Buck 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 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 not becoming a mere pampered house-dog. Hunting
and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat and hardened his
muscles; and to him, as to the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had
been a tonic and a health preserver.
