Returning to camp, Buck discovers a fresh trail which creates suspicion in him. Thus, he approaches the camp with a great deal of caution; there, he finds Nig, one of Thornton's dogs, lying dead from an arrow's poisoning. Farther on, Buck finds another of Thornton's dogs dead. Creeping cautiously on his belly, Buck finds the camp in shambles, and for the last time in his life he allows passion to usurp cunning and reason" — all because of his great love for John Thornton. Suddenly, he sees the reason for the bloody chaos: the Yeehats, a band of ferocious Indians. Without caution, he begins to attack one Indian after another, tearing out their throats. His newly untamed ferocity continues until all of the Yeehats are seized with panic and flee in terror, thinking that they have seen the Great Evil Spirit.
Buck pursues the Indians briefly, then returns to the camp, where he finds Pete dead in his blankets and then he discovers Thornton's body half-submerged in water. As Buck surveys the carnage of the camp, he realizes a strange pride — greater than any he had yet experienced: "he had killed man, the noblest game of all, and he had killed in the face of the law of club and fang." Thus, the story has come full circle: in the first chapter, when the man in the red sweater taught Buck that a man with a club would always be the master of an animal, Buck now has proven himself to be superior to men — even men with arrows and spears and clubs.
When Buck attacked, the men fled in terror. And now that John Thornton is dead, Buck has no more ties with civilization. So, as Buck stands in the center of the camp site, a great open space, he realizes that all of his ties to civilization are broken, and he hears again "the many-noted call of the wild," which sounds more luring and compelling than ever before.
