, if it were not calamity already happened; and as he crossed the last watershed and dropped down into the valley toward camp, he proceeded with greater caution. Three miles away he came upon a fresh trail that sent his neck hair rippling and bristling, it led straight toward camp and John Thornton. Buck hurried on, swiftly and stealthily, every nerve straining and tense, alert to the multitudinous details which told a story – all but the end. His nose gave him a varying description of the passage of the life on the heels of which he was travelling. He remarked the pregnant silence of the forest. The bird life had flitted. The squirrels were in hiding. One only he saw – a sleek gray fellow, flattened against a gray dead limb so that he seemed a part of it, a woody excrescence upon the wood itself. As Buck slid along with the obscureness of a gliding shadow, his nose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positive force had gripped and pulled it. He followed the new scent into a thicket and found Nig. He was lying on his side, dead where he had dragged himself, an arrow protruding, head 159

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Jack London

– from The Call of the Wild –

Jack London (1876–1916), was one of the most popular American novelists and short-story writers of his time. Born to a working-class unmarried mother, London was a lifelong socialist. He left school in his teens in search of adventure and by the age of twenty-two he had worked on a sealing ship, and followed the gold rush to the Yukon. In London’s novel White Fang, the canine hero makes the transition from wolf to domesticated dog, while in The Call of the Wild the loyal and tireless Buck reclaims his wolf heritage.

A t last, at the end of the fourth day, he pulled the great moose down. For a day and a night, he remained by the kill, eating and sleeping, turn and turn about. Then, rested, refreshed and strong, he turned his face toward camp and John Thornton. He broke into the long easy lope, and went on, hour after hour, never at loss for the tangled way, heading straight home through strange country with a certitude of direction that put man and his magnetic needle to shame.

As he held on he became more and more conscious of the new stir in the land. There was life abroad in it different from the life which had been there throughout the summer. No longer was this

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