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.