They did not seem to know anything, these newcomers.

Buck and his comrades looked upon them with disgust, and though he speedily taught them their places and what not to do, he could not teach them what to do.

They did not take kindly to trace and trail.

With the exception of the two mongrels, they were bewildered and spirit-broken by the strange savage environment in which they found themselves and by the ill treatment they had received.

The two mongrels were without spirit at all; bones were the only things breakable about them.
With the newcomers hopeless and forlorn, and the old team worn out by twenty-five hundred miles of continuous trail, the outlook was anything but bright.