FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN
When John Thornton froze his feet in the previous December, his partners had made him fortable a him to get well, going on themselves up the river to get out a raft of saw-logs for Dawson. He was still limping slightly at the time he rescued Buck, but with the tinued warm weather even the slight limp left him. And here, lying by the river bank through the long spring days, watg the running water, listening lazily to the songs of birds and the hum of nature, Buck slowly won back his strength.
A rest es very good after one has traveled three thousand miles, and it must be fessed that Buck waxed lazy as his wounds healed, his muscles swelled out, and the flesh came back to cover his bones. For that matter, they were all loafing,--Buck, John Thornton, and Skeet and Nig--waiting for the raft to e that was to carry them down to Dawson. Skeet was a little Irish setter who early made friends with Buck, who, in a dying dition, was uo resent her first advances. She had the doctor trait whie dogs possess; and as a mother cat washes her kittens, so she washed and sed Bucks wounds. Regularly, each m after he had finished his breakfast, she performed her self-appoiask, till he came to look for her ministrations as much as he did for Thorntons. Nig, equally friendly though less demonstrative, was a huge black dog, half-bloodhound and half-deerhound, with eyes that laughed and a boundless good nature.
To Bucks surprise these dogs maed no jealousy toward him. They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton. As Buck grew strohey enticed him into all sorts of ridiculous games, in which Thornton himself could not forbear to join; and in this fashion Buped through his valesd into a ence. Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time. This he had never experie Judge Millers down in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. With the Judges sons, hunting and tramping, it had been a w partnership; with the Judges grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately and dignified friendship. But love that was feverish and burning, that was adoration, that was madness, it had taken John Thornton to arouse.
This man had saved his life, which was something; but, further, he was the ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs from a sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his as if they were his own children, because he could not help it. And he saw further. He never fot a kindly greeting or a cheering word, and to sit down for a long talk with them--"gas" he called it--was as much his delight as theirs. He had a way of taking Bucks head roughly between his hands, aing his own head upon Bucks, of shaking him bad forth, the while calling him ill hat to Buck were love names. Buew no greater joy than that rough embrad the sound of murmured oaths, and at each jerk bad forth it seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body, so great was its ecstasy. And when, released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, his eyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and in that fashion remained without movement, John Thornton would reverently exclaim, "God! you all but speak!"
Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt. He would often seize Thorntons hand in his mouth and close so fiercely that the flesh bore the impress of his teeth for some time afterward. And as Buderstood the oaths to be love word