Chapter 1 The Trail Of The Meat
Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen- hearted Northland Wild.
　　But there WAS life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled - blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.
　　In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over, - a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man - man who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.
　　But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their bodies were covered with fur and soft-tanned leather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.
　　They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play nd inter-play of the great blind elements and forces.
　　An hour went by, and a second hour. The pale light of the short sunless day was beginning to fade, when a faint far cry arose on the still air. It soared upward with a swift rush, till it reached its topmost note, where it persisted, palpitant and tense, and then slowly died away. It might have been a lost soul wailing, had it not been invested with a certain sad fierceness and hungry eagerness. The front man turned his head until his eyes met the eyes of the man behind. And then, across the narrow oblong box, each nodded to the other.
　　A second cry arose, piercing the silence with needle-like shrillness.
　　Both men located the sound. It was to the rear, somewhere in the snow expanse they had just traversed. A third and answering cry arose, also to the rear and to the left of the second cry.
　　"They're after us, Bill," said the man at the front. His voice sounded hoarse and unreal, and he had spoken with apparent effort.
　　"Meat is scarce," answered his comrade. "I ain't seen a rabbit sign for days."Thereafter they spoke no more, though their ears were keen for the hunting-cries that continued to rise behind them.
　　At the fall of darkness they swung the dogs into a cluster of spruce trees on the edge of the waterway and made a camp. The coffin, at the side of the fire, served for seat and table. The wolf-dogs, clustered on the far side of the fire, snarled and bickered among themselves, but evinced no inclination to stray off into the darkness.
　　"Seems to me, Henry, they're stayin' remarkable close to camp," Bill commented.
　　Henry, squatting over the fire and settling the pot of coffee with a piece of ice, nodded. Nor did he speak till he had taken his seat on the coffin and begun to eat.
　　"They know where their hides is safe," he said. "They'd sooner eat grub than be grub. They're pretty wise, them dogs."Bill shook his head. "Oh, I don't know."His comrade looked at him curiously. "First time I ever heard you say anything about their not bein' wise.""Henry," said the other, munching with deliberation the beans he was eating, "did you happen to notice the way them dogs kicked up when I was a-feedin' 'em?""They did cut up more'n usual," Henry acknowledged.
　　"How many dogs 've we got, Henry?""Six.""Well, Henry . . . " Bill stopped for a moment, in order that his words might gain greater significance. "As I was sayin', Henry, we've got six dogs. I took six fish out of the bag. I gave one fish to each dog, an', Henry, I was one fish short.""You counted wrong.""We've got six dogs," the other reiterated dispassionately. "I took out six fish. One Ear didn't get no fish. I came back to the bag afterward an' got 'm his fish.""We've only got six dogs," Henry said.
　　"Henry," Bill went on. "I won't say they was all dogs, but there was seven of 'm that got fish."Henry stopped eating to glance across the fire and count the dogs.
　　"There's only six now," he said.
　　"I saw the other one run off across the snow," Bill announced with cool positiveness. "I saw seven."Henry looked at him commiseratingly, and said, "I'll be almighty glad when this trip's over.""What d'ye mean by that?" Bill demanded.
　　"I mean that this load of ourn is gettin' on your nerves, an' that you're beginnin' to see things.""I thought of that," Bill answered gravely. "An' so, when I saw it run off across the snow, I looked in the snow an' saw its tracks. Then I counted the dogs an' there was still six of 'em. The tracks is there in the snow now.
　　D'ye want to look at 'em? I'll show 'em to you."Henry did not reply, but munched on in silence, until, the meal finished, he topped it with a final cup a of coffee. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said:
　　"Then you're thinkin' as it was - "A long wailing cry, fiercely sad, from somewhere in the darkness, had interrupted him. He stopped to listen to it, then he finished his sentence with a wave of his hand toward the sound of the cry, " - one of them?"Bill nodded. "I'd a blame sight sooner think that than anything else.
　　You noticed yourself the row the dogs made."Cry after cry, and answering cries, were turning the silence into a bedlam. From every side the cries arose, and the dogs betrayed their fear by huddling together and so close to the fire that their hair was scorched by the heat. Bill threw on more wood, before lighting his pipe.
　　"I'm thinking you're down in the mouth some," Henry said.
　　"Henry . . . " He sucked meditatively at his pipe for some time before he went on. "Henry, I was a-thinkin' what a blame sight luckier he is than you an' me'll ever be."He indicated the third person by a downward thrust of the thumb to the box on which they sat.
　　"You an' me, Henry, when we die, we'll be lucky if we get enough stones over our carcases to keep the dogs off of us.""But we ain't got people an' money an' all the rest, like him," Henry rejoined. "Long-distance funerals is somethin' you an' me can't exactly afford.""What gets me, Henry, is what a chap like this, that's a lord or something in his own country, and that's never had to bother about grub nor blankets; why he comes a-buttin' round the Godforsaken ends of the earth - that's what I can't exactly see.""He might have lived to a ripe old age if he'd stayed at home," Henry agreed.
　　Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. Instead, he pointed towards the wall of darkness that pressed about them from every side. There was no suggestion of form in the utter blackness; only could be seen a pair of eyes gleaming like live coals. Henry indicated with his heada second pair, and a third. A circle of the gleaming eyes had drawn abouttheir camp. Now and again a pair of eyes moved, or disappeared to appearagain a moment later.
　　The unrest of the dogs had been increasing, and they stampeded, in asurge of sudden fear, to the near side of the fire, cringing and crawlingabout the legsof the men. In the scramble one of the dogs had been overturned on the edge of the fire, and it had yelped with pain and fright as the smell of its singed coat possessed the air. The commotion caused the circle of eyes to shift restlessly for a moment and even to withdraw a bit, but it settled down again as the dogs became quiet.
　　"Henry, it's a blame misfortune to be out of ammunition."Bill had finished his pipe and was helping his companion to spread the bed of fur and blanket upon the spruce boughs which he had laid over the snow before supper. Henry grunted, and began unlacing his mocassins.
　　"How many cartridges did you say you had left?" he asked.
　　"Three," came the answer. "An' I wisht 'twas three hundred. Then I'dshow 'em what for, damn 'em!"He shook his fist angrily at the gleaming eyes, and began securely toprop his moccasins before the fire.
　　"An' I wisht this cold snap'd break," he went on. "It's ben fifty belowfor two weeks now. An' I wisht I'd never started on this trip, Henry. I don'tlike the looks of it. I don't feel right, somehow. An' while I'm wishin', Iwisht the trip was over an' done with, an' you an' me a-sittin' by the fire inFort McGurry just about now an' playing cribbage - that's what I wisht."Henry grunted and crawled into bed. As he dozed off he was arousedby his comrade's voice.
　　"Say, Henry, that other one that come in an' got a fish - why didn't thedogs pitch into it? That's what's botherin' me.""You're botherin' too much, Bill," came the sleepy response. "You wasnever like this before. You jes' shut up now, an' go to sleep, an' you'll be allhunkydory in the mornin'. Your stomach's sour, that's what's botherin'
　　you."The men slept, breathing heavily, side by side, under the one covering.
　　The fire died down, and the gleaming eyes drew closer the circle they hadflung about the camp. The dogs clustered together in fear, now and againsnarling menacingly as a pair of eyes drew close. Once their uproarbecame so loud that Bill woke up. He got out of bed carefully, so as not todisturb the sleep of his comrade, and threw more wood on the fire. As itbegan to flame up, the circle of eyes drew farther back. He glancedcasually at the huddling dogs. He rubbed his eyes and looked at them moresharply. Then he crawled back into the blankets.
　　"Henry," he said. "Oh, Henry."Henry groaned as he passed from sleep to waking, and demanded,"What's wrong now?""Nothin'," came the answer; "only there's seven of 'em again. I justcounted."Henry acknowledged receipt of the information with a grunt that slidinto a snore as he drifted back into sleep.
　　In the morning it was Henry who awoke first and routed his companion out of bed. Daylight was yet three hours away, though it was already six o'clock; and in the darkness Henry went about preparing breakfast, while Bill rolled the blankets and made the sled ready for lashing.
　　"Say, Henry," he asked suddenly, "how many dogs did you say we had?""Six.""Wrong," Bill proclaimed triumphantly.
　　"Seven again?" Henry queried.
　　"No, five; one's gone.""The hell!" Henry cried in wrath, leaving the cooking to come andcount the dogs.
　　"You're right, Bill," he concluded. "Fatty's gone.""An' he went like greased lightnin' once he got started. Couldn't 'veseen 'm for smoke.""No chance at all," Henry concluded. "They jes' swallowed 'm alive. Ibet he was yelpin' as he went down their throats, damn 'em!""He always was a fool dog," said Bill.
　　"But no fool dog ought to be fool enough to go off an' commit suicidethat way." He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculativeeye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal. "I bet noneof the others would do it.""Couldn't drive 'em away from the fire with a club," Bill agreed. "Ialways did think there was somethin' wrong with Fatty anyway."And this was the epitaph of a dead dog on the Northland trail - lessscant than the epitaph of many another dog, of many a man.
Chapter 2 The She-wolf
Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the darkness. At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad - cries that called through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back.
　　Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine o'clock. At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rose- colour swiftly faded. The grey light of day that remained lasted until three o'clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the Arctic night descended upon the lone and silent land.
　　As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drew closer - so close that more than once they sent surges of fear through the toiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics.
　　At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the dogs back in the traces, Bill said:
　　"I wisht they'd strike game somewheres, an' go away an' leave us alone.""They do get on the nerves horrible," Henry sympathised.
　　They spoke no more until camp was made.
　　Henry was bending over and adding ice to the babbling pot of beans when he was startled by the sound of a blow, an exclamation from Bill, and a sharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. He straightened up in time to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter of the dark. Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half triumphant, half crestfallen, in one hand a stout club, in the other the tail and part of the body of a sun-cured salmon.
　　"It got half of it," he announced; "but I got a whack at it jes' the same.
　　D'ye hear it squeal?""What'd it look like?" Henry asked.
　　"Couldn't see. But it had four legs an' a mouth an' hair an' looked like any dog.""Must be a tame wolf, I reckon.""It's damned tame, whatever it is, comin' in here at feedin' time an' gettin' its whack of fish."That night, when supper was finished and they sat on the oblong box and pulled at their pipes, the circle of gleaming eyes drew in even closer than before.
　　"I wisht they'd spring up a bunch of moose or something, an' go away an' leave us alone," Bill said.
　　Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for a quarter of an hour they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, and Bill at the circle of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond the firelight.
　　"I wisht we was pullin' into McGurry right now," he began again.
　　"Shut up your wishin' and your croakin'," Henry burst out angrily.
　　"Your stomach's sour. That's what's ailin' you. Swallow a spoonful of sody, an' you'll sweeten up wonderful an' be more pleasant company."In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded from the mouth of Bill. Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.
　　"Hello!" Henry called. "What's up now?""Frog's gone," came the answer.
　　"No.""I tell you yes."Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs. He counted them with care, and then joined his partner in cursing the power of the Wild thathad robbed them of another dog.
　　"Frog was the strongest dog of the bunch," Bill pronounced finally.
　　"An' he was no fool dog neither," Henry added.
　　And so was recorded the second epitaph in two days.
　　A gloomy breakfast was eaten, and the four remaining dogs wereharnessed to the sled. The day was a repetition of the days that had gonebefore. The men toiled without speech across the face of the frozen world.
　　The silence was unbroken save by the cries of their pursuers, that, unseen,hung upon their rear. With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, thecries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; andthe dogs grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics thattangled the traces and further depressed the two men.
　　"There, that'll fix you fool critters," Bill said with satisfaction thatnight, standing erect at completion of his task.
　　Henry left the cooking to come and see. Not only had his partner tiedthe dogs up, but he had tied them, after the Indian fashion, with sticks.
　　About the neck of each dog he had fastened a leather thong. To this, and soclose to the neck that the dog could not get his teeth to it, he had tied astout stick four or five feet in length. The other end of the stick, in turn,was made fast to a stake in the ground by means of a leather thong. Thedog was unable to gnaw through the leather at his own end of the stick.
　　The stick prevented him from getting at the leather that fastened the other end.
　　Henry nodded his head approvingly.
　　"It's the only contraption that'll ever hold One Ear," he said. "He cangnaw through leather as clean as a knife an' jes' about half as quick. Theyall'll be here in the mornin' hunkydory.""You jes' bet they will," Bill affirmed. "If one of em' turns up missin',I'll go without my coffee.""They jes' know we ain't loaded to kill," Henry remarked at bed- time,indicating the gleaming circle that hemmed them in. "If we could put acouple of shots into 'em, they'd be more respectful. They come closerevery night. Get the firelight out of your eyes an' look hard - there! Didyou see that one?"For some time the two men amused themselves with watching themovement of vague forms on the edge of the firelight. By looking closelyand steadily at where a pair of eyes burned in the darkness, the form of theanimal would slowly take shape. They could even see these forms move at times.
　　A sound among the dogs attracted the men's attention. One Ear wasuttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward thedarkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks onthe stick with his teeth.
　　"Look at that, Bill," Henry whispered.
　　Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong movement, glided adoglike animal. It moved with commingled mistrust and daring, cautiouslyobserving the men, its attention fixed on the dogs. One Ear strained thefull length of the stick toward the intruder and whined with eagerness.
　　"That fool One Ear don't seem scairt much," Bill said in a low tone.
　　"It's a she-wolf," Henry whispered back, "an' that accounts for Fattyan' Frog. She's the decoy for the pack. She draws out the dog an' then allthe rest pitches in an' eats 'm up."The fire crackled. A log fell apart with a loud spluttering noise. At thesound of it the strange animal leaped back into the darkness.
　　"Henry, I'm a-thinkin'," Bill announced.
　　"Thinkin' what?""I'm a-thinkin' that was the one I lambasted with the club.""Ain't the slightest doubt in the world," was Henry's response.
　　"An' right here I want to remark," Bill went on, "that that animal'sfamilyarity with campfires is suspicious an' immoral.""It knows for certain more'n a self-respectin' wolf ought to know,"Henry agreed. "A wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs atfeedin' time has had experiences.""Ol' Villan had a dog once that run away with the wolves," Billcogitates aloud. "I ought to know. I shot it out of the pack in a moosepasture over 'on Little Stick. An' Ol' Villan cried like a baby. Hadn't seen itfor three years, he said. Ben with the wolves all that time.""I reckon you've called the turn, Bill. That wolf's a dog, an' it's eatenfish many's the time from the hand of man.""An if I get a chance at it, that wolf that's a dog'll be jes' meat," Billdeclared. "We can't afford to lose no more animals.""But you've only got three cartridges," Henry objected.
　　"I'll wait for a dead sure shot," was the reply.
　　In the morning Henry renewed the fire and cooked breakfast to theaccompaniment of his partner's snoring.
　　"You was sleepin' jes' too comfortable for anything," Henry told him,as he routed him out for breakfast. "I hadn't the heart to rouse you."Bill began to eat sleepily. He noticed that his cup was empty andstarted to reach for the pot. But the pot was beyond arm's length and beside Henry.
　　"Say, Henry," he chided gently, "ain't you forgot somethin'?"Henry looked about with great carefulness and shook his head. Bill held up the empty cup.
　　"You don't get no coffee," Henry announced.
　　"Ain't run out?" Bill asked anxiously.
　　"Nope.""Ain't thinkin' it'll hurt my digestion?""Nope."A flush of angry blood pervaded Bill's face.
　　"Then it's jes' warm an' anxious I am to be hearin' you explainyourself," he said.
　　"Spanker's gone," Henry answered.
　　Without haste, with the air of one resigned to misfortune Bill turnedhis head, and from where he sat counted the dogs.
　　"How'd it happen?" he asked apathetically.
　　Henry shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. Unless One Ear gnawed'm loose. He couldn't a-done it himself, that's sure.""The darned cuss." Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of theanger that was raging within. "Jes' because he couldn't chew himself loose,he chews Spanker loose.""Well, Spanker's troubles is over anyway; I guess he's digested by thistime an' cavortin' over the landscape in the bellies of twenty differentwolves," was Henry's epitaph on this, the latest lost dog. "Have somecoffee, Bill."But Bill shook his head.
　　"Go on," Henry pleaded, elevating the pot.
　　Bill shoved his cup aside. "I'll be ding-dong-danged if I do. I said Iwouldn't if ary dog turned up missin', an' I won't.""It's darn good coffee," Henry said enticingly.
　　But Bill was stubborn, and he ate a dry breakfast washed down withmumbled curses at One Ear for the trick he had played.
　　"I'll tie 'em up out of reach of each other to-night," Bill said, as they took the trail.
　　They had travelled little more than a hundred yards, when Henry, whowas in front, bent down and picked up something with which hissnowshoe had collided. It was dark, and he could not see it, but herecognised it by the touch. He flung it back, so that it struck the sled andbounced along until it fetched up on Bill's snowshoes.
　　"Mebbe you'll need that in your business," Henry said.
　　Bill uttered an exclamation. It was all that was left of Spanker - thestick with which he had been tied.
　　"They ate 'm hide an' all," Bill announced. "The stick's as clean as awhistle. They've ate the leather offen both ends. They're damn hungry,Henry, an' they'll have you an' me guessin' before this trip's over."Henry laughed defiantly. "I ain't been trailed this way by wolvesbefore, but I've gone through a whole lot worse an' kept my health. Takesmore'n a handful of them pesky critters to do for yours truly, Bill, my son.""I don't know, ," Bill muttered ominously.
　　"Well, you'll know all right when we pull into McGurry.""I ain't feelin' special enthusiastic," Bill persisted.
　　"You're off colour, that's what's the matter with you," Henrydogmatised. "What you need is quinine, an' I'm goin' to dose you up stiffas soon as we make McGurry."Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed intosilence. The day was like all the days. Light came at nine o'clock. Attwelve o'clock the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun; andthen began the cold grey of afternoon that would merge, three hours later,into night.
　　It was just after the sun's futile effort to appear, that Bill slipped therifle from under the sled-lashings and said:
　　"You keep right on, Henry, I'm goin' to see what I can see.""You'd better stick by the sled," his partner protested. "You've only gotthree cartridges, an' there's no tellin' what might happen.""Who's croaking now?" Bill demanded triumphantly.
　　Henry made no reply, and plodded on alone, though often he castanxious glances back into the grey solitude where his partner haddisappeared. An hour later, taking advantage of the cut-offs around whichthe sled had to go, Bill arrived.
　　"They're scattered an' rangin' along wide," he said: "keeping up with usan' lookin' for game at the same time. You see, they're sure of us, only theyknow they've got to wait to get us. In the meantime they're willin' to pickup anything eatable that comes handy.""You mean they THINK they're sure of us," Henry objected pointedly.
　　But Bill ignored him. "I seen some of them. They're pretty thin. Theyain't had a bite in weeks I reckon, outside of Fatty an' Frog an' Spanker; an'
　　there's so many of 'em that that didn't go far. They're remarkable thin.
　　Their ribs is like wash-boards, an' their stomachs is right up against theirbackbones. They're pretty desperate, I can tell you. They'll be goin' mad,yet, an' then watch out."A few minutes later, Henry, who was now travelling behind the sled,emitted a low, warning whistle. Bill turned and looked, then quietlystopped the dogs. To the rear, from around the last bend and plainly intoview, on the very trail they had just covered, trotted a furry, slinking form.
　　Its nose was to the trail, and it trotted with a peculiar, sliding, effortlessgait. When they halted, it halted, throwing up its head and regarding themsteadily with nostrils that twitched as it caught and studied the scent ofthem.
　　"It's the she-wolf," Bill answered.
　　The dogs had laid down in the snow, and he walked past them to joinhis partner in the sled. Together they watched the strange animal that hadpursued them for days and that had already accomplished the destructionof half their dog-team.
　　After a searching scrutiny, the animal trotted forward a few steps. Thisit repeated several times, till it was a short hundred yards away. It paused,head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sight and scent studiedthe outfit of the watching men. It looked at them in a strangely wistful way,after the manner of a dog; but in its wistfulness there was none of the dogaffection. It was a wistfulness bred of hunger, as cruel as its own fangs, asmerciless as the frost itself.
　　It was large for a wolf, its gaunt frame advertising the lines of ananimal that was among the largest of its kind.
　　"Stands pretty close to two feet an' a half at the shoulders," Henrycommented. "An' I'll bet it ain't far from five feet long.""Kind of strange colour for a wolf," was Bill's criticism. "I never seena red wolf before. Looks almost cinnamon to me."The animal was certainly not cinnamon-coloured. Its coat was the truewolf-coat. The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a faintreddish hue - a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, thatwas more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, andagain giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour not classifiablein terms of ordinary experience.
　　"Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog," Bill said. "Iwouldn't be s'prised to see it wag its tail.""Hello, you husky!" he called. "Come here, you whatever-your-name-is.""Ain't a bit scairt of you," Henry laughed.
　　Bill waved his hand at it threateningly and shouted loudly; but theanimal betrayed no fear. The only change in it that they could notice wasan accession of alertness. It still regarded them with the mercilesswistfulness of hunger. They were meat, and it was hungry; and it wouldlike to go in and eat them if it dared.
　　"Look here, Henry," Bill said, unconsciously lowering his voice to awhisper because of what he imitated. "We've got three cartridges. But it's adead shot. Couldn't miss it. It's got away with three of our dogs, an' weoughter put a stop to it. What d'ye say?"Henry nodded his consent. Bill cautiously slipped the gun from underthe sled-lashing. The gun was on the way to his shoulder, but it never gotthere. For in that instant the she-wolf leaped sidewise from the trail intothe clump of spruce trees and disappeared.
　　The two men looked at each other. Henry whistled long andcomprehendingly.
　　"I might have knowed it," Bill chided himself aloud as he replaced thegun. "Of course a wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs atfeedin' time, 'd know all about shooting-irons. I tell you right now, Henry,that critter's the cause of all our trouble. We'd have six dogs at the presenttime, 'stead of three, if it wasn't for her. An' I tell you right now, Henry, I'mgoin' to get her. She's too smart to be shot in the open. But I'm goin' to layfor her. I'll bushwhack her as sure as my name is Bill.""You needn't stray off too far in doin' it," his partner admonished. "Ifthat pack ever starts to jump you, them three cartridges'd be wuth nomore'n three whoops in hell. Them animals is damn hungry, an' once theystart in, they'll sure get you, Bill."They camped early that night. Three dogs could not drag the sled sofast nor for so long hours as could six, and they were showingunmistakable signs of playing out. And the men went early to bed, Billfirst seeing to it that the dogs were tied out of gnawing- reach of oneanother.
　　But the wolves were growing bolder, and the men were aroused morethan once from their sleep. So near did the wolves approach, that the dogsbecame frantic with terror, and it was necessary to replenish the fire fromtime to time in order to keep the adventurous marauders at safer distance.
　　"I've hearn sailors talk of sharks followin' a ship," Bill remarked, as hecrawled back into the blankets after one such replenishing of the fire.
　　"Well, them wolves is land sharks. They know their business better'n wedo, an' they ain't a-holdin' our trail this way for their health. They're goin'
　　to get us. They're sure goin' to get us, Henry.""They've half got you a'ready, a-talkin' like that," Henry retortedsharply. "A man's half licked when he says he is. An' you're half eatenfrom the way you're goin' on about it.""They've got away with better men than you an' me," Bill answered.
　　"Oh, shet up your croakin'. You make me all-fired tired."Henry rolled over angrily on his side, but was surprised that Bill madeno similar display of temper. This was not Bill's way, for he was easilyangered by sharp words. Henry thought long over it before he went tosleep, and as his eyelids fluttered down and he dozed off, the thought inhis mind was: "There's no mistakin' it, Bill's almighty blue. I'll have tocheer him up to-morrow."
Chapter 3 The Hunger Cry
The day began auspiciously. They had lost no dogs during the night,and they swung out upon the trail and into the silence, the darkness, andthe cold with spirits that were fairly light. Bill seemed to have forgottenhis forebodings of the previous night, and even waxed facetious with thedogs when, at midday, they overturned the sled on a bad piece of trail.
　　It was an awkward mix-up. The sled was upside down and jammedbetween a tree-trunk and a huge rock, and they were forced to unharnessthe dogs in order to straighten out the tangle. The two men were bent overthe sled and trying to right it, when Henry observed One Ear sidling away.
　　"Here, you, One Ear!" he cried, straightening up and turning around onthe dog.
　　But One Ear broke into a run across the snow, his traces trailingbehind him. And there, out in the snow of their back track, was the she-wolf waiting for him. As he neared her, he became suddenly cautious. Heslowed down to an alert and mincing walk and then stopped. He regardedher carefully and dubiously, yet desirefully. She seemed to smile at him,showing her teeth in an ingratiating rather than a menacing way. Shemoved toward him a few steps, playfully, and then halted. One Ear drewnear to her, still alert and cautious, his tail and ears in the air, his head heldhigh.
　　He tried to sniff noses with her, but she retreated playfully and coyly.
　　Every advance on his part was accompanied by a corresponding retreat onher part. Step by step she was luring him away from the security of hishuman companionship. Once, as though a warning had in vague waysflitted through his intelligence, he turned his head and looked back at theoverturned sled, at his team-mates, and at the two men who were calling tohim.
　　But whatever idea was forming in his mind, was dissipated by the she-wolf, who advanced upon him, sniffed noses with him for a fleetinginstant, and then resumed her coy retreat before his renewed advances.
　　In the meantime, Bill had bethought himself of the rifle. But it wasjammed beneath the overturned sled, and by the time Henry had helpedhim to right the load, One Ear and the she-wolf were too close togetherand the distance too great to risk a shot.
　　Too late One Ear learned his mistake. Before they saw the cause, thetwo men saw him turn and start to run back toward them. Then,approaching at right angles to the trail and cutting off his retreat they sawa dozen wolves, lean and grey, bounding across the snow. On the instant,the she-wolf's coyness and playfulness disappeared. With a snarl shesprang upon One Ear. He thrust her off with his shoulder, and, his retreatcut off and still intent on regaining the sled, he altered his course in anattempt to circle around to it. More wolves were appearing every momentand joining in the chase. The she-wolf was one leap behind One Ear andholding her own.
　　"Where are you goin'?" Henry suddenly demanded, laying his hand onhis partner's arm.
　　Bill shook it off. "I won't stand it," he said. "They ain't a- goin' to getany more of our dogs if I can help it."Gun in hand, he plunged into the underbrush that lined the side of thetrail. His intention was apparent enough. Taking the sled as the centre ofthe circle that One Ear was making, Bill planned to tap that circle at apoint in advance of the pursuit. With his rifle, in the broad daylight, itmight be possible for him to awe the wolves and save the dog.
　　"Say, Bill!" Henry called after him. "Be careful! Don't take nochances!"Henry sat down on the sled and watched. There was nothing else forhim to do. Bill had already gone from sight; but now and again, appearingand disappearing amongst the underbrush and the scattered clumps ofspruce, could be seen One Ear. Henry judged his case to be hopeless. Thedog was thoroughly alive to its danger, but it was running on the outercircle while the wolf-pack was running on the inner and shorter circle. Itwas vain to think of One Ear so outdistancing his pursuers as to be able tocut across their circle in advance of them and to regain the sled.
　　The different lines were rapidly approaching a point. Somewhere outthere in the snow, screened from his sight by trees and thickets, Henryknew that the wolf-pack, One Ear, and Bill were coming together. All tooquickly, far more quickly than he had expected, it happened. He heard ashot, then two shots, in rapid succession, and he knew that Bill'sammunition was gone. Then he heard a great outcry of snarls and yelps.
　　He recognised One Ear's yell of pain and terror, and he heard a wolf-crythat bespoke a stricken animal. And that was all. The snarls ceased. Theyelping died away. Silence settled down again over the lonely land.
　　He sat for a long while upon the sled. There was no need for him to goand see what had happened. He knew it as though it had taken placebefore his eyes. Once, he roused with a start and hastily got the axe outfrom underneath the lashings. But for some time longer he sat and brooded,the two remaining dogs crouching and trembling at his feet.
　　At last he arose in a weary manner, as though all the resilience hadgone out of his body, and proceeded to fasten the dogs to the sled. Hepassed a rope over his shoulder, a man-trace, and pulled with the dogs. Hedid not go far. At the first hint of darkness he hastened to make a camp,and he saw to it that he had a generous supply of firewood. He fed thedogs, cooked and ate his supper, and made his bed close to the fire.
　　But he was not destined to enjoy that bed. Before his eyes closed thewolves had drawn too near for safety. It no longer required an effort of thevision to see them. They were all about him and the fire, in a narrow circle,and he could see them plainly in the firelight lying down, sitting up,crawling forward on their bellies, or slinking back and forth. They evenslept. Here and there he could see one curled up in the snow like a dog,taking the sleep that was now denied himself.
　　He kept the fire brightly blazing, for he knew that it alone intervenedbetween the flesh of his body and their hungry fangs. His two dogs stayedclose by him, one on either side, leaning against him for protection, cryingand whimpering, and at times snarling desperately when a wolfapproached a little closer than usual. At such moments, when his dogssnarled, the whole circle would be agitated, the wolves coming to theirfeet and pressing tentatively forward, a chorus of snarls and eager yelpsrising about him. Then the circle would lie down again, and here and therea wolf would resume its broken nap.
　　But this circle had a continuous tendency to draw in upon him. Bit bybit, an inch at a time, with here a wolf bellying forward, and there a wolfbellying forward, the circle would narrow until the brutes were almostwithin springing distance. Then he would seize brands from the fire andhurl them into the pack. A hasty drawing back always resulted,accompanied by an yelps and frightened snarls when a well-aimed brandstruck and scorched a too daring animal.
　　Morning found the man haggard and worn, wide-eyed from want ofsleep. He cooked breakfast in the darkness, and at nine o'clock, when, withthe coming of daylight, the wolf-pack drew back, he set about the task hehad planned through the long hours of the night. Chopping down youngsaplings, he made them cross-bars of a scaffold by lashing them high up tothe trunks of standing trees. Using the sled-lashing for a heaving rope, andwith the aid of the dogs, he hoisted the coffin to the top of the scaffold.
　　"They got Bill, an' they may get me, but they'll sure never get you,young man," he said, addressing the dead body in its tree- sepulchre.
　　Then he took the trail, the lightened sled bounding along behind thewilling dogs; for they, too, knew that safety lay open in the gaining of FortMcGurry. The wolves were now more open in their pursuit, trottingsedately behind and ranging along on either side, their red tongues lollingout, their-lean sides showing the udulating ribs with every movement.
　　They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony frames, withstrings for muscles - so lean that Henry found it in his mind to marvel thatthey still kept their feet and did not collapse forthright in the snow.
　　He did not dare travel until dark. At midday, not only did the sun warmthe southern horizon, but it even thrust its upper rim, pale and golden,above the sky-line. He received it as a sign. The days were growing longer.
　　The sun was returning. But scarcely had the cheer of its light departed,than he went into camp. There were still several hours of grey daylight andsombre twilight, and he utilised them in chopping an enormous supply offire-wood.
　　With night came horror. Not only were the starving wolves growingbolder, but lack of sleep was telling upon Henry. He dozed despite himself,crouching by the fire, the blankets about his shoulders, the axe between hisknees, and on either side a dog pressing close against him. He awoke onceand saw in front of him, not a dozen feet away, a big grey wolf, one of thelargest of the pack. And even as he looked, the brute deliberately stretchedhimself after the manner of a lazy dog, yawning full in his face andlooking upon him with a possessive eye, as if, in truth, he were merely adelayed meal that was soon to be eaten.
　　This certitude was shown by the whole pack. Fully a score he couldcount, staring hungrily at him or calmly sleeping in the snow. Theyreminded him of children gathered about a spread table and awaitingpermission to begin to eat. And he was the food they were to eat! Hewondered how and when the meal would begin.
　　As he piled wood on the fire he discovered an appreciation of his ownbody which he had never felt before. He watched his moving muscles andwas interested in the cunning mechanism of his fingers. By the light of thefire he crooked his fingers slowly and repeatedly now one at a time, nowall together, spreading them wide or making quick gripping movements.
　　He studied the nail-formation, and prodded the finger-tips, now sharply,and again softly, gauging the while the nerve-sensations produced. Itfascinated him, and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle flesh of his thatworked so beautifully and smoothly and delicately. Then he would cast aglance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, and like ablow the realisation would strike him that this wonderful body of his, thisliving flesh, was no more than so much meat, a quest of ravenous animals,to be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to be sustenance to them asthe moose and the rabbit had often been sustenance to him.
　　He came out of a doze that was half nightmare, to see the red-huedshe-wolf before him. She was not more than half a dozen feet away sittingin the snow and wistfully regarding him. The two dogs were whimperingand snarling at his feet, but she took no notice of them. She was looking atthe man, and for some time he returned her look. There was nothingthreatening about her. She looked at him merely with a great wistfulness,but he knew it to be the wistfulness of an equally great hunger. He was thefood, and the sight of him excited in her the gustatory sensations. Hermouth opened, the saliva drooled forth, and she licked her chops with thepleasure of anticipation.
　　A spasm of fear went through him. He reached hastily for a brand tothrow at her. But even as he reached, and before his fingers had closed onthe missile, she sprang back into safety; and he knew that she was used tohaving things thrown at her. She had snarled as she sprang away, baringher white fangs to their roots, all her wistfulness vanishing, being replacedby a carnivorous malignity that made him shudder. He glanced at the handthat held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers thatgripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of thesurface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one littlefinger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively andautomatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those samesensitive and delicate fingers being crushed and torn by the white teeth ofthe she-wolf. Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now whenhis tenure of it was so precarious.
　　All night, with burning brands, he fought off the hungry pack. Whenhe dozed despite himself, the whimpering and snarling of the dogs arousedhim. Morning came, but for the first time the light of day failed to scatterthe wolves. The man waited in vain for them to go. They remained in acircle about him and his fire, displaying an arrogance of possession thatshook his courage born of the morning light.
　　He made one desperate attempt to pull out on the trail. But the momenthe left the protection of the fire, the boldest wolf leaped for him, butleaped short. He saved himself by springing back, the jaws snappingtogether a scant six inches from his thigh. The rest of the pack was now upand surging upon him, and a throwing of firebrands right and left wasnecessary to drive them back to a respectful distance.
　　Even in the daylight he did not dare leave the fire to chop fresh wood.
　　Twenty feet away towered a huge dead spruce. He spent half the dayextending his campfire to the tree, at any moment a half dozen burningfaggots ready at hand to fling at his enemies. Once at the tree, he studiedthe surrounding forest in order to fell the tree in the direction of the mostfirewood.
　　The night was a repetition of the night before, save that the need forsleep was becoming overpowering. The snarling of his dogs was losing itsefficacy. Besides, they were snarling all the time, and his benumbed anddrowsy senses no longer took note of changing pitch and intensity. Heawoke with a start. The she-wolf was less than a yard from him.
　　Mechanically, at short range, without letting go of it, he thrust a brand fullinto her open and snarling mouth. She sprang away, yelling with pain, andwhile he took delight in the smell of burning flesh and hair, he watchedher shaking her head and growling wrathfully a score of feet away.
　　But this time, before he dozed again, he tied a burning pine-knot to hisright hand. His eyes were closed but few minutes when the burn of theflame on his flesh awakened him. For several hours he adhered to thisprogramme. Every time he was thus awakened he drove back the wolveswith flying brands, replenished the fire, and rearranged the pine-knot onhis hand. All worked well, but there came a time when he fastened thepine-knot insecurely. As his eyes closed it fell away from his hand.
　　He dreamed. It seemed to him that he was in Fort McGurry. It waswarm and comfortable, and he was playing cribbage with the Factor. Also,it seemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves. They were howlingat the very gates, and sometimes he and the Factor paused from the gameto listen and laugh at the futile efforts of the wolves to get in. And then, sostrange was the dream, there was a crash. The door was burst open. Hecould see the wolves flooding into the big living-room of the fort. Theywere leaping straight for him and the Factor. With the bursting open of thedoor, the noise of their howling had increased tremendously. This howlingnow bothered him. His dream was merging into something else - he knewnot what; but through it all, following him, persisted the howling.
　　And then he awoke to find the howling real. There was a great snarlingand yelping. The wolves were rushing him. They were all about him andupon him. The teeth of one had closed upon his arm. Instinctively heleaped into the fire, and as he leaped, he felt the sharp slash of teeth thattore through the flesh of his leg. Then began a fire fight. His stout mittenstemporarily protected his hands, and he scooped live coals into the air inall directions, until the campfire took on the semblance of a volcano.
　　But it could not last long. His face was blistering in the heat, hiseyebrows and lashes were singed off, and the heat was becomingunbearable to his feet. With a flaming brand in each hand, he sprang to theedge of the fire. The wolves had been driven back. On every side,wherever the live coals had fallen, the snow was sizzling, and every littlewhile a retiring wolf, with wild leap and snort and snarl, announced thatone such live coal had been stepped upon.
　　Flinging his brands at the nearest of his enemies, the man thrust hissmouldering mittens into the snow and stamped about to cool his feet. Histwo dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had served as a coursein the protracted meal which had begun days before with Fatty, the lastcourse of which would likely be himself in the days to follow "You ain't got me yet!" he cried, savagely shaking his fist at the hungrybeasts; and at the sound of his voice the whole circle was agitated, therewas a general snarl, and the she-wolf slid up close to him across the snowand watched him with hungry wistfulness.
　　He set to work to carry out a new idea that had come to him. Heextended the fire into a large circle. Inside this circle he crouched, hissleeping outfit under him as a protection against the melting snow. Whenhe had thus disappeared within his shelter of flame, the whole pack camecuriously to the rim of the fire to see what had become of him. Hithertothey had been denied access to the fire, and they now settled down in aclose-drawn circle, like so many dogs, blinking and yawning andstretching their lean bodies in the unaccustomed warmth. Then the she-wolf sat down, pointed her nose at a star, and began to howl. One by onethe wolves joined her, till the whole pack, on haunches, with noses pointedskyward, was howling its hunger cry.
　　Dawn came, and daylight. The fire was burning low. The fuel had runout, and there was need to get more. The man attempted to step out of hiscircle of flame, but the wolves surged to meet him. Burning brands madethem spring aside, but they no longer sprang back. In vain he strove todrive them back. As he gave up and stumbled inside his circle, a wolfleaped for him, missed, and landed with all four feet in the coals. It criedout with terror, at the same time snarling, and scrambled back to cool itspaws in the snow.
　　The man sat down on his blankets in a crouching position. His bodyleaned forward from the hips. His shoulders, relaxed and drooping, and hishead on his knees advertised that he had given up the struggle. Now andagain he raised his head to note the dying down of the fire. The circle offlame and coals was breaking into segments with openings in between.
　　These openings grew in size, the segments diminished.
　　"I guess you can come an' get me any time," he mumbled. "Anyway,I'm goin' to sleep."Once he awakened, and in an opening in the circle, directly in front ofhim, he saw the she-wolf gazing at him.
　　Again he awakened, a little later, though it seemed hours to him. Amysterious change had taken place - so mysterious a change that he wasshocked wider awake. Something had happened. He could not understandat first. Then he discovered it. The wolves were gone. Remained only thetrampled snow to show how closely they had pressed him. Sleep waswelling up and gripping him again, his head was sinking down upon hisknees, when he roused with a sudden start.
　　There were cries of men, and churn of sleds, the creaking of harnesses,and the eager whimpering of straining dogs. Four sleds pulled in from theriver bed to the camp among the trees. Half a dozen men were about theman who crouched in the centre of the dying fire. They were shaking andprodding him into consciousness. He looked at them like a drunken manand maundered in strange, sleepy speech.
　　"Red she-wolf. . . . Come in with the dogs at feedin' time. . . . First sheate the dog-food. . . . Then she ate the dogs. . . . An' after that she ateBill. . . . ""Where's Lord Alfred?" one of the men bellowed in his ear, shakinghim roughly.
　　He shook his head slowly. "No, she didn't eat him. . . . He's roostin' ina tree at the last camp.""Dead?" the man shouted.
　　"An' in a box," Henry answered. He jerked his shoulder petulantlyaway from the grip of his questioner. "Say, you lemme alone. . . . I'm jes'
　　White Fang29plump tuckered out. . . . Goo' night, everybody."His eyes fluttered and went shut. His chin fell forward on his chest.
　　And even as they eased him down upon the blankets his snores were risingon the frosty air.
　　But there was another sound. Far and faint it was, in the remotedistance, the cry of the hungry wolf-pack as it took the trail of other meatthan the man it had just missed.
Chapter 4 The Battle Of The Fangs
It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men's voices andthe whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first tospring away from the cornered man in his circle of dying flame. The packhad been loath to forego the kill it had hunted down, and it lingered forseveral minutes, making sure of the sounds, and then it, too, sprang awayon the trail made by the she- wolf.
　　Running at the forefront of the pack was a large grey wolf - one of itsseveral leaders. It was he who directed the pack's course on the heels ofthe she-wolf. It was he who snarled warningly at the younger members ofthe pack or slashed at them with his fangs when they ambitiously tried topass him. And it was he who increased the pace when he sighted the she-wolf, now trotting slowly across the snow.
　　She dropped in alongside by him, as though it were her appointedposition, and took the pace of the pack. He did not snarl at her, nor showhis teeth, when any leap of hers chanced to put her in advance of him. Onthe contrary, he seemed kindly disposed toward her - too kindly to suit her,for he was prone to run near to her, and when he ran too near it was shewho snarled and showed her teeth. Nor was she above slashing hisshoulder sharply on occasion. At such times he betrayed no anger. Hemerely sprang to the side and ran stiffly ahead for several awkward leaps,in carriage and conduct resembling an abashed country swain.
　　This was his one trouble in the running of the pack; but she had othertroubles. On her other side ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled and marked withthe scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side. The fact that hehad but one eye, and that the left eye, might account for this. He, also, wasaddicted to crowding her, to veering toward her till his scarred muzzletouched her body, or shoulder, or neck. As with the running mate on theleft, she repelled these attentions with her teeth; but when both bestowedtheir attentions at the same time she was roughly jostled, being compelled,with quick snaps to either side, to drive both lovers away and at the sametime to maintain her forward leap with the pack and see the way of herfeet before her. At such times her running mates flashed their teeth andgrowled threateningly across at each other. They might have fought, buteven wooing and its rivalry waited upon the more pressing hunger-need of the pack.
　　After each repulse, when the old wolf sheered abruptly away from thesharp-toothed object of his desire, he shouldered against a young three-year-old that ran on his blind right side. This young wolf had attained hisfull size; and, considering the weak and famished condition of the pack, hepossessed more than the average vigour and spirit. Nevertheless, he ranwith his head even with the shoulder of his one-eyed elder. When heventured to run abreast of the older wolf (which was seldom), a snarl and asnap sent him back even with the shoulder again. Sometimes, however, hedropped cautiously and slowly behind and edged in between the old leaderand the she-wolf. This was doubly resented, even triply resented. Whenshe snarled her displeasure, the old leader would whirl on the three-year-old. Sometimes she whirled with him. And sometimes the young leader onthe left whirled, too.
　　At such times, confronted by three sets of savage teeth, the young wolfstopped precipitately, throwing himself back on his haunches, with fore-legs stiff, mouth menacing, and mane bristling. This confusion in the frontof the moving pack always caused confusion in the rear. The wolvesbehind collided with the young wolf and expressed their displeasure byadministering sharp nips on his hind-legs and flanks. He was laying uptrouble for himself, for lack of food and short tempers went together; butwith the boundless faith of youth he persisted in repeating the manoeuvreevery little while, though it never succeeded in gaining anything for himbut discomfiture.
　　Had there been food, love-making and fighting would have gone onapace, and the pack-formation would have been broken up. But thesituation of the pack was desperate. It was lean with long- standing hunger.
　　It ran below its ordinary speed. At the rear limped the weak members, thevery young and the very old. At the front were the strongest. Yet all weremore like skeletons than full-bodied wolves. Nevertheless, with theexception of the ones that limped, the movements of the animals wereeftortless and tireless. Their stringy muscles seemed founts ofinexhaustible energy. Behind every steel-like contraction of a muscle, layanother steel-like contraction, and another, and another, apparently without end.
　　They ran many miles that day. They ran through the night. And thenext day found them still running. They were running over the surface of aworld frozen and dead. No life stirred. They alone moved through the vastinertness. They alone were alive, and they sought for other things thatwere alive in order that they might devour them and continue to live.
　　They crossed low divides and ranged a dozen small streams in a lower-lying country before their quest was rewarded. Then they came uponmoose. It was a big bull they first found. Here was meat and life, and itwas guarded by no mysterious fires nor flying missiles of flame. Splayhoofs and palmated antlers they knew, and they flung their customarypatience and caution to the wind. It was a brief fight and fierce. The bigbull was beset on every side. He ripped them open or split their skulls withshrewdly driven blows of his great hoofs. He crushed them and brokethem on his large horns. He stamped them into the snow under him in thewallowing struggle. But he was foredoomed, and he went down with theshe-wolf tearing savagely at his throat, and with other teeth fixedeverywhere upon him, devouring him alive, before ever his last strugglesceased or his last damage had been wrought.
　　There was food in plenty. The bull weighed over eight hundred pounds- fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for the forty-odd wolves of thepack. But if they could fast prodigiously, they could feed prodigiously, andsoon a few scattered bones were all that remained of the splendid livebrute that had faced the pack a few hours before.
　　There was now much resting and sleeping. With full stomachs,bickering and quarrelling began among the younger males, and thiscontinued through the few days that followed before the breaking-up ofthe pack. The famine was over. The wolves were now in the country ofgame, and though they still hunted in pack, they hunted more cautiously,cutting out heavy cows or crippled old bulls from the small moose-herdsthey ran across.
　　There came a day, in this land of plenty, when the wolf-pack split inhalf and went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader onher left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the packdown to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east.
　　Each day this remnant of the pack dwindled. Two by two, male and female,the wolves were deserting. Occasionally a solitary male was driven out bythe sharp teeth of his rivals. In the end there remained only four: the she-wolf, the young leader, the one-eyed one, and the ambitious three-year-old. The she-wolf had by now developed a ferocious temper. Her threesuitors all bore the marks of her teeth. Yet they never replied in kind, neverdefended themselves against her. They turned their shoulders to her mostsavage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove to placateher wrath. But if they were all mildness toward her, they were allfierceness toward one another. The three-year-old grew too ambitious inhis fierceness. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side and rippedhis ear into ribbons. Though the grizzled old fellow could see only on oneside, against the youth and vigour of the other he brought into play thewisdom of long years of experience. His lost eye and his scarred muzzlebore evidence to the nature of his experience. He had survived too manybattles to be in doubt for a moment about what to do.
　　The battle began fairly, but it did not end fairly. There was no tellingwhat the outcome would have been, for the third wolf joined the elder, andtogether, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitious three-year-old and proceeded to destroy him. He was beset on either side by themerciless fangs of his erstwhile comrades. Forgotten were the days theyhad hunted together, the game they had pulled down, the famine they hadsuffered. That business was a thing of the past. The business of love was athand - ever a sterner and crueller business than that of food-getting.
　　And in the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat downcontentedly on her haunches and watched. She was even pleased. This washer day - and it came not often - when manes bristled, and fang smote fangor ripped and tore the yielding flesh, all for the possession of her.
　　And in the business of love the three-year-old, who had made this hisfirst adventure upon it, yielded up his life. On either side of his body stoodhis two rivals. They were gazing at the she- wolf, who sat smiling in thesnow. But the elder leader was wise, very wise, in love even as in battle.
　　The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his shoulder. Thecurve of his neck was turned toward his rival. With his one eye the eldersaw the opportunity. He darted in low and closed with his fangs. It was along, ripping slash, and deep as well. His teeth, in passing, burst the wallof the great vein of the throat. Then he leaped clear.
　　The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl broke midmost into atickling cough. Bleeding and coughing, already stricken, he sprang at theelder and fought while life faded from him, his legs going weak beneathhim, the light of day dulling on his eyes, his blows and springs fallingshorter and shorter.
　　And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled. Shewas made glad in vague ways by the battle, for this was the love- makingof the Wild, the sex-tragedy of the natural world that was tragedy only tothose that died. To those that survived it was not tragedy, but realisationand achievement.
　　When the young leader lay in the snow and moved no more, One Eyestalked over to the she-wolf. His carriage was one of mingled triumph andcaution. He was plainly expectant of a rebuff, and he was just as plainlysurprised when her teeth did not flash out at him in anger. For the firsttime she met him with a kindly manner. She sniffed noses with him, andeven condescended to leap about and frisk and play with him in quitepuppyish fashion. And he, for all his grey years and sage experience,behaved quite as puppyishly and even a little more foolishly.
　　Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the love-tale red-written on the snow. Forgotten, save once, when old One Eye stopped fora moment to lick his stiffening wounds. Then it was that his lips halfwrithed into a snarl, and the hair of his neck and shoulders involuntarilybristled, while he half crouched for a spring, his claws spasmodicallyclutching into the snow-surface for firmer footing. But it was all forgottenthe next moment, as he sprang after the she-wolf, who was coyly leadinghim a chase through the woods.
　　After that they ran side by side, like good friends who have come to anunderstanding. The days passed by, and they kept together, hunting theirmeat and killing and eating it in common. After a time the she-wolf beganto grow restless. She seemed to be searching for something that she couldnot find. The hollows under fallen trees seemed to attract her, and shespent much time nosing about among the larger snow-piled crevices in therocks and in the caves of overhanging banks. Old One Eye was notinterested at all, but he followed her good-naturedly in her quest, andwhen her investigations in particular places were unusually protracted, hewould lie down and wait until she was ready to go on.
　　They did not remain in one place, but travelled across country untilthey regained the Mackenzie River, down which they slowly went, leavingit often to hunt game along the small streams that entered it, but alwaysreturning to it again. Sometimes they chanced upon other wolves, usuallyin pairs; but there was no friendliness of intercourse displayed on eitherside, no gladness at meeting, no desire to return to the pack-formation.
　　Several times they encountered solitary wolves. These were always males,and they were pressingly insistent on joining with One Eye and his mate.
　　This he resented, and when she stood shoulder to shoulder with him,bristling and showing her teeth, the aspiring solitary ones would back off,turn-tail, and continue on their lonely way.
　　One moonlight night, running through the quiet forest, One Eyesuddenly halted. His muzzle went up, his tail stiffened, and his nostrilsdilated as he scented the air. One foot also he held up, after the manner ofa dog. He was not satisfied, and he continued to smell the air, striving tounderstand the message borne upon it to him. One careless sniff hadsatisfied his mate, and she trotted on to reassure him. Though he followedher, he was still dubious, and he could not forbear an occasional halt inorder more carefully to study the warning.
　　She crept out cautiously on the edge of a large open space in the midstof the trees. For some time she stood alone. Then One Eye, creeping andcrawling, every sense on the alert, every hair radiating infinite suspicion,joined her. They stood side by side, watching and listening and smelling.
　　To their ears came the sounds of dogs wrangling and scuffling, theguttural cries of men, the sharper voices of scolding women, and once theshrill and plaintive cry of a child. With the exception of the huge bulks ofthe skin-lodges, little could be seen save the flames of the fire, broken bythe movements of intervening bodies, and the smoke rising slowly on thequiet air. But to their nostrils came the myriad smells of an Indian camp,carrying a story that was largely incomprehensible to One Eye, but everydetail of which the she-wolf knew.
　　She was strangely stirred, and sniffed and sniffed with an increasingdelight. But old One Eye was doubtful. He betrayed his apprehension, andstarted tentatively to go. She turned. and touched his neck with her muzzlein a reassuring way, then regarded the camp again. A new wistfulness wasin her face, but it was not the wistfulness of hunger. She was thrilling to adesire that urged her to go forward, to be in closer to that fire, to besquabbling with the dogs, and to be avoiding and dodging the stumblingfeet of men.
　　One Eye moved impatiently beside her; her unrest came back upon her,and she knew again her pressing need to find the thing for which shesearched. She turned and trotted back into the forest, to the great relief ofOne Eye, who trotted a little to the fore until they were well within theshelter of the trees.
　　As they slid along, noiseless as shadows, in the moonlight, they cameupon a run-way. Both noses went down to the footprints in the snow.
　　These footprints were very fresh. One Eye ran ahead cautiously, his mateat his heels. The broad pads of their feet were spread wide and in contactwith the snow were like velvet. One Eye caught sight of a dim movementof white in the midst of the white. His sliding gait had been deceptivelyswift, but it was as nothing to the speed at which he now ran. Before himwas bounding the faint patch of white he had discovered.
　　They were running along a narrow alley flanked on either side by agrowth of young spruce. Through the trees the mouth of the alley could beseen, opening out on a moonlit glade. Old One Eye was rapidlyoverhauling the fleeing shape of white. Bound by bound he gained. Nowhe was upon it. One leap more and his teeth would be sinking into it. Butthat leap was never made. High in the air, and straight up, soared the shapeof white, now a struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded,executing a fantastic dance there above him in the air and never oncereturning to earth.
　　One Eye sprang back with a snort of sudden fright, then shrank downto the snow and crouched, snarling threats at this thing of fear he did notunderstand. But the she-wolf coolly thrust past him. She poised for amoment, then sprang for the dancing rabbit. She, too, soared high, but notso high as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily together with 'ametallic snap. She made another leap, and another.
　　Her mate had slowly relaxed from his crouch and was watching her.
　　He now evinced displeasure at her repeated failures, and himself made amighty spring upward. His teeth closed upon the rabbit, and he bore itback to earth with him. But at the same time there was a suspiciouscrackling movement beside him, and his astonished eye saw a youngspruce sapling bending down above him to strike him. His jaws let go theirgrip, and he leaped backward to escape this strange danger, his lips drawnback from his fangs, his throat snarling, every hair bristling with rage andfright. And in that moment the sapling reared its slender length upright andthe rabbit soared dancing in the air again.
　　The she-wolf was angry. She sank her fangs into her mate's shoulder inreproof; and he, frightened, unaware of what constituted this newonslaught, struck back ferociously and in still greater fright, ripping downthe side of the she-wolf's muzzle. For him to resent such reproof wasequally unexpected to her, and she sprang upon him in snarlingindignation. Then he discovered his mistake and tried to placate her. Butshe proceeded to punish him roundly, until he gave over all attempts atplacation, and whirled in a circle, his head away from her, his shouldersreceiving the punishment of her teeth.
　　In the meantime the rabbit danced above them in the air. The she- wolfsat down in the snow, and old One Eye, now more in fear of his mate thanof the mysterious sapling, again sprang for the rabbit. As he sank backwith it between his teeth, he kept his eye on the sapling. As before, itfollowed him back to earth. He crouched down under the impending blow,his hair bristling, but his teeth still keeping tight hold of the rabbit. But theblow did not fall. The sapling remained bent above him. When he movedit moved, and he growled at it through his clenched jaws; when heremained still, it remained still, and he concluded it was safer to continueremaining still. Yet the warm blood of the rabbit tasted good in his mouth.
　　It was his mate who relieved him from the quandary in which he foundhimself. She took the rabbit from him, and while the sapling swayed andteetered threateningly above her she calmly gnawed off the rabbit's head.
　　At once the sapling shot up, and after that gave no more trouble,remaining in the decorous and perpendicular position in which nature hadintended it to grow. Then, between them, the she-wolf and One Eyedevoured the game which the mysterious sapling had caught for them.
　　There were other run-ways and alleys where rabbits were hanging inthe air, and the wolf-pair prospected them all, the she-wolf leading theway, old One Eye following and observant, learning the method ofrobbing snares - a knowledge destined to stand him in good stead in thedays to come.
Chapter 5 The Lair
For two days the she-wolf and One Eye hung about the Indian camp.
　　He was worried and apprehensive, yet the camp lured his mate and shewas loath to depart. But when, one morning, the air was rent with thereport of a rifle close at hand, and a bullet smashed against a tree trunkseveral inches from One Eye's head, they hesitated no more, but went offon a long, swinging lope that put quick miles between them and thedanger.
　　They did not go far - a couple of days' journey. The she-wolf's need tofind the thing for which she searched had now become imperative. Shewas getting very heavy, and could run but slowly. Once, in the pursuit of arabbit, which she ordinarily would have caught with ease, she gave overand lay down and rested. One Eye came to her; but when he touched herneck gently with his muzzle she snapped at him with such quick fiercenessthat he tumbled over backward and cut a ridiculous figure in his effort toescape her teeth. Her temper was now shorter than ever; but he hadbecome more patient than ever and more solicitous.
　　And then she found the thing for which she sought. It was a few milesup a small stream that in the summer time flowed into the Mackenzie, butthat then was frozen over and frozen down to its rocky bottom - a deadstream of solid white from source to mouth. The she-wolf was trottingwearily along, her mate well in advance, when she came upon theoverhanging, high clay-bank. She turned aside and trotted over to it. Thewear and tear of spring storms and melting snows had underwashed thebank and in one place had made a small cave out of a narrow fissure.
　　She paused at the mouth of the cave and looked the wall over carefully.
　　Then, on one side and the other, she ran along the base of the wall towhere its abrupt bulk merged from the softer-lined landscape. Returning tothe cave, she entered its narrow mouth. For a short three feet she wascompelled to crouch, then the walls widened and rose higher in a littleround chamber nearly six feet in diameter. The roof barely cleared herhead. It was dry and cosey. She inspected it with painstaking care, whileOne Eye, who had returned, stood in the entrance and patiently watchedher. She dropped her head, with her nose to the ground and directedtoward a point near to her closely bunched feet, and around this point shecircled several times; then, with a tired sigh that was almost a grunt, shecurled her body in, relaxed her legs, and dropped down, her head towardthe entrance. One Eye, with pointed, interested ears, laughed at her, andbeyond, outlined against the white light, she could see the brush of his tailwaving good-naturedly. Her own ears, with a snuggling movement, laidtheir sharp points backward and down against the head for a moment,while her mouth opened and her tongue lolled peaceably out, and in thisway she expressed that she was pleased and satisfied.
　　One Eye was hungry. Though he lay down in the entrance and slept,his sleep was fitful. He kept awaking and cocking his ears at the brightworld without, where the April sun was blazing across the snow. When hedozed, upon his ears would steal the faint whispers of hidden trickles ofrunning water, and he would rouse and listen intently. The sun had comeback, and all the awakening Northland world was calling to him. Life wasstirring. The feel of spring was in the air, the feel of growing life under thesnow, of sap ascending in the trees, of buds bursting the shackles of thefrost.
　　He cast anxious glances at his mate, but she showed no desire to get up.
　　He looked outside, and half a dozen snow-birds fluttered across his fieldof vision. He started to get up, then looked back to his mate again, andsettled down and dozed. A shrill and minute singing stole upon his heating.
　　Once, and twice, he sleepily brushed his nose with his paw. Then he wokeup. There, buzzing in the air at the tip of his nose, was a lone mosquito. Itwas a full-grown mosquito, one that had lain frozen in a dry log all winterand that had now been thawed out by the sun. He could resist the call ofthe world no longer. Besides, he was hungry.
　　He crawled over to his mate and tried to persuade her to get up. Butshe only snarled at him, and he walked out alone into the bright sunshineto find the snow-surface soft under foot and the travelling difficult. Hewent up the frozen bed of the stream, where the snow, shaded by the trees,was yet hard and crystalline. He was gone eight hours, and he came backthrough the darkness hungrier than when he had started. He had foundgame, but he had not caught it. He had broken through the melting snowcrust, and wallowed, while the snowshoe rabbits had skimmed along ontop lightly as ever.
　　He paused at the mouth of the cave with a sudden shock of suspicion.
　　Faint, strange sounds came from within. They were sounds not made byhis mate, and yet they were remotely familiar. He bellied cautiously insideand was met by a warning snarl from the she-wolf. This he receivedwithout perturbation, though he obeyed it by keeping his distance; but heremained interested in the other sounds - faint, muffled sobbings andslubberings.
　　His mate warned him irritably away, and he curled up and slept in theentrance. When morning came and a dim light pervaded the lair, he againsought after the source of the remotely familiar sounds. There was a newnote in his mate's warning snarl. It was a jealous note, and he was verycareful in keeping a respectful distance. Nevertheless, he made out,sheltering between her legs against the length of her body, five strangelittle bundles of life, very feeble, very helpless, making tiny whimperingnoises, with eyes that did not open to the light. He was surprised. It wasnot the first time in his long and successful life that this thing hadhappened. It had happened many times, yet each time it was as fresh asurprise as ever to him.
　　His mate looked at him anxiously. Every little while she emitted a lowgrowl, and at times, when it seemed to her he approached too near, thegrowl shot up in her throat to a sharp snarl. Of her own experience she hadno memory of the thing happening; but in her instinct, which was theexperience of all the mothers of wolves, there lurked a memory of fathersthat had eaten their new-born and helpless progeny. It manifested itself asa fear strong within her, that made her prevent One Eye from more closelyinspecting the cubs he had fathered.
　　But there was no danger. Old One Eye was feeling the urge of animpulse, that was, in turn, an instinct that had come down to him from allthe fathers of wolves. He did not question it, nor puzzle over it. It wasthere, in the fibre of his being; and it was the most natural thing in theworld that he should obey it by turning his back on his new-born familyand by trotting out and away on the meat-trail whereby he lived.
　　Five or six miles from the lair, the stream divided, its forks going offamong the mountains at a right angle. Here, leading up the left fork, hecame upon a fresh track. He smelled it and found it so recent that hecrouched swiftly, and looked in the direction in which it disappeared. Thenhe turned deliberately and took the right fork. The footprint was muchlarger than the one his own feet made, and he knew that in the wake ofsuch a trail there was little meat for him.
　　Half a mile up the right fork, his quick ears caught the sound ofgnawing teeth. He stalked the quarry and found it to be a porcupine,standing upright against a tree and trying his teeth on the bark. One Eyeapproached carefully but hopelessly. He knew the breed, though he hadnever met it so far north before; and never in his long life had porcupineserved him for a meal. But he had long since learned that there was such athing as Chance, or Opportunity, and he continued to draw near. There wasnever any telling what might happen, for with live things events weresomehow always happening differently.
　　The porcupine rolled itself into a ball, radiating long, sharp needles inall directions that defied attack. In his youth One Eye had once sniffed toonear a similar, apparently inert ball of quills, and had the tail flick outsuddenly in his face. One quill he had carried away in his muzzle, where ithad remained for weeks, a rankling flame, until it finally worked out. Sohe lay down, in a comfortable crouching position, his nose fully a footaway, and out of the line of the tail. Thus he waited, keeping perfectlyquiet. There was no telling. Something might happen. The porcupinemight unroll. There might be opportunity for a deft and ripping thrust ofpaw into the tender, unguarded belly.
　　But at the end of half an hour he arose, growled wrathfully at themotionless ball, and trotted on. He had waited too often and futilely in thepast for porcupines to unroll, to waste any more time. He continued up theright fork. The day wore along, and nothing rewarded his hunt.
　　The urge of his awakened instinct of fatherhood was strong upon him.
　　He must find meat. In the afternoon he blundered upon a ptarmigan. Hecame out of a thicket and found himself face to face with the slow-wittedbird. It was sitting on a log, not a foot beyond the end of his nose. Eachsaw the other. The bird made a startled rise, but he struck it with his paw,and smashed it down to earth, then pounced upon it, and caught it in histeeth as it scuttled across the snow trying to rise in the air again. As histeeth crunched through the tender flesh and fragile bones, he begannaturally to eat. Then he remembered, and, turning on the back- track,started for home, carrying the ptarmigan in his mouth.
　　A mile above the forks, running velvet-footed as was his custom, agliding shadow that cautiously prospected each new vista of the trail, hecame upon later imprints of the large tracks he had discovered in the earlymorning. As the track led his way, he followed, prepared to meet themaker of it at every turn of the stream.
　　He slid his head around a corner of rock, where began an unusuallylarge bend in the stream, and his quick eyes made out something that senthim crouching swiftly down. It was the maker of the track, a large femalelynx. She was crouching as he had crouched once that day, in front of herthe tight-rolled ball of quills. If he had been a gliding shadow before, henow became the ghost of such a shadow, as he crept and circled around,and came up well to leeward of the silent, motionless pair.
　　He lay down in the snow, depositing the ptarmigan beside him, andwith eyes peering through the needles of a low-growing spruce he watchedthe play of life before him - the waiting lynx and the waiting porcupine,each intent on life; and, such was the curiousness of the game, the way oflife for one lay in the eating of the other, and the way of life for the otherlay in being not eaten. While old One Eye, the wolf crouching in thecovert, played his part, too, in the game, waiting for some strange freak ofChance, that might help him on the meat-trail which was his way of life.
　　Half an hour passed, an hour; and nothing happened. The balls ofquills might have been a stone for all it moved; the lynx might have beenfrozen to marble; and old One Eye might have been dead. Yet all threeanimals were keyed to a tenseness of living that was almost painful, andscarcely ever would it come to them to be more alive than they were thenin their seeming petrifaction.
　　One Eye moved slightly and peered forth with increased eagerness.
　　Something was happening. The porcupine had at last decided that itsenemy had gone away. Slowly, cautiously, it was unrolling its ball ofimpregnable armour. It was agitated by no tremor of anticipation. Slowly,slowly, the bristling ball straightened out and lengthened. One Eyewatching, felt a sudden moistness in his mouth and a drooling of saliva,involuntary, excited by the living meat that was spreading itself like arepast before him.
　　Not quite entirely had the porcupine unrolled when it discovered itsenemy. In that instant the lynx struck. The blow was like a flash of light.
　　The paw, with rigid claws curving like talons, shot under the tender bellyand came back with a swift ripping movement. Had the porcupine beenentirely unrolled, or had it not discovered its enemy a fraction of a secondbefore the blow was struck, the paw would have escaped unscathed; but aside-flick of the tail sank sharp quills into it as it was withdrawn.
　　Everything had happened at once - the blow, the counter-blow, thesqueal of agony from the porcupine, the big cat's squall of sudden hurt andastonishment. One Eye half arose in his excitement, his ears up, his tailstraight out and quivering behind him. The lynx's bad temper got the bestof her. She sprang savagely at the thing that had hurt her. But theporcupine, squealing and grunting, with disrupted anatomy trying feeblyto roll up into its ball-protection, flicked out its tail again, and again thebig cat squalled with hurt and astonishment. Then she fell to backing awayand sneezing, her nose bristling with quills like a monstrous pin- cushion.
　　She brushed her nose with her paws, trying to dislodge the fiery darts,thrust it into the snow, and rubbed it against twigs and branches, and allthe time leaping about, ahead, sidewise, up and down, in a frenzy of painand fright.
　　She sneezed continually, and her stub of a tail was doing its besttoward lashing about by giving quick, violent jerks. She quit her antics,and quieted down for a long minute. One Eye watched. And even he couldnot repress a start and an involuntary bristling of hair along his back whenshe suddenly leaped, without warning, straight up in the air, at the sametime emitting a long and most terrible squall. Then she sprang away, upthe trail, squalling with every leap she made.
　　It was not until her racket had faded away in the distance and died outthat One Eye ventured forth. He walked as delicately as though all thesnow were carpeted with porcupine quills, erect and ready to pierce thesoft pads of his feet. The porcupine met his approach with a furioussquealing and a clashing of its long teeth. It had managed to roll up in aball again, but it was not quite the old compact ball; its muscles were toomuch torn for that. It had been ripped almost in half, and was still bleedingprofusely.
　　One Eye scooped out mouthfuls of the blood-soaked snow, andchewed and tasted and swallowed. This served as a relish, and his hungerincreased mightily; but he was too old in the world to forget his caution.
　　He waited. He lay down and waited, while the porcupine grated its teethand uttered grunts and sobs and occasional sharp little squeals. In a littlewhile, One Eye noticed that the quills were drooping and that a greatquivering had set up. The quivering came to an end suddenly. There was afinal defiant clash of the long teeth. Then all the quills drooped quite down,and the body relaxed and moved no more.
　　With a nervous, shrinking paw, One Eye stretched out the porcupine toits full length and turned it over on its back. Nothing had happened. It wassurely dead. He studied it intently for a moment, then took a careful gripwith his teeth and started off down the stream, partly carrying, partlydragging the porcupine, with head turned to the side so as to avoidstepping on the prickly mass. He recollected something, dropped theburden, and trotted back to where he had left the ptarmigan. He did nothesitate a moment. He knew clearly what was to be done, and this he didby promptly eating the ptarmigan. Then he returned and took up hisburden.
　　When he dragged the result of his day's hunt into the cave, the she-wolf inspected it, turned her muzzle to him, and lightly licked him on theneck. But the next instant she was warning him away from the cubs with asnarl that was less harsh than usual and that was more apologetic thanmenacing. Her instinctive fear of the father of her progeny was toningdown. He was behaving as a wolf- father should, and manifesting nounholy desire to devour the young lives she had brought into the world.
Chapter 6 The Grey Cub
He was different from his brothers and sisters. Their hair alreadybetrayed the reddish hue inherited from their mother, the she-wolf; whilehe alone, in this particular, took after his father. He was the one little greycub of the litter. He had bred true to the straight wolf-stock - in fact, hehad bred true to old One Eye himself, physically, with but a singleexception, and that was he had two eyes to his father's one.
　　The grey cub's eyes had not been open long, yet already he could seewith steady clearness. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt,tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his two sisters verywell. He had begun to romp with them in a feeble, awkward way, and evento squabble, his little throat vibrating with a queer rasping noise (theforerunner of the growl), as he worked himself into a passion. And longbefore his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell toknow his mother - a fount of warmth and liquid food and tenderness. Shepossessed a gentle, caressing tongue that soothed him when it passed overhis soft little body, and that impelled him to snuggle close against her andto doze off to sleep.
　　Most of the first month of his life had been passed thus in sleeping; butnow he could see quite well, and he stayed awake for longer periods oftime, and he was coming to learn his world quite well. His world wasgloomy; but he did not know that, for he knew no other world. It was dim-lighted; but his eyes had never had to adjust themselves to any other light.
　　His world was very small. Its limits were the walls of the lair; but as hehad no knowledge of the wide world outside, he was never oppressed bythe narrow confines of his existence.
　　But he had early discovered that one wall of his world was differentfrom the rest. This was the mouth of the cave and the source of light. Hehad discovered that it was different from the other walls long before hehad any thoughts of his own, any conscious volitions. It had been anirresistible attraction before ever his eyes opened and looked upon it. Thelight from it had beat upon his sealed lids, and the eyes and the opticnerves had pulsated to little, sparklike flashes, warm-coloured andstrangely pleasing. The life of his body, and of every fibre of his body, thelife that was the very substance of his body and that was apart from hisown personal life, had yearned toward this light and urged his bodytoward it in the same way that the cunning chemistry of a plant urges ittoward the sun.
　　Always, in the beginning, before his conscious life dawned, he hadcrawled toward the mouth of the cave. And in this his brothers and sisterswere one with him. Never, in that period, did any of them crawl toward thedark corners of the back-wall. The light drew them as if they were plants;the chemistry of the life that composed them demanded the light as anecessity of being; and their little puppet-bodies crawled blindly andchemically, like the tendrils of a vine. Later on, when each developedindividuality and became personally conscious of impulsions and desires,the attraction of the light increased. They were always crawling andsprawling toward it, and being driven back from it by their mother.
　　It was in this way that the grey cub learned other attributes of hismother than the soft, soothing, tongue. In his insistent crawling toward thelight, he discovered in her a nose that with a sharp nudge administeredrebuke, and later, a paw, that crushed him down and rolled him over andover with swift, calculating stroke. Thus he learned hurt; and on top of ithe learned to avoid hurt, first, by not incurring the risk of it; and second,when he had incurred the risk, by dodging and by retreating. These wereconscious actions, and were the results of his first generalisations upon theworld. Before that he had recoiled automatically from hurt, as he hadcrawled automatically toward the light. After that he recoiled from hurtbecause he KNEW that it was hurt.
　　He was a fierce little cub. So were his brothers and sisters. It was to beexpected. He was a carnivorous animal. He came of a breed of meat-killers and meat-eaters. His father and mother lived wholly upon meat.
　　The milk he had sucked with his first flickering life, was milk transformeddirectly from meat, and now, at a month old, when his eyes had been openfor but a week, he was beginning himself to eat meat - meat half-digestedby the she-wolf and disgorged for the five growing cubs that already madetoo great demand upon her breast.
　　But he was, further, the fiercest of the litter. He could make a louderrasping growl than any of them. His tiny rages were much more terriblethan theirs. It was he that first learned the trick of rolling a fellow-cub overwith a cunning paw-stroke. And it was he that first gripped another cub bythe ear and pulled and tugged and growled through jaws tight-clenched.
　　And certainly it was he that caused the mother the most trouble in keepingher litter from the mouth of the cave.
　　The fascination of the light for the grey cub increased from day to day.
　　He was perpetually departing on yard-long adventures toward the cave'sentrance, and as perpetually being driven back. Only he did not know itfor an entrance. He did not know anything about entrances - passageswhereby one goes from one place to another place. He did not know anyother place, much less of a way to get there. So to him the entrance of thecave was a wall - a wall of light. As the sun was to the outside dweller, thiswall was to him the sun of his world. It attracted him as a candle attracts amoth. He was always striving to attain it. The life that was so swiftlyexpanding within him, urged him continually toward the wall of light. Thelife that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he waspredestined to tread. But he himself did not know anything about it. Hedid not know there was any outside at all.
　　There was one strange thing about this wall of light. His father (he hadalready come to recognise his father as the one other dweller in the world,a creature like his mother, who slept near the light and was a bringer ofmeat) - his father had a way of walking right into the white far wall anddisappearing. The grey cub could not understand this. Though neverpermitted by his mother to approach that wall, he had approached theother walls, and encountered hard obstruction on the end of his tendernose. This hurt. And after several such adventures, he left the walls alone.
　　Without thinking about it, he accepted this disappearing into the wall as apeculiarity of his father, as milk and half- digested meat were peculiaritiesof his mother.
　　In fact, the grey cub was not given to thinking - at least, to the kind ofthinking customary of men. His brain worked in dim ways. Yet hisconclusions were as sharp and distinct as those achieved by men. He had amethod of accepting things, without questioning the why and wherefore.
　　In reality, this was the act of classification. He was never disturbed overwhy a thing happened. How it happened was sufficient for him. Thus,when he had bumped his nose on the back-wall a few times, he acceptedthat he would not disappear into walls. In the same way he accepted thathis father could disappear into walls. But he was not in the least disturbedby desire to find out the reason for the difference between his father andhimself. Logic and physics were no part of his mental make-up.
　　Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced famine. Therecame a time when not only did the meat-supply cease, but the milk nolonger came from his mother's breast. At first, the cubs whimpered andcried, but for the most part they slept. It was not long before they werereduced to a coma of hunger. There were no more spats and squabbles, nomore tiny rages nor attempts at growling; while the adventures toward thefar white wall ceased altogether. The cubs slept, while the life that was inthem flickered and died down.
　　One Eye was desperate. He ranged far and wide, and slept but little inthe lair that had now become cheerless and miserable. The she-wolf, too,left her litter and went out in search of meat. In the first days after the birthof the cubs, One Eye had journeyed several times back to the Indian campand robbed the rabbit snares; but, with the melting of the snow and theopening of the streams, the Indian camp had moved away, and that sourceof supply was closed to him.
　　When the grey cub came back to life and again took interest in the farwhite wall, he found that the population of his world had been reduced.
　　Only one sister remained to him. The rest were gone. As he grew stronger,he found himself compelled to play alone, for the sister no longer liftedher head nor moved about. His little body rounded out with the meat henow ate; but the food had come too late for her. She slept continuously, atiny skeleton flung round with skin in which the flame flickered lower andlower and at last went out.
　　Then there came a time when the grey cub no longer saw his fatherappearing and disappearing in the wall nor lying down asleep in theentrance. This had happened at the end of a second and less severe famine.
　　The she-wolf knew why One Eye never came back, but there was no wayby which she could tell what she had seen to the grey cub. Hunting herselffor meat, up the left fork of the stream where lived the lynx, she hadfollowed a day-old trail of One Eye. And she had found him, or whatremained of him, at the end of the trail. There were many signs of thebattle that had been fought, and of the lynx's withdrawal to her lair afterhaving won the victory. Before she went away, the she-wolf had found thislair, but the signs told her that the lynx was inside, and she had not daredto venture in.
　　After that, the she-wolf in her hunting avoided the left fork. For sheknew that in the lynx's lair was a litter of kittens, and she knew the lynxfor a fierce, bad-tempered creature and a terrible fighter. It was all verywell for half a dozen wolves to drive a lynx, spitting and bristling, up atree; but it was quite a different matter for a lone wolf to encounter a lynx- especially when the lynx was known to have a litter of hungry kittens ather back.
　　But the Wild is the Wild, and motherhood is motherhood, at all timesfiercely protective whether in the Wild or out of it; and the time was tocome when the she-wolf, for her grey cub's sake, would venture the leftfork, and the lair in the rocks, and the lynx's wrath.
Chapter 7 The Wall Of The World
By the time his mother began leaving the cave on hunting expeditions,the cub had learned well the law that forbade his approaching the entrance.
　　Not only had this law been forcibly and many times impressed on him byhis mother's nose and paw, but in him the instinct of fear was developing.
　　Never, in his brief cave- life, had he encountered anything of which to beafraid. Yet fear was in him. It had come down to him from a remoteancestry through a thousand thousand lives. It was a heritage he hadreceived directly from One Eye and the she-wolf; but to them, in turn, ithad been passed down through all the generations of wolves that had gonebefore. Fear! - that legacy of the Wild which no animal may escape norexchange for pottage.
　　So the grey cub knew fear, though he knew not the stuff of which fearwas made. Possibly he accepted it as one of the restrictions of life. For hehad already learned that there were such restrictions. Hunger he hadknown; and when he could not appease his hunger he had felt restriction.
　　The hard obstruction of the cave-wall, the sharp nudge of his mother'snose, the smashing stroke of her paw, the hunger unappeased of severalfamines, had borne in upon him that all was not freedom in the world, thatto life there was limitations and restraints. These limitations and restraintswere laws. To be obedient to them was to escape hurt and make forhappiness.
　　He did not reason the question out in this man fashion. He merelyclassified the things that hurt and the things that did not hurt. And aftersuch classification he avoided the things that hurt, the restrictions andrestraints, in order to enjoy the satisfactions and the remunerations of life.
　　Thus it was that in obedience to the law laid down by his mother, andin obedience to the law of that unknown and nameless thing, fear, he keptaway from the mouth of the cave. It remained to him a white wall of light.
　　When his mother was absent, he slept most of the time, while during theintervals that he was awake he kept very quiet, suppressing thewhimpering cries that tickled in his throat and strove for noise.
　　Once, lying awake, he heard a strange sound in the white wall. He didnot know that it was a wolverine, standing outside, all a- trembling with itsown daring, and cautiously scenting out the contents of the cave. The cubknew only that the sniff was strange, a something unclassified, thereforeunknown and terrible - for the unknown was one of the chief elements thatwent into the making of fear.
　　The hair bristled upon the grey cub's back, but it bristled silently. Howwas he to know that this thing that sniffed was a thing at which to bristle?
　　It was not born of any knowledge of his, yet it was the visible expressionof the fear that was in him, and for which, in his own life, there was noaccounting. But fear was accompanied by another instinct - that ofconcealment. The cub was in a frenzy of terror, yet he lay withoutmovement or sound, frozen, petrified into immobility, to all appearancesdead. His mother, coming home, growled as she smelt the wolverine'strack, and bounded into the cave and licked and nozzled him with unduevehemence of affection. And the cub felt that somehow he had escaped agreat hurt.
　　But there were other forces at work in the cub, the greatest of whichwas growth. Instinct and law demanded of him obedience. But growthdemanded disobedience. His mother and fear impelled him to keep awayfrom the white wall. Growth is life, and life is for ever destined to makefor light. So there was no damming up the tide of life that was risingwithin him - rising with every mouthful of meat he swallowed, with everybreath he drew. In the end, one day, fear and obedience were swept awayby the rush of life, and the cub straddled and sprawled toward theentrance.
　　Unlike any other wall with which he had had experience, this wallseemed to recede from him as he approached. No hard surface collidedwith the tender little nose he thrust out tentatively before him. Thesubstance of the wall seemed as permeable and yielding as light. And ascondition, in his eyes, had the seeming of form, so he entered into whathad been wall to him and bathed in the substance that composed it.
　　It was bewildering. He was sprawling through solidity. And ever thelight grew brighter. Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on.
　　Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of the cave. The wall, insidewhich he had thought himself, as suddenly leaped back before him to animmeasurable distance. The light had become painfully bright. He wasdazzled by it. Likewise he was made dizzy by this abrupt and tremendousextension of space. Automatically, his eyes were adjusting themselves tothe brightness, focusing themselves to meet the increased distance ofobjects. At first, the wall had leaped beyond his vision. He now saw itagain; but it had taken upon itself a remarkable remoteness. Also, itsappearance had changed. It was now a variegated wall, composed of thetrees that fringed the stream, the opposing mountain that towered abovethe trees, and the sky that out-towered the mountain.
　　A great fear came upon him. This was more of the terrible unknown.
　　He crouched down on the lip of the cave and gazed out on the world. Hewas very much afraid. Because it was unknown, it was hostile to him.
　　Therefore the hair stood up on end along his back and his lips wrinkledweakly in an attempt at a ferocious and intimidating snarl. Out of hispuniness and fright he challenged and menaced the whole wide world.
　　Nothing happened. He continued to gaze, and in his interest he forgotto snarl. Also, he forgot to be afraid. For the time, fear had been routed bygrowth, while growth had assumed the guise of curiosity. He began tonotice near objects - an open portion of the stream that flashed in the sun,the blasted pine-tree that stood at the base of the slope, and the slope itself,that ran right up to him and ceased two feet beneath the lip of the cave onwhich he crouched.
　　Now the grey cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had neverexperienced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So hestepped boldly out upon the air. His hind-legs still rested on the cave-lip,so he fell forward head downward. The earth struck him a harsh blow onthe nose that made him yelp. Then he began rolling down the slope, overand over. He was in a panic of terror. The unknown had caught him at last.
　　It had gripped savagely hold of him and was about to wreak upon himsome terrific hurt. Growth was now routed by fear, and he ki-yi'd like anyfrightened puppy.
　　The unknown bore him on he knew not to what frightful hurt, and heyelped and ki-yi'd unceasingly. This was a different proposition fromcrouching in frozen fear while the unknown lurked just alongside. Nowthe unknown had caught tight hold of him. Silence would do no good.
　　Besides, it was not fear, but terror, that convulsed him.
　　But the slope grew more gradual, and its base was grass-covered. Herethe cub lost momentum. When at last he came to a stop, he gave one lastagonised yell and then a long, whimpering wail. Also, and quite as amatter of course, as though in his life he had already made a thousandtoilets, he proceeded to lick away the dry clay that soiled him.
　　After that he sat up and gazed about him, as might the first man of theearth who landed upon Mars. The cub had broken through the wall of theworld, the unknown had let go its hold of him, and here he was withouthurt. But the first man on Mars would have experienced less unfamiliaritythan did he. Without any antecedent knowledge, without any warningwhatever that such existed, he found himself an explorer in a totally newworld.
　　Now that the terrible unknown had let go of him, he forgot that theunknown had any terrors. He was aware only of curiosity in all the thingsabout him. He inspected the grass beneath him, the moss- berry plant justbeyond, and the dead trunk of the blasted pine that stood on the edge of anopen space among the trees. A squirrel, running around the base of thetrunk, came full upon him, and gave him a great fright. He cowered downand snarled. But the squirrel was as badly scared. It ran up the tree, andfrom a point of safety chattered back savagely.
　　This helped the cub's courage, and though the woodpecker he nextencountered gave him a start, he proceeded confidently on his way. Such was his confidence, that when a moose-bird impudently hopped up to him,he reached out at it with a playful paw. The result was a sharp peck on theend of his nose that made him cower down and ki-yi. The noise he madewas too much for the moose-bird, who sought safety in flight.
　　But the cub was learning. His misty little mind had already made anunconscious classification. There were live things and things not alive.
　　Also, he must watch out for the live things. The things not alive remainedalways in one place, but the live things moved about, and there was notelling what they might do. The thing to expect of them was theunexpected, and for this he must be prepared.
　　He travelled very clumsily. He ran into sticks and things. A twig thathe thought a long way off, would the next instant hit him on the nose orrake along his ribs. There were inequalities of surface. Sometimes heoverstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped andstubbed his feet. Then there were the pebbles and stones that turned underhim when he trod upon them; and from them he came to know that thethings not alive were not all in the same state of stable equilibrium as washis cave - also, that small things not alive were more liable than largethings to fall down or turn over. But with every mishap he was learning.
　　The longer he walked, the better he walked. He was adjusting himself. Hewas learning to calculate his own muscular movements, to know hisphysical limitations, to measure distances between objects, and betweenobjects and himself.
　　His was the luck of the beginner. Born to be a hunter of meat (thoughhe did not know it), he blundered upon meat just outside his own cave-door on his first foray into the world. It was by sheer blundering that hechanced upon the shrewdly hidden ptarmigan nest. He fell into it. He hadessayed to walk along the trunk of a fallen pine. The rotten bark gave wayunder his feet, and with a despairing yelp he pitched down the roundedcrescent, smashed through the leafage and stalks of a small bush, and inthe heart of the bush, on the ground, fetched up in the midst of sevenptarmigan chicks.
　　They made noises, and at first he was frightened at them. Then heperceived that they were very little, and he became bolder. They moved.
　　He placed his paw on one, and its movements were accelerated. This wasa source of enjoyment to him. He smelled it. He picked it up in his mouth.
　　It struggled and tickled his tongue. At the same time he was made awareof a sensation of hunger. His jaws closed together. There was a crunchingof fragile bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. The taste of it wasgood. This was meat, the same as his mother gave him, only it was alivebetween his teeth and therefore better. So he ate the ptarmigan. Nor did hestop till he had devoured the whole brood. Then he licked his chops inquite the same way his mother did, and began to crawl out of the bush.
　　He encountered a feathered whirlwind. He was confused and blindedby the rush of it and the beat of angry wings. He hid his head between hispaws and yelped. The blows increased. The mother ptarmigan was in afury. Then he became angry. He rose up, snarling, striking out with hispaws. He sank his tiny teeth into one of the wings and pulled and tuggedsturdily. The ptarmigan struggled against him, showering blows upon himwith her free wing. It was his first battle. He was elated. He forgot allabout the unknown. He no longer was afraid of anything. He was fighting,tearing at a live thing that was striking at him. Also, this live thing wasmeat. The lust to kill was on him. He had just destroyed little live things.
　　He would now destroy a big live thing. He was too busy and happy toknow that he was happy. He was thrilling and exulting in ways new to himand greater to him than any he had known before.
　　He held on to the wing and growled between his tight-clenched teeth.
　　The ptarmigan dragged him out of the bush. When she turned and tried todrag him back into the bush's shelter, he pulled her away from it and oninto the open. And all the time she was making outcry and striking withher free wing, while feathers were flying like a snow-fall. The pitch towhich he was aroused was tremendous. All the fighting blood of his breedwas up in him and surging through him. This was living, though he did notknow it. He was realising his own meaning in the world; he was doing thatfor which he was made - killing meat and battling to kill it. He wasjustifying his existence, than which life can do no greater; for life achievesits summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.
　　After a time, the ptarmigan ceased her struggling. He still held her bythe wing, and they lay on the ground and looked at each other. He tried togrowl threateningly, ferociously. She pecked on his nose, which by now,what of previous adventures was sore. He winced but held on. She peckedhim again and again. From wincing he went to whimpering. He tried toback away from her, oblivious to the fact that by his hold on her hedragged her after him. A rain of pecks fell on his ill-used nose. The floodof fight ebbed down in him, and, releasing his prey, he turned tail andscampered on across the open in inglorious retreat.
　　He lay down to rest on the other side of the open, near the edge of thebushes, his tongue lolling out, his chest heaving and panting, his nose stillhurting him and causing him to continue his whimper. But as he lay there,suddenly there came to him a feeling as of something terrible impending.
　　The unknown with all its terrors rushed upon him, and he shrank backinstinctively into the shelter of the bush. As he did so, a draught of airfanned him, and a large, winged body swept ominously and silently past.
　　A hawk, driving down out of the blue, had barely missed him.
　　While he lay in the bush, recovering from his fright and peeringfearfully out, the mother-ptarmigan on the other side of the open spacefluttered out of the ravaged nest. It was because of her loss that she paidno attention to the winged bolt of the sky. But the cub saw, and it was awarning and a lesson to him - the swift downward swoop of the hawk, theshort skim of its body just above the ground, the strike of its talons in thebody of the ptarmigan, the ptarmigan's squawk of agony and fright, andthe hawk's rush upward into the blue, carrying the ptarmigan away with it,It was a long time before the cub left its shelter. He had learned much.
　　Live things were meat. They were good to eat. Also, live things when theywere large enough, could give hurt. It was better to eat small live thingslike ptarmigan chicks, and to let alone large live things like ptarmiganhens. Nevertheless he felt a little prick of ambition, a sneaking desire tohave another battle with that ptarmigan hen - only the hawk had carriedher away. May be there were other ptarmigan hens. He would go and see.
　　He came down a shelving bank to the stream. He had never seen waterbefore. The footing looked good. There were no inequalities of surface. Hestepped boldly out on it; and went down, crying with fear, into theembrace of the unknown. It was cold, and he gasped, breathing quickly.
　　The water rushed into his lungs instead of the air that had alwaysaccompanied his act of breathing. The suffocation he experienced was likethe pang of death. To him it signified death. He had no consciousknowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed theinstinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the veryessence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, theone culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him,about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything.
　　He came to the surface, and the sweet air rushed into his open mouth.
　　He did not go down again. Quite as though it had been a long-establishedcustom of his he struck out with all his legs and began to swim. The nearbank was a yard away; but he had come up with his back to it, and the firstthing his eyes rested upon was the opposite bank, toward which heimmediately began to swim. The stream was a small one, but in the pool itwidened out to a score of feet.
　　Midway in the passage, the current picked up the cub and swept himdownstream. He was caught in the miniature rapid at the bottom of thepool. Here was little chance for swimming. The quiet water had becomesuddenly angry. Sometimes he was under, sometimes on top. At all timeshe was in violent motion, now being turned over or around, and again,being smashed against a rock. And with every rock he struck, he yelped.
　　His progress was a series of yelps, from which might have been adducedthe number of rocks he encountered.
　　Below the rapid was a second pool, and here, captured by the eddy, hewas gently borne to the bank, and as gently deposited on a bed of gravel.
　　He crawled frantically clear of the water and lay down. He had learnedsome more about the world. Water was not alive. Yet it moved. Also, itlooked as solid as the earth, but was without any solidity at all. Hisconclusion was that things were not always what they appeared to be. Thecub's fear of the unknown was an inherited distrust, and it had now beenstrengthened by experience. Thenceforth, in the nature of things, he wouldpossess an abiding distrust of appearances. He would have to learn thereality of a thing before he could put his faith into it.
　　One other adventure was destined for him that day. He had recollectedthat there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then there cameto him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the rest of the things inthe world. Not only was his body tired with the adventures it hadundergone, but his little brain was equally tired. In all the days he hadlived it had not worked so hard as on this one day. Furthermore, he wassleepy. So he started out to look for the cave and his mother, feeling at thesame time an overwhelming rush of loneliness and helplessness.
　　He was sprawling along between some bushes, when he heard a sharpintimidating cry. There was a flash of yellow before his eyes. He saw aweasel leaping swiftly away from him. It was a small live thing, and hehad no fear. Then, before him, at his feet, he saw an extremely small livething, only several inches long, a young weasel, that, like himself, haddisobediently gone out adventuring. It tried to retreat before him. Heturned it over with his paw. It made a queer, grating noise. The nextmoment the flash of yellow reappeared before his eyes. He heard again theintimidating cry, and at the same instant received a sharp blow on the sideof the neck and felt the sharp teeth of the mother-weasel cut into his flesh.
　　While he yelped and ki-yi'd and scrambled backward, he saw themother-weasel leap upon her young one and disappear with it into theneighbouring thicket. The cut of her teeth in his neck still hurt, but hisfeelings were hurt more grievously, and he sat down and weaklywhimpered. This mother-weasel was so small and so savage. He was yetto learn that for size and weight the weasel was the most ferocious,vindictive, and terrible of all the killers of the Wild. But a portion of thisknowledge was quickly to be his.
　　He was still whimpering when the mother-weasel reappeared. She didnot rush him, now that her young one was safe. She approached morecautiously, and the cub had full opportunity to observe her lean, snakelikebody, and her head, erect, eager, and snake-like itself. Her sharp, menacingcry sent the hair bristling along his back, and he snarled warningly at her.
　　She came closer and closer. There was a leap, swifter than his unpractisedsight, and the lean, yellow body disappeared for a moment out of the fieldof his vision. The next moment she was at his throat, her teeth buried inhis hair and flesh.
　　At first he snarled and tried to fight; but he was very young, and thiswas only his first day in the world, and his snarl became a whimper, hisfight a struggle to escape. The weasel never relaxed her hold. She hung on,striving to press down with her teeth to the great vein were his life-bloodbubbled. The weasel was a drinker of blood, and it was ever her preferenceto drink from the throat of life itself.
　　The grey cub would have died, and there would have been no story towrite about him, had not the she-wolf come bounding through the bushes.
　　The weasel let go the cub and flashed at the she-wolf's throat, missing, butgetting a hold on the jaw instead. The she- wolf flirted her head like thesnap of a whip, breaking the weasel's hold and flinging it high in the air.
　　And, still in the air, the she-wolf's jaws closed on the lean, yellow body,and the weasel knew death between the crunching teeth.
　　The cub experienced another access of affection on the part of hismother. Her joy at finding him seemed even greater than his joy at beingfound. She nozzled him and caressed him and licked the cuts made in himby the weasel's teeth. Then, between them, mother and cub, they ate theblood-drinker, and after that went back to the cave and slept.
Chapter 8 The Law Of Meat
The cub's development was rapid. He rested for two days, and thenventured forth from the cave again. It was on this adventure that he foundthe young weasel whose mother he had helped eat, and he saw to it thatthe young weasel went the way of its mother. But on this trip he did notget lost. When he grew tired, he found his way back to the cave and slept.
　　And every day thereafter found him out and ranging a wider area.
　　He began to get accurate measurement of his strength and hisweakness, and to know when to be bold and when to be cautious. Hefound it expedient to be cautious all the time, except for the rare moments,when, assured of his own intrepidity, he abandoned himself to petty ragesand lusts.
　　He was always a little demon of fury when he chanced upon a strayptarmigan. Never did he fail to respond savagely to the chatter of thesquirrel he had first met on the blasted pine. While the sight of a moose-bird almost invariably put him into the wildest of rages; for he neverforgot the peck on the nose he had received from the first of that ilk heencountered.
　　But there were times when even a moose-bird failed to affect him, andthose were times when he felt himself to be in danger from some otherprowling meat hunter. He never forgot the hawk, and its moving shadowalways sent him crouching into the nearest thicket. He no longer sprawledand straddled, and already he was developing the gait of his mother,slinking and furtive, apparently without exertion, yet sliding along with aswiftness that was as deceptive as it was imperceptible.
　　In the matter of meat, his luck had been all in the beginning. The sevenptarmigan chicks and the baby weasel represented the sum of his killings.
　　His desire to kill strengthened with the days, and he cherished hungryambitions for the squirrel that chattered so volubly and always informedall wild creatures that the wolf-cub was approaching. But as birds flew inthe air, squirrels could climb trees, and the cub could only try to crawlunobserved upon the squirrel when it was on the ground.
　　The cub entertained a great respect for his mother. She could get meat,and she never failed to bring him his share. Further, she was unafraid ofthings. It did not occur to him that this fearlessness was founded uponexperience and knowledge. Its effect on him was that of an impression ofpower. His mother represented power; and as he grew older he felt thispower in the sharper admonishment of her paw; while the reproving nudgeof her nose gave place to the slash of her fangs. For this, likewise, herespected his mother. She compelled obedience from him, and the older hegrew the shorter grew her temper.
　　Famine came again, and the cub with clearer consciousness knew oncemore the bite of hunger. The she-wolf ran herself thin in the quest for meat.
　　She rarely slept any more in the cave, spending most of her time on themeat-trail, and spending it vainly. This famine was not a long one, but itwas severe while it lasted. The cub found no more milk in his mother'sbreast, nor did he get one mouthful of meat for himself.
　　Before, he had hunted in play, for the sheer joyousness of it; now hehunted in deadly earnestness, and found nothing. Yet the failure of itaccelerated his development. He studied the habits of the squirrel withgreater carefulness, and strove with greater craft to steal upon it andsurprise it. He studied the wood-mice and tried to dig them out of theirburrows; and he learned much about the ways of moose-birds andwoodpeckers. And there came a day when the hawk's shadow did not drivehim crouching into the bushes. He had grown stronger and wiser, andmore confident. Also, he was desperate. So he sat on his haunches,conspicuously in an open space, and challenged the hawk down out of thesky. For he knew that there, floating in the blue above him, was meat, themeat his stomach yearned after so insistently. But the hawk refused tocome down and give battle, and the cub crawled away into a thicket andwhimpered his disappointment and hunger.
　　The famine broke. The she-wolf brought home meat. It was strangemeat, different from any she had ever brought before. It was a lynx kitten,partly grown, like the cub, but not so large. And it was all for him. Hismother had satisfied her hunger elsewhere; though he did not know that itwas the rest of the lynx litter that had gone to satisfy her. Nor did he knowthe desperateness of her deed. He knew only that the velvet-furred kittenwas meat, and he ate and waxed happier with every mouthful.
　　A full stomach conduces to inaction, and the cub lay in the cave,sleeping against his mother's side. He was aroused by her snarling. Neverhad he heard her snarl so terribly. Possibly in her whole life it was themost terrible snarl she ever gave. There was reason for it, and none knewit better than she. A lynx's lair is not despoiled with impunity. In the fullglare of the afternoon light, crouching in the entrance of the cave, the cubsaw the lynx- mother. The hair rippled up along his back at the sight. Herewas fear, and it did not require his instinct to tell him of it. And if sightalone were not sufficient, the cry of rage the intruder gave, beginning witha snarl and rushing abruptly upward into a hoarse screech, was convincingenough in itself.
　　The cub felt the prod of the life that was in him, and stood up andsnarled valiantly by his mother's side. But she thrust him ignominiouslyaway and behind her. Because of the low-roofed entrance the lynx couldnot leap in, and when she made a crawling rush of it the she-wolf sprangupon her and pinned her down. The cub saw little of the battle. There wasa tremendous snarling and spitting and screeching. The two animalsthreshed about, the lynx ripping and tearing with her claws and using herteeth as well, while the she-wolf used her teeth alone.
　　Once, the cub sprang in and sank his teeth into the hind leg of the lynx.
　　He clung on, growling savagely. Though he did not know it, by the weightof his body he clogged the action of the leg and thereby saved his mothermuch damage. A change in the battle crushed him under both their bodiesand wrenched loose his hold. The next moment the two mothers separated,and, before they rushed together again, the lynx lashed out at the cub witha huge fore-paw that ripped his shoulder open to the bone and sent himhurtling sidewise against the wall. Then was added to the uproar the cub'sshrill yelp of pain and fright. But the fight lasted so long that he had timeto cry himself out and to experience a second burst of courage; and the endof the battle found him again clinging to a hind-leg and furiously growlingbetween his teeth.
　　The lynx was dead. But the she-wolf was very weak and sick. At firstshe caressed the cub and licked his wounded shoulder; but the blood shehad lost had taken with it her strength, and for all of a day and a night shelay by her dead foe's side, without movement, scarcely breathing. For aweek she never left the cave, except for water, and then her movementswere slow and painful. At the end of that time the lynx was devoured,while the she-wolf's wounds had healed sufficiently to permit her to takethe meat-trail again.
　　The cub's shoulder was stiff and sore, and for some time he limpedfrom the terrible slash he had received. But the world now seemedchanged. He went about in it with greater confidence, with a feeling ofprowess that had not been his in the days before the battle with the lynx.
　　He had looked upon life in a more ferocious aspect; he had fought; he hadburied his teeth in the flesh of a foe; and he had survived. And because ofall this, he carried himself more boldly, with a touch of defiance that wasnew in him. He was no longer afraid of minor things, and much of histimidity had vanished, though the unknown never ceased to press uponhim with its mysteries and terrors, intangible and ever-menacing.
　　He began to accompany his mother on the meat-trail, and he saw muchof the killing of meat and began to play his part in it. And in his own dimway he learned the law of meat. There were two kinds of life - his ownkind and the other kind. His own kind included his mother and himself.
　　The other kind included all live things that moved. But the other kind wasdivided. One portion was what his own kind killed and ate. This portionwas composed of the non- killers and the small killers. The other portionkilled and ate his own kind, or was killed and eaten by his own kind. Andout of this classification arose the law. The aim of life was meat. Life itselfwas meat. Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten. The lawwas: EAT OR BE EATEN. He did not formulate the law in clear, set termsand moralise about it. He did not even think the law; he merely lived thelaw without thinking about it at all.
　　He saw the law operating around him on every side. He had eaten theptarmigan chicks. The hawk had eaten the ptarmigan-mother. The hawkwould also have eaten him. Later, when he had grown more formidable, hewanted to eat the hawk. He had eaten the lynx kitten. The lynx-motherwould have eaten him had she not herself been killed and eaten. And so itwent. The law was being lived about him by all live things, and he himselfwas part and parcel of the law. He was a killer. His only food was meat,live meat, that ran away swiftly before him, or flew into the air, or climbedtrees, or hid in the ground, or faced him and fought with him, or turned thetables and ran after him.
　　Had the cub thought in man-fashion, he might have epitomised life asa voracious appetite and the world as a place wherein ranged a multitudeof appetites, pursuing and being pursued, hunting and being hunted, eatingand being eaten, all in blindness and confusion, with violence and disorder,a chaos of gluttony and slaughter, ruled over by chance, merciless,planless, endless.
　　But the cub did not think in man-fashion. He did not look at thingswith wide vision. He was single-purposed, and entertained but one thoughtor desire at a time. Besides the law of meat, there were a myriad other andlesser laws for him to learn and obey. The world was filled with surprise.
　　The stir of the life that was in him, the play of his muscles, was anunending happiness. To run down meat was to experience thrills andelations. His rages and battles were pleasures. Terror itself, and themystery of the unknown, led to his living.
　　And there were easements and satisfactions. To have a full stomach, todoze lazily in the sunshine - such things were remuneration in full for hisardours and toils, while his ardours and tolls were in themselves self-remunerative. They were expressions of life, and life is always happywhen it is expressing itself. So the cub had no quarrel with his hostileenvironment. He was very much alive, very happy, and very proud ofhimself.
Chapter 9 The Makers Of Fire
The cub came upon it suddenly. It was his own fault. He had beencareless. He had left the cave and run down to the stream to drink. It mighthave been that he took no notice because he was heavy with sleep. (Hehad been out all night on the meat-trail, and had but just then awakened.)And his carelessness might have been due to the familiarity of the trail tothe pool. He had travelled it often, and nothing had ever happened on it.
　　He went down past the blasted pine, crossed the open space, andtrotted in amongst the trees. Then, at the same instant, he saw and smelt.
　　Before him, sitting silently on their haunches, were five live things, thelike of which he had never seen before. It was his first glimpse of mankind.
　　But at the sight of him the five men did not spring to their feet, nor showtheir teeth, nor snarl. They did not move, but sat there, silent and ominous.
　　Nor did the cub move. Every instinct of his nature would haveimpelled him to dash wildly away, had there not suddenly and for the firsttime arisen in him another and counter instinct. A great awe descendedupon him. He was beaten down to movelessness by an overwhelmingsense of his own weakness and littleness. Here was mastery and power,something far and away beyond him.
　　The cub had never seen man, yet the instinct concerning man was his.
　　In dim ways he recognised in man the animal that had fought itself toprimacy over the other animals of the Wild. Not alone out of his own eyes,but out of the eyes of all his ancestors was the cub now looking upon man- out of eyes that had circled in the darkness around countless wintercamp-fires, that had peered from safe distances and from the hearts ofthickets at the strange, two- legged animal that was lord over living things.
　　The spell of the cub's heritage was upon him, the fear and the respect bornof the centuries of struggle and the accumulated experience of thegenerations. The heritage was too compelling for a wolf that was only acub. Had he been full-grown, he would have run away. As it was, hecowered down in a paralysis of fear, already half proffering the submissionthat his kind had proffered from the first time a wolf came in to sit byman's fire and be made warm.
　　One of the Indians arose and walked over to him and stooped abovehim. The cub cowered closer to the ground. It was the unknown,objectified at last, in concrete flesh and blood, bending over him andreaching down to seize hold of him. His hair bristled involuntarily; his lipswrithed back and his little fangs were bared. The hand, poised like doomabove him, hesitated, and the man spoke laughing, "WABAM WABISCAIP PIT TAH." ("Look! The white fangs!")The other Indians laughed loudly, and urged the man on to pick up thecub. As the hand descended closer and closer, there raged within the cub abattle of the instincts. He experienced two great impulsions - to yield andto fight. The resulting action was a compromise. He did both. He yieldedtill the hand almost touched him. Then he fought, his teeth flashing in asnap that sank them into the hand. The next moment he received a cloutalongside the head that knocked him over on his side. Then all fight fledout of him. His puppyhood and the instinct of submission took charge ofhim. He sat up on his haunches and ki-yi'd. But the man whose hand hehad bitten was angry. The cub received a clout on the other side of hishead. Whereupon he sat up and ki-yi'd louder than ever.
　　The four Indians laughed more loudly, while even the man who hadbeen bitten began to laugh. They surrounded the cub and laughed at him,while he wailed out his terror and his hurt. In the midst of it, he heardsomething. The Indians heard it too. But the cub knew what it was, andwith a last, long wail that had in it more of triumph than grief, he ceasedhis noise and waited for the coming of his mother, of his ferocious andindomitable mother who fought and killed all things and was never afraid.
　　She was snarling as she ran. She had heard the cry of her cub and wasdashing to save him.
　　She bounded in amongst them, her anxious and militant motherhoodmaking her anything but a pretty sight. But to the cub the spectacle of herprotective rage was pleasing. He uttered a glad little cry and bounded tomeet her, while the man-animals went back hastily several steps. The she-wolf stood over against her cub, facing the men, with bristling hair, a snarlrumbling deep in her throat. Her face was distorted and malignant withmenace, even the bridge of the nose wrinkling from tip to eyes soprodigious was her snarl.
　　Then it was that a cry went up from one of the men. "Kiche!" waswhat he uttered. It was an exclamation of surprise. The cub felt his motherwilting at the sound.
　　"Kiche!" the man cried again, this time with sharpness and authority.
　　And then the cub saw his mother, the she-wolf, the fearless one,crouching down till her belly touched the ground, whimpering, waggingher tail, making peace signs. The cub could not understand. He wasappalled. The awe of man rushed over him again. His instinct had beentrue. His mother verified it. She, too, rendered submission to the man-animals.
　　The man who had spoken came over to her. He put his hand upon herhead, and she only crouched closer. She did not snap, nor threaten to snap.
　　The other men came up, and surrounded her, and felt her, and pawed her,which actions she made no attempt to resent. They were greatly excited,and made many noises with their mouths. These noises were not indicationof danger, the cub decided, as he crouched near his mother still bristlingfrom time to time but doing his best to submit.
　　"It is not strange," an Indian was saying. "Her father was a wolf. It istrue, her mother was a dog; but did not my brother tie her out in the woodsall of three nights in the mating season? Therefore was the father of Kichea wolf.""It is a year, Grey Beaver, since she ran away," spoke a second Indian.
　　"It is not strange, Salmon Tongue," Grey Beaver answered. "It was thetime of the famine, and there was no meat for the dogs.""She has lived with the wolves," said a third Indian.
　　"So it would seem, Three Eagles," Grey Beaver answered, lying hishand on the cub; "and this be the sign of it."The cub snarled a little at the touch of the hand, and the hand flewback to administer a clout. Whereupon the cub covered its fangs, and sankdown submissively, while the hand, returning, rubbed behind his ears, andup and down his back.
　　"This be the sign of it," Grey Beaver went on. "It is plain that hismother is Kiche. But this father was a wolf. Wherefore is there in himlittle dog and much wolf. His fangs be white, and White Fang shall be hisname. I have spoken. He is my dog. For was not Kiche my brother's dog?
　　And is not my brother dead?"The cub, who had thus received a name in the world, lay and watched.
　　For a time the man-animals continued to make their mouth- noises. ThenGrey Beaver took a knife from a sheath that hung around his neck, andwent into the thicket and cut a stick. White Fang watched him. He notchedthe stick at each end and in the notches fastened strings of raw-hide. Onestring he tied around the throat of Kiche. Then he led her to a small pine,around which he tied the other string.
　　White Fang followed and lay down beside her. Salmon Tongue's handreached out to him and rolled him over on his back. Kiche looked onanxiously. White Fang felt fear mounting in him again. He could not quitesuppress a snarl, but he made no offer to snap. The hand, with fingerscrooked and spread apart, rubbed his stomach in a playful way and rolledhim from side to side. It was ridiculous and ungainly, lying there on hisback with legs sprawling in the air. Besides, it was a position of such utterhelplessness that White Fang's whole nature revolted against it. He coulddo nothing to defend himself. If this man-animal intended harm, WhiteFang knew that he could not escape it. How could he spring away with hisfour legs in the air above him? Yet submission made him master his fear,and he only growled softly. This growl he could not suppress; nor did theman-animal resent it by giving him a blow on the head. And furthermore,such was the strangeness of it, White Fang experienced an unaccountablesensation of pleasure as the hand rubbed back and forth. When he wasrolled on his side he ceased to growl, when the fingers pressed andprodded at the base of his ears the pleasurable sensation increased; andwhen, with a final rub and scratch, the man left him alone and went away,all fear had died out of White Fang. He was to know fear many times inhis dealing with man; yet it was a token of the fearless companionshipwith man that was ultimately to be his.
　　After a time, White Fang heard strange noises approaching. He wasquick in his classification, for he knew them at once for man- animalnoises. A few minutes later the remainder of the tribe, strung out as it wason the march, trailed in. There were more men and many women andchildren, forty souls of them, and all heavily burdened with campequipage and outfit. Also there were many dogs; and these, with theexception of the part-grown puppies, were likewise burdened with campoutfit. On their backs, in bags that fastened tightly around underneath, thedogs carried from twenty to thirty pounds of weight.
　　White Fang had never seen dogs before, but at sight of them he feltthat they were his own kind, only somehow different. But they displayedlittle difference from the wolf when they discovered the cub and hismother. There was a rush. White Fang bristled and snarled and snapped inthe face of the open-mouthed oncoming wave of dogs, and went down andunder them, feeling the sharp slash of teeth in his body, himself biting andtearing at the legs and bellies above him. There was a great uproar. Hecould hear the snarl of Kiche as she fought for him; and he could hear thecries of the man-animals, the sound of clubs striking upon bodies, and theyelps of pain from the dogs so struck.
　　Only a few seconds elapsed before he was on his feet again. He couldnow see the man-animals driving back the dogs with clubs and stones,defending him, saving him from the savage teeth of his kind that somehowwas not his kind. And though there was no reason in his brain for a clearconception of so abstract a thing as justice, nevertheless, in his own way,he felt the justice of the man- animals, and he knew them for what theywere - makers of law and executors of law. Also, he appreciated the powerwith which they administered the law. Unlike any animals he had everencountered, they did not bite nor claw. They enforced their live strengthwith the power of dead things. Dead things did their bidding. Thus, sticksand stones, directed by these strange creatures, leaped through the air likeliving things, inflicting grievous hurts upon the dogs.
　　To his mind this was power unusual, power inconceivable and beyondthe natural, power that was godlike. White Fang, in the very nature of him,could never know anything about gods; at the best he could know onlythings that were beyond knowing - but the wonder and awe that he had ofthese man-animals in ways resembled what would be the wonder and aweof man at sight of some celestial creature, on a mountain top, hurlingthunderbolts from either hand at an astonished world.
　　The last dog had been driven back. The hubbub died down. And WhiteFang licked his hurts and meditated upon this, his first taste of pack-cruelty and his introduction to the pack. He had never dreamed that hisown kind consisted of more than One Eye, his mother, and himself. Theyhad constituted a kind apart, and here, abruptly, he had discovered manymore creatures apparently of his own kind. And there was a subconsciousresentment that these, his kind, at first sight had pitched upon him andtried to destroy him. In the same way he resented his mother being tiedwith a stick, even though it was done by the superior man-animals. Itsavoured of the trap, of bondage. Yet of the trap and of bondage he knewnothing. Freedom to roam and run and lie down at will, had been hisheritage; and here it was being infringed upon. His mother's movementswere restricted to the length of a stick, and by the length of that same stickwas he restricted, for he had not yet got beyond the need of his mother'sside.
　　He did not like it. Nor did he like it when the man-animals arose andwent on with their march; for a tiny man-animal took the other end of thestick and led Kiche captive behind him, and behind Kiche followed WhiteFang, greatly perturbed and worried by this new adventure he had enteredupon.
　　They went down the valley of the stream, far beyond White Fang'swidest ranging, until they came to the end of the valley, where the streamran into the Mackenzie River. Here, where canoes were cached on poleshigh in the air and where stood fish-racks for the drying of fish, camp wasmade; and White Fang looked on with wondering eyes. The superiority ofthese man-animals increased with every moment. There was their masteryover all these sharp- fanged dogs. It breathed of power. But greater thanthat, to the wolf-cub, was their mastery over things not alive; theircapacity to communicate motion to unmoving things; their capacity tochange the very face of the world.
　　It was this last that especially affected him. The elevation of frames ofpoles caught his eye; yet this in itself was not so remarkable, being doneby the same creatures that flung sticks and stones to great distances. Butwhen the frames of poles were made into tepees by being covered withcloth and skins, White Fang was astounded. It was the colossal bulk ofthem that impressed him. They arose around him, on every side, like somemonstrous quick- growing form of life. They occupied nearly the wholecircumference of his field of vision. He was afraid of them. They loomedominously above him; and when the breeze stirred them into hugemovements, he cowered down in fear, keeping his eyes warily upon them,and prepared to spring away if they attempted to precipitate themselvesupon him.
　　But in a short while his fear of the tepees passed away. He saw thewomen and children passing in and out of them without harm, and he sawthe dogs trying often to get into them, and being driven away with sharpwords and flying stones. After a time, he left Kiche's side and crawledcautiously toward the wall of the nearest tepee. It was the curiosity ofgrowth that urged him on - the necessity of learning and living and doingthat brings experience. The last few inches to the wall of the tepee werecrawled with painful slowness and precaution. The day's events hadprepared him for the unknown to manifest itself in most stupendous andunthinkable ways. At last his nose touched the canvas. He waited. Nothinghappened. Then he smelled the strange fabric, saturated with the man-smell. He closed on the canvas with his teeth and gave a gentle tug.
　　Nothing happened, though the adjacent portions of the tepee moved. Hetugged harder. There was a greater movement. It was delightful. He tuggedstill harder, and repeatedly, until the whole tepee was in motion. Then thesharp cry of a squaw inside sent him scampering back to Kiche. But afterthat he was afraid no more of the looming bulks of the tepees.
　　A moment later he was straying away again from his mother. Her stickwas tied to a peg in the ground and she could not follow him. A part-grown puppy, somewhat larger and older than he, came toward him slowly,with ostentatious and belligerent importance. The puppy's name, as WhiteFang was afterward to hear him called, was Lip-lip. He had hadexperience in puppy fights and was already something of a bully.
　　Lip-lip was White Fang's own kind, and, being only a puppy, did notseem dangerous; so White Fang prepared to meet him in a friendly spirit.
　　But when the strangers walk became stiff-legged and his lips lifted clear ofhis teeth, White Fang stiffened too, and answered with lifted lips. Theyhalf circled about each other, tentatively, snarling and bristling. This lastedseveral minutes, and White Fang was beginning to enjoy it, as a sort ofgame. But suddenly, with remarkable swiftness, Lip-lip leaped in,delivering a slashing snap, and leaped away again. The snap had takeneffect on the shoulder that had been hurt by the lynx and that was still soredeep down near the bone. The surprise and hurt of it brought a yelp out ofWhite Fang; but the next moment, in a rush of anger, he was upon Lip-lipand snapping viciously.
　　But Lip-hp had lived his life in camp and had fought many puppyfights. Three times, four times, and half a dozen times, his sharp little teethscored on the newcomer, until White Fang, yelping shamelessly, fled tothe protection of his mother. It was the first of the many fights he was tohave with Lip-lip, for they were enemies from the start, born so, withnatures destined perpetually to clash.
　　Kiche licked White Fang soothingly with her tongue, and tried toprevail upon him to remain with her. But his curiosity was rampant, andseveral minutes later he was venturing forth on a new quest. He cameupon one of the man-animals, Grey Beaver, who was squatting on hishams and doing something with sticks and dry moss spread before him onthe ground. White Fang came near to him and watched. Grey Beaver mademouth-noises which White Fang interpreted as not hostile, so he came stillnearer.
　　Women and children were carrying more sticks and branches to GreyBeaver. It was evidently an affair of moment. White Fang came in until hetouched Grey Beaver's knee, so curious was he, and already forgetful thatthis was a terrible man-animal. Suddenly he saw a strange thing like mistbeginning to arise from the sticks and moss beneath Grey Beaver's hands.
　　Then, amongst the sticks themselves, appeared a live thing, twisting andturning, of a colour like the colour of the sun in the sky. White Fang knewnothing about fire. It drew him as the light, in the mouth of the cave haddrawn him in his early puppyhood. He crawled the several steps towardthe flame. He heard Grey Beaver chuckle above him, and he knew thesound was not hostile. Then his nose touched the flame, and at the sameinstant his little tongue went out to it.
　　For a moment he was paralysed. The unknown, lurking in the midst ofthe sticks and moss, was savagely clutching him by the nose. Hescrambled backward, bursting out in an astonished explosion of ki- yi's. Atthe sound, Kiche leaped snarling to the end of her stick, and there ragedterribly because she could not come to his aid. But Grey Beaver laughedloudly, and slapped his thighs, and told the happening to all the rest of thecamp, till everybody was laughing uproariously. But White Fang sat on hishaunches and ki- yi'd and ki-yi'd, a forlorn and pitiable little figure in themidst of the man-animals.
　　It was the worst hurt he had ever known. Both nose and tongue hadbeen scorched by the live thing, sun-coloured, that had grown up underGrey Beaver's hands. He cried and cried interminably, and every freshwail was greeted by bursts of laughter on the part of the man-animals. Hetried to soothe his nose with his tongue, but the tongue was burnt too, andthe two hurts coming together produced greater hurt; whereupon he criedmore hopelessly and helplessly than ever.
　　And then shame came to him. He knew laughter and the meaning of it.
　　It is not given us to know how some animals know laughter, and knowwhen they are being laughed at; but it was this same way that White Fangknew it. And he felt shame that the man-animals should be laughing at him.
　　He turned and fled away, not from the hurt of the fire, but from thelaughter that sank even deeper, and hurt in the spirit of him. And he fled toKiche, raging at the end of her stick like an animal gone mad - to Kiche,the one creature in the world who was not laughing at him.
　　Twilight drew down and night came on, and White Fang lay by hismother's side. His nose and tongue still hurt, but he was perplexed by agreater trouble. He was homesick. He felt a vacancy in him, a need for thehush and quietude of the stream and the cave in the cliff. Life had becometoo populous. There were so many of the man-animals, men, women, andchildren, all making noises and irritations. And there were the dogs, eversquabbling and bickering, bursting into uproars and creating confusions.
　　The restful loneliness of the only life he had known was gone. Here thevery air was palpitant with life. It hummed and buzzed unceasingly.
　　Continually changing its intensity and abruptly variant in pitch, itimpinged on his nerves and senses, made him nervous and restless andworried him with a perpetual imminence of happening.
　　He watched the man-animals coming and going and moving about thecamp. In fashion distantly resembling the way men look upon the godsthey create, so looked White Fang upon the man-animals before him. Theywere superior creatures, of a verity, gods. To his dim comprehension theywere as much wonder-workers as gods are to men. They were creatures ofmastery, possessing all manner of unknown and impossible potencies,overlords of the alive and the not alive - making obey that which moved,imparting movement to that which did not move, and making life, sun-coloured and biting life, to grow out of dead moss and wood. They werefire-makers! They were gods.
Chapter 10 The Bondage
The days were thronged with experience for White Fang. During thetime that Kiche was tied by the stick, he ran about over all the camp,inquiring, investigating, learning. He quickly came to know much of theways of the man-animals, but familiarity did not breed contempt. Themore he came to know them, the more they vindicated their superiority,the more they displayed their mysterious powers, the greater loomed theirgod-likeness.
　　To man has been given the grief, often, of seeing his gods overthrownand his altars crumbling; but to the wolf and the wild dog that have comein to crouch at man's feet, this grief has never come. Unlike man, whosegods are of the unseen and the overguessed, vapours and mists of fancyeluding the garmenture of reality, wandering wraiths of desired goodnessand power, intangible out-croppings of self into the realm of spirit - unlikeman, the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to the fire find theirgods in the living flesh, solid to the touch, occupying earth-space andrequiring time for the accomplishment of their ends and their existence.
　　No effort of faith is necessary to believe in such a god; no effort of willcan possibly induce disbelief in such a god. There is no getting away fromit. There it stands, on its two hind-legs, club in hand, immensely potential,passionate and wrathful and loving, god and mystery and power allwrapped up and around by flesh that bleeds when it is torn and that isgood to eat like any flesh.
　　And so it was with White Fang. The man-animals were godsunmistakable and unescapable. As his mother, Kiche, had rendered herallegiance to them at the first cry of her name, so he was beginning torender his allegiance. He gave them the trail as a privilege indubitablytheirs. When they walked, he got out of their way. When they called, hecame. When they threatened, he cowered down. When they commandedhim to go, he went away hurriedly. For behind any wish of theirs waspower to enforce that wish, power that hurt, power that expressed itself inclouts and clubs, in flying stones and stinging lashes of whips.
　　He belonged to them as all dogs belonged to them. His actions weretheirs to command. His body was theirs to maul, to stamp upon, to tolerate.
　　Such was the lesson that was quickly borne in upon him. It came hard,going as it did, counter to much that was strong and dominant in his ownnature; and, while he disliked it in the learning of it, unknown to himselfhe was learning to like it. It was a placing of his destiny in another's hands,a shifting of the responsibilities of existence. This in itself wascompensation, for it is always easier to lean upon another than to standalone.
　　But it did not all happen in a day, this giving over of himself, body andsoul, to the man-animals. He could not immediately forego his wildheritage and his memories of the Wild. There were days when he crept tothe edge of the forest and stood and listened to something calling him farand away. And always he returned, restless and uncomfortable, towhimper softly and wistfully at Kiche's side and to lick her face with eager,questioning tongue.
　　White Fang learned rapidly the ways of the camp. He knew theinjustice and greediness of the older dogs when meat or fish was thrownout to be eaten. He came to know that men were more just, children morecruel, and women more kindly and more likely to toss him a bit of meat orbone. And after two or three painful adventures with the mothers of part-grown puppies, he came into the knowledge that it was always goodpolicy to let such mothers alone, to keep away from them as far aspossible, and to avoid them when he saw them coming.
　　But the bane of his life was Lip-lip. Larger, older, and stronger, Lip-liphad selected White Fang for his special object of persecution. While Fangfought willingly enough, but he was outclassed. His enemy was too big.
　　Lip-lip became a nightmare to him. Whenever he ventured away from hismother, the bully was sure to appear, trailing at his heels, snarling at him,picking upon him, and watchful of an opportunity, when no man-animalwas near, to spring upon him and force a fight. As Lip-lip invariably won,he enjoyed it hugely. It became his chief delight in life, as it became WhiteFang's chief torment.
　　But the effect upon White Fang was not to cow him. Though hesuffered most of the damage and was always defeated, his spirit remainedunsubdued. Yet a bad effect was produced. He became malignant andmorose. His temper had been savage by birth, but it became more savageunder this unending persecution. The genial, playful, puppyish side of himfound little expression. He never played and gambolled about with theother puppies of the camp. Lip-lip would not permit it. The moment WhiteFang appeared near them, Lip-lip was upon him, bullying and hectoringhim, or fighting with him until he had driven him away.
　　The effect of all this was to rob White Fang of much of his puppyhoodand to make him in his comportment older than his age. Denied the outlet,through play, of his energies, he recoiled upon himself and developed hismental processes. He became cunning; he had idle time in which to devotehimself to thoughts of trickery. Prevented from obtaining his share of meatand fish when a general feed was given to the camp-dogs, he became aclever thief. He had to forage for himself, and he foraged well, though hewas oft-times a plague to the squaws in consequence. He learned to sneakabout camp, to be crafty, to know what was going on everywhere, to seeand to hear everything and to reason accordingly, and successfully todevise ways and means of avoiding his implacable persecutor.
　　It was early in the days of his persecution that he played his first reallybig crafty game and got there from his first taste of revenge. As Kiche,when with the wolves, had lured out to destruction dogs from the camps ofmen, so White Fang, in manner somewhat similar, lured Lip-lip intoKiche's avenging jaws. Retreating before Lip-lip, White Fang made anindirect flight that led in and out and around the various tepees of thecamp. He was a good runner, swifter than any puppy of his size, andswifter than Lip-lip. But he did not run his best in this chase. He barelyheld his own, one leap ahead of his pursuer.
　　Lip-lip, excited by the chase and by the persistent nearness of hisvictim, forgot caution and locality. When he remembered locality, it wastoo late. Dashing at top speed around a tepee, he ran full tilt into Kichelying at the end of her stick. He gave one yelp of consternation, and thenher punishing jaws closed upon him. She was tied, but he could not getaway from her easily. She rolled him off his legs so that he could not run,while she repeatedly ripped and slashed him with her fangs.
　　When at last he succeeded in rolling clear of her, he crawled to his feet,badly dishevelled, hurt both in body and in spirit. His hair was standingout all over him in tufts where her teeth had mauled. He stood where hehad arisen, opened his mouth, and broke out the long, heart-broken puppywail. But even this he was not allowed to complete. In the middle of it,White Fang, rushing in, sank his teeth into Lip-lip's hind leg. There was nofight left in Lip-lip, and he ran away shamelessly, his victim hot on hisheels and worrying him all the way back to his own tepee. Here thesquaws came to his aid, and White Fang, transformed into a raging demon,was finally driven off only by a fusillade of stones.
　　Came the day when Grey Beaver, deciding that the liability of herrunning away was past, released Kiche. White Fang was delighted with hismother's freedom. He accompanied her joyfully about the camp; and, solong as he remained close by her side, Lip-lip kept a respectful distance.
　　White-Fang even bristled up to him and walked stiff-legged, but Lip-lipignored the challenge. He was no fool himself, and whatever vengeance hedesired to wreak, he could wait until he caught White Fang alone.
　　Later on that day, Kiche and White Fang strayed into the edge of thewoods next to the camp. He had led his mother there, step by step, andnow when she stopped, he tried to inveigle her farther. The stream, the lair,and the quiet woods were calling to him, and he wanted her to come. Heran on a few steps, stopped, and looked back. She had not moved. Hewhined pleadingly, and scurried playfully in and out of the underbrush. Heran back to her, licked her face, and ran on again. And still she did notmove. He stopped and regarded her, all of an intentness and eagerness,physically expressed, that slowly faded out of him as she turned her headand gazed back at the camp.
　　There was something calling to him out there in the open. His motherheard it too. But she heard also that other and louder call, the call of thefire and of man - the call which has been given alone of all animals to thewolf to answer, to the wolf and the wild-dog, who are brothers.
　　Kiche turned and slowly trotted back toward camp. Stronger than thephysical restraint of the stick was the clutch of the camp upon her. Unseenand occultly, the gods still gripped with their power and would not let hergo. White Fang sat down in the shadow of a birch and whimpered softly.
　　There was a strong smell of pine, and subtle wood fragrances filled the air,reminding him of his old life of freedom before the days of his bondage.
　　But he was still only a part-grown puppy, and stronger than the call eitherof man or of the Wild was the call of his mother. All the hours of his shortlife he had depended upon her. The time was yet to come for independence.
　　So he arose and trotted forlornly back to camp, pausing once, and twice, tosit down and whimper and to listen to the call that still sounded in thedepths of the forest.
　　In the Wild the time of a mother with her young is short; but under thedominion of man it is sometimes even shorter. Thus it was with WhiteFang. Grey Beaver was in the debt of Three Eagles. Three Eagles wasgoing away on a trip up the Mackenzie to the Great Slave Lake. A strip ofscarlet cloth, a bearskin, twenty cartridges, and Kiche, went to pay thedebt. White Fang saw his mother taken aboard Three Eagles' canoe, andtried to follow her. A blow from Three Eagles knocked him backward tothe land. The canoe shoved off. He sprang into the water and swam after it,deaf to the sharp cries of Grey Beaver to return. Even a man-animal, a god,White Fang ignored, such was the terror he was in of losing his mother.
　　But gods are accustomed to being obeyed, and Grey Beaver wrathfullylaunched a canoe in pursuit. When he overtook White Fang, he reacheddown and by the nape of the neck lifted him clear of the water. He did notdeposit him at once in the bottom of the canoe. Holding him suspendedwith one hand, with the other hand he proceeded to give him a beating.
　　And it WAS a beating. His hand was heavy. Every blow was shrewd tohurt; and he delivered a multitude of blows.
　　Impelled by the blows that rained upon him, now from this side, nowfrom that, White Fang swung back and forth like an erratic and jerkypendulum. Varying were the emotions that surged through him. At first, hehad known surprise. Then came a momentary fear, when he yelped severaltimes to the impact of the hand. But this was quickly followed by anger.
　　His free nature asserted itself, and he showed his teeth and snarledfearlessly in the face of the wrathful god. This but served to make the godmore wrathful. The blows came faster, heavier, more shrewd to hurt.
　　Grey Beaver continued to beat, White Fang continued to snarl. But thiscould not last for ever. One or the other must give over, and that one wasWhite Fang. Fear surged through him again. For the first time he wasbeing really man-handled. The occasional blows of sticks and stones hehad previously experienced were as caresses compared with this. He brokedown and began to cry and yelp. For a time each blow brought a yelp fromhim; but fear passed into terror, until finally his yelps were voiced inunbroken succession, unconnected with the rhythm of the punishment.
　　At last Grey Beaver withheld his hand. White Fang, hanging limply,continued to cry. This seemed to satisfy his master, who flung him downroughly in the bottom of the canoe. In the meantime the canoe had drifteddown the stream. Grey Beaver picked up the paddle. White Fang was inhis way. He spurned him savagely with his foot. In that moment WhiteFang's free nature flashed forth again, and he sank his teeth into themoccasined foot.
　　The beating that had gone before was as nothing compared with thebeating he now received. Grey Beaver's wrath was terrible; likewise wasWhite Fang's fright. Not only the hand, but the hard wooden paddle wasused upon him; and he was bruised and sore in all his small body when hewas again flung down in the canoe. Again, and this time with purpose, didGrey Beaver kick him . White Fang did not repeat his attack on the foot.
　　He had learned another lesson of his bondage. Never, no matter what thecircumstance, must he dare to bite the god who was lord and master overhim; the body of the lord and master was sacred, not to be defiled by theteeth of such as he. That was evidently the crime of crimes, the oneoffence there was no condoning nor overlooking.
　　When the canoe touched the shore, White Fang lay whimpering andmotionless, waiting the will of Grey Beaver. It was Grey Beaver's will thathe should go ashore, for ashore he was flung, striking heavily on his sideand hurting his bruises afresh. He crawled tremblingly to his feet andstood whimpering. Lip-lip, who had watched the whole proceeding fromthe bank, now rushed upon him, knocking him over and sinking his teethinto him. White Fang was too helpless to defend himself, and it wouldhave gone hard with him had not Grey Beaver's foot shot out, lifting Lip-lip into the air with its violence so that he smashed down to earth a dozenfeet away. This was the man-animal's justice; and even then, in his ownpitiable plight, White Fang experienced a little grateful thrill. At GreyBeaver's heels he limped obediently through the village to the tepee. Andso it came that White Fang learned that the right to punish was somethingthe gods reserved for themselves and denied to the lesser creatures underthem.
　　That night, when all was still, White Fang remembered his mother andsorrowed for her. He sorrowed too loudly and woke up Grey Beaver, whobeat him. After that he mourned gently when the gods were around. Butsometimes, straying off to the edge of the woods by himself, he gave ventto his grief, and cried it out with loud whimperings and wailings.
　　It was during this period that he might have harkened to the memoriesof the lair and the stream and run back to the Wild. But the memory of hismother held him. As the hunting man-animals went out and came back, soshe would come back to the village some time. So he remained in hisbondage waiting for her.
　　But it was not altogether an unhappy bondage. There was much tointerest him. Something was always happening. There was no end to thestrange things these gods did, and he was always curious to see. Besides,he was learning how to get along with Grey Beaver. Obedience, rigid,undeviating obedience, was what was exacted of him; and in return heescaped beatings and his existence was tolerated.
　　Nay, Grey Beaver himself sometimes tossed him a piece of meat, anddefended him against the other dogs in the eating of it. And such a piece ofmeat was of value. It was worth more, in some strange way, then a dozenpieces of meat from the hand of a squaw. Grey Beaver never petted norcaressed. Perhaps it was the weight of his hand, perhaps his justice,perhaps the sheer power of him, and perhaps it was all these things thatinfluenced White Fang; for a certain tie of attachment was formingbetween him and his surly lord.
　　Insidiously, and by remote ways, as well as by the power of stick andstone and clout of hand, were the shackles of White Fang's bondage beingriveted upon him. The qualities in his kind that in the beginning made itpossible for them to come in to the fires of men, were qualities capable ofdevelopment. They were developing in him, and the camp-life, repletewith misery as it was, was secretly endearing itself to him all the time. ButWhite Fang was unaware of it. He knew only grief for the loss of Kiche,hope for her return, and a hungry yearning for the free life that had beenhis.
Chapter 11 The Outcast
Lip-lip continued so to darken his days that White Fang becamewickeder and more ferocious than it was his natural right to be.
　　Savageness was a part of his make-up, but the savageness thus developedexceeded his make-up. He acquired a reputation for wickedness amongstthe man-animals themselves. Wherever there was trouble and uproar incamp, fighting and squabbling or the outcry of a squaw over a bit of stolenmeat, they were sure to find White Fang mixed up in it and usually at thebottom of it. They did not bother to look after the causes of his conduct.
　　They saw only the effects, and the effects were bad. He was a sneak and athief, a mischief-maker, a fomenter of trouble; and irate squaws told himto his face, the while he eyed them alert and ready to dodge any quick-flung missile, that he was a wolf and worthless and bound to come to anevil end.
　　He found himself an outcast in the midst of the populous camp. All theyoung dogs followed Lip-lip's lead. There was a difference between WhiteFang and them. Perhaps they sensed his wild-wood breed, andinstinctively felt for him the enmity that the domestic dog feels for thewolf. But be that as it may, they joined with Lip-lip in the persecution.
　　And, once declared against him, they found good reason to continuedeclared against him. One and all, from time to time, they felt his teeth;and to his credit, he gave more than he received. Many of them he couldwhip in single fight; but single fight was denied him. The beginning ofsuch a fight was a signal for all the young dogs in camp to come runningand pitch upon him.
　　Out of this pack-persecution he learned two important things: how totake care of himself in a mass-fight against him - and how, on a single dog,to inflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of time. Tokeep one's feet in the midst of the hostile mass meant life, and this helearnt well. He became cat- like in his ability to stay on his feet. Evengrown dogs might hurtle him backward or sideways with the impact oftheir heavy bodies; and backward or sideways he would go, in the air orsliding on the ground, but always with his legs under him and his feetdownward to the mother earth.
　　When dogs fight, there are usually preliminaries to the actual combat -snarlings and bristlings and stiff-legged struttings. But White Fang learnedto omit these preliminaries. Delay meant the coming against him of all theyoung dogs. He must do his work quickly and get away. So he learnt togive no warning of his intention. He rushed in and snapped and slashed onthe instant, without notice, before his foe could prepare to meet him. Thushe learned how to inflict quick and severe damage. Also he learned thevalue of surprise. A dog, taken off its guard, its shoulder slashed open orits ear ripped in ribbons before it knew what was happening, was a doghalf whipped.
　　Furthermore, it was remarkably easy to overthrow a dog taken bysurprise; while a dog, thus overthrown, invariably exposed for a momentthe soft underside of its neck - the vulnerable point at which to strike forits life. White Fang knew this point. It was a knowledge bequeathed tohim directly from the hunting generation of wolves. So it was that WhiteFang's method when he took the offensive, was: first to find a young dogalone; second, to surprise it and knock it off its feet; and third, to drive inwith his teeth at the soft throat.
　　Being but partly grown his jaws had not yet become large enough norstrong enough to make his throat-attack deadly; but many a young dogwent around camp with a lacerated throat in token of White Fang'sintention. And one day, catching one of his enemies alone on the edge ofthe woods, he managed, by repeatedly overthrowing him and attacking thethroat, to cut the great vein and let out the life. There was a great row thatnight. He had been observed, the news had been carried to the dead dog'smaster, the squaws remembered all the instances of stolen meat, and GreyBeaver was beset by many angry voices. But he resolutely held the door ofhis tepee, inside which he had placed the culprit, and refused to permit thevengeance for which his tribespeople clamoured.
　　White Fang became hated by man and dog. During this period of hisdevelopment he never knew a moment's security. The tooth of every dogwas against him, the hand of every man. He was greeted with snarls by hiskind, with curses and stones by his gods. He lived tensely. He was alwayskeyed up, alert for attack, wary of being attacked, with an eye for suddenand unexpected missiles, prepared to act precipitately and coolly, to leapin with a flash of teeth, or to leap away with a menacing snarl.
　　As for snarling he could snarl more terribly than any dog, young or old,in camp. The intent of the snarl is to warn or frighten, and judgment isrequired to know when it should be used. White Fang knew how to makeit and when to make it. Into his snarl he incorporated all that was vicious,malignant, and horrible. With nose serrulated by continuous spasms, hairbristling in recurrent waves, tongue whipping out like a red snake andwhipping back again, ears flattened down, eyes gleaming hatred, lipswrinkled back, and fangs exposed and dripping, he could compel a pauseon the part of almost any assailant. A temporary pause, when taken off hisguard, gave him the vital moment in which to think and determine hisaction. But often a pause so gained lengthened out until it evolved into acomplete cessation from the attack. And before more than one of thegrown dogs White Fang's snarl enabled him to beat an honourable retreat.
　　An outcast himself from the pack of the part-grown dogs, hissanguinary methods and remarkable efficiency made the pack pay for itspersecution of him. Not permitted himself to run with the pack, the curiousstate of affairs obtained that no member of the pack could run outside thepack. White Fang would not permit it. What of his bushwhacking andwaylaying tactics, the young dogs were afraid to run by themselves. Withthe exception of Lip-lip, they were compelled to hunch together for mutualprotection against the terrible enemy they had made. A puppy alone by theriver bank meant a puppy dead or a puppy that aroused the camp with itsshrill pain and terror as it fled back from the wolf-cub that had waylaid it.
　　But White Fang's reprisals did not cease, even when the young dogshad learned thoroughly that they must stay together. He attacked themwhen he caught them alone, and they attacked him when they werebunched. The sight of him was sufficient to start them rushing after him, atwhich times his swiftness usually carried him into safety. But woe the dogthat outran his fellows in such pursuit! White Fang had learned to turnsuddenly upon the pursuer that was ahead of the pack and thoroughly torip him up before the pack could arrive. This occurred with greatfrequency, for, once in full cry, the dogs were prone to forget themselvesin the excitement of the chase, while White Fang never forgot himself.
　　Stealing backward glances as he ran, he was always ready to whirl aroundand down the overzealous pursuer that outran his fellows.
　　Young dogs are bound to play, and out of the exigencies of thesituation they realised their play in this mimic warfare. Thus it was that thehunt of White Fang became their chief game - a deadly game, withal, andat all times a serious game. He, on the other hand, being the fastest-footed,was unafraid to venture anywhere. During the period that he waited vainlyfor his mother to come back, he led the pack many a wild chase throughthe adjacent woods. But the pack invariably lost him. Its noise and outcrywarned him of its presence, while he ran alone, velvet-footed, silently, amoving shadow among the trees after the manner of his father and motherbefore him. Further he was more directly connected with the Wild thanthey; and he knew more of its secrets and stratagems. A favourite trick ofhis was to lose his trail in running water and then lie quietly in a near-bythicket while their baffled cries arose around him.
　　Hated by his kind and by mankind, indomitable, perpetually warredupon and himself waging perpetual war, his development was rapid andone-sided. This was no soil for kindliness and affection to blossom in. Ofsuch things he had not the faintest glimmering. The code he learned was toobey the strong and to oppress the weak. Grey Beaver was a god, andstrong. Therefore White Fang obeyed him. But the dog younger or smallerthan himself was weak, a thing to be destroyed. His development was inthe direction of power. In order to face the constant danger of hurt andeven of destruction, his predatory and protective faculties were undulydeveloped. He became quicker of movement than the other dogs, swifterof foot, craftier, deadlier, more lithe, more lean with ironlike muscle andsinew, more enduring, more cruel, more ferocious, and more intelligent.
　　He had to become all these things, else he would not have held his ownnor survive the hostile environment in which he found himself.
Chapter 12 The Trail Of The Gods
In the fall of the year, when the days were shortening and the bite ofthe frost was coming into the air, White Fang got his chance for liberty.
　　For several days there had been a great hubbub in the village. The summercamp was being dismantled, and the tribe, bag and baggage, was preparingto go off to the fall hunting. White Fang watched it all with eager eyes,and when the tepees began to come down and the canoes were loading atthe bank, he understood. Already the canoes were departing, and some haddisappeared down the river.
　　Quite deliberately he determined to stay behind. He waited hisopportunity to slink out of camp to the woods. Here, in the running streamwhere ice was beginning to form, he hid his trail. Then he crawled into theheart of a dense thicket and waited. The time passed by, and he sleptintermittently for hours. Then he was aroused by Grey Beaver's voicecalling him by name. There were other voices. White Fang could hearGrey Beaver's squaw taking part in the search, and Mit-sah, who was GreyBeaver's son.
　　White Fang trembled with fear, and though the impulse came to crawlout of his hiding-place, he resisted it. After a time the voices died away,and some time after that he crept out to enjoy the success of hisundertaking. Darkness was coming on, and for a while he played aboutamong the trees, pleasuring in his freedom. Then, and quite suddenly, hebecame aware of loneliness. He sat down to consider, listening to thesilence of the forest and perturbed by it. That nothing moved nor sounded,seemed ominous. He felt the lurking of danger, unseen and unguessed. Hewas suspicious of the looming bulks of the trees and of the dark shadowsthat might conceal all manner of perilous things.
　　Then it was cold. Here was no warm side of a tepee against which tosnuggle. The frost was in his feet, and he kept lifting first one fore-footand then the other. He curved his bushy tail around to cover them, and atthe same time he saw a vision. There was nothing strange about it. Uponhis inward sight was impressed a succession of memory-pictures. He sawthe camp again, the tepees, and the blaze of the fires. He heard the shrillvoices of the women, the gruff basses of the men, and the snarling of thedogs. He was hungry, and he remembered pieces of meat and fish that hadbeen thrown him. Here was no meat, nothing but a threatening andinedible silence.
　　His bondage had softened him. Irresponsibility had weakened him. Hehad forgotten how to shift for himself. The night yawned about him. Hissenses, accustomed to the hum and bustle of the camp, used to thecontinuous impact of sights and sounds, were now left idle. There wasnothing to do, nothing to see nor hear. They strained to catch someinterruption of the silence and immobility of nature. They were appalledby inaction and by the feel of something terrible impending.
　　He gave a great start of fright. A colossal and formless something wasrushing across the field of his vision. It was a tree-shadow flung by themoon, from whose face the clouds had been brushed away. Reassured, hewhimpered softly; then he suppressed the whimper for fear that it mightattract the attention of the lurking dangers.
　　A tree, contracting in the cool of the night, made a loud noise. It wasdirectly above him. He yelped in his fright. A panic seized him, and he ranmadly toward the village. He knew an overpowering desire for theprotection and companionship of man. In his nostrils was the smell of thecamp-smoke. In his ears the camp-sounds and cries were ringing loud. Hepassed out of the forest and into the moonlit open where were no shadowsnor darknesses. But no village greeted his eyes. He had forgotten. Thevillage had gone away.
　　His wild flight ceased abruptly. There was no place to which to flee.
　　He slunk forlornly through the deserted camp, smelling the rubbish-heapsand the discarded rags and tags of the gods. He would have been glad forthe rattle of stones about him, flung by an angry squaw, glad for the handof Grey Beaver descending upon him in wrath; while he would havewelcomed with delight Lip-lip and the whole snarling, cowardly pack.
　　He came to where Grey Beaver's tepee had stood. In the centre of thespace it had occupied, he sat down. He pointed his nose at the moon. Histhroat was afflicted by rigid spasms, his mouth opened, and in a heart-broken cry bubbled up his loneliness and fear, his grief for Kiche, all hispast sorrows and miseries as well as his apprehension of sufferings anddangers to come. It was the long wolf-howl, full-throated and mournful,the first howl he had ever uttered.
　　The coming of daylight dispelled his fears but increased his loneliness.
　　The naked earth, which so shortly before had been so populous; thrust hisloneliness more forcibly upon him. It did not take him long to make up hismind. He plunged into the forest and followed the river bank down thestream. All day he ran. He did not rest. He seemed made to run on for ever.
　　His iron-like body ignored fatigue. And even after fatigue came, hisheritage of endurance braced him to endless endeavour and enabled him todrive his complaining body onward.
　　Where the river swung in against precipitous bluffs, he climbed thehigh mountains behind. Rivers and streams that entered the main river heforded or swam. Often he took to the rim-ice that was beginning to form,and more than once he crashed through and struggled for life in the icycurrent. Always he was on the lookout for the trail of the gods where itmight leave the river and proceed inland.
　　White Fang was intelligent beyond the average of his kind; yet hismental vision was not wide enough to embrace the other bank of theMackenzie. What if the trail of the gods led out on that side? It neverentered his head. Later on, when he had travelled more and grown olderand wiser and come to know more of trails and rivers, it might be that hecould grasp and apprehend such a possibility. But that mental power wasyet in the future. Just now he ran blindly, his own bank of the Mackenziealone entering into his calculations.
　　All night he ran, blundering in the darkness into mishaps and obstaclesthat delayed but did not daunt. By the middle of the second day he hadbeen running continuously for thirty hours, and the iron of his flesh wasgiving out. It was the endurance of his mind that kept him going. He hadnot eaten in forty hours, and he was weak with hunger. The repeateddrenchings in the icy water had likewise had their effect on him. Hishandsome coat was draggled. The broad pads of his feet were bruised andbleeding. He had begun to limp, and this limp increased with the hours. Tomake it worse, the light of the sky was obscured and snow began to fall - araw, moist, melting, clinging snow, slippery under foot, that hid from himthe landscape he traversed, and that covered over the inequalities of theground so that the way of his feet was more difficult and painful.
　　Grey Beaver had intended camping that night on the far bank of theMackenzie, for it was in that direction that the hunting lay. But on the nearbank, shortly before dark, a moose coming down to drink, had been espiedby Kloo-kooch, who was Grey Beaver's squaw. Now, had not the moosecome down to drink, had not Mit-sah been steering out of the coursebecause of the snow, had not Kloo-kooch sighted the moose, and had notGrey Beaver killed it with a lucky shot from his rifle, all subsequent thingswould have happened differently. Grey Beaver would not have camped onthe near side of the Mackenzie, and White Fang would have passed by andgone on, either to die or to find his way to his wild brothers and becomeone of them - a wolf to the end of his days.
　　Night had fallen. The snow was flying more thickly, and White Fang,whimpering softly to himself as he stumbled and limped along, came upona fresh trail in the snow. So fresh was it that he knew it immediately forwhat it was. Whining with eagerness, he followed back from the riverbank and in among the trees. The camp-sounds came to his ears. He sawthe blaze of the fire, Kloo- kooch cooking, and Grey Beaver squatting onhis hams and mumbling a chunk of raw tallow. There was fresh meat incamp!
　　White Fang expected a beating. He crouched and bristled a little at thethought of it. Then he went forward again. He feared and disliked thebeating he knew to be waiting for him. But he knew, further, that thecomfort of the fire would be his, the protection of the gods, thecompanionship of the dogs - the last, a companionship of enmity, but nonethe less a companionship and satisfying to his gregarious needs.
　　He came cringing and crawling into the firelight. Grey Beaver sawhim, and stopped munching the tallow. White Fang crawled slowly,cringing and grovelling in the abjectness of his abasement and submission.
　　He crawled straight toward Grey Beaver, every inch of his progressbecoming slower and more painful. At last he lay at the master's feet, intowhose possession he now surrendered himself, voluntarily, body and soul.
　　Of his own choice, he came in to sit by man's fire and to be ruled by him.
　　White Fang trembled, waiting for the punishment to fall upon him. Therewas a movement of the hand above him. He cringed involuntarily underthe expected blow. It did not fall. He stole a glance upward. Grey Beaverwas breaking the lump of tallow in half! Grey Beaver was offering himone piece of the tallow! Very gently and somewhat suspiciously, he firstsmelled the tallow and then proceeded to eat it. Grey Beaver ordered meatto be brought to him, and guarded him from the other dogs while he ate.
　　After that, grateful and content, White Fang lay at Grey Beaver's feet,gazing at the fire that warmed him, blinking and dozing, secure in theknowledge that the morrow would find him, not wandering forlornthrough bleak forest-stretches, but in the camp of the man-animals, withthe gods to whom he had given himself and upon whom he was nowdependent.
Chapter 13 The Covenant
When December was well along, Grey Beaver went on a journey upthe Mackenzie. Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch went with him. One sled he drovehimself, drawn by dogs he had traded for or borrowed. A second andsmaller sled was driven by Mit-sah, and to this was harnessed a team ofpuppies. It was more of a toy affair than anything else, yet it was thedelight of Mit-sah, who felt that he was beginning to do a man's work inthe world. Also, he was learning to drive dogs and to train dogs; while thepuppies themselves were being broken in to the harness. Furthermore, thesled was of some service, for it carried nearly two hundred pounds ofoutfit and food.
　　White Fang had seen the camp-dogs toiling in the harness, so that hedid not resent overmuch the first placing of the harness upon himself.
　　About his neck was put a moss-stuffed collar, which was connected bytwo pulling-traces to a strap that passed around his chest and over his back.
　　It was to this that was fastened the long rope by which he pulled at thesled.
　　There were seven puppies in the team. The others had been bornearlier in the year and were nine and ten months old, while White Fangwas only eight months old. Each dog was fastened to the sled by a singlerope. No two ropes were of the same length, while the difference in lengthbetween any two ropes was at least that of a dog's body. Every rope wasbrought to a ring at the front end of the sled. The sled itself was withoutrunners, being a birch-bark toboggan, with upturned forward end to keep itfrom ploughing under the snow. This construction enabled the weight ofthe sled and load to be distributed over the largest snow-surface; for thesnow was crystal-powder and very soft. Observing the same principle ofwidest distribution of weight, the dogs at the ends of their ropes radiatedfan-fashion from the nose of the sled, so that no dog trod in another'sfootsteps.
　　There was, furthermore, another virtue in the fan-formation. The ropesof varying length prevented the dogs attacking from the rear those that ranin front of them. For a dog to attack another, it would have to turn uponone at a shorter rope. In which case it would find itself face to face withthe dog attacked, and also it would find itself facing the whip of the driver.
　　But the most peculiar virtue of all lay in the fact that the dog that strove toattack one in front of him must pull the sled faster, and that the faster thesled travelled, the faster could the dog attacked run away. Thus, the dogbehind could never catch up with the one in front. The faster he ran, thefaster ran the one he was after, and the faster ran all the dogs. Incidentally,the sled went faster, and thus, by cunning indirection, did man increase hismastery over the beasts.
　　Mit-sah resembled his father, much of whose grey wisdom hepossessed. In the past he had observed Lip-lip's persecution of White Fang;but at that time Lip-lip was another man's dog, and Mit-sah had neverdared more than to shy an occasional stone at him. But now Lip-lip washis dog, and he proceeded to wreak his vengeance on him by putting himat the end of the longest rope. This made Lip-lip the leader, and wasapparently an honour! but in reality it took away from him all honour, andinstead of being bully and master of the pack, he now found himself hatedand persecuted by the pack.
　　Because he ran at the end of the longest rope, the dogs had always theview of him running away before them. All that they saw of him was hisbushy tail and fleeing hind legs - a view far less ferocious and intimidatingthan his bristling mane and gleaming fangs. Also, dogs being soconstituted in their mental ways, the sight of him running away gavedesire to run after him and a feeling that he ran away from them.
　　The moment the sled started, the team took after Lip-lip in a chase thatextended throughout the day. At first he had been prone to turn upon hispursuers, jealous of his dignity and wrathful; but at such times Mit-sahwould throw the stinging lash of the thirty-foot cariboo-gut whip into hisface and compel him to turn tail and run on. Lip-lip might face the pack,but he could not face that whip, and all that was left him to do was to keephis long rope taut and his flanks ahead of the teeth of his mates.
　　But a still greater cunning lurked in the recesses of the Indian mind. Togive point to unending pursuit of the leader, Mit-sah favoured him over theother dogs. These favours aroused in them jealousy and hatred. In theirpresence Mit-sah would give him meat and would give it to him only. Thiswas maddening to them. They would rage around just outside thethrowing-distance of the whip, while Lip-lip devoured the meat and Mit-sah protected him. And when there was no meat to give, Mit-sah wouldkeep the team at a distance and make believe to give meat to Lip-lip.
　　White Fang took kindly to the work. He had travelled a greaterdistance than the other dogs in the yielding of himself to the rule of thegods, and he had learned more thoroughly the futility of opposing theirwill. In addition, the persecution he had suffered from the pack had madethe pack less to him in the scheme of things, and man more. He had notlearned to be dependent on his kind for companionship. Besides, Kichewas well-nigh forgotten; and the chief outlet of expression that remainedto him was in the allegiance he tendered the gods he had accepted asmasters. So he worked hard, learned discipline, and was obedient.
　　Faithfulness and willingness characterised his toil. These are essentialtraits of the wolf and the wild-dog when they have become domesticated,and these traits White Fang possessed in unusual measure.
　　A companionship did exist between White Fang and the other dogs,but it was one of warfare and enmity. He had never learned to play withthem. He knew only how to fight, and fight with them he did, returning tothem a hundred-fold the snaps and slashes they had given him in the dayswhen Lip-lip was leader of the pack. But Lip-lip was no longer leader -except when he fled away before his mates at the end of his rope, the sledbounding along behind. In camp he kept close to Mit-sah or Grey Beaveror Kloo-kooch. He did not dare venture away from the gods, for now thefangs of all dogs were against him, and he tasted to the dregs thepersecution that had been White Fang's.
　　With the overthrow of Lip-lip, White Fang could have become leaderof the pack. But he was too morose and solitary for that. He merelythrashed his team-mates.
　　Otherwise he ignored them. They got out of hisway when he came along; nor did the boldest of them ever dare to rob himof his meat. On the contrary, they devoured their own meat hurriedly, forfear that he would take it away from them. White Fang knew the law well:
　　TO OPPRESS THE WEAK AND OBEY THE STRONG. He ate his shareof meat as rapidly as he could. And then woe the dog that had not yetfinished! A snarl and a flash of fangs, and that dog would wail hisindignation to the uncomforting stars while White Fang finished hisportion for him.
　　Every little while, however, one dog or another would flame up inrevolt and be promptly subdued. Thus White Fang was kept in training. Hewas jealous of the isolation in which he kept himself in the midst of thepack, and he fought often to maintain it. But such fights were of briefduration. He was too quick for the others. They were slashed open andbleeding before they knew what had happened, were whipped almostbefore they had begun to fight.
　　As rigid as the sled-discipline of the gods, was the disciplinemaintained by White Fang amongst his fellows. He never allowed themany latitude. He compelled them to an unremitting respect for him. Theymight do as they pleased amongst themselves. That was no concern of his.
　　But it WAS his concern that they leave him alone in his isolation, get outof his way when he elected to walk among them, and at all timesacknowledge his mastery over them. A hint of stiff-leggedness on theirpart, a lifted lip or a bristle of hair, and he would be upon them, mercilessand cruel, swiftly convincing them of the error of their way.
　　He was a monstrous tyrant. His mastery was rigid as steel. Heoppressed the weak with a vengeance. Not for nothing had he beenexposed to the pitiless struggles for life in the day of his cubhood, whenhis mother and he, alone and unaided, held their own and survived in theferocious environment of the Wild. And not for nothing had he learned towalk softly when superior strength went by. He oppressed the weak, but herespected the strong. And in the course of the long journey with GreyBeaver he walked softly indeed amongst the full-grown dogs in the campsof the strange man- animals they encountered.
　　The months passed by. Still continued the journey of Grey Beaver.
　　White Fang's strength was developed by the long hours on trail and thesteady toil at the sled; and it would have seemed that his mentaldevelopment was well-nigh complete. He had come to know quitethoroughly the world in which he lived. His outlook was bleak andmaterialistic. The world as he saw it was a fierce and brutal world, a worldwithout warmth, a world in which caresses and affection and the brightsweetnesses of the spirit did not exist.
　　He had no affection for Grey Beaver. True, he was a god, but a mostsavage god. White Fang was glad to acknowledge his lordship, but it wasa lordship based upon superior intelligence and brute strength. There wassomething in the fibre of White Fang's being that made his lordship a thingto be desired, else he would not have come back from the Wild when hedid to tender his allegiance. There were deeps in his nature which hadnever been sounded. A kind word, a caressing touch of the hand, on thepart of Grey Beaver, might have sounded these deeps; but Grey Beaver didnot caress, nor speak kind words. It was not his way. His primacy wassavage, and savagely he ruled, administering justice with a club, punishingtransgression with the pain of a blow, and rewarding merit, not bykindness, but by withholding a blow.
　　So White Fang knew nothing of the heaven a man's hand mightcontain for him. Besides, he did not like the hands of the man-animals. Hewas suspicious of them. It was true that they sometimes gave meat, butmore often they gave hurt. Hands were things to keep away from. Theyhurled stones, wielded sticks and clubs and whips, administered slaps andclouts, and, when they touched him, were cunning to hurt with pinch andtwist and wrench. In strange villages he had encountered the hands of thechildren and learned that they were cruel to hurt. Also, he had once nearlyhad an eye poked out by a toddling papoose. From these experiences hebecame suspicious of all children. He could not tolerate them. When theycame near with their ominous hands, he got up.
　　It was in a village at the Great Slave Lake, that, in the course ofresenting the evil of the hands of the man-animals, he came to modify thelaw that he had learned from Grey Beaver: namely, that the unpardonablecrime was to bite one of the gods. In this village, after the custom of alldogs in all villages, White Fang went foraging, for food. A boy waschopping frozen moose-meat with an axe, and the chips were flying in thesnow. White Fang, sliding by in quest of meat, stopped and began to eatthe chips. He observed the boy lay down the axe and take up a stout club.
　　White Fang sprang clear, just in time to escape the descending blow. Theboy pursued him, and he, a stranger in the village, fled between two tepeesto find himself cornered against a high earth bank.
　　There was no escape for White Fang. The only way out was betweenthe two tepees, and this the boy guarded. Holding his club prepared tostrike, he drew in on his cornered quarry. White Fang was furious. Hefaced the boy, bristling and snarling, his sense of justice outraged. Heknew the law of forage. All the wastage of meat, such as the frozen chips,belonged to the dog that found it. He had done no wrong, broken no law,yet here was this boy preparing to give him a beating. White Fang scarcelyknew what happened. He did it in a surge of rage. And he did it so quicklythat the boy did not know either. All the boy knew was that he had in someunaccountable way been overturned into the snow, and that his club-handhad been ripped wide open by White Fang's teeth.
　　But White Fang knew that he had broken the law of the gods. He haddriven his teeth into the sacred flesh of one of them, and could expectnothing but a most terrible punishment. He fled away to Grey Beaver,behind whose protecting legs he crouched when the bitten boy and theboy's family came, demanding vengeance. But they went away withvengeance unsatisfied. Grey Beaver defended White Fang. So did Mit-sahand Kloo-kooch. White Fang, listening to the wordy war and watching theangry gestures, knew that his act was justified. And so it came that helearned there were gods and gods. There were his gods, and there wereother gods, and between them there was a difference. Justice or injustice,it was all the same, he must take all things from the hands of his own gods.
　　But he was not compelled to take injustice from the other gods. It was hisprivilege to resent it with his teeth. And this also was a law of the gods.
　　Before the day was out, White Fang was to learn more about this law.
　　Mit-sah, alone, gathering firewood in the forest, encountered the boy thathad been bitten. With him were other boys. Hot words passed. Then all theboys attacked Mit-sah. It was going hard with him. Blows were rainingupon him from all sides. White Fang looked on at first. This was an affairof the gods, and no concern of his. Then he realised that this was Mit-sah,one of his own particular gods, who was being maltreated. It was noreasoned impulse that made White Fang do what he then did. A mad rushof anger sent him leaping in amongst the combatants. Five minutes laterthe landscape was covered with fleeing boys, many of whom drippedblood upon the snow in token that White Fang's teeth had not been idle.
　　When Mit-sah told the story in camp, Grey Beaver ordered meat to begiven to White Fang. He ordered much meat to be given, and White Fang,gorged and sleepy by the fire, knew that the law had received itsverification.
　　It was in line with these experiences that White Fang came to learn thelaw of property and the duty of the defence of property. From theprotection of his god's body to the protection of his god's possessions wasa step, and this step he made. What was his god's was to be defendedagainst all the world - even to the extent of biting other gods. Not only wassuch an act sacrilegious in its nature, but it was fraught with peril. Thegods were all-powerful, and a dog was no match against them; yet WhiteFang learned to face them, fiercely belligerent and unafraid. Duty roseabove fear, and thieving gods learned to leave Grey Beaver's propertyalone.
　　One thing, in this connection, White Fang quickly learnt, and that wasthat a thieving god was usually a cowardly god and prone to run away atthe sounding of the alarm. Also, he learned that but brief time elapsedbetween his sounding of the alarm and Grey Beaver coming to his aid. Hecame to know that it was not fear of him that drove the thief away, but fearof Grey Beaver. White Fang did not give the alarm by barking. He neverbarked. His method was to drive straight at the intruder, and to sink histeeth in if he could. Because he was morose and solitary, having nothing todo with the other dogs, he was unusually fitted to guard his master'sproperty; and in this he was encouraged and trained by Grey Beaver. Oneresult of this was to make White Fang more ferocious and indomitable,and more solitary.
　　The months went by, binding stronger and stronger the covenantbetween dog and man. This was the ancient covenant that the first wolfthat came in from the Wild entered into with man. And, like all succeedingwolves and wild dogs that had done likewise, White Fang worked thecovenant out for himself. The terms were simple. For the possession of aflesh-and-blood god, he exchanged his own liberty. Food and fire,protection and companionship, were some of the things he received fromthe god. In return, he guarded the god's property, defended his body,worked for him, and obeyed him.
　　The possession of a god implies service. White Fang's was a service ofduty and awe, but not of love. He did not know what love was. He had noexperience of love. Kiche was a remote memory. Besides, not only had heabandoned the Wild and his kind when he gave himself up to man, but theterms of the covenant were such that if ever he met Kiche again he wouldnot desert his god to go with her. His allegiance to man seemed somehowa law of his being greater than the love of liberty, of kind and kin.
Chapter 14 The Famine
The spring of the year was at hand when Grey Beaver finished his longjourney. It was April, and White Fang was a year old when he pulled intothe home villages and was loosed from the harness by Mit-sah. Though along way from his full growth, White Fang, next to Lip-lip, was the largestyearling in the village. Both from his father, the wolf, and from Kiche, hehad inherited stature and strength, and already he was measuring upalongside the full-grown dogs. But he had not yet grown compact. Hisbody was slender and rangy, and his strength more stringy than massive,His coat was the true wolf-grey, and to all appearances he was true wolfhimself. The quarter-strain of dog he had inherited from Kiche had left nomark on him physically, though it had played its part in his mental make- up.
　　He wandered through the village, recognising with staid satisfactionthe various gods he had known before the long journey. Then there werethe dogs, puppies growing up like himself, and grown dogs that did notlook so large and formidable as the memory pictures he retained of them.
　　Also, he stood less in fear of them than formerly, stalking among themwith a certain careless ease that was as new to him as it was enjoyable.
　　There was Baseek, a grizzled old fellow that in his younger days hadbut to uncover his fangs to send White Fang cringing and crouching to theright about. From him White Fang had learned much of his owninsignificance; and from him he was now to learn much of the change anddevelopment that had taken place in himself. While Baseek had beengrowing weaker with age, White Fang had been growing stronger withyouth.
　　It was at the cutting-up of a moose, fresh-killed, that White Fanglearned of the changed relations in which he stood to the dog- world. Hehad got for himself a hoof and part of the shin-bone, to which quite a bit ofmeat was attached. Withdrawn from the immediate scramble of the otherdogs - in fact out of sight behind a thicket - he was devouring his prize,when Baseek rushed in upon him. Before he knew what he was doing, hehad slashed the intruder twice and sprung clear. Baseek was surprised bythe other's temerity and swiftness of attack. He stood, gazing stupidlyacross at White Fang, the raw, red shin-bone between them.
　　Baseek was old, and already he had come to know the increasingvalour of the dogs it had been his wont to bully. Bitter experiences these,which, perforce, he swallowed, calling upon all his wisdom to cope withthem. In the old days he would have sprung upon White Fang in a fury ofrighteous wrath. But now his waning powers would not permit such acourse. He bristled fiercely and looked ominously across the shin-bone atWhite Fang. And White Fang, resurrecting quite a deal of the old awe,seemed to wilt and to shrink in upon himself and grow small, as he castabout in his mind for a way to beat a retreat not too inglorious.
　　And right here Baseek erred. Had he contented himself with lookingfierce and ominous, all would have been well. White Fang, on the verge ofretreat, would have retreated, leaving the meat to him. But Baseek did notwait. He considered the victory already his and stepped forward to themeat. As he bent his head carelessly to smell it, White Fang bristledslightly. Even then it was not too late for Baseek to retrieve the situation.
　　Had he merely stood over the meat, head up and glowering, White Fangwould ultimately have slunk away. But the fresh meat was strong inBaseek's nostrils, and greed urged him to take a bite of it.
　　This was too much for White Fang. Fresh upon his months of masteryover his own team-mates, it was beyond his self-control to stand idly bywhile another devoured the meat that belonged to him. He struck, after hiscustom, without warning. With the first slash, Baseek's right ear wasripped into ribbons. He was astounded at the suddenness of it. But morethings, and most grievous ones, were happening with equal suddenness.
　　He was knocked off his feet. His throat was bitten. While he wasstruggling to his feet the young dog sank teeth twice into his shoulder. Theswiftness of it was bewildering. He made a futile rush at White Fang,clipping the empty air with an outraged snap. The next moment his no sewas laid open, and he was staggering backward away from the meat.
　　The situation was now reversed. White Fang stood over the shin- bone,bristling and menacing, while Baseek stood a little way off, preparing toretreat. He dared not risk a fight with this young lightning-flash, and againhe knew, and more bitterly, the enfeeblement of oncoming age. Hisattempt to maintain his dignity was heroic. Calmly turning his back uponyoung dog and shin-bone, as though both were beneath his notice andunworthy of his consideration, he stalked grandly away. Nor, until well outof sight, did he stop to lick his bleeding wounds.
　　The effect on White Fang was to give him a greater faith in himself,and a greater pride. He walked less softly among the grown dogs; hisattitude toward them was less compromising. Not that he went out of hisway looking for trouble. Far from it. But upon his way he demandedconsideration. He stood upon his right to go his way unmolested and togive trail to no dog. He had to be taken into account, that was all. He wasno longer to be disregarded and ignored, as was the lot of puppies, and ascontinued to be the lot of the puppies that were his team-mates. They gotout of the way, gave trail to the grown dogs, and gave up meat to themunder compulsion. But White Fang, uncompanionable, solitary, morose,scarcely looking to right or left, redoubtable, forbidding of aspect, remoteand alien, was accepted as an equal by his puzzled elders. They quicklylearned to leave him alone, neither venturing hostile acts nor makingovertures of friendliness. If they left him alone, he left them alone - a stateof affairs that they found, after a few encounters, to be pre- eminentlydesirable.
　　In midsummer White Fang had an experience. Trotting along in hissilent way to investigate a new tepee which had been erected on the edgeof the village while he was away with the hunters after moose, he camefull upon Kiche. He paused and looked at her. He remembered her vaguely,but he REMEMBERED her, and that was more than could be said for her.
　　She lifted her lip at him in the old snarl of menace, and his memorybecame clear. His forgotten cubhood, all that was associated with thatfamiliar snarl, rushed back to him. Before he had known the gods, she hadbeen to him the centre-pin of the universe. The old familiar feelings of thattime came back upon him, surged up within him. He bounded towards herjoyously, and she met him with shrewd fangs that laid his cheek open tothe bone. He did not understand. He backed away, bewildered andpuzzled.
　　But it was not Kiche's fault. A wolf-mother was not made to rememberher cubs of a year or so before. So she did not remember White Fang. Hewas a strange animal, an intruder; and her present litter of puppies gaveher the right to resent such intrusion.
　　One of the puppies sprawled up to White Fang. They were half-brothers, only they did not know it. White Fang sniffed the puppycuriously, whereupon Kiche rushed upon him, gashing is face a secondtime. He backed farther away. All the old memories and associations dieddown again and passed into the grave from which they had beenresurrected. He looked at Kiche licking her puppy and stopping now andthen to snarl at him. She was without value to him. He had learned to getalong without her. Her meaning was forgotten. There was no place for herin his scheme of things, as there was no place for him in hers.
　　He was still standing, stupid and bewildered, the memories forgotten,wondering what it was all about, when Kiche attacked him a third time,intent on driving him away altogether from the vicinity. And White Fangallowed himself to be driven away. This was a female of his kind, and itwas a law of his kind that the males must not fight the females. He did notknow anything about this law, for it was no generalisation of the mind, nota something acquired by experience of the world. He knew it as a secretprompting, as an urge of instinct - of the same instinct that made him howlat the moon and stars of nights, and that made him fear death and theunknown.
　　The months went by. White Fang grew stronger, heavier, and morecompact, while his character was developing along the lines laid down byhis heredity and his environment. His heredity was a life- stuff that may belikened to clay. It possessed many possibilities, was capable of beingmoulded into many different forms. Environment served to model the clay,to give it a particular form. Thus, had White Fang never come in to thefires of man, the Wild would have moulded him into a true wolf. But thegods had given him a different environment, and he was moulded into adog that was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not a wolf.
　　And so, according to the clay of his nature and the pressure of hissurroundings, his character was being moulded into a certain particularshape. There was no escaping it. He was becoming more morose, moreuncompanionable, more solitary, more ferocious; while the dogs werelearning more and more that it was better to be at peace with him than atwar, and Grey Beaver was coming to prize him more greatly with thepassage of each day.
　　White Fang, seeming to sum up strength in all his qualities,nevertheless suffered from one besetting weakness. He could not standbeing laughed at. The laughter of men was a hateful thing. They mightlaugh among themselves about anything they pleased except himself, andhe did not mind. But the moment laughter was turned upon him he wouldfly into a most terrible rage. Grave, dignified, sombre, a laugh made himfrantic to ridiculousness. It so outraged him and upset him that for hourshe would behave like a demon. And woe to the dog that at such times ranfoul of him. He knew the law too well to take it out of Grey Beaver;behind Grey Beaver were a club and godhead. But behind the dogs therewas nothing but space, and into this space they flew when White Fangcame on the scene, made mad by laughter.
　　In the third year of his life there came a great famine to the MackenzieIndians. In the summer the fish failed. In the winter the cariboo forsooktheir accustomed track. Moose were scarce, the rabbits almost disappeared,hunting and preying animals perished. Denied their usual food-supply,weakened by hunger, they fell upon and devoured one another. Only thestrong survived. White Fang's gods were always hunting animals. The oldand the weak of them died of hunger. There was wailing in the village,where the women and children went without in order that what little theyhad might go into the bellies of the lean and hollow-eyed hunters who trodthe forest in the vain pursuit of meat.
　　To such extremity were the gods driven that they ate the soft- tannedleather of their mocassins and mittens, while the dogs ate the harnesses offtheir backs and the very whip-lashes. Also, the dogs ate one another, andalso the gods ate the dogs. The weakest and the more worthless were eatenfirst. The dogs that still lived, looked on and understood. A few of theboldest and wisest forsook the fires of the gods, which had now become ashambles, and fled into the forest, where, in the end, they starved to deathor were eaten by wolves.
　　In this time of misery, White Fang, too, stole away into the woods. Hewas better fitted for the life than the other dogs, for he had the training ofhis cubhood to guide him. Especially adept did he become in stalkingsmall living things. He would lie concealed for hours, following everymovement of a cautious tree-squirrel, waiting, with a patience as huge asthe hunger he suffered from, until the squirrel ventured out upon theground. Even then, White Fang was not premature. He waited until he wassure of striking before the squirrel could gain a tree-refuge. Then, and notuntil then, would he flash from his hiding-place, a grey projectile,incredibly swift, never failing its mark - the fleeing squirrel that fled notfast enough.
　　Successful as he was with squirrels, there was one difficulty thatprevented him from living and growing fat on them. There were notenough squirrels. So he was driven to hunt still smaller things. So acutedid his hunger become at times that he was not above rooting out wood-mice from their burrows in the ground. Nor did he scorn to do battle with aweasel as hungry as himself and many times more ferocious. In the worstpinches of the famine he stole back to the fires of the gods. But he did notgo into the fires. He lurked in the forest, avoiding discovery and robbingthe snares at the rare intervals when game was caught. He even robbedGrey Beaver's snare of a rabbit at a time when Grey Beaver staggered andtottered through the forest, sitting down often to rest, what of weaknessand of shortness of breath.
　　One day While Fang encountered a young wolf, gaunt and scrawny,loose-jointed with famine. Had he not been hungry himself, White Fangmight have gone with him and eventually found his way into the packamongst his wild brethren. As it was, he ran the young wolf down andkilled and ate him.
　　Fortune seemed to favour him. Always, when hardest pressed for food,he found something to kill. Again, when he was weak, it was his luck thatnone of the larger preying animals chanced upon him. Thus, he was strongfrom the two days' eating a lynx had afforded him when the hungry wolf-pack ran full tilt upon him. It was a long, cruel chase, but he was betternourished than they, and in the end outran them. And not only did heoutrun them, but, circling widely back on his track, he gathered in one ofhis exhausted pursuers.
　　After that he left that part of the country and journeyed over to thevalley wherein he had been born. Here, in the old lair, he encounteredKiche.
　　Up to her old tricks, she, too, had fled the inhospitable fires of thegods and gone back to her old refuge to give birth to her young. Of thislitter but one remained alive when White Fang came upon the scene, andthis one was not destined to live long. Young life had little chance in sucha famine.
　　Kiche's greeting of her grown son was anything but affectionate. ButWhite Fang did not mind. He had outgrown his mother. So he turned tailphilosophically and trotted on up the stream. At the forks he took theturning to the left, where he found the lair of the lynx with whom hismother and he had fought long before. Here, in the abandoned lair, hesettled down and rested for a day.
　　During the early summer, in the last days of the famine, he met Lip-lip,who had likewise taken to the woods, where he had eked out a miserableexistence.
　　White Fang came upon him unexpectedly. Trotting in oppositedirections along the base of a high bluff, they rounded a corner of rock andfound themselves face to face. They paused with instant alarm, and lookedat each other suspiciously.
　　White Fang was in splendid condition. His hunting had been good, andfor a week he had eaten his fill. He was even gorged from his latest kill.
　　But in the moment he looked at Lip-lip his hair rose on end all along hisback. It was an involuntary bristling on his part, the physical state that inthe past had always accompanied the mental state produced in him by Lip-lip's bullying and persecution. As in the past he had bristled and snarled atsight of Lip-lip, so now, and automatically, he bristled and snarled. He didnot waste any time. The thing was done thoroughly and with despatch.
　　Lip-lip essayed to back away, but White Fang struck him hard, shoulder toshoulder. Lip-lip was overthrown and rolled upon his back. White Fang'steeth drove into the scrawny throat. There was a death-struggle, duringwhich White Fang walked around, stiff- legged and observant. Then heresumed his course and trotted on along the base of the bluff.
　　One day, not long after, he came to the edge of the forest, where anarrow stretch of open land sloped down to the Mackenzie. He had beenover this ground before, when it was bare, but now a village occupied it.
　　Still hidden amongst the trees, he paused to study the situation. Sights andsounds and scents were familiar to him. It was the old village changed to anew place. But sights and sounds and smells were different from those hehad last had when he fled away from it. There was no whimpering norwailing. Contented sounds saluted his ear, and when he heard the angryvoice of a woman he knew it to be the anger that proceeds from a fullstomach. And there was a smell in the air of fish. There was food. Thefamine was gone. He came out boldly from the forest and trotted intocamp straight to Grey Beaver's tepee. Grey Beaver was not there; butKloo-kooch welcomed him with glad cries and the whole of a fresh-caughtfish, and he lay down to wait Grey Beaver's coming.
Chapter 15 The Enemy Of His Kind
Had there been in White Fang's nature any possibility, no matter howremote, of his ever coming to fraternise with his kind, such possibility wasirretrievably destroyed when he was made leader of the sled-team. Fornow the dogs hated him - hated him for the extra meat bestowed upon himby Mit-sah; hated him for all the real and fancied favours he received;hated him for that he fled always at the head of the team, his waving brushof a tail and his perpetually retreating hind-quarters for ever maddeningtheir eyes.
　　And White Fang just as bitterly hated them back. Being sled-leaderwas anything but gratifying to him. To be compelled to run away beforethe yelling pack, every dog of which, for three years, he had thrashed andmastered, was almost more than he could endure. But endure it he must, orperish, and the life that was in him had no desire to perish out. Themoment Mit-sah gave his order for the start, that moment the whole team,with eager, savage cries, sprang forward at White Fang.
　　There was no defence for him. If he turned upon them, Mit-sah wouldthrow the stinging lash of the whip into his face. Only remained to him torun away. He could not encounter that howling horde with his tail andhind-quarters. These were scarcely fit weapons with which to meet themany merciless fangs. So run away he did, violating his own nature andpride with every leap he made, and leaping all day long.
　　One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having thatnature recoil upon itself. Such a recoil is like that of a hair, made to growout from the body, turning unnaturally upon the direction of its growth andgrowing into the body - a rankling, festering thing of hurt. And so withWhite Fang. Every urge of his being impelled him to spring upon the packthat cried at his heels, but it was the will of the gods that this should not be;and behind the will, to enforce it, was the whip of cariboo-gut with itsbiting thirty-foot lash. So White Fang could only eat his heart in bitternessand develop a hatred and malice commensurate with the ferocity andindomitability of his nature.
　　If ever a creature was the enemy of its kind, White Fang was thatcreature. He asked no quarter, gave none. He was continually marred andscarred by the teeth of the pack, and as continually he left his own marksupon the pack. Unlike most leaders, who, when camp was made and thedogs were unhitched, huddled near to the gods for protection, White Fangdisdained such protection. He walked boldly about the camp, inflictingpunishment in the night for what he had suffered in the day. In the timebefore he was made leader of the team, the pack had learned to get out ofhis way. But now it was different. Excited by the day-long pursuit of him,swayed subconsciously by the insistent iteration on their brains of thesight of him fleeing away, mastered by the feeling of mastery enjoyed allday, the dogs could not bring themselves to give way to him. When heappeared amongst them, there was always a squabble. His progress wasmarked by snarl and snap and growl. The very atmosphere he breathedwas surcharged with hatred and malice, and this but served to increase thehatred and malice within him.
　　When Mit-sah cried out his command for the team to stop, White Fangobeyed. At first this caused trouble for the other dogs. All of them wouldspring upon the hated leader only to find the tables turned. Behind himwould be Mit-sah, the great whip singing in his hand. So the dogs came tounderstand that when the team stopped by order, White Fang was to be letalone. But when White Fang stopped without orders, then it was allowedthem to spring upon him and destroy him if they could. After severalexperiences, White Fang never stopped without orders. He learned quickly.
　　It was in the nature of things, that he must learn quickly if he were tosurvive the unusually severe conditions under which life was vouchsafed him.
　　But the dogs could never learn the lesson to leave him alone in camp.
　　Each day, pursuing him and crying defiance at him, the lesson of theprevious night was erased, and that night would have to be learned overagain, to be as immediately forgotten. Besides, there was a greaterconsistence in their dislike of him. They sensed between themselves andhim a difference of kind - cause sufficient in itself for hostility. Like him,they were domesticated wolves. But they had been domesticated forgenerations. Much of the Wild had been lost, so that to them the Wild wasthe unknown, the terrible, the ever-menacing and ever warring. But to him,in appearance and action and impulse, still clung the Wild. He symbolisedit, was its personification: so that when they showed their teeth to him theywere defending themselves against the powers of destruction that lurked inthe shadows of the forest and in the dark beyond the camp-fire.
　　But there was one lesson the dogs did learn, and that was to keeptogether. White Fang was too terrible for any of them to face single-handed. They met him with the mass-formation, otherwise he would havekilled them, one by one, in a night. As it was, he never had a chance to killthem. He might roll a dog off its feet, but the pack would be upon himbefore he could follow up and deliver the deadly throat-stroke. At the firsthint of conflict, the whole team drew together and faced him. The dogshad quarrels among themselves, but these were forgotten when troublewas brewing with White Fang.
　　On the other hand, try as they would, they could not kill White Fang.
　　He was too quick for them, too formidable, too wise. He avoided tightplaces and always backed out of it when they bade fair to surround him.
　　While, as for getting him off his feet, there was no dog among themcapable of doing the trick. His feet clung to the earth with the sametenacity that he clung to life. For that matter, life and footing weresynonymous in this unending warfare with the pack, and none knew itbetter than White Fang.
　　So he became the enemy of his kind, domesticated wolves that theywere, softened by the fires of man, weakened in the sheltering shadow ofman's strength. White Fang was bitter and implacable. The clay of himwas so moulded. He declared a vendetta against all dogs. And so terriblydid he live this vendetta that Grey Beaver, fierce savage himself, could notbut marvel at White Fang's ferocity. Never, he swore, had there been thelike of this animal; and the Indians in strange villages swore likewisewhen they considered the tale of his killings amongst their dogs.
　　When White Fang was nearly five years old, Grey Beaver took him onanother great journey, and long remembered was the havoc he workedamongst the dogs of the many villages along the Mackenzie, across theRockies, and down the Porcupine to the Yukon. He revelled in thevengeance he wreaked upon his kind. They were ordinary, unsuspectingdogs. They were not prepared for his swiftness and directness, for hisattack without warning. They did not know him for what he was, alightning-flash of slaughter. They bristled up to him, stiff-legged andchallenging, while he, wasting no time on elaborate preliminaries,snapping into action like a steel spring, was at their throats and destroyingthem before they knew what was happening and while they were yet in thethroes of surprise.
　　He became an adept at fighting. He economised. He never wasted hisstrength, never tussled. He was in too quickly for that, and, if he missed,was out again too quickly. The dislike of the wolf for close quarters washis to an unusual degree. He could not endure a prolonged contact withanother body. It smacked of danger. It made him frantic. He must be away,free, on his own legs, touching no living thing. It was the Wild stillclinging to him, asserting itself through him. This feeling had beenaccentuated by the Ishmaelite life he had led from his puppyhood. Dangerlurked in contacts. It was the trap, ever the trap, the fear of it lurking deepin the life of him, woven into the fibre of himIn consequence, the strange dogs he encountered had no chanceagainst him. He eluded their fangs. He got them, or got away, himselfuntouched in either event. In the natural course of things there wereexceptions to this. There were times when several dogs, pitching on to him,punished him before he could get away; and there were times when asingle dog scored deeply on him. But these were accidents. In the main, soefficient a fighter had he become, he went his way unscathed.
　　Another advantage he possessed was that of correctly judging time anddistance. Not that he did this consciously, however. He did not calculatesuch things. It was all automatic. His eyes saw correctly, and the nervescarried the vision correctly to his brain. The parts of him were betteradjusted than those of the average dog. They worked together moresmoothly and steadily. His was a better, far better, nervous, mental, andmuscular co- ordination. When his eyes conveyed to his brain the movingimage of an action, his brain without conscious effort, knew the space thatlimited that action and the time required for its completion. Thus, he couldavoid the leap of another dog, or the drive of its fangs, and at the samemoment could seize the infinitesimal fraction of time in which to deliverhis own attack. Body and brain, his was a more perfected mechanism. Notthat he was to be praised for it. Nature had been more generous to himthan to the average animal, that was all.
　　It was in the summer that White Fang arrived at Fort Yukon. GreyBeaver had crossed the great watershed between Mackenzie and theYukon in the late winter, and spent the spring in hunting among thewestern outlying spurs of the Rockies. Then, after the break-up of the iceon the Porcupine, he had built a canoe and paddled down that stream towhere it effected its junction with the Yukon just under the Artic circle.
　　Here stood the old Hudson's Bay Company fort; and here were manyIndians, much food, and unprecedented excitement. It was the summer of1898, and thousands of gold- hunters were going up the Yukon to Dawsonand the Klondike. Still hundreds of miles from their goal, neverthelessmany of them had been on the way for a year, and the least any of themhad travelled to get that far was five thousand miles, while some had comefrom the other side of the world.
　　Here Grey Beaver stopped. A whisper of the gold-rush had reached hisears, and he had come with several bales of furs, and another of gut-sewnmittens and moccasins. He would not have ventured so long a trip had henot expected generous profits. But what he had expected was nothing towhat he realised. His wildest dreams had not exceeded a hundred per cent.
　　profit; he made a thousand per cent. And like a true Indian, he settleddown to trade carefully and slowly, even if it took all summer and the restof the winter to dispose of his goods.
　　It was at Fort Yukon that White Fang saw his first white men. Ascompared with the Indians he had known, they were to him another race ofbeings, a race of superior gods. They impressed him as possessingsuperior power, and it is on power that godhead rests. White Fang did notreason it out, did not in his mind make the sharp generalisation that thewhite gods were more powerful. It was a feeling, nothing more, and yetnone the less potent. As, in his puppyhood, the looming bulks of the tepees,man-reared, had affected him as manifestations of power, so was heaffected now by the houses and the huge fort all of massive logs. Here waspower.
　　Those white gods were strong. They possessed greater masteryover matter than the gods he had known, most powerful among which wasGrey Beaver. And yet Grey Beaver was as a child-god among these white-skinned ones.
　　To be sure, White Fang only felt these things. He was not conscious ofthem. Yet it is upon feeling, more often than thinking, that animals act; andevery act White Fang now performed was based upon the feeling that thewhite men were the superior gods. In the first place he was very suspiciousof them. There was no telling what unknown terrors were theirs, whatunknown hurts they could administer. He was curious to observe them,fearful of being noticed by them. For the first few hours he was contentwith slinking around and watching them from a safe distance. Then he sawthat no harm befell the dogs that were near to them, and he came in closer.
　　In turn he was an object of great curiosity to them. His wolfishappearance caught their eyes at once, and they pointed him out to oneanother. This act of pointing put White Fang on his guard, and when theytried to approach him he showed his teeth and backed away. Not onesucceeded in laying a hand on him, and it was well that they did not.
　　White Fang soon learned that very few of these gods - not more than adozen - lived at this place. Every two or three days a steamer (another andcolossal manifestation of power) came into the bank and stopped forseveral hours. The white men came from off these steamers and wentaway on them again. There seemed untold numbers of these white men. Inthe first day or so, he saw more of them than he had seen Indians in all hislife; and as the days went by they continued to come up the river, stop, andthen go on up the river out of sight.
　　But if the white gods were all-powerful, their dogs did not amount tomuch. This White Fang quickly discovered by mixing with those thatcame ashore with their masters. They were irregular shapes and sizes.
　　Some were short-legged - too short; others were long- legged - too long.
　　They had hair instead of fur, and a few had very little hair at that. Andnone of them knew how to fight.
　　As an enemy of his kind, it was in White Fang's province to fight withthem. This he did, and he quickly achieved for them a mighty contempt.
　　They were soft and helpless, made much noise, and floundered aroundclumsily trying to accomplish by main strength what he accomplished bydexterity and cunning. They rushed bellowing at him. He sprang to theside. They did not know what had become of him; and in that moment hestruck them on the shoulder, rolling them off their feet and delivering hisstroke at the throat.
　　Sometimes this stroke was successful, and a stricken dog rolled in thedirt, to be pounced upon and torn to pieces by the pack of Indian dogs thatwaited. White Fang was wise. He had long since learned that the godswere made angry when their dogs were killed. The white men were noexception to this. So he was content, when he had overthrown and slashedwide the throat of one of their dogs, to drop back and let the pack go inand do the cruel finishing work. It was then that the white men rushed in,visiting their wrath heavily on the pack, while White Fang went free. Hewould stand off at a little distance and look on, while stones, clubs, axes,and all sorts of weapons fell upon his fellows. White Fang was very wise.
　　But his fellows grew wise in their own way; and in this White Fanggrew wise with them. They learned that it was when a steamer first tied tothe bank that they had their fun. After the first two or three strange dogshad been downed and destroyed, the white men hustled their own animalsback on board and wrecked savage vengeance on the offenders. One whiteman, having seen his dog, a setter, torn to pieces before his eyes, drew arevolver. He fired rapidly, six times, and six of the pack lay dead or dying- another manifestation of power that sank deep into White Fang'sconsciousness.
　　White Fang enjoyed it all. He did not love his kind, and he was shrewdenough to escape hurt himself. At first, the killing of the white men's dogshad been a diversion. After a time it became his occupation. There was nowork for him to do. Grey Beaver was busy trading and getting wealthy. SoWhite Fang hung around the landing with the disreputable gang of Indiandogs, waiting for steamers. With the arrival of a steamer the fun began.
　　After a few minutes, by the time the white men had got over their surprise,the gang scattered. The fun was over until the next steamer should arrive.
　　But it can scarcely be said that White Fang was a member of the gang.
　　He did not mingle with it, but remained aloof, always himself, and waseven feared by it. It is true, he worked with it. He picked the quarrel withthe strange dog while the gang waited. And when he had overthrown thestrange dog the gang went into finish it. But it is equally true that he thenwithdrew, leaving the gang to receive the punishment of the outragedgods.
　　It did not require much exertion to pick these quarrels. All he had to do,when the strange dogs came ashore, was to show himself. When they sawhim they rushed for him. It was their instinct. He was the Wild - theunknown, the terrible, the ever-menacing, the thing that prowled in thedarkness around the fires of the primeval world when they, cowering closeto the fires, were reshaping their instincts, learning to fear the Wild out ofwhich they had come, and which they had deserted and betrayed.
　　Generation by generation, down all the generations, had this fear of theWild been stamped into their natures. For centuries the Wild had stood forterror and destruction. And during all this time free licence had been theirs,from their masters, to kill the things of the Wild. In doing this they hadprotected both themselves and the gods whose companionship they sharedAnd so, fresh from the soft southern world, these dogs, trotting downthe gang-plank and out upon the Yukon shore had but to see White Fang toexperience the irresistible impulse to rush upon him and destroy him. Theymight be town-reared dogs, but the instinctive fear of the Wild was theirsjust the same. Not alone with their own eyes did they see the wolfishcreature in the clear light of day, standing before them. They saw him withthe eyes of their ancestors, and by their inherited memory they knewWhite Fang for the wolf, and they remembered the ancient feud.
　　All of which served to make White Fang's days enjoyable. If the sightof him drove these strange dogs upon him, so much the better for him, somuch the worse for them. They looked upon him as legitimate prey, and aslegitimate prey he looked upon them.
　　Not for nothing had he first seen the light of day in a lonely lair andfought his first fights with the ptarmigan, the weasel, and the lynx. Andnot for nothing had his puppyhood been made bitter by the persecution ofLip-lip and the whole puppy pack. It might have been otherwise, and hewould then have been otherwise. Had Lip-lip not existed, he would havepassed his puppyhood with the other puppies and grown up more doglikeand with more liking for dogs. Had Grey Beaver possessed the plummet ofaffection and love, he might have sounded the deeps of White Fang'snature and brought up to the surface all manner of kindly qualities. Butthese things had not been so. The clay of White Fang had been mouldeduntil he became what he was, morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious,the enemy of all his kind.
Chapter 16 The Mad God
A small number of white men lived in Fort Yukon. These men hadbeen long in the country. They called themselves Sour-doughs, and tookgreat pride in so classifying themselves. For other men, new in the land,they felt nothing but disdain. The men who came ashore from the steamerswere newcomers. They were known as CHECHAQUOS, and they alwayswilted at the application of the name. They made their bread with baking-powder. This was the invidious distinction between them and the Sour-doughs, who, forsooth, made their bread from sour-dough because theyhad no baking-powder.
　　All of which is neither here nor there. The men in the fort disdainedthe newcomers and enjoyed seeing them come to grief. Especially did theyenjoy the havoc worked amongst the newcomers' dogs by White Fang andhis disreputable gang. When a steamer arrived, the men of the fort made ita point always to come down to the bank and see the fun. They lookedforward to it with as much anticipation as did the Indian dogs, while theywere not slow to appreciate the savage and crafty part played by WhiteFang.
　　But there was one man amongst them who particularly enjoyed thesport. He would come running at the first sound of a steamboat's whistle;and when the last fight was over and White Fang and the pack hadscattered, he would return slowly to the fort, his face heavy with regret.
　　Sometimes, when a soft southland dog went down, shrieking its death-cryunder the fangs of the pack, this man would be unable to contain himself,and would leap into the air and cry out with delight. And always he had asharp and covetous eye for White Fang.
　　This man was called "Beauty" by the other men of the fort. No oneknew his first name, and in general he was known in the country as BeautySmith. But he was anything save a beauty. To antithesis was due hisnaming. He was pre-eminently unbeautiful. Nature had been niggardlywith him. He was a small man to begin with; and upon his meagre framewas deposited an even more strikingly meagre head. Its apex might belikened to a point. In fact, in his boyhood, before he had been namedBeauty by his fellows, he had been called "Pinhead."Backward, from the apex, his head slanted down to his neck andforward it slanted uncompromisingly to meet a low and remarkably wideforehead. Beginning here, as though regretting her parsimony, Nature hadspread his features with a lavish hand. His eyes were large, and betweenthem was the distance of two eyes. His face, in relation to the rest of him,was prodigious. In order to discover the necessary area, Nature had givenhim an enormous prognathous jaw. It was wide and heavy, and protrudedoutward and down until it seemed to rest on his chest. Possibly thisappearance was due to the weariness of the slender neck, unable properlyto support so great a burden.
　　This jaw gave the impression of ferocious determination. Butsomething lacked. Perhaps it was from excess. Perhaps the jaw was toolarge. At any rate, it was a lie. Beauty Smith was known far and wide asthe weakest of weak-kneed and snivelling cowards. To complete hisdescription, his teeth were large and yellow, while the two eye-teeth,larger than their fellows, showed under his lean lips like fangs. His eyeswere yellow and muddy, as though Nature had run short on pigments andsqueezed together the dregs of all her tubes. It was the same with his hair,sparse and irregular of growth, muddy-yellow and dirty-yellow, rising onhis head and sprouting out of his face in unexpected tufts and bunches, inappearance like clumped and wind-blown grain.
　　In short, Beauty Smith was a monstrosity, and the blame of it layelsewhere. He was not responsible. The clay of him had been so mouldedin the making. He did the cooking for the other men in the fort, the dish-washing and the drudgery. They did not despise him. Rather did theytolerate him in a broad human way, as one tolerates any creature evillytreated in the making. Also, they feared him. His cowardly rages madethem dread a shot in the back or poison in their coffee. But somebody hadto do the cooking, and whatever else his shortcomings, Beauty Smithcould cook.
　　This was the man that looked at White Fang, delighted in his ferociousprowess, and desired to possess him. He made overtures to White Fangfrom the first. White Fang began by ignoring him. Later on, when theovertures became more insistent, White Fang bristled and bared his teethand backed away. He did not like the man. The feel of him was bad. Hesensed the evil in him, and feared the extended hand and the attempts atsoft-spoken speech. Because of all this, he hated the man.
　　With the simpler creatures, good and bad are things simply understood.
　　The good stands for all things that bring easement and satisfaction andsurcease from pain. Therefore, the good is liked. The bad stands for allthings that are fraught with discomfort, menace, and hurt, and is hatedaccordingly. White Fang's feel of Beauty Smith was bad. From the man'sdistorted body and twisted mind, in occult ways, like mists rising frommalarial marshes, came emanations of the unhealth within. Not byreasoning, not by the five senses alone, but by other and remoter anduncharted senses, came the feeling to White Fang that the man wasominous with evil, pregnant with hurtfulness, and therefore a thing bad,and wisely to be hated.
　　White Fang was in Grey Beaver's camp when Beauty Smith firstvisited it. At the faint sound of his distant feet, before he came in sight,White Fang knew who was coming and began to bristle. He had beenlying down in an abandon of comfort, but he arose quickly, and, as theman arrived, slid away in true wolf-fashion to the edge of the camp. Hedid not know what they said, but he could see the man and Grey Beavertalking together. Once, the man pointed at him, and White Fang snarledback as though the hand were just descending upon him instead of being,as it was, fifty feet away. The man laughed at this; and White Fang slunkaway to the sheltering woods, his head turned to observe as he glidedsoftly over the ground.
　　Grey Beaver refused to sell the dog. He had grown rich with histrading and stood in need of nothing. Besides, White Fang was a valuableanimal, the strongest sled-dog he had ever owned, and the best leader.
　　Furthermore, there was no dog like him on the Mackenzie nor the Yukon.
　　He could fight. He killed other dogs as easily as men killed mosquitoes.
　　(Beauty Smith's eyes lighted up at this, and he licked his thin lips with aneager tongue). No, White Fang was not for sale at any price.
　　But Beauty Smith knew the ways of Indians. He visited Grey Beaver'scamp often, and hidden under his coat was always a black bottle or so.
　　One of the potencies of whisky is the breeding of thirst. Grey Beaver gotthe thirst. His fevered membranes and burnt stomach began to clamour formore and more of the scorching fluid; while his brain, thrust all awry bythe unwonted stimulant, permitted him to go any length to obtain it. Themoney he had received for his furs and mittens and moccasins began to go.
　　It went faster and faster, and the shorter his money-sack grew, the shortergrew his temper.
　　In the end his money and goods and temper were all gone. Nothingremained to him but his thirst, a prodigious possession in itself that grewmore prodigious with every sober breath he drew. Then it was that BeautySmith had talk with him again about the sale of White Fang; but this timethe price offered was in bottles, not dollars, and Grey Beaver's ears weremore eager to hear.
　　"You ketch um dog you take um all right," was his last word.
　　The bottles were delivered, but after two days. "You ketch um dog,"were Beauty Smith's words to Grey Beaver.
　　White Fang slunk into camp one evening and dropped down with asigh of content. The dreaded white god was not there. For days hismanifestations of desire to lay hands on him had been growing moreinsistent, and during that time White Fang had been compelled to avoidthe camp. He did not know what evil was threatened by those insistenthands. He knew only that they did threaten evil of some sort, and that itwas best for him to keep out of their reach.
　　But scarcely had he lain down when Grey Beaver staggered over tohim and tied a leather thong around his neck. He sat down beside WhiteFang, holding the end of the thong in his hand. In the other hand he held abottle, which, from time to time, was inverted above his head to theaccompaniment of gurgling noises.
　　An hour of this passed, when the vibrations of feet in contact with theground foreran the one who approached. White Fang heard it first, and hewas bristling with recognition while Grey Beaver still nodded stupidly.
　　White Fang tried to draw the thong softly out of his master's hand; but therelaxed fingers closed tightly and Grey Beaver roused himself.
　　Beauty Smith strode into camp and stood over White Fang. He snarledsoftly up at the thing of fear, watching keenly the deportment of the hands.
　　One hand extended outward and began to descend upon his head. His softsnarl grew tense and harsh. The hand continued slowly to descend, whilehe crouched beneath it, eyeing it malignantly, his snarl growing shorterand shorter as, with quickening breath, it approached its culmination.
　　Suddenly he snapped, striking with his fangs like a snake. The hand wasjerked back, and the teeth came together emptily with a sharp click.
　　Beauty Smith was frightened and angry. Grey Beaver clouted White Fangalongside the head, so that he cowered down close to the earth inrespectful obedience.
　　White Fang's suspicious eyes followed every movement. He sawBeauty Smith go away and return with a stout club. Then the end of thethong was given over to him by Grey Beaver. Beauty Smith started towalk away. The thong grew taut. White Fang resisted it. Grey Beaverclouted him right and left to make him get up and follow. He obeyed, butwith a rush, hurling himself upon the stranger who was dragging himaway. Beauty Smith did not jump away. He had been waiting for this. Heswung the club smartly, stopping the rush midway and smashing WhiteFang down upon the ground. Grey Beaver laughed and nodded approval.
　　Beauty Smith tightened the thong again, and White Fang crawled limplyand dizzily to his feet.
　　He did not rush a second time. One smash from the club was sufficientto convince him that the white god knew how to handle it, and he was toowise to fight the inevitable. So he followed morosely at Beauty Smith'sheels, his tail between his legs, yet snarling softly under his breath. ButBeauty Smith kept a wary eye on him, and the club was held always readyto strike.
　　At the fort Beauty Smith left him securely tied and went in to bed.
　　White Fang waited an hour. Then he applied his teeth to the thong, and inthe space of ten seconds was free. He had wasted no time with his teeth.
　　There had been no useless gnawing. The thong was cut across, diagonally,almost as clean as though done by a knife. White Fang looked up at thefort, at the same time bristling and growling. Then he turned and trottedback to Grey Beaver's camp. He owed no allegiance to this strange andterrible god. He had given himself to Grey Beaver, and to Grey Beaver heconsidered he still belonged.
　　But what had occurred before was repeated - with a difference. GreyBeaver again made him fast with a thong, and in the morning turned himover to Beauty Smith. And here was where the difference came in. BeautySmith gave him a beating. Tied securely, White Fang could only ragefutilely and endure the punishment. Club and whip were both used uponhim, and he experienced the worst beating he had ever received in his life.
　　Even the big beating given him in his puppyhood by Grey Beaver wasmild compared with this.
　　Beauty Smith enjoyed the task. He delighted in it. He gloated over hisvictim, and his eyes flamed dully, as he swung the whip or club andlistened to White Fang's cries of pain and to his helpless bellows andsnarls. For Beauty Smith was cruel in the way that cowards are cruel.
　　Cringing and snivelling himself before the blows or angry speech of a man,he revenged himself, in turn, upon creatures weaker than he. All life likespower, and Beauty Smith was no exception. Denied the expression ofpower amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lesser creatures andthere vindicated the life that was in him. But Beauty Smith had not createdhimself, and no blame was to be attached to him. He had come into theworld with a twisted body and a brute intelligence. This had constitutedthe clay of him, and it had not been kindly moulded by the world.
　　White Fang knew why he was being beaten. When Grey Beaver tiedthe thong around his neck, and passed the end of the thong into BeautySmith's keeping, White Fang knew that it was his god's will for him to gowith Beauty Smith. And when Beauty Smith left him tied outside the fort,he knew that it was Beauty Smith's will that he should remain there.
　　Therefore, he had disobeyed the will of both the gods, and earned theconsequent punishment. He had seen dogs change owners in the past, andhe had seen the runaways beaten as he was being beaten. He was wise, andyet in the nature of him there were forces greater than wisdom. One ofthese was fidelity. He did not love Grey Beaver, yet, even in the face of hiswill and his anger, he was faithful to him. He could not help it. Thisfaithfulness was a quality of the clay that composed him. It was the qualitythat was peculiarly the possession of his kind; the quality that set apart hisspecies from all other species; the quality that has enabled the wolf and thewild dog to come in from the open and be the companions of man.
　　After the beating, White Fang was dragged back to the fort. But thistime Beauty Smith left him tied with a stick. One does not give up a godeasily, and so with White Fang. Grey Beaver was his own particular god,and, in spite of Grey Beaver's will, White Fang still clung to him andwould not give him up. Grey Beaver had betrayed and forsaken him, butthat had no effect upon him. Not for nothing had he surrendered himselfbody and soul to Grey Beaver. There had been no reservation on WhiteFang's part, and the bond was not to be broken easily.
　　So, in the night, when the men in the fort were asleep, White Fangapplied his teeth to the stick that held him. The wood was seasoned anddry, and it was tied so closely to his neck that he could scarcely get histeeth to it. It was only by the severest muscular exertion and neck-archingthat he succeeded in getting the wood between his teeth, and barelybetween his teeth at that; and it was only by the exercise of an immensepatience, extending through many hours, that he succeeded in gnawingthrough the stick. This was something that dogs were not supposed to do.
　　It was unprecedented. But White Fang did it, trotting away from the fort inthe early morning, with the end of the stick hanging to his neck.
　　He was wise. But had he been merely wise he would not have goneback to Grey Beaver who had already twice betrayed him. But there washis faithfulness, and he went back to be betrayed yet a third time. Again heyielded to the tying of a thong around his neck by Grey Beaver, and againBeauty Smith came to claim him. And this time he was beaten even moreseverely than before.
　　Grey Beaver looked on stolidly while the white man wielded the whip.
　　He gave no protection. It was no longer his dog. When the beating wasover White Fang was sick. A soft southland dog would have died under it,but not he. His school of life had been sterner, and he was himself ofsterner stuff. He had too great vitality. His clutch on life was too strong.
　　But he was very sick. At first he was unable to drag himself along, andBeauty Smith had to wait half-an-hour for him. And then, blind andreeling, he followed at Beauty Smith's heels back to the fort.
　　But now he was tied with a chain that defied his teeth, and he strove invain, by lunging, to draw the staple from the timber into which it wasdriven. After a few days, sober and bankrupt, Grey Beaver departed up thePorcupine on his long journey to the Mackenzie. White Fang remained onthe Yukon, the property of a man more than half mad and all brute. Butwhat is a dog to know in its consciousness of madness? To White Fang,Beauty Smith was a veritable, if terrible, god. He was a mad god at best,but White Fang knew nothing of madness; he knew only that he mustsubmit to the will of this new master, obey his every whim and fancy.
Chapter 17 The Reign Of Hat
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.
Chapter 18 The Clinging Death
Beauty Smith slipped the chain from his neck and stepped back.
　　For once White Fang did not make an immediate attack. He stood still,ears pricked forward, alert and curious, surveying the strange animal thatfaced him. He had never seen such a dog before. Tim Keenan shoved thebull-dog forward with a muttered "Go to it." The animal waddled towardthe centre of the circle, short and squat and ungainly. He came to a stopand blinked across at White Fang.
　　There were cries from the crowd of, "Go to him, Cherokee! Sick 'm,Cherokee! Eat 'm up!"But Cherokee did not seem anxious to fight. He turned his head andblinked at the men who shouted, at the same time wagging his stump of atail good-naturedly. He was not afraid, but merely lazy. Besides, it did notseem to him that it was intended he should fight with the dog he sawbefore him. He was not used to fighting with that kind of dog, and he waswaiting for them to bring on the real dog.
　　Tim Keenan stepped in and bent over Cherokee, fondling him on bothsides of the shoulders with hands that rubbed against the grain of the hairand that made slight, pushing-forward movements. These were so manysuggestions. Also, their effect was irritating, for Cherokee began to growl,very softly, deep down in his throat. There was a correspondence inrhythm between the growls and the movements of the man's hands. Thegrowl rose in the throat with the culmination of each forward-pushingmovement, and ebbed down to start up afresh with the beginning of thenext movement. The end of each movement was the accent of the rhythm,the movement ending abruptly and the growling rising with a jerk.
　　This was not without its effect on White Fang. The hair began to riseon his neck and across the shoulders. Tim Keenan gave a final shoveforward and stepped back again. As the impetus that carried Cherokeeforward died down, he continued to go forward of his own volition, in aswift, bow-legged run. Then White Fang struck. A cry of startledadmiration went up. He had covered the distance and gone in more like acat than a dog; and with the same cat-like swiftness he had slashed withhis fangs and leaped clear.
　　The bull-dog was bleeding back of one ear from a rip in his thick neck.
　　He gave no sign, did not even snarl, but turned and followed after WhiteFang. The display on both sides, the quickness of the one and thesteadiness of the other, had excited the partisan spirit of the crowd, and themen were making new bets and increasing original bets. Again, and yetagain, White Fang sprang in, slashed, and got away untouched, and stillhis strange foe followed after him, without too great haste, not slowly, butdeliberately and determinedly, in a businesslike sort of way. There waspurpose in his method - something for him to do that he was intent upondoing and from which nothing could distract him.
　　His whole demeanour, every action, was stamped with this purpose. Itpuzzled White Fang. Never had he seen such a dog. It had no hairprotection. It was soft, and bled easily. There was no thick mat of fur tobaffle White Fang's teeth as they were often baffled by dogs of his ownbreed. Each time that his teeth struck they sank easily into the yieldingflesh, while the animal did not seem able to defend itself. Anotherdisconcerting thing was that it made no outcry, such as he had beenaccustomed to with the other dogs he had fought. Beyond a growl or agrunt, the dog took its punishment silently. And never did it flag in itspursuit of him.
　　Not that Cherokee was slow. He could turn and whirl swiftly enough,but White Fang was never there. Cherokee was puzzled, too. He had neverfought before with a dog with which he could not close. The desire toclose had always been mutual. But here was a dog that kept at a distance,dancing and dodging here and there and all about. And when it did get itsteeth into him, it did not hold on but let go instantly and darted awayagain.
　　But White Fang could not get at the soft underside of the throat. Thebull-dog stood too short, while its massive jaws were an added protection.
　　White Fang darted in and out unscathed, while Cherokee's woundsincreased. Both sides of his neck and head were ripped and slashed. Hebled freely, but showed no signs of being disconcerted. He continued hisplodding pursuit, though once, for the moment baffled, he came to a fullstop and blinked at the men who looked on, at the same time wagging hisstump of a tail as an expression of his willingness to fight.
　　In that moment White Fang was in upon him and out, in passingripping his trimmed remnant of an ear. With a slight manifestation ofanger, Cherokee took up the pursuit again, running on the inside of thecircle White Fang was making, and striving to fasten his deadly grip onWhite Fang's throat. The bull-dog missed by a hair's-breadth, and cries ofpraise went up as White Fang doubled suddenly out of danger in theopposite direction.
　　The time went by. White Fang still danced on, dodging and doubling,leaping in and out, and ever inflicting damage. And still the bull-dog, withgrim certitude, toiled after him. Sooner or later he would accomplish hispurpose, get the grip that would win the battle. In the meantime, heaccepted all the punishment the other could deal him. His tufts of ears hadbecome tassels, his neck and shoulders were slashed in a score of places,and his very lips were cut and bleeding - all from these lightning snapsthat were beyond his foreseeing and guarding.
　　Time and again White Fang had attempted to knock Cherokee off hisfeet; but the difference in their height was too great. Cherokee was toosquat, too close to the ground. White Fang tried the trick once too often.
　　The chance came in one of his quick doublings and counter-circlings. Hecaught Cherokee with head turned away as he whirled more slowly. Hisshoulder was exposed. White Fang drove in upon it: but his own shoulderwas high above, while he struck with such force that his momentumcarried him on across over the other's body. For the first time in hisfighting history, men saw White Fang lose his footing. His body turned ahalf-somersault in the air, and he would have landed on his back had henot twisted, catlike, still in the air, in the effort to bring his feet to the earth.
　　As it was, he struck heavily on his side. The next instant he was on his feet,but in that instant Cherokee's teeth closed on his throat.
　　It was not a good grip, being too low down toward the chest; butCherokee held on. White Fang sprang to his feet and tore wildly around,trying to shake off the bull-dog's body. It made him frantic, this clinging,dragging weight. It bound his movements, restricted his freedom. It waslike the trap, and all his instinct resented it and revolted against it. It was amad revolt. For several minutes he was to all intents insane. The basic lifethat was in him took charge of him. The will to exist of his body surgedover him. He was dominated by this mere flesh-love of life. Allintelligence was gone. It was as though he had no brain. His reason wasunseated by the blind yearning of the flesh to exist and move, at allhazards to move, to continue to move, for movement was the expressionof its existence.
　　Round and round he went, whirling and turning and reversing, tryingto shake off the fifty-pound weight that dragged at his throat. The bull-dogdid little but keep his grip. Sometimes, and rarely, he managed to get hisfeet to the earth and for a moment to brace himself against White Fang.
　　But the next moment his footing would be lost and he would be draggingaround in the whirl of one of White Fang's mad gyrations. Cherokeeidentified himself with his instinct. He knew that he was doing the rightthing by holding on, and there came to him certain blissful thrills ofsatisfaction. At such moments he even closed his eyes and allowed hisbody to be hurled hither and thither, willy-nilly, careless of any hurt thatmight thereby come to it. That did not count. The grip was the thing, andthe grip he kept.
　　White Fang ceased only when he had tired himself out. He could donothing, and he could not understand. Never, in all his fighting, had thisthing happened. The dogs he had fought with did not fight that way. Withthem it was snap and slash and get away, snap and slash and get away. Helay partly on his side, panting for breath. Cherokee still holding his grip,urged against him, trying to get him over entirely on his side. White Fangresisted, and he could feel the jaws shifting their grip, slightly relaxing andcoming together again in a chewing movement. Each shift brought the gripcloser to his throat. The bull-dog's method was to hold what he had, andwhen opportunity favoured to work in for more. Opportunity favouredwhen White Fang remained quiet. When White Fang struggled, Cherokeewas content merely to hold on.
　　The bulging back of Cherokee's neck was the only portion of his bodythat White Fang's teeth could reach. He got hold toward the base where theneck comes out from the shoulders; but he did not know the chewingmethod of fighting, nor were his jaws adapted to it. He spasmodicallyripped and tore with his fangs for a space. Then a change in their positiondiverted him. The bull-dog had managed to roll him over on his back, andstill hanging on to his throat, was on top of him. Like a cat, White Fangbowed his hind- quarters in, and, with the feet digging into his enemy'sabdomen above him, he began to claw with long tearing-strokes. Cherokeemight well have been disembowelled had he not quickly pivoted on hisgrip and got his body off of White Fang's and at right angles to it.
　　There was no escaping that grip. It was like Fate itself, and asinexorable. Slowly it shifted up along the jugular. All that saved WhiteFang from death was the loose skin of his neck and the thick fur thatcovered it. This served to form a large roll in Cherokee's mouth, the fur ofwhich well-nigh defied his teeth. But bit by bit, whenever the chanceoffered, he was getting more of the loose skin and fur in his mouth. Theresult was that he was slowly throttling White Fang. The latter's breathwas drawn with greater and greater difficulty as the moments went by.
　　It began to look as though the battle were over. The backers ofCherokee waxed jubilant and offered ridiculous odds. White Fang'sbackers were correspondingly depressed, and refused bets of ten to oneand twenty to one, though one man was rash enough to close a wager offifty to one. This man was Beauty Smith. He took a step into the ring andpointed his finger at White Fang. Then he began to laugh derisively andscornfully. This produced the desired effect. White Fang went wild withrage. He called up his reserves of strength, and gained his feet. As hestruggled around the ring, the fifty pounds of his foe ever dragging on histhroat, his anger passed on into panic. The basic life of him dominated himagain, and his intelligence fled before the will of his flesh to live. Roundand round and back again, stumbling and falling and rising, evenuprearing at times on his hind-legs and lifting his foe clear of the earth, hestruggled vainly to shake off the clinging death.
　　At last he fell, toppling backward, exhausted; and the bull-dogpromptly shifted his grip, getting in closer, mangling more and more of thefur-folded flesh, throttling White Fang more severely than ever. Shouts ofapplause went up for the victor, and there were many cries of "Cherokee!""Cherokee!" To this Cherokee responded by vigorous wagging of thestump of his tail. But the clamour of approval did not distract him. Therewas no sympathetic relation between his tail and his massive jaws. Theone might wag, but the others held their terrible grip on White Fang'sthroat.
　　It was at this time that a diversion came to the spectators. There was ajingle of bells. Dog-mushers' cries were heard. Everybody, save BeautySmith, looked apprehensively, the fear of the police strong upon them. Butthey saw, up the trail, and not down, two men running with sled and dogs.
　　They were evidently coming down the creek from some prospecting trip.
　　At sight of the crowd they stopped their dogs and came over and joined it,curious to see the cause of the excitement. The dog-musher wore amoustache, but the other, a taller and younger man, was smooth-shaven,his skin rosy from the pounding of his blood and the running in the frostyair.
　　White Fang had practically ceased struggling. Now and again heresisted spasmodically and to no purpose. He could get little air, and thatlittle grew less and less under the merciless grip that ever tightened. Inspite of his armour of fur, the great vein of his throat would have longsince been torn open, had not the first grip of the bull-dog been so lowdown as to be practically on the chest. It had taken Cherokee a long timeto shift that grip upward, and this had also tended further to clog his jawswith fur and skin-fold.
　　In the meantime, the abysmal brute in Beauty Smith had been risinginto his brain and mastering the small bit of sanity that he possessed atbest. When he saw White Fang's eyes beginning to glaze, he knew beyonddoubt that the fight was lost. Then he broke loose. He sprang upon WhiteFang and began savagely to kick him. There were hisses from the crowdand cries of protest, but that was all. While this went on, and Beauty Smithcontinued to kick White Fang, there was a commotion in the crowd. Thetall young newcomer was forcing his way through, shouldering men rightand left without ceremony or gentleness. When he broke through into thering, Beauty Smith was just in the act of delivering another kick. All hisweight was on one loot, and he was in a state of unstable equilibrium. Atthat moment the newcomer's fist landed a smashing blow full in his face.
　　Beauty Smith's remaining leg left the ground, and his whole body seemedto lift into the air as he turned over backward and struck the snow. Thenewcomer turned upon the crowd.
　　"You cowards!" he cried. "You beasts!"He was in a rage himself - a sane rage. His grey eyes seemed metallicand steel-like as they flashed upon the crowd. Beauty Smith regained hisfeet and came toward him, sniffling and cowardly. The new-comer did notunderstand. He did not know how abject a coward the other was, andthought he was coming back intent on fighting. So, with a "You beast!" hesmashed Beauty Smith over backward with a second blow in the face.
　　Beauty Smith decided that the snow was the safest place for him, and laywhere he had fallen, making no effort to get up.
　　"Come on, Matt, lend a hand," the newcomer called the dog-musher,who had followed him into the ring.
　　Both men bent over the dogs. Matt took hold of White Fang, ready topull when Cherokee's jaws should be loosened. This the younger manendeavoured to accomplish by clutching the bulldog's jaws in his handsand trying to spread them. It was a vain undertaking. As he pulled andtugged and wrenched, he kept exclaiming with every expulsion of breath,"Beasts!"The crowd began to grow unruly, and some of the men were protestingagainst the spoiling of the sport; but they were silenced when thenewcomer lifted his head from his work for a moment and glared at them.
　　"You damn beasts!" he finally exploded, and went back to his task.
　　"It's no use, Mr. Scott, you can't break 'm apart that way," Matt said atlast.
　　The pair paused and surveyed the locked dogs.
　　"Ain't bleedin' much," Matt announced. "Ain't got all the way in yet.""But he's liable to any moment," Scott answered. "There, did you seethat! He shifted his grip in a bit."The younger man's excitement and apprehension for White Fang wasgrowing. He struck Cherokee about the head savagely again and again.
　　But that did not loosen the jaws. Cherokee wagged the stump of his tail inadvertisement that he understood the meaning of the blows, but that heknew he was himself in the right and only doing his duty by keeping hisgrip.
　　"Won't some of you help?" Scott cried desperately at the crowd.
　　But no help was offered. Instead, the crowd began sarcastically tocheer him on and showered him with facetious advice.
　　"You'll have to get a pry," Matt counselled.
　　The other reached into the holster at his hip, drew his revolver, andtried to thrust its muzzle between the bull-dog's jaws. He shoved, andshoved hard, till the grating of the steel against the locked teeth could bedistinctly heard. Both men were on their knees, bending over the dogs.
　　Tim Keenan strode into the ring. He paused beside Scott and touched himon the shoulder, saying ominously:
　　"Don't break them teeth, stranger.""Then I'll break his neck," Scott retorted, continuing his shoving andwedging with the revolver muzzle.
　　"I said don't break them teeth," the faro-dealer repeated moreominously than before.
　　But if it was a bluff he intended, it did not work. Scott never desistedfrom his efforts, though he looked up coolly and asked:
　　"Your dog?"The faro-dealer grunted.
　　"Then get in here and break this grip.""Well, stranger," the other drawled irritatingly, "I don't mind tellingyou that's something I ain't worked out for myself. I don't know how toturn the trick.""Then get out of the way," was the reply, "and don't bother me. I'mbusy."Tim Keenan continued standing over him, but Scott took no furthernotice of his presence. He had managed to get the muzzle in between thejaws on one side, and was trying to get it out between the jaws on theother side. This accomplished, he pried gently and carefully, loosening thejaws a bit at a time, while Matt, a bit at a time, extricated White Fang'smangled neck.
　　"Stand by to receive your dog," was Scott's peremptory order toCherokee's owner.
　　The faro-dealer stooped down obediently and got a firm hold onCherokee.
　　"Now!" Scott warned, giving the final pry.
　　The dogs were drawn apart, the bull-dog struggling vigorously.
　　"Take him away," Scott commanded, and Tim Keenan draggedCherokee back into the crowd.
　　White Fang made several ineffectual efforts to get up. Once he gainedhis feet, but his legs were too weak to sustain him, and he slowly wiltedand sank back into the snow. His eyes were half closed, and the surface ofthem was glassy. His jaws were apart, and through them the tongueprotruded, draggled and limp. To all appearances he looked like a dog thathad been strangled to death. Matt examined him.
　　"Just about all in," he announced; "but he's breathin' all right."Beauty Smith had regained his feet and come over to look at WhiteFang.
　　"Matt, how much is a good sled-dog worth?" Scott asked.
　　The dog-musher, still on his knees and stooped over White Fang,calculated for a moment.
　　"Three hundred dollars," he answered.
　　"And how much for one that's all chewed up like this one?" Scottasked, nudging White Fang with his foot.
　　"Half of that," was the dog-musher's judgment. Scott turned uponBeauty Smith.
　　"Did you hear, Mr. Beast? I'm going to take your dog from you, andI'm going to give you a hundred and fifty for him."He opened his pocket-book and counted out the bills.
　　Beauty Smith put his hands behind his back, refusing to touch theproffered money.
　　"I ain't a-sellin'," he said.
　　"Oh, yes you are," the other assured him. "Because I'm buying. Here'syour money. The dog's mine."Beauty Smith, his hands still behind him, began to back away.
　　Scott sprang toward him, drawing his fist back to strike. Beauty Smithcowered down in anticipation of the blow.
　　"I've got my rights," he whimpered.
　　"You've forfeited your rights to own that dog," was the rejoinder. "Areyou going to take the money? or do I have to hit you again?""All right," Beauty Smith spoke up with the alacrity of fear. "But I takethe money under protest," he added. "The dog's a mint. I ain't a-goin' to berobbed. A man's got his rights.""Correct," Scott answered, passing the money over to him. "A man'sgot his rights. But you're not a man. You're a beast.""Wait till I get back to Dawson," Beauty Smith threatened. "I'll havethe law on you.""If you open your mouth when you get back to Dawson, I'll have yourun out of town. Understand?"Beauty Smith replied with a grunt.
　　"Understand?" the other thundered with abrupt fierceness.
　　"Yes," Beauty Smith grunted, shrinking away.
　　"Yes what?""Yes, sir," Beauty Smith snarled.
　　"Look out! He'll bite!" some one shouted, and a guffaw of laughterwent up.
　　Scott turned his back on him, and returned to help the dog-musher,who was working over White Fang.
　　Some of the men were already departing; others stood in groups,looking on and talking. Tim Keenan joined one of the groups.
　　"Who's that mug?" he asked.
　　"Weedon Scott," some one answered.
　　"And who in hell is Weedon Scott?" the faro-dealer demanded.
　　"Oh, one of them crackerjack minin' experts. He's in with all the bigbugs. If you want to keep out of trouble, you'll steer clear of him, that's mytalk. He's all hunky with the officials. The Gold Commissioner's a specialpal of his.""I thought he must be somebody," was the faro-dealer's comment.
　　"That's why I kept my hands offen him at the start."
Chapter 19 The Indomitable
"It's hopeless," Weedon Scott confessed.
　　He sat on the step of his cabin and stared at the dog-musher, whoresponded with a shrug that was equally hopeless.
　　Together they looked at White Fang at the end of his stretched chain,bristling, snarling, ferocious, straining to get at the sled-dogs. Havingreceived sundry lessons from Matt, said lessons being imparted by meansof a club, the sled-dogs had learned to leave White Fang alone; and eventhen they were lying down at a distance, apparently oblivious of his existence.
　　"It's a wolf and there's no taming it," Weedon Scott announced.
　　"Oh, I don't know about that," Matt objected. "Might be a lot of dog in'm, for all you can tell. But there's one thing I know sure, an' that there's nogettin' away from."The dog-musher paused and nodded his head confidentially atMoosehide Mountain.
　　"Well, don't be a miser with what you know," Scott said sharply, afterwaiting a suitable length of time. "Spit it out. What is it?"The dog-musher indicated White Fang with a backward thrust of his thumb.
　　"Wolf or dog, it's all the same - he's ben tamed 'ready.""No!""I tell you yes, an' broke to harness. Look close there. D'ye see themmarks across the chest?""You're right, Matt. He was a sled-dog before Beauty Smith got hold of him.""And there's not much reason against his bein' a sled-dog again.""What d'ye think?" Scott queried eagerly. Then the hope died down ashe added, shaking his head, "We've had him two weeks now, and ifanything he's wilder than ever at the present moment.""Give 'm a chance," Matt counselled. "Turn 'm loose for a spell."The other looked at him incredulously.
　　"Yes," Matt went on, "I know you've tried to, but you didn't take a club.""You try it then."The dog-musher secured a club and went over to the chained animal.
　　White Fang watched the club after the manner of a caged lion watchingthe whip of its trainer.
　　"See 'm keep his eye on that club," Matt said. "That's a good sign. He'sno fool. Don't dast tackle me so long as I got that club handy. He's notclean crazy, sure."As the man's hand approached his neck, White Fang bristled andsnarled and crouched down. But while he eyed the approaching hand, he atthe same time contrived to keep track of the club in the other hand,suspended threateningly above him. Matt unsnapped the chain from thecollar and stepped back.
　　White Fang could scarcely realise that he was free. Many months hadgone by since he passed into the possession of Beauty Smith, and in allthat period he had never known a moment of freedom except at the timeshe had been loosed to fight with other dogs. Immediately after such fightshe had always been imprisoned again.
　　He did not know what to make of it. Perhaps some new devilry of thegods was about to be perpetrated on him. He walked slowly and cautiously,prepared to be assailed at any moment. He did not know what to do, it wasall so unprecedented. He took the precaution to sheer off from the twowatching gods, and walked carefully to the corner of the cabin. Nothinghappened. He was plainly perplexed, and he came back again, pausing adozen feet away and regarding the two men intently.
　　"Won't he run away?" his new owner asked.
　　Matt shrugged his shoulders. "Got to take a gamble. Only way to findout is to find out.""Poor devil," Scott murmured pityingly. "What he needs is some showof human kindness," he added, turning and going into the cabin.
　　He came out with a piece of meat, which he tossed to White Fang. Hesprang away from it, and from a distance studied it suspiciously.
　　"Hi-yu, Major!" Matt shouted warningly, but too late.
　　Major had made a spring for the meat. At the instant his jaws closed onit, White Fang struck him. He was overthrown. Matt rushed in, but quickerthan he was White Fang. Major staggered to his feet, but the bloodspouting from his throat reddened the snow in a widening path.
　　"It's too bad, but it served him right," Scott said hastily.
　　But Matt's foot had already started on its way to kick White Fang.
　　There was a leap, a flash of teeth, a sharp exclamation. White Fang,snarling fiercely, scrambled backward for several yards, while Mattstooped and investigated his leg.
　　"He got me all right," he announced, pointing to the torn trousers andundercloths, and the growing stain of red.
　　"I told you it was hopeless, Matt," Scott said in a discouraged voice.
　　"I've thought about it off and on, while not wanting to think of it. Butwe've come to it now. It's the only thing to do."As he talked, with reluctant movements he drew his revolver, threwopen the cylinder, and assured himself of its contents.
　　"Look here, Mr. Scott," Matt objected; "that dog's ben through hell.
　　You can't expect 'm to come out a white an' shinin' angel. Give 'm time.""Look at Major," the other rejoined.
　　The dog-musher surveyed the stricken dog. He had sunk down on thesnow in the circle of his blood and was plainly in the last gasp.
　　"Served 'm right. You said so yourself, Mr. Scott. He tried to takeWhite Fang's meat, an' he's dead-O. That was to be expected. I wouldn'tgive two whoops in hell for a dog that wouldn't fight for his own meat.""But look at yourself, Matt. It's all right about the dogs, but we mustdraw the line somewhere.""Served me right," Matt argued stubbornly. "What'd I want to kick 'mfor? You said yourself that he'd done right. Then I had no right to kick 'm.""It would be a mercy to kill him," Scott insisted. "He's untamable.""Now look here, Mr. Scott, give the poor devil a fightin' chance. Heain't had no chance yet. He's just come through hell, an' this is the firsttime he's ben loose. Give 'm a fair chance, an' if he don't deliver the goods,I'll kill 'm myself. There!""God knows I don't want to kill him or have him killed," Scottanswered, putting away the revolver. "We'll let him run loose and see whatkindness can do for him. And here's a try at it."He walked over to White Fang and began talking to him gently and soothingly.
　　"Better have a club handy," Matt warned.
　　Scott shook his head and went on trying to win White Fang's confidence.
　　White Fang was suspicious. Something was impending. He had killedthis god's dog, bitten his companion god, and what else was to be expectedthan some terrible punishment? But in the face of it he was indomitable.
　　He bristled and showed his teeth, his eyes vigilant, his whole body waryand prepared for anything. The god had no club, so he suffered him toapproach quite near. The god's hand had come out and was descendingupon his head. White Fang shrank together and grew tense as he crouchedunder it. Here was danger, some treachery or something. He knew thehands of the gods, their proved mastery, their cunning to hurt. Besides,there was his old antipathy to being touched. He snarled more menacingly,crouched still lower, and still the hand descended. He did not want to bitethe hand, and he endured the peril of it until his instinct surged up in him,mastering him with its insatiable yearning for life.
　　Weedon Scott had believed that he was quick enough to avoid anysnap or slash. But he had yet to learn the remarkable quickness of WhiteFang, who struck with the certainty and swiftness of a coiled snake.
　　Scott cried out sharply with surprise, catching his torn hand andholding it tightly in his other hand. Matt uttered a great oath and sprang tohis side. White Fang crouched down, and backed away, bristling, showinghis fangs, his eyes malignant with menace. Now he could expect a beatingas fearful as any he had received from Beauty Smith.
　　"Here! What are you doing?" Scott cried suddenly.
　　Matt had dashed into the cabin and come out with a rifle.
　　"Nothin'," he said slowly, with a careless calmness that was assumed,"only goin' to keep that promise I made. I reckon it's up to me to kill 'm as I said I'd do.""No you don't!""Yes I do. Watch me."As Matt had pleaded for White Fang when he had been bitten, it wasnow Weedon Scott's turn to plead.
　　"You said to give him a chance. Well, give it to him. We've only juststarted, and we can't quit at the beginning. It served me right, this time.
　　And - look at him!"White Fang, near the corner of the cabin and forty feet away, wassnarling with blood-curdling viciousness, not at Scott, but at the dog-musher.
　　"Well, I'll be everlastingly gosh-swoggled!" was the dog-musher'sexpression of astonishment.
　　"Look at the intelligence of him," Scott went on hastily. "He knows themeaning of firearms as well as you do. He's got intelligence and we've gotto give that intelligence a chance. Put up the gun.""All right, I'm willin'," Matt agreed, leaning the rifle against thewoodpile"But will you look at that!" he exclaimed the next moment.
　　White Fang had quieted down and ceased snarling. "This is worthinvestigatin'. Watch."Matt, reached for the rifle, and at the same moment White Fangsnarled. He stepped away from the rifle, and White Fang's lifted lipsdescended, covering his teeth.
　　"Now, just for fun."Matt took the rifle and began slowly to raise it to his shoulder. WhiteFang's snarling began with the movement, and increased as the movementapproached its culmination. But the moment before the rifle came to alevel on him, he leaped sidewise behind the corner of the cabin. Mattstood staring along the sights at the empty space of snow which had beenoccupied by White Fang.
　　The dog-musher put the rifle down solemnly, then turned and lookedat his employer.
　　"I agree with you, Mr. Scott. That dog's too intelligent to kill."
Chapter 20 The Love-master
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.
Chapter 21 The Long Trail
It was in the air. White Fang sensed the coming calamity, even beforethere was tangible evidence of it. In vague ways it was borne in upon himthat a change was impending. He knew not how nor why, yet he got hisfeel of the oncoming event from the gods themselves. In ways subtler thanthey knew, they betrayed their intentions to the wolf-dog that haunted thecabin-stoop, and that, though he never came inside the cabin, knew whatwent on inside their brains.
　　"Listen to that, will you!" the dug-musher exclaimed at supper one night.
　　Weedon Scott listened. Through the door came a low, anxious whine,like a sobbing under the breath that had just grown audible. Then came thelong sniff, as White Fang reassured himself that his god was still insideand had not yet taken himself off in mysterious and solitary flight.
　　"I do believe that wolf's on to you," the dog-musher said.
　　Weedon Scott looked across at his companion with eyes that almostpleaded, though this was given the lie by his words.
　　"What the devil can I do with a wolf in California?" he demanded.
　　"That's what I say," Matt answered. "What the devil can you do with awolf in California?"But this did not satisfy Weedon Scott. The other seemed to be judginghim in a non-committal sort of way.
　　"White man's dogs would have no show against him," Scott went on.
　　"He'd kill them on sight. If he didn't bankrupt me with damaged suits, theauthorities would take him away from me and electrocute him.""He's a downright murderer, I know," was the dog-musher's comment.
　　Weedon Scott looked at him suspiciously.
　　"It would never do," he said decisively.
　　"It would never do!" Matt concurred. "Why you'd have to hire a man'specially to take care of 'm."The other suspicion was allayed. He nodded cheerfully. In the silencethat followed, the low, half-sobbing whine was heard at the door and thenthe long, questing sniff.
　　"There's no denyin' he thinks a hell of a lot of you," Matt said.
　　The other glared at him in sudden wrath. "Damn it all, man! I knowmy own mind and what's best!""I'm agreein' with you, only . . . ""Only what?" Scott snapped out.
　　"Only . . . " the dog-musher began softly, then changed his mind andbetrayed a rising anger of his own. "Well, you needn't get so all-fired hetup about it. Judgin' by your actions one'd think you didn't know your own mind."Weedon Scott debated with himself for a while, and then said moregently: "You are right, Matt. I don't know my own mind, and that's what'sthe trouble.""Why, it would be rank ridiculousness for me to take that dog along,"he broke out after another pause.
　　"I'm agreein' with you," was Matt's answer, and again his employerwas not quite satisfied with him.
　　"But how in the name of the great Sardanapolis he knows you're goin'
　　is what gets me," the dog-musher continued innocently.
　　"It's beyond me, Matt," Scott answered, with a mournful shake of the head.
　　Then came the day when, through the open cabin door, White Fangsaw the fatal grip on the floor and the love-master packing things into it.
　　Also, there were comings and goings, and the erstwhile placid atmosphereof the cabin was vexed with strange perturbations and unrest. Here wasindubitable evidence. White Fang had already scented it. He now reasonedit. His god was preparing for another flight. And since he had not takenhim with him before, so, now, he could look to be left behind.
　　That night he lifted the long wolf-howl. As he had howled, in hispuppy days, when he fled back from the Wild to the village to find itvanished and naught but a rubbish-heap to mark the site of Grey Beaver'stepee, so now he pointed his muzzle to the cold stars and told to them his woe.
　　Inside the cabin the two men had just gone to bed.
　　"He's gone off his food again," Matt remarked from his bunk.
　　There was a grunt from Weedon Scott's bunk, and a stir of blankets.
　　"From the way he cut up the other time you went away, I wouldn'twonder this time but what he died."The blankets in the other bunk stirred irritably.
　　"Oh, shut up!" Scott cried out through the darkness. "You nag worse than a woman.""I'm agreein' with you," the dog-musher answered, and Weedon Scottwas not quite sure whether or not the other had snickered.
　　The next day White Fang's anxiety and restlessness were even morepronounced. He dogged his master's heels whenever he left the cabin, andhaunted the front stoop when he remained inside. Through the open doorhe could catch glimpses of the luggage on the floor. The grip had beenjoined by two large canvas bags and a box. Matt was rolling the master'sblankets and fur robe inside a small tarpaulin. White Fang whined as hewatched the operation.
　　Later on two Indians arrived. He watched them closely as theyshouldered the luggage and were led off down the hill by Matt, whocarried the bedding and the grip. But White Fang did not follow them. Themaster was still in the cabin. After a time, Matt returned. The master cameto the door and called White Fang inside.
　　"You poor devil," he said gently, rubbing White Fang's ears andtapping his spine. "I'm hitting the long trail, old man, where you cannotfollow. Now give me a growl - the last, good, good-bye growl."But White Fang refused to growl. Instead, and after a wistful,searching look, he snuggled in, burrowing his head out of sight betweenthe master's arm and body.
　　"There she blows!" Matt cried. From the Yukon arose the hoarsebellowing of a river steamboat. "You've got to cut it short. Be sure andlock the front door. I'll go out the back. Get a move on!"The two doors slammed at the same moment, and Weedon Scottwaited for Matt to come around to the front. From inside the door came alow whining and sobbing. Then there were long, deep-drawn sniffs.
　　"You must take good care of him, Matt," Scott said, as they starteddown the hill. "Write and let me know how he gets along.""Sure," the dog-musher answered. "But listen to that, will you!"Both men stopped. White Fang was howling as dogs howl when theirmasters lie dead. He was voicing an utter woe, his cry bursting upward ingreat heart-breaking rushes, dying down into quavering misery, andbursting upward again with a rush upon rush of grief.
　　The AURORA was the first steamboat of the year for the Outside, andher decks were jammed with prosperous adventurers and broken goldseekers, all equally as mad to get to the Outside as they had beenoriginally to get to the Inside. Near the gang-plank, Scott was shakinghands with Matt, who was preparing to go ashore. But Matt's hand wentlimp in the other's grasp as his gaze shot past and remained fixed onsomething behind him. Scott turned to see. Sitting on the deck several feetaway and watching wistfully was White Fang,The dog-musher swore softly, in awe-stricken accents. Scott couldonly look in wonder.
　　"Did you lock the front door?" Matt demanded. The other nodded, andasked, "How about the back?""You just bet I did," was the fervent reply.
　　White Fang flattened his ears ingratiatingly, but remained where hewas, making no attempt to approach.
　　"I'll have to take 'm ashore with me."Matt made a couple of steps toward White Fang, but the latter slidaway from him. The dog-musher made a rush of it, and White Fangdodged between the legs of a group of men. Ducking, turning, doubling,he slid about the deck, eluding the other's efforts to capture him.
　　But when the love-master spoke, White Fang came to him with promptobedience.
　　"Won't come to the hand that's fed 'm all these months," the dog-musher muttered resentfully. "And you - you ain't never fed 'm after themfirst days of gettin' acquainted. I'm blamed if I can see how he works it outthat you're the boss."Scott, who had been patting White Fang, suddenly bent closer andpointed out fresh-made cuts on his muzzle, and a gash between the eyes.
　　Matt bent over and passed his hand along White Fang's belly.
　　"We plump forgot the window. He's all cut an' gouged underneath.
　　Must 'a' butted clean through it, b'gosh!"But Weedon Scott was not listening. He was thinking rapidly. TheAURORA'S whistle hooted a final announcement of departure. Men werescurrying down the gang-plank to the shore. Matt loosened the bandanafrom his own neck and started to put it around White Fang's. Scott graspedthe dog-musher's hand.
　　"Good-bye, Matt, old man. About the wolf-you needn't write. You see,I've . . . !""What!" the dog-musher exploded. "You don't mean to say . . .?""The very thing I mean. Here's your bandana. I'll write to you abouthim."Matt paused halfway down the gang-plank.
　　"He'll never stand the climate!" he shouted back. "Unless you clip 'min warm weather!"The gang-plank was hauled in, and the AURORA swang out from thebank. Weedon Scott waved a last good-bye. Then he turned and bent overWhite Fang, standing by his side.
　　"Now growl, damn you, growl," he said, as he patted the responsivehead and rubbed the flattening ears.
Chapter 22 The Southland
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.
Chapter 24 The Call Of Kind
The months came and went. There was plenty of food and no work inthe Southland, and White Fang lived fat and prosperous and happy. Notalone was he in the geographical Southland, for he was in the Southland oflife. Human kindness was like a sun shining upon him, and he flourishedlike a flower planted in good soil.
　　And yet he remained somehow different from other dogs. He knew thelaw even better than did the dogs that had known no other life, and heobserved the law more punctiliously; but still there was about him asuggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the Wild still lingered in him andthe wolf in him merely slept.
　　He never chummed with other dogs. Lonely he had lived, so far as hiskind was concerned, and lonely he would continue to live. In hispuppyhood, under the persecution of Lip-lip and the puppy-pack, and inhis fighting days with Beauty Smith, he had acquired a fixed aversion fordogs. The natural course of his life had been diverted, and, recoiling fromhis kind, he had clung to the human.
　　Besides, all Southland dogs looked upon him with suspicion. Hearoused in them their instinctive fear of the Wild, and they greeted himalways with snarl and growl and belligerent hatred. He, on the other hand,learned that it was not necessary to use his teeth upon them. His nakedfangs and writhing lips were uniformly efficacious, rarely failing to send abellowing on-rushing dog back on its haunches.
　　But there was one trial in White Fang's life - Collie. She never gavehim a moment's peace. She was not so amenable to the law as he. Shedefied all efforts of the master to make her become friends with WhiteFang. Ever in his ears was sounding her sharp and nervous snarl. She hadnever forgiven him the chicken-killing episode, and persistently held tothe belief that his intentions were bad. She found him guilty before the act,and treated him accordingly. She became a pest to him, like a policemanfollowing him around the stable and the hounds, and, if he even so muchas glanced curiously at a pigeon or chicken, bursting into an outcry ofindignation and wrath. His favourite way of ignoring her was to lie down,with his head on his fore-paws, and pretend sleep. This alwaysdumfounded and silenced her.
　　With the exception of Collie, all things went well with White Fang. Hehad learned control and poise, and he knew the law. He achieved astaidness, and calmness, and philosophic tolerance. He no longer lived in ahostile environment. Danger and hurt and death did not lurk everywhereabout him. In time, the unknown, as a thing of terror and menace everimpending, faded away. Life was soft and easy. It flowed along smoothly,and neither fear nor foe lurked by the way.
　　He missed the snow without being aware of it. "An unduly longsummer," would have been his thought had he thought about it; as it was,he merely missed the snow in a vague, subconscious way. In the samefashion, especially in the heat of summer when he suffered from the sun,he experienced faint longings for the Northland. Their only effect uponhim, however, was to make him uneasy and restless without his knowingwhat was the matter.
　　White Fang had never been very demonstrative. Beyond his snugglingand the throwing of a crooning note into his love-growl, he had no way ofexpressing his love. Yet it was given him to discover a third way. He hadalways been susceptible to the laughter of the gods. Laughter had affectedhim with madness, made him frantic with rage. But he did not have it inhim to be angry with the love-master, and when that god elected to laughat him in a good- natured, bantering way, he was nonplussed. He couldfeel the pricking and stinging of the old anger as it strove to rise up in him,but it strove against love. He could not be angry; yet he had to dosomething. At first he was dignified, and the master laughed the harder.
　　Then he tried to be more dignified, and the master laughed harder thanbefore. In the end, the master laughed him out of his dignity. His jawsslightly parted, his lips lifted a little, and a quizzical expression that wasmore love than humour came into his eyes. He had learned to laugh.
　　Likewise he learned to romp with the master, to be tumbled down androlled over, and be the victim of innumerable rough tricks. In return hefeigned anger, bristling and growling ferociously, and clipping his teethtogether in snaps that had all the seeming of deadly intention. But he neverforgot himself. Those snaps were always delivered on the empty air. At theend of such a romp, when blow and cuff and snap and snarl were last andfurious, they would break off suddenly and stand several feet apart,glaring at each other. And then, just as suddenly, like the sun rising on astormy sea, they would begin to laugh. This would always culminate withthe master's arms going around White Fang's neck and shoulders while thelatter crooned and growled his love-song.
　　But nobody else ever romped with White Fang. He did not permit it.
　　He stood on his dignity, and when they attempted it, his warning snarl andbristling mane were anything but playful. That he allowed the master theseliberties was no reason that he should be a common dog, loving here andloving there, everybody's property for a romp and good time. He lovedwith single heart and refused to cheapen himself or his love.
　　The master went out on horseback a great deal, and to accompany himwas one of White Fang's chief duties in life. In the Northland he hadevidenced his fealty by toiling in the harness; but there were no sleds inthe Southland, nor did dogs pack burdens on their backs. So he renderedfealty in the new way, by running with the master's horse. The longest daynever played White Fang out. His was the gait of the wolf, smooth, tirelessand effortless, and at the end of fifty miles he would come in jauntilyahead of the horse.
　　It was in connection with the riding, that White Fang achieved oneother mode of expression - remarkable in that he did it but twice in all hislife. The first time occurred when the master was trying to teach a spiritedthoroughbred the method of opening and closing gates without the rider'sdismounting. Time and again and many times he ranged the horse up tothe gate in the effort to close it and each time the horse became frightenedand backed and plunged away. It grew more nervous and excited everymoment. When it reared, the master put the spurs to it and made it drop itsfore-legs back to earth, whereupon it would begin kicking with its hind-legs. White Fang watched the performance with increasing anxiety untilhe could contain himself no longer, when he sprang in front of the horseand barked savagely and warningly.
　　Though he often tried to bark thereafter, and the master encouragedhim, he succeeded only once, and then it was not in the master's presence.
　　A scamper across the pasture, a jackrabbit rising suddenly under thehorse's feet, a violent sheer, a stumble, a fall to earth, and a broken leg forthe master, was the cause of it. White Fang sprang in a rage at the throat ofthe offending horse, but was checked by the master's voice.
　　"Home! Go home!" the master commanded when he had ascertained his injury.
　　White Fang was disinclined to desert him. The master thought ofwriting a note, but searched his pockets vainly for pencil and paper. Againhe commanded White Fang to go home.
　　The latter regarded him wistfully, started away, then returned andwhined softly. The master talked to him gently but seriously, and hecocked his ears, and listened with painful intentness.
　　"That's all right, old fellow, you just run along home," ran the talk. "Goon home and tell them what's happened to me. Home with you, you wolf.
　　Get along home!"White Fang knew the meaning of "home," and though he did notunderstand the remainder of the master's language, he knew it was his willthat he should go home. He turned and trotted reluctantly away. Then hestopped, undecided, and looked back over his shoulder.
　　"Go home!" came the sharp command, and this time he obeyed.
　　The family was on the porch, taking the cool of the afternoon, whenWhite Fang arrived. He came in among them, panting, covered with dust.
　　"Weedon's back," Weedon's mother announced.
　　The children welcomed White Fang with glad cries and ran to meethim. He avoided them and passed down the porch, but they cornered him against a rocking-chair and the railing. He growled and tried to push bythem. Their mother looked apprehensively in their direction.
　　"I confess, he makes me nervous around the children," she said. "Ihave a dread that he will turn upon them unexpectedly some day."Growling savagely, White Fang sprang out of the corner, overturningthe boy and the girl. The mother called them to her and comforted them,telling them not to bother White Fang.
　　"A wolf is a wolf!" commented Judge Scott. "There is no trusting one.""But he is not all wolf," interposed Beth, standing for her brother in his absence.
　　"You have only Weedon's opinion for that," rejoined the judge. "Hemerely surmises that there is some strain of dog in White Fang; but as hewill tell you himself, he knows nothing about it. As for his appearance - "He did not finish his sentence. White Fang stood before him, growling fiercely.
　　"Go away! Lie down, sir!" Judge Scott commanded.
　　White Fang turned to the love-master's wife. She screamed with frightas he seized her dress in his teeth and dragged on it till the frail fabric toreaway. By this time he had become the centre of interest.
　　He had ceased from his growling and stood, head up, looking into theirfaces. His throat worked spasmodically, but made no sound, while hestruggled with all his body, convulsed with the effort to rid himself of theincommunicable something that strained for utterance.
　　"I hope he is not going mad," said Weedon's mother. "I told Weedonthat I was afraid the warm climate would not agree with an Arctic animal.""He's trying to speak, I do believe," Beth announced.
　　At this moment speech came to White Fang, rushing up in a great burst of barking.
　　"Something has happened to Weedon," his wife said decisively.
　　They were all on their feet now, and White Fang ran down the steps,looking back for them to follow. For the second and last time in his life hehad barked and made himself understood.
　　After this event he found a warmer place in the hearts of the SierraVista people, and even the groom whose arm he had slashed admitted thathe was a wise dog even if he was a wolf. Judge Scott still held to the sameopinion, and proved it to everybody's dissatisfaction by measurements anddescriptions taken from the encyclopaedia and various works on natural history.
　　The days came and went, streaming their unbroken sunshine over theSanta Clara Valley. But as they grew shorter and White Fang's secondwinter in the Southland came on, he made a strange discovery. Collie'steeth were no longer sharp. There was a playfulness about her nips and agentleness that prevented them from really hurting him. He forgot that shehad made life a burden to him, and when she disported herself around himhe responded solemnly, striving to be playful and becoming no more thanridiculous.
　　One day she led him off on a long chase through the back-pasture landinto the woods. It was the afternoon that the master was to ride, and WhiteFang knew it. The horse stood saddled and waiting at the door. White Fanghesitated. But there was that in him deeper than all the law he had learned,than the customs that had moulded him, than his love for the master, thanthe very will to live of himself; and when, in the moment of his indecision,Collie nipped him and scampered off, he turned and followed after. Themaster rode alone that day; and in the woods, side by side, White Fang ranwith Collie, as his mother, Kiche, and old One Eye had run long yearsbefore in the silent Northland forest.
Chapter 25 The Sleeping Wolf
It was about this time that the newspapers were full of the daringescape of a convict from San Quentin prison. He was a ferocious man. Hehad been ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he hadnot been helped any by the moulding he had received at the hands ofsociety. The hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sampleof its handiwork. He was a beast - a human beast, it is true, butnevertheless so terrible a beast that he can best be characterised as carnivorous.
　　In San Quentin prison he had proved incorrigible. Punishment failed tobreak his spirit. He could die dumb-mad and fighting to the last, but hecould not live and be beaten. The more fiercely he fought, the moreharshly society handled him, and the only effect of harshness was to makehim fiercer. Straight-jackets, starvation, and beatings and clubbings werethe wrong treatment for Jim Hall; but it was the treatment he received. Itwas the treatment he had received from the time he was a little pulpy boyin a San Francisco slum - soft clay in the hands of society and ready to beformed into something.
　　It was during Jim Hall's third term in prison that he encountered aguard that was almost as great a beast as he. The guard treated himunfairly, lied about him to the warden, lost his credits, persecuted him. Thedifference between them was that the guard carried a bunch of keys and arevolver. Jim Hall had only his naked hands and his teeth. But he sprangupon the guard one day and used his teeth on the other's throat just likeany jungle animal.
　　After this, Jim Hall went to live in the incorrigible cell. He lived therethree years. The cell was of iron, the floor, the walls, the roof. He neverleft this cell. He never saw the sky nor the sunshine. Day was a twilightand night was a black silence. He was in an iron tomb, buried alive. Hesaw no human face, spoke to no human thing. When his food was shovedin to him, he growled like a wild animal. He hated all things. For days andnights he bellowed his rage at the universe. For weeks and months henever made a sound, in the black silence eating his very soul. He was aman and a monstrosity, as fearful a thing of fear as ever gibbered in thevisions of a maddened brain.
　　And then, one night, he escaped. The warders said it was impossible,but nevertheless the cell was empty, and half in half out of it lay the bodyof a dead guard. Two other dead guards marked his trail through the prisonto the outer walls, and he had killed with his hands to avoid noise.
　　He was armed with the weapons of the slain guards - a live arsenal thatfled through the hills pursued by the organised might of society. A heavyprice of gold was upon his head. Avaricious farmers hunted him with shot-guns. His blood might pay off a mortgage or send a son to college. Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went out after him. A pack ofbloodhounds followed the way of his bleeding feet. And the sleuth-houndsof the law, the paid fighting animals of society, with telephone, andtelegraph, and special train, clung to his trail night and day.
　　Sometimes they came upon him, and men faced him like heroes, orstampeded through barbed-wire fences to the delight of thecommonwealth reading the account at the breakfast table. It was after suchencounters that the dead and wounded were carted back to the towns, andtheir places filled by men eager for the man-hunt.
　　And then Jim Hall disappeared. The bloodhounds vainly quested onthe lost trail. Inoffensive ranchers in remote valleys were held up byarmed men and compelled to identify themselves. While the remains ofJim Hall were discovered on a dozen mountain-sides by greedy claimantsfor blood-money.
　　In the meantime the newspapers were read at Sierra Vista, not so muchwith interest as with anxiety. The women were afraid. Judge Scott pooh-poohed and laughed, but not with reason, for it was in his last days on thebench that Jim Hall had stood before him and received sentence. And inopen court-room, before all men, Jim Hall had proclaimed that the daywould come when he would wreak vengeance on the Judge that sentenced him.
　　For once, Jim Hall was right. He was innocent of the crime for whichhe was sentenced. It was a case, in the parlance of thieves and police, of"rail-roading." Jim Hall was being "rail-roaded" to prison for a crime hehad not committed. Because of the two prior convictions against him,Judge Scott imposed upon him a sentence of fifty years.
　　Judge Scott did not know all things, and he did not know that he wasparty to a police conspiracy, that the evidence was hatched and perjured,that Jim Hall was guiltless of the crime charged. And Jim Hall, on theother hand, did not know that Judge Scott was merely ignorant. Jim Hallbelieved that the judge knew all about it and was hand in glove with thepolice in the perpetration of the monstrous injustice. So it was, when thedoom of fifty years of living death was uttered by Judge Scott, that JimHall, hating all things in the society that misused him, rose up and raged inthe court-room until dragged down by half a dozen of his blue-coatedenemies. To him, Judge Scott was the keystone in the arch of injustice, andupon Judge Scott he emptied the vials of his wrath and hurled the threatsof his revenge yet to come. Then Jim Hall went to his living death . . . andescaped.
　　Of all this White Fang knew nothing. But between him and Alice, themaster's wife, there existed a secret. Each night, after Sierra Vista hadgone to bed, she rose and let in White Fang to sleep in the big hall. NowWhite Fang was not a house-dog, nor was he permitted to sleep in thehouse; so each morning, early, she slipped down and let him out before thefamily was awake.
　　On one such night, while all the house slept, White Fang awoke andlay very quietly. And very quietly he smelled the air and read the messageit bore of a strange god's presence. And to his ears came sounds of thestrange god's movements. White Fang burst into no furious outcry. It wasnot his way. The strange god walked softly, but more softly walked WhiteFang, for he had no clothes to rub against the flesh of his body. He followed silently. In the Wild he had hunted live meat that was infinitelytimid, and he knew the advantage of surprise.
　　The strange god paused at the foot of the great staircase and listened,and White Fang was as dead, so without movement was he as he watchedand waited. Up that staircase the way led to the love- master and to thelove-master's dearest possessions. White Fang bristled, but waited. Thestrange god's foot lifted. He was beginning the ascent.
　　Then it was that White Fang struck. He gave no warning, with no snarlanticipated his own action. Into the air he lifted his body in the spring thatlanded him on the strange god's back. White Fang clung with his fore-paws to the man's shoulders, at the same time burying his fangs into theback of the man's neck. He clung on for a moment, long enough to dragthe god over backward. Together they crashed to the floor. White Fangleaped clear, and, as the man struggled to rise, was in again with theslashing fangs.
　　Sierra Vista awoke in alarm. The noise from downstairs was as that ofa score of battling fiends. There were revolver shots. A man's voicescreamed once in horror and anguish. There was a great snarling andgrowling, and over all arose a smashing and crashing of furniture and glass.
　　But almost as quickly as it had arisen, the commotion died away. Thestruggle had not lasted more than three minutes. The frightened householdclustered at the top of the stairway. From below, as from out an abyss ofblackness, came up a gurgling sound, as of air bubbling through water.
　　Sometimes this gurgle became sibilant, almost a whistle. But this, too,quickly died down and ceased. Then naught came up out of the blacknesssave a heavy panting of some creature struggling sorely for air.
　　Weedon Scott pressed a button, and the staircase and downstairs hallwere flooded with light. Then he and Judge Scott, revolvers in hand,cautiously descended. There was no need for this caution. White Fang haddone his work. In the midst of the wreckage of overthrown and smashedfurniture, partly on his side, his face hidden by an arm, lay a man. WeedonScott bent over, removed the arm and turned the man's face upward. Agaping throat explained the manner of his death.
　　"Jim Hall," said Judge Scott, and father and son looked significantly at each other.
　　Then they turned to White Fang. He, too, was lying on his side. Hiseyes were closed, but the lids slightly lifted in an effort to look at them asthey bent over him, and the tail was perceptibly agitated in a vain effort towag. Weedon Scott patted him, and his throat rumbled an acknowledginggrowl. But it was a weak growl at best, and it quickly ceased. His eyelidsdrooped and went shut, and his whole body seemed to relax and flatten outupon the floor.
　　"He's all in, poor devil," muttered the master.
　　"We'll see about that," asserted the Judge, as he started for the telephone.
　　"Frankly, he has one chance in a thousand," announced the surgeon,after he had worked an hour and a half on White Fang.
　　Dawn was breaking through the windows and dimming the electriclights. With the exception of the children, the whole family was gatheredabout the surgeon to hear his verdict.
　　"One broken hind-leg," he went on. "Three broken ribs, one at least ofwhich has pierced the lungs. He has lost nearly all the blood in his body.
　　There is a large likelihood of internal injuries. He must have been jumpedupon. To say nothing of three bullet holes clear through him. One chancein a thousand is really optimistic. He hasn't a chance in ten thousand.""But he mustn't lose any chance that might be of help to him," JudgeScott exclaimed. "Never mind expense. Put him under the X- ray -anything. Weedon, telegraph at once to San Francisco for Doctor Nichols.
　　No reflection on you, doctor, you understand; but he must have theadvantage of every chance."The surgeon smiled indulgently. "Of course I understand. He deservesall that can be done for him. He must be nursed as you would nurse ahuman being, a sick child. And don't forget what I told you abouttemperature. I'll be back at ten o'clock again."White Fang received the nursing. Judge Scott's suggestion of a trainednurse was indignantly clamoured down by the girls, who themselvesundertook the task. And White Fang won out on the one chance in tenthousand denied him by the surgeon.
　　The latter was not to be censured for his misjudgment. All his life hehad tended and operated on the soft humans of civilisation, who livedsheltered lives and had descended out of many sheltered generations.
　　Compared with White Fang, they were frail and flabby, and clutched lifewithout any strength in their grip. White Fang had come straight from theWild, where the weak perish early and shelter is vouchsafed to none. Inneither his father nor his mother was there any weakness, nor in thegenerati ons before them. A constitution of iron and the vitality of the Wildwere White Fang's inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole of him andevery part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity that of oldbelonged to all creatures.
　　Bound down a prisoner, denied even movement by the plaster castsand bandages, White Fang lingered out the weeks. He slept long hours anddreamed much, and through his mind passed an unending pageant ofNorthland visions. All the ghosts of the past arose and were with him.
　　Once again he lived in the lair with Kiche, crept trembling to the knees ofGrey Beaver to tender his allegiance, ran for his life before Lip-lip and allthe howling bedlam of the puppy-pack.
　　He ran again through the silence, hunting his living food through themonths of famine; and again he ran at the head of the team, the gut-whipsof Mit-sah and Grey Beaver snapping behind, their voices crying "Ra!
　　Raa!" when they came to a narrow passage and the team closed togetherlike a fan to go through. He lived again all his days with Beauty Smith andthe fights he had fought. At such times he whimpered and snarled in hissleep, and they that looked on said that his dreams were bad.
　　But there was one particular nightmare from which he suffered - theclanking, clanging monsters of electric cars that were to him colossalscreaming lynxes. He would lie in a screen of bushes, watching for asquirrel to venture far enough out on the ground from its tree-refuge. Then,when he sprang out upon it, it would transform itself into an electric car,menacing and terrible, towering over him like a mountain, screaming andclanging and spitting fire at him. It was the same when he challenged thehawk down out of the sky. Down out of the blue it would rush, as itdropped upon him changing itself into the ubiquitous electric car. Or again,he would be in the pen of Beauty Smith. Outside the pen, men would begathering, and he knew that a fight was on. He watched the door for hisantagonist to enter. The door would open, and thrust in upon him wouldcome the awful electric car. A thousand times this occurred, and each timethe terror it inspired was as vivid and great as ever.
　　Then came the day when the last bandage and the last plaster cast weretaken off. It was a gala day. All Sierra Vista was gathered around. Themaster rubbed his ears, and he crooned his love-growl. The master's wifecalled him the "Blessed Wolf," which name was taken up with acclaim andall the women called him the Blessed Wolf.
　　He tried to rise to his feet, and after several attempts fell down fromweakness. He had lain so long that his muscles had lost their cunning, andall the strength had gone out of them. He felt a little shame because of hisweakness, as though, forsooth, he were failing the gods in the service heowed them. Because of this he made heroic efforts to arise and at last hestood on his four legs, tottering and swaying back and forth.
　　"The Blessed Wolf!" chorused the women.
　　Judge Scott surveyed them triumphantly.
　　"Out of your own mouths be it," he said. "Just as I contended rightalong. No mere dog could have done what he did. He's a wolf.""A Blessed Wolf," amended the Judge's wife.
　　"Yes, Blessed Wolf," agreed the Judge. "And henceforth that shall bemy name for him.""He'll have to learn to walk again," said the surgeon; "so he might aswell start in right now. It won't hurt him. Take him outside."And outside he went, like a king, with all Sierra Vista about him andtending on him. He was very weak, and when he reached the lawn he laydown and rested for a while.
　　Then the procession started on, little spurts of strength coming intoWhite Fang's muscles as he used them and the blood began to surgethrough them. The stables were reached, and there in the doorway, layCollie, a half-dozen pudgy puppies playing about her in the sun.
　　White Fang looked on with a wondering eye. Collie snarled warninglyat him, and he was careful to keep his distance. The master with his toehelped one sprawling puppy toward him. He bristled suspiciously, but themaster warned him that all was well. Collie, clasped in the arms of one ofthe women, watched him jealously and with a snarl warned him that allwas not well.
　　The puppy sprawled in front of him. He cocked his ears and watched itcuriously. Then their noses touched, and he felt the warm little tongue ofthe puppy on his jowl. White Fang's tongue went out, he knew not why,and he licked the puppy's face.
　　Hand-clapping and pleased cries from the gods greeted theperformance. He was surprised, and looked at them in a puzzled way.
　　Then his weakness asserted itself, and he lay down, his ears cocked, hishead on one side, as he watched the puppy. The other puppies camesprawling toward him, to Collie's great disgust; and he gravely permittedthem to clamber and tumble over him. At first, amid the applause of thegods, he betrayed a trifle of his old self-consciousness and awkwardness.
　　This passed away as the puppies' antics and mauling continued, and he laywith half-shut patient eyes, drowsing in the sun.The End
CHAPTER 23 THE GOD’S DOMAIN

Not only was White Fang adaptable by nature, but he had travelled much, and knew the meaning and necessity of adjustment. Here, in Sierra Vista, which was the name of Judge Scott’s place, White Fang quickly began to make himself at home. He had no further serious trouble with the dogs. They knew more about the ways of the Southland gods than did he, and in their eyes he had qualified when he accompanied the gods inside the house. Wolf that he was, and unprecedented as it was, the gods had sanctioned his presence, and they, the dogs of the gods, could only recognise this sanction.
 
Dick, perforce, had to go through a few stiff formalities at first, after which he calmly accepted White Fang as an addition to the premises. Had Dick had his way, they would have been good friends. All but White Fang was averse to friendship. All he asked of other dogs was to be let alone. His whole life he had kept aloof from his kind, and he still desired to keep aloof. Dick’s overtures bothered him, so he snarled Dick away. In the north he had learned the lesson that he must let the master’s dogs alone, and he did not forget that lesson now. But he insisted on his own privacy and self-seclusion, and so thoroughly ignored Dick that that good-natured creature finally gave him up and scarcely took as much interest in him as in the hitching-post near the stable.
 
Not so with Collie. While she accepted him because it was the mandate of the gods, that was no reason that she should leave him in peace. Woven into her being was the memory of countless crimes he and his had perpetrated against her ancestry. Not in a day nor a generation were the ravaged sheepfolds to be forgotten. All this was a spur to her, pricking her to retaliation. She could not fly in the face of the gods who permitted him, but that did not prevent her from making life miserable for him in petty ways. A feud, ages old, was between them, and she, for one, would see to it that he was reminded.
 
So Collie took advantage of her sex to pick upon White Fang and maltreat him. His instinct would not permit him to attack her, while her persistence would not permit him to ignore her. When she rushed at him he turned his fur-protected shoulder to her sharp teeth and walked away stiff-legged and stately. When she forced him too hard, he was compelled to go about in a circle, his shoulder presented to her, his head turned from her, and on his face and in his eyes a patient and bored expression. Sometimes, however, a nip on his hind-quarters hastened his retreat and made it anything but stately. But as a rule he managed to maintain a dignity that was almost solemnity. He ignored her existence whenever it was possible, and made it a point to keep out of her way. When he saw or heard her coming, he got up and walked off.
 
There was much in other matters for White Fang to learn. Life in the Northland was simplicity itself when compared with the complicated affairs of Sierra Vista. First of all, he had to learn the family of the master. In a way he was prepared to do this. As Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch had belonged to Grey Beaver, sharing his food, his fire, and his blankets, so now, at Sierra Vista, belonged to the love-master all the denizens of the house.
 
But in this matter there was a difference, and many differences. Sierra Vista was a far vaster affair than the tepee of Grey Beaver. There were many persons to be considered. There was Judge Scott, and there was his wife. There were the master’s two sisters, Beth and Mary. There was his wife, Alice, and then there were his children, Weedon and Maud, toddlers of four and six. There was no way for anybody to tell him about all these people, and of blood-ties and relationship he knew nothing whatever and never would be capable of knowing. Yet he quickly worked it out that all of them belonged to the master. Then, by observation, whenever opportunity offered, by study of action, speech, and the very intonations of the voice, he slowly learned the intimacy and the degree of favour they enjoyed with the master. And by this ascertained standard, White Fang treated them accordingly. What was of value to the master he valued; what was dear to the master was to be cherished by White Fang and guarded carefully.
 
Thus it was with the two children. All his life he had disliked children. He hated and feared their hands. The lessons were not tender that he had learned of their tyranny and cruelty in the days of the Indian villages. When Weedon and Maud had first approached him, he growled warningly and looked malignant. A cuff from the master and a sharp word had then compelled him to permit their caresses, though he growled and growled under their tiny hands, and in the growl there was no crooning note. Later, he observed that the boy and girl were of great value in the master’s eyes. Then it was that no cuff nor sharp word was necessary before they could pat him.
 
Yet White Fang was never effusively affectionate. He yielded to the master’s children with an ill but honest grace, and endured their fooling as one would endure a painful operation. When he could no longer endure, he would get up and stalk determinedly away from them. But after a time, he grew even to like the children. Still he was not demonstrative. He would not go up to them. On the other hand, instead of walking away at sight of them, he waited for them to come to him. And still later, it was noticed that a pleased light came into his eyes when he saw them approaching, and that he looked after them with an appearance of curious regret when they left him for other amusements.
 
All this was a matter of development, and took time. Next in his regard, after the children, was Judge Scott. There were two reasons, possibly, for this. First, he was evidently a valuable possession of the master’s, and next, he was undemonstrative. White Fang liked to lie at his feet on the wide porch when he read the newspaper, from time to time favouring White Fang with a look or a word—untroublesome tokens that he recognised White Fang’s presence and existence. But this was only when the master was not around. When the master appeared, all other beings ceased to exist so far as White Fang was concerned.
 
White Fang allowed all the members of the family to pet him and make much of him; but he never gave to them what he gave to the master. No caress of theirs could put the love-croon into his throat, and, try as they would, they could never persuade him into snuggling against them. This expression of abandon and surrender, of absolute trust, he reserved for the master alone. In fact, he never regarded the members of the family in any other light than possessions of the love-master.
 
Also White Fang had early come to differentiate between the family and the servants of the household. The latter were afraid of him, while he merely refrained from attacking them. This because he considered that they were likewise possessions of the master. Between White Fang and them existed a neutrality and no more. They cooked for the master and washed the dishes and did other things just as Matt had done up in the Klondike. They were, in short, appurtenances of the household.
 
Outside the household there was even more for White Fang to learn. The master’s domain was wide and complex, yet it had its metes and bounds. The land itself ceased at the county road. Outside was the common domain of all gods—the roads and streets. Then inside other fences were the particular domains of other gods. A myriad laws governed all these things and determined conduct; yet he did not know the speech of the gods, nor was there any way for him to learn save by experience. He obeyed his natural impulses until they ran him counter to some law. When this had been done a few times, he learned the law and after that observed it.
 
But most potent in his education was the cuff of the master’s hand, the censure of the master’s voice. Because of White Fang’s very great love, a cuff from the master hurt him far more than any beating Grey Beaver or Beauty Smith had ever given him. They had hurt only the flesh of him; beneath the flesh the spirit had still raged, splendid and invincible. But with the master the cuff was always too light to hurt the flesh. Yet it went deeper. It was an expression of the master’s disapproval, and White Fang’s spirit wilted under it.
 
In point of fact, the cuff was rarely administered. The master’s voice was sufficient. By it White Fang knew whether he did right or not. By it he trimmed his conduct and adjusted his actions. It was the compass by which he steered and learned to chart the manners of a new land and life.
 
In the Northland, the only domesticated animal was the dog. All other animals lived in the Wild, and were, when not too formidable, lawful spoil for any dog. All his days White Fang had foraged among the live things for food. It did not enter his head that in the Southland it was otherwise. But this he was to learn early in his residence in Santa Clara Valley. Sauntering around the corner of the house in the early morning, he came upon a chicken that had escaped from the chicken-yard. White Fang’s natural impulse was to eat it. A couple of bounds, a flash of teeth and a frightened squawk, and he had scooped in the adventurous fowl. It was farm-bred and fat and tender; and White Fang licked his chops and decided that such fare was good.
 
Later in the day, he chanced upon another stray chicken near the stables. One of the grooms ran to the rescue. He did not know White Fang’s breed, so for weapon he took a light buggy-whip. At the first cut of the whip, White Fang left the chicken for the man. A club might have stopped White Fang, but not a whip. Silently, without flinching, he took a second cut in his forward rush, and as he leaped for the throat the groom cried out, “My God!” and staggered backward. He dropped the whip and shielded his throat with his arms. In consequence, his forearm was ripped open to the bone.
 
The man was badly frightened. It was not so much White Fang’s ferocity as it was his silence that unnerved the groom. Still protecting his throat and face with his torn and bleeding arm, he tried to retreat to the barn. And it would have gone hard with him had not Collie appeared on the scene. As she had saved Dick’s life, she now saved the groom’s. She rushed upon White Fang in frenzied wrath. She had been right. She had known better than the blundering gods. All her suspicions were justified. Here was the ancient marauder up to his old tricks again.
 
The groom escaped into the stables, and White Fang backed away before Collie’s wicked teeth, or presented his shoulder to them and circled round and round. But Collie did not give over, as was her wont, after a decent interval of chastisement. On the contrary, she grew more excited and angry every moment, until, in the end, White Fang flung dignity to the winds and frankly fled away from her across the fields.
 
“He’ll learn to leave chickens alone,” the master said. “But I can’t give him the lesson until I catch him in the act.”
 
Two nights later came the act, but on a more generous scale than the master had anticipated. White Fang had observed closely the chicken-yards and the habits of the chickens. In the night-time, after they had gone to roost, he climbed to the top of a pile of newly hauled lumber. From there he gained the roof of a chicken-house, passed over the ridgepole and dropped to the ground inside. A moment later he was inside the house, and the slaughter began.
 
In the morning, when the master came out on to the porch, fifty white Leghorn hens, laid out in a row by the groom, greeted his eyes. He whistled to himself, softly, first with surprise, and then, at the end, with admiration. His eyes were likewise greeted by White Fang, but about the latter there were no signs of shame nor guilt. He carried himself with pride, as though, forsooth, he had achieved a deed praiseworthy and meritorious. There was about him no consciousness of sin. The master’s lips tightened as he faced the disagreeable task. Then he talked harshly to the unwitting culprit, and in his voice there was nothing but godlike wrath. Also, he held White Fang’s nose down to the slain hens, and at the same time cuffed him soundly.
 
White Fang never raided a chicken-roost again. It was against the law, and he had learned it. Then the master took him into the chicken-yards. White Fang’s natural impulse, when he saw the live food fluttering about him and under his very nose, was to spring upon it. He obeyed the impulse, but was checked by the master’s voice. They continued in the yards for half an hour. Time and again the impulse surged over White Fang, and each time, as he yielded to it, he was checked by the master’s voice. Thus it was he learned the law, and ere he left the domain of the chickens, he had learned to ignore their existence.
 
“You can never cure a chicken-killer.” Judge Scott shook his head sadly at luncheon table, when his son narrated the lesson he had given White Fang. “Once they’ve got the habit and the taste of blood . . .” Again he shook his head sadly.
 
But Weedon Scott did not agree with his father. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he challenged finally. “I’ll lock White Fang in with the chickens all afternoon.”
 
“But think of the chickens,” objected the judge.
 
“And furthermore,” the son went on, “for every chicken he kills, I’ll pay you one dollar gold coin of the realm.”
 
“But you should penalise father, too,” interpose Beth.
 
Her sister seconded her, and a chorus of approval arose from around the table. Judge Scott nodded his head in agreement.
 
“All right.” Weedon Scott pondered for a moment. “And if, at the end of the afternoon White Fang hasn’t harmed a chicken, for every ten minutes of the time he has spent in the yard, you will have to say to him, gravely and with deliberation, just as if you were sitting on the bench and solemnly passing judgment, ‘White Fang, you are smarter than I thought.’”
 
From hidden points of vantage the family watched the performance. But it was a fizzle. Locked in the yard and there deserted by the master, White Fang lay down and went to sleep. Once he got up and walked over to the trough for a drink of water. The chickens he calmly ignored. So far as he was concerned they did not exist. At four o’clock he executed a running jump, gained the roof of the chicken-house and leaped to the ground outside, whence he sauntered gravely to the house. He had learned the law. And on the porch, before the delighted family, Judge Scott, face to face with White Fang, said slowly and solemnly, sixteen times, “White Fang, you are smarter than I thought.”
 
But it was the multiplicity of laws that befuddled White Fang and often brought him into disgrace. He had to learn that he must not touch the chickens that belonged to other gods. Then there were cats, and rabbits, and turkeys; all these he must let alone. In fact, when he had but partly learned the law, his impression was that he must leave all live things alone. Out in the back-pasture, a quail could flutter up under his nose unharmed. All tense and trembling with eagerness and desire, he mastered his instinct and stood still. He was obeying the will of the gods.
 
And then, one day, again out in the back-pasture, he saw Dick start a jackrabbit and run it. The master himself was looking on and did not interfere. Nay, he encouraged White Fang to join in the chase. And thus he learned that there was no taboo on jackrabbits. In the end he worked out the complete law. Between him and all domestic animals there must be no hostilities. If not amity, at least neutrality must obtain. But the other animals—the squirrels, and quail, and cottontails, were creatures of the Wild who had never yielded allegiance to man. They were the lawful prey of any dog. It was only the tame that the gods protected, and between the tame deadly strife was not permitted. The gods held the power of life and death over their subjects, and the gods were jealous of their power.
 
Life was complex in the Santa Clara Valley after the simplicities of the Northland. And the chief thing demanded by these intricacies of civilisation was control, restraint—a poise of self that was as delicate as the fluttering of gossamer wings and at the same time as rigid as steel. Life had a thousand faces, and White Fang found he must meet them all—thus, when he went to town, in to San Jose, running behind the carriage or loafing about the streets when the carriage stopped. Life flowed past him, deep and wide and varied, continually impinging upon his senses, demanding of him instant and endless adjustments and correspondences, and compelling him, almost always, to suppress his natural impulses.
 
There were butcher-shops where meat hung within reach. This meat he must not touch. There were cats at the houses the master visited that must be let alone. And there were dogs everywhere that snarled at him and that he must not attack. And then, on the crowded sidewalks there were persons innumerable whose attention he attracted. They would stop and look at him, point him out to one another, examine him, talk of him, and, worst of all, pat him. And these perilous contacts from all these strange hands he must endure. Yet this endurance he achieved. Furthermore, he got over being awkward and self-conscious. In a lofty way he received the attentions of the multitudes of strange gods. With condescension he accepted their condescension. On the other hand, there was something about him that prevented great familiarity. They patted him on the head and passed on, contented and pleased with their own daring.
 
But it was not all easy for White Fang. Running behind the carriage in the outskirts of San Jose, he encountered certain small boys who made a practice of flinging stones at him. Yet he knew that it was not permitted him to pursue and drag them down. Here he was compelled to violate his instinct of self-preservation, and violate it he did, for he was becoming tame and qualifying himself for civilisation.
 
Nevertheless, White Fang was not quite satisfied with the arrangement. He had no abstract ideas about justice and fair play. But there is a certain sense of equity that resides in life, and it was this sense in him that resented the unfairness of his being permitted no defence against the stone-throwers. He forgot that in the covenant entered into between him and the gods they were pledged to care for him and defend him. But one day the master sprang from the carriage, whip in hand, and gave the stone-throwers a thrashing. After that they threw stones no more, and White Fang understood and was satisfied.
 
One other experience of similar nature was his. On the way to town, hanging around the saloon at the cross-roads, were three dogs that made a practice of rushing out upon him when he went by. Knowing his deadly method of fighting, the master had never ceased impressing upon White Fang the law that he must not fight. As a result, having learned the lesson well, White Fang was hard put whenever he passed the cross-roads saloon. After the first rush, each time, his snarl kept the three dogs at a distance but they trailed along behind, yelping and bickering and insulting him. This endured for some time. The men at the saloon even urged the dogs on to attack White Fang. One day they openly sicked the dogs on him. The master stopped the carriage.
 
“Go to it,” he said to White Fang.
 
But White Fang could not believe. He looked at the master, and he looked at the dogs. Then he looked back eagerly and questioningly at the master.
 
The master nodded his head. “Go to them, old fellow. Eat them up.”
 
White Fang no longer hesitated. He turned and leaped silently among his enemies. All three faced him. There was a great snarling and growling, a clashing of teeth and a flurry of bodies. The dust of the road arose in a cloud and screened the battle. But at the end of several minutes two dogs were struggling in the dirt and the third was in full flight. He leaped a ditch, went through a rail fence, and fled across a field. White Fang followed, sliding over the ground in wolf fashion and with wolf speed, swiftly and without noise, and in the centre of the field he dragged down and slew the dog.
 
With this triple killing his main troubles with dogs ceased. The word went up and down the valley, and men saw to it that their dogs did not molest the Fighting Wolf.