That Spot Page #2

"That Spot" is a short story by Jack London that explores themes of greed, obsession, and the struggle for survival in the wilderness. Set in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, the narrative follows a gold miner who becomes infatuated with a specific patch of land he believes to be rich in gold. As he becomes increasingly consumed by his desire for wealth, the story delves into the consequences of his fixation, highlighting the harsh realities of nature and the human condition. London's vivid prose and keen insight into character psychology create a gripping tale about the dangers of obsession and the moral complexities of ambition.

								

legs waving in the air, himself howling as though he was going through a
sausage machine. Steve came back and laughed at me, and I apologized for
what I'd said.

There was no getting any work out of that Spot; and to make up for it,
he was the biggest pig-glutton of a dog I ever saw. On top of that, he
was the cleverest thief. There was no circumventing him. Many a
breakfast we went without our bacon because Spot had been there first.
And it was because of him that we nearly starved to death up the
Stewart. He figured 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
from every body. He was a restless dog always very busy snooping around
or going somewhere. And there was never a camp within five miles that he
didn't raid. The worst of it was that they always came back on us to pay
his board bill, which was just, being the law of the land; but it was
mighty hard on us, especially that first winter on the Chilcoot, when we
were busted, paying for whole hams and sides of bacon that we never ate.
He could fight, too, that Spot. He could do anything but work. He never
pulled a pound, but he was the boss of the whole team. The way he made
those dogs stand around was an education. He bullied them, and there was
always one or more of them fresh-marked with his fangs. But he was more
than a bully. He wasn't afraid of anything that walked on four legs; and
I've seen him march, single-handed, into a strange team, without any
provocation whatever, and put the kibosh on the whole outfit. Did I
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 the handle,
and still going.

But he was a good looker. At the end of the first week we sold him for
seventy-five dollars to the Mounted Police. They had experienced
dog-drivers, and we knew that by the time he'd covered the six hundred
miles to Dawson he'd be a good sled-dog. I say we knew, for we were
just getting acquainted with that Spot. A little later we were not brash
enough to know anything where he was concerned. A week later we woke up
in the morning to the dangdest dog-fight we'd ever heard. It was that
Spot came back and knocking the team into shape. We ate a pretty
depressing breakfast, I can tell you; but cheered up two hours afterward
when we sold him to an official courier, bound in to Dawson with
government 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,
we made 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
want the money. We'd have paid handsomely for any one to take him off
our hands for keeps. We had to get rid of him, and we couldn't give him
away, for that would have been suspicious. But he was such a fine looker
that 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-five
dollars, and once we got a hundred and fifty for him. That particular
party returned him in person, refused to take his money back, and the
way he abused us was something awful. He said it was cheap at the price
to tell us what he thought of us; and we felt he was so justified that
we never talked back. But to this day I've never quite regained all the
old self-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 a
Lake 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 was
along--there was no losing him; and a dozen times, the first day, he
knocked one or another of the dogs overboard in the course of fighting
with 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
maroon him."

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 whole
days trying to find them. We never saw those two dogs again; but the
quietness and relief we enjoyed made us decide, like the man who refused
his hundred and fifty, that it was cheap at the price. For the first
time in months Steve and I laughed and whistled and sang. We were as
happy 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 the
river-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 nice
and that was not under his breath. Then I looked; and there, in the bow
of the boat, with ears pricked up, sat Spot. Steve and I sneaked
immediately, like beaten curs, like cowards, like absconders from
justice. It was this last that the lieutenant of police thought when he
saw us sneaking. He surmised that there was law-officers in the boat
who were after us. He didn't wait to find out, but kept us in sight,
and in the M. & M. saloon got us in a corner. We had a merry time
explaining, for we refused to go back to the boat and meet Spot; and
finally he held us under guard of another policeman while he went to the
boat. After we got clear of him, we started for the cabin, and when we
arrived, there was that Spot sitting on the stoop waiting for us. Now
how did he know we lived there? There were forty thousand people in
Dawson that summer, and how did he savve our cabin out of all the
cabins? How did he know we were in Dawson, anyway? I leave it to you.
But don't forget what I have said about his intelligence and that
immortal something I have seen glimmering in his eyes.

There was no getting rid of him any more. There were too many people in
Dawson who had bought him up on Chilcoot, and the story got around. Half
a dozen times we put him on board steamboats going down the Yukon; but
he merely went ashore at the first landing and trotted back up the bank.
We couldn't sell him, we couldn't kill him (both Steve and I had tried),
and nobody else was able to kill him. He bore a charmed life. I've seen
him go down in a dog-fight 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 so
heavy that he could just keep one jump ahead of Mrs. Dinwiddie's squaw
cook, who was after him with an axe. As he went up the hill, after the
squaw gave up, Major Dinwiddie himself came out and pumped his
Winchester into the landscape. He emptied his magazine twice, and never
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