- Buck takes over as leader. (It’s not really that simple—there’s a lot of establishing his dominance in front of the men and convincing them that he’s the right dog for the job.)
- It turns out that he’s even better than Spitz, and the team prospers as much as a starving pack of dogs in the frozen North can prosper.
- Buck and the dogs are handed over to new masters; François and Perrault exit. In a sort of philosophical realization that everything is transient, Buck wonders at how men seem to pass in and out of his life.
- Buck starts dreaming a peculiar recurring dream in which he goes back in time and sees himself sitting at the feet of a primitive man. Basically, he’s getting in touch with his primitive—the side that likes hunting, killing, and hanging out in caves.
- Life's rough for quite a while.
- Then Dave, another one of the dogs, gets sick, but refuses to leave his place at the sled. Dave soon dies nobly.