White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco. He wasappalled. Deep in him, below any reasoning process or act ofconsciousness, he had associated power with godhead. And never had thewhite men seemed such marvellous gods as now, when he trod the slimypavement of San Francisco. The log cabins he had known were replacedby towering buildings. The streets were crowded with perils - waggons,carts, automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; andmonstrous cable and electric ears hooting and clanging through the midst,screeching their insistent menace after the manner of the lynxes he hadknown in the northern woods.
All this was the manifestation of power. Through it all, behind it all,was man, governing and controlling, expressing himself, as of old, by hismastery over matter. It was colossal, stunning. White Fang was awed. Fearsat upon him. As in his cubhood he had been made to feel his smallnessand puniness on the day he first came in from the Wild to the village ofGrey Beaver, so now, in his full- grown stature and pride of strength, hewas made to feel small and puny. And there were so many gods! He wasmade dizzy by the swarming of them. The thunder of the streets smoteupon his ears. He was bewildered by the tremendous and endless rush andmovement of things. As never before, he felt his dependence on the love-master, close at whose heels he followed, no matter what happened neverlosing sight of him.
But White Fang was to have no more than a nightmare vision of thecity - an experience that was like a bad dream, unreal and terrible, thathaunted him for long after in his dreams. He was put into a baggage-car bythe master, chained in a corner in the midst of heaped trunks and valises.
Here a squat and brawny god held sway, with much noise, hurling trunksand boxes about, dragging them in through the door and tossing them intothe piles, or flinging them out of the door, smashing and crashing, to othergods who awaited them.
And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White Fang deserted by themaster. Or at least White Fang thought he was deserted, until he smelledout the master's canvas clothes-bags alongside of him, and proceeded tomount guard over them.
"'Bout time you come," growled the god of the car, an hour later, whenWeedon Scott appeared at the door. "That dog of yourn won't let me lay afinger on your stuff."White Fang emerged from the car. He was astonished. The nightmarecity was gone. The car had been to him no more than a room in a house,and when he had entered it the city had been all around him. In the intervalthe city had disappeared. The roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears.
Before him was smiling country, streaming with sunshine, lazy withquietude. But he had little time to marvel at the transformation. Heaccepted it as he accepted all the unaccountable doings and manifestationsof the gods. It was their way.
There was a carriage waiting. A man and a woman approached themaster. The woman's arms went out and clutched the master around theneck - a hostile act! The next moment Weedon Scott had torn loose fromthe embrace and closed with White Fang, who had become a snarling,raging demon.
"It's all right, mother," Scott was saving as he kept tight hold of WhiteFang and placated him. "He thought you were going to injure me, and hewouldn't stand for it. It's all right. It's all right. He'll learn soon enough.""And in the meantime I may be permitted to love my son when his dogis not around," she laughed, though she was pale and weak from the fright.
She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled and glaredmalevolently.
"He'll have to learn, and he shall, without postponement," Scott said.
He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted him, then his voicebecame firm.
"Down, sir! Down with you!"This had been one of the things taught him by the master, and WhiteFang obeyed, though he lay down reluctantly and sullenly.
"Now, mother."Scott opened his arms to her, but kept his eyes on White Fang.
"Down!" he warned. "Down!"White Fang, bristling silently, half-crouching as he rose, sank back andwatched the hostile act repeated. But no harm came of it, nor of theembrace from the strange man-god that followed. Then the clothes-bagswere taken into the carriage, the strange gods and the love-masterfollowed, and White Fang pursued, now running vigilantly behind, nowbristling up to the running horses and warning them that he was there tosee that no harm befell the god they dragged so swiftly across the earth.
At the end of fifteen minutes, the carriage swung in through a stonegateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnuttrees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here andthere by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near distance, in contrast with theyoung-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tan and gold;while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures. From the head ofthe lawn, on the first soft swell from the valley-level, looked down thedeep- porched, many-windowed house.
Little opportunity was given White Fang to see all this. Hardly had thecarriage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep-dog,bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, righteously indignant and angry. It wasbetween him and the master, cutting him off. White Fang snarled nowarning, but his hair bristled as he made his silent and deadly rush. Thisrush was never completed. He halted with awkward abruptness, with stifffore-legs bracing himself against his momentum, almost sitting down onhis haunches, so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the dog he wasin the act of attacking. It was a female, and the law of his kind thrust abarrier between. For him to attack her would require nothing less than aviolation of his instinct.
But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise. Being a female, shepossessed no such instinct. On the other hand, being a sheep-dog, herinstinctive fear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen.
White Fang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyedupon her flocks from the time sheep were first herded and guarded bysome dim ancestor of hers. And so, as he abandoned his rush at her andbraced himself to avoid the contact, she sprang upon him. He snarledinvoluntarily as he felt her teeth in his shoulder, but beyond this made nooffer to hurt her. He backed away, stiff-legged with self-consciousness,and tried to go around her. He dodged this way and that, and curved andturned, but to no purpose. She remained always between him and the wayhe wanted to go.
"Here, Collie!" called the strange man in the carriage.
Weedon Scott laughed.
"Never mind, father. It is good discipline. White Fang will have tolearn many things, and it's just as well that he begins now. He'll adjusthimself all right."The carriage drove on, and still Collie blocked White Fang's way. Hetried to outrun her by leaving the drive and circling across the lawn but sheran on the inner and smaller circle, and was always there, facing him withher two rows of gleaming teeth. Back he circled, across the drive to theother lawn, and again she headed him off.
The carriage was bearing the master away. White Fang caughtglimpses of it disappearing amongst the trees. The situation was desperate.
He essayed another circle. She followed, running swiftly. And then,suddenly, he turned upon her. It was his old fighting trick. Shoulder toshoulder, he struck her squarely. Not only was she overthrown. So fast hadshe been running that she rolled along, now on her back, now on her side,as she struggled to stop, clawing gravel with her feet and crying shrilly herhurt pride and indignation.
White Fang did not wait. The way was clear, and that was all he hadwanted. She took after him, never ceasing her outcry. It was thestraightaway now, and when it came to real running, White Fang couldteach her things. She ran frantically, hysterically, straining to the utmost,advertising the effort she was making with every leap: and all the timeWhite Fang slid smoothly away from her silently, without effort, glidinglike a ghost over the ground.
As he rounded the house to the PORTE-COCHERE, he came upon thecarriage. It had stopped, and the master was alighting. At this moment, stillrunning at top speed, White Fang became suddenly aware of an attackfrom the side. It was a deer-hound rushing upon him. White Fang tried toface it. But he was going too fast, and the hound was too close. It struckhim on the side; and such was his forward momentum and theunexpectedness of it, White Fang was hurled to the ground and rolledclear over. He came out of the tangle a spectacle of malignancy, earsflattened back, lips writhing, nose wrinkling, his teeth clipping together asthe fangs barely missed the hound's soft throat.
The master was running up, but was too far away; and it was Colliethat saved the hound's life. Before White Fang could spring in and deliverthe fatal stroke, and just as he was in the act of springing in, Collie arrived.
She had been out-manoeuvred and out- run, to say nothing of her havingbeen unceremoniously tumbled in the gravel, and her arrival was like thatof a tornado - made up of offended dignity, justifiable wrath, andinstinctive hatred for this marauder from the Wild. She struck White Fangat right angles in the midst of his spring, and again he was knocked off hisfeet and rolled over.
The next moment the master arrived, and with one hand held WhiteFang, while the father called off the dogs.
"I say, this is a pretty warm reception for a poor lone wolf from theArctic," the master said, while White Fang calmed down under hiscaressing hand. "In all his life he's only been known once to go off his feet,and here he's been rolled twice in thirty seconds."The carriage had driven away, and other strange gods had appearedfrom out the house. Some of these stood respectfully at a distance; but twoof them, women, perpetrated the hostile act of clutching the master aroundthe neck. White Fang, however, was beginning to tolerate this act. Noharm seemed to come of it, while the noises the gods made were certainlynot threatening. These gods also made overtures to White Fang, but hewarned them off with a snarl, and the master did likewise with word ofmouth. At such times White Fang leaned in close against the master's legsand received reassuring pats on the head.
The hound, under the command, "Dick! Lie down, sir!" had gone upthe steps and lain down to one side of the porch, still growling andkeeping a sullen watch on the intruder. Collie had been taken in charge byone of the woman-gods, who held arms around her neck and petted andcaressed her; but Collie was very much perplexed and worried, whiningand restless, outraged by the permitted presence of this wolf and confidentthat the gods were making a mistake.
All the gods started up the steps to enter the house. White Fangfollowed closely at the master's heels. Dick, on the porch, growled, andWhite Fang, on the steps, bristled and growled back.
"Take Collie inside and leave the two of them to fight it out,"suggested Scott's father. "After that they'll be friends.""Then White Fang, to show his friendship, will have to be chiefmourner at the funeral," laughed the master.
The elder Scott looked incredulously, first at White Fang, then at Dick,and finally at his son.
"You mean . . .?"Weedon nodded his head. "I mean just that. You'd have a dead Dickinside one minute - two minutes at the farthest."He turned to White Fang. "Come on, you wolf. It's you that'll have tocome inside."White Fang walked stiff-legged up the steps and across the porch, withtail rigidly erect, keeping his eyes on Dick to guard against a flank attack,and at the same time prepared for whatever fierce manifestation of theunknown that might pounce out upon him from the interior of the house.
But no thing of fear pounced out, and when he had gained the inside hescouted carefully around, looking at it and finding it not. Then he laydown with a contented grunt at the master's feet, observing all that wenton, ever ready to spring to his feet and fight for life with the terrors he feltmust lurk under the trap-roof of the dwelling.
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