Under the tutelage of the mad god, White Fang became a fiend. Hewas kept chained in a pen at the rear of the fort, and here Beauty Smithteased and irritated and drove him wild with petty torments. The man earlydiscovered White Fang's susceptibility to laughter, and made it a pointafter painfully tricking him, to laugh at him. This laughter was uproariousand scornful, and at the same time the god pointed his finger derisively atWhite Fang. At such times reason fled from White Fang, and in histransports of rage he was even more mad than Beauty Smith.
Formerly, White Fang had been merely the enemy of his kind, withal aferocious enemy. He now became the enemy of all things, and moreferocious than ever. To such an extent was he tormented, that he hatedblindly and without the faintest spark of reason. He hated the chain thatbound him, the men who peered in at him through the slats of the pen, thedogs that accompanied the men and that snarled malignantly at him in hishelplessness. He hated the very wood of the pen that confined him. And,first, last, and most of all, he hated Beauty Smith.
But Beauty Smith had a purpose in all that he did to White Fang. Oneday a number of men gathered about the pen. Beauty Smith entered, clubin hand, and took the chain off from White Fang's neck. When his masterhad gone out, White Fang turned loose and tore around the pen, trying toget at the men outside. He was magnificently terrible. Fully five feet inlength, and standing two and one-half feet at the shoulder, he faroutweighed a wolf of corresponding size. From his mother he hadinherited the heavier proportions of the dog, so that he weighed, withoutany fat and without an ounce of superfluous flesh, over ninety pounds. Itwas all muscle, bone, and sinew-fighting flesh in the finest condition.
The door of the pen was being opened again. White Fang paused.
Something unusual was happening. He waited. The door was openedwider. Then a huge dog was thrust inside, and the door was slammed shutbehind him. White Fang had never seen such a dog (it was a mastiff); butthe size and fierce aspect of the intruder did not deter him. Here was something, not wood nor iron, upon which to wreak his hate. He leaped in witha flash of fangs that ripped down the side of the mastiff's neck. The mastiffshook his head, growled hoarsely, and plunged at White Fang. But WhiteFang was here, there, and everywhere, always evading and eluding, andalways leaping in and slashing with his fangs and leaping out again in timeto escape punishment.
The men outside shouted and applauded, while Beauty Smith, in anecstasy of delight, gloated over the rippling and manging performed byWhite Fang. There was no hope for the mastiff from the first. He was tooponderous and slow. In the end, while Beauty Smith beat White Fang backwith a club, the mastiff was dragged out by its owner. Then there was apayment of bets, and money clinked in Beauty Smith's hand.
White Fang came to look forward eagerly to the gathering of the menaround his pen. It meant a fight; and this was the only way that was nowvouchsafed him of expressing the life that was in him. Tormented, incitedto hate, he was kept a prisoner so that there was no way of satisfying thathate except at the times his master saw fit to put another dog against him.
Beauty Smith had estimated his powers well, for he was invariably thevictor. One day, three dogs were turned in upon him in succession.
Another day a full- grown wolf, fresh-caught from the Wild, was shovedin through the door of the pen. And on still another day two dogs were setagainst him at the same time. This was his severest fight, and though in theend he killed them both he was himself half killed in doing it.
In the fall of the year, when the first snows were falling and mush-icewas running in the river, Beauty Smith took passage for himself and WhiteFang on a steamboat bound up the Yukon to Dawson. White Fang had nowachieved a reputation in the land. As "the Fighting Wolf" he was knownfar and wide, and the cage in which he was kept on the steam-boat's deckwas usually surrounded by curious men. He raged and snarled at them, orlay quietly and studied them with cold hatred. Why should he not hatethem? He never asked himself the question. He knew only hate and losthimself in the passion of it. Life had become a hell to him. He had notbeen made for the close confinement wild beasts endure at the hands ofmen. And yet it was in precisely this way that he was treated. Men staredat him, poked sticks between the bars to make him snarl, and then laughed at him.
They were his environment, these men, and they were moulding theclay of him into a more ferocious thing than had been intended by Nature.
Nevertheless, Nature had given him plasticity. Where many anotheranimal would have died or had its spirit broken, he adjusted himself andlived, and at no expense of the spirit. Possibly Beauty Smith, arch-fiendand tormentor, was capable of breaking White Fang's spirit, but as yetthere were no signs of his succeeding.
If Beauty Smith had in him a devil, White Fang had another; and thetwo of them raged against each other unceasingly. In the days before,White Fang had had the wisdom to cower down and submit to a man witha club in his hand; but this wisdom now left him. The mere sight of BeautySmith was sufficient to send him into transports of fury. And when theycame to close quarters, and he had been beaten back by the club, he wenton growling and snarling, and showing his fangs. The last growl couldnever be extracted from him. No matter how terribly he was beaten, hehad always another growl; and when Beauty Smith gave up and withdrew,the defiant growl followed after him, or White Fang sprang at the bars ofthe cage bellowing his hatred.
When the steamboat arrived at Dawson, White Fang went ashore. Buthe still lived a public life, in a cage, surrounded by curious men. He wasexhibited as "the Fighting Wolf," and men paid fifty cents in gold dust tosee him. He was given no rest. Did he lie down to sleep, he was stirred upby a sharp stick - so that the audience might get its money's worth. Inorder to make the exhibition interesting, he was kept in a rage most of thetime. But worse than all this, was the atmosphere in which he lived. Hewas regarded as the most fearful of wild beasts, and this was borne in tohim through the bars of the cage. Every word, every cautious action, onthe part of the men, impressed upon him his own terrible ferocity. It wasso much added fuel to the flame of his fierceness. There could be but oneresult, and that was that his ferocity fed upon itself and increased. It wasanother instance of the plasticity of his clay, of his capacity for beingmoulded by the pressure of environment.
In addition to being exhibited he was a professional fighting animal.
At irregular intervals, whenever a fight could be arranged, he was takenout of his cage and led off into the woods a few miles from town. Usuallythis occurred at night, so as to avoid interference from the mounted policeof the Territory. After a few hours of waiting, when daylight had come, theaudience and the dog with which he was to fight arrived. In this manner itcame about that he fought all sizes and breeds of dogs. It was a savageland, the men were savage, and the fights were usually to the death.
Since White Fang continued to fight, it is obvious that it was the otherdogs that died. He never knew defeat. His early training, when he foughtwith Lip-lip and the whole puppy-pack, stood him in good stead. Therewas the tenacity with which he clung to the earth. No dog could make himlose his footing. This was the favourite trick of the wolf breeds - to rush inupon him, either directly or with an unexpected swerve, in the hope ofstriking his shoulder and overthrowing him. Mackenzie hounds, Eskimoand Labrador dogs, huskies and Malemutes - all tried it on him, and allfailed. He was never known to lose his footing. Men told this to oneanother, and looked each time to see it happen; but White Fang alwaysdisappointed them.
Then there was his lightning quickness. It gave him a tremendousadvantage over his antagonists. No matter what their fighting experience,they had never encountered a dog that moved so swiftly as he. Also to bereckoned with, was the immediateness of his attack. The average dog wasaccustomed to the preliminaries of snarling and bristling and growling,and the average dog was knocked off his feet and finished before he hadbegun to fight or recovered from his surprise. So often did this happen,that it became the custom to hold White Fang until the other dog wentthrough its preliminaries, was good and ready, and even made the first attack.
But greatest of all the advantages in White Fang's favour, was hisexperience. He knew more about fighting than did any of the dogs thatfaced him. He had fought more fights, knew how to meet more tricks andmethods, and had more tricks himself, while his own method was scarcelyto be improved upon.
As the time went by, he had fewer and fewer fights. Men despaired ofmatching him with an equal, and Beauty Smith was compelled to pitwolves against him. These were trapped by the Indians for the purpose,and a fight between White Fang and a wolf was always sure to draw acrowd. Once, a full-grown female lynx was secured, and this time WhiteFang fought for his life. Her quickness matched his; her ferocity equalledhis; while he fought with his fangs alone, and she fought with her sharp-clawed feet as well.
But after the lynx, all fighting ceased for White Fang. There were nomore animals with which to fight - at least, there was none consideredworthy of fighting with him. So he remained on exhibition until spring,when one Tim Keenan, a faro-dealer, arrived in the land. With him camethe first bull-dog that had ever entered the Klondike. That this dog andWhite Fang should come together was inevitable, and for a week theanticipated fight was the mainspring of conversation in certain quarters ofthe town.
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