Serval times in The Call of the Wild, Buck sees a short-legged hairy man. What can the reader infer that Landon used "the vision of the short-legged, hairy man" to symbolize?

In this chapter, the allusion to ancient times and "cave" men becomes a part of Buck's dreams, his inheritance, his innate primal beginnings. Buck is dreaming, and his dreams reflect his natural instincts, the things that have virtually been bred out of domesticated animals.

At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head between his legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, his hands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms. And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see many gleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he knew to be the eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could hear the crashing of their bodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made in the night.