Read this excerpt from The Call of the Wild by Jack London.
After a particularly fierce blow, he crawled to his feet, too dazed to rush. . . . All the pain he had endured was as nothing compared with the exquisite agony of this. With a roar that was almost lionlike in its ferocity, he again hurled himself at the man. But the man, shifting the club from right to left, coolly caught him by the under jaw, at the same time wrenching downward and backward. Buck described a complete circle in the air, and half of another, then crashed to the ground on his head and chest.
What is the man’s role in this excerpt?