and fang." Buck is first taught this law by the club-wielding sled drivers Francois and Perrault, who show him that the strongest individuals are the ones who rule. Buck also learns this primitive law from the other team dogs, such as Dave, Sol-leks, and the vicious team leader, Spitz. From them, Buck learns that he must either bite or be bitten, master or be mastered.

The theme of adaptability, or "survival of the fittest," is a popular Darwinian concept that appears in many of London's stories, applying to humans as well as to animals. In contrast to Francois and Perrault, who know how to survive in the harsh arctic environment, the incompetent miners Charles, Hal, and Mercedes are unable to adapt to their surroundings. The trio lacks discipline, skill, imagination, andself-controll. They attempt to use fourteen dogs instead of nine, not considering that their sled cannot carry food for so many dogs. They also insist upon unnecessary luxuries, which only serve to burden them further and lead to their inevitable doom.

The leaders lifted the yelp of the pack and sprang away into the woods. The wolves swung behind, yelping in chorus. When John Thornton befriends Buck and saves his life, London introduces another theme that is popular in animal stories---the love and loyalty between human and beast. In The Call of the Wild, the bond between Buck and John Thornton is especially important, because their mutual survival depends upon it. When Thornton is murdered by the Yeehats, a group of Native Americans, Buck avenges the death by killing Thornton's murderers. In doing so, he discovers just how vulnerable humans are.

Buck's retrogression, which culminates in his transformation into the leader of a wolf-pack, is probably the most provocative theme of the book. It reflects London's belief that environment determines character. Away from the ease of civilized life, Buck must rely increasingly upon his survival instincts. Under the harsh conditions of trail life, he develops certain primal traits: he becomes more cunning, deliberate, and calculating. He learns how to kill mercilessly and to show no sign of weakness.

As Buck adapts to life in the wild, he begins to experience primordial visions, to imagine life in some earlier, more primitive age. He dreams of savage beasts and a hairy man crouching beside a fire. He hears the howl of the wolves and instinctively responds; he becomes increasingly restless and begins to wander into the forest. After the death of John Thornton, Buck answers The Call of the Wild and takes up the life of his ancestors.

The protagonist of this beast fable is Buck, a sheepdog who is stolen from Judge Miller's California ranch to work in the Yukon. Because the novella is told from Buck's perspective, the reader vicariously experiences an atavistic return to his primitive heritage. Buck's inherent strength and courage are honed by the harsh necessities of the Yukon. From his fellow sled-dogs he learns to forget the moral restrictions which controlled his behavior in California and to fight for dominance. Learning to revel in the exhilaration of battle and the physical exertion of work prepare Buck for his apotheosis, his triumphant hearkening to the "call of the wild." Fully reintegrated into the primitive state, Buck is last pictured running at the head of a pack of wolves, "leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world."

The human characters primarily serve to exemplify the various environmental influences that shape Buck. Buck's first owner Judge Miller is kind but their relationship is a restrained friendship, completely unlike the passionate love Buck feels for his final owner John Thornton. Between Miller and Thornton, Buck passes through a series of masters who are harsh and even brutal, but in most cases their violence is portrayed as a necessary part of Buck's initiation into the realities of survival. The exception is the trio of incompetent and cruel miners from whom Buck is rescued by John Thornton, for Hal, Charles, and Mercedes represent the worst qualities of civilized humanity. With strength dissipated by comfort and judgment blinded by sentiment and pride, they destroy themselves and their dogs.