Jack London’s Dog

It was a crisp sunny day on Split Up Island. Two dog,s Jack and Nic,were sleeping on the porch. Jack woke up suddenly and looked around. It was quiet, which meant that the men had gone again to Dawson to stake more claims for land long the river - the river that was supposed to yield gold to them after the thaw.Jack's master then was Marshall Bond, one of the men who lived on Split Up Island waiting for winter to be over and the gold mining to begin. For all in the North, it was an unstable time, so it was common for a dog to have many masters. No one knows where Jack lived, or with whom, before his time in the Yukon.Now Jack's nose pulled him to his feet. His nose led him around the island as if it were a rope pulled by an invisible force. He walked into the slight wind, caught the scent, and followed it to the place along the river between two trees.He dug there in the snow and within a foot or so found what delighted his nose memory - a delicious bone. Though his nose memory led him there, the other part of his memory could not say when he had buried it. No matter, the bone was here now and was as delicious as a bone should be. When the men returned to Split Up Island, they fed the dogs, but Jack didn't each much, and his master, Marshall Bond, wondered outloud if Jack was fit. A man had to see to his dogs in this country. It was dog and man against everything else in the white wilderness. Jack was popular with the other men, so along with Marshall Bond they watched the dog to see if he was fit. The men nodded.He was fit.