Jack London

Call of the Wild Jack London

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, longhair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, hadfound a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies werebooming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These menwanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles bywhich 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, itwas called. It stood back from the road, half hidden among the trees, through whichglimpses could be caught of the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. Thehouse was approached by gravelled driveways which wound about through widespreadinglawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At the rear things wereon even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables, where adozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages, an endless andorderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berrypatches. Then there was the pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cementtank where Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hotafternoon