Buck is next sold to a man named Perrault, a Frenchman, who recognizes Buck as "one in ten thousand," as he puts it. In fact, Perrault buys two dogs — Buck (for $300.00) and another dog, Curly, a "good-natured Newfoundland." Perrault then takes both dogs aboard a ship, the Narwhal, where Buck encounters Perrault's partner, François. Buck "speedily learned that Perrault and François were fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice" and, most important, "too wise in the ways of dogs to be fooled by dogs." Throughout the novel, Buck will constantly evaluate his human owners in terms of their competence. Furthermore, he will never resent hard work — if it is administered with impartiality.
Buck soon discovers that there are other dogs below deck, and after an indeterminate length of time, they all dock in a northern port, and there Buck encounters something entirely new: he discovers "white stuff that was falling through the air." This is his first encounter with snow. At first, it puzzles him, but when some onlookers laugh at him, he feels ashamed. Here is another example of London's use of anthropomorphism: Buck is endowed with the human qualities of shame and embarrassment. Furthermore, the snow represents Buck's first encounter with an element of nature that he will have to contend with for the rest of his life.
In general, then, this chapter has taken Buck from the ease and comfort of civilization through his first encounter with the law of the primitive, when he was being beaten with a club, to his arrival somewhere in the Far North, and his true geographical entry into "the primitive."
