As they travel, they almost always rely on their own ingenuity for food, and when food is scarce, they go without. There is no alternative. Months pass, and, as London says, they "twisted through the unchartered vastness where no men were." Once they do find the shambles of an old hunting lodge, and there they find remnants that indicate that other men have been here before. Then, in the spring, they find the place where the large, legendary gold nuggets are supposed to be. The men pan for gold, and, in London's words, "they heaped the treasure up. Buck spends many long hours close to the fire, and he remembers the "short-legged hairy man" who appeared in Chapter 3. The overwhelming memory which Buck has of this hairy man concerns Buck's being constantly frightened and, along with the memory of this ape-like figure, is the call of the wild, a call which Buck constantly hears in the forest. It causes strange and unknown feelings to rise within him. He is aware of some kind of primitive yearnings which he cannot identify. Employing the philosophy of Naturalism, London is apparently trying to juxtapose the dream of the "ape man" as being symbolic of the primitive element in all humankind; thus, this figure represents a kind of primitive ancestor calling to Buck, imploring him to respond and to return to the call of the wild.
After his dream of the hairy man, Buck becomes ever more entranced by the call of the wild. It becomes, finally, almost irresistible. Sometimes, according to London, Buck springs up from sleeping with a start, and from the forest, he hears a long-drawn howl, " . . . unlike any noise made by a husky dog." One time, he even follows the sound and comes upon an open place in a grove where he sees a lean timber wolf howling at the sky. Buck is much larger than this wolf, and so he chases the wolf into "one blind channel" after another, but he does so only to let the wolf know that he intends it no harm. Afterward, running through the woods with the wolf, Buck knows at last that he is answering "the call," running side-by-side with his "wood brother." It is almost as if he feels that he has done the same thing before — but in another world — "now only a dim memory."
