Meanwhile, One Ear, after declining to pursue the lure of the she-wolf, starts to head back to the protection of the men and the sled, but he is cut off by the pack of wolves, and he cannot get far enough ahead of the pack to cut through to the safety of the sled. Suddenly, Henry hears one shot followed quickly by two more in rapid succession, and he knows that the wolves have set upon One Ear and Bill.
Henry now realizes that he is completely alone, with only two dogs and no ammunition. So, using a man-harness, Henry, along with the two remaining dogs, begins to pull the sled. Before long, it becomes necessary to discard the heavy coffin bearing Lord Alfred, thus making the load considerably lighter. Each night, Henry stops well before dark in order to build two huge fires, but when he begins to doze off, he awakens to find that the wolves have crept up to within a couple of yards from him. Because Henry has on such heavy protective gloves, he is able to plunge his hands into the bed of coals and toss the glowing embers onto the wolves, thus frightening them off. This continues for many nights, until finally one morning, at daylight, the wolves refuse to retreat, thus forcing Henry and his two dogs to spend the entire day by the fire. He cannot even leave the fire long enough so that he can cut enough wood to kindle a fire; thus, he has to build a trail of fires to the nearby woods, where there are several dead trees which he can chop down.
One night, exhausted from lack of sleep, he awakens to find himself completely surrounded by wolves — "the teeth of one had closed upon his arm" — and he instinctively leaps into the fire and begins throwing live coals at his attackers. He then builds a circle of fire around him and sits on his blanket to protect himself from the wolves. Gradually, his supply of wood begins to disappear, and there seems no way for him to replenish his dwindling supply. Exhausted even further from lack of sleep, he resigns himself to the inevitable: he lies down and goes to sleep, only to be awakened by a "mysterious change that had taken place." He discovers that the wolves have disappeared, and he is now surrounded by several dog sleds and a half dozen men. One of the men asks about Lord Alfred, and Henry tells him that Lord Alfred is dead, and that his body is still "roosting in the tree at the last camp."
One of London's goals in this chapter is to show the constant conflict between man and primitive beasts, and, at the same time, to allow the reader to know that the animals are extremely cunning in their savagery — as can be seen particularly in the way that the she-wolf is able to lure off the male dogs, one by one. As noted at the beginning of this discussion, the desolation and the isolation of the wilderness is in direct conflict with the intelligence of man. Bill tries to destroy the animals, and he fails, and Henry has to use all of his native intelligence in order to survive the onslaught of the pack of wolves. The ending of this section is, however, melodramatic, since Henry is miraculously saved at a moment when all hope of escape has been abandoned. The reading audience of 1906, however, was enthusiastic; they loved melodramatic endings.
