Call of the Wild

Chinese lottery.  Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting
weakness--faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain.
For to play a system requires money, while the wages of a
gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerous
progeny.

The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, and
the boys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorable
night of Manuel's treachery.  No one saw him and Buck go off
through the orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll.
And with the exception of a solitary man, no one saw them arrive
at the little flag station known as College Park.  This man talked
with Manuel, and money chinked between them.

"You might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'm," the stranger
said gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around
Buck's neck under the collar.

"Twist it, an' you'll choke 'm plentee," said Manuel, and the
stranger grunted a ready affirmative.

Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity.  To be sure, it was
an unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he
knew, and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his
own.  But when the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger's
hands, he growled menacingly.  He had merely intimated his
displeasure, in his pride believing that to intimate was to
command.  But to his surprise the rope tightened around his neck,
shutting off his breath.  In quick rage he sprang at the man, who
met him halfway, grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft
twist threw him over on his back.  Then the rope tightened
mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling
out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely.  Never in
all his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his
life had he been so angry.  But his strength ebbed, his eyes
glazed, and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two
men threw him into the baggage car.

The next he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting
and that he was being jolted along in some kind of a conveyance.
The hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing told him
where he was.  He had travelled too often with the Judge not to
know the sensation of riding in a baggage car.  He opened his
eyes, and into them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king.
The man sprang for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him.
His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they relax till his senses
were choked out of him once more.

"Yep, has fits," the man said, hiding his mangled hand from the
baggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle.
"I'm takin' 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco.  A crack dog-doctor
there thinks that he can cure 'm."

Concerning that night's ride, the man spoke most eloquently for
himself, in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco
water front.

"All I get is fifty for it," he grumbled; "an' I wouldn't do it
over for a thousand, cold cash."

His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right
trouser leg was ripped from knee to ankle.

"How much did the other mug get?" the saloon-keeper demanded.

"A hundred," was the reply.  "Wouldn't take a sou less, so help
me."

"That makes a hundred and fifty," the saloon-keeper calculated;
"and he's worth it, or I'm a squarehead."

The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his
lacerated hand.  "If I don't get the hydrophoby--"

"It'll be because you was born to hang," laughed the saloon-
keeper.  "Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight," he
added.

Dazed, suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with the
life half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his
tormentors.  But he was thrown down and choked repeatedly, till
they succeeded in filing the heavy brass collar from off his neck.
Then the rope was removed, and he was flung into a cagelike crate.

There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his
wrath and wounded pride.  He could not understand what it all
meant.  What did they want with him, these strange men?  Why were
they keeping him pent up in this narrow crate?  He did not know
why, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense of impending
calamity.  Several times during the night he sprang to his feet
when the shed door rattled open, expecting to see the Judge, or
the boys at least.  But each time it was the bulging face of the
saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of a
tallow candle.  And each time the joyful bark that trembled in
Buck's throat was twisted into a savage growl.

But the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four men
entered and picked up the crate.  More tormentors, Buck decided,
for they were evil-looking creatures, ragged and unkempt; and he
stormed and raged at them through the bars.  They only laughed and