Ch. 5 summary

Buck has lost over thirty-five pounds, and he is not alone in his suffering, in fact, all of the dogs are in a wretched state. They are all overworked, they have sore paws, they are plagued with injuries, and, in general, they are exhausted dead tired. In the last five months they have traveled twenty-five thousand miles with only five days’ rest. The drivers expect a long recuperation period, but because of the droves of people who have arrived in the great North, the mail is arriving at a rapid pace. Before the team is fully rested, two men from the States buy them. The two men are Hal and Charles. Charles, the older, is middle-aged with watery eyes and a fiercely uptwisted light mustache. Hal is younger, probably nineteen or twenty, and he carries a gun and a hunting knife. Buck is confronted with inept people who cannot cope with the violence of the wilderness and the great North. We will now see how Buck responds and adjusts to human ineptitude.