The Call of the Wild is a novel by Jack London that explores the themes of survival, adventure, and the primal instincts of nature. Set during the Klondike Gold Rush, it follows Buck, a domesticated dog, as he transforms into a wild creature amidst the harsh realities of the Arctic wilderness. This PDF edition captures London’s vivid storytelling and rich character development.
THE CALL OF
THE WILD
BY
JACK LONDON
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5
I
INTO THE PRIMITIVE
“
Old longings nomadic leap,
Chafing at custom’s chain,
Again from its brumal sleep
Wakens the ferine strain
.”
UCK did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that
trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-
water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from
Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness,
had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation
companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into
the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were
heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to
protect them from the frost.
Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge
Miller’s place, it was called. It stood back from the road, half hidden
among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide
cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached
by gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading
lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At the rear things
were on even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great
stables, where a dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad
servants’ cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape
B
THE CALL OF THE WILD
6
arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the
pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where
Judge Miller’s boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot
afternoon.
And over this great demesne 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
obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of 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 neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realm
was his. 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 early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the
Judge’s feet before the roaring library fire; he carried the Judge’s
grandsons on his back, or 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 paddocks were, and the berry patches.
Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he
utterly ignored, for he was king,—king over all creeping, crawling,
flying things of Judge Miller’s place, humans included.
His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge’s
inseparable companion, and Buck bid fair 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 Scotch shepherd dog.
Nevertheless, 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 lived the life of a sated aristocrat; he had a fine pride
in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes
become because of their insular situation. But he had saved himself by
