John. Thornton had frostbitten his foot in early December, and his partner kept him to nurse his wound while they themselves traveled down the river to Dawson in a log raft tied with sawhorses. Thornton had been limping a little when he saved Buck's life, and as the weather grew warmer he still had a slight limp. Here, on this long spring day, Buck lay on the bank of the river, watching the rushing water and lazily listening to the birds singing and the hum of nature ...... Buck slowly regained his strength.
A long rest after traveling three thousand miles could not be better. Buck had gotten lazy, it must be admitted. As its wounds healed, its muscles slackened and its bones plumped up. In a word, it was mucking about, and that of course included John. Thornton, and Szitzit and Nig - the latter two dogs waiting for the woodchop to come back before taking them to Dawson.
Shweatt, a small-framed Irish Setter, had long made friends with Buck. And Buck was in a dying state, unable to express resentment at the kind of closeness he had first shown the bitch. Szet had a dawg-like quality that many bitches have. Like a mother cat washing her kittens, she cleaned the wounds on Buck's body. Regularly, every morning after breakfast, she performed her own appointed duties, until Buck gradually came to expect the arrival of the priestly bitch as strongly as he had expected the arrival of Thornton. Nig, likewise, was friendly, though there is little evidence of this. He was a huge black dog, half hound, half deer blood, with laughing eyes and an endlessly good-natured disposition.
To Buck's surprise, the dogs felt no jealousy towards him, and they looked to be sharing John together. Thornton's friendliness and generosity towards them **** the same. As Barker recovered, they lured him into all sorts of ridiculous games that even John Thornton himself couldn't resist. Thornton himself could not resist taking part. In the midst of these fashionable games, Buck gradually healed and gradually entered into a new environment. Love, truly amorous love, was what it felt for the first time in its life. This experience, which it had kissed in that solar of the judge miller's santa. There was nothing like it in the hilly terrain of the Clara Valley. With the Judge's sons who went hunting and traveling together, it was a working partnership. With the judge's grandchildren, it played the role of a luxurious and magnificent guardian. And with the judge himself, it had a sense of majestic and majestic friendship. But the love, the feverish, truly burning love, that love of mad adoration, came with John. Thornton was created when he was with him.
The man had saved its life, for one thing. But further, he was its ideal owner. Other people viewed their dogs only in terms of peace of mind at work, in terms of business convenience. But he saw the dog as his own child. Because the owner is unable to do something, only then does his child do it. Not only that, but the owner looks beyond that. He never forgot a friendly greeting or a word of applause. He always sat down and had long conversations with the dogs, ("to have a little air" - as Thornton called such conversations). This hobby was a great favorite for both him and them. He had a special way of doing this: he rubbed Buck's head with his rough hands and shook it around affectionately. He called Buck's name by mistake, and Buck just loved it when he called it by mistake like that. Buck realized that there was no greater pleasure than the caresses and hugs of such rough hands and the kind of muttered curses and laughs. Every time he held its head and shook it around, it was as if he were trying to shake its heart out of its body in ecstasy, and it made its heart happy. Whenever he released it at such times, it jumped for joy and grinned, its eyes streaming, its throat quivering with excitement and unable to make a sound. In this state of forgetfulness, John. Thornton would invariably exclaim, in all reverence and humility, "God! You can do everything but talk!" Buck had a ruse for expressing love that was almost as hurtful. He often measured Thornton's hand with his beak. His mouth approached the hand ferociously, and he sank his teeth into the flesh of the hand, biting it for a long time and leaving deep marks on it. Buck understood that all of his master's curses were words of love for him; and Thornton knew that Buck's pretend bites were also a sign of love.
But for the most part, Buck's love was expressed only in adoration. He was wildly happy when Thornton petted him and talked to him, and he didn't go after anything in return, unlike Zygote. Zygote liked to sniff his nose under Thornton's palm and push it around gently. Nor was he like the niger, who was always sneaking up and putting his huge head under Thornton's knee to rest. Buck was content to worship only from a distance. It would crawl there for long periods of time with great interest, eager and alert, at Thornton's feet, watching his face, watching every movement of his master, every change in his master's demeanor. It thought and studied, ready to obey its master's every direction and hint. Or, if conditions permitted, it would climb a little farther, crawl beside or behind him, and watch its master's profile, observe every occasional movement of his body. Often, in this way, it was in divine communion with its master. Its watchful gaze would fall around its master's head, and he would stare back at it. Thornton didn't speak, his thoughts flashed from his eyes; and what was on Buck's mind burst from its eyes.
For a long time after his rescue, Buck didn't like the way Thornton looked at him. It followed Thornton's footsteps when he left the tent and when he walked into it. Since his arrival in the Arctic, several of his short-term owners had instilled in him a sense of fear that led him to believe that none of them would ever change their attitude toward dogs. It feared that Thornton, too, would forget his life like Borot, Ferankos, and that half-Scottish Hal. Even at night, in its sleep, it was haunted by this thought. Whenever this happened, it would give up on sleep and slip quietly out of the tent to stand in the cold, listening for the sound of its master's sleeping breath.
But now it bore John. Thornton's immense love, a love that was surprising in the Arctic, a love that seemed to have been pre-influenced by civilization, evoked in Buck a great love for the primitive struggle that he still retained alive and distinct. Loyalty and devotion, a love born of blood and fire, still existed within it. But it still retains its own wildness and resourcefulness. Now it sat at John. Thornton's fire, but it was, after all, a wild thing, from a wildened world. It would rather be that than be a dog like this: a dog that has come from the warm south and is merely treading on the civilized marks of its ancestors. For this great love it could not steal from the man Thornton. Had it wanted this love from any other man, in any other camp, it would not have hesitated for a moment; it would have stolen it, and this cunning with which it stole the love kept it from being discovered.
His face was marked by the teeth of other dogs. It fought as fiercely as before, but with greater agility and resourcefulness. When it comes to quarrelling, Schecter and Nige are too good-tempered - besides they both belong to John. Thornton's, and Buck did not quarrel with them. But to a strange dog, of whatever breed, however gallant he may have been, he has to be quick to admit that Buck is supreme; or to find himself in a fight for existence with a formidable antagonist. And Buck is not yet merciful; it understands well the law of the big stick and the dog's teeth. It never forfeits an interest once, and it never backs down from fighting an enemy on the road that leads to death. It had learned a great deal from Spetsnaz, from that main fight that had taken place with the dogs of the Postal Police. It knows that there is no middle road to travel between life and death; it must master or be mastered. And showing mercy and forgiveness is a sign of weakness; mercy and forgiveness do not exist in this primitive existence. Fear cannot be understood here, and understanding fear will lead to death. To kill the other or to be killed by the other; to eat the opponent or to be eaten by the opponent, this is the law. And this naked law, this law that comes out of the paths of the ages, out of the high mountain peaks, out of the thorny jungles it is the law that has to be obeyed.
It is more mature than anything it has seen in this age, anything it has felt in this region. It links the past and the present: the surge of the ebb and flow and the cycle of spring, summer, fall, and winter move before it, and such movement is forever behind it.
Now it sat by John. Thornton's fire. It was a broad-chested dog with white teeth and a long coat. It has all the ways, attitudes and shades of a dog: half-wolf, full wolf, urgent, inspiring. When you eat meat, you eat meat; when you are thirsty, you go for water; you can spy the wind that flows beside you; you can distinguish the sounds that come from the wild beings of the great forests and carry on a conversation with them; you can control your emotions and direct your actions at all times; and when you want to go to sleep, you lie down to sleep, and you have to dream, and you have to dream and talk nonsense for a while.
It is not polite to say it, but all these dark and hidden things are nodding their heads in greeting to it. Each day, man, and man's claims and demands slipped from it to something farther away. In the depths of the forest, a voice called out. It - Buck could often hear this call. This mysterious call made anyone who heard it tremble and be tempted. It felt a force compelling it to turn its back to the fire, to the earth that had been leveled around it. It felt a force compelling it to plunge headlong into the great forest, to run and run. It didn't know where it was going to run and why; it didn't want to know where it was going to run and why. The sound of this call was arbitrary, urgent, right in the depths of the great forest ...... But it had just as often had access to that green shade that was bracing itself in the soft, uncracked earth, and that love, that John. The love that Thornton had drawn it back to the fire again.
Thornton held Buck alone. The rest of the world was not so blessed, and travelers who had the chance might have praised Buck and favored him, but Buck was cold to all that. If anyone was too obviously favoring Buck, he would get up and run away.
When Thornton's partners, Hans and Pete, returned on the raft that had been watched, Buck refused to notice them until he learned that they and Thornton were close friends. Since then, Buck had tolerated their friendliness to it in a passive, acquiescent way, accepting friendship from them. And had regarded this passive tolerance of them as in turn the greatest favor that could be done to them as people. Hans and Pete, like Thornton, had a big talkative demeanor, slept close to the land, had a simple way of thinking, and seemed clear and transparent and heartless. After they had returned from sailing their rafts in the whirlpool next to the Dawson sawmill, they understood Buck and the road he had traveled. And so they stopped insisting that Buck must be as close to them as Sziget and Nigel had been.
For Thornton, Buck's love was growing stronger. Thornton was alone among these men. On summer trips he would put a package on Buck's back. Nothing was too huge for Buck to do, as long as Thornton gave the order.
One day, (they had taken some money out of the proceeds of the rafting trip and left the Dawson area to head up the Tanana River) Thornton and his dogs were sitting on the top of a bluff. The bluff went straight up and down, and the bare rock of the mountain was not seen until three hundred feet down. Thornton sat on the edge of the bluff, with Buck next to him. An idea suddenly came to Thornton, and he greeted Hans and Pete with an attention to this experiment he had not thought of before, "Jump, Buck!" He gave the order, waving his arm and pointing to a deep pit. Buck jumped over, and Thornton was instantly at the edge of this huge cliff pulling Buck by the hand. Hans and Pete then pulled them back hard for safety.
"It's divine, it's bizarre!" Pete said. After the experiment passed, they opened up the conversation.
Thornton shook his head, "No, it was brilliant! It's also terrifying! You know? Sometimes it scares me to do that." "I'd hate to be the one to let it dangle and then reach out and pull on it." Pete said conclusively, looking at Buck.
"It's too dangerous! It's too exciting!" Hans took over and said, "That's what I was thinking." They arrived at Circle City, Alaska. (Gold was discovered in the city in 1893. The city was gradually abandoned after the Dawson Area General Strike of 1897.) New Year's Eve passed, and Pete's apprehension became a reality. "Black" Bouton, a very bad-tempered and vicious man, had been arguing with a new fellow at the bar. At this point Thornton walked over with interest and stood between the two. Buck crawled habitually around the corner, his head on his forepaws, watching his master's every move. Button struck out unexpectedly, straight at Thornton's chest. Thornton was knocked back a few steps at once, just managing to stay on his feet by grabbing the bar's iron handle.
What the bystanders heard was neither a bark nor a yell, but a growl best described as a "snarl". They saw Buck leap into the air and aim his mouth at Bouton's throat. "Black" Boughton flailed his arms in an instinctive bid for survival and was tackled to the floor by Buck. Buck pressed down on Bouton's body, his teeth releasing his arms while his mouth was on his throat. Now the demonic "Black" Bourdon could only partially wriggle, his throat having been torn out. At this point the crowd rallied around Barker, who was driven away. But while the doctor examined Button's bleeding wounds, Buck was still searching up and down, roaring unrelentingly. And attempted to rush on again, only to be forced back by a hostile row of big sticks. Later, a "miners' meeting" was held at this point, at which it was agreed that Buck's fire was too great to remain in the vicinity. So Buck was sent away during the meeting, but his reputation grew and his name was spread to every camp in Alaska.
Then, that fall, Buck saved Thornton's life in another very fashionable operation. At the time, the three partners, Thornton, Hans, and Pete, were bracing a long, narrow pole boat down a treacherous river at Forty Mile Bend. Hans and Pete's job: to slowly float the boat downstream with a thin manila rope, wrapped around a tree on the bank. Thornton was bracing the boat with a pole, calling out to the shore from time to time. Buck was on shore, both worried and anxious, keeping the same pace as the boat, never taking his eyes off his master.
At one particularly bad spot, the edge of the rock that hadn't been flooded showed above the water. Hans loosened the rope, and Thornton pointed the pole at the rocks, trying to hold it against them so the boat raked and paddled out into the rapids. As he did so, the fast-flowing rapids galloped and roared like a wild horse out of control. Hans wanted to look at the rope. Unexpectedly the check was so sudden that the boat became unsteady and began to lurch through the water. Thornton was thrown violently against the side of the boat, which overturned at once, and men and things sank into the rushing water. There were no swimmers who could have survived this wild-horse-like current.
Buck leaped up in a flash and plunged into the water from three hundred yards away. In the wildly swirling water, it caught up with Thornton, who jerked Buck's tail. Buck made for the shore, swimming forward with all its extraordinary breath. But this swimming directly toward the shore progressed slowly, while the drift down the water was surprisingly fast. Beneath him, the wild-horse-like current surged upward with a deafening roar. The waves hit the rocks, were torn into millions of pieces, and reflected back toward them. The rock, however, was like a huge comb, filtering the cresting rapids with its teeth. The current that crashed against the steep rocks at the end was knocked back again, creating a terrible suction.
Thornton realized that landing from here was impossible. With all his strength he suddenly clung to a rock, not caring about the bruises and being knocked toward a second one. Before he could catch his breath, he was swept toward a third by the rapids. With both hands he had a death grip on the slippery tip of the rock. He untied Buck and yelled in a roar that overpowered the current, "Get away! Buck! Get away!" Buck couldn't control himself and drifted rapidly downstream, struggling desperately in the water. But it could not succeed in swimming back. It listened to its master's commands over and over again, lifted its head above the water as hard as it could, as if to look at him one last time, and then obediently swam toward the shore. It swam as hard as it could, hard enough to make it to the shore in the section where it had just been unable to swim and had an accident.
The men on the shore knew that a man clinging to slippery rocks and facing the hurtling current could only stay there for a few minutes at most. So they raced upstream. Not far above Thornton, they tied diagonally to Buck with the rope that had stopped the boat. After carefully judging that the rope should neither strangle him nor hinder him as he swam, they plunged Buck into the water. Buck swam bravely forward, but could not swim straight in the rapids. By the time Buck realized this it was too late, and Thornton could not get close to him when he raked at him five or six times while alongside him. As a result, Barker swam ineffectively.
Hans stopped the rope nimbly, as if Buck were a boat too. So Buck paddled across the water on the tight rope, his head submerged from time to time as it struggled to show its head again. By the time Buck was pulled to shore, it was submerged enough. Hans and Pete struggled to drag Buck up. Buck was panting heavily, his chest going up and down, and spitting water out of his mouth. It staggered to its feet and collapsed all at once. Thornton's faint voice carried. Though they said nothing, they both knew: Thornton was at the end of his rope, at the end of his rope. Buck, hearing his master's voice, jumped up again as if his body were electrified, and rushed to Hans and Pete, who were on the shore, and to the place where it had just gone under.
The rope was once again on Buck, and he went back into the water. Buck swam forward. This time it swam a little straighter through the water, it had already miscalculated once and couldn't be guilty of being wrong again. Hans loosened the rope, but not very much, while Pete made sure not to twist it together. Buck swam with the rope on directly over Thornton's head, then turned slightly and swam with a special trained speed, head to head, right over to his master. Thornton saw it swim. As Buck flopped haphazardly into the water, the current behind him pushed against it with all its might, and it pounced, both front paws clasping Thornton's thick neck. Hans wrapped the rope around the tree so that it would no longer go down. Buck and his master pulled tightly in the water, the rope strangling suffocatingly tight. Sometimes the master was in the water, sometimes Buck was. They swam over jagged rocks, bumped into reefs again and again, and finally, they pulled the rope back to shore.
Thornton collapsed, his stomach slamming into the log that Hans and Pete had pre-salvaged from the river. His first look was at Buck first, at his limping and obviously lifeless body. Nick was barking furiously, and Zit was licking Buck's wet face and those tightly closed eyes. Thornton cautiously and stumblingly made his way over to Buck and examined his body carefully, noting that three ribs were broken.
"It's too hard for it!" Thornton exclaimed, "We'll camp here." And there they camped until Buck's broken ribs were attached and he could walk again.
That winter, at Dawson, Buck played the role of pioneer once more, perhaps not as dramatic and heroic as it might have seemed, but one that has put his name many times on the totem crutches of Alaskan fame. This pioneering was especially satisfying to Thornton and the three of them, for they needed to be able to afford to make a trip full of long-lasting hopes in this virginal and chaste Arctic East, and they needed the equipment for the trip, the expense of the trip. At that time in this region the miners had not yet appeared. It began with a conversation in Eldorado. Saron's conversation. In this conversation the people greatly complimented their own dogs. Buck was the object of these conversations because of his past record, and Thornton was driven by intense vanity to guard Buck. Half an hour later one man said that his dog could pull a five-hundred-pound sled for a walk; another boasted that his dog could pull six-hundred pounds; and a third said that his dog could pull seven-hundred pounds.
"Bah!" John. Thornton said, "Buck can pull a thousand pounds!" "Can it pull and walk? Can he pull it a hundred yards?" Matthausen, a gold-seeking king shouted, the same one who had just bragged that his dog could pull seven hundred pounds.
"It can! It can pull a hundred yards!" John. Thornton said coldly.
"Good!" Matthausen said, thinking slowly for all to hear, "I'll give you a thousand dollars to say it can't! Put the money here!" With that, he made to slam a large sausage-sized bag of gold dust onto the bar table with a thud.
No one said a word. Thornton's recklessness, if that was what it was, was recognized by the group. Thornton could feel a rush of hot blood slowly rising to his face, his tongue deceiving him as he wondered if Buck could pull a thousand pounds. Half a ton it was! The immense weight intimidated him. He had faith in Buck's strength, and had often thought it capable of pulling something so heavy. But until now he had not seen the possibility. The eyes of the crowd were upon him now; they were silent, waiting in silence. Further, Thornton could not get a thousand dollars now, nor could Hans or Pete.
"I'll go outside now and get a sled with twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour!" Matthausen continued in that brusque and frank tone, "I hope that doesn't bother you." Thornton did not speak. He did not know what to say, and he looked blankly, as if he had lost the power of thought, at the face of every man in the room, wishing that there was some way in which he could make things right from the beginning. Jim. Aubrey, also a gold-seeking king, or a friend from the past, caught his eye. It was a hint to him, as if it were a reminder to do something he'd never dreamed of doing.
"Can you lend me a thousand dollars?" He asked, almost inaudibly.
"Sure!" Aubrey replied, dropping a bulging bag with a thud and setting it next to Matthausen's bag, "Though I don't have much faith in it either, John, I can see this beast working!" The whole town of Eldorado turned out to watch the betting match. People left the tables, merchants and keepers of the game came up to see the outcome of this betting match and all came to bet. Hundreds of people in leather hats, leather gloves, leather coats, and leather pants had gathered around the sled not far away. Mattoson's sled had been loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, and had been there for an hour or two. In this intense cold, (sixty degrees below zero) the men running over soon froze into hard piles of snow. It was proposed that Barker could not move the sled at all, and they made a wager of two to one. Puns and witticisms were shouted about "going" and "breaking out." Aubrey argued that Thornton had a right to loosen up the onlookers, and that Barker had a right to set off from a complete standstill; Matthiessen insisted that the start should be as fast as possible, and that the onlookers should not freeze; and most of those who had already made the wager betted against Barker at three to one, according to their own good sense of the situation.
There were no takers here. No one believed Barker could finish the job. Thornton had already made the bet in a hurry, already in debt, and he carried his deep doubts with him. Now he stared at the sled, at this fact, at the pile of goods that only a dog team of ten dogs could have pulled up and piled up in the snow, and he felt that it would be too impossible to accomplish it. Matthausen became even more smug.
"Three to one!" He announced, "How about I give you another thousand dollars on top of that number? Thornton!" The doubt on Thornton's face was obvious. But his fighting spirit was roused-a fighting spirit that soared high above the impossibility of realizing success or failure, and was deaf to all the clamor that had gathered about this fight. He called for Hans and Pete. Their bags were deflated, and with his own, the three of them had a total **** of just over two hundred dollars. That was all they had in their dwindling fortunes, but they still didn't hesitate to put it next to Matthausen's six hundred dollars. Three to one was three to one!
There was no ten-dog dog team, just Buck. Buck wore his own harness and was pulled to the heel of the sled. It felt that it must somehow do something for John. Thornton to do something great. The rustling whispers of praise for its brilliant appearance were loud and clear. Buck was in absolutely fine condition; not a particle of his surplus strength was wasted; his weight of one hundred and fifty pounds made him appear so rich in years, energy, and tenacity; the fur all over his body shone with a silken luster; the long hairs that ran across the bottom of his neck and over his shoulders were restored to their former majesty, and half-erected, and it looked as if every hair had strength for sport, and showed superb vitality and power; The immense chest, the powerful forelimbs, and the rest of the body, were in harmonious proportions; the muscles stood out tautly under the skin. The people felt these muscles, decided they were as hard as iron, and the added wager dropped back to two to one.
"Good! Gentlemen, yes, gentlemen!" Skookamu, a member of the last dynasty of Indian tribes on the north bank of the Columbia River. King Benchesi stammered, "I propose to you eight hundred dollars! Your Honor, before the game. Your Honor, eight hundred dollars!" Thornton shook his head and took a step to Buck.
"You're going to leave it standing!" Matthausen protested, "It's fair game, you're going to stand away from it!" The people fell silent, and all that could be heard was the sound of the gamblers' smug two-to-one. People knew: Buck was a good dog. But twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour were too big in their eyes not to cover the strings of their moneybags.
Thornton half-kneeled beside Buck, his hands braced on his cheeks. He couldn't shake Buck, or murmur some love curse at him, as he usually did in his habitual, joking way, but could only whisper to it, "Just like you love me, Buck, just like you love me!" Those were the only words he could whisper. Buck wailed with a suppressed passion.
People watched curiously. The game was becoming more and more mysterious, looking like a recitation of spells, tricks and magic. When Thornton stood up on his feet, Buck grabbed his gloved hand with his front paws, nipped it gently with his teeth, then slowly released them. Thornton took a step back with great reluctance.
"Begin! Buck!" Thornton ordered.
Buck tensed his whole body, then took a few slow steps. It never failed to start that way.
"Go!" Thornton bellowed, cutting through the tense silence.
Buck moved to the right and plunged headlong into forward motion. The rope of the sled, loaded with twenty sacks of flour, strangled Buck's one-hundred-and-fifty-pound frame at once. The sled shivered, and a crisp, silky sound that cut through the snow and ice erupted from under Buck's limbs.
"Go!" Thornton shouted again.
Buck doubled his strength this time. This time to the left. The sled made a barely audible squeak at first, then the sound grew louder. The sled spun in place as Buck's limbs beat and paddled and scraped across the snow, and Buck paddled a few inches to the side as the sled jolted forward. Bystanders held their breath, watching the scene with enthusiasm and subconsciousness.
"Forward!" Thornton's command was like a gunshot. Buck scrambled forward. The sled made a harsh creaking sound as the ropes strained. Buck's whole body concentrated its strength straight on one point, and it made a terrible effort. A muscle under the silken fur rolled and knotted as if alive; he lowered his whole chest to the earth; his head poked downward and forward; his limbs shifted from darting to frantic; and all his nails clawed fiercely at the hard, knotted snow, gouging out rows of parallel, stark grooves.
The sled rocked, shuddered, and started slowly forward.
One of Buck's feet paddled, and there was an "ouch" from one of the bystanders. Then the sled hesitantly moved again, as if it had managed to get out of a blocked charge, even though it hadn't been blocked by anything at all. ...... An inch ...... an inch ...... two inches ...... could be felt, and the resistance was lessening. As the sled gained impulse, Buck pressed forward with vigor until it moved steadily down the avenue in a great movement.
The people gasped and breathed hard. They didn't even notice: just now, they weren't breathing at all. Thornton ran behind, encouraging Buck with short, enthusiastic words. The distance had been measured long ago. As Buck approached the pile of firewood used to mark the hundred yards, the cheers began to erupt. It grew louder and louder, finally turning into an earth-shattering roar as Buck passed the woodpile and showed hesitation at the order to stop.
The people's nerves slackened, and every eye filled with tears, even that of Matthausen. Hats and gloves flew up into the air; people shook hands and hugged each other, no matter who they were, whether they knew each other or not. Everyone was laughing, making noise, and rolling in hot rows of great waves of excitement.
Thornton knelt next to Buck, head to head. He shook Buck back and forth.
People hurrying by listened to his curses. Thornton cursed Buck long, passionately, gently, tenderly.
"My God! Your Excellency, Your Excellency!" Mother Skooka. King Benchez sputtered, "I'll give you a thousand dollars for it. Excellency! One thousand dollars. Ah...no no no. Twelve hundred dollars! Excellency! Twelve hundred dollars!" Thornton stood up, his eyes moist with tears, "Sir," he said to the Skooka mother. King Benchez said, "No! MR. BENCHEZ: You deserve to go to hell! That's the best answer I can give you!" Buck sank his teeth into Thornton's hand. Thornton hugged it and laughed and shook it, ****ing with the same joy that made them one.
The bystanders left them respectfully and politely.
They would never be casually parted again.