A thousand deaths by Jack London

incomprehensible things moving, yes, moving, in those eyes of his. I didn’t

really see them move; I thought I saw them, for, as I said before, I guess I

only sensed them. And I want to tell you right now that it got beyond me.

It was like killing a man, a conscious, brave man who looked calmly into

your gun as much as to say, “Who’s afraid?” Then, too, the message

seemed so near that, instead of pulling the trigger quick, I stopped to see if

I could catch the message. There it was, right before me, glimmering all

around in those eyes of his. And then it was too late. I got scared. I was

trembly all over, and my stomach generated a nervous palpitation that

made me seasick. I just sat down and looked at that dog, and he looked at

me, till I thought I was going crazy. Do you want to know what I did? I

threw down the gun and ran back to camp with the fear of God in my

heart. Steve laughed at me. But I notice that Steve led Spot into the woods,

a week later, for the same purpose, and that Steve came back alone, and a

little later Spot drifted back, too.

At any rate, Spot wouldn’t work. We paid a hundred and ten dollars for

him from the bottom of our sack, and he wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t even

tighten the traces. Steve spoke to him the first time we put him in harness,

and he sort of shivered, that was all. Not an ounce on the traces. He just

stood still and wobbled, like so much jelly. Steve touched him with the

whip. He yelped, but not an ounce. Steve touched him again, a bit harder,

and he howled–the regular long wolf howl. Then Steve got mad and gave

him half a dozen, and I came on the run from the tent.

I told Steve he was brutal with the animal, and we had some words–the

first we’d ever had. He threw the whip down in the snow and walked

away mad. I picked it up and went to it. That Spot trembled and wobbled

and cowered before ever I swung the lash, and with the first bite of it he

howled like a lost soul. Next he lay down in the snow. I started the rest of

the dogs, and they dragged him along while I threw the whip into him. He

rolled over on his back and bumped along, his four legs waving in the air,

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himself howling as though he was going through a sausage machine. Steve

came back and laughed at me, and I apologized for what I’d said.

There was no getting any work out of that Spot; and to make up for it, he

was the biggest pig-glutton of a dog I ever saw. On top of that, he was the

cleverest thief. There was no circumventing him. Many a breakfast we

went without our bacon because Spot had been there first. And it was

because of him that we nearly starved to death up the Stewart. He figured

out the way to break into our meat-cache, and what he didn’t eat, the rest

of the team did. But he was impartial. He stole from everybody. He was a

restless dog, always very busy snooping around or going somewhere. And

there was never a camp within five miles that he didn’t raid. The worst of

it was that they always came back on us to pay his board bill, which was

just, being the law of the land; but it was mighty hard on us, especially

that first winter on the Chilcoot, when we were busted, paying for whole

hams and sides of bacon that we never ate. He could fight, too, that Spot.

He could do everything but work. He never pulled a pound, but he was the

boss of the whole team. The way he made those dogs stand around was an

education. He bullied them, and there was always one or more of them

fresh-marked with his fangs. But he was more than a bully. He wasn’t

afraid of anything that walked on four legs; and I’ve seen him march,

single-handed, into a strange team, without any provocation whatever, and

put the kibosh on the whole outfit. Did I say he could eat? I caught him

eating the whip once. That’s straight. He started in at the lash, and when I

caught him he was down to the handle, and still going.

But he was a good looker. At the end of the first week we sold him for

seventy-five dollars to the Mounted Police. They had experienced dogdrivers,

and we knew that by the time he’d covered the six hundredI miles

to Dawson he’d be a good sled-dog. I say we knew, for we were just

getting acquainted with that Spot. A little later we were not brash enough

to know anything where he was concerned. A week later we woke up in

the morning to the dangdest dog-fight we’d ever heard. It was that Spot

come back and knocking the team into shape. We ate a pretty depressing

breakfast, I can tell you; but cheered up two hours afterward when we sold

him to an official courier, bound in to Dawson with government

despatches. That Spot was only three days in coming back, and, as usual,

celebrated his arrival with a rough-house.

We spent the winter and spring, after our own outfit was across the pass,

freighting other people’s outfits; and we made a fat stake. Also, we made

money out of Spot. If we sold him once, we sold him twenty times. He

always came back, and no one asked for their money. We didn’t want the

money. We’d have paid handsomely for any one to take him off our hands

for keeps. We had to get rid of him, and we couldn’t give him away, for

that would have been suspicious. But he was such a fine looker that we

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never had any difficulty in selling him. “Unbroke,” we’d say, and they’d

pay any old price for him. We sold him as low as twenty-five dollars, and

once we got a hundred and fifty for him. That particular party returned

him in person, refused to take his money back, and the way he abused us

was something awful. He said it was cheap at the price to tell us what he

thought of us; and we felt he was so justified that we never talked back.

But to this day I’ve never quite regained all the old self-respect that was

mine before that man talked to me.

When the ice cleared out of the lakes and river, we put our outfit in a Lake

Bennett boat and started for Dawson. We had a good team of dogs, and of

course we piled them on top the outfit. That Spot was along–there was no

losing him; and a dozen times, the first day, he knocked one or another of

the dogs overboard in the course of fighting with them. It was close

quarters, and he didn’t like being crowded.

“What that dog needs is space,” Steve said the second day. “Let’s maroon

him.”

We did, running the boat in at Caribou Crossing for him to jump ashore.

Two of the other dogs, good dogs, followed him; and we lost two whole

days trying to find them. We never saw those two dogs again; but the

quietness and relief we enjoyed made us decide, like the man who refused

his hundred and fifty, that it was cheap at the price. For the first time in

months Steve and I laughed and whistled and sang. We were as happy as

clams. The dark days were over. The nightmare had been lifted. That Spot

was gone.

Three weeks later, one morning, Steve and I were standing on the riverbank

at Dawson. A small boat was just arriving from Lake Bennett. I saw

Steve give a start, and heard him say something that was not nice and that

was not under his breath. Then I looked; and there, in the bow of the boat,

with ears pricked up, sat Spot. Steve and I sneaked immediately, like

beaten curs, like cowards, like absconders from justice. It was this last that

the lieutenant of police thought when he saw us sneaking. He surmised

that there were law-officers in the boat who were after us. He didn’t wait

to find out, but kept us in sight, and in the M. &. M. saloon got us in a

corner. We had a merry time explaining, for we refused to go back to the

boat and meet Spot; and finally he held us under guard of another

policeman while he went to the boat. After we got clear of him, we started

for the cabin, and when we arrived, there was that Spot sitting on the stoop