by Jack London
THAT SPOT
I don't think much of Stephen Mackaye any more, though I used to swear byhim. I know that in those days I loved him more than my own brother. Ifever I meet Stephen Mackaye again, I shall not be responsible for myactions. It passes beyond me that a man with whom I shared food andblanket, and with whom I mushed over the Chilcoot Trail, should turn outthe way he did. I always sized Steve up as a square man, a kindlycomrade, without an iota of anything vindictive or malicious in hisnature. I shall never trust my judgment in men again. Why, I nursedthat man through typhoid fever; we starved together on the headwaters ofthe Stewart; and he saved my life on the Little Salmon. And now, afterthe years we were together, all I can say of Stephen Mackaye is that heis the meanest man I ever knew.
We started for the Klondike in the fall rush of 1897, and we started toolate to get over Chilcoot Pass before the freeze-up. We packed ouroutfit on our backs part way over, when the snow began to fly, and thenwe had to buy dogs in order to sled it the rest of the way. That was howwe came to get that Spot. Dogs were high, and we paid one hundred andten dollars for him. He looked worth it. I say _looked_, because he wasone of the finest-appearing dogs I ever saw. He weighed sixty pounds,and he had all the lines of a good sled animal. We never could make outhis breed. He wasn't husky, nor Malemute, nor Hudson Bay; he looked likeall of them and he didn't look like any of them; and on top of it all hehad some of the white man's dog in him, for on one side, in the thick ofthe mixed yellow-brown-red-and-dirty-white that was his prevailingcolour, there was a spot of coal-black as big as a water-bucket. Thatwas why we called him Spot.
He was a good looker all right. When he was in condition his musclesstood out in bunches all over him. And he was the strongest-lookingbrute I ever saw in Alaska, also the most intelligent-looking. To runyour eyes over him, you'd think he could outpull three dogs of his ownweight. Maybe he could, but I never saw it. His intelligence didn't runthat way. He could steal and forage to perfection; he had an instinctthat was positively gruesome for divining when work was to be done andfor making a sneak accordingly; and for getting lost and not staying losthe was nothing short of inspired. But when it came to work, the way thatintelligence dribbled out of him and left him a mere clot of wobbling,stupid jelly would make your heart bleed.
There are times when I think it wasn't stupidity. Maybe, like some men Iknow, he was too wise to work. I shouldn't wonder if he put it all overus with that intelligence of his. Maybe he figured it all out anddecided that a licking now and again and no work was a whole lot betterthan work all the time and no licking. He was intelligent enough forsuch a computation. I tell you, I've sat and looked into that dog's eyestill the shivers ran up and down my spine and the marrow crawled likeyeast, what of the intelligence I saw shining out. I can't expressmyself about that intelligence. It is beyond mere words. I saw it,that's all. At times it was like gazing into a human soul, to look intohis eyes; and what I saw there frightened me and started all sorts ofideas in my own mind of reincarnation and all the rest. I tell you Isensed something big in that brute's eyes; there was a message there, butI wasn't big enough myself to catch it. Whatever it was (I know I'mmaking a fool of myself)--whatever it was, it baffled me. I can't givean inkling of what I saw in that brute's eyes; it wasn't light, it wasn'tcolour; it was something that moved, away back, when the eyes themselvesweren't moving. And I guess I didn't see it move either; I only sensedthat it moved. It was an expression--that's what it was--and I got animpression of it. No; it was different from a mere expression; it wasmore than that. I don't know what it was, but it gave me a feeling ofkinship just the same. Oh, no, not sentimental kinship. It was, rather,a kinship of equality. Those eyes never pleaded like a deer's eyes.They challenged. No, it wasn't defiance. It was just a calm assumptionof equality. And I don't think it was deliberate. My belief is that itwas unconscious on his part. It was there because it was there, and itcouldn't help shining out. No, I don't mean shine. It didn't shine; it_moved_. I know I'm talking rot, but if you'd looked into that animal'seyes the way I have, you'd understand. Steve was affected the same way Iwas. Why, I tried to kill that Spot once--he was no good for anything;and I fell down on it. I led him out into the brush, and he came alongslow and unwilling. He knew what was going on. I stopped in a likelyplace, put my foot on the rope, and pulled my big Colt's. And that dogsat down and looked at me. I tell you he didn't plead. He just looked.And I saw all kinds of incomprehensible things moving, yes, _moving_, inthose 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 tellyou right now that it got beyond me. It was like killing a man, aconscious, 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 thetrigger quick, I stopped to see if I could catch the message. There itwas, right before me, glimmering all around in those eyes of his. Andthen it was too late. I got scared. I was trembly all over, and mystomach generated a nervous palpitation that made me seasick. I just satdown and looked at the dog, and he looked at me, till I thought I wasgoing crazy. Do you want to know what I did? I threw down the gun andran 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 thesame purpose, and that Steve came back alone, and a little later Spotdrifted back, too.
At any rate, Spot wouldn't work. We paid a hundred and ten dollars forhim from the bottom of our sack, and he wouldn't work. He wouldn't eventighten the traces. Steve spoke to him the first time we put him inharness, and he sort of shivered, that was all. Not an ounce on thetraces. He just stood still and wobbled, like so much jelly. Stevetouched him with the whip. He yelped, but not an ounce. Steve touchedhim again, a bit harder, and he howled--the regular long wolf howl. ThenSteve got mad and gave him half a dozen, and I came on the run from thetent.
I told Steve he was brutal with the animal, and we had some words--thefirst we'd ever had. He threw the whip down in the snow and walked awaymad. I picked it up and went to it. That Spot trembled and wobbled andcowered before ever I swung the lash, and with the first bite of it hehowled like a lost soul. Next he lay down in the snow. I started therest of the dogs, and they dragged him along while I threw the whip intohim. He rolled over on his back and bumped along, his four legs wavingin the air, himself howling as though he was going through a sausagemachine. Steve came back and laughed at me, and I apologized for whatI'd said.
There was no getting any work out of that Spot; and to make up for it, hewas the biggest pig-glutton of a dog I ever saw. On top of that, he wasthe cleverest thief. There was no circumventing him. Many a breakfastwe went without our bacon because Spot had been there first. And it wasbecause of him that we nearly starved to death up the Stewart. Hefigured 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 fromeverybody. He was a restless dog, always very busy snooping around orgoing somewhere. And there was never a camp within five miles that hedidn't raid. The worst of it was that they always came back on us to payhis board bill, which was just, being the law of the land; but it wasmighty hard on us, especially that first winter on the Chilcoot, when wewere 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. Henever pulled a pound, but he was the boss of the whole team. The way hemade those dogs stand around was an education. He bullied them, andthere was always one or more of them fresh-marked with his fangs. But hewas more than a bully. He wasn't afraid of anything that walked on fourlegs; and I've seen him march, single-handed into a strange team, withoutany provocation whatever, and put the _kibosh_ on the whole outfit. DidI 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 thehandle, and still going.
But he was a good
looker. At the end of the first week we sold him forseventy-five dollars to the Mounted Police. They had experienceddog-drivers, and we knew that by the time he'd covered the six hundredmiles to Dawson he'd be a good sled-dog. I say we _knew_, for we werejust getting acquainted with that Spot. A little later we were not brashenough to know anything where he was concerned. A week later we woke upin the morning to the dangdest dog-fight we'd ever heard. It was thatSpot come back and knocking the team into shape. We ate a prettydepressing breakfast, I can tell you; but cheered up two hours afterwardwhen we sold him to an official courier, bound in to Dawson withgovernment 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, wemade 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 wantthe money. We'd have paid handsomely for any one to take him off ourhands for keeps'. We had to get rid of him, and we couldn't give himaway, for that would have been suspicious. But he was such a fine lookerthat we 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-fivedollars, and once we got a hundred and fifty for him. That particularparty returned him in person, refused to take his money back, and the wayhe abused us was something awful. He said it was cheap at the price totell us what he thought of us; and we felt he was so justified that wenever talked back. But to this day I've never quite regained all the oldself-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 aLake 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 wasalong--there was no losing him; and a dozen times, the first day, heknocked one or another of the dogs overboard in the course of fightingwith 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 maroonhim."
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 wholedays trying to find them. We never saw those two dogs again; but thequietness and relief we enjoyed made us decide, like the man who refusedhis hundred and fifty, that it was cheap at the price. For the firsttime in months Steve and I laughed and whistled and sang. We were ashappy 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 theriver-bank 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 niceand that was not under his breath. Then I looked; and there, in the bowof the boat, with ears pricked up, sat Spot. Steve and I sneakedimmediately, like beaten curs, like cowards, like absconders fromjustice. It was this last that the lieutenant of police thought when hesaw us sneaking. He surmised that there were law-officers in the boatwho were after us. He didn't wait to find out, but kept us in sight, andin the M. & M. saloon got us in a corner. We had a merry timeexplaining, for we refused to go back to the boat and meet Spot; andfinally he held us under guard of another policeman while he went to theboat. After we got clear of him, we started for the cabin, and when wearrived, there was that Spot sitting on the stoop waiting for us. Nowhow did he know we lived there? There were forty thousand people inDawson that summer, and how did he _savve_ our cabin out of all thecabins? How did he know we were in Dawson, anyway? I leave it to you.But don't forget what I said about his intelligence and that immortalsomething I have seen glimmering in his eyes.
There was no getting rid of him any more. There were too many people inDawson who had bought him up on Chilcoot, and the story got around. Halfa dozen times we put him on board steamboats going down the Yukon; but hemerely went ashore at the first landing and trotted back up the bank. Wecouldn't sell him, we couldn't kill him (both Steve and I had tried), andnobody else was able to kill him. He bore a charmed life. I've seen himgo down in a dogfight on the main street with fifty dogs on top of him,and when they were separated, he'd appear on all his four legs, unharmed,while two of the dogs that had been on top of him would be lying dead.
I saw him steal a chunk of moose-meat from Major Dinwiddie's cache soheavy that he could just keep one jump ahead of Mrs. Dinwiddie's squawcook, who was after him with an axe. As he went up the hill, after thesquaw gave up, Major Dinwiddie himself came out and pumped his Winchesterinto the landscape. He emptied his magazine twice, and never touchedthat Spot. Then a policeman came along and arrested him for dischargingfirearms inside the city limits. Major Dinwiddie paid his fine, andSteve and I paid him for the moose-meat at the rate of a dollar a pound,bones and all. That was what he paid for it. Meat was high that year.
I am only telling what I saw with my own eyes. And now I'll tell yousomething also. I saw that Spot fall through a water-hole. The ice wasthree and a half feet thick, and the current sucked him under like astraw. Three hundred yards below was the big water-hole used by thehospital. Spot crawled out of the hospital water-hole, licked off thewater, bit out the ice that had formed between his toes, trotted up thebank, and whipped a big Newfoundland belonging to the Gold Commissioner.
In the fall of 1898, Steve and I poled up the Yukon on the last water,bound for Stewart River. We took the dogs along, all except Spot. Wefigured we'd been feeding him long enough. He'd cost us more time andtrouble and money and grub than we'd got by selling him on theChilcoot--especially grub. So Steve and I tied him down in the cabin andpulled our freight. We camped that night at the mouth of Indian River,and Steve and I were pretty facetious over having shaken him. Steve wasa funny cuss, and I was just sitting up in the blankets and laughing whena tornado hit camp. The way that Spot walked into those dogs and gavethem what-for was hair-raising. Now how did he get loose? It's up toyou. I haven't any theory. And how did he get across the KlondikeRiver? That's another facer. And anyway, how did he know we had gone upthe Yukon? You see, we went by water, and he couldn't smell our tracks.Steve and I began to get superstitious about that dog. He got on ournerves, too; and, between you and me, we were just a mite afraid of him.
The freeze-up came on when we were at the mouth of Henderson Creek, andwe traded him off for two sacks of flour to an outfit that was bound upWhite River after copper. Now that whole outfit was lost. Never tracenor hide nor hair of men, dogs, sleds, or anything was ever found. Theydropped clean out of sight. It became one of the mysteries of thecountry. Steve and I plugged away up the Stewart, and six weeksafterward that Spot crawled into camp. He was a perambulating skeleton,and could just drag along; but he got there. And what I want to know is,who told him we were up the Stewart? We could have gone to a thousandother places. How did he know? You tell me, and I'll tell you.
No losing him. At the Mayo he started a row with an Indian dog. Thebuck who owned the dog took a swing at Spot with an axe, missed him, andkilled his own dog. Talk about magic and turning bullets aside--I, forone, consider it a blamed sight harder to turn an axe aside with a bigbuck at the other end of it. And I saw him do it with my own eyes. Thatbuck didn't want to kill his own dog. You've got to show me.
I told you about Spot breaking into our meat cache. It was nearly thedeath of us. There wasn't any more meat to be killed, and meat was allwe had to live on. The moose had gone back several hundred miles and theIndians with them. There we were. Spring was on, and we had to wait forthe river to break. We got pretty thin before we decided to eat thedogs, and we decided to eat Spot first. Do you know what that dog did?He sneaked. Now how did he know our minds were made up to eat him? Wesat up nights laying for him, but he never came back, and we ate theother dogs. We ate the whole team.
And now for the sequel. You know what it is when a big river brea
ks upand a few billion tons of ice go out, jamming and milling and grinding.Just in the thick of it, when the Stewart went out, rumbling and roaring,we sighted Spot out in the middle. He'd got caught as he was trying tocross up above somewhere. Steve and I yelled and shouted and ran up anddown the bank, tossing our hats in the air. Sometimes we'd stop and hugeach other, we were that boisterous, for we saw Spot's finish. He didn'thave a chance in a million. He didn't have any chance at all. After theice-run, we got into a canoe and paddled down to the Yukon, and down theYukon to Dawson, stopping to feed up for a week at the cabins at themouth of Henderson Creek. And as we came in to the bank at Dawson, theresat that Spot, waiting for us, his ears pricked up, his tail wagging, hismouth smiling, extending a hearty welcome to us. Now how did he get outof that ice? How did he know we were coming to Dawson, to the very hourand minute, to be out there on the bank waiting for us?
The more I think of that Spot, the more I am convinced that there arethings in this world that go beyond science. On no scientific groundscan that Spot be explained. It's psychic phenomena, or mysticism, orsomething of that sort, I guess, with a lot of Theosophy thrown in. TheKlondike is a good country. I might have been there yet, and become amillionaire, if it hadn't been for Spot. He got on my nerves. I stoodhim for two years altogether, and then I guess my stamina broke. It wasthe summer of 1899 when I pulled out. I didn't say anything to Steve. Ijust sneaked. But I fixed it up all right. I wrote Steve a note, andenclosed a package of "rough-on-rats," telling him what to do with it. Iwas worn down to skin and bone by that Spot, and I was that nervous thatI'd jump and look around when there wasn't anybody within hailingdistance. But it was astonishing the way I recuperated when I got quitof him. I got back twenty pounds before I arrived in San Francisco, andby the time I'd crossed the ferry to Oakland I was my old self again, sothat even my wife looked in vain for any change in me.
Steve wrote to me once, and his letter seemed irritated. He took it kindof hard because I'd left him with Spot. Also, he said he'd used the"rough-on-rats," per directions, and that there was nothing doing. Ayear went by. I was back in the office and prospering in all ways--evengetting a bit fat. And then Steve arrived. He didn't look me up. Iread his name in the steamer list, and wondered why. But I didn't wonderlong. I got up one morning and found that Spot chained to the gate-postand holding up the milkman. Steve went north to Seattle, I learned, thatvery morning. I didn't put on any more weight. My wife made me buy hima collar and tag, and within an hour he showed his gratitude by killingher pet Persian cat. There is no getting rid of that Spot. He will bewith me until I die, for he'll never die. My appetite is not so goodsince he arrived, and my wife says I am looking peaked. Last night thatSpot got into Mr. Harvey's hen-house (Harvey is my next-door neighbour)and killed nineteen of his fancy-bred chickens. I shall have to pay forthem. My neighbours on the other side quarrelled with my wife and thenmoved out. Spot was the cause of it. And that is why I am disappointedin Stephen Mackaye. I had no idea he was so mean a man.