therefore, he has no inkling of Manuel's treachery: "he had learned to trust in men he knew, and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own." But now that Buck is tied by the throat by strangers and is treated violently, he becomes enraged, and in his "unbridled anger," he closes his jaws on the hand of the man who is holding him, and Buck does not let go until he is tied around the throat so tightly that his senses are choked out of him and he collapses.

Eventually, Buck regains consciousness, but every time he resists his tormenters, he is thrown down and choked repeatedly. He is totally confused by the meaning of such brutality from these strange men and is "oppressed by thevague sense of impending calamity."

As the men gradually proceed to file off Judge Miller's heavy brass collar from Buck's neck, we realize that these men are filing off the last vestige of civilization. Afterward, Buck is thrown into a cage. It is ironic that in civilization, Buck was free to roam, but now, taken from his familiar surroundings, he is brutally flung into a cage. Buck's reaction is to become more and more ferocious, as he attempts time and again, unsuccessfully, to break out of the bars. For two days and two nights, Buck neither eats nor drinks; his eyes become bloodshot and, finally, he is "metamorphosed into a raging fiend." By the time that the train carrying Buck reaches Seattle, he is so changed, says London, that