London's "Law of Life"

I wasn't quite sure of everything after I read Jack London's "Law of Life." I know that Old Koskoosh is very old and on the brink of death, however it wasn't clear to me if they left him because he was old and it was a tradition to abandon the old, as he had done to his father, or if his grand daughter was in charge of him and she just forgot, he mentioned that she had always been a careless child. Now i just read the next question and I guess it's a tradition, so with that I would have to say that "Law of Life" suggests that the elderly would be at the bottom of the hierarchy and that they do leave the old out in the wilderness with a fire when they are no long aware of what's going on, and too helpless to fight to be rescued. This may sound homicidal of me, but I don't think this is such a bad idea in a culture that you have to fight for your food and survival - where it's hard enough to make enough for your immediate family, but also providing for the elderly is too tough. Old Koskoosh says that the law of life is that eventually everyone will die, and that there is no one who will live forever, and that it's all in the cycle of nature that all living things will die. This is demonstrated to him at a very young age, when he sees young wolves torment a bull to death. When Koshoosh thinks about they cycle of life he thinks back to the image of the dead bull. I agree with this thought and the cycle of life, but it does make me scared of getting older!