As White Fang watched Weedon Scott approach, he bristled andsnarled to advertise that he would not submit to punishment. Twenty-fourhours had passed since he had slashed open the hand that was nowbandaged and held up by a sling to keep the blood out of it. In the pastWhite Fang had experienced delayed punishments, and he apprehendedthat such a one was about to befall him. How could it be otherwise? Hehad committed what was to him sacrilege, sunk his fangs into the holyflesh of a god, and of a white-skinned superior god at that. In the nature ofthings, and of intercourse with gods, something terrible awaited him.
The god sat down several feet away. White Fang could see nothingdangerous in that. When the gods administered punishment they stood ontheir legs. Besides, this god had no club, no whip, no firearm. Andfurthermore, he himself was free. No chain nor stick bound him. He couldescape into safety while the god was scrambling to his feet. In themeantime he would wait and see.
The god remained quiet, made no movement; and White Fang's snarlslowly dwindled to a growl that ebbed down in his throat and ceased. Thenthe god spoke, and at the first sound of his voice, the hair rose on WhiteFang's neck and the growl rushed up in his throat. But the god made nohostile movement, and went on calmly talking. For a time White Fanggrowled in unison with him, a correspondence of rhythm being establishedbetween growl and voice. But the god talked on interminably. He talked toWhite Fang as White Fang had never been talked to before. He talkedsoftly and soothingly, with a gentleness that somehow, somewhere,touched White Fang. In spite of himself and all the pricking warnings ofhis instinct, White Fang began to have confidence in this god. He had afeeling of security that was belied by all his experience with men.
After a long time, the god got up and went into the cabin. White Fangscanned him apprehensively when he came out. He had neither whip norclub nor weapon. Nor was his uninjured hand behind his back hidingsomething. He sat down as before, in the same spot, several feet away. Heheld out a small piece of meat. White Fang pricked his ears andinvestigated it suspiciously, managing to look at the same time both at themeat and the god, alert for any overt act, his body tense and ready tospring away at the first sign of hostility.
Still the punishment delayed. The god merely held near to his nose apiece of meat. And about the meat there seemed nothing wrong. StillWhite Fang suspected; and though the meat was proffered to him withshort inviting thrusts of the hand, he refused to touch it. The gods were all-wise, and there was no telling what masterful treachery lurked behind thatapparently harmless piece of meat. In past experience, especially indealing with squaws, meat and punishment had often been disastrouslyrelated.
In the end, the god tossed the meat on the snow at White Fang's feet.
He smelled the meat carefully; but he did not look at it. While he smelledit he kept his eyes on the god. Nothing happened. He took the meat intohis mouth and swallowed it. Still nothing happened. The god was actuallyoffering him another piece of meat. Again he refused to take it from thehand, and again it was tossed to him. This was repeated a number of times.
But there came a time when the god refused to toss it. He kept it in hishand and steadfastly proffered it.
The meat was good meat, and White Fang was hungry. Bit by bit,infinitely cautious, he approached the hand. At last the time came that hedecided to eat the meat from the hand. He never took his eyes from thegod, thrusting his head forward with ears flattened back and hairinvoluntarily rising and cresting on his neck. Also a low growl rumbled inhis throat as warning that he was not to be trifled with. He ate the meat,and nothing happened. Piece by piece, he ate all the meat, and nothinghappened. Still the punishment delayed.
He licked his chops and waited. The god went on talking. In his voicewas kindness - something of which White Fang had no experiencewhatever. And within him it aroused feelings which he had likewise neverexperienced before. He was aware of a certain strange satisfaction, asthough some need were being gratified, as though some void in his beingwere being filled. Then again came the prod of his instinct and thewarning of past experience. The gods were ever crafty, and they hadunguessed ways of attaining their ends.
Ah, he had thought so! There it came now, the god's hand, cunning tohurt, thrusting out at him, descending upon his head. But the god went ontalking. His voice was soft and soothing. In spite of the menacing hand,the voice inspired confidence. And in spite of the assuring voice, the handinspired distrust. White Fang was torn by conflicting feelings, impulses. Itseemed he would fly to pieces, so terrible was the control he was exerting,holding together by an unwonted indecision the counter-forces thatstruggled within him for mastery.
He compromised. He snarled and bristled and flattened his ears. But heneither snapped nor sprang away. The hand descended. Nearer and nearerit came. It touched the ends of his upstanding hair. He shrank down underit. It followed down after him, pressing more closely against him.
Shrinking, almost shivering, he still managed to hold himself together. Itwas a torment, this hand that touched him and violated his instinct. Hecould not forget in a day all the evil that had been wrought him at thehands of men. But it was the will of the god, and he strove to submit.
The hand lifted and descended again in a patting, caressing movement.
This continued, but every time the hand lifted, the hair lifted under it. Andevery time the hand descended, the ears flattened down and a cavernousgrowl surged in his throat. White Fang growled and growled with insistentwarning. By this means he announced that he was prepared to retaliate forany hurt he might receive. There was no telling when the god's ulteriormotive might be disclosed. At any moment that soft, confidence-inspiringvoice might break forth in a roar of wrath, that gentle and caressing handtransform itself into a vice-like grip to hold him helpless and administerpunishment.
But the god talked on softly, and ever the hand rose and fell with non-hostile pats. White Fang experienced dual feelings. It was distasteful to hisinstinct. It restrained him, opposed the will of him toward personal liberty.
And yet it was not physically painful. On the contrary, it was evenpleasant, in a physical way. The patting movement slowly and carefullychanged to a rubbing of the ears about their bases, and the physicalpleasure even increased a little. Yet he continued to fear, and he stood onguard, expectant of unguessed evil, alternately suffering and enjoying asone feeling or the other came uppermost and swayed him.
"Well, I'll be gosh-swoggled!"So spoke Matt, coming out of the cabin, his sleeves rolled up, a pan ofdirty dish-water in his hands, arrested in the act of emptying the pan by thesight of Weedon Scott patting White Fang.
At the instant his voice broke the silence, White Fang leaped back,snarling savagely at him.
Matt regarded his employer with grieved disapproval.
"If you don't mind my expressin' my feelin's, Mr. Scott, I'll make freeto say you're seventeen kinds of a damn fool an' all of 'em different, an' then some."Weedon Scott smiled with a superior air, gained his feet, and walkedover to White Fang. He talked soothingly to him, but not for long, thenslowly put out his hand, rested it on White Fang's head, and resumed theinterrupted patting. White Fang endured it, keeping his eyes fixedsuspiciously, not upon the man that patted him, but upon the man thatstood in the doorway.
"You may be a number one, tip-top minin' expert, all right all right,"the dog-musher delivered himself oracularly, "but you missed the chanceof your life when you was a boy an' didn't run off an' join a circus."White Fang snarled at the sound of his voice, but this time did not leapaway from under the hand that was caressing his head and the back of hisneck with long, soothing strokes.
It was the beginning of the end for White Fang - the ending of the oldlife and the reign of hate. A new and incomprehensibly fairer life wasdawning. It required much thinking and endless patience on the part ofWeedon Scott to accomplish this. And on the part of White Fang itrequired nothing less than a revolution. He had to ignore the urges andpromptings of instinct and reason, defy experience, give the lie to life itself.
Life, as he had known it, not only had had no place in it for much thathe now did; but all the currents had gone counter to those to which he nowabandoned himself. In short, when all things were considered, he had toachieve an orientation far vaster than the one he had achieved at the timehe came voluntarily in from the Wild and accepted Grey Beaver as his lord.
At that time he was a mere puppy, soft from the making, without form,ready for the thumb of circumstance to begin its work upon him. But nowit was different. The thumb of circumstance had done its work only toowell. By it he had been formed and hardened into the Fighting Wolf, fierceand implacable, unloving and unlovable. To accomplish the change waslike a reflux of being, and this when the plasticity of youth was no longerhis; when the fibre of him had become tough and knotty; when the warpand the woof of him had made of him an adamantine texture, harsh andunyielding; when the face of his spirit had become iron and all hisinstincts and axioms had crystallised into set rules, cautions, dislikes, anddesires.
Yet again, in this new orientation, it was the thumb of circumstancethat pressed and prodded him, softening that which had become hard andremoulding it into fairer form. Weedon Scott was in truth this thumb. Hehad gone to the roots of White Fang's nature, and with kindness touched tolife potencies that had languished and well-nigh perished. One suchpotency was LOVE. It took the place of LIKE, which latter had been thehighest feeling that thrilled him in his intercourse with the gods.
But this love did not come in a day. It began with LIKE and out of itslowly developed. White Fang did not run away, though he was allowed toremain loose, because he liked this new god. This was certainly better thanthe life he had lived in the cage of Beauty Smith, and it was necessary thathe should have some god. The lordship of man was a need of his nature.
The seal of his dependence on man had been set upon him in that earlyday when he turned his back on the Wild and crawled to Grey Beaver'sfeet to receive the expected beating. This seal had been stamped upon himagain, and ineradicably, on his second return from the Wild, when the longfamine was over and there was fish once more in the village of Grey Beaver.
And so, because he needed a god and because he preferred WeedonScott to Beauty Smith, White Fang remained. In acknowledgment of fealty,he proceeded to take upon himself the guardianship of his master'sproperty. He prowled about the cabin while the sled-dogs slept, and thefirst night-visitor to the cabin fought him off with a club until WeedonScott came to the rescue. But White Fang soon learned to differentiatebetween thieves and honest men, to appraise the true value of step andcarriage. The man who travelled, loud-stepping, the direct line to the cabindoor, he let alone - though he watched him vigilantly until the door openedand he received the endorsement of the master. But the man who wentsoftly, by circuitous ways, peering with caution, seeking after secrecy -that was the man who received no suspension of judgment from WhiteFang, and who went away abruptly, hurriedly, and without dignity.
Weedon Scott had set himself the task of redeeming White Fang - orrather, of redeeming mankind from the wrong it had done White Fang. Itwas a matter of principle and conscience. He felt that the ill done WhiteFang was a debt incurred by man and that it must be paid. So he went outof his way to be especially kind to the Fighting Wolf. Each day he made ita point to caress and pet White Fang, and to do it at length.
At first suspicious and hostile, White Fang grew to like this petting.
But there was one thing that he never outgrew - his growling. Growl hewould, from the moment the petting began till it ended. But it was a growlwith a new note in it. A stranger could not hear this note, and to such astranger the growling of White Fang was an exhibition of primordialsavagery, nerve-racking and blood-curdling. But White Fang's throat hadbecome harsh- fibred from the making of ferocious sounds through themany years since his first little rasp of anger in the lair of his cubhood, andhe could not soften the sounds of that throat now to express the gentlenesshe felt. Nevertheless, Weedon Scott's ear and sympathy were fine enoughto catch the new note all but drowned in the fierceness - the note that wasthe faintest hint of a croon of content and that none but he could hear.
As the days went by, the evolution of LIKE into LOVE wasaccelerated. White Fang himself began to grow aware of it, though in hisconsciousness he knew not what love was. It manifested itself to him as avoid in his being - a hungry, aching, yearning void that clamoured to befilled. It was a pain and an unrest; and it received easement only by thetouch of the new god's presence. At such times love was joy to him, a wild,keen-thrilling satisfaction. But when away from his god, the pain and theunrest returned; the void in him sprang up and pressed against him with itsemptiness, and the hunger gnawed and gnawed unceasingly.
White Fang was in the process of finding himself. In spite of thematurity of his years and of the savage rigidity of the mould that hadformed him, his nature was undergoing an expansion. There was aburgeoning within him of strange feelings and unwonted impulses. His oldcode of conduct was changing. In the past he had liked comfort andsurcease from pain, disliked discomfort and pain, and he had adjusted hisactions accordingly. But now it was different. Because of this new feelingwithin him, he ofttimes elected discomfort and pain for the sake of his god.
Thus, in the early morning, instead of roaming and foraging, or lying in asheltered nook, he would wait for hours on the cheerless cabin-stoop for asight of the god's face. At night, when the god returned home, White Fangwould leave the warm sleeping-place he had burrowed in the snow inorder to receive the friendly snap of fingers and the word of greeting. Meat,even meat itself, he would forego to be with his god, to receive a caressfrom him or to accompany him down into the town.
LIKE had been replaced by LOVE. And love was the plummetdropped down into the deeps of him where like had never gone. Andresponsive out of his deeps had come the new thing - love. That whichwas given unto him did he return. This was a god indeed, a love-god, awarm and radiant god, in whose light White Fang's nature expanded as aflower expands under the sun.
But White Fang was not demonstrative. He was too old, too firmlymoulded, to become adept at expressing himself in new ways. He was tooself-possessed, too strongly poised in his own isolation. Too long had hecultivated reticence, aloofness, and moroseness. He had never barked inhis life, and he could not now learn to bark a welcome when his godapproached. He was never in the way, never extravagant nor foolish in theexpression of his love. He never ran to meet his god. He waited at adistance; but he always waited, was always there. His love partook of thenature of worship, dumb, inarticulate, a silent adoration. Only by thesteady regard of his eyes did he express his love, and by the unceasingfollowing with his eyes of his god's every movement. Also, at times, whenhis god looked at him and spoke to him, he betrayed an awkward self-consciousness, caused by the struggle of his love to express itself and hisphysical inability to express it.
He learned to adjust himself in many ways to his new mode of life. Itwas borne in upon him that he must let his master's dogs alone. Yet hisdominant nature asserted itself, and he had first to thrash them into anacknowledgment of his superiority and leadership. This accomplished, hehad little trouble with them. They gave trail to him when he came andwent or walked among them, and when he asserted his will they obeyed.
In the same way, he came to tolerate Matt - as a possession of hismaster. His master rarely fed him. Matt did that, it was his business; yetWhite Fang divined that it was his master's food he ate and that it was hismaster who thus led him vicariously. Matt it was who tried to put him intothe harness and make him haul sled with the other dogs. But Matt failed. Itwas not until Weedon Scott put the harness on White Fang and workedhim, that he understood. He took it as his master's will that Matt shoulddrive him and work him just as he drove and worked his master's otherdogs.
Different from the Mackenzie toboggans were the Klondike sleds withrunners under them. And different was the method of driving the dogs.
There was no fan-formation of the team. The dogs worked in single file,one behind another, hauling on double traces. And here, in the Klondike,the leader was indeed the leader. The wisest as well as strongest dog wasthe leader, and the team obeyed him and feared him. That White Fangshould quickly gain this post was inevitable. He could not be satisfied withless, as Matt learned after much inconvenience and trouble. White Fangpicked out the post for himself, and Matt backed his judgment with stronglanguage after the experiment had been tried. But, though he worked in thesled in the day, White Fang did not forego the guarding of his master'sproperty in the night. Thus he was on duty all the time, ever vigilant andfaithful, the most valuable of all the dogs.
"Makin' free to spit out what's in me," Matt said one day, "I beg tostate that you was a wise guy all right when you paid the price you did forthat dog. You clean swindled Beauty Smith on top of pushin' his face inwith your fist."A recrudescence of anger glinted in Weedon Scott's grey eyes, and hemuttered savagely, "The beast!"In the late spring a great trouble came to White Fang. Without warning,the love-master disappeared. There had been warning, but White Fang wasunversed in such things and did not understand the packing of a grip. Heremembered afterwards that his packing had preceded the master'sdisappearance; but at the time he suspected nothing. That night he waitedfor the master to return. At midnight the chill wind that blew drove him toshelter at the rear of the cabin. There he drowsed, only half asleep, his earskeyed for the first sound of the familiar step. But, at two in the morning,his anxiety drove him out to the cold front stoop, where he crouched, andwaited.
But no master came. In the morning the door opened and Matt steppedoutside. White Fang gazed at him wistfully. There was no common speechby which he might learn what he wanted to know. The days came andwent, but never the master. White Fang, who had never known sickness inhis life, became sick. He became very sick, so sick that Matt was finallycompelled to bring him inside the cabin. Also, in writing to his employer,Matt devoted a postscript to White Fang.
Weedon Scott reading the letter down in Circle City, came upon thefollowing:
"That dam wolf won't work. Won't eat. Aint got no spunk left. All thedogs is licking him. Wants to know what has become of you, and I don'tknow how to tell him. Mebbe he is going to die."It was as Matt had said. White Fang had ceased eating, lost heart, andallowed every dog of the team to thrash him. In the cabin he lay on thefloor near the stove, without interest in food, in Matt, nor in life. Mattmight talk gently to him or swear at him, it was all the same; he never didmore than turn his dull eyes upon the man, then drop his head back to itscustomary position on his fore- paws.
And then, one night, Matt, reading to himself with moving lips andmumbled sounds, was startled by a low whine from White Fang. He hadgot upon his feet, his ears cocked towards the door, and he was listeningintently. A moment later, Matt heard a footstep. The door opened, andWeedon Scott stepped in. The two men shook hands. Then Scott lookedaround the room.
"Where's the wolf?" he asked.
Then he discovered him, standing where he had been lying, near to thestove. He had not rushed forward after the manner of other dogs. He stood,watching and waiting.
"Holy smoke!" Matt exclaimed. "Look at 'm wag his tail!"Weedon Scott strode half across the room toward him, at the sametime calling him. White Fang came to him, not with a great bound, yetquickly. He was awakened from self-consciousness, but as he drew near,his eyes took on a strange expression. Something, an incommunicablevastness of feeling, rose up into his eyes as a light and shone forth.
"He never looked at me that way all the time you was gone!" Mattcommented.
Weedon Scott did not hear. He was squatting down on his heels, faceto face with White Fang and petting him - rubbing at the roots of the ears,making long caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders, tapping thespine gently with the balls of his fingers. And White Fang was growlingresponsively, the crooning note of the growl more pronounced than ever.
But that was not all. What of his joy, the great love in him, eversurging and struggling to express itself, succeeding in finding a new modeof expression. He suddenly thrust his head forward and nudged his way inbetween the master's arm and body. And here, confined, hidden from viewall except his ears, no longer growling, he continued to nudge and snuggle.
The two men looked at each other. Scott's eyes were shining.
"Gosh!" said Matt in an awe-stricken voice.
A moment later, when he had recovered himself, he said, "I alwaysinsisted that wolf was a dog. Look at 'm!"With the return of the love-master, White Fang's recovery was rapid.
Two nights and a day he spent in the cabin. Then he sallied forth. Thesled-dogs had forgotten his prowess. They remembered only the latest,which was his weakness and sickness. At the sight of him as he came outof the cabin, they sprang upon him.
"Talk about your rough-houses," Matt murmured gleefully, standing inthe doorway and looking on.
Give 'm hell, you wolf! Give 'm hell! - an' then some!"White Fang did not need the encouragement. The return of the love-master was enough. Life was flowing through him again, splendid andindomitable. He fought from sheer joy, finding in it an expression of muchthat he felt and that otherwise was without speech. There could be but oneending. The team dispersed in ignominious defeat, and it was not untilafter dark that the dogs came sneaking back, one by one, by meekness andhumility signifying their fealty to White Fang.
Having learned to snuggle, White Fang was guilty of it often. It wasthe final word. He could not go beyond it. The one thing of which he hadalways been particularly jealous was his head. He had always disliked tohave it touched. It was the Wild in him, the fear of hurt and of the trap,that had given rise to the panicky impulses to avoid contacts. It was themandate of his instinct that that head must be free. And now, with thelove-master, his snuggling was the deliberate act of putting himself into aposition of hopeless helplessness. It was an expression of perfectconfidence, of absolute self-surrender, as though he said: "I put myselfinto thy hands. Work thou thy will with me."One night, not long after the return, Scott and Matt sat at a game ofcribbage preliminary to going to bed. "Fifteen-two, fifteen- four an' a pairmakes six," Mat was pegging up, when there was an outcry and sound ofsnarling without. They looked at each other as they started to rise to theirfeet.
"The wolf's nailed somebody," Matt said.
A wild scream of fear and anguish hastened them.
"Bring a light!" Scott shouted, as he sprang outside.
Matt followed with the lamp, and by its light they saw a man lying onhis back in the snow. His arms were folded, one above the other, across hisface and throat. Thus he was trying to shield himself from White Fang'steeth. And there was need for it. White Fang was in a rage, wickedlymaking his attack on the most vulnerable spot. From shoulder to wrist ofthe crossed arms, the coat-sleeve, blue flannel shirt and undershirt wereripped in rags, while the arms themselves were terribly slashed andstreaming blood.
All this the two men saw in the first instant. The next instant WeedonScott had White Fang by the throat and was dragging him clear. WhiteFang struggled and snarled, but made no attempt to bite, while he quicklyquieted down at a sharp word from the master.
Matt helped the man to his feet. As he arose he lowered his crossedarms, exposing the bestial face of Beauty Smith. The dog- musher let goof him precipitately, with action similar to that of a man who has pickedup live fire. Beauty Smith blinked in the lamplight and looked about him.
He caught sight of White Fang and terror rushed into his face.
At the same moment Matt noticed two objects lying in the snow. Heheld the lamp close to them, indicating them with his toe for hisemployer's benefit - a steel dog-chain and a stout club.
Weedon Scott saw and nodded. Not a word was spoken. The dog-musher laid his hand on Beauty Smith's shoulder and faced him to theright about. No word needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith started.
In the meantime the love-master was patting White Fang and talking tohim.
"Tried to steal you, eh? And you wouldn't have it! Well, well, he madea mistake, didn't he?""Must 'a' thought he had hold of seventeen devils," the dog-mushersniggered.
White Fang, still wrought up and bristling, growled and growled, thehair slowly lying down, the crooning note remote and dim, but growing inhis throat.
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