Brown Wolf Page #2

"Brown Wolf," a short story by Jack London, explores the bond between humans and animals through the eyes of a dog named Brown Wolf. Set against the backdrop of the rugged wilderness, the narrative follows the journey of a wealthy man who adopts the dog, reflecting on themes of loyalty, survival, and the intrinsic connection between man and nature. The story highlights the instincts of Brown Wolf as he navigates various challenges, showcasing London's mastery in depicting the raw and emotional interplay between humans and their animal companions. As the tale unfolds, it reveals deeper insights into trust, freedom, and the essence of companionship.

								

liberty, he fled away, and always he fled north. He was possessed of
an obsession that drove him north. The homing instinct, Irvine called
it, after he had expended the selling price of a sonnet in getting the
animal back from northern Oregon.

Another time the brown wanderer succeeded in traversing half the length
of California, all of Oregon, and most of Washington, before he was
picked up and returned "Collect." A remarkable thing was the speed
with which he travelled. Fed up and rested, as soon as he was loosed
he devoted all his energy to getting over the ground. On the first
day's run he was known to cover as high as a hundred and fifty miles,
and after that he would average a hundred miles a day until caught. He
always arrived back lean and hungry and savage, and always departed
fresh and vigorous, cleaving his way northward in response to some
prompting of his being that no one could understand.

But at last, after a futile year of flight, he accepted the inevitable
and elected to remain at the cottage where first he had killed the
rabbit and slept by the spring. Even after that, a long time elapsed
before the man and woman succeeded in patting him. It was a great
victory, for they alone were allowed to put hands on him. He was
fastidiously exclusive, and no guest at the cottage ever succeeded in
making up to him. A low growl greeted such approach; if any one had the
hardihood to come nearer, the lips lifted, the naked fangs appeared,
and the growl became a snarl--a snarl so terrible and malignant that it
awed the stoutest of them, as it likewise awed the farmers' dogs that
knew ordinary dog-snarling, but had never seen wolf-snarling before.

He was without antecedents. His history began with Walt and Madge. He
had come up from the south, but never a clew did they get of the owner
from whom he had evidently fled. Mrs. Johnson, their nearest neighbor
and the one who supplied them with milk, proclaimed him a Klondike dog.
Her brother was burrowing for frozen pay-streaks in that far country,
and so she constituted herself an authority on the subject.

But they did not dispute her. There were the tips of Wolf's ears,
obviously so severely frozen at some time that they would never quite
heal again. Besides, he looked like the photographs of the Alaskan dogs
they saw published in magazines and newspapers. They often speculated
over his past, and tried to conjure up (from what they had read and
heard) what his northland life had been. That the northland still drew
him, they knew; for at night they sometimes heard him crying softly;
and when the north wind blew and the bite of frost was in the air, a
great restlessness would come upon him and he would lift a mournful
lament which they knew to be the long wolf-howl. Yet he never barked.
No provocation was great enough to draw from him that canine cry.

Long discussion they had, during the time of winning him, as to whose
dog he was. Each claimed him, and each proclaimed loudly any expression
of affection made by him. But the man had the better of it at first,
chiefly because he was a man. It was patent that Wolf had had no
experience with women. He did not understand women. Madge's skirts were
something he never quite accepted. The swish of them was enough to set
him a-bristle with suspicion, and on a windy day she could not approach
him at all.

On the other hand, it was Madge who fed him; also it was she who ruled
the kitchen, and it was by her favor, and her favor alone, that he was
permitted to come within that sacred precinct. It was because of these
things that she bade fair to overcome the handicap of her garments.
Then it was that Walt put forth special effort, making it a practice
to have Wolf lie at his feet while he wrote, and, between petting and
talking, losing much time from his work. Walt won in the end, and his
victory was most probably due to the fact that he was a man, though
Madge averred that they would have had another quarter of a mile of
gurgling brook, and at least two west winds sighing through their
redwoods, had Walt properly devoted his energies to song-transmutation
and left Wolf alone to exercise a natural taste and an unbiassed
judgment.

"It's about time I heard from those triolets," Walt said, after a
silence of five minutes, during which they had swung steadily down
the trail. "There'll be a check at the post-office, I know, and we'll
transmute it into beautiful buckwheat flour, a gallon of maple syrup,
and a new pair of overshoes for you."

"And into beautiful milk from Mrs. Johnson's beautiful cow," Madge
added. "To-morrow's the first of the month, you know."

Walt scowled unconsciously; then his face brightened, and he clapped his
hand to his breast pocket.

"Never mind. I have here a nice beautiful new cow, the best milker in
California."

"When did you write it?" she demanded eagerly. Then, reproachfully,
"And you never showed it to me."

"I saved it to read to you on the way to the post-office, in a spot
remarkably like this one," he answered, indicating, with a wave of his
hand, a dry log on which to sit.

A tiny stream flowed out of a dense fern-brake, slipped down a
mossy-lipped stone, and ran across the path at their feet. From the
valley arose the mellow song of meadow-larks, while about them, in and
out, through sunshine and shadow, fluttered great yellow butterflies.

Up from below came another sound that broke in upon Walt reading softly
from his manuscript. It was a crunching of heavy feet, punctuated now
and again by the clattering of a displaced stone. As Walt finished and
looked to his wife for approval, a man came into view around the turn
of the trail. He was bare-headed and sweaty. With a handkerchief in one
hand he mopped his face, while in the other hand he carried a new hat
and a wilted starched collar which he had removed from his neck. He was
a well-built man, and his muscles seemed on the point of bursting out
of the painfully new and ready-made black clothes he wore.

"Warm day," Walt greeted him. Walt believed in country democracy, and
never missed an opportunity to practise it.

The man paused and nodded.

"I guess I ain't used much to the warm," he vouchsafed half
apologetically. "I'm more accustomed to zero weather."

"You don't find any of that in this country," Walt laughed.

"Should say not," the man answered. "An' I ain't here a-lookin' for it
neither. I'm tryin' to find my sister. Mebbe you know where she lives.
Her name's Johnson, Mrs. William Johnson."

"You're not her Klondike brother!" Madge cried, her eyes bright with
interest, "about whom we've heard so much?"

"Yes'm, that's me," he answered modestly. "My name's Miller, Skiff
Miller. I just thought I'd s'prise her."

"You are on the right track then. Only you've come by the foot-path."
Madge stood up to direct him, pointing up the canyon a quarter of a
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