(1903)
This is the story of the dog Buck,
half St. Bernard and half Scotch shepherd, who strives to adapt himself
to a hostile Klondike
environment, struggling against cruel elements and crueler men. Buck is taught to draw a sledge, and is glad to serve his new master, John Thornton; but when Thornton is murdered, Buck escapes and becomes the leader of a wolf pack. The Darwinian theme of this most famous of dog stories is that adaptation to environment is the sole means of survival in a rithless world governed by "the law of claw and fang."