Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that
trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget
Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness,
had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation
companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing
into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they
wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and
furry coats to protect them from the frost.
Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley.
Judge Miller's place, it was called. It stood back from the road,
half hidden among the trees, through which glimpses could be
caught of the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides.
The house was approached by gravelled driveways which wound about
through wide-spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of
tall poplars. At the rear things were on even a more spacious
scale than at the front. There were great stables, where a dozen
grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages,
an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors,
green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the
pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where
Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the