- There's much discussion of love—more specifically, the love between dog and owner. Buck feels more for Thornton than he ever has for a human before—including when he was leading the good life back in sunny California.
- He shows his love by biting Thornton gently.
- Remember Buck’s feelings regarding the transience of things? Well he does, too, and he's afraid Thornton will leave him. He therefore refuses to let the man out of his sight.
- Buck's also still feeling the primitive vibes. You can take the dog out of the wild but you can’t take the wild out of the dog.
- He starts hearing this same "call from the wild;" he has this yearning to go live in the woods and hunt and howl.
- To demonstrate how loyal Buck is, Thornton tells him to jump off a cliff. Buck starts to do it, but Thornton pulls him back. It was the least he could do.
- Thornton gets in the middle of a bar fight and Buck gets viciously protective.
- Buck saves Thornton from a near-drowning. This scene is heroic and dramatic and definitely worth a good read.
- It seems like Buck's gotten a reputation for being awesome. Some men bet Thornton that Buck can’t pull a thousand-pound load. Thornton bets with money he doesn’t have. Fortunately for him, Buck pulls through and wins his master a ton of money.
- Now everyone wants to own Buck, and they offer Thornton obscene amounts of money for him, which Thornton refuses with such words as "go to hell."
- Yeah, Thornton.