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 Princeton University Library

32101 067626554
2-6

Waller Smith
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WHITE FANG
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1046 W54

1911

WORKS OF JACK LONDON

THE GAME
THE SEA-WOLF
THE CALL OF THE WILD
THE CHILDREN OF THE FROST
PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS
THE FAITH OF MEN AND OTHER STORIES
WAR OF THE CLASSES
THE KEMPTON-WACE LETTERS
TALES OF THE FISH PATROL
MOON-FACE AND OTHER STORIES
WHITE FANG

PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
 CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL

"The whole pack, on haunches, with noses pointed skyward , was

howling its hunger cry."
 WHITE FANG

BY

JACK LONDON
AUTHOR OF 66 THE CALL OF THE WILD, " " THE
SEA WOLF, " ETC., ETC.

New York
PUBLISHED FOR
THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO. , LTD.
1911
All rights reserved
 (RECAP )

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COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY JACK LONDON.

COPYRIGHT, 1906,
BY THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY.

COPYRIGHT, 1906,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1906. Reprinted

January, 1909 ; June, December, 1911.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co. - Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 CONTENTS

PART ONE

THE WILD
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT 3
II. THE SHE-WOLF • · 15
III. THE HUNGER CRY 30

PART TWO

BORN OF THE WILD

I. THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS 49

II. THE LAIR . · • · • · 64
III. THE GRAY CUB • • 76
IV. THE WALL OF THE WORLD • · 84
V. THE LAW OF MEAT . · • 101

PART THREE

THE GODS OF THE WILD

I. THE MAKERS OF FIRE • 113

II. THE BONDAGE • • 130
III. THE OUTCAST · · · 143
IV. THE TRAIL OF THE GODS • 150
V. THE COVENANT . • 158
VI. THE FAMINE 171
vi CONTENTS

PART FONE

THE SUPERIOR GODS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND • 187
II. THE MAD GOD . • 202
III. THE REIGN OF HATE • 215
IV. THE CLINGING DEATH • 223
V. THE INDOMITABLE • 240
VI. THE LOVE-MASTER · 249

PART FIVE

THE TAME

I. THE LONG TRAIL • 271

II. THE SOUTHLAND • 279
III. THE GOD'S DOMAIN • • • 289
IV. THE CALL OF KIND . • • 305
V. THE SLEEPING WOLF • • 315
 PART ONE

THE WILD

CHAPTER THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT

CHAPTER II THE SHE-WOLF
CHAPTER III THE HUNGER CRY
 WHITE FANG

CHAPTER I

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 toward each other, black and
ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned
over the land. The land itself was a desolation , life-
less, 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 ter-

rible than any sadness a laughter that was mirth-
less 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
3
4 WHITE FANG

breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spout-

ing forth in spumes of vapor 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 run-
ning 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
 THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT 5

most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dic-

tum 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 colos-

sal 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 atmos-
pheres of deep water affect the body of the diver.
It crushed them with the weight of unending vast-
ness 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
ardors and exaltations and undue self-values of the

human soul, until they perceived themselves finite

and small, specks and motes, moving with weak
6 WHITE FANG

cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and 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 , palpi-

tant 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 hun-
gry 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

 THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT 7

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, clus-

tered 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 anythin' about their not bein'
wise."
66 Henry," said
the other, munching with delibera-
tion 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 acknowl-

edged.
"How many dogs ' ve we got, Henry ? "
" Six."
66 99
Well, Henry • • Bill stopped for a moment,
8 WHITE FANG

in order that his words might gain greater signifi-

cance. " 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 dispas-

sionately. " I took out six fish. One Ear didn't get

no fish. I come 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."

His comrade 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 'm to you."
 THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT 9

Henry did not reply, but munched on in silence,

until, the meal finished , he topped it with a final
cup of coffee. He wiped his mouth with the back
of his hand and said :
99
"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 thinkin' you're down in the mouth some,"
Henry said.
‫وو‬
" 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

10 WHITE FANG

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 God-forsaken 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 to home," Henry agreed.
Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his
mind. Instead, he pointed toward the wall of dark-
ness 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 head a second pair,
and a third. A circle of the gleaming eyes had
drawn about their camp . Now and again a pair

of eyes moved , or disappeared to appear again a

moment later.

The unrest of the dogs had been increasing, and

they stampeded, in a surge of sudden fear, to the near
side of the fire, cringing and crawling about the legs
of the men . In the scramble one of the dogs had

been overturned on the edge of the fire, and it had

 THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT 11

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 com-
panion 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 moccasins .

" How many cartridges did you say you had left ? "
he asked .
"Three," came the answer. " An' I wisht 'twas

three hundred . Then I'd show ' em what for, damn

'em ! "

He shook his fist angrily at the gleaming eyes, and

began securely to prop his moccasins before the
fire.

" An' I wisht this cold snap'd break," he went on.

" It's ben fifty below for two weeks now. An' I

wisht I'd never started on this trip, Henry. I don't

like the looks of it. It don't feel right, somehow.

An' while I'm wishin' , I wisht the trip was over an'
done with, an' you an' me a-sittin ' by the fire in Fort
-
McGurry just about now an' playin' cribbage — that's
what I wisht."
12 WHITE FANG

Henry grunted and crawled into bed. As he dozed

off he was aroused by his comrade's voice.

" Say, Henry, that other one that come in an' got
a fish - why didn't the dogs pitch into it ? That's
what's botherin' me."
" You're botherin' too much, Bill," came the sleepy
response. " You was never like this before. You jes'
shut up now, an' go to sleep, an' you'll be all hunky-
dory 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 had flung
about the camp. The dogs clustered together in fear,
now and again snarling menacingly as a pair of eyes
drew close. Once their uproar became so loud that
Bill woke up. He got out of bed carefully, so as not

to disturb the sleep of his comrade, and threw more

wood on the fire. As it began to flame up, the circle

of eyes drew farther back. He glanced casually at

the huddling dogs . He rubbed his eyes and looked
at them more sharply. 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 just counted."
 THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT 13

Henry acknowledged receipt of the information

with a grunt that slid into 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."
66
Wrong, " Bill proclaimed triumphantly.
" Seven again ? " Henry queried .
" No, five ; one's gone."
" The hell ! " Henry cried in wrath, leaving the
cooking to come and count the dogs.
"You're right, Bill," he concluded. " Fatty's
gone."
"An' he went like greased lightnin' once he got
started. Couldn't 've seen ' m for smoke."

" No chance at all," Henry concluded. " They jes'

swallowed 'm alive. I bet 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 suicide that way." He looked over the
remainder of the team with a speculative eye that
14 WHITE FANG

summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal.

" I bet none of the others would do it."

"Couldn't drive ' em away from the fire with a

club," Bill agreed . " I always did think there was

somethin' wrong with Fatty, anyway."
And this was the epitaph of a dead dog on the
Northland trail - less scant than the epitaph of many
another dog, of many a man.
 CHAPTER II

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-color, and marked

where the bulge of the earth intervened between the
meridian sun and the northern world . But the rose-

color swiftly faded . The gray 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 :
15
16 WHITE FANG

"I wisht they'd strike game somewheres, an' go

away an' leave us alone."

"They do get on the nerves horrible," Henry sym- }

pathized .
They spoke no more until camp was made.
Henry was bending over and adding ice to the
bubbling 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 disappear-
ing across the snow into the shelter of the dark.

Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half tri-

umphant, half crest-fallen, 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

 THE SHE-WOLF 17

somethin', 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' an' 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 blas-
phemy 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 powers of the Wild that had
robbed them of another dog.
C
18 WHITE FANG

"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 re-
maining dogs were harnessed to the sled . The day
was a repetition of the days that had gone before.
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-after-
noon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew
in according to their custom ; and the dogs grew
excited and frightened , and were guilty of panics that
tangled the traces and further depressed the two
men.

" There, that'll fix you fool critters," Bill said with
satisfaction that night, standing erect at completion
of his task.

Henry left his cooking to come and see. Not only

had his partner tied the 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 so close to the neck that the dog could
not get his teeth to it, he had tied a stout 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
 THE SHE-WOLF 19

means of a leather thong. The dog 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 can gnaw through leather as
clean as a knife an' jes' about half as quick. They
all '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 a couple of

shots into ' em, they'd be more respectful. They come

closer every night. Get the firelight out of your

eyes an' look hard — there ! Did you see that one ? "
For some time the two men amused themselves

with watching the movement of vague forms on the

edge of the firelight. By looking closely and steadily
at where a pair of eyes burned in the darkness, the
form of the animal would slowly take shape . They
could even see these forms move at times.

A sound among the dogs attracted the men's atten-

tion. One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines,
lunging at the length of his stick toward the dark-
ness, and desisting now and again in order to make
frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.
20 WHITE FANG

" Look at that, Bill," Henry whispered.

Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong
movement, glided a doglike animal. It moved with
commingled mistrust and daring, cautiously observ-
ing the men, its attention fixed on the dogs. One
Ear strained the full 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 Fatty an' Frog. She's the decoy for the
pack. She draws out the dog an' then all the rest
pitches in an' eats 'm up."
The fire crackled . A log fell apart with a loud
spluttering noise. At the sound 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's familyarity 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 at feedin' time has
had experiences. "
 THE SHE-WOLF 21

' Villan had a dog once that run away with

" Ol
the wolves," Bill cogitated aloud. " I ought to know.
I shot it out of the pack in a moose pasture over on
Little Stick. An' Ol' Villan cried like a baby.

Hadn't seen it for 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 eaten fish 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," Bill declared. "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 the accompaniment of his partner's
snoring.

"You was sleepin' jes' too comfortable for any-

thin'," 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 and started to reach for the pot. But

the pot was beyond arm's length and beside Henry.

" Say, Henry," he chided gently, " ain't you for-
got somethin' ? "

Henry looked about with great carefulness and

shook his head. Bill held up the empty cup.
22 WHITE FANG

"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 explain yourself," he said.
" Spanker's gone," Henry answered .
Without haste, with the air of one resigned to mis-
fortune, Bill turned his 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 the anger 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 this time an' cavortin' over the

landscape in the bellies of twenty different wolves,"

was Henry's epitaph on this, the latest lost dog.
" Have some coffee , Bill."
But Bill shook his head.

" Go on," Henry pleaded , elevating the pot.

Bill shoved his cup aside. " I'll be ding-dong-
 THE SHE-WOLF 23

danged if I do. I said I wouldn'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 with mumbled 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, who was in front, bent down and
picked up something with which his snowshoe had

collided. It was dark, and he could not see it, but

he recognized it by the touch. He flung it back, so
that it struck the sled and bounced 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 - the stick with which he had been

tied.
They ate 'm hide an' all," Bill announced. "The

stick's as clean as a whistle. 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 wolves before, but I've gone through a

whole lot worse an' kept my health. Takes more'n
24 WHITE FANG

a handful of them pesky critters to do for yours

truly, Bill, my son."
"I don't know, I don't know," Bill muttered
ominously.
66
Well, you'll know all right when we pull into
McGurry."
" I ain't feelin' special enthusiastic," Bill persisted .
" You're off color, that's what's the matter with
you," Henry dogmatized. "What you need is

quinine, an' I'm goin' to dose you up stiff as soon

as we make McGurry."
Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis,
and lapsed into silence. The day was like all the
days. Light came at nine o'clock. At twelve o'clock
the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun ;

and then began the cold gray of afternoon that would

merge, three hours later, into night.

It was just after the sun's futile effort to appear,

that Bill slipped the rifle 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 pro-

tested. "You've only got three cartridges, an' there's
no tellin' what might happen."
"Who's croakin' now ? " Bill demanded trium-

phantly.
Henry made no reply, and plodded on alone, though
 THE SHE-WOLF 25

often he cast anxious glances back into the gray soli-

tude where his partner had disappeared. An hour
later, taking advantage of the cut-offs around which
the sled had to go, Bill arrived.
" They're scattered an' rangin' along wide," he said ;
"keepin' up with us an' lookin' for game at the same
time. You see, they're sure of us, only they know
they've got to wait to get us . In the meantime

they're willin' to pick up anythin ' 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. They ain'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 their

backbones. 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 travel-
ling behind the sled , emitted a low, warning whistle.
Bill turned and looked , then quietly stopped the dogs.
To the rear, from around the last bend and plainly
into view, 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, effortless

gait. When they halted, it halted, throwing up its
26 WHITE FANG

head and regarding them steadily with nostrils that

twitched as it caught and studied the scent of them.
" It's the she-wolf, " Bill whispered.
The dogs had lain down in the snow, and he walked
past them to join his partner at the sled. Together
they watched the strange animal that had pursued
them for days and that had already accomplished the
destruction of half their dog-team .

After a searching scrutiny, the animal trotted for-

ward a few steps. This it 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 studied the 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 dog affection. It was a wistfulness bred
of hunger, as cruel as its own fangs, as merciless as
the frost itself.

It was large for a wolf, its gaunt frame advertising

the lines of an animal that was among the largest of
its kind.

"Stands pretty close to two feet an' a half at the

shoulders," Henry commented. " An' I'll bet it ain't

far from five feet long."

"Kind of strange color for a wolf," was Bill's

criticism . " I never seen a red wolf before. Looks
almost cinnamon to me."

The animal was certainly not cinnamon-colored.

 THE SHE-WOLF 27

Its coat was the true wolf-coat. The dominant color

was gray, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue

-a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disap-

peared, that was more like an illusion of the vision,
now gray, distinctly gray, and again giving hints and
glints of a vague redness of color not classifiable in
terms of ordinary experience.
" Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog,"
Bill said. "I wouldn'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 the animal betrayed no fear. The only
change in it that they could notice was an accession
of alertness . It still regarded them with the merci-
less wistfulness of hunger. They were meat, and it
was hungry ; and it would like to go in and eat them
if it dared .

" Look here, Henry," Bill said, unconsciously lower-

ing his voice to a whisper because of what he medi-
tated. "We've got three cartridges. But it's a dead
shot. Couldn't miss it. It's got away with three of

our dogs, an' we oughter put a stop to it. What d'ye

say ?"
Henry nodded his consent. Bill cautiously slipped

the gun from under the sled-lashing. The gun was

28 WHITE FANG

on the way to his shoulder, but it never got there.

For in that instant the she-wolf leaped sidewise from
the trail into the clump of spruce trees and dis-
appeared.
The two men looked at each other. Henry whistled
long and comprehendingly .
" I might have knowed it," Bill chided himself
aloud, as he replaced the gun. " Of course a wolf
that knows enough to
to come in with the dogs
at feedin' 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 present
time, 'stead of three, if it wasn't for her. An' I tell

you right now, Henry, I'm goin ' to get her. She's
too smart to be shot in the open. But I'm goin ' to
lay for 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 . "If that pack ever starts to

jump you, them three cartridges ' d be wuth no more'n

three whoops in hell. Them animals is damn hungry,

an' once they start in, they'll sure get you , Bill. "
They camped early that night. Three dogs could
not drag the sled so fast nor for so long hours as
could six, and they were showing unmistakable signs
of playing out. And the men went early to bed,
Bill first seeing to it that the dogs were tied out of
gnawing-reach of one another.
 THE SHE-WOLF 29

But the wolves were growing bolder, and the men:

were aroused more than once from their sleep. So
near did the wolves approach, that the dogs became
frantic with terror, and it was necessary to replenish
the fire from time to time in order to keep the adven-
turous marauders at safer distance.

" I've hearn sailors talk of sharks followin' a ship, "

Bill remarked, as he crawled back into the blankets -
after one such replenishing of the fire. "Well, them
wolves is land sharks. They know their business.
better'n we do, 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 retorted sharply. " A man's half licked when
he says he is. An' you're half eaten from the way
you're goin' on about it. "

"They've got away with better men than you and

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 made no similar display of temper.
This was not Bill's way, for he was easily angered
by sharp words. Henry thought long over it before
he went to sleep, and as his eyelids fluttered down
and he dozed off, the thought in his mind was :
"There's no mistakin' it, Bill's almighty blue. I'll
have to cheer him up to-morrow."
 CHAPTER III

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, and the cold
with spirits that were fairly light. Bill seemed to
have forgotten his forebodings of the previous night,
and even waxed facetious with the dogs 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 jammed between a tree-trunk and a huge
rock, and they were forced to unharness the dogs in
order to straighten out the tangle. The two men
were bent over the sled and trying to right it, when
Henry observed One Ear sidling away.
" Here, you, One Ear ! " he cried , straightening up
and turning around on the dog.
But One Ear broke into a run across the snow, his

traces trailing behind 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
30
 THE HUNGER CRY 31

cautious. He slowed down to an alert and mincing

walk and then stopped. He regarded her carefully
and dubiously, yet desirefully. She seemed to smile

at him, showing her teeth in an ingratiating rather

than a menacing way. She moved toward him a
few steps, playfully, and then halted. One Ear drew

near to her, still alert and cautious, his tail and ears
in the air, his head held high.
He tried to sniff noses with her, but she retreated
playfully and coyly. Every advance on his part was
accompanied by a corresponding retreat on her part.
Step by step she was luring him away from the
security of his human companionship. Once, as

though a warning had in vague ways flitted through

his intelligence, he turned his head and looked back

at the overturned sled, at his team-mates, and at the

two men who were calling to him.
But whatever idea was forming in his mind, was

dissipated by the she-wolf, who advanced upon him,

sniffed noses with him for a fleeting instant, and then
resumed her coy retreat before his renewed advances.
In the meantime, Bill had bethought himself of
the rifle. But it was jammed beneath the overturned
sled, and by the time Henry had helped him to right
the load, One Ear and the she-wolf were too close
together and the distance too great to risk a shot.
Too late, One Ear learned his mistake. Before they
saw the cause, the two men saw him turn and start
32 WHITE FANG'

to run back toward them . Then, approaching at

right angles to the trail and cutting off his retreat,

they saw a dozen wolves , lean and gray, bounding
across the snow. On the instant, the she-wolf's coy-

ness and playfulness disappeared . With a snarl she

sprang upon One Ear. He thrust her off with his

shoulder, and, his retreat cut off and still intent on

regaining the sled , he altered his course in an attempt
to circle around to it. More wolves were appearing
every moment and joining in the chase. The she-

wolf was one leap behind One Ear and holding her
own.

"Where are you goin' ? " Henry suddenly demanded ,

laying his hand on his partner's arm .
Bill shook it off. " I won't stand it," he said.

"They ain't a-goin' to get any more of our dogs if I

can help it."
Gun in hand, he plunged into the underbrush that
lined the side of the trail. His intention was appar-

ent enough. Taking the sled as the centre of the

circle that One Ear was making, Bill planned to tap
that circle at a point in advance of the pursuit.
With his rifle, in the broad daylight, it might be pos-
sible for him to awe the wolves and save the dog.
" Say, Bill ! " Henry called after him. " Be care-
ful ! Don't take no chances ! "
Henry sat down on the sled and watched. There

was nothing else for him to do. Bill had already

 THE HUNGER CRY 33

gone from sight ; but now and again, appearing and

disappearing amongst the underbrush and the scat-
tered clumps of spruce, could be seen One Ear.
Henry judged his case to be hopeless. The dog was
thoroughly alive to its danger, but it was running on
the outer circle while the wolf-pack was running on
the inner and shorter circle. It was vain to think of

One Ear so outdistancing his pursuers as to be able

to cut across their circle in advance of them and to
regain the sled .
The different lines were rapidly approaching a
point. Somewhere out there in the snow, screened
from his sight by trees and thickets, Henry knew that
the wolf-pack, One Ear, and Bill were coming to-
gether. All too quickly, far more quickly than he
had expected, it happened. He heard a shot, then
two shots in rapid succession, and he knew that Bill's
ammunition was gone. Then he heard a great out-

cry of snarls and yelps. He recognized One Ear's

yell of pain and terror, and he heard a wolf-cry that
bespoke a stricken animal. And that was all . The
snarls ceased. The yelping died away. Silence set-
tled down again over the lonely land .
He sat for a long while upon the sled. There was
no need for him to go and see what had happened.
He knew it as though it had taken place before his
eyes. Once, he roused with a start and hastily got
the axe out from underneath the lashings. But for
D
84 WHITE FANG

some time longer he sat and brooded, the two remain-

ing dogs crouching and trembling at his feet.
At last he arose in a weary manner, as though all the
resilience had gone out of his body, and proceeded to
fasten the dogs to the sled. He passed a rope over his
shoulder, a man-trace, and pulled with the dogs. He
did not go far. At the first hint of darkness he hastened
to make a camp, and he saw to it that he had a gen-
erous supply of firewood. He fed the dogs, 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 the wolves had drawn too near for
safety. It no longer required an effort of the vision
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 for-
ward on their bellies, or slinking back and forth.
They even slept. 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 intervened between the flesh of his body and

their hungry fangs. His two dogs stayed close by

him, one on either side, leaning against him for pro-
tection, crying and whimpering, and at times snarl-
ing desperately when a wolf approached a little closer
than usual. At such moments, when his dogs snarled,
the whole circle would be agitated, the wolves com-
 THE HUNGER CRY 35

ing to their feet and pressing tentatively forward, a

chorus of snarls and eager yelps rising about him.

Then the circle would lie down again, and here and
there a wolf would resume its broken nap.

But this circle had a continuous tendency to draw in

upon him. Bit by bit, an inch at a time, with here a

wolf bellying forward, and there a wolf bellying for-

ward, the circle would narrow until the brutes were
almost within springing distance. Then he would

seize brands from the fire and hurl them into the pack.

A hasty drawing back always resulted, accompanied

by angry yelps and frightened snarls when a well-
aimed brand struck and scorched a too daring animal.
Morning found the man haggard and worn, wide-
eyed from want of sleep. He cooked breakfast in the
darkness, and at nine o'clock, when, with the coming
of daylight, the wolf-pack drew back, he set about
the task he had planned through the long hours of
the night. Chopping down young saplings, he made
them cross-bars of a scaffold by lashing them high up

to the trunks of standing trees. Using the sled-

lashing for a heaving rope, and with the aid of the
dogs, he hoisted the coffin to the top of the scaffold .
66
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 the willing dogs ; for they, too, knew

36 WHITE FANG

that safety lay only in the gaining of Fort McGurry.

The wolves were now more open in their pursuit,
trotting sedately behind and ranging along on either
side, their red tongues lolling out, their lean sides
showing the undulating ribs with every movement.
They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over
bony frames, with strings for muscles — so lean that
Henry found it in his mind to marvel that they 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 warm the 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

gray daylight and sombre twilight, and he utilized

them in chopping an enormous supply of firewood.

With night came horror. Not only were the starv-
ing wolves growing bolder, but lack of sleep was
telling upon Henry. He dozed despite himself,

crouching by the fire, the blankets about his shoulders,

the axe between his knees, and on either side a dog
pressing close against him. He awoke once and saw
in front of him, not a dozen feet away, a big gray

wolf, one of the largest of the pack. And even as he

looked, the brute deliberately stretched himself after
 THE HUNGER CRY 37

the manner of a lazy dog, yawning full in his face and

looking upon him with a possessive eye, as if, in truth ,
he were merely a delayed meal that was soon to be
eaten.

This certitude was shown by the whole pack.

Fully a score he could count, staring hungrily at him
or calmly sleeping in the snow. They reminded him
of children gathered about a spread table and await-
ing permission to begin to eat. And he was the food
they were to eat ! He wondered how and when the
meal would begin.
As he piled wood on the fire he discovered an ap-
preciation of his own body which he had never felt
before. He watched his moving muscles and was

interested in the cunning mechanism of his fingers.

By the light of the fire he crooked his fingers slowly
and repeatedly, now one at a time, now all together,
spreading them wide or making quick gripping move-
ments. He studied the nail-formation, and prodded

the finger-tips, now sharply, and again softly, gauging

the while the nerve-sensations produced. It fasci-

nated him , and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle

flesh of his that worked so beautifully and smoothly

and delicately. Then he would cast a glance of fear

at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, and
like a blow the realization would strike him that this

wonderful body of his, this living flesh, was no more

than so much meat, a quest of ravenous animals, to
38 WHITE FANG

be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to be sus-

tenance to them as the moose and the rabbit had
often been sustenance to him.

He came out of a doze that was half nightmare,

to see the red-hued she-wolf before him. She was

not more than half a dozen feet away, sitting in the

snow and wistfully regarding him . The two dogs

were whimpering and snarling at his feet, but she

took no notice of them. She was looking at the man,
and for some time he returned her look. There was

nothing threatening 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 the food, and the sight of him excited in her the

gustatory sensations. Her mouth opened , the saliva

drooled forth, and she licked her chops with the
pleasure of anticipation.
A spasm of fear went through him. He reached

hastily for a brand to throw at her. But even as

he reached, and before his fingers had closed on the
missile, she sprang back into safety ; and he knew

that she was used to having things thrown at her,

She had snarled as she sprang away, baring her white
fangs to their roots, all her wistfulness vanishing,
being replaced by a carnivorous malignity that
made him shudder. He glanced at the hand that held
the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers
that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all
 THE HUNGER CRY 39

the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under

and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too
close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively
and automatically writhing back from the hurtful

heat to a cooler gripping-place ; and in the same

instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensi-

tive and delicate fingers being crushed and torn by

the white teeth of the she-wolf. Never had he been

so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of

it was so precarious .
All night, with burning brands, he fought off the
hungry pack. When he dozed despite himself, the
whimpering and snarling of the dogs aroused him.
Morning came, but for the first time the light of day
failed to scatter the wolves . The man waited in vain
for them to go. They remained in a circle about him
.

and his fire, displaying an arrogance of possession that

shook his courage born of the morning light.
He made one desperate attempt to pull out on the
trail. But the moment he left the protection of the

fire, the boldest wolf leaped for him, but leaped

short. He saved himself by springing back, the jaws
snapping together a scant six inches from his thigh.
The rest of the pack was now up and surging upon

him, and a throwing of firebrands right and left was

necessary 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
40 WHITE FANG

huge dead spruce. He spent half the day extending

his campfire to the tree, at any moment a half dozen
burning fagots ready at hand to fling at his enemies .
Once at the tree, he studied the surrounding forest
in order to fell the tree in the direction of the most
firewood.

The night was a repetition of the night before,

save that the need for sleep was becoming overpower-

ing. The snarling of his dogs was losing its efficacy.

Besides, they were snarling all the time, and his be-
numbed and drowsy senses no longer took note of
changing pitch and intensity. He awoke 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 full into her open and snarling
mouth. She sprang away, yelling with pain , and
while he took delight in the smell of burning flesh
and hair, he watched her 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 his right hand . His eyes were
closed but a few minutes when the burn of the flame
on his flesh awakened him. For several hours he

adhered to this programme. Every time he was thus

awakened he drove back the wolves with flying
brands, replenished the fire, and rearranged the pine-
knot on his hand. All worked well, but there

came a time when he fastened the pine knot inse-

 THE HUNGER CRY 41

curely. As his eyes closed it fell away from his

hand.
He dreamed. It seemed to him that he was in

Fort McGurry. It was warm and comfortable, and

he was playing cribbage with the Factor. Also, it

seemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves.

They were howling at the very gates, and sometimes
he and the Factor paused from the game to listen and
laugh at the futile efforts of the wolves to get in.
And then, so strange was the dream, there was a
crash.The door was burst open. He could see the

wolves flooding into the big living-room of the fort.

They were leaping straight for him and the Factor.
With the bursting open of the door, the noise of their

howling had increased tremendously. This howling

now bothered him . His dream was merging into
something else - he knew not what ; but through it
all, following him, persisted the howling.
And then he awoke to find the howling real.
There was a great snarling and yelping. The wolves
were rushing him. They were all about him and
upon him. The teeth of one had closed upon his
arm . Instinctively he leaped into the fire, and as
he leaped , he felt the sharp slash of teeth that tore
through the flesh of his leg. Then began a fire fight.
His stout mittens temporarily protected his hands,
and he scooped live coals into the air in all directions,
until the camp-fire took on the semblance of a volcano.
42 WHITE FANG

But it could not last long. His face was blistering

in the heat, his eyebrows and lashes were singed off,

and the heat was becoming unbearable to his feet.
With a flaming brand in each hand, he sprang to the
edge of the fire. The wolves had been driven back.

On every side, wherever the live coals had fallen, the

snow was sizzling, and every little while a retiring

wolf, with wild leap and snort and snarl, announced
that one such live coal had been stepped upon.

Flinging his brands at the nearest of his enemies,

the man thrust his smouldering mittens into the
snow and stamped about to cool his feet. His two
dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had
served as a course in the protracted meal which had
begun days before with Fatty, the last course of
which would likely be himself in the days to
follow.

" You ain't got me yet ! " he cried, savagely shak-

ing his fist at the hungry beasts ; and at the sound
of his voice the whole circle was agitated, there was

a general snarl, and the she-wolf slid up close to

him across the snow and watched him with hungry
wistfulness.

He set to work to carry out a new idea that had

come to him . He extended the fire into a large
circle. Inside this circle he crouched, his sleeping

outfit under him as a protection against the melting

snow. When he had thus disappeared within his
 THE HUNGER CRY 43

shelter of flame, the whole pack came curiously to

the rim of the fire to see what had become of him.
Hitherto they had been denied access to the fire, and

they now settled down in a close-drawn circle, like

so many dogs, blinking and yawning and stretching
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 one the wolves joined her,

till the whole pack, on haunches, with noses pointed
skyward, was howling its hunger cry.
Dawn came, and daylight. The fire was burning
low. The fuel had run out, and there was need to
get more. The man attempted to step out of his
circle of flame, but the wolves surged to meet him.
Burning brands made them spring aside, but they no
longer sprang back. In vain he strove to drive them

back. As he gave up and stumbled inside his circle,

a wolf leaped for him, missed, and landed with all
four feet in the coals. It cried out with terror, at

the same time snarling, and scrambled back to cool

its paws in the snow.
The man sat down on his blankets in a crouching
position. His body leaned forward from the hips.
His shoulders, relaxed and drooping, and his head
on his knees advertised that he had given up the

struggle. Now and again he raised his head to note

the dying down of the fire. The circle of flame and

coals was breaking into segments with openings in

44 WHITE FANG

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 wakened, and in an opening in the circle,

directly in front of him, he saw the she-wolf gazing
at him .

Again he awakened, a little later, though it

seemed hours to him. A mysterious change had
taken place. ― so mysterious a change that he was
shocked wider awake. Something had happened .
He could not understand at first. Then he dis-
covered it. The wolves were gone. Remained only

the trampled snow to show how closely they had

pressed him. Sleep was welling up and gripping him
again, his head was sinking down upon his knees,
when he roused with a sudden start.

There were cries of men, the churn of sleds , the

creaking of harnesses, and the eager whimpering of
straining dogs. Four sleds pulled in from the river
bed to the camp among the trees. Half a dozen men
were about the man who crouched in the centre

of the dying fire. They were shaking and prod-

ding him into consciousness. He looked at them
like a drunken man and maundered in strange, sleepy

speech :
" Red she-wolf. • • Come in with the dogs at
feedin' time. • · First she ate the dog-food . •
 THE HUNGER CRY 45

Then she ate the dogs. · An' after that she ate
Bill. 99
·
"Where's Lord Alfred ? " one of the men bellowed

in his ear, shaking him roughly.

He shook his head slowly. " No, she didn't eat
him. . He's roostin' in a tree at the last camp."
"Dead ?" the man shouted.

" An' in a box," Henry answered. He jerked his

shoulder petulantly away from the grip of his ques-
tioner. "Say, you lemme alone. · · I'm jes'

plumb 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 rising on
the frosty air.
But there was another sound. Far and faint it

was, in the remote distance, the cry of the hungry

wolf-pack as it took the trail of other meat than the
man it had just missed.
 PART TWO

BORN OF THE WILD

CHAPTER I • • THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS

CHAPTER II • THE LAIR
CHAPTER III • • • THE GRAY CUB
CHAPTER IV • · THE WALL OF THE WORLD
CHAPTER V THE LAW OF MEAT
 CHAPTER I

THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS

It was the she-wolf who had first caught the

sound of men's voices and the whining of the sled-
dogs ; and it was the she-wolf who was first to
spring away from the cornered man in his circle of

dying flame. The pack had been loath to forego the

kill it had hunted down, and it lingered for several

minutes, making sure of the sounds ; and then it, too,

sprang away on the trail made by the she-wolf.
Running at the forefront of the pack was a large
gray wolf - one of its several leaders. It was he

who directed the pack's course on the heels of the

she-wolf. It was he who snarled warningly at the
younger members of the pack or slashed at them
with his fangs when they ambitiously tried to pass
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 appointed position , and took the pace of the
pack. He did not snarl at her, nor show his teeth,
B 49
50 WHITE FANG

when any leap of hers chanced to put her in advance

of him . On the 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

she who snarled and showed her teeth. Nor was she

above slashing his shoulder sharply on occasion. At

such times he betrayed no anger. He merely 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 other troubles. On her other side
ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled and marked with the
scars of many battles. He ran always on her right
side. The fact that he had but one eye, and that the

left eye, might account for this. He, also, was ad-
dicted to crowding her, to veering toward her till his
scarred muzzle touched her body, or shoulder, or neck.
As with the running mate on the left, she repelled
these attentions with her teeth ; but when both be-
stowed their 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 same
time to maintain her forward leap with the pack
and see the way of her feet before her. At such
times her running mates flashed their teeth and
growled threateningly across at each other. They

might have fought, but even wooing and its rivalry

 THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS 51

waited upon the more pressing hunger-need of the

pack.
After each repulse, when the old wolf sheered
abruptly away from the sharp-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 his full size ; and , considering the weak
and famished condition of the pack, he possessed

more than the average vigor and spirit. Nevertheless ,

he ran with his head even with the shoulder of his
one-eyed elder. When he ventured to run abreast of

the older wolf, ( which was seldom), a snarl and a

snap sent him back even with the shoulder again .
Sometimes, however, he dropped cautiously and
slowly behind and edged in between the old leader
and the she-wolf. This was doubly resented, even

triply resented. When she snarled her displeasure,

the old leader would whirl on the three-year-old.
Sometimes she whirled with him. And sometimes
the young leader on the left whirled, too.
At such times, confronted by three sets of savage
teeth, the young wolf stopped precipitately, throwing
himself back on his haunches, with fore-legs stiff,

mouth menacing, and mane bristling. This confusion

in the front of the moving pack always caused con-
fusion in the rear. The wolves behind collided with

the young wolf and expressed their displeasure by

administering sharp nips on his hind-legs and flanks.
52 WHITE FANG

He was laying up trouble for himself, for lack of food

and short tempers went together ; but with the bound-
less faith of youth he persisted in repeating the ma-
nœuvre every little while, though it never succeeded
in gaining anything for him but discomfiture.
Had there been food, love-making and fighting

would have gone on apace, and the pack-formation

would have been broken up. But the situation of
the pack was desperate. It was lean with long-stand-
ing hunger. It ran below its ordinary speed . At
the rear limped the weak members, the very young
and the very old. At the front were the strongest .
Yet all were more like skeletons than full-bodied

wolves. Nevertheless, with the exception of the ones

that limped, the movements of the animals were
effortless and tireless . Their stringy muscles seemed

founts of inexhaustible energy. Behind every steel-like

contraction of a muscle, lay another steel-like con-
traction, and another, and another, apparently with-
out end.

They ran many miles that day. They ran through

the night. And the next day found them still run-
ning. They were running over the surface of a world
frozen and dead. No life stirred. They alone moved

through the vast inertness. They alone were alive,

and they sought for other things that were alive in
order that they might devour them and continue to
live.
 THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS 53

They crossed low divides and ranged a dozen small

streams in a lower-lying country before their quest
was rewarded. Then they came upon moose. It

was a big bull they first found . Here was meat and

life, and it was guarded by no mysterious fires nor

flying missiles of flame. Splay hoofs and palmated
antlers they knew, and they flung their customary
patience and caution to the wind. It
It was
was a
a brief
fight and fierce. The big bull was beset on every
side. He ripped them open or split their skulls with
shrewdly driven blows of his great hoofs. He crushed
them and broke them on his large horns. He stamped
them into the snow under him in the wallowing
struggle. But he was foredoomed, and he went down
with the she-wolf tearing savagely at his throat, and
with other teeth fixed everywhere upon him, devour-
ing him alive, before ever his last struggles ceased
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 the pack. 4
4
But if they could fast prodigiously, they could feed
prodigiously, and soon a few scattered bones were all 4
that remained of the splendid live brute that had 4

faced the pack a few hours before.

4
There was now much resting and sleeping. With
full stomachs, bickering and quarrelling began among 4
4
the younger males, and this continued through the 4
+
1
54 WHITE FANG

few days that followed before the breaking-up of the

pack. The famine was over. The wolves were now

in the country of game, and though they still hunted

in pack, they hunted more cautiously, cutting out
heavy cows or crippled old bulls from the small
moose-herds they ran across.

There came a day, in this land of plenty, when the

wolf-pack split in half and went in different direc-

tions. The she-wolf, the young leader on her left,

and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of
the pack down 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 by the 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 three suitors all bore the marks of her

teeth. Yet they never replied in kind, never defended

themselves against her. They turned their shoulders
to her most savage slashes, and with wagging tails
and mincing steps strove to placate her wrath. But
if they were all mildness toward her, they were all
fierceness toward one another. The three-year-old
grew too ambitious in his fierceness . He caught the
one-eyed elder on his blind side and ripped his ear
 THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS 55

into ribbons. Though the grizzled old fellow could

see only on one side, against the youth and vigor of
the other he brought into play the wisdom of long
years of experience. His lost eye and his scarred
muzzle bore evidence to the nature of his experience.

He had survived too many battles to be in doubt

for a moment about what to do.

The battle began fairly, but it did not end fairly.

There was no telling what the outcome would have
been, for the third wolf joined the elder, and to-
gether, old leader and young leader, they attacked
the ambitious three-year-old and proceeded to destroy
him. He was beset on either side by the merciless

fangs of his erstwhile comrades. Forgotten were

the days they had hunted together, the game they
had pulled down , the famine they had suffered.
That business was a thing of the past. The business
of love was at hand - ever a sterner and crueler
business than that of food-getting.

And in the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of

it all, sat down contentedly on her haunches and
watched. She was even pleased . This was her

day, -
- and it came not often , -when manes bristled ,
and fang smote fang or 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 his first adventure upon it, yielded up
his life. On either side of his body stood his two
56 WHITE FANG

rivals. They were gazing at the she-wolf, who sat

smiling in the snow. 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.
The curve of his neck was turned toward his rival.

With his one eye the elder saw the opportunity.

He darted in low and closed with his fangs. It was
a long, ripping slash, and deep as well. His teeth, in
passing, burst the wall of the great vein of the throat.
Then he leaped clear.
The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl
broke midmost into a tickling cough. Bleeding and
coughing, already stricken, he sprang at the elder and
fought while life faded from him, his legs going weak
beneath him, the light of day dulling on his eyes, his
blows and springs falling shorter and shorter.
And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches
and smiled . She was made glad in vague ways by

the battle, for this was the love-making of the Wild,

the sex-tragedy of the natural world that was tragedy
only to those that died. To those that survived it

was not tragedy, but realization and achievement.

When the young leader lay in the snow and moved
no more, One Eye stalked over to the she- wolf. His

carriage was one of mingled triumph and caution.

He was plainly expectant of a rebuff, and he was just
as plainly surprised when her teeth did not flash out
at him in anger. For the first time she met him with
 THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS 57

a kindly manner. She sniffed noses with him, and

even condescended to leap about and frisk and play

with him in quite puppyish fashion. And he, for all
his gray 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 for a moment
to lick his stiffening wounds. Then it was that his
lips half writhed into a snarl, and the hair of his neck
and shoulders involuntarily bristled, while he half
crouched for a spring, his claws spasmodically clutch-
ing into the snow-surface for firmer footing. But it
was all forgotten the next moment, as he sprang after
the she-wolf, who was coyly leading him a chase
through the woods.

After that they ran side by side, like good friends

who have come to an understanding. The days

passed by, and they kept together, hunting their

meat and killing and eating it in common. After a

time the she-wolf began to grow restless. She seemed

to be searching for something that she could not find .
The hollows under fallen trees seemed to attract her,
and she spent much time nosing about among the
larger snow-piled crevices in the rocks and in the

caves of overhanging banks . Old One Eye was not

interested at all, but he followed her good- naturedly

in her quest, and when her investigations in particular

58 WHITE FANG

places were unusually protracted, he would lie down

and wait until she was ready to go on.

They did not remain in one place, but travelled

across country until they regained the Mackenzie
River, down which they slowly went, leaving it often
to hunt game along the small streams that entered

it, but always returning to it again. Sometimes they

chanced upon other wolves, usually in pairs ; but
there was no friendliness of intercourse displayed
on either side , 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, bris-
tling 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 Eye suddenly halted. His muzzle went
up, his tail stiffened, and his nostrils dilated as he
scented the air. One foot also he held up, after

the manner of a dog. He was not satisfied, and

he continued to smell the air, striving to under-
stand the message borne upon it to him. One care-
less sniff had satisfied his mate, and she trotted on
to reassure him . Though he followed her, he was
still dubious, and he could not forbear an occasional
 THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS 59

halt in order more carefully to study the warn-

ing.
She crept out cautiously on the edge of a large open
space in the midst of the trees. For some time she
stood alone. Then One Eye, creeping and crawling,
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, the guttural cries of men, the sharper
voices of scolding women , and once the shrill and
plaintive cry of a child. With the exception of the
huge bulks of the skin lodges, little could be seen save
the flames of the fire, broken by the movements of
intervening bodies, and the smoke rising slowly on
the quiet air. But to their nostrils came the myriad
smells of an Indian camp, carrying a story that was
largely incomprehensible to One Eye, but every detail
of which the she-wolf knew.

She was strangely stirred, and sniffed and sniffed

with an increasing delight. But old One Eye was

doubtful. He betrayed his apprehension , and started
tentatively to go. She turned and touched his neck
with her muzzle in a reassuring way, then regarded
the camp again. A new wistfulness was in her face,
but it was not the wistfulness of hunger. She was
thrilling to a desire that urged her to go forward, to
be in closer to that fire, to be squabbling with the
60 WHITE FANG

dogs, and to be avoiding and dodging the stumbling

feet 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 she searched. She
turned and trotted back into the forest, to the great

relief of One Eye, who trotted a little to the fore

until they were well within the shelter of the trees.
As they slid along, noiseless as shadows, in the
moonlight, they came upon a run-way. Both noses
went down to the footprints in the snow. These

footprints were very fresh. One Eye ran ahead cau-

tiously, his mate at his heels. The broad pads of
their feet were spread wide and in contact with the
snow were like velvet. One Eye caught sight of a
dim movement of white in the midst of the white.

His sliding gait had been deceptively swift, but it

was as nothing to the speed at which he now ran.
Before him was bounding the faint patch of white
he had discovered.

They were running along a narrow alley flanked

on either side by a growth of young spruce. Through
the trees the mouth of the alley could be seen, open-

ing out on a moonlit glade. Old One Eye was

rapidly overhauling the fleeing shape of white.
Bound by bound he gained. Now he was upon it.

One leap more and his teeth would be sinking into

it. But that leap was never made. High in the air,
 THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS 61

and straight up, soared the shape of white, now a

struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded,
executing a fantastic dance there above him in the
air and never once returning to earth .
One Eye sprang back with a snort of sudden fright,
then shrank down to the snow and crouched , snarl-

ing threats at this thing of fear he did not under-

stand. But the she-wolf coolly thrust past him.
She poised for a moment, then sprang for the danc-
ing rabbit. She, too , soared high, but not so high
as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily together
with a metallic 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 a mighty
spring upward. His teeth closed upon the rabbit,
and he bore it back to earth with him. But at the

same time there was a suspicious crackling move-

ment beside him, and his astonished eye saw a young
spruce sapling bending down above him to strike

him . His jaws let go their grip, and he leaped back-

ward to escape this strange danger, his lips drawn
back from his fangs, his throat snarling, every hair
bristling with rage and fright. And in that moment
the sapling reared its slender length upright and the
rabbit soared dancing in the air again.
The she-wolf was angry. She sank her fangs into
62 WHITE FANG

her mate's shoulder in reproof ; and he, frightened, un-

aware of what constituted this new onslaught, struck

back ferociously and in still greater fright, ripping
down the side of the she-wolf's muzzle. For him to

resent such reproof was equally unexpected to her,

and she sprang upon him in snarling indignation .
Then he discovered his mistake and tried to placate
her. But she proceeded to punish him roundly, until
he gave over all attempts at placation, and whirled
in a circle, his head away from her, his shoulders
receiving the punishment of her teeth.
In the meantime the rabbit danced above them in
the air. The she-wolf sat down in the snow, and

old One Eye, now more in fear of his mate than of

the mysterious sapling, again sprang for the rabbit.
As he sank back with it between his teeth, he kept
his eye on the sapling. As before, it followed him
back to earth. He crouched down under the impend-
ing blow, his hair bristling, but his teeth still keep-
ing tight hold of the rabbit. But the blow did not
fall. The sapling remained bent above him. When

he moved it moved, and he growled at it through

his clenched jaws ; when he remained still, it re-

mained still , and he concluded it was safer to con-
tinue remaining still. Yet the warm blood of the
rabbit tasted good in his mouth.
It was his mate who relieved him from the quan-
dary in which he found himself. She took the
 THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS 63

rabbit from him, and while the sapling swayed and

teetered 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 had intended it to grow. Then, between

them, the she-wolf and One Eye devoured the game

which the mysterious sapling had caught for them.
There were other run-ways and alleys where rabbits
were hanging in the air, and the wolf-pair prospected
them all, the she-wolf leading the way, old One Eye
following and observant, learning the method of rob-
bing snares a knowledge destined to stand him in

good stead in the days to come.

7
 CHAPTER II

THE LAIR

For two days the she-wolf and One Eye hung

about the Indian camp . He was worried and appre-

hensive, yet the camp lured his mate and she was
loath to depart. But when, one morning, the air was

rent with the report of a rifle close at hand, and a

bullet smashed against a tree trunk several inches
from One Eye's head, they hesitated no more, but
went off on a long, swinging lope that put quick
miles between them and the danger.
They did not go far - a couple of days' journey.
The she-wolf's need to find the thing for which
she searched had now become imperative. She was
getting very heavy, and could run but slowly. Once,
in the pursuit of a rabbit, which she ordinarily would
have caught with ease, she gave over and lay down
and rested. One Eye came to her ; but when he

touched her neck gently with his muzzle she snapped

at him with such quick fierceness that he tumbled
over backward and cut a ridiculous figure in his
effort to escape her teeth. Her temper was now
64
 THE LAIR 65

shorter than ever ; but he had become more patient

than ever and more solicitous.

And then she found the thing for which she sought.
It was a few miles up a small stream that in the
summer time flowed into the Mackenzie, but that
then was frozen over and frozen down to its rocky
bottom - a dead stream of solid white from source
to mouth. The she-wolf was trotting wearily along,
her mate well in advance, when she came upon the

overhanging, high clay-bank. She turned aside and

trotted over to it. The wear and tear of spring

storms and melting snows had underwashed the

bank 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 to where its
abrupt bulk merged from the softer-lined landscape.
Returning to the cave, she entered its narrow mouth.
For a short three feet she was compelled to crouch ,
then the walls widened and rose higher in a little
round chamber nearly six feet in diameter. The roof
barely cleared her head. It was dry and cosey. She
inspected it with painstaking care, while One Eye,
who had returned , stood in the entrance and patiently
watched her. She dropped her head, with her nose

to the ground and directed toward a point near to

her closely bunched feet, and around this point she
F
66 WHITE FANG

circled several times ; then, with a tired sigh that

was almost a grunt, she curled her body in, relaxed
her legs, and dropped down, her head toward the
entrance. One Eye, with pointed, interested ears,

laughed at her, and beyond, outlined against the

white light, she could see the brush of his tail
waving good-naturedly. Her own ears, with a

snuggling movement, laid their sharp points back-

ward and down against the head for a moment,
while her mouth opened and her tongue lolled peace-

ably out, and in this way 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 bright world
without, where the April sun was blazing across the
snow. When he dozed, upon his ears would steal the
faint whispers of hidden trickles of running water,
and he would rouse and listen intently. The sun
had come back, and all the awakening Northland
world was calling to him. Life was stirring. The
feel of spring was in the air, the feel of growing life
under the snow, of sap ascending in the trees, of buds
bursting the shackles of the frost.
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 field of

vision. He started to get up, then looked back to his

 THE LAIR 67

mate again, and settled down and dozed . A shrill

and minute singing stole upon his hearing. Once,

and twice, he sleepily brushed his nose with his paw.
Then he woke up. There, buzzing in the air at the
tip of his nose, was a lone mosquito . It was a full-
grown mosquito, one that had lain frozen in a dry
log all winter and that had now been thawed out
by the sun. He could resist the call of the world no

longer. Besides, he was hungry.

He crawled over to his mate and tried to persuade
her to get up. But she only snarled at him, and he
walked out alone into the bright sunshine to find the
snow-surface soft underfoot and the travelling diffi-
cult. He went up the frozen bed of the stream , where
the snow, shaded by the trees, was yet hard and crys-
talline. He was gone eight hours, and he came back

through the darkness hungrier than when he had

started. He had found game, but he had not caught
it. He had broken through the melting snow-crust,
and wallowed, while the snowshoe rabbits had
skimmed along on top lightly as ever.
He paused at the mouth of the cave with a sud-
den shock of suspicion. Faint, strange sounds came
from within. They were sounds not made by his
mate, and yet they were remotely familiar. He

bellied cautiously inside and was met by a warning

snarl from the she-wolf. This he received without

perturbation, though he obeyed it by keeping his

68 WHITE FANG

distance ; but he remained interested in the other

sounds — faint, muffled sobbings and slubberings.
His mate warned him irritably away, and he
curled up and slept in the entrance. When morning

came and a dim light pervaded the lair, he again

sought after the source of the remotely familiar
sounds. There was a new note in his mate's warn-

ing snarl. It was a jealous note, and he was very

careful in keeping a respectful distance . Neverthe-
less, he made out, sheltering between her legs against
the length of her body, five strange little bundles of
life, very feeble, very helpless, making tiny whimper-
ing noises, with eyes that did not open to the light.
He was surprised . It was not the first time in his

long and successful life that this thing had happened.

It had happened many times, yet each time it was as
fresh a surprise as ever to him.
His mate looked at him anxiously . Every little
while she emitted a low growl, and at times, when
it seemed to her he approached too near, the growl
shot up in her throat to a sharp snarl. Of her own
experience she had no memory of the thing happen-
ing ; but in her instinct, which was the experience
of all the mothers of wolves, there lurked a memory
of fathers that had eaten their new-born and helpless
progeny. It manifested itself as a fear strong within
her, that made her prevent One Eye from more closely
inspecting the cubs he had fathered.
 THE LAIR 69

But there was no danger. Old One Eye was feel-

ing the urge of an impulse, that was, in turn, an
instinct that had come down to him from all the

fathers of wolves. He did not question it, nor puzzle

over it. It was there , in the fibre of his being ; and
it was the most natural thing in the world that he
should obey it by turning his back on his new-born
family and 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 off among the mountains at a right

angle. Here, leading up the left fork, he came upon
a fresh track. He smelled it and found it so recent

that he crouched swiftly, and looked in the direction

in which it disappeared . Then he turned deliberately
and took the right fork. The footprint was much

larger than the one his own feet made, and he knew
that in the wake of such a trail there was little meat
for him.

Half a mile up the right fork, his quick ears caught

the sound of gnawing 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
Eye approached carefully but hopelessly. He knew
the breed, though he had never met it so far north
before ; and never in his long life had porcupine served
him for a meal. But he had long since learned that
there was such a thing as Chance, or Opportunity,
70 WHITE FANG

and he continued to draw near. There was never

any telling what might happen, for with live things

events were somehow always happening differently.
The porcupine rolled itself into a ball, radiating
long, sharp needles in all directions that defied attack.
In his youth One Eye had once sniffed too near a
similar, apparently inert ball of quills, and had the
tail flick out suddenly in his face. One quill he had
carried away in his muzzle, where it had remained
for weeks, a rankling flame, until it finally worked
out. So he lay down, in a comfortable crouching

position, his nose fully a foot away, and out of the

line of the tail. Thus he waited, keeping perfectly
quiet. There was no telling. Something might

happen. The porcupine might unroll. There might

be opportunity for a deft and ripping thrust of paw

into the tender, unguarded belly.
But at the end of half an hour he arose, growled

wrathfully at the motionless ball, and trotted on.

He had waited too often and futilely in the past for
porcupines to unroll, to waste any more time. He

continued up the right 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 . He came

out of a thicket and found himself face to face with

the slow-witted bird. It was sitting on a log, not

 THE LAIR 71

a foot beyond the end of his nose. Each saw 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 his teeth as
it scuttled across the snow trying to rise in the air
again. As his teeth crunched through the tender flesh

and fragile bones, he began naturally 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, a gliding shadow that cautiously
prospected each new vista of the trail, he came upon
later imprints of the large tracks he had discovered
in the early morning. As the track led his way, he

followed, prepared to meet the maker of it at every

turn of the stream .
He slid his head around a corner of rock, where
began an unusually large bend in the stream, and his
quick eyes made out something that sent him crouch-

ing swiftly down. It was the maker of the track,

a large female lynx. She was crouching as he had
crouched once that day, in front of her the tight-rolled
ball of quills. If he had been a gliding shadow

before, he now 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, and with eyes peering through the needles
72 WHITE FANG

of a low-growing spruce he watched the play of life

before him — the waiting lynx and the waiting porcu-

pine, each intent on life ; and, such was the curious-

ness of the game, the way of life for one lay in the
eating of the other, and the way of life for the other
lay in being not eaten. While old One Eye, the
wolf, crouching in the covert, played his part, too ,
in the game, waiting for some strange freak of Chance,
that might help him on the meat-trail which was his
way of life.

Half an hour passed, an hour ; and nothing hap-

pened . The ball of quills might have been a stone
for all it moved ; the lynx might have been frozen to
marble ; and old One Eye might have been dead .
Yet all three animals were keyed to a tenseness of
living that was almost painful, and scarcely ever
would it come to them to be more alive than they
were then in their seeming petrifaction .
One Eye moved slightly and peered forth with in-
creased eagerness . Something was happening. The
porcupine had at last decided that its enemy had
gone away. Slowly, cautiously, it was unrolling its
ball of impregnable armor. It was agitated by no
tremor of anticipation . Slowly, slowly, the bristling
ball straightened out and lengthened. One Eye,
watching, felt a sudden moistness in his mouth and a

drooling of saliva, involuntary, excited by the living

meat that was spreading itself like a repast before him.
 THE LAIR 73

Not quite entirely had the porcupine unrolled when

it discovered its enemy. 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 belly and came back with a swift ripping
movement. Had the porcupine been entirely unrolled,
or had it not discovered its enemy a fraction of a
second before the blow was struck, the paw would
have escaped unscathed ; but a side-flick of the tail

sank sharp quills into it as it was withdrawn.

Everything had happened at once, the blow, the
counter-blow, the squeal of agony from the porcupine,
the big cat's squall of sudden hurt and astonishment.
One Eye half arose in his excitement, his ears up, his
tail straight out and quivering behind him. The
lynx's bad temper got the best of her. She sprang
savagely at the thing that had hurt her. But the

porcupine, squealing and grunting, with disrupted

anatomy trying feebly to roll up into its ball-protec-
tion, flicked out its tail again, and again the big cat
squalled with hurt and astonishment. Then she fell
to backing away and 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, all the time leaping about, ahead,
sidewise, up and down, in a frenzy of pain and
fright.
74 WHITE FANG

She sneezed continually, and her stub of a tail was

doing its best toward lashing about by giving quick,
violent jerks. She quit her antics, and quieted down
for a long minute . One Eye watched. And even he
could not repress a start and an involuntary bristling
of hair along his back when she suddenly leaped,
without warning, straight up in the air, at the same
time emitting a long and most terrible squall. Then
she sprang away, up the trail, squalling with every
leap she made.

It was not until her racket had faded away in the

distance and died out that One Eye ventured forth.
He walked as delicately as though all the snow were
carpeted with porcupine quills, erect and ready to
pierce the soft pads of his feet. The porcupine met
his approach with a furious squealing and a clashing of
its long teeth. It had managed to roll up in a ball
again, but it was not quite the old compact ball ; its
muscles were too much torn for that. It had been

ripped almost in half, and was still bleeding pro-

fusely.
One Eye scooped out mouthfuls of the blood-soaked
snow, and chewed and tasted and swallowed. This

served as a relish, and his hunger increased mightily ;

but he was too old in the world to forget his cau-
tion. He waited. He lay down and waited, while

the porcupine grated its teeth and uttered grunts and

sobs and occasional sharp little squeals. In a little
 THE LAIR 75

while, One Eye noticed that the quills were drooping

and that a great quivering had set up. The quivering
came to an end suddenly. There was a final 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 to its full length and turned it over
on its back. Nothing had happened . It was surely
dead. He studied it intently for a moment, then
took a careful grip with his teeth and started off
down the stream, partly carrying, partly dragging the
porcupine, with head turned to the side so as to avoid
stepping on the prickly mass. He recollected some-

thing, dropped the burden, and trotted back to where

he had left the ptarmigan. He did not hesitate a

moment. He knew clearly what was to be done, and

this he did by promptly eating the ptarmigan. Then

he returned and took up his burden.
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 the neck. But the
next instant she was warning him away from the
cubs with a snarl that was less harsh than usual and

that was more apologetic than menacing. Her in-

stinctive fear of the father of her progeny was toning
down. He was behaving as a wolf father should , and

manifesting no unholy desire to devour the young

lives she had brought into the world.
 CHAPTER III

THE GRAY CUB

He was different from his brothers and sisters.

Their hair already betrayed the reddish hue inherited

from their mother, the she-wolf ; while he alone, in
this particular, took after his father. He was the
one little gray cub of the litter. He had bred true
to the straight wolf-stock - in fact, he had bred true,
physically, to old One Eye himself, with but a single
exception, and that was that he had two eyes to his
father's one .

The gray cub's eyes had not been open long, yet
already he could see with steady clearness. And

while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted ,

and smelled . He knew his two brothers and his two

sisters very well. He had begun to romp with them

in a feeble, awkward way, and even to squabble, his
little throat vibrating with a queer rasping noise,

(the forerunner of the growl), as he worked himself

into a passion. And long before his eyes had opened ,
he had learned by touch, taste, and smell to know
his mother — a fount of warmth and liquid food and
76
 THE GRAY CUB 77

tenderness . She possessed a gentle, caressing tongue

that soothed him when it passed over his soft little
body, and that impelled him to snuggle close against
her and to doze off to sleep.
Most of the first month of his life had been passed

thus in sleeping ; but now he could see quite well,

and he stayed awake for longer periods of time, and
he was coming to learn his world quite well . His
world was gloomy ; 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 he had no knowledge
of the wide world outside, he was never oppressed by
the narrow confines of his existence.

But he had early discovered that one wall of his

world was different from the rest. This was the

mouth of the cave and the source of light. He had

discovered that it was different from the other walls
long before he had any thoughts of his own, any con-
scious volitions. It had been an irresistible attrac-

tion before ever his eyes opened and looked upon

it. The light from it had beat upon his sealed

lids, and the eyes and the optic nerves had pulsated
to little, sparklike flashes, warm-colored and strangely
pleasing. The life of his body, and of every fibre
of his body, the life that was the very substance of
his body and that was apart from his own personal
78 WHITE FANG

life, had yearned toward this light and urged his body
toward it in the same way that the cunning chemis-
try of a plant urges it toward the sun.
Always, in the beginning, before his conscious life
dawned, he had crawled toward the mouth of the
cave. And in this his brothers and sisters were one

with him. Never, in that period , did any of them

crawl toward the dark 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 a necessity of being ; and their little
puppet-bodies crawled blindly and chemically, like
the tendrils of a vine. Later on, when each devel
oped individuality and became personally conscious
of impulsions and desires, the attraction of the light
increased. They were always crawling and sprawl-
ing toward it, and being driven back from it by their
mother.

It was in this way that the gray cub learned other

attributes of his mother than the soft, soothing
tongue. In his insistent crawling toward the light,
he discovered in her a nose that with a sharp nudge

administered rebuke, and later, a paw, that crushed

him down or rolled him over and over with swift,
calculating stroke. Thus he learned hurt ; and

on top of it he 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.
 THE GRAY CUB 79

These were conscious actions, and were the results of

his first generalizations upon the world. Before that
he had recoiled automatically from hurt, as he had
crawled automatically toward the light. After that
he recoiled from hurt because he knew that it was hurt.
He was a fierce little cub. So were his brothers
and sisters. It was to be expected . He was a car-
nivorous 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 transformed directly from

meat, and now, at a month old , when his eyes had
been open for but a week, he was beginning himself
to eat meat — meat half-digested by the she-wolf and
disgorged for the five growing cubs that already
made too great demand upon her breast.
But he was, further, the fiercest of the litter. He

could make a louder rasping growl than any of them.

His tiny rages were much more terrible than theirs. It

was he that first learned the trick of rolling a fellow-

cub over with a cunning paw-stroke. And it was he

that first gripped another cub by the ear and pulled

and tugged and growled through jaws tight-clenched .
And certainly it was he that caused the mother the
most trouble in keeping her litter from the mouth of
the cave .

The fascination of the light for the gray cub

increased from day to day. He was perpetually
80 WHITE FANG

departing on yard-long adventures toward the cave's

entrance, and as perpetually being driven back. Only
he did not know it for an entrance. He did not

know anything about entrances - passages whereby

one goes from one place to another place. He did
not know any other place, much less of a way to get
there. So to him the entrance of the cave was a wall

-a wall of light. As the sun was to the outside

dweller, this wall was to him the sun of his world.
It attracted him as a candle attracts a moth. He

was always striving to attain it. The life that was

so swiftly expanding within him, urged him continu-
ally toward the wall of light. The life that was
within him knew that it was the one way out, the
way he was predestined to tread . But he himself

did not know anything about it. He did not know

there was any outside at all.

There was one strange thing about this wall of
light. His father (he had already come to recognize his
father as the one other dweller in the world , a creature
like his mother, who slept near the light and was a
bringer of meat) —his father had a way of walking
right into the white far wall and disappearing. The
gray cub could not understand this. Though never
permitted by his mother to approach that wall, he had
approached the other walls, and encountered hard
obstruction on the end of his tender nose. This hurt.

And after several such adventures, he left the walls

 THE GRAY CUB 81

alone. Without thinking about it, he accepted this

disappearing into the wall as a peculiarity of his

father, as milk and half-digested meat were pecu-
liarities of his mother.

In fact, the gray cub was not given to thinking -

at least, to the kind of thinking customary of men.
His brain worked in dim ways. Yet his conclusions
were as sharp and distinct as those achieved by men.
He had a method of accepting things, without ques-

tioning the why and wherefore. In reality, this was

the act of classification. He was never disturbed

over why 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 accepted that
he would not disappear into walls. In the same
way he accepted that his father could disappear
into walls. But he was not in the least dis-

turbed by desire to find out the reason for the

difference between his father and himself. Logic
and physics were no part of his mental make-up .
Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced
famine. There came a time when not only did the meat-
supply cease, but the milk no longer came from his
mother's breast. At first, the cubs whimpered and cried ,
but for the most part they slept. It was not long before
they were reduced to a coma of hunger. There were

no more spats and squabbles, no more tiny rages nor

attempts at growling ; while the adventures toward
G
82 WHITE FANG

the far white wall ceased altogether. The cubs

slept, while the life that was in them flickered and

died down.

One Eye was desperate. He ranged far and wide,

and slept but little in the 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 birth of the cubs, One Eye had jour-
neyed several times back to the Indian camp and
robbed the rabbit snares ; but, with the melting of
the snow and the opening of the streams, the Indian
camp had moved away, and that source of supply
was closed to him.

When the gray cub came back to life and again

took interest in the far white 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 com-
pelled to play alone, for the sister no longer lifted
her head nor moved about. His little body rounded
out with the meat he now ate ; but the food had come
too late for her. She slept continuously, a tiny skele-

ton flung round with skin in which the flame flick-

ered lower and lower and at last went out.

Then there came a time when the gray cub no

longer saw his father appearing and disappearing
in the wall nor lying down asleep in the entrance.
This had happened at the end of a second and less
 THE GRAY CUB 83

severe famine. The she-wolf knew why One Eye

never came back, but there was no way by which

she could tell what she had seen to the gray cub.

Hunting herself for meat, up the left fork of the

stream where lived the lynx, she had followed a
day-old trail of One Eye. And she had found him ,
or what remained of him, at the end of the trail.
There were many signs of the battle that had been
fought, and of the lynx's withdrawal to her lair
after having won the victory. Before she went

away, the she-wolf had found this lair, but the

signs told her that the lynx was inside, and she
had not dared to venture in.

After that, the she-wolf in her hunting avoided the

left fork. For she knew that in the lynx's lair was a
litter of kittens, and she knew the lynx for a fierce,
bad-tempered creature and a terrible fighter. It was
all very well for half a dozen wolves to drive a lynx,
spitting and bristling, up a tree ; 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 at her back.

But the Wild is the Wild, and motherhood is
motherhood, at all times fiercely protective whether
in the Wild or out of it ; and the time was to come

when the she-wolf, for her gray cub's sake, would

venture the left fork, and the lair in the rocks, and
the lynx's wrath.
 CHAPTER IV

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 im-
pressed on him by his 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 be afraid . Yet fear was in him. It had

come down to him from a remote ancestry through

a thousand thousand lives. It was a heritage he

had received directly from One Eye and the she-

wolf ; but to them, in turn, it had been passed down
through all the generations of wolves that had gone
before. Fear ! —that legacy of the Wild which no
animal may escape nor exchange for pottage.
So the gray cub knew fear, though he knew not the
stuff of which fear was made. Possibly he accepted
it as one of the restrictions of life. For he had

already learned that there were such restrictions.

Hunger he had known ; and when he could not
84
 THE WALL OF THE WORLD 85

appease his hunger he had felt restriction. The

hard obstruction of the cave-wall, the sharp nudge

of his mother's nose, the smashing stroke of her paw,
the hunger unappeased of several famines, had borne
in upon him that all was not freedom in the world,
that to life there were limitations and restraints.
These limitations and restraints were laws. To be

obedient to them was to escape hurt and make for

happiness.
He did not reason the question out in this man-
fashion. He merely classified the things that hurt
and the things that did not hurt. And after such

classification he avoided the things that hurt, the

restrictions and restraints, 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, and in obedience to the law of

that unknown and nameless thing, fear, he kept away
from the mouth of the cave. It remained to him a

whiteC wall of light. When his mother was absent,

he slept most of the time, while during the intervals
that he was awake he kept very quiet, suppressing
the whimpering cries that tickled in his throat and
strove for noise.

Once, lying awake, he heard a strange sound in the

white wall. He did not know that it was a wolverine,

standing outside, all a-tremble with its own daring,

and cautiously scenting out the contents of the cave.
86 WHITE FANG

The cub knew only that the sniff was strange, a

something unclassified, therefore unknown and terri-
ble - for the unknown was one of the chief elements

that went into the making of fear.

The hair bristled up on the gray cub's back, but it
bristled silently. How was 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 expression of the fear that was in him, and
for which, in his own life, there was no accounting.
But fear was accompanied by another instinct -
— that
of concealment. The cub was in a frenzy of terror, yet

he lay without movement or sound, frozen, petrified

into immobility, to all appearances dead . His mother,
coming home, growled as she smelt the wolverine's
track, and bounded into the cave and licked and
nozzled him with undue vehemence of affection.
And the cub felt that somehow he had escaped a
great hurt.

But there were other forces at work in the cub,

the greatest of which was growth. Instinct and law
demanded of him obedience. But growth demanded
disobedience. His mother and fear impelled him to

keep away from the white wall. Growth is life,

and life is forever destined to make for light. So
there was no damming up the tide of life that was
rising within him - rising with every mouthful
of meat he swallowed, with every breath he drew.
 THE WALL OF THE WORLD 87

In the end, one day, fear and obedience were swept

away by the rush of life, and the cub straddled and
sprawled toward the entrance.
Unlike any other wall with which he had had
experience, this wall seemed to recede from him as
he approached . No hard surface collided with the
tender little nose he thrust out tentatively before
him . The substance of the wall seemed as permeable

and yielding as light. And as condition, in his eyes,

had the seeming of form, so he entered into what had
been wall to him and bathed in the substance that

composed it.

It was bewilderingh It was sprawling through

solidity. And ever the light 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, inside which he had thought himself, as
suddenly leaped back before him to an immeasurable
distance. The light had become painfully bright.

He was dazzled by it. Likewise he was made dizzy

by this abrupt and tremendous extension of space.
Automatically, his eyes were adjusting themselves
to the brightness, focussing themselves to meet the
increased distance of objects. At first, the wall had
leaped beyond his vision. He now saw it again ; but
it had taken upon itself a remarkable remoteness.
Also, its appearance had changed. It was now a
variegated wall, composed of the trees that fringed
88 WHITE FANG

the stream, the opposing mountain that towered

above the 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. He was

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 wrinkled weakly in an

attempt at a ferocious and intimidating snarl. Out

of his puniness and fright he challenged and menaced

the whole wide world.

Nothing happened. He continued to gaze, and in

his interest he forgot to snarl. Also, he forgot to
be afraid. For the time, fear had been routed by
growth, while growth had assumed the guise of
curiosity. He began to notice 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 on
which he crouched.

Now the gray cub had lived all his days on a level
floor. He had never experienced the hurt of a fall.
He did not know what a fall was. So he stepped

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 on the nose that made
 THE WALL OF THE WORLD 89

him yelp. Then he began rolling down the slope,

over and 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 him some terrific hurt. Growth was now

routed by fear, and he ki-yi'd like any frightened

puppy.
The unknown bore him on he knew not to what

frightful hurt, and he yelped and ki-yi'd unceasingly.

This was a different proposition from crouching in
frozen fear while the unknown lurked just alongside.
Now the 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. Here the cub lost momentum . When

at last he came to a stop, he gave one last agonized

yelp and then a long, whimpering wail. Also, and
quite as a matter of course, as though in his life he

had already made a thousand toilets, 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 the earth who landed upon Mars.
The cub had broken through the wall of the world ,
the unknown had let go its hold of him, and here
he was without hurt. But the first man on Mars

would have experienced less unfamiliarity than did he.

Without any antecedent knowledge, without any
90 WHITE FANG

warning whatever that such existed , he found himself

an explorer in a totally new world.
Now that the terrible unknown had let go of him,
he forgot that the unknown had any terrors. He

was aware only of curiosity in all the things about

him . He inspected the grass beneath him, the moss-
berry plant just beyond, and the dead trunk of the
blasted pine that stood on the edge of an open space
among the trees. A squirrel, running around the base
of the trunk, came full upon him, and gave him a
great fright. He cowered down and snarled . But

the squirrel was as badly scared. It ran up the tree,

and from a point of safety chattered back savagely.
This helped the cub's courage, and though the
woodpecker he next encountered 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 the end of his
nose that made him cower down and ki-yi. The
noise he made was too much for the moose-bird, who
sought safety in flight.
But the cub was learning. His misty little mind
had already made an unconscious classification.

There were live things and things not alive. Also ,

he must watch out for the live things. The things
not alive remained always in one place ; but the live
things moved about, and there was no telling what
 THE WALL OF THE WORLD 91

they might do . The thing to expect of them was

the unexpected, and for this he must be prepared.
He travelled very clumsily. He ran into sticks

and things. A twig that he thought a long way off,

would the next instant hit him on the nose or rake
along his ribs . There were inequalities of surface.
Sometimes he overstepped and stubbed his nose.
Quite as often he understepped and stubbed his feet.
Then there were the pebbles and stones that turned
under him when he trod upon them ; and from them he
came to know that the things not alive were not all in
the same state of stable equilibrium as was his cave ;
also, that small things not alive were more liable
than large things 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. He was learning to calculate his own mus-
cular movements, to know his physical limitations,
to measure distances between objects, and between
objects and himself.
His was the luck of the beginner. Born to be a

hunter of meat, (though he 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 he chanced upon the shrewdly hid-

den ptarmigan nest. He fell into it. He had essayed

to walk along the trunk of a fallen pine . The rotten

bark gave way under his feet, and with a despairing
92 WHITE FANG

yelp he pitched down the rounded descent, smashed

through the leafage and stalks of a small bush, and
in the heart of the bush, on the ground, fetched up
amongst seven ptarmigan chicks.

They made noises, and at first he was frightened

at them. Then he perceived that they were very
little, and he became bolder. They moved. He

placed his paw on one, and its movements were

accelerated . This was a 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 aware of a sensation of hunger. His jaws
closed together. There was a crunching of fragile
bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. The taste
of it was good . This was meat, the same as his
mother gave him, only it was alive between his teeth
and therefore better. So he ate the ptarmigan . Nor
did he stop till he had devoured the whole brood .
Then he licked his chops in quite the same way his
mother did, and began to crawl out of the bush.
He encountered a feathered whirlwind . He was

confused and blinded by the rush of it and the beat

of angry wings. He hid his head between his paws
and yelped . The blows increased . The mother-

ptarmigan was in a fury. Then he became angry.

He rose up, snarling, striking out with his paws. He
sank his tiny teeth into one of the wings and pulled
and tugged sturdily. The ptarmigan struggled
 THE WALL OF THE WORLD 93

against him, showering blows upon him with her

free wing. It was his first battle . He was elated .

He forgot all about 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 was meat. 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 to know that he was happy . He was thrilling
and exulting in ways new to him and 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 to drag
him back into the bush's shelter, he pulled her away
from it and on into the open. And all the time she

was making outcry and striking with her wing, while

feathers were flying like a snow-fall. The pitch to
which he was aroused was tremendous. All the

fighting blood of his breed was up in him and surg-

ing through him. This was living, though he did not
know it. He was realizing his own meaning in the

world ; he was doing that for which he was made-

killing meat and battling to kill it. He was justify-
ing his existence, than which life can do no greater ;
for life achieves its summit when it does to the utter-
most that which it was equipped to do.

After a time, the ptarmigan ceased her struggling.

94 WHITE FANG

He still held her by the wing, and they lay on the

ground and looked at each other. He tried to growl

threateningly, ferociously. She pecked on his nose,

which by now, what of previous adventures, was
sore. He winced but held on. She pecked him again
and again . From wincing he went to whimper-
ing. He tried to back away from her, oblivious of
the fact that by his hold on her he dragged her after
him . A rain of pecks fell on his ill-used nose. The

flood of fight ebbed down in him, and, releasing his

prey, he turned tail and scampered off across the
open in inglorious retreat.

He lay down to rest on the other side of the open,

near the edge of the bushes, his tongue lolling out,
his chest heaving and panting, his nose still hurting
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
back instinctively into the shelter of the bush. As
he did so, a draught of air fanned 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 this

fright and peering fearfully out, the mother-ptarmi-
gan on the other side of the open space fluttered out
of the ravaged nest. It was because of her loss that
 THE WALL OF THE WORLD 95

she paid no attention to the winged bolt of the sky.

But the cub saw, and it was a warning and a lesson
to him the swift downward swoop of the hawk,

the short skim of its body just above the ground , the
strike of its talons in the body of the ptarmigan,

the ptarmigan's squawk of agony and fright, and

the hawk's rush upward into the blue, carrying the
ptarmigan away with it.
It was a long time before the cub left his shelter.
He had learned much. Live things were meat. They
were good to eat. Also, live things when they were
large enough, could give hurt. It was better to eat
small live things like ptarmigan chicks, and to let
alone large live things like ptarmigan hens. Never-

theless he felt a little prick of ambition, a sneaking

desire to have another battle with that ptarmigan
hen - only the hawk had carried her away. Maybe
there were other ptarmigan hens. He would go and
see.
He came down a shelving bank to the stream . He
had never seen water before. The footing looked

good. There were no inequalities of surface. He

stepped boldly out on it ; and went down, crying
with fear, into the embrace of the unknown. It was
cold, and he gasped, breathing quickly. The water
rushed into his lungs instead of the air that had
always accompanied his act of breathing. The suf
focation he experienced was like the pang of death.
96 WHITE FANG

To him it signified death . He had no conscious

knowledge of death, but like every animal of the

Wild, he possessed the instinct of death. To him
it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the very
essence of the unknown ; it was the sum of the
terrors of the unknown, the one 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-established custom

of his, he struck out with all his legs and began to
swim. The near bank was a yard away ; but he

had come up with his back to it, and the first thing
his eyes rested upon was the opposite bank, toward
which he immediately began to swim. The stream

was a small one, but in the pool it widened out to

a score of feet.

Midway in the passage, the current picked up the

cub and swept him down-stream. He was caught in
the miniature rapid at the bottom of the pool. Here
was little chance for swimming. The quiet water
had become suddenly angry. Sometimes he was

under, sometimes on top. At all times he 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

 THE WALL OF THE WORLD 97

a series of yelps, from which might have been ad-

duced the number of rocks he encountered .

Below the rapid was a second pool, and here,

captured by the eddy, he was 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 learned some more about the world. Water
was not alive. Yet it moved. Also , it looked as

solid as the earth, but was without any solidity at all.

His conclusion was that things were not always what
they appeared to be. The cub's fear of the unknown
was an inherited distrust, and it had now been
strengthened by experience . Thenceforth , in the
nature of things, he would possess an abiding distrust
of appearances . He would have to learn the reality
of a thing before he could put his faith into it.
One other adventure was destined for him that
day. He had recollected that there was such a thing
in the world as his mother. And then there came to

him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the

rest of the things in the world. Not only was his
body tired with the adventures it had undergone, but
his little brain was equally tired. In all the days he
had lived it had not worked so hard as on this one
day. Furthermore, he was sleepy. So he started

out to look for the cave and his mother, feeling at the
same time an overwhelming rush of loneliness and

helplessness.
н
98 WHITE FANG

He was sprawling along between some bushes,

when he heard a sharp, intimidating cry. There was

a flash of yellow before his eyes. He saw a weasel

leaping swiftly away from him. It was a small live

thing, and he had no fear. Then, before him, at his

feet, he saw an extremely small live thing, only sev-
eral inches long — a young weasel, that, like himself,

had disobediently gone out adventuring. It tried to

retreat before him. He turned it over with his paw.
It made a queer, grating noise. The next moment
the flash of yellow reappeared before his eyes. He

heard again the intimidating cry, and at the same

instant received a severe blow on the side of the neck

and felt the sharp teeth of the mother-weasel cut into

his flesh.

While he yelped and ki-yi'd and scrambled back-

ward, he saw the mother-weasel leap upon her young
one and disappear with it into the neighboring
thicket. The cut of her teeth in his neck still hurt,

but his feelings were hurt more grievously, and he

sat down and weakly whimpered . This mother-wea-
sel was so small and so savage ! He was yet to
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 this knowledge
was quickly to be his.

He was still whimpering when the mother-weasel

reappeared . She did not rush him, now that her
 THE WALL OF THE WORLD 99

young one was safe. She approached more cautiously,

and the cub had full opportunity to observe her lean ,

snakelike body, and her head , erect, eager, and snake-
like itself. Her sharp, menacing cry 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 unpractised sight, and the lean ,

yellow body disappeared for a moment out of the

field of his vision . The next moment she was at his

throat, her teeth buried in his hair and flesh.

At first he snarled and tried to fight ; but he was
very young, and this was only his first day in the
world, and his snarl became a whimper, his fight
a struggle to escape. The weasel never relaxed her
hold. She hung on , striving to press down with her
teeth to the great vein where his life-blood bubbled .
The weasel was a drinker of blood, and it was ever
her preference to drink from the throat of life itself.
The gray cub would have died, and there would
have been no story to write 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, but getting a hold on the jaw instead .
The she-wolf flirted her head like the snap 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.
100 WHITE FANG

The cub experienced another access of affection on

the part of his mother. Her joy at finding him

seemed greater even than his joy at being found.

She nozzled him and caressed him and licked the cuts

made in him by the weasel's teeth. Then , between

them, mother and cub, they ate the blood-drinker,
and after that went back to the cave and slept.
 CHAPTER V

THE LAW OF MEAT

The cub's development was rapid . He rested for

two days, and then ventured forth from the cave
again. It was on this adventure that he found the

young weasel whose mother he had helped eat, and

he saw to it that the young weasel went the way of
its mother. But on this trip he did not get 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 an accurate measurement of his
strength and his weakness, and to know when to be
bold and when to be cautious. He found it expe-
dient to be cautious all the time, except for the rare
moments, when, assured of his own intrepidity, he
abandoned himself to petty rages and lusts.
He was always a little demon of fury when he
chanced upon a stray ptarmigan. Never did he fail
to respond savagely to the chatter of the squirrel he
had first met on the blasted pine. While the sight
of a moose-bird almost invariably put him into the
101
102 WHITE FANG

wildest of rages ; for he never forgot the peck on the

nose he had received from the first of that ilk he
encountered.
But there were times when even a moose-bird

failed to affect him, and those were times when he

felt himself to be in danger from some other prowl-
ing meat-hunter. He never forgot the hawk, and its

moving shadow always sent him crouching into the

nearest thicket. He no longer sprawled and strad-
dled, and already he was developing the gait of his
mother, slinking and furtive, apparently without ex-
ertion , yet sliding along with a swiftness that was
as deceptive as it was imperceptible.
In the matter of meat, his luck had been all in the
beginning. The seven ptarmigan chicks and the

baby weasel represented the sum of his killings . His

desire to kill strengthened with the days, and he
cherished hungry ambitions for the squirrel that
chattered so volubly and always informed all wild
creatures that the wolf-cub was approaching. But
as birds flew in the air, squirrels could climb trees,
and the cub could only try to crawl unobserved 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 of things. It
did not occur to him that this fearlessness was

founded upon experience and knowledge. Its effect

 THE LAW OF MEAT 103

on him was that of an impression of power. His

mother represented power ; and as he grew older he

felt this power in the sharper admonition of her
paw ; while the reproving nudge of her nose gave
place to the slash of her fangs. For this, likewise,
he respected his mother. She compelled obedience
from him , and the older he grew the shorter grew
her temper.

Famine came again, and the cub with clearer con-

sciousness knew once more 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 the meat-trail and spending it vainly.
This famine was not a long one, but it was severe
while it lasted. The cub found no more milk in his

mother's breast, nor did he get one mouthful of meat

for himself.

Before, he had hunted in play, for the sheer joyous-

ness of it ; now he hunted in deadly earnestness, and
found nothing. Yet the failure of it accelerated his
development. He studied the habits of the squirrel
with greater carefulness, and strove with greater
craft to steal upon it and surprise it. He studied

the wood-mice and tried to dig them out of their

burrows ; and he learned much about the ways of
moose-birds and woodpeckers. And there came
day when the hawk's shadow did not drive him
crouching into the bushes. He had grown stronger,
104 WHITE FANG

and wiser, and more confident. Also, he was des

perate. So he sat on his haunches, conspicuously,
in an open space, and challenged the hawk down out

of the sky. For he knew that there, floating in the

blue above him, was meat, the meat his stomach
yearned after so insistently. But the hawk refused
to come down and give battle, and the cub crawled
away into a thicket and whimpered his disappoint-
ment and hunger.
The famine broke. The she-wolf brought home
meat. It was strange meat, 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. His mother had satisfied her hunger else-
where ; though he did not know that it was the rest
of the lynx litter that had gone to satisfy her. Nor
did he know the desperateness of her deed . He knew
only that the velvet-furred kitten was 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. Never had he
heard her snarl so terribly. Possibly in her whole
life it was the most terrible snarl she ever gave.

There was reason for it, and none knew it better

than she. A lynx's lair is not despoiled with im-
punity. In the full glare of the afternoon light,
crouching in the entrance of the cave, the cub saw
 THE LAW OF MEAT 105

the lynx-mother. The hair rippled up all along his

back at the sight. Here was fear, and it did not re-
quire his instinct to tell him of it. And if sight
alone were not sufficient, the cry of rage the intruder
gave, beginning with a snarl and rushing abruptly
upward into a hoarse screech, was convincing enough
in itself.

The cub felt the prod of the life that was in him,
and stood up and snarled valiantly by his mother's
side. But she thrust him ignominiously away and
behind her. Because of the low-roofed entrance the

lynx could not leap in, and when she made a crawl-
ing rush of it the she-wolf sprang upon her and
pinned her down. The cub saw little of the battle.
There was a tremendous snarling and spitting and
screeching. The two animals threshed about, the
lynx ripping and tearing with her claws and using
her teeth 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 weight
of his body he clogged the action of the leg and
thereby saved his mother much damage. A change
in the battle crushed him under both their bodies
and wrenched loose his hold. The next moment the
two mothers separated, and, before they rushed to-
gether again, the lynx lashed out at the cub with a
106 WHITE FANG

huge fore-paw that ripped his shoulder open to the

bone and sent him hurtling sidewise against the wall.
Then was added to the uproar the cub's shrill yelp
of pain and fright . But the fight lasted so long that
he had time to cry himself out and to experience a
second burst of courage ; and the end of the battle
found him again clinging to a hind-leg and furiously
growling between his teeth.
The lynx was dead. But the she-wolf was very
weak and sick. At first she caressed the cub and

licked his wounded shoulder ; but the blood she had

lost had taken with it her strength, and for all of a
day and a night she lay by her dead foe's side, with-
out movement, scarcely breathing. For a week she
never left the cave, except for water, and then her
movements were slow and painful. Atthe end of
that time the lynx was devoured, while the she-wolf's
wounds had healed sufficiently to permit her to take
the meat-trail again .
The cub's shoulder was stiff and sore, and for some

time he limped from the terrible slash he had re-

ceived. But the world now seemed changed . He
went about in it with greater confidence, with a feel-
ing of prowess 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
had buried his teeth in the flesh of a foe ; and he had
survived. And because of all this, he carried himself
 THE LAW OF MEAT 107

more boldly, with a touch of defiance that was new

in him . He was no longer afraid of minor things,

and much of his timidity had vanished, though the

unknown never ceased to press upon him with its
mysteries and terrors, intangible and ever-menacing.
He began to accompany his mother on the meat-
trail, and he saw much of the killing of meat and
began to play his part in it. And in his own dim
way he learned the law of meat. There were two
kinds of life, - his own kind 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 was divided . One portion was what his
own kind killed and ate. This portion was composed
of the non-killers and the small killers. The other
portion killed and ate his own kind, or was killed and
eaten by his own kind. And out of this classification
arose the law. The aim of life was meat. Life itself
was meat. Life lived on life. There were the eaters
and the eaten. The law was : EAT OR BE EATEN.
He did not formulate the law in clear, set terms and
moralize about it. He did not even think the law ; he

merely lived the law without thinking about it at all.

He saw the law operating around him on every
side. He had eaten the ptarmigan chicks. The hawk
had eaten the ptarmigan-mother. The hawk would
also have eaten him . Later, when he had grown
more formidable, he wanted to eat the hawk. He
108 WHITE FANG

had eaten the lynx kitten. The lynx-mother would

have eaten him had she not herself been killed and
eaten. And so it went. The law was being lived
about him by all live things, and he himself was 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 climbed trees, or

hid in the ground , or faced him and fought with him,

or turned the tables and ran after him.
Had the cub thought in man-fashion, he might have

epitomized life as a voracious appetite, and the world

as a place wherein ranged a multitude of appetites,
pursuing and being pursued , hunting and being
hunted, eating and being eaten, all in blindness
and confusion, with violence and disorder, a chaos of
gluttony and slaughter, ruled over by chance, merci-
less, planless, endless.
But the cub did not think in man-fashion. He did

not look at things with wide vision. He was single-

purposed, and entertained but one thought or desire
at a time. Besides the law of meat, there was a

myriad other and lesser 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 an unending happiness. To run down meat was
to experience thrills and elations. His rages and

battles were pleasures. Terror itself, and the mys

tery of the unknown, lent to his living.
 THE LAW OF MEAT 109

And there were easements and satisfactions. To

have a full stomach, to doze lazily in the sunshine.

such things were remuneration in full for his ardors
and toils, while his ardors and toils were in them-
selves self-remunerative. They were expressions of

life, and life is always happy when it is expressing

itself. So the cub had no quarrel with his hostile
environment. He was very much alive, very happy,

and very proud of himself.

 j
PART THREE

THE GODS OF THE WILD

CHAPTER I · THE MAKERS OF FIRE

CHAPTER II THE BONDAGE
CHAPTER III THE OUTCAST
CHAPTER IV " THE TRAIL OF THE GODS
CHAPTER V THE COVENANT
CHAPTER VI THE FAMINE
 CHAPTER I

THE MAKERS OF FIRE

The cub came upon it suddenly. It was his own

fault. He had been careless. He had left the cave
and run down to the stream to drink. It might
have been that he took no notice because he was

heavy with sleep. (He had 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 to the pool. He had travelled
it often, and nothing had ever happened on it.
He went down past the blasted pine, crossed the
open space, and trotted in amongst the trees. Then,
at the same instant, he saw and smelt. Before him,
sitting silently on their haunches, were five live things,
the like 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
show their teeth, nor snarl. They did not move,

but sat there, silent and ominous.

Nor did the cub move. Every instinct of his

nature would have impelled him to dash wildly

I 113
114 WHITE FANG

away, had there not suddenly and for the first time
arisen in him another and counter instinct . A great

awe descended upon him. He was beaten down to

movelessness by an overwhelming sense 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 con-
cerning man was his. In dim ways he recognized in
man the animal that had fought itself to primacy 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 winter camp-

fires, that had peered from safe distances and from the
hearts of thickets 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
born of the centuries of struggle and the accumulated
experience of the generations. The heritage was too
compelling for a wolf that was only a cub. Had he
been full-grown, he would have run away. As it

was, he cowered down in a paralysis of fear, already

half proffering the submission that his kind had

proffered from the first time a wolf came in to sit

by man's fire and be made warm.
One of the Indians arose and walked over to him
and stooped above him. The cub cowered closer to

the ground . It was the unknown , objectified at last,

 THE MAKERS OF FIRE 115

in concrete flesh and blood , bending over him and

reaching down to seize hold of him. His hair bristled
involuntarily ; his lips writhed back and his little
fangs were bared. The hand, poised like doom above
him , hesitated, and the man spoke, laughing, " Wabam
wabisca ip pit tak. " (“ Look ! The white fangs ! ")

The other Indians laughed loudly, and urged the

man on to pick up the cub. As the hand descended

closer and closer, there raged within the cub a battle

of the instincts. He experienced two great impulsions,

to yield and to fight. The resulting action was a

compromise. He did both. He yielded till the hand
almost touched him . Then he fought, his teeth flash-
ing in a snap that sank them into the hand . The

next moment he received a clout alongside the head

that knocked him over on his side. Then all fight
fled out of him. His puppyhood and the instinct of
submission took charge of him. He sat up on his
haunches and ki-yi'd . But the man whose hand he
had bitten was angry. The cub received a clout on

the other side of his head . Whereupon he sat up

and ki-yi'd louder than ever.
The four Indians laughed more loudly, while even
the man who had been 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 heard something. The Indians heard it, too.

But the cub knew what it was, and with a last, long
116 WHITE FANG

wail that had in it more of triumph than grief, he

ceased his noise and waited for the coming of his
mother, of his ferocious and indomitable 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 was dashing to save him.

She bounded in amongst them, her anxious and
militant motherhood making her anything but a

pretty sight. But to the cub the spectacle of her

protective rage was pleasing. He uttered a glad little
cry and bounded to meet 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 snarl rumbling deep in her throat. Her face

was distorted and malignant with menace, even the

bridge of the nose wrinkling from tip to eyes so
prodigious was her snarl.

Then it was that a cry went up from one of the

men. "Kiche ! " Iwas what he uttered. It was an

exclamation of surprise. The cub felt his mother

wilting 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, wagging her tail, making
peace signs. The cub could not understand . He

was appalled. The awe of man rushed over him

 THE MAKERS OF FIRE 117

again. His instinct had been true. 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 her head, 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 indications of danger, the cub decided , as he

crouched near his mother, still bristling from time to
time but doing his best to submit .
" It is not strange," an Indian was saying. " Her
father was a wolf. It is true, her mother was a dog ;
but did not my brother tie her out in the woods all
of three nights in the mating season ? Therefore
was the father of Kiche a wolf."

" It is a year, Gray Beaver, since she ran away,"

spoke a second Indian.

" It is not strange, Salmon Tongue," Gray Beaver

answered. "It was the time 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," Gray Beaver

answered, laying his hand on the cub ; " and this be
the sign of it."
118 WHITE FANG

The cub snarled a little at the touch of the hand,

and the hand flew back to administer a clout.

Whereupon the cub covered its fangs and sank down

submissively, while the hand, returning, rubbed behind
his ears, and up and down his back.

"This be the sign of it, " Gray Beaver went on.

" It is plain that his mother is Kiche. But his father
was a wolf. Wherefore is there in him little dog and
much wolf. His fangs be white, and White Fang
shall be his name, 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. Then Gray

Beaver took a knife from a sheath that hung around

his neck, and went into the thicket and cut a stick.
White Fang watched him. He notched the stick at
each end and in the notches fastened strings of raw-

hide. One string 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 hand reached out to him and rolled
him over on his back. Kiche looked on anxiously.
White Fang felt fear mounting in him again . He
could not quite suppress a snarl, but he made no offer
to snap . The hand, with fingers crooked and spread
 THE MAKERS OF FIRE 119

apart, rubbed his stomach in a playful way and rolled

him from side to side. It was ridiculous and un-

gainly, lying there on his back with legs sprawling in

the air. Besides, it was a position of such utter help-
lessness that White Fang's whole nature revolted against
it. He could do nothing to defend himself. If this

man-animal intended harm, White Fang knew that he

could not escape it. How could he spring away with
his four 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 the man-
animal resent it by giving him a blow on the head .
And furthermore, such was the strangeness of it,

White Fang experienced an unaccountable sensation

of pleasure as the hand rubbed back and forth.

When he was rolled on his side he ceased the growl ;

when the fingers pressed and prodded at the base of
his ears the pleasurable sensation increased ; and
when, 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 in
his dealings with man ; yet it was a token of the fear-
less companionship with man that was ultimately to
be his.

After a time, White Fang heard strange noises

approaching. He was quick in his classification, for
he knew them at once for man-animal noises. A few
minutes later the remainder of the tribe, strung out
120 WHITE FANG

as it was on the march, trailed in. There were more

men and many women and children , forty souls of

them , and all heavily burdened with camp equipage
and outfit. Also there were many dogs ; and these,

with the exception of the part-grown puppies, were

likewise burdened with camp outfit. On their backs,

in bags that fastened tightly around underneath , the

dogs carried from twenty to thirty pounds of weight.
White Fang had never seen dogs before, but at sight
of them he felt that they were his own kind, only
somehow different. But they displayed little differ-
ence from the wolf when they discovered the cub and
his mother. There was a rush. White Fang bristled

and snarled and snapped in the face of the open-

mouthed oncoming wave of dogs, and went down and
under them, feeling the sharp slash of teeth in his body,
himself biting and tearing at the legs and bellies above
him. There was a great uproar. He could hear the

snarl of Kiche as she fought for him ; and he could

hear the cries of the man-animals , the sound of clubs
striking upon bodies, and the yelps of pain from the
dogs so struck .

Only a few seconds elapsed before he was on his

feet again. He could now see the man-animals driv-

ing back the dogs with clubs and stones, defending

him, saving him from the savage teeth of his kind
that somehow was not his kind . And though there
was no reason in his brain for a clear conception of
 THE MAKERS OF FIRE 121

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 they were -makers of law and
executors of law. Also, he appreciated the power
Unlike any
with which they administered the law.
animals he had ever encountered, they did not bite
nor claw. They enforced their live strength with the
power of dead things. Dead things did their bidding.
Thus, sticks and stones, directed by these strange
creatures, leaped through the air like living things,
inflicting grievous hurts upon the dogs.
To his mind this was power unusual, power incon-
ceivable and beyond the natural , power that was god-
like. White Fang, in the very nature of him, could
never know anything about gods ; at the best he
could know only things that were beyond knowing ;
but the wonder and awe that he had of these man-

animals in ways resembled what would be the wonder

and awe of man at sight of some celestial creature,
on a mountain top, hurling thunderbolts from either
hand at an astonished world .
The last dog had been driven back. The hubbub

died down. And White Fang licked his hurts and

meditated upon this, his first taste of pack-cruelty
and his introduction to the pack. He had never
dreamed that his own kind consisted of more than

One Eye, his mother, and himself. They had consti-

tuted a kind apart, and here, abruptly, he had discov-
122 WHITE FANG

ered many more creatures apparently of his own kind.

And there was a subconscious resentment that these,
his kind, at first sight had pitched upon him and tried
to destroy him. In the same way he resented his
mother being tied with a stick, even though it was

done by the superior man-animals. It savored of the

trap, of bondage. Yet of the trap and of bondage he
knew nothing. Freedom to roam and run and lie
down at will , had been his heritage ; and here it
was being infringed upon . His mother's movements

were restricted to the length of a stick, and by the

length of that same stick was he restricted, for he had
not yet got beyond the need of his mother's side.
He did not like it. Nor did he like it when the

man-animals arose and went on with their march ;

for a tiny man-animal took the other end of the
stick and led Kiche captive behind him , and behind
Kiche followed White Fang, greatly perturbed and
worried by this new adventure he had entered upon .

They went down the valley of the stream, far

beyond White Fang's widest ranging, until they came
to the end of the valley, where the stream ran into
the Mackenzie River. Here, where canoes were

cached on poles high in the air and where stood fish-

racks for the drying of fish, camp was made ; and
White Fang looked on with wondering eyes. The
superiority of these man-animals increased with every
moment. There was their mastery over all these
 THE MAKERS OF FIRE 123

sharp-fanged dogs. It breathed of power. But

greater than that, to the wolf-cub, was their mastery

over things not alive ; their capacity to communicate
motion to unmoving things ; their capacity to change
the very face of the world.

It was this last that especially affected him. The

elevation of frames of poles caught his eye ; yet this

in itself was not so remarkable, being done by the same

creatures that flung sticks and stones to great dis-
tances. But when the frames of poles were made

into tepees by being covered with cloth and skins ,

White Fang was astounded . It was the colossal bulk
of them that impressed him. They arose around
him, on every side, like some monstrous quick-grow-
ing form of life . They occupied nearly the whole
circumference of his field of vision . He was afraid

of them. They loomed ominously above him ; and

when the breeze stirred them into huge movements,

he cowered down in fear, keeping his eyes warily

upon them , and prepared to spring away if they
attempted to precipitate themselves upon him.
But in a short while his fear of the tepees passed
away. He saw the women and children passing in
and out of them without harm, and he saw the dogs
trying often to get into them, and being driven away
with sharp words and flying stones. After a time ,

he left Kiche's side and crawled cautiously toward

the wall of the nearest tepee. It was the curiosity
124 WHITE FANG

of growth that urged him on ― the necessity of

learning and living and doing that brings experience.
The last few inches to the wall of the tepee were

crawled with painful slowness and precaution . The

day's events had prepared him for the unknown to
manifest itself in most stupendous and unthinkable 1
ways. At last his nose touched the canvas. He

waited. Nothing happened . 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 por-

1
tions of the tepee moved. He tugged harder. There
was a greater movement. It was delightful. He

tugged still harder, and repeatedly, until the whole

tepee was in motion. Then the sharp cry of a squaw
inside sent him scampering back to Kiche. But after

that he was afraid no more of the looming bulks

of the tepees .

A moment later he was straying away again from

his mother. Her stick was 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 White Fang was
afterward to hear him called, was Lip-lip . He had

had experience in puppy fights and was already

something of a bully.
Lip-lip was White Fang's own kind, and, being
 THE MAKERS OF FIRE 125

only a puppy, did not seem dangerous ; so White

Fang prepared to meet him in friendly spirit. But
when the stranger's walk became stiff-legged and his
lips lifted clear of his teeth, White Fang stiffened,
too, and answered with lifted lips . They half circled
about each other, tentatively, snarling and bristling.
This lasted several minutes, and White Fang was be-

ginning to enjoy it, as a sort of game. But suddenly,

with remarkable swiftness, Lip-lip leaped in, delivered
a slashing snap, and leaped away again. The snap
had taken effect on the shoulder that had been hurt

by the lynx and that was still sore deep down near
the bone. The surprise and hurt of it brought a yelp
out of White Fang ; but the next moment, in a rush
of anger, he was upon Lip-lip and snapping viciously.
But Lip-lip had lived his life in camp and had
fought many puppy fights. Three times, four times,
and half a dozen times, his sharp little teeth scored
on the newcomer, until White Fang, yelping shame-
lessly, fled to the protection of his mother. It was
the first of the many fights he was to have with
Lip-lip, for they were enemies from the start, born
so, with natures destined perpetually to clash.
Kiche licked White Fang soothingly with her
tongue, and tried to prevail upon him to remain with
her. But his curiosity was rampant, and several

minutes later he was venturing forth on a new quest.

He came upon one of the man-animals, Gray Beaver,

126 WHITE FANG

who was squatting on his hams and doing some-

thing with sticks and dry moss spread before him
on the ground. White Fang came near to him and
watched. Gray Beaver made mouth-noises which
White Fang interpreted as not hostile, so he came
still nearer .

Women and children were carrying more sticks

and branches to Gray Beaver. It was evidently an
affair of moment. White Fang came in until he

touched Gray Beaver's knee, so curious was he, and

already forgetful that this was a terrible man-animal.

Suddenly he saw a strange thing like mist beginning

to arise from the sticks and moss beneath Gray
Beaver's hands. Then, amongst the sticks them-
selves, appeared a live thing, twisting and turning,
of a color like the color of the sun in the sky . White
Fang knew nothing about fire. It drew him as the

light in the mouth of the cave had drawn him in his

early puppyhood. He crawled the several steps
toward the flame. He heard Gray Beaver chuckle
above him, and he knew the sound was not hostile.
Then his nose touched the flame, and at the same
instant his little tongue went out to it.
For a moment he was paralyzed . The unknown,
lurking in the midst of the sticks and moss, was
savagely clutching him by the nose. He scrambled

backward, bursting out in an astonished explosion

of ki-yi's. At the sound, Kiche leaped snarling to
 THE MAKERS OF FIRE 127

the end of her stick, and there raged terribly because

she could not come to his aid. But Gray Beaver

laughed loudly, and slapped his thighs, and told the

happening to all the rest of the camp , till everybody
was laughing uproariously. But White Fang sat
on his haunches and ki-yi'd and ki-yi'd , a forlorn
and pitiable little figure in the midst of the man-
animals.
It was the worst hurt he had ever known . Both

nose and tongue had been scorched by the live thing,

sun-colored, that had grown up under Gray Beaver's
hands. He cried and cried interminably , and every

fresh wail was greeted by bursts of laughter on the

part of the man-animals. He tried to soothe his nose

with his tongue, but the tongue was burnt too , and
the two hurts coming together produced greater hurt ;
whereupon he cried more 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 know when
they are being laughed at ; but it was this same way
that White Fang knew 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 the laughter that sank even deeper, and
hurt in the spirit of him. And he fled to Kiche,
raging at the end of her stick like an animal gone
128 WHITE FANG

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 his mother's side. His nose and tongue
still hurt, but he was perplexed by a greater trouble .
He was homesick. He felt a vacancy in him , a need 7
for the hush and quietude of the stream and the cave
in the cliff. Life had become too populous . There
were so many of the man-animals , men, women, and
children, all making noises and irritations. And

there were the dogs, ever squabbling and bickering,

bursting into uproars and creating confusions. The

restful loneliness of the only life he had known was

gone. Here the very air was palpitant with life. It
hummed and buzzed unceasingly. Continually chang-

ing its intensity and abruptly variant in pitch, it

impinged on his nerves and senses , made him nervous
and restless and worried him with a perpetual immi-
nence of happening.
He watched the man-animals coming and going
and moving about the camp. In fashion distantly

resembling the way men look upon the gods they

create, so looked White Fang upon the man-animals
before him. They were superior creatures, of a ver-
ity, gods. To his dim comprehension they were as
much wonder-workers as gods are to men. They
were creatures of mastery, possessing all manner of
unknown and impossible potencies, overlords of the
 THE MAKERS OF FIRE 129

-
alive and the not alive, making obey that which
moved, imparting movement to that which did not
move, and making life, sun-colored and biting life,
to grow out of dead moss and wood. They were
fire-makers ! They were gods !

K
 CHAPTER II

THE BONDAGE

The days were thronged with experience for White

Fang. During the time that Kiche was tied by the
stick, he ran about over all the camp, inquiring, in-
vestigating, learning. He quickly came to know
much of the ways of the man-animals, but familiarity
did not breed contempt. The more he came to know
them, the more they vindicated their superiority, the
more they displayed their mysterious powers, the
greater loomed their god -likeness .
To man has been given the grief, often , of seeing
his gods overthrown and his altars crumbling ; but
to the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to
crouch at man's feet, this grief has never come. Un-

like man, whose gods are of the unseen and the

overguessed, vapors and mists of fancy eluding the
garmenture of reality, wandering wraiths of desired
goodness and power, intangible outcroppings of self
into the realm of spirit - unlike man, the wolf and
the wild dog that have come in to the fire find their
gods in the living flesh, solid to the touch, occupying
130
 THE BONDAGE 131

earth-space and requiring time for the accomplish-

ment of their ends and their existence . No effort of

faith is necessary to believe in such a god ; no effort

of will can possibly induce disbelief in such a god .
There is no getting away from it. There it stands ,

on its two hind-legs, club in hand, immensely poten-

tial, passionate and wrathful and loving, god and
mystery and power all wrapped up and around by
flesh that bleeds when it is torn and that is good to
eat like any flesh.
And so it was with White Fang. The man-ani-
mals were gods unmistakable and unescapable. As
his mother, Kiche, had rendered her allegiance to them
at the first cry of her name, so he was beginning to
render his allegiance. He gave them the trail as a
privilege indubitably theirs. When they walked , he
got out of their way. When they called, he came.
When they threatened, he cowered down. When
they commanded him to go, he went away hurriedly.
For behind any wish of theirs was power to enforce
that wish, power that hurt, power that expressed
itself in clouts and clubs, in flying stones and stinging
lashes of whips .

He belonged to them as all dogs belonged to them.

His actions were theirs 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
132 WHITE FANG

strong and dominant in his own nature ; and, while

he disliked it in the learning of it, unknown to him-
self he was learning to like it. It was a placing of
his destiny in another's hands, a shifting of the re-
sponsibilities of existence . This in itself was com-
pensation, for it is always easier to lean upon another
than to stand alone.

But it did not all happen in a day, this giving over

of himself, body and soul, to the man-animals. He
could not immediately forego his wild heritage and
his memories of the Wild. There were days when he
crept to the edge of the forest and stood and listened
to something calling him far and away. And always
he returned, restless and uncomfortable, to whimper
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 the injustice and greediness of the older
dogs when meat or fish was thrown out to be eaten .
He came to know that men were more just, children
more cruel, and women more kindly and more likely
to toss him a bit of meat or bone. And after two

or three painful adventures with the mothers of part-

grown puppies, he came into the knowledge that it
was always good policy to let such mothers alone,
to keep away from them as far as possible, and to
avoid them when he saw them coming.

But the bane of his life was Lip-lip. Larger, older,

 THE BONDAGE 133

and stronger, Lip-lip had selected White Fang for his

special object of persecution . White Fang fought

willingly enough, but he was outclassed . His enemy
was too big. Lip-lip became a nightmare to him.
Whenever he ventured away from his mother, the
bully was sure to appear, trailing at his heels, snarl-
ing at him, picking upon him, and watchful of an
opportunity, when no man-animal was near, to spring
upon him and force a fight. As Lip-lip invariably
won, he enjoyed it hugely. It became his chief de-
light in life , as it became White Fang's chief torment.
But the effect upon White Fang was not to cow
him. Though he suffered most of the damage and
was always defeated, his spirit remained unsubdued.

Yet a bad effect was produced . He became malig-

nant and morose . His temper had been savage by

birth, but it became more savage under this unending

persecution. The genial, playful, puppyish side of
him found little expression . He never played and
gambolled about with the other puppies of the camp .
Lip-lip would not permit it. The moment White
Fang appeared near them, Lip-lip was upon him,
bullying and hectoring him, or fighting with him
until he had driven him away.

The effect of all this was to rob White Fang of

much of his puppyhood and to make him in his com-

portment older than his age. Denied the outlet,

through play, of his energies, he recoiled upon himself

134 WHITE FANG

and developed his mental processes. He became cun-

ning ; he had idle time in which to devote himself

to thoughts of trickery . Prevented from obtaining

his share of meat and fish when a general feed was
given to the camp-dogs, he became a clever thief.
He had to forage for himself, and he foraged well,
though he was ofttimes a plague to the squaws in
consequence . He learned to sneak about camp, to be

crafty, to know what was going on everywhere , to

see and to hear everything and to reason accordingly ,
and successfully to devise ways and means of avoid-
ing his implacable persecutor.
It was early in the days of his persecution that he
played his first really big 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 of men, so White Fang, in manner some-
what similar, lured Lip-lip into Kiche's avenging
jaws. Retreating before Lip-lip, White Fang made
an indirect flight that led in and out and around the
various tepees of the camp. He was a good runner,

swifter than any other puppy of his size, and swifter

than Lip-lip. But he did not run his best in this

chase. He barely held his own, one leap ahead of

his pursuer.

Lip-lip , excited by the chase and by the persistent

nearness of his victim, forgot caution and locality.
When he remembered locality, it was too late. Dash-
 THE BONDAGE 135

ing at top speed around a tepee, he ran full tilt into

Kiche lying at the end of her stick. He gave one
yelp of consternation , and then her punishing jaws
closed upon him . She was tied, but he could not get
away 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 standing out all
over him in tufts where her teeth had mauled. He

stood where he had arisen, opened his mouth, and

broke out the long, heart-broken puppy wail. 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 no fight left in
Lip-lip, and he ran away shamelessly, his victim hot
on his heels and worrying him all the way back to
his own tepee. Here the squaws 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 Gray Beaver, deciding that the
liability of her running away was past, released Kiche.
White Fang was delighted with his mother's freedom .

He accompanied her joyfully about the camp ; and, so

long 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-lip ignored the
136 WHITE FANG

challenge. He was no fool himself, and whatever

vengeance he desired to wreak, he could wait until he

caught White Fang alone.

Later on that day, Kiche and White Fang strayed
into the edge of the woods next to the camp. He had
led his mother there, step by step, and now, 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. He ran on a few
steps, stopped, and looked back. She had not

moved. He whined pleadingly, and scurried play-

fully in and out of the underbrush . He ran back to

her, licked her face, and ran on again . And still she
did not move. He stopped and regarded her, all of

an intentness and eagerness, physically expressed ,

that slowly faded out of him as she turned her head

and gazed back at the camp.

There was something calling to him out there in

the open. His mother heard it, too. But she heard

also that other and louder call, the call of the fire
and of man the call which it has been given alone

of all animals to the wolf to answer, to the wolf and

the wild-dog, who are brothers.
Kiche turned and slowly trotted back toward camp.
Stronger than the physical restraint of the stick was
the clutch of the camp upon her. Unseen and occultly,
the gods still gripped with their power and would not
let her go. White Fang sat down in the shadow of a
 THE BONDAGE 137

birch and whimpered softly. There was a strong

smell of pine, and subtle woods 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 either
of man or of the Wild was the call of his mother.

All the hours of his short life he had depended upon

her. The time was yet to come for independence.
So he arose and trotted forlornly back to camp, paus-
ing once, and twice, to sit down and whimper and to
listen to the call that still sounded in the depths of
the forest.
In the Wild the time of a mother with her young is
short ; but under the dominion of man it is sometimes
even shorter. Thus it was with White Fang. Gray
Beaver was in the debt of Three Eagles. Three
Eagles was going away on a trip up the Mackenzie
to the Great Slave Lake. A strip of scarlet cloth, a

bearskin, twenty cartridges, and Kiche, went to pay

the debt. White Fang saw his mother taken aboard
Three Eagles' canoe, and tried to follow her. A blow
from Three Eagles knocked him backward to the
land. The canoe shoved off. He sprang into the
water and swam after it, deaf to the sharp cries of
Gray 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 Gray

138 WHITE FANG

Beaver wrathfully launched a canoe in pursuit. When

he overtook White Fang, he reached down and by the
nape of the neck lifted him clear of the water. He

did not deposit him at once in the bottom of the

canoe. Holding him suspended with 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 to hurt ; and he delivered a multi-
tude of blows.

Impelled by the blows that rained upon him, now

from this side, now from that, White Fang swung
back and forth like an erratic and jerky pendulum.
Varying were the emotions that surged through him.
At first, he had known surprise. Then came a mo-
mentary fear, when he yelped several times to the

impact of the hand . But this was quickly followed

by anger. His free nature asserted itself, and he

showed his teeth and snarled fearlessly in the face

of the wrathful god. This but served to make the
god more wrathful. The blows came faster, heavier,
more shrewd to hurt.

Gray Beaver continued to beat, White Fang con-

tinued to snarl. But this could not last forever.

One or the other must give over, and that one was
White Fang. Fear surged through him again. For

the first time he was being really man-handled. The

occasional blows of sticks and stones he had previ-
ously experienced were as caresses compared with
 THE BONDAGE 139

this. He broke down and began to cry and yelp.

For a time each blow brought a yelp from him ; but
fear passed into terror, until finally his yelps were
voiced in unbroken succession, unconnected with the
rhythm of the punishment.
At last Gray Beaver withheld his hand. White

Fang, hanging limply, continued to cry. This seemed

to satisfy his master, who flung him down roughly
in the bottom of the canoe. In the meantime the

canoe had drifted down the stream. Gray Beaver

picked up the paddle. White Fang was in his way.
He spurned him savagely with his foot. In that
moment White Fang's free nature flashed forth
again, and he sank his teeth into the moccasined
foot.

The beating that had gone before was as nothing

compared with the beating he now received. Gray
Beaver's wrath was terrible ; likewise was White
Fang's fright. Not only the hand, but the hard

wooden paddle was used upon him ; and he was

bruised and sore in all his small body when he was
again flung down in the canoe . Again, and this

time with purpose, did Gray 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 the circumstance, must he

dare to bite the god who was lord and master over
him ; the body of the lord and master was sacred,
140 WHITE FANG

not to be defiled by the teeth of such as he. That

was evidently the crime of crimes, the one offence
there was no condoning nor overlooking.
When the canoe touched the shore, White Fang
lay whimpering and motionless, waiting the will of
Gray Beaver. It was Gray Beaver's will that

he should go ashore, for ashore he was flung,

striking heavily on his side and hurting his bruises
afresh . He crawled tremblingly to his feet and

stood whimpering. Lip-lip, who had watched the

whole proceeding from the bank, now rushed upon
him, knocking him over and sinking his teeth into
him . White Fang was too helpless to defend him-

self, and it would have gone hard with him had

not Gray Beaver's foot shot out, lifting Lip -lip into
the air with its violence so that he smashed down
to earth a dozen feet away. This was the man-

animal's justice ; and even then, in his own pitiable

plight, White Fang experienced a little grateful
thrill. At Gray Beaver's heels he limped obedi-

ently through the village to the tepee. And so it

came that White Fang learned that the right to
punish was something the gods reserved for them-
selves and denied to the lesser creatures under
them .

That night, when all was still, White Fang remem-

bered his mother and sorrowed for her. He sor-

rowed too loudly and woke up Gray Beaver, who

 THE BONDAGE 141

beat him . After that he mourned gently when the

gods were around. But sometimes, straying off to

the edge of the woods by himself, he gave vent to

his grief, and cried it out with loud whimperings
and wailings.

It was during this period that he might have

hearkened to the memories of the lair and the stream
and run back to the Wild. But the memory of his
mother held him. As the hunting man-animals went
out and came back, so she would come back to the
village sometime. So he remained in his bondage
waiting for her.
But it was not altogether an unhappy bondage.
There was much to interest him. Something was

always happening. There was no end to the strange

things these gods did, and he was always curious to
see. Besides, he was learning how to get along with

Gray Beaver. Obedience, rigid, undeviating obedi-

ence, was what was exacted of him ; and in return
he escaped beatings and his existence was tolerated .
Nay, Gray Beaver himself sometimes tossed him a

piece of meat, and defended him against the other

dogs in the eating of it. And such a piece of meat
was of value . It was worth more, in some strange
way, than a dozen pieces of meat from the hand of a
squaw. Gray Beaver never petted nor caressed.
Perhaps it was the weight of his hand, perhaps
his justice, perhaps the sheer power of him, and
142 WHITE FANG

perhaps it was all these things that influenced White

Fang ; for a certain tie of attachment was forming
between him and his surly lord.
Insidiously, and by remote ways, as well as by the
power of stick and stone and clout of hand , were the
shackles of White Fang's bondage being riveted upon

him. The qualities in his kind that in the beginning

made it possible for them to come in to the fires of
men, were qualities capable of development. They
were developing in him, and the camp-life, replete
with misery as it was, was secretly endearing itself
to him all the time. But White 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 been his.
 CHAPTER III

THE OUTCAST

Lip-lip continued so to darken his days that White

Fang became wickeder and more ferocious than it
was his natural right to be. Savageness was a part
of his make-up, but the savageness thus developed
exceeded his make-up . He acquired a reputation

for wickedness amongst the man-animals themselves.

Wherever there was trouble and uproar in camp ,

fighting and squabbling or the outcry of a squaw

over a bit of stolen meat, they were sure to find
White Fang mixed up in it and usually at the bottom
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 a thief, a

mischief-maker, a fomenter of trouble ; and irate

squaws told him to 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
an evil end.
He found himself an outcast in the midst of the

populous camp. All the young dogs followed Lip-

143
144 WHITE FANG

lip's lead . There was a difference between White

Fang and them. Perhaps they sensed his wild- wood

breed , and instinctively felt for him the enmity that
the domestic dog feels for the wolf. But be that

as it may, they joined with Lip-lip in the persecu-

tion. And, once declared against him , they found
good reason to continue declared 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 could whip in single fight ; but single fight
was denied him. The beginning of such a fight was
a signal for all the young dogs in camp to come
running and pitch upon him.
Out of this pack-persecution he learned two im-
portant things : how to take 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. To keep one's feet in the midst of the hos-

tile mass meant life, and this he learned well. He

became cat-like in his ability to stay on his feet.
Even grown dogs might hurtle him backward or
sideways with the impact of their heavy bodies ; and
backward or sideways he would go, in the air or
sliding on the ground, but always with his legs under
him and his feet downward 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 learned to
 THE OUTCAST 145

omit these preliminaries. Delay meant the coming

against him of all the young dogs. He must do his
work quickly and get away. So he learned to give
no warning of his intention . He rushed in and

snapped and slashed on the instant, without notice,

before his foe could prepare to meet him. Thus he
learned how to inflict quick and severe damage. Also

he learned the value of surprise. A dog, taken off its

guard, its shoulder slashed open or its ear ripped in
ribbons before it knew what was happening, was a

dog half whipped .

Furthermore, it was remarkably easy to overthrow
a dog taken by surprise ; while a dog, thus over-
thrown, invariably exposed for a moment the soft
underside of its neck — the vulnerable point at which
to strike for its life. White Fang knew this point.
It was a knowledge bequeathed to him directly from
the hunting generations of wolves . So it was that
White Fang's method, when he took the offensive ,
was : first, to find a young dog alone ; second , to sur-
prise it and knock it off its feet ; and third , to drive
in with his teeth at the soft throat.

Being but partly grown, his jaws had not yet

become large enough nor strong enough to make his
throat-attack deadly ; but many a young dog went
around camp with a lacerated throat in token of

White Fang's intention . And one day, catching one

of his enemies alone on the edge of the woods, he
L
146 WHITE FANG

managed, by repeatedly overthrowing him and attack.

ing the throat, to cut the great vein and let out the
life. There was a great row that night. He had
been observed, the news had been carried to the dead
dog's master, the squaws remembered all the in-
stances of stolen meat, and Gray Beaver was beset
by many angry voices. But he resolutely held the
door of his tepee, inside which he had placed the
culprit, and refused to permit the vengeance for

which his tribespeople clamored.

White Fang became hated by man and dog. Dur-
ing this period of his development he never knew
a moment's security. The tooth of every dog was
against him , the hand of every man . He was greeted

with snarls by his kind, with curses and stones by his

gods . He lived tensely. He was always keyed up,
alert for attack, wary of being attacked, with an eye
for sudden and unexpected missiles , prepared to act
precipitately and coolly, to leap in 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 is required

1
to know when it should be used. White Fang knew
how to make it and when to make it. Into his snarl

he incorporated all that was vicious, malignant, and

horrible. With nose serrulated by continuous spasms,
hair bristling in recurrent waves, tongue whipping
 THE OUTCAST 147

out like a red snake and whipping back again, ears

flattened down, eyes gleaming hatred, lips wrinkled
back, and fangs exposed and dripping, he could
compel a pause on the part of almost any assailant.
A temporary pause, when taken off his guard, gave him
the vital moment in which to think and determine

his action. But often a pause so gained lengthened

out until it evolved into a complete cessation from
the attack. And before more than one of the grown

dogs White Fang's snarl enabled him to beat an

honorable retreat.

An outcast himself from the pack of the part-

grown dogs, his sanguinary methods and remarkable

efficiency made the pack pay for its persecution of

him. Not permitted himself to run with the pack,
the curious state of affairs obtained that no member

of the pack could run outside the pack. White Fang

would not permit it. What of his bushwhacking and
waylaying tactics, the young dogs were afraid to run
by themselves. With the exception of Lip-lip , they
were compelled to bunch together for mutual pro-
tection against the terrible enemy they had made.
A puppy alone by the river bank meant a puppy dead
or a puppy that aroused the camp with its shrill
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 dogs had learned thoroughly that
148 WHITE FANG

they must stay together. He attacked them when

he caught them alone, and they attacked him when

they were bunched . The sight of him was sufficient
to start them rushing after him, at which times his
swiftness usually carried him into safety. But woe
to the dog that outran his fellows in such pursuit !
White Fang had learned to turn suddenly upon the
pursuer that was ahead of the pack and thoroughly to
rip him up before the pack could arrive. This oc-

curred with great frequency, for, once in full cry, the

dogs were prone to forget themselves in the excite-

ment of the chase, while White Fang never forgot

himself. Stealing backward glances as he ran, he
was always ready to whirl around and down the

overzealous pursuer that outran his fellows.

Young dogs are bound to play, and out of the exi-
gencies of the situation they realized their play in
this mimic warfare. Thus it was that the hunt of
White Fang became their chief game - a deadly
game, withal, and at all times a serious game. He,
on the other hand, being the fastest-footed, was un-
afraid to venture anywhere. During the period that
he waited vainly for his mother to come back, he led
the pack many a wild chase through the adjacent
woods. But the pack invariably lost him . Its noise
and outcry warned him of its presence, while he ran
alone, velvet-footed , silently, a moving shadow among
the trees after the manner of his father and mother
 THE OUTCAST 149

before him. Further, he was more directly connected

with the Wild than they ; and he knew more of its
secrets and stratagems. A favorite trick of his was
to lose his trail in running water and then lie quietly
in a near-by thicket while their baffled cries arose
around him .

Hated by his kind and by mankind , indomitable,

perpetually warred upon and himself waging perpet-

ual war, his development was rapid and one-sided .
This was no soil for kindliness and affection to
blossom in. Of such things he had not the faintest

glimmering. The code he learned was to obey the

strong and to oppress the weak. Gray Beaver was a
god, and strong. Therefore White Fang obeyed him.
But the dog younger or smaller than himself was
weak, a thing to be destroyed. His development was
in the direction of power. In order to face the con-
stant danger of hurt and even of destruction, his pred-
atory and protective faculties were unduly developed.
He became quicker of movement than the other dogs,
swifter of foot, craftier, deadlier, more lithe, more
lean with ironlike muscle and sinew, more enduring,

more cruel, more ferocious, and more intelligent.

He had to become all these things, else he would not
have held his own nor survived the hostile environ-
ment in which he found himself.
 CHAPTER IV

THE TRAIL OF THE GODS

In the fall of the year, when the days were short-

ening and the bite of the frost was coming into the
air, White Fang got his chance for liberty. For sev-
eral days there had been a great hubbub in the
village. The summer camp was being dismantled,
and the tribe, bag and baggage, was preparing to 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 at the bank, he
understood. Already the canoes were departing, and
some had disappeared down the river.

Quite deliberately he determined to stay behind .

He waited his opportunity to slink out of camp to
the woods. Here, in the running stream where ice
was beginning to form, he hid his trail. Then he
crawled into the heart of a dense thicket and waited .

The time passed by, and he slept intermittently for

hours. Then he was aroused by Gray Beaver's voice
calling him by name. There were other voices.

White Fang could hear Gray Beaver's squaw taking

150
 THE TRAIL OF THE GODS 151

part in the search, and Mit-sah , who was Gray

Beaver's son.

White Fang trembled with fear, and though the

impulse came to crawl out 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 his undertaking. Darkness was coming on, and
for a while he played about among the trees, pleas-
uring in his freedom. Then, and quite suddenly, he
became aware of loneliness. He sat down to con-

sider, listening to the silence of the forest and per-

turbed by it. That nothing moved nor sounded,
seemed ominous. He felt the lurking of danger,

unseen and unguessed . He was suspicious of the

looming bulks of the trees and of the dark shadows
that might conceal all manner of perilous things.
Then it was cold . Here was no warm side of a

tepee against which to snuggle. The frost was in

his feet, and he kept lifting first one fore-foot and
then the other. He curved his bushy tail around

to cover them, and at the same time he saw a vision .

There was nothing strange about it. Upon his

inward sight was impressed a succession of memory-

pictures. He saw the camp again, the tepees, and

the blaze of the fires. He heard the shrill voices of

the woman, the gruff basses of the men, and the

snarling of the dogs. He was hungry, and he remem-
bered pieces of meat and fish that had been thrown
152 WHITE FANG

him. Here was no meat, nothing but a threatening

and inedible silence.

His bondage had softened him. Irresponsibility

had weakened him. He had forgotten how to shift
for himself. The night yawned about him. His
senses, accustomed to the hum and bustle of the

camp, used to the continuous impact of sights and

sounds, were now left idle. There was nothing to
do, nothing to see nor hear. They strained to catch
some interruption of the silence and immobility of
nature. They were appalled by inaction and by the
feel of something terrible impending.
He gave a great start of fright. A colossal and
formless something was rushing across the field of his
vision. It was a tree-shadow flung by the moon,
from whose face the clouds had been brushed away.

Reassured, he whimpered softly ; then he suppressed

the whimper for fear that it might attract the atten-
tion of the lurking dangers .

A tree, contracting in the cool of the night, made a

loud noise. It was directly above him. He yelped
in his fright. A panic seized him, and he ran madly
toward the village. He knew an overpowering desire
for the protection and companionship of man. In his

nostrils was the smell of the camp-smoke. In his

ears the camp sounds and cries were ringing loud.
He passed out of the forest and into the moonlit
open where were no shadows nor darknesses. But
 THE TRAIL OF THE GODS 153

no village greeted his eyes. He had forgotten. The

village 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-heaps and
the discarded rags and tags of the gods. He would
have been glad for the rattle of stones about him,
flung by an angry squaw, glad for the hand of Gray
Beaver descending upon him in wrath ; while he
would have welcomed with delight Lip-lip and the
whole snarling, cowardly pack.
He came to where Gray Beaver's tepee had stood .
In the centre of the space it had occupied, he sat
down. He pointed his nose at the moon. His throat

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 his past sorrows and
miseries as well as his apprehension of sufferings and
dangers 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 his loneli-

ness more forcibly upon him. It did not take him

long to make up his mind . He plunged into the

forest and followed the river bank down the stream.
All day he ran. He did not rest. He seemed made to
154 WHITE FANG

run on forever. His iron-like body ignored fatigue.

And even after fatigue came, his heritage of endurance
braced him to endless endeavor and enabled him to

drive his complaining body onward.

Where the river swung in against precipitous bluffs,
he climbed the high mountains behind . Rivers and
streams that entered the main river he forded or
swam . Often he took to the rim-ice that was begin-

ning to form, and more than once he crashed through

and struggled for life in the icy current. Always he
was on the lookout for the trail of the gods where it
might leave the river and proceed inland.
White Fang was intelligent beyond the average of
his kind ; yet his mental vision was not wide enough
to embrace the other bank of the Mackenzie. What

if the trail of the gods led out on that side ? It never

entered his head . Later on, when he had travelled

more and grown older and wiser and come to know
more of trails and rivers, it might be that he could
grasp and apprehend such a possibility. But that
mental power was yet in the future. Just now he
ran blindly, his own bank of the Mackenzie alone
entering into his calculations.
All night he ran, blundering in the darkness into
mishaps and obstacles that delayed but did not daunt.
By the middle of the second day he had been running
continuously for thirty hours, and the iron of his flesh
was giving out. It was the endurance of his mind
.
 THE TRAIL OF THE GODS 155

that kept him going. He had not eaten in forty

hours , and he was weak with hunger. The repeated
drenchings in the icy water had likewise had their
effect on him . His handsome coat was draggled .

The broad pads of his feet were bruised and bleeding.

He had begun to limp, and this limp increased with
the hours. To make it worse, the light of the

sky was obscured and snow began to fall — a raw,

moist, melting, clinging snow, slippery under foot, that
hid from him the landscape he traversed, and that
covered over the inequalities of the ground so that
the way of his feet was more difficult and painful.
Gray Beaver had intended camping that night on
the far bank of the Mackenzie, for it was in that
direction that the hunting lay. But on the near
bank, shortly before dark, a moose, coming down to
drink, had been espied by Kloo-kooch, who was Gray
Beaver's squaw. Now, had not the moose come
down to drink, had not Mit-sah been steering out of

the course because of the snow, had not Kloo -kooch

sighted the moose, and had not Gray Beaver killed it
with a lucky shot from his rifle, all subsequent things
would have happened differently. Gray Beaver would
not have camped on the near side of the Mackenzie,
and White Fang would have passed by and gone

on, either to die or to find his way to his wild

brothers and become one of them, a wolf to the end

of his days.
156 WHITE FANG

Night had fallen. The snow was flying more

thickly, and White Fang, whimpering softly to him-
self as he stumbled and limped along, came upon
a fresh trail in the snow. So fresh was it that he

knew it immediately for what it was. Whining

with eagerness, he followed back from the river bank
and in among the trees. The camp-sounds came to
his ears. He saw the blaze of the fire, Kloo-kooch
cooking, and Gray Beaver squatting on his hams and
mumbling a chunk of raw tallow. There was fresh
meat in camp !

White Fang expected a beating. He crouched and

bristled a little at the thought of it. Then he went

forward again. He feared and disliked the beating

he knew to be waiting for him. But he knew, further,
that the comfort of the fire would be his, the protec-

tion of the gods, the companionship of the dogs —-the

last, a companionship of enmity, but none the less a
companionship and satisfying to his gregarious needs.
He came cringing and crawling into the firelight.
Gray Beaver saw him, and stopped munching the
tallow. White Fang crawled slowly, cringing and
grovelling in the abjectness of his abasement and sub-
mission. He crawled straight toward Gray Beaver,
every inch of his progress becoming slower and more
painful. At last he lay at the master's feet, into
whose possession he now surrendered himself, volun-
tarily, body and soul. Of his own choice, he came in
 THE TRAIL OF THE GODS 157

to sit by man's fire and to be ruled by him. White

Fang trembled, waiting for the punishment to fall
upon him. There was a movement of the hand above

him. He cringed involuntarily under the expected

blow. It did not fall. He stole a glance upward .

Gray Beaver was breaking the lump of tallow in half !

Gray Beaver was offering him one piece of the tallow !
Very gently and somewhat suspiciously, he first
smelled the tallow and then proceeded to eat it.
Gray Beaver ordered meat to be brought to him, and
guarded him from the other dogs while he ate. After
that, grateful and content, White Fang lay at Gray
Beaver's feet, gazing at the fire that warmed him,
blinking and dozing, secure in the knowledge that
the morrow would find him, not wandering forlorn
through bleak forest-stretches, but in the camp of the
man-animals, with the gods to whom he had given
himself and upon whom he was now dependent.
 CHAPTER V

THE COVENANT

When December was well along, Gray Beaver

went on a journey up the Mackenzie. Mit-sah and
Kloo -kooch went with him. One sled he drove him-

self, drawn by dogs he had traded for or borrowed.

A second and smaller sled was driven by Mit-sah, and
to this was harnessed a team of puppies. It was

more of a toy affair than anything else, yet it was

the delight of Mit-sah, who felt that he was beginning
to do a man's work in the world . Also, he was
learning to drive dogs and to train dogs ; while the
puppies themselves were being broken in to the har-
ness. Furthermore, the sled was of some service, for

it carried nearly two hundred pounds of outfit and

food .

White Fang had seen the camp-dogs toiling in the

harness, so that he did not resent overmuch the first
placing of the harness upon himself. About his neck
was put a moss-stuffed collar, which was connected
.
by two 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 the sled.

158
 THE COVENANT 159

There were seven puppies in the team . The others

had been born earlier in the year and were nine and
ten months old, while White Fang was only eight

months old. Each dog was fastened to the sled by

a single rope. No two ropes were of the same length ,
while the difference in length between any two ropes

was at least that of a dog's body. Every rope was

brought to a ring at the front end of the sled .
The sled itself was without runners, being a birch-

bark toboggan, with upturned forward end to keep

it from ploughing under the snow. This construction
enabled the weight of the sled and load to be dis-
tributed over the largest snow-surface ; for the snow
was crystal-powder and very soft. Observing the
same principle of widest distribution of weight, the
dogs at the ends of their ropes radiated fan-fashion
from the nose of the sled, so that no dog trod in
another's footsteps .

There was, furthermore, another virtue in the fan-

formation. The ropes of varying length prevented

the dogs ' attacking from the rear those that ran in
front of them. For a dog to attack another, it
would have to turn upon one at a shorter rope. In

which case it would find itself face to face with the

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 to
attack one in front of him must pull the sled faster,
160 WHITE FANG

and that the faster the sled travelled, the faster could
the dog attacked run away. Thus, the dog behind
could never catch up with the one in front. The

faster he ran, the faster 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 his mastery over the beasts.
Mit-sah resembled his father, much of whose gray

wisdom he possessed . 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

never dared more than to shy an occasional stone at

him. But now Lip-lip was his dog, and he proceeded
to wreak his vengeance on him by putting him at the
end of the longest rope. This made Lip-lip the leader,
and was apparently an honor ; but in reality it took
away from him all honor, and instead of being bully
and master of the pack, he now found himself hated
and persecuted by the pack.
Because he ran at the end of the longest rope, the
dogs had always the view of him running away
before them. All that they saw of him was his

bushy tail and fleeing hind legs - a view far less

ferocious and intimidating than his bristling mane
and gleaming fangs. Also, dogs being so constituted
in their mental ways, the sight of him running away
gave desire to run after him and a feeling that he ran 1
away from them.
 THE COVENANT 161

The moment the sled started, the team took after

Lip-lip in a chase that extended throughout the day.
At first he had been prone to turn upon his pursuers,
jealous of his dignity and wrathful ; but at such times
Mit-sah would throw the stinging lash of the thirty-

foot cariboo-gut whip into his face 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 keep his 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 . To give point to unending pur-
suit of the leader, Mit-sah favored him over the
other dogs. These favors aroused in them jealousy
and hatred. In their presence Mit-sah would give

him meat and would give it to him only. This was

maddening to them. They would rage around just
outside the throwing-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 would
keep 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 greater distance than the other dogs in
the yielding of himself to the rule of the gods, and he
had learned more thoroughly the futility of opposing
their will. In addition, the persecution he had suf-
fered from the pack had made the pack less to him
M
162 WHITE FANG

in the scheme of things, and man more. He had not

learned to be dependent on his kind for companion-

ship. Besides , Kiche was well-nigh forgotten ; and
the chief outlet of expression that remained to him
was in the allegiance he tendered the gods he had
accepted as masters. So he worked hard, learned
discipline, and was obedient. Faithfulness and will-
ingness characterized his toil. These are essential

traits 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 with them .
He knew only how to fight, and fight with them he
did, returning to them a hundred-fold the snaps and
slashes they had given him in the days when 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 sled bounding along be-
hind. In camp he kept close to Mit-sah or Gray
Beaver or Kloo-kooch . He did not dare venture

away from the gods, for now the fangs of all dogs
were against him, and he tasted to the dregs the

persecution that had been White Fang's.

With the overthrow of Lip-lip , White Fang could
have become leader of the pack. But he was too

morose and solitary for that. He merely thrashed

 THE COVENANT 163

his team-mates. Otherwise he ignored them . They

got out of his way when he came along ; nor did the
boldest of them ever dare to rob him of his meat.

On the contrary, they devoured their own meat

hurriedly, for fear 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 share of

meat as rapidly as he could . And then woe the dog

that had not yet finished ! A snarl and a flash of

fangs, and that dog would wail his indignation to the

uncomforting stars while White Fang finished his
portion for him.

Every little while, however, one dog or another

would flame up in revolt and be promptly subdued.
Thus White Fang was kept in training. He was

jealous of the isolation in which he kept himself in

the midst of the pack, and he fought often to main-
tain it. But such fights were of brief duration . He
was too quick for the others. They were slashed
open and bleeding before they knew what had
happened, were whipped almost before they had
begun to fight.
As rigid as the sled-discipline of the gods, was the
discipline maintained by White Fang amongst his
fellows. He never allowed them any latitude. He

compelled them to an unremitting respect for him.

They might do as they pleased amongst themselves.
That was no concern of his. But it was his concern
164 WHITE FANG

that they leave him alone in his isolation, get out

of his way when he elected to walk among them ,
and at all times acknowledge his mastery over them.
A hint of stiff-leggedness on their part, a lifted lip
or a bristle of hair, and he would be upon them , merci-
less and cruel, swiftly convincing them of the error
of their way.

He was a monstrous tyrant. His mastery was

rigid as steel. He oppressed the weak with a ven-
geance. Not for nothing had he been exposed to the
pitiless struggle for life in the days of his cubhood,
when his mother and he, alone and unaided , held
their own and survived in the ferocious environment

of the Wild. And not for nothing had he learned to

walk softly when superior strength went by. He

oppressed the weak, but he respected the strong.

And in the course of the long journey with Gray
Beaver he walked softly indeed amongst the full-
grown dogs in the camps of the strange man-animals
they encountered .

The months passed by. Still continued the journey

of Gray Beaver. White Fang's strength was de-
veloped by the long hours on trail and the steady toil
at the sled ; and it would have seemed that his
mental development was well-nigh complete. He

had come to know quite thoroughly the world in

which he lived . His outlook was bleak and materi-
alistic. The world as he saw it was a fierce and
 THE COVENANT 165

brutal world, a world without warmth, a world in

which caresses and affection and the bright sweet-
nesses of the spirit did not exist.
He had no affection for Gray Beaver. True, he

was a god, but a most savage god . White Fang was

glad to acknowledge his lordship , but it was a lord-
ship based upon superior intelligence and brute
strength. There was something in the fibre of
White Fang's being that made this lordship a
thing to be desired, else he would not have come
back from the Wild when he did to tender his

allegiance. There were deeps in his nature which

had never been sounded. A kind word, a caressing

touch of the hand, on the part of Gray Beaver,

might have sounded these deeps ; but Gray Beaver
did not caress nor speak kind words. It was not
his way . His primacy was savage, and savagely
he ruled, administering justice with a club, punishing
transgression with the pain of a blow, and rewarding
merit, not by kindness, but by withholding a blow.
So White Fang knew nothing of the heaven a
man's hand might contain for him. Besides, he did
not like the hands of the man-animals. He was

suspicious of them. It was true that they sometimes

gave meat, but more often they gave hurt. Hands
were things to keep away from. They hurled stones,
wielded sticks and clubs and whips, administered
slaps and clouts, and , when they touched him, were
166 WHITE FANG

cunning to hurt with pinch and twist and wrench.

In strange villages he had encountered the hands

of the children and learned that they were cruel to

hurt. Also , he had once nearly had an eye poked

out by a toddling papoose. From these experiences

he became suspicious of all children . He could not

tolerate them. When they came near with their

ominous hands, he got up.

It was in a village at the Great Slave Lake, that,

in the course of resenting the evil of the hands of the
man-animals, he came to modify the law that he had
learned from Gray Beaver ; namely, that the unpar-

donable crime was to bite one of the gods . In this

village, after the custom of all dogs in all villages ,
White Fang went foraging for food . A boy was
chopping frozen moose-meat with an axe, and the
chips were flying in the snow. White Fang, sliding
by in quest of meat, stopped and began to eat the

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. The boy
pursued him, and he, a stranger in the village, fled
between two tepees, to find himself cornered against
a high earth bank .

There was no escape for White Fang. The only

way out was between the two tepees, and this the boy
guarded . Holding his club prepared to strike, he
drew in on his cornered quarry. White Fang was
 THE COVENANT 167

furious. He faced the boy, bristling and snarling,

his sense of justice outraged. He knew 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
scarcely knew what happened . He did it in a surge
of rage. And he did it so quickly that the boy did
not know, either. All the boy knew was that he had
in some unaccountable way been overturned into the

snow, and that his club-hand had been ripped wide

open by White Fang's teeth.
But White Fang knew that he had broken the law
of the gods. He had driven his teeth into the sacred
flesh of one of them, and could expect nothing but
a most terrible punishment. He fled away to Gray
Beaver, behind whose protecting legs he crouched
when the bitten boy and the boy's family came,

demanding vengeance. But they went away with

vengeance unsatisfied . Gray Beaver defended White

Fang. So did Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch . White Fang,

listening to the wordy war and watching the angry
gestures, knew that his act was justified. And so
it came that he learned there were gods and gods.
There were his gods, and there were other gods, and
between them there was a difference . Justice or in-

justice, it was all the same, he must take all things

from the hands of his own gods. But he was not
168 WHITE FANG

compelled to take injustice from the other gods. It

was his privilege 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 fire-

wood in the forest, encountered the boy that had

been bitten. With him were other boys. Hot words

passed. Then all the boys attacked Mit-sah. It was

going hard with him. Blows were raining upon him

from all sides. This
White Fang looked on at first .

was an affair of the gods, and no concern of his .

Then he realized that this was Mit-sah, one of his
own particular gods, who was being maltreated . It

was no reasoned impulse that made White Fang do

what he then did. A mad rush of anger sent him

leaping in amongst the combatants. Five minutes

later the landscape was covered with fleeing boys,

many of whom dripped blood upon the snow in token
that White Fang's teeth had not been idle. When

Mit-sah told his story in camp, Gray Beaver ordered

meat to be given 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 its veri-
fication.

It was in line with these experiences that White

Fang came to learn the law of property and the

duty of the defence of property. From the protec-
tion of his god's body to the protection of his god's
 THE COVENANT 169

possessions was a step, and this step he made. What

was his god's was to be defended against all the

world — even to the extent of biting other gods.

Not only was such an act sacrilegious in its nature ,

but it was fraught with peril . The gods were all-
powerful, and a dog was no match against them ; yet
White Fang learned to face them, fiercely belligerent
and unafraid. Duty rose above fear, and thieving

gods learned to leave Gray Beaver's property alone.

One thing, in this connection, White Fang quickly
learned, and that was that a thieving god was usually
a cowardly god and prone to run away at the sound-
ing of the alarm . Also, he learned that but brief
time elapsed between his sounding of the alarm and
Gray Beaver's coming to his aid . He came to know

that it was not fear of him that drove the thief away,
but fear of Gray Beaver. White Fang did not give

the alarm by barking. He never barked . His method

was to drive straight at the intruder, and to sink
his teeth in if he could. Because he was morose

and solitary, having nothing to do with the other

dogs, he was unusually fitted to guard his master's
property ; and in this he was encouraged and trained

by Gray Beaver. One result of this was to make

White Fang more ferocious and indomitable, and
more solitary.
The months went by, binding stronger and stronger
the covenant between dog and man. This was the
170 WHITE FANG

ancient covenant that the first wolf that came in from

the Wild entered into with man. And, like all suc-

ceeding wolves and wild dogs that had done likewise,

White Fang worked the covenant out for himself.
The terms were simple. For the possession of a flesh-
and-blood god , he exchanged his own liberty. Food
and fire, protection and companionship, were some
of the things he received from the 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 of duty and awe, but not of

love. He did not know what love was. He had no

experience of love. Kiche was a remote memory.

Besides, not only had he abandoned the Wild and
his kind when he gave himself up to man, but the
terms of the covenant were such that if he ever met

Kiche again he would not desert his god to go with

her. His allegiance to man seemed somehow a law
of his being greater than the love of liberty, of kind
and kin.
 CHAPTER VI

THE FAMINE

The spring of the year was at hand when Gray

Beaver finished his long journey. It was April, and
White Fang was a year old when he pulled into the
home village and was loosed from the harness by
Mit-sah. Though a long way from his full growth,
White Fang, next to Lip-lip, was the largest yearling

in the village. Both from his father, the wolf, and

from Kiche, he had inherited stature and strength,
and already he was measuring up alongside the full-
grown dogs. But he had not yet grown compact.
His body was slender and rangy , and his strength
more stringy than massive. His coat was the true

wolf-gray, and to all appearances he was true wolf

himself. The quarter-strain of dog he had inherited
from Kiche had left no mark on him physically,

though it played its part in his mental make-up .

He wandered through the village, recognizing with
staid satisfaction the various gods he had known
before the long journey. Then there were the dogs,
puppies growing up like himself, and grown dogs that
171
172 WHITE FANG

did not look so large and formidable as the memory-

pictures he retained of them . Also , he stood less in

fear of them than formerly, stalking among them
with 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 had but to uncover his fangs to
send White Fang cringing and crouching to the right-
about. From him White Fang had learned much of
his own insignificance ; and from him he was now
to learn much of the change and development that
had taken place in himself. While Baseek had been
growing weaker with age, White Fang had been
growing stronger with youth.
It was at the cutting-up of a moose, fresh-killed ,
that White Fang learned of the changed relations in
which he stood to the dog-world . He had got for
himself a hoof and part of the shin-bone, to which
quite a bit of meat was attached . Withdrawn from

the immediate scramble of the other dogs , - 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, he had slashed the intruder
twice and sprung clear. Baseek was surprised by the
other's temerity and swiftness of attack. He stood ,

gazing stupidly across at White Fang, the raw, red

shin-bone between them .

Baseek was old, and already he had come to know

 THE FAMINE 173

the increasing valor of the dogs it had been his wont

to bully. Bitter experiences these, which, perforce,
he swallowed, calling upon all his wisdom to cope
with them. In the old days, he would have sprung
upon White Fang in a fury of righteous wrath. But

now his waning powers would not permit such a

course. He bristled fiercely and looked ominously

across the shin-bone at White 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 cast about in his mind for a way
to beat a retreat not too inglorious.
And right here Baseek erred . Had he contented
himself with looking fierce and ominous, all would
have been well. White Fang, on the verge of re-

treat, would have retreated, leaving the meat to him.

But Baseek did not wait. He considered the victory
already his and stepped forward to the meat. As

he bent his head carelessly to smell it, White Fang

bristled slightly. 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

Fang would ultimately have slunk away. But the

fresh meat was strong in Baseek's nostrils, and greed

urged him to take a bite of it.

This was too much for White Fang. Fresh upon

his months of mastery over his own team-mates, it
was beyond his self-control to stand idly by while
174 WHITE FANG

another devoured the meat that belonged to him.

He struck, after his custom, without warning. With
the first slash, Baseek's right ear was ripped into
ribbons. He was astounded at the suddenness of
it. But more things, and most grievous ones, were
happening with equal suddenness. He was knocked
off his feet. His throat was bitten. While he was

struggling to his feet the young dog sank teeth twice

into his shoulder. The swiftness of it was bewilder-
ing. He made a futile rush at White Fang, clipping
the empty air with an outraged snap. The next

moment his nose was laid open and he was stag-

gering 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 to re-
treat. He dared not risk a fight with this young

lightning-flash, and again he knew, and more bitterly,

the enfeeblement of oncoming age. His attempt to

maintain his dignity was heroic. Calmly turning his

back upon young dog and shin-bone, as though both
were beneath his notice and unworthy of considera-
tion, he stalked grandly away. Nor, until well out
of 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 ; his at-

titude toward them was less compromising. Not
 THE FAMINE 175

that he went out of his way looking for trouble. Far

from it. But upon his way he demanded consideration .

He stood upon his right to go his way unmolested

and to give trail to no dog. He had to be taken into
account, that was all. He was no longer to be dis-

regarded and ignored, as was the lot of puppies and

as continued to be the lot of the puppies that were
his team-mates. They got out of the way, gave trail
to the grown dogs, and gave up meat to them under

compulsion. But White Fang, uncompanionable, soli-

tary, morose, scarcely looking to right or left, re-
doubtable, forbidding of aspect, remote and alien ,
was accepted as an equal by his puzzled elders. They
quickly learned to leave him alone, neither venturing
hostile acts nor making overtures of friendliness. If
-- a state of
they left him alone, he left them alone —
affairs that they found, after a few encounters , to be
preeminently desirable.
In midsummer White Fang had an experience.
Trotting along in his silent way to investigate a new
tepee which had been erected on the edge of the
village while he was away with the hunters after
moose, he came full 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 memory became clear. His for-
gotten cubhood, all that was associated with that
176 WHITE FANG

familiar snarl , rushed back to him. Before he had

known the gods, she had been to him the centre-pin
of the universe. The old familiar feelings of that

time came back upon him, surged up within him .

He bounded toward her joyously, and she met him
with shrewd fangs that laid his cheek open to the
bone. He did not understand . He backed away,

bewildered and puzzled .

But it was not Kiche's fault. A wolf-mother was
not made to remember her cubs of a year or so before.
So she did not remember White Fang. He was a
strange animal, an intruder ; and her present litter of
puppies gave her 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 puppy curiously, whereupon
Kiche rushed upon him, gashing his face a second
time. He backed farther away. All the old memo-
ries and associations died down again and passed
into the grave from which they had been resurrected .
He looked at Kiche licking her puppy and stopping
now and then to snarl at him. She was without
value to him. He had learned to get along without
her. Her meaning was forgotten. There was no

place for her in 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,
 THE FAMINE 177

when Kiche attacked him a third time, intent on

driving him away altogether from the vicinity. And

White Fang allowed himself to be driven away.
This was a female of his kind, and it was a law of
his kind that the males must not fight the females.
He did not know anything about this law, for it was
no generalization of the mind, not a something ac-
quired by experience in the world. He knew it as

a secret prompting, as an urge of instinct ― of the

same instinct that made him howl at the moon and
stars of nights and that made him fear death and the
unknown.

The months went by. White Fang grew stronger,

heavier, and more compact, while his character was
developing along the lines laid down by his heredity
and his environment. His heredity was a life-stuff

that may be likened to clay. It possessed many

possibilities, was capable of being moulded into many

different forms. Environment served to model the

clay, to give it a particular form . Thus, had White

Fang never come in to the fires of man, the Wild
would have moulded him into a true wolf. But the

gods had given him a different environment, and he

was moulded into a dog 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 his surroundings, his character was being
moulded into a certain particular shape. There was
N
178 WHITE FANG

no escaping it. He was becoming more morose, more

uncompanionable, more solitary, more ferocious ;
while the dogs were learning more and more that it
was better to be at peace with him than at war, and
Gray Beaver was coming to prize him more greatly
with the passage of each day.
1
White Fang, seeming to sum up strength in all his

qualities, nevertheless suffered from one besetting

weakness. He could not stand being laughed at.

The laughter of men was a hateful thing. They

might laugh among themselves about anything they

pleased except himself, and he did not mind. But

the moment laughter was turned upon him he would

fly into a most terrible rage. Grave, dignified,
sombre, a laugh made him frantic to ridiculousness.
It so outraged him and upset him that for hours he
would behave like a demon. And woe to the dog

that at such times ran foul of him . He knew the

law too well to take it out on Gray Beaver ; behind

Gray Beaver were a club and god-head . But behind

the dogs there was nothing but space, and into this
space they fled when White Fang came on the scene,
made mad by laughter.
In the third year of his life there came a great
famine to the Mackenzie Indians. In the summer
the fish failed . In the winter the cariboo forsook their
accustomed track. Moose were scarce, the rabbits

almost disappeared, hunting and preying animals

 THE FAMINE 179

perished. Denied their usual food-supply, weakened

by hunger, they fell upon and devoured one another.

Only the strong survived . White Fang's gods were

also hunting animals. The old and 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 they had might go into the
bellies of the lean and hollow-eyed hunters who trod
the forest in the vain pursuit of meat.
To such extremity were the gods driven that they
ate the soft-tanned leather of their moccasins and

mittens, while the dogs ate the harnesses off their

backs and the very whip-lashes. Also, the dogs ate
one another, and also the gods ate the dogs. The
weakest and the more worthless were eaten first.

The dogs that still lived , looked on and understood.

A few of the boldest and wisest forsook the fires of

the gods, which had now become a shambles, and

fled into the forest, where, in the end, they starved to
death or were eaten by wolves.
In this time of misery, White Fang, too, stole away
Into the woods. He was better fitted for the life

than the other dogs, for he had the training of his

cubhood to guide him. Especially adept did he

become in stalking small living things. He would lie

concealed for hours, following every movement of
a cautious tree-squirrel, waiting, with a patience as
huge as the hunger he suffered from, until the squirrel
180 WHITE FANG

ventured out upon the ground. Even then, White

Fang was not premature. He waited until he was
sure of striking before the squirrel could gain a tree-
refuge. Then, and not until then, would he flash
from his hiding-place, a gray projectile, incredibly
swift, never failing its mark the fleeing squirrel
that fled not fast enough.
Successful as he was with squirrels, there was one

difficulty that prevented him from living and growing

fat on them . There were not enough squirrels. So

he was driven to hunt still smaller things. So acute

did 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 a

weasel as hungry as himself and many times more
ferocious.

In the worst pinches of the famine he stole back to

the fires of the gods. But he did not go in to the
fires. He lurked in the forest, avoiding discovery and

robbing the snares at the rare intervals when game

was caught. He even robbed Gray Beaver's snare of
a rabbit at a time when Gray Beaver staggered and
tottered through the forest, sitting down often to rest,
what of weakness and of shortness of breath .

One day White Fang encountered a young wolf,

gaunt and scrawny, loose-jointed with famine . Had

he not been hungry himself, White Fang might have

gone with him and eventually found his way into the
 THE FAMINE 181

pack amongst his wild brethren. As it was, he ran

the young wolf down and killed and ate him.
Fortune seemed to favor him. Always, when

hardest pressed for food , he found something to kill.

Again, when he was weak, it was his luck that none
of the larger preying animals chanced upon him.
Thus, he was strong from 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 better nourished than they, and in the end out-
ran them. And not only did he outrun them, but,
circling widely back on his track, he gathered in one
of his exhausted pursuers .

After that he left that part of the country and

journeyed over to the valley wherein he had been
born. Here, in the old lair, he encountered Kiche.
Up to her old tricks, she, too, had fled the inhospi-
table fires of the gods and gone back to her old refuge
to give birth to her young. Of this litter but one

remained alive when White Fang came upon the

scene, and this one was not destined to live long.

Young life had little chance in such a famine.

Kiche's greeting of her grown son was anything
but affectionate. But White Fang did not mind .

He had outgrown his mother. So he turned tail

philosophically and trotted on up the stream . At the
forks he took the turning to the left, where he found
the lair of the lynx with whom his mother and he
182 WHITE FANG

had fought long before. Here, in the abandoned lair,

he settled 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 miserable existence.

White Fang came upon him unexpectedly. Trotting

in opposite directions along the base of a high bluff,
they rounded a corner of rock and found themselves
face to face. They paused with instant alarm , and
looked at each other suspiciously .
White Fang was in splendid condition. His hunt-
ing had been good, and for 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 his back. It was an involuntary bris-
tling on his part, the physical state that in the 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 at sight of
Lip-lip, so now, and automatically, he bristled and
snarled. He did not waste any time. The thing
was done thoroughly and with despatch. Lip-lip
essayed to back away, but White Fang struck him
.
hard, shoulder to shoulder. Lip-lip was overthrown
and rolled upon his back. White Fang's teeth drove
into the scrawny throat. There was a death-struggle,
during which White Fang walked around , stiff-legged
and observant. Then he resumed his course and

trotted on along the base of the bluff.

 THE FAMINE 183

One day, not long after, he came to the edge of the

forest, where a narrow stretch of open land sloped
down to the Mackenzie. He had been over 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 and sounds

and scents were familiar to him. It was the old vil-

lage changed to a new place. But sights and sounds and

smells were different from those he had last had when
he fled away from it. There was no whimpering nor

wailing. Contented sounds saluted his ear, and when

he heard the angry voice of a woman he knew it to
be the anger that proceeds from a full stomach . And
there was a smell in the air of fish. There was food.
The famine was gone. He came out boldly from the

forest and trotted into camp straight to Gray Beaver's

tepee . Gray Beaver was not there ; but Kloo -kooch

welcomed him with glad cries and the whole of a

fresh-caught fish, and he lay down to wait Gray
Beaver's coming.
 PART FOUR

THE SUPERIOR GODS

CHAPTER I THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND

CHAPTER II THE MAD GOD
CHAPTER III THE REIGN OF HATE
CHAPTER IV THE CLINGING DEATH
CHAPTER V • THE INDOMITABLE
CHAPTER VI THE LOVE-MASTER
 CHAPTER I

THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND

Had there been in White Fang's nature any possi-

bility, no matter how remote, of his ever coming to

fraternize with his kind, such possibility was irre-
trievably destroyed when he was made leader of the

sled-team . For now the dogs hated him — hated him

for the extra meat bestowed upon him by Mit-sah ;
hated him for all the real and fancied favors he

received ; hated him for that he fled always at the

head of the team, his waving brush of a tail and
his perpetually retreating hind-quarters forever mad-
dening their eyes.

And White Fang just as bitterly hated them back.

Being sled-leader was anything but gratifying to him.
To be compelled to run away before the yelling pack,
every dog of which, for three years, he had thrashed
and mastered, was almost more than he could endure.
But endure it he must, or perish, and the life that
was in him had no desire to perish. The moment
Mit-sah gave his order for the start, that moment
the whole team, with eager, savage cries, sprang
forward at White Fang.
187
188 WHITE FANG

There was no defence for him. If he turned upon

them, Mit-sah would throw the stinging lash of the

whip into his face. Only remained to him to run

away. He could not encounter that howling horde

with his tail and hind-quarters. These were scarcely
fit weapons with which to meet the many merciless
fangs . So run away he did, violating his own nature
and pride with every leap he made, and leaping all
day long.
One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature
without having that nature recoil upon itself. Such
a recoil is like that of a hair, made to grow out from
the body, turning unnaturally upon the direction of
its growth and growing into the body -a rankling,
festering thing of hurt. And so with White Fang.
Every urge of his being impelled him to spring upon
the pack that 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
its biting thirty-foot lash. So White Fang could
only eat his heart in bitterness and develop a hatred
and malice commensurate with the ferocity and

indomitability of his nature.

If ever a creature was the enemy of its kind ,
White Fang was that creature. He asked no quarter,
gave none. He was continually marred and scarred
by the teeth of the pack, and as continually he left
his own marks upon the pack. Unlike most leaders,
 THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND 189

who, when camp was made and the dogs were un-
hitched , huddled near to the gods for protection ,
White Fang disdained such protection. He walked
boldly about the camp, inflicting punishment in the
night for what he had suffered in the day. In

the time before he was made leader of the team , the

pack had learned to get out of his way. But now it
was different. Excited by the day-long pursuit of

him, swayed subconsciously by the insistent iteration

on their brains of the sight of him fleeing away,

mastered by the feeling of mastery enjoyed all day,

the dogs could not bring themselves to give way to
him . When he appeared amongst them, there was

always a squabble. His progress was marked by

snarl and snap and growl. The very atmosphere he
breathed was surcharged with hatred and malice, and
this but served to increase the hatred and malice
within him .
When Mit-sah cried out his command for the team
to stop, White Fang obeyed. At first this caused

trouble for the other dogs. All of them would spring

upon the hated leader, only to find the tables turned .
Behind him would be Mit-sah, the great whip singing:

in his hand. So the dogs came to understand that.

when the team stopped by order, White Fang was
to be let alone. But when White Fang stopped with
out orders, then it was allowed them to spring upon
him and destroy him if they could. After several
190 WHITE FANG

experiences, White Fang never stopped without

orders. He learned quickly. It was in the nature

of things that he must learn quickly, if he were

to survive 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 the previous
night was erased, and that night would have to be
learned over again, to be as immediately forgotten.
Besides, there was a greater consistence in their dis-
like of him. They sensed between themselves and
him a difference of kind -
. cause sufficient in itself

for hostility. Like him , they were domesticated

wolves . But they had been domesticated for gen-

erations . Much of the Wild had been lost, so that

to them the Wild was the unknown , the terrible, the
ever menacing and ever warring. But to him, in
appearance and action and impulse, still clung the
Wild. He symbolized it, was its personification ; so
that when they showed their teeth to him they were
defending themselves against the powers of destruc-
tion that lurked in the 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 keep together. White Fang was too
terrible for any of them to face single-handed . They
met him with the mass-formation, otherwise he would
 THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND 191

have killed them, one by one, in a night. As it was,

he never had a chance to kill them . He might roll a
dog off its feet, but the pack would be upon him
before he could follow up and deliver the deadly
throat-stroke. At the first hint of conflict, the whole
team drew together and faced him. The dogs had
quarrels among themselves, but these were forgotten
when trouble was 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 tight places

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 them capable of doing the
trick. His feet clung to the earth with the same

tenacity that he clung to life. For that matter, life

and footing were synonymous in this unending war-
fare with the pack, and none knew it better than
White Fang .

So he became the enemy of his kind, domesticated

wolves that they were, softened by the fires of man,
weakened in the sheltering shadow of man's strength.
White Fang was bitter and implacable. The clay of
him was so moulded . He declared a vendetta against
all dogs. And so terribly did he live this vendetta

that Gray Beaver, fierce savage himself, could not but

marvel at White Fang's ferocity. Never, he swore,
had there been the like of this animal ; and the
192 WHITE FANG

Indians in strange villages swore likewise when

they considered the tale of his killings amongst their
dogs.
When White Fang was nearly five years old, Gray
Beaver took him on another great journey, and long
remembered was the havoc he worked amongst the

dogs of the many villages along the Mackenzie,

across the Rockies, and down the Porcupine to the
Yukon. He revelled in the vengeance he wreaked
upon his kind. They were ordinary, unsuspecting
dogs. They were not prepared for his swiftness and
directness, for his attack without warning. They did
not know him for what he was, a lightning-flash of
slaughter. They bristled up to him, stiff-legged and
challenging, while he, wasting no time on elaborate
preliminaries, snapping into action like a steel spring,
was at their throats and destroying them before they
knew what was happening and while they were yet
in the throes of surprise .

He became an adept at fighting. He economized .

He never wasted his strength, 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 was his to an unusual degree. He could not
endure a prolonged contact with another 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 still clinging to him, asserting
 THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND 193

itself through him. This feeling had been accentu-

ated by the Ishmaelite life he had led from his puppy-
hood. Danger lurked in contacts. It was the trap,
ever the trap, the fear of it lurking deep in the life
of him, woven into the fibre of him.
In consequence, the strange dogs he encountered
had no chance against him. He eluded their fangs.

He got them, or got away, himself untouched in

either event . In the natural course of things there
were exceptions to this. There were times when
several dogs, pitching on to him, punished him before
he could get away ; and there were times when a
single dog scored deeply on him. But these were
accidents. In the main, so efficient a fighter had he
become, he went his way unscathed.
Another advantage he possessed was that of cor
rectly judging time and distance. Not that he did
this consciously, however. He did not calculate such
things. It was all automatic. His eyes saw cor-
rectly, and the nerves carried the vision correctly to
his brain. The parts of him were better adjusted
than those of the average dog. They worked
together more smoothly and steadily. His was a

better, far better, nervous, mental, and muscular

coordination. When his eyes conveyed to his brain

the moving image of an action , his brain, without

conscious effort, knew the space that limited that
action and the time required for its completion.
194 WHITE FANG

Thus, he could avoid the leap of another dog, or the

drive of its fangs, and atthe same moment could
seize the infinitesimal fraction of time in which to
deliver his own attack. Body and brain , his was a
more perfected mechanism. Not that he was to be

praised for it. Nature had been more generous to

him than to the average animal, that was all.
It was in the summer that White Fang arrived
at Fort Yukon. Gray Beaver had crossedthe great
water-shed between the Mackenzie and the Yukon
in the late winter, and spent the spring in hunting
among the western outlying spurs of the Rockies.

Then, after the break-up of the ice on the Porcupine,

he had built a canoe and paddled down that stream
to where it effected its junction with the Yukon just
under the Arctic Circle. Here stood the old Hud-

son's Bay Company fort ; and here were many Ind-

ians, much food, and unprecedented excitement.
It was the summer of 1898, and thousands of gold-
hunters were going up the Yukon to Dawson and
the Klondike. Still hundreds of miles from their

goal, nevertheless many of them had been on the

way for a year, and the least any of them had trav-
elled to get that far was five thousand miles, while
some had come from the other side of the world.

Here Gray Beaver stopped. A whisper of the

gold-rush had reached his ears, and he had come
with several bales of furs, and another of gut-sewn
 THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND 195

mittens and moccasins. He would not have ventured

so long a trip had he not expected generous profits.

But what he had expected was nothing to what he
realized. His wildest dream had not exceeded a

hundred per cent, profit ; he made a thousand per

cent. And like a true Indian, he settled down to

trade carefully and slowly, even if it took all summer

and the rest of the winter to dispose of his goods.
It was at Fort Yukon that White Fang saw his
first white men. As compared with the Indians he

had known, they were to him another race of beings,

a race of superior gods. They impressed him as
possessing superior power, and it is on power that
god-head rests. White Fang did not reason it out,
did not in his mind make the sharp generalization
that the white gods were more powerful. It was a

feeling, nothing more, and yet none the less potent.

As, in his puppyhood , the looming bulks of the
tepees, man-reared, had affected him as manifesta-

tions of power, so was he affected now by the houses

and the huge fort all of massive logs. Here was

power. Those white gods were strong. They pos-

sessed greater mastery over matter than the gods he
had known, most powerful among which was Gray
Beaver. And yet Gray Beaver was as a child-god
among these white-skinned ones.

To be sure, White Fang only felt these things.

He was not conscious of them. Yet it is upon feeling,
196 WHITE FANG

more often than thinking, that animals act ; and

every act White Fang now performed was based

upon the feeling that the white men were the supe-
rior gods. In the first place he was very suspicious
of them . There was no telling what unknown
terrors were theirs, what unknown hurts they could
administer. He was curious to observe them, fearful

of being noticed by them. For the first few hours

he was content with slinking around and watching
them from a safe distance. Then he saw that 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 wolfish appearance caught their eyes at
once, and they pointed him out to one another. This

act of pointing put White Fang on his guard, and

when they tried to approach him he showed his
teeth and backed away. Not one succeeded in lay-

ing 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 a dozen - lived at this place.

Every two or three days a steamer (another and

colossal manifestation of power) came in to the bank
and stopped for several hours. The white men came
from off these steamers and went away on them
again. There seemed untold numbers of these white
men. In the first day or so, he saw more of them
 THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND 197

than he had seen Indians in all his life ; and as the

days went by they continued to come up the river,
stop, and then go on up the river and out of sight.
But if the white gods were all-powerful, their dogs

did not amount to much. This White Fang quickly

discovered by mixing with those that came ashore
with their masters. They were of 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.
And none of them knew how to fight.
As an enemy of his kind , it was in White Fang's
province to fight with them. This he did , and he
quickly achieved for them a mighty contempt. They
were soft and helpless, made much noise, and floun-
dered around clumsily, trying to accomplish by

main strength what he accomplished by dexterity

and cunning. They rushed bellowing at him . He
sprang to the side. They did not know what had
become of him ; and in that moment he struck them
on the shoulder, rolling them off their feet and deliv-
ering his stroke at the throat.
Sometimes this stroke was successful, and a stricken
dog rolled in the dirt, to be pounced upon and torn
to pieces by the pack of Indian dogs that waited .
White Fang was wise. He had long since learned
that the gods were made angry when their dogs were
killed . The white men were no exception to this.
198 WHITE FANG

So he was content, when he had overthrown and

slashed wide the throat of one of their dogs, to drop

back and let the pack go in and do the cruel finish-

ing work. It was then that the white men rushed
in, visiting their wrath heavily on the pack, while
White Fang went free. He would 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 Fang grew wise with them. They
learned that it was when a steamer first tied to the

bank that they had their fun. After the first two or

three strange dogs had been downed and destroyed,

the white men hustled their own animals back on

board and wreaked savage vengeance on the offenders.

One white man, having seen his dog, a setter, torn to
pieces before his eyes, drew a revolver. He fired

rapidly, six times, and six of the pack lay dead or

dying
— another manifestation of power that sank

deep into White Fang's consciousness .

White Fang enjoyed it all. He did not love his

kind , and he was shrewd enough to escape hurt him-

self. At first, the killing of the white men's dogs
had been a diversion. After a time it became his
occupation. There was no work for him to do.

Gray Beaver was busy trading and getting wealthy.

So White Fang hung around the landing with the dis-
 THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND 199

reputable gang of Indian dogs, 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 was even

feared by it. It is true, he worked with it. He

picked the quarrel with the strange dog while the

gang waited. And when he had overthrown the
strange dog the gang went in to finish it. But it is

equally true that he then withdrew, leaving the gang

to receive the punishment of the outraged gods.
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 saw
him they rushed for him. It was their instinct.

He was the Wild- the unknown, the terrible, the

ever menacing, the thing that prowled in the darkness

around the fires of the primeval world when they,

cowering close to the fires, were reshaping their in-
stincts, learning to fear the Wild out of which they
had come, and which they had deserted and betrayed.
Generation by generation, down all the generations,
had this fear of the Wild been stamped into their
natures. For centuries the Wild had stood for terror

and destruction. And during all this time free license

200 WHITE FANG

had been theirs, from their masters, to kill the things

of the Wild. In doing this they had protected both
themselves and the gods whose companionship they
shared.

And so, fresh from the soft southern world, these

dogs, trotting down the gang-plank and out upon the
Yukon shore, had but to see White Fang to experi-

ence the irresistible impulse to rush upon him and

destroy him. They might be town-reared dogs, but
the instinctive fear of the Wild was theirs just the
same. Not alone with their own eyes did they see
the wolfish creature in the clear light of day, standing
before them. They saw him with the eyes of their
ancestors, and by their inherited memory they knew
White Fang for the wolf, and they remembered the
ancient feud.
All of which served to make White Fang's days en-

joyable. If the sight of him drove these strange dogs

upon him, so much the better for him, so much the
worse for them. They looked upon him as legitimate
prey, and as legitimate prey he looked upon them.
Not for nothing had he first seen the light of day
in a lonely lair and fought his first fights with the
ptarmigan, the weasel, and the lynx. And not for
nothing had his puppyhood been made bitter by the
persecution of Lip-lip and the whole puppy-pack. It
might have been otherwise, and he would then have
been otherwise. Had Lip-lip not existed, he would
 THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND 201

have passed his puppyhood with the other puppies

and grown up more doglike and with more liking
for dogs. Had Gray Beaver possessed the plummet
of affection and love, he might have sounded the
deeps of White Fang's nature and brought up to the
surface all manner of kindly qualities. But these
things had not been so. The clay of White Fang
had been moulded until he became what he was,
morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious, the enemy
of all his kind.
 CHAPTER II

THE MAD GOD

A small number of white men lived in Fort Yukon.

These men had been long in the country. They
called themselves Sour-doughs, and took great pride
in so classifying themselves. For other men, new in
the land, they felt nothing but disdain. The men
who came ashore from the steamers were new-
comers. They were known as chechaquos, and they

always wilted 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 they had no baking-powder.
All of which is neither here nor there. The men

in the fort disdained the newcomers and enjoyed

seeing them come to grief. Especially did they

enjoy the havoc worked amongst the newcomers'
dogs by White Fang and his disreputable gang.

When a steamer arrived, the men of the fort made

it a point always to come down to the bank and see
the fun. They looked forward to it with as much
202
 THE MAD GOD 203

anticipation as did the Indian dogs, while they were

not slow to appreciate the savage and crafty part
played by White Fang.
But there was one man amongst them who particu-

larly enjoyed the sport. 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
had scattered, he would return slowly to the fort,
his face heavy with regret. Sometimes, when a soft
Southland dog went down, shrieking its death-cry
under the fangs of the pack, this man would be un-
able to contain himself, and would leap into the air
and cry out with delight. And always he had a
sharp and covetous eye for White Fang.
This man was called " Beauty " by the other men
of the fort. No one knew his first name, and in

general he was known in the country as Beauty

Smith. But he was anything save a beauty. To

antithesis was due his naming. He was preeminently

unbeautiful . Nature had been niggardly with him.
He was a small man to begin with ; and upon his
meagre frame was deposited an even more strikingly
meagre head. Its apex might be likened to a point.
In fact, in his boyhood, before he had been named
Beauty by his fellows, he had been called " Pinhead."
Backward, from the apex, his head slanted down
to his neck ; and forward , it slanted uncompromis-
ingly to meet a low and remarkably wide forehead.
204 WHITE FANG

Beginning here, as though regretting her parsimony,

Nature had spread his features with a lavish hand.
His eyes were large, and between them was the dis-
tance of two eyes. His face, in relation to the rest
of him, was prodigious. In order to discover the
necessary area, Nature had given him an enormous

prognathous jaw. It was wide and heavy, and pro- 1

truded outward and down until it seemed to rest on

his chest. Possibly this appearance was due to the

weariness of the slender neck, unable properly to
support so great a burden.

This jaw gave the impression of ferocious deter-

mination. But something lacked. Perhaps it was

from excess. Perhaps the jaw was too large. At

any rate, it was a lie. Beauty Smith was known
far and wide as the weakest of weak-kneed and

snivelling cowards. To complete his description, his

teeth were large and yellow, while the two eye-teeth,
larger than their fellows, showed under his lean lips
like fangs. His eyes were yellow and muddy, as

though Nature had run short on pigments and

squeezed 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 on

his head and sprouting out of his face in unexpected
tufts and bunches, in appearance like clumped and
wind-blown grain.

In short, Beauty Smith was a monstrosity, and the

 THE MAD GOD 205

blame of it lay elsewhere. He was not responsible.

The clay of him had been so moulded in the making.
He did the cooking for the other men in the fort, the
dish-washing and the drudgery. They did not de-
spise him . Rather did they tolerate him in a broad
human way , as one tolerates any creature evilly
treated in the making. Also, they feared him. His
cowardly rages made them dread a shot in the back
or poison in their coffee . But somebody had to do
the cooking, and whatever else his shortcomings,
Beauty Smith could cook.

This was the man that looked at White Fang,

delighted in his ferocious prowess, and desired to
possess him. He made overtures to White Fang from
the first. White Fang began by ignoring him. Later

on, when the overtures became more insistent, White

Fang bristled and bared his teeth and backed away.
He did not like the man. The feel of him was bad.

He sensed the evil in him, and feared the extended

hand and the attempts at soft-spoken speech. Be-
cause 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 and sur-
cease from pain. Therefore, the good is liked . The
bad stands for all things that are fraught with discom-
fort, menace, and hurt, and is hated accordingly.
White Fang's feel of Beauty Smith was bad . From
206 WHITE FANG

the man's distorted body and twisted mind, in occult

ways, like mists rising from malarial marshes, came
emanations of the unhealth within. Not by reason-

ing, not by the five senses alone, but by other and

remoter and uncharted senses, came the feeling to
White Fang that the man was ominous with evil,
pregnant with hurtfulness, and therefore a thing bad,
and wisely to be hated.
White Fang was in Gray Beaver's camp when
Beauty Smith first visited 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 been lying down in an abandon of comfort, but
he arose quickly, and, as the man arrived, slid away 1
in true wolf-fashion to the edge of the camp. He did
not know what they said, but he could see the man
and Gray Beaver talking together. Once, the man
pointed at him, and White Fang snarled back as
though the hand were just descending upon him in-
stead of being, as it was, fifty feet away. The man

laughed at this ; and White Fang slunk away to the

sheltering woods, his head turned to observe as he

glided softly over the ground.

Gray Beaver refused to sell the dog. He had
grown rich with his trading and stood in need of
nothing. Besides, White Fang was a valuable ani-
mal, the strongest sled-dog he had ever owned, and
the best leader. Furthermore, there was no dog like
 THE MAD GOD 207

him on the Mackenzie nor the Yukon . He could fight.

He killed other dogs as easily as men killed mosqui-
toes. (Beauty Smith's eyes lighted up at this, and
he licked his thin lips with an eager tongue. ) No,
White Fang was not for sale at any price.
But Beauty Smith knew the ways of Indians. He

visited Gray Beaver's camp often, and hidden under

his coat was always a black bottle or so . One of the

potencies of whiskey is the breeding of thirst. Gray

Beaver got the thirst. His fevered membranes and
burnt stomach began to clamor for more and more
of the scorching fluid ; while his brain, thrust all
awry by the unwonted stimulant, permitted him to
go any length to obtain it. The money 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 shorter grew his temper.

In the end his money and goods and temper were
all gone. Nothing remained to him but his thirst, a
prodigious possession in itself that grew more pro-
digious with every sober breath he drew. Then it

was that Beauty Smith had talk with him again

about the sale of White Fang ; but this time the

price offered was in bottles, not dollars, and Gray

Beaver's ears were more eager to hear.

"You ketch um dog you take um all right," was

his last word.

The bottles were delivered, but after two days,

208 WHITE FANG

"You ketch um dog," were Beauty Smith's words

to Gray Beaver.
White Fang slunk into camp one evening and
dropped down with a sigh of content. The dreaded

white god was not there. For days his manifesta-

tions of desire to lay hands on him had been growing
more insistent, and during that time White Fang had
been compelled to avoid the camp . He did not
know what evil was threatened by those insistent
hands. He knew only that they did threaten evil of
some sort, and that it was best for him to keep out
of their reach.

But scarcely had he lain down when Gray Beaver

staggered over to him and tied a leather thong
around his neck. He sat down beside White Fang,

holding the end of the thong in his hand . In the

other hand he held a bottle, which, from time to
time, was inverted above his head to the accompani-
ment of gurgling noises.
An hour of this passed, when the vibrations of
feet in contact with the ground foreran the one who
approached. White Fang heard it first, and he was
bristling with recognition while Gray Beaver still
nodded stupidly. White Fang tried to draw the thong
softly out of his master's hand ; but the relaxed
fingers closed tightly and Gray Beaver roused himself.
Beauty Smith strode into camp and stood over
White Fang. He snarled softly up at the thing of
 THE MAD GOD 209

fear, watching keenly the deportment of the hands.

One hand extended outward and began to descend
upon his head. His soft snarl grew tense and harsh.
The hand continued slowly to descend, while he
crouched beneath it, eying it malignantly, his snarl
growing shorter and shorter as, with quickening
breath, it approached its culmination. Suddenly he
snapped, striking with his fangs like a snake . The
hand was jerked back, and the teeth came together
emptily with a sharp click. Beauty Smith was
frightened and angry. Gray Beaver clouted White
Fang alongside the head, so that he cowered down
close to the earth in respectful obedience.
White Fang's suspicious eyes followed every move-
ment. He saw Beauty Smith go away and return
with a stout club. Then the end of the thong was

given over to him by Gray Beaver. Beauty Smith

started to walk away. The thong grew taut. White

Fang resisted it. Gray Beaver clouted him right and

left to make him get up and follow. He obeyed, but
with a rush, hurling himself upon the stranger who
was dragging him away. Beauty Smith did not jump

away . He had been waiting for this. He swung the

club smartly, stopping the rush midway and smash-

ing White Fang down upon the ground. Gray
Beaver laughed and nodded approval. Beauty Smith
tightened the thong again, and White Fang crawled
limply and dizzily to his feet.
P
210 WHITE FANG

He did not rush a second time. One smash from

the club was sufficient to convince him that the white

god knew how to handle it, and he was too wise

to fight the inevitable. So he followed morosely at
Beauty Smith's heels, his tail between his legs, yet
snarling softly under his breath. But Beauty Smith
kept a wary eye on him, and the club was held always
ready to 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 in the
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 the fort, at the same time bris-
tling and growling. Then he turned and trotted back
to Gray Beaver's camp. He owed no allegiance to
this strange and terrible god . He had given himself
to Gray Beaver, and to Gray Beaver he considered he
still belonged .

But what had occurred before was repeated — with

a difference. Gray Beaver again made him fast with
a thong, and in the morning turned him over to
Beauty Smith. And here was where the difference
came in. Beauty Smith gave him a beating. Tied

securely, White Fang could only rage futilely and

endure the punishment. Club and whip were both
 THE MAD GOD 211

used upon him, and he experienced the worst beating

he had ever received in his life. Even the big beat-
ing given him in his puppyhood by Gray Beaver was
mild compared with this.
Beauty Smith enjoyed the task. He delighted in

it. He gloated over his victim, and his eyes flamed

dully, as he swung the whip or club and listened to

White Fang's cries of pain and to his helpless bel-

lows and snarls. 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 likes power, and Beauty Smith

was no exception. Denied the expression of power

amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lesser
creatures and there vindicated the life that was in

him. But Beauty Smith had not created himself,

and no blame was to be attached to him. He had

come into the world with a twisted body and a brute

intelligence. This had constituted the clay of him,
and it had not been kindly moulded by the world.
White Fang knew why he was being beaten.
When Gray Beaver tied the thong around his neck,
and passed the end of the thong into Beauty Smith's
keeping, White Fang knew that it was his god's
will for him to go with Beauty Smith. And when
Beauty Smith left him tied outside the fort, he
knew that it was Beauty Smith's will that he should
212 WHITE FANG

remain there. Therefore, he had disobeyed the will

of both the gods, and earned the consequent punish-
ment. He had seen dogs change owners in the past,

and he had seen the runaways beaten as he was

being beaten. He was wise, and yet in the nature

of him there were forces greater than wisdom . One

of these was fidelity. He did not love Gray Beaver ;
yet, even in the face of his will and his anger, he was
faithful to him. He could not help it. This faith-
fulness was a quality of the clay that composed him.
It was the quality that was peculiarly the possession
of his kind ; the quality that set apart his species
from all other species ; the quality that had enabled
the wolf and the wild 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 this time Beauty Smith left him
tied with a stick. One does not give up a god easily,

and so with White Fang. Gray Beaver was his own

particular god, and, in spite of Gray Beaver's will,
White Fang still clung to him and would not give
him up. Gray Beaver had betrayed and forsaken
him, but that had no effect upon him . Not for noth-
ing had he surrendered himself body and soul to
Gray Beaver. There had been no reservation on
White Fang's part, and the bond was not to be broken
easily.
So, in the night, when the men in the fort were asleep,
 THE MAD GOD 213

White Fang applied his teeth to the stick that held

him . The wood was seasoned and dry, and it was
tied so closely to his neck that he could scarcely get
his teeth to it. It was only by the severest muscular
exertion and neck-arching that he succeeded in get-
ting the wood between his teeth, and barely between
his teeth at that ; and it was only by the exercise of
an immense patience, extending through many hours,
that he succeeded in gnawing through 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 in the 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 gone back to Gray Beaver, who had
already twice betrayed him. But there was his faith-

fulness, and he went back to be betrayed yet a third

time. Again he yielded to the tying of a thong
around his neck by Gray Beaver, and again Beauty
Smith came to claim him. And this time he was

beaten even more severely than before.

Gray Beaver looked on stolidly while the white
man wielded the whip. He gave no protection . It
was no longer his dog. When the beating was over
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 of sterner stuff.

He had too great vitality . His clutch on life was too
214 WHITE FANG

strong. But he was very sick. At first he was un-

able to drag himself along, and Beauty Smith had

to wait half an hour on him. And then, blind and

reeling, 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 in vain , by lunging, to draw the

staple from the timber into which it was driven.
After a few days, sober and bankrupt, Gray Beaver
departed up the Porcupine on his long journey to the
Mackenzie. White Fang remained on the Yukon,
the property of a man more than half mad and all
brute. But what is a dog to know in its conscious-
ness 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 must submit to the will of this
new master, obey his every whim and fancy.
 CHAPTER III

THE REIGN OF HATE

Under the tutelage of the mad god, White Fang

became a fiend. He was kept chained in a pen at

the rear of the fort, and here Beauty Smith teased

and irritated and drove him wild with petty torments.
The man early discovered White Fang's susceptibility
to laughter, and made it a point, after painfully
tricking him, to laugh at him. This laughter was
uproarious and scornful, and at the same time the

god pointed his finger derisively at White Fang.

At such times reason fled from White Fang, and in
his transports of rage he was even more mad than
Beauty Smith .

Formerly, White Fang had been merely the enemy

of his kind, withal a ferocious enemy. He now be-
came the enemy of all things, and more ferocious
than ever. To such an extent was he tormented, that
he hated blindly and without the faintest spark of
reason. He hated the chain that bound him, the

men who peered in at him through the slats of the

pen, the dogs that accompanied the men and that
215
216 WHITE FANG

snarled malignantly at him in his helplessness. 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. One day a number of men
gathered about the pen. Beauty Smith entered, club
in hand, and took the chain from off White Fang's
neck. When his master had gone out, White Fang
turned loose and tore around the pen, trying to get

at the men outside. He was magnificently terrible.

Fully five feet in length, and standing two and one-
half feet at the shoulder, he far outweighed a wolf of
corresponding size . From his mother he had inherited
the heavier proportions of the dog, so that he weighed ,
without any fat and without an ounce of superfluous

flesh, over ninety pounds. It was 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 hap-

pening. He waited.
He waited . The door was opened wider.
Then a huge dog was thrust inside, and the door
was slammed shut behind him . White Fang had

never seen such a dog (it was a mastiff) ; but the

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 with a flash

of fangs that ripped down the side of the mastiff's
neck. The mastiff shook his head, growled hoarsely,
 THE REIGN OF HATE 217

and plunged at White Fang. But White Fang was

here, there, and everywhere, always evading and
eluding, and always leaping in and slashing with his
fangs and leaping out again in time to escape punish-
ment.

The men outside shouted and applauded, while

Beauty Smith, in an ecstasy of delight, gloated over
the ripping and mangling performed by White Fang.
There was no hope for the mastiff from the first.
He was too ponderous and slow. In the end, while

Beauty Smith beat White Fang back with a club, the

mastiff was dragged out by its owner. Then there

was a payment of bets, and money clinked in Beauty

Smith's hand.

White Fang came to look forward eagerly to the

gathering of the men around his pen. It meant a
fight ; and this was the only way that was now
vouchsafed him of expressing the life that was in
him. Tormented, incited to hate, he was kept a

prisoner so that there was no way of satisfying that

hate 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

the victor. One day, three dogs were turned in upon

him in succession. Another day, a full-grown wolf,

fresh-caught from the Wild, was shoved in through

the door of the pen. And on still another day two
dogs were set against him at the same time. This
218 WHITE FANG

was his severest fight, and although in the end

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-ice was running in the river, Beauty
Smith took passage for himself and White Fang on a
steamboat bound up the Yukon to Dawson. White
Fang had now achieved a reputation in the land. As

"The Fighting Wolf " he was known far and wide,

and the cage in which he was kept on the steam-
boat's deck was usually surrounded by curious men.
He raged and snarled at them, or lay quietly and
studied them with cold hatred . Why should he not
hate them ? He never asked himself the question.

He knew only hate and lost himself in the passion of

it. Life had become a hell to him. He had not been
made for the close confinement wild beasts endure at
the hands of men. And yet it was in precisely this

way that he was treated. Men stared at 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 the clay of him into a more ferocious
thing than had been intended by Nature. Neverthe-
less, Nature had given him plasticity. Where many
another animal would have died or had its spirit
broken, he adjusted himself and lived , and at no
expense of the spirit. Possibly Beauty Smith, arch-
 THE REIGN OF HATE 219

fiend and tormentor, was capable of breaking White

Fang's spirit, but as yet there were no signs of his
succeeding.

If Beauty Smith had in him a devil, White Fang

had another ; and the two 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 with a club in his hand ; but this wisdom now

left him . The mere sight of Beauty Smith was

sufficient to send him into transports of fury. And

when they came to close quarters, and he had been
beaten back by the club, he went on growling and
snarling and showing his fangs. The last growl
could never be extracted from him. No matter how

terribly he was beaten, he had always another growl ;

and when Beauty Smith gave up and withdrew, the
defiant growl followed after him, or White Fang
sprang at the bars of the cage bellowing his hatred.
When the steamboat arrived at Dawson, White
Fang went ashore. But he still lived a public life, in
a cage, surrounded by curious men . He was exhibited

as " The Fighting Wolf," and men paid fifty cents in

gold dust to see him. He was given no rest. Did

he lie down to sleep, he was stirred up by a sharp

stick - so that the audience might get its money's
worth. In order to make the exhibition interesting,
he was kept in a rage most of the time. But worse

than all this, was the atmosphere in which he lived.

220 WHITE FANG

He was regarded as the most fearful of wild beasts,

and this was borne in to him through the bars of
the cage. Every word , every cautious action, on the
part of the men, impressed upon him his own terrible
ferocity. It was so much added fuel to the flame of
his fierceness. There could be but one result, and
that was that his ferocity fed upon itself and increased.
It was another instance of the plasticity of his clay,
of his capacity for being moulded by the pressure of
environment.

In addition to being exhibited, he was a profes-

sional fighting animal. At irregular intervals, when-
ever a fight could be arranged, he was taken out of
his cage and led off into the woods a few miles from

town. Usually this occurred at night, so as to avoid

interference from the mounted police of the Territory.

After a few hours of waiting, when daylight had

come, the audience and the dog with which he was
to fight arrived. In this manner it came about that
he fought all sizes and breeds of dogs. It was a sav-
age land, 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 other dogs that died . He never knew
defeat. His early training, when he fought with Lip-

lip and the whole puppy-pack, stood him in good

stead. There was the tenacity with which he clung
to the earth. No dog could make him lose his
 THE REIGN OF HATE 221

footing. This was the favorite trick of the wolf

breeds to rush in upon him, either directly or with
an unexpected swerve, in the hope of striking his
shoulder and overthrowing him . Mackenzie hounds,
Eskimo and Labrador dogs , huskies and Malemutes
— all tried it on him, and all failed . He was never

known to lose his footing. Men told this to one

another, and looked each time to see it happen ; but

White Fang always disappointed them.
Then there was his lightning quickness. It gave
him a tremendous advantage over his antagonists.

No matter what their fighting experience, they had

never encountered a dog that moved so swiftly as he.
Also to be reckoned with, was the immediateness of
his attack. The average dog was accustomed to the

preliminaries of snarling and bristling and growling,

and the average dog was knocked off his feet and

finished before he had begun to fight or recovered from

his surprise. So often did this happen, that it be-
came the custom to hold White Fang until the other

dog went through its preliminaries, was good and

ready, and even made the first attack.

But greatest of all the advantages in White Fang's

favor, was his experience. He knew more about
fighting than did any of the dogs that faced him.
He had fought more fights, knew how to meet more
tricks and methods, and had more tricks himself, while
his own method was scarcely to be improved upon.
222 WHITE FANG

As the time went by, he had fewer and fewer

fights. Men despaired of matching him with an
equal, and Beauty Smith was compelled to pit wolves
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 a crowd. Once, a full-
grown female lynx was secured, and this time White

Fang fought for his life. Her quickness matched

his ; her ferocity equalled his ; 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 no more animals with which to

fight — at least, there was none considered worthy of

fighting with him. So he remained on exhibition
until spring, when one Tim Keenan, a faro-dealer,
arrived in the land . With him came the first bull-

dog that had ever entered the Klondike. That this

dog and White Fang should come together was inevi-
table, and for a week the anticipated fight was the
mainspring of conversation in certain quarters of the
town.
 CHAPTER IV

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 that faced
him . He had never seen such a dog before. Tim
Keenan shoved the bulldog forward with a muttered
" Go to it." The animal waddled toward the centre

of the circle, short and squat and ungainly. He came

to a stop and 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 and blinked at the men who shouted,
at the same time wagging his stump of a tail good-
naturedly. He was not afraid, but merely lazy.
Besides, it did not seem to him that it was intended
he should fight with the dog he saw before him. He

was not used to fighting with that kind of dog, and

he was waiting for them to bring on the real dog.
223
224 WHITE FANG

Tim Keenan stepped in and bent over Cherokee,

fondling him on both sides of the shoulders with
hands that rubbed against the grain of the hair and
that made slight, pushing-forward movements. These
were so many suggestions. Also, their effect was

irritating, for Cherokee began to growl, very softly,

deep down in his throat. There was a correspondence

in rhythm between the growls and the movements of

the man's hands. The growl rose in the throat with
the culmination of each forward-pushing movement,
and ebbed down to start up afresh with the beginning
of the next 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 rise on his neck and across the
shoulders. Tim Keenan gave a final shove forward
and stepped back again. As the impetus that carried
Cherokee forward died down, he continued to go for-
ward of his own volition , in a swift, bow-legged run .
Then White Fang struck. A cry of startled admira-
tion went up. He had covered the distance and gone

in more like a cat than a dog ; and with the same cat-
like swiftness he had slashed with his fangs and leaped
clear.

The bulldog 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 White Fang.
 THE CLINGING DEATH 225

The display on both sides, the quickness of the one

and the steadiness of the other, had excited the par-

tisan spirit of the crowd, and the men were making

new bets and increasing original bets. Again , and
yet again, White Fang sprang in, slashed , and got
away untouched ; and still his strange foe followed
after him , without too great haste, not slowly, but
deliberately and determinedly, in a businesslike sort
of way . There was purpose in his method some-

thing for him to do that he was intent upon doing

and from which nothing could distract him.
His whole demeanor, every action, was stamped
with this purpose. It puzzled White Fang. Never
had he seen such a dog. It had no hair protection.
It was soft, and bled easily. There was no thick
mat of fur to baffle White Fang's teeth, as they
were often baffled by dogs of his own breed . Each
time that his teeth struck they sank easily into the
yielding flesh, while the animal did not seem able
to defend itself. Another disconcerting thing was

that it made no outcry, such as he had been accus-

tomed to with the other dogs he had fought. Be-
yond a growl or a grunt, the dog took its punishment
silently. And never did it flag in its pursuit 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 never fought

before with a dog with which he could not close.

226 WHITE FANG

The desire to close 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 its teeth into him, it did not hold on

but let go instantly and darted away again.
But White Fang could not get at the soft under-
side of the throat. The bulldog stood too short,
while its massive jaws were an added protection.
White Fang darted in and out unscathed, while
Cherokee's wounds increased. Both sides of his

neck and head were ripped and slashed. He bled

freely, but showed no signs of being disconcerted.
He continued his plodding pursuit, though once, for
the moment baffled, he came to a full stop and
blinked at the men who looked on, at the same time
wagging his stump of a tail as an expression of his
willingness to fight.
In that moment White Fang was in upon him and
out, in passing ripping his trimmed remnant of an
ear. With a slight manifestation of anger, Cherokee
took up the pursuit again, running on the inside of
the circle White Fang was making, and striving to
fasten his deadly grip on White Fang's throat. The
bulldog missed by a hair's-breadth, and cries of

praise went up as White Fang doubled suddenly out

of danger in the opposite direction.

The time went by. White Fang still danced on,

dodging and doubling, leaping in and out, and ever
 THE CLINGING DEATH 227

inflicting damage. And still the bulldog, with grim

certitude, toiled after him. Sooner or later he would
accomplish his purpose, get the grip that would win
the battle. In the meantime he accepted all the
punishment the other could deal him. His tufts of

ears had become tassels, his neck and shoulders were

slashed in a score of places, and his very lips were
cut and bleeding -all from those lightning snaps

that were beyond his foreseeing and guarding.

Time and again White Fang had attempted to
knock Cherokee off his feet ; but the difference in
their height was too great. Cherokee was too squat,

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. He caught Cherokee

with head turned away as he whirled more slowly.
His shoulder was exposed. White Fang drove in upon
it ; but his own shoulder was high above, while he

struck with such force that his momentum carried

him on across over the other's body. For the first

time in his fighting history, men saw White Fang

lose his footing. His body turned a half-somersault
in the air, and he would have landed on his back
had he not 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.
228 WHITE FANG

It was not a good grip, being too low down toward

the chest ; but Cherokee held on. White Fang sprang

to his feet and tore wildly around , trying to shake

off the bulldog's body. It made him frantic, this
clinging, dragging weight. It bound his movements,
restricted his freedom . It was like the trap, and all

his instinct resented it and revolted against it. It

was a mad revolt. For several minutes he was to all
intents insane. The basic life that was in him took

charge of him. The will to exist of his body surged

over him. He was dominated by this mere flesh-love
of life. All intelligence was gone. It was as though

he had no brain. His reason was unseated by the

blind yearning of the flesh to exist and move, at all
hazards to move, to continue to move, for movement
was the expression of its existence.
Round and round he went, whirling and turning

and reversing, trying to shake off the fifty-pound

weight that dragged at his throat. The bulldog
did little but keep his grip . Sometimes , and rarely,
he managed to get his feet 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 dragging around in the whirl of one of

White Fang's mad gyrations. Cherokee identified

himself with his instinct. He knew that he was

doing the right thing by holding on, and there came

to him certain blissful thrills of satisfaction. At
 THE CLINGING DEATH 229

such moments he even closed his eyes and allowed

his body to be hurled hither and thither, willy-nilly,
careless of any hurt that might thereby come to it.
That did not count. The grip was the thing, and

the grip he kept.

White Fang ceased only when he had tired himself
out. He could do nothing, and he could not under-

stand. Never, in all his fighting, had this thing

happened . The dogs he had fought with did not
fight that way. With them it was snap and slash
and get away, snap and slash and get away. He

lay partly on his side, panting for breath . Chero-

kee, still holding his grip, urged against him, trying
to get him over entirely on his side. White Fang
resisted, and he could feel the jaws shifting their
grip, slightly relaxing and coming together again in
a chewing movement. Each shift brought the grip
closer in to his throat. The bulldog's method was
to hold what he had, and when opportunity favored
to work in for more. Opportunity favored when

White Fang remained quiet. When White Fang

struggled, Cherokee was content merely to hold on.
The bulging back of Cherokee's neck was the only
portion of his body that White Fang's teeth could
reach. He got hold toward the base where the neck
comes out from the shoulders ; but he did not know

the chewing method of fighting, nor were his jaws

adapted to it. He spasmodically ripped and tore
230 WHITE FANG

with his fangs for a space. Then a change in their

position diverted him. The bulldog had managed
to roll him over on his back, and still hanging on
to his throat, was on top of him. Like a cat, White
Fang bowed his hind-quarters in, and, with the feet
digging into his enemy's abdomen above him, he be-
gan to claw with long, tearing strokes. Cherokee
might well have been disembowelled had he not
quickly pivoted on his grip 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 as inexorable. Slowly it shifted up along

the jugular. All that saved White Fang from death

was the loose skin of his neck and the thick fur that

covered it. This served to form a large roll in Chero-

kee's mouth, the fur of which well-nigh defied his
teeth. But bit by bit, whenever the chance offered ,
he was getting more of the loose skin and fur in his
mouth. The result was that he was slowly throt-

tling White Fang. The latter's breath was drawn

with greater and greater difficulty as the moments
went by.

It began to look as though the battle were over.

The backers of Cherokee waxed jubilant and offered
ridiculous odds. White Fang's backers were corre-

spondingly depressed , and refused bets of ten to one

and twenty to one, though one man was rash enough
to close a wager of fifty to one. This man was
 THE CLINGING DEATH 231

Beauty Smith . He took a step into the ring and

pointed his finger at White Fang. Then he began
to laugh derisively and scornfully. This produced
the desired effect. White Fang went wild with rage.

He called up his reserves of strength and gained

his feet.As he struggled around the ring, the fifty

pounds of his foe ever dragging on his throat, his

anger passed on into panic. The basic life of him

dominated him again, and his intelligence fled before

the will of his flesh to live. Round and round and

back again, stumbling and falling and rising, even

uprearing at times on his hind-legs and lifting his foe
clear of the earth, he struggled vainly to shake off
the clinging death.
At last he fell, toppling backward , exhausted ; and
the bulldog promptly shifted his grip, getting in
closer, mangling more and more of the fur-folded
flesh, throttling White Fang more severely than ever.
Shouts of applause went up for the victor, and there
were many cries of " Cherokee ! " " Cherokee ! " To

this Cherokee responded by vigorous wagging of the

stump of his tail. But the clamor of approval did
not distract him.There was no sympathetic relation
between his tail and his massive jaws. The one

might wag, but the others held their terrible grip on

White Fang's throat.
It was at this time that a diversion came to the

spectators. There was a jingle of bells. Dog-

232 WHITE FANG

mushers' cries were heard. Everybody, save Beauty

Smith, looked apprehensively, the fear of the police

strong upon them. But they 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 a mustache, 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
frosty air.
White Fang had practically ceased struggling.

Now and again he resisted spasmodically and to no

purpose. He could get little air, and that little grew
less and less under the merciless grip that ever tight-

ened. In spite of his armor of fur, the great vein

of his throat would have long since been torn

open, had not the first grip of the bulldog been so

low down as to be practically on the chest. It had
taken Cherokee a long time to shift that grip upward,
and this had also tended further to clog his jaws with
fur and skin-fold .

In the meantime, the abysmal brute in Beauty

Smith had been rising up into his brain and master-
ing the small bit of sanity that he possessed at best.
When he saw White Fang's eyes beginning to glaze,
he knew beyond doubt that the fight was lost. Then
 THE CLINGING DEATH 233

he broke loose. He sprang upon White Fang and

him. here wer h sses from began sava ely to kick
the crowd and cries of protest, but that was all.
While this went on, and Beauty Smith continued
to kick White Fang, there was a commotion in the
crowd. The tall young newcomer was forcing his

way through, shouldering men right and left without

ceremony or gentleness. When he broke through

into the ring, Beauty Smith was just in the act of

delivering another kick. All his weight was on one

foot, and he was in a state of unstable equilibrium.

At that moment the newcomer's fist landed a smash-

ing blow full in his face. Beauty Smith's remaining

leg left the ground, and his whole body seemed to
lift into the air as he turned over backward and
struck the snow. The newcomer turned upon the
crowd.
" You cowards ! " he cried. "You beasts ! "

He was in a rage himself — a sane rage. His gray

eyes seemed metallic and steel-like as they flashed
upon the crowd. Beauty Smith regained his feet

and came toward him, sniffling and cowardly. The

newcomer did not understand. He did not know

how abject a coward the other was, and thought he

was coming back intent on fighting. So, with a
"You beast ! " he smashed Beauty Smith over back-
ward with a second blow in the face. Beauty Smith
decided that the snow was the safest place for him,
234 WHITE FANG

and lay where he had fallen, making no effort to

get up.
"Come on, Matt, lend a hand," the newcomer
called to the dog-musher, who had followed him into
the ring .

Both men bent over the dogs. Matt took hold of

White Fang, ready to pull when Cherokee's jaws
should be loosened . This the younger man endeav-

ored to accomplish by clutching the bulldog's jaws

in his hands and trying to spread them. It was

a vain undertaking. As he pulled and tugged and

wrenched, he kept exclaiming with every expulsion
of breath, " Beasts ! "

The crowd began to grow unruly, and some of the

men were protesting against the spoiling of the sport ;
but they were silenced when the newcomer 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 at last.
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 see that ! He shifted his grip in
a bit."
 THE CLINGING DEATH 235

The younger man's excitement and apprehension

for White Fang was growing. He struck Cherokee
about the head savagely again and again . But that
did not loosen the jaws. Cherokee wagged the stump
of his tail in advertisement that he understood the

meaning of the blows, but that he knew he was him-

self in the right and only doing his duty by keeping
his grip .

"Won't some of you help ? " Scott cried desperately

at the crowd.

But no help was offered . Instead, the crowd began

sarcastically to cheer 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, and tried to thrust its muzzle between
the bulldog's jaws. He shoved, and shoved hard ,
till the grating of the steel against the locked teeth
could be distinctly heard. Both men were on their
knees, bending over the dogs. Tim Keenan strode

into the ring. He paused beside Scott and touched

him on the shoulder, saying ominously :
" Don't break them teeth , stranger."
" Then I'll break his neck," Scott retorted, continu-

ing his shoving and wedging with the revolver

muzzle.
" I said don't break them teeth," the faro-dealer
repeated more ominously than before.
236 WHITE FANG

But if it was a bluff he intended, it did not work.

Scott never desisted from 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 telling you that's something I ain't
worked out for myself. I don't know how to turn
the trick."

"Then get out of the way," was the reply, " and
don't bother me. I'm busy ."

Tim Keenan continued standing over him, but

Scott took no further notice of his presence. He had

managed to get the muzzle in between the jaws on

one side, and was trying to get it out between the

jaws on the other side. This accomplished, he pried

gently and carefully, loosening the jaws a bit at a
time, while Matt, a bit at a time, extricated White
Fang's mangled neck.
"Stand by to receive your dog," was Scott's per-
emptory order to Cherokee's owner.
The faro-dealer stooped down obediently and got a
firm hold on Cherokee.

"Now ! " Scott warned, giving the final pry.

The dogs were drawn apart, the bulldog struggling
vigorously.
"Take him away," Scott commanded, and Tim
Keenan dragged Cherokee back into the crowd.
 THE CLINGING DEATH 237

White Fang made several ineffectual efforts to get

up . Once he gained his feet, but his legs were too
weak to sustain him , and he slowly wilted and sank
back into the snow. His eyes were half closed , and

the surface of them was glassy . His jaws were

apart, and through them the tongue protruded,
draggled and limp. To all appearances he looked like

a dog that had been strangled to death . Matt ex-

amined 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 White Fang.

" 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 ? " Scott asked, nudging White Fang with

his foot.

" Half of that," was the dog-musher's judgment .

Scott turned upon Beauty Smith.

" Did you hear, Mr. Beast ? I'm going to take

your dog from you , and I'm going to give you a hun-
dred and fifty for him."
He opened his pocket-book and counted out the
bills.
238 WHITE FANG

Beauty Smith put his hands behind his back, re-

fusing to touch the proffered money.
" I ain't a-sellin'," he said.
" Oh, yes you are," the other assured him. " Be-

cause I'm buying. Here's your 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 Smith cowered 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. " Are you 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 take the money under pro-
test," he added . " The dog's a mint. I ain't a-goin'
to be robbed. A man's got his rights."
"Correct," Scott answered, passing the money
over to him. "A man's got his rights. But you're
not a man. You're a beast."

"Wait till I get back to Dawson," Beauty Smith

threatened . "I'll have the law on you."

"If you open your mouth when you get back to

Dawson, I'll have you run out of town. Understand ? "
Beauty Smith replied with a grunt.
" Understand ? " the other thundered with abrupt
fierceness.
 THE CLINGING DEATH 239

"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 laughter went 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 crack-a-jack minin' experts. He's

in with all the big bugs. If you want to keep out
of trouble, you'll steer clear of him, that's my talk.
He's all hunky with the officials. The Gold Commis-

sioner's a special pal 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 V

THE INDOMITABLE

"It's hopeless," Weedon Scott confessed.

He sat on the step of his cabin and stared at the

dog-musher, who responded 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. Having received
sundry lessons from Matt, said lessons being imparted
by means of a club , the sled-dogs had learned to leave
White Fang alone ; and even then 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
no gettin' away from."

The dog-musher paused and nodded his head con-

fidentially at Moosehide Mountain .
240
 THE INDOMITABLE 241

"Well, don't be a miser with what you know,"

Scott said sharply, after waiting a suitable length of
time. " Spit it out. What is it ? "

The dog-musher indicated White Fang with a back-

ward thrust of his thumb.

"Wolf or dog, it's all the same - he's ben tamed

a'ready."
" No ! "
" I tell you yes, an' broke to harness. Look close

there. D'ye see them marks across the chest ? "

" You're right, Matt. He was a sled-dog before
Beauty Smith got hold of him ."
" An' there's not much reason against his bein' a
sled -dog again. "
"What d'ye think ? " Scott queried eagerly. Then
the hope died down as he added, shaking his head ,
"We've had him two weeks now, and if anything,
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 watching the whip

of its trainer.
R
242 WHITE FANG

"See ' m keep his eye on that club," Matt said.

" That's a good sign. He's no fool. Don't dast

tackle me so long as I got that club handy . He's not

clean crazy, sure."
As the man's hand approached his neck, White
Fang bristled and snarled and crouched down. But

while he eyed the approaching hand, he at the same

time contrived to keep track of the club in the other
hand, suspended threateningly above him. Matt

unsnapped the chain from the collar and stepped

back.

White Fang could scarcely realize that he was free.

Many months had gone by since he passed into the
possession of Beauty Smith, and in all that period he
had never known a moment of freedom except at the
times he had been loosed to fight with other dogs.

Immediately after such fights he had always been

imprisoned again.
He did not know what to make of it. Perhaps
some new deviltry of the gods was about to be per-
petrated on him. He walked slowly and cautiously,
prepared to be assailed at any moment. He did not

know what to do, it was all so unprecedented . He

took the precaution to sheer off from the two watching
gods, and walked carefully to the corner of the cabin.

Nothing happened . He was plainly perplexed, and

he came back again, pausing a dozen feet away and
regarding the two men intently.
 THE INDOMITABLE 243

"Won't he run away ? " his new owner asked .

Matt shrugged his shoulders. "Got to take a

gamble. Only way to find out is to find out."

"Poor devil," Scott murmured pityingly. " What
he needs is some show of human kindness," he added,
turning and going into the cabin.
He came out with a piece of meat, which he tossed
to White Fang. He sprang away from it, and from
a distance studied it suspiciously.
66
Hi-yu, Major ! " Matt shouted warningly, but too
late.
Major had made a spring for the meat. At the

instant his jaws closed on it, White Fang struck him .

He was overthrown. Matt rushed in, but quicker
than he was White Fang. Major staggered to his
feet, but the blood spouting 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 Matt
stooped and investigated his leg.
"He got me all right," he announced , pointing to
the torn trousers and undercloths, and the growing
stain of red .

" I told you it was hopeless, Matt," Scott said in a

244 WHITE FANG

discouraged voice. " I've thought about it off and

on, while not wanting to think of it. But we've
come to it now. It's the only thing to do."

As he talked, with reluctant movements he drew

his revolver, threw open 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 the snow 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 take White Fang's meat, an' he's dead-O.
That was to be expected . I wouldn't give 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 must draw the line somewhere."
"Served me right," Matt argued stubbornly.
"What'd I want to kick 'm for ? You said yourself

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. He ain't had no chance yet. He's
just come through hell, an' this is the first time he's
 THE INDOMITABLE 245

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," Scott answered, putting away the revolver.

"We'll let him run loose and see what kindness 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 im-
pending. He had killed this god's dog, bitten his
companion god, and what else was to be expected
than some terrible punishment ? But in the face of
it he was indomitable. He bristled and showed his

teeth, his eyes vigilant, his whole body wary and

prepared for anything. The god had no club, so he
suffered him to approach quite near. The god's hand

had come out and was descending upon his head .

White Fang shrank together and grew tense as he
crouched under it. Here was danger, some treachery

or something. He knew the hands 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 bite the hand,

and he endured the peril of it until his instinct surged

246 WHITE FANG

up in him, mastering him with its insatiable yearning

for life.
Weedon Scott had believed that he was quick
enough to avoid any snap or slash. But he had yet

to learn the remarkable quickness of White Fang, who

struck with the certainty and swiftness of a coiled
snake.

Scott cried out sharply with surprise, catching his

torn hand and holding it tightly in his other hand.
Matt uttered a great oath and sprang to his side.
White Fang crouched down and backed away, bris-

tling, showing his fangs, his eyes malignant with

menace. Now he could expect a beating as 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 was now Weedon Scott's turn to
plead .
" You said to give him a chance. Well, give it to
 THE INDOMITABLE 247

him . We've only just started, 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, was snarling with blood-curdling vicious-
ness, not at Scott, but at the dog-musher.

" Well, I'll be everlastin'ly gosh-swoggled ! " was the

dog-musher's expression of astonishment.
"Look at the intelligence of him," Scott went on
hastily. " He knows the meaning of firearms as well
as you do. He's got intelligence, and we've got to
give that intelligence a chance. Put up the gun."
" All right, I'm willin'," Matt agreed , leaning the
rifle against the woodpile.
" But will you look at that ! " he exclaimed the
next moment.

White Fang had quieted down and ceased snarling.

"This is worth investigatin'. Watch."
Matt reached for the rifle, and at the same
moment White Fang snarled. He stepped away from
the rifle, and White Fang's lifted lips descended, cov-
ering his teeth.

"Now, just for fun."

Matt took the rifle and began slowly to raise it to
his shoulder. White Fang's snarling began with the
movement, and increased as the movement approached
its culmination. But the moment before the rifle

came to a level on him, he leaped sidewise behind the

248 WHITE FANG

corner of the cabin. Matt stood staring along the

sights at the empty space of snow which had been
occupied by White Fang.
The dog-musher put the rifle down solemnly, then
turned and looked at his employer.
" I agree with you, Mr. Scott. That dog's too
intelligent to kill."
 CHAPTER VI

THE LOVE-MASTER

As White Fang watched Weedon Scott approach,

he bristled and snarled to advertise that he would

not submit to punishment. Twenty-four hours had

passed since he had slashed open the hand that was
now bandaged and held up by a sling to keep the
blood out of it. In the past White Fang had experi-
enced delayed punishments, and he apprehended that
such a one was about to befall him. How could it
be otherwise ? He had committed what was to him

sacrilege, sunk his fangs into the holy flesh of a god,

and of a white-skinned superior god at that. In the
nature of things, and of intercourse with gods, some-
thing terrible awaited him.
The god sat down several feet away. White Fang

could see nothing dangerous in that. When the gods

administered punishment they stood on their legs.
Besides, this god had no club, no whip, no firearm .
And furthermore, he himself was free. No chain
nor stick bound him. He could escape into safety

while the god was scrambling to his feet. In the

meantime he would wait and see.
249
250 WHITE FANG

The god remained quiet, made no movement ; and

White Fang's snarl slowly dwindled to a growl that
ebbed down in his throat and ceased. Then the god

spoke, and at the first sound of his voice, the hair

rose on White Fang's neck and the growl rushed
up in his throat. But the god made no hostile move-
ment, and went on calmly talking. For a time White

Fang growled in unison with him, a correspondence

of rhythm being established between growl and
voice. But the god talked on interminably. He

talked to White Fang as White Fang had never been

talked to before. He talked softly and soothingly,

with a gentleness that somehow, somewhere, touched

White Fang. In spite of himself and all the prick-
ing warnings of his instinct, White Fang began to
have confidence in this god. He had a feeling of se-

curity that was belied by all his experience with men.

After a long time, the god got up and went into
the cabin. White Fang scanned him apprehensively

when he came out. He had neither whip nor club

nor weapon. Nor was his uninjured hand behind

his back hiding something. He sat down as before,

in the same spot, several feet away. He held out a

small piece of meat. White Fang pricked his ears

and investigated it suspiciously, managing to look at

the same time both at the meat and the god , alert
for any overt act, his body tense and ready to spring
away at the first sign of hostility.
 THE LOVE-MASTER 251

Still the punishment delayed. The god merely held

near to his nose a piece of meat. And about the meat
there seemed nothing wrong. Still White Fang sus-

pected ; and though the meat was proffered to him

with short 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
that apparently harmless piece of meat. In past

experience, especially in dealing with squaws, meat

and punishment had often been disastrously related.
In the end, the god tossed the meat on the snow
at White Fang's feet. He smelled the meat care-
fully ; but he did not look at it. While he smelled

it he kept his eyes on the god. Nothing happened.

He took the meat into his mouth and swallowed it.

Still nothing happened . The god was actually offer-

ing him another piece of meat. Again he refused to
take it from the hand, 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 his hand and steadfastly proffered it.

The meat was good meat, and White Fang was
hungry. Bit by bit, infinitely cautious, he ap-
proached the hand. At last the time came that
he decided to eat the meat from the hand. He

never took his eyes from the god, thrusting his head
forward with ears flattened back and hair involun-
tarily rising and cresting on his neck. Also a low
*252 WHITE FANG

growl rumbled in his 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

nothing happened . Still the punishment delayed .
He licked his chops and waited . The god went
on talking. In his voice was kindness - something
of which White Fang had no experience whatever.
And within him it aroused feelings which he had
likewise never experienced before. He was aware
of a certain strange satisfaction, as though some need
were being gratified, as though some void in his
being were being filled . Then again came the prod
of his instinct and the warning of past experience.

The gods were ever crafty, and they had unguessed

ways of attaining their ends.

The e t c me now, th e Ah, h h d th ught so!

god's hand, cunning to hurt, thrusting out at him,

descending upon his head. But the god went on
talking. His voice was soft and soothing. In spite
of the menacing hand , the voice inspired confidence.
And in spite of the assuring voice, the hand inspired
distrust . White Fang was torn by conflicting feel-

ings, impulses. It seemed he would fly to pieces, so

terrible was the control he was exerting, holding to-
gether by an unwonted indecision the counter-forces
that struggled within him for mastery .
He compromised . He snarled and bristled and
flattened his ears. But he neither snapped nor sprang
 THE LOVE-MASTER 253*

away. The hand descended . Nearer and nearer it

came . It touched the ends of his upstanding hair..
He shrank down under it. It followed down after

him, pressing more closely against him. Shrinking,

almost shivering, he still managed to hold himself to-
gether. It was a torment, this hand that touched
him and violated his instinct. He could not forget

in a day all the evil that had been wrought him at

the hands 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. And every
time the hand descended, the ears flattened down and
a cavernous growl surged in his throat. White Fang

growled and growled with insistent warning. By

this means he announced that he was prepared to re-

taliate for any hurt he might receive. There was no

telling when the god's ulterior motive might be dis-
closed. At any moment that soft, confidence-inspiring
voice might break forth in a roar of wrath, that gen-
tle and caressing hand transform itself into a viselike
grip to hold him helpless and administer punishment.
But the god talked on softly, and ever the hand
rose and fell with non-hostile pats. White Fang ex-
perienced dual feelings. It was distasteful to his

instinct. It restrained him, opposed the will of him

toward personal liberty. And yet it was not physi
254 WHITE FANG

cally painful. On the contrary, it was even pleasant,

in a physical way. The patting movement slowly
and carefully changed to a rubbing of the ears about
their bases, and the physical pleasure even increased
a little. Yet he continued to fear, and he stood on
guard, expectant of unguessed evil, alternately suffer-

ing and enjoying as one 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 of dirty dish-water in his hands,
arrested in the act of emptying the pan by the sight
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 dis-
approval.
" If you don't mind my expressin' my feelin's, Mr.
Scott, I'll make free to say you're seventeen kinds of
a damn fool an' all of ' em different, and then some."
Weedon Scott smiled with a superior air, gained
his feet, and walked over to White Fang. He talked

soothingly to him, but not for long, then slowly put

out his hand, rested it on White Fang's head , and
resumed the interrupted patting. White Fang en-

dured it, keeping his eyes fixed suspiciously, not upon

the man that petted him, but upon the man that
stood in the doorway.
 THE LOVE-MASTER 255

"You may be a number one, tip-top minin' expert,

all right all right," the dog-musher delivered himself

oracularly, " but you missed the chance of 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 leap away from under the hand that
was caressing his head and the back of his neck with
long, soothing strokes.

It was the beginning of the end for White Fang

- the ending of the old life and the reign of hate.
A new and incomprehensibly fairer life was dawning.
It required much thinking and endless patience on
the part of Weedon Scott to accomplish this. And
on the part of White Fang it required nothing less
than a revolution. He had to ignore the urges and

promptings 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 that he now did ; but all the
currents had gone counter to those to which he now
abandoned himself. In short, when all things were
considered, he had to achieve an orientation far
vaster than the one he had achieved at the time he

came voluntarily in from the Wild and accepted

Gray 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
256 WHITE FANG

work upon him. But now it was different. The

thumb of circumstance had done its work only too

well. By it he had been formed and hardened into 1

the Fighting Wolf, fierce and implacable, unloving
and unlovable. To accomplish the change was like
a reflux of being, and this when the plasticity of
youth was no longer his ; when the fibre of him had

become tough and knotty ; when the warp and the

woof of him had made of him an adamantine texture,

harsh and unyielding ; when the face of his spirit had

become iron and all his instincts and axioms had

crystallized into set rules, cautions, dislikes, and

desires.

Yet again, in this new orientation, it was the

thumb of circumstance that pressed and prodded him,

softening that which had become hard and remould-

ing it into fairer form. Weedon Scott was in truth
this thumb. He had gone to the roots of White
Fang's nature, and with kindness touched to life

potencies that had languished and well-nigh perished .

One such potency was love. It took the place of like,
which latter had been the highest 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 it slowly developed . White

Fang did not run away, though he was allowed to

remain loose, because he liked this new god. This
was certainly better than the life he had lived in the
 THE LOVE-MASTER 257

cage of Beauty Smith, and it was necessary that he

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 early day when
he turned his back on the Wild and crawled to Gray
Beaver's feet to receive the expected beating. This
seal had been stamped upon him again, and ineradi-
cably, on his second return from the Wild, when the
long famine was over and there was fish once more
in the village of Gray Beaver.
And so, because he needed a god and because he
preferred Weedon Scott to Beauty Smith, White
Fang remained . In acknowledgment of fealty, he

proceeded to take upon himself the guardianship of

his master's property. He prowled about the cabin
while the sled-dogs slept, and the first night-visitor to
the cabin fought him off with a club until Weedon
Scott came to the rescue. But White Fang soon
learned to differentiate between thieves and honest

men, to appraise the true value of step and carriage.

The man who travelled, loud-stepping, the direct line
to the cabin door, he let alone — though he watched
him vigilantly until the door opened and he received
the indorsement of the master. But the man who went

softly, by circuitous ways, peering with caution , seek-

ing after secrecy · that was the man who received
no suspension of judgment from White Fang, and who

went away abruptly, hurriedly, and without dignity.

8
258 WHITE FANG

Weedon Scott had set himself the task of redeem-

ing White Fang — or rather, of redeeming mankind

from the wrong it had done White Fang. It was
a matter of principle and conscience. He felt that
the ill done White Fang was a debt incurred by man
and that it must be paid. So he went out of his way
to be especially kind to the Fighting Wolf. Each
day he made it a 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 he would,

from the moment the petting began until it ended.

But it was a growl with a new note in it. A stranger
could not hear this note, and to such a stranger the
growling of White Fang was an exhibition of pri-
mordial savagery, nerve-racking and blood-curdling.
But White Fang's throat had become harsh-fibred
from the making of ferocious sounds through the
many years since his first little rasp of anger in
the lair of his cubhood, and he could not soften the
sounds of that throat now to express the gentleness

he felt. Nevertheless, Weedon Scott's ear and sym-

pathy were fine enough to catch the new note all
but drowned in the fierceness the note that was
the 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

 THE LOVE-MASTER 259

was accelerated. White Fang himself began to grow

aware of it, though in his consciousness he knew not
what love was. It manifested itself to him as a void

in his being a hungry, aching, yearning void that

clamored to be filled. It was a pain and an unrest ;
and it received easement only by the touch of the
new god's presence. At such times love was a joy to
him, a wild, keen-thrilling satisfaction. But when
away from his god, the pain and the unrest returned ;
the void in him sprang up and pressed against him
with its emptiness, and the hunger gnawed and
gnawed unceasingly.
White Fang was in the process of finding himself.
In spite of the maturity of his years and of the savage
rigidity of the mould that had formed him, his nature
was undergoing an expansion. There was a burgeon-
ing within him of strange feelings and unwonted im-
pulses. His old code of conduct was changing. In
the past he had liked comfort and surcease from pain,
disliked discomfort and pain, and he had adjusted
his actions accordingly . But now it was different.

Because of this new feeling within 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 a sheltered nook, he would wait
for hours on the cheerless cabin-stoop for a sight of
the god's face. At night, when the god returned
home, White Fang would leave the warm sleeping-
260 WHITE FANG

place he had burrowed in the snow in order to re-

ceive 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 caress from him or to
accompany him down into the town.
Like had been replaced by love. And love was the

plummet dropped down into the deeps of him where

like had never gone. And responsive, out of his deeps
had come the new thing - love . That which was
given unto him did he return. This was a god indeed,
a love-god, a warm and radiant god, in whose light
White Fang's nature expanded as a flower expands
under the sun.

But White Fang was not demonstrative. He

was too old, too firmly moulded, to become adept

at expressing himself in new ways. He was too

self-possessed, too strongly poised in his own isola-

tion. Too long had he cultivated reticence, aloof-
ness, and moroseness . He had never barked in

his life, and he could not now learn to bark a wel-

come when his god approached . He was never in
the way, never extravagant nor foolish in the expres-
sion of his love. He never ran to meet his god. He

waited at a distance ; but he always waited, was al-

ways there. His love partook of the nature of wor-
ship, dumb, inarticulate, a silent adoration. Only by
the steady regard of his eyes did he express his love,
and by the unceasing following with his eyes of his
 THE LOVE-MASTER 261

god's every movement. Also, at times, when his god

looked at him and spoke to him, he betrayed an awk-
ward self-consciousness, caused by the struggle of his
love to express itself and his physical inability to
express it.

He learned to adjust himself in many ways to his

new mode of life. It was borne in upon him that

he must let his master's dogs alone. Yet his domi-

nant nature asserted itself, and he had first to thrash
them into an acknowledgment of his superiority and
leadership . This accomplished, he had little trouble
with them. They gave trail to him when he came
and went or walked among them, and when he as-
serted his will they obeyed .
In the same way, he came to tolerate Matt as a

possession of his master. His master rarely fed him.

Matt did that, it was his business ; yet White Fang
divined that it was his master's food he ate and that

it was his master who thus fed him vicariously.

Matt it was who tried to put him into the harness

and make him haul sled with the other dogs. But
Matt failed . It was not until Weedon Scott put the
harness on White Fang and worked him, that he
understood. He took it as his master's will that

Matt should drive him and work him just as he drove

and worked his master's other dogs.
Different from the Mackenzie toboggans were the
Klondike sleds with runners under them. And dif-
262 WHITE FANG

ferent 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 was the leader, and the team obeyed him and
feared him. That White Fang should quickly gain
this post was inevitable. He could not be satisfied

with less, as Matt learned after much inconvenience

and trouble. White Fang picked out the post for

himself, and Matt backed his judgment with strong

language after the experiment had been tried. But,

though he worked in the sled in the day, White Fang
did not forego the guarding of his master's property
in the night. Thus he was on duty all the time, ever
vigilant and faithful, the most valuable of all the dogs.
" Makin' free to spit out what's in me," Matt said,
one day, " I beg to state that you was a wise guy all
right when you paid the price you did for that dog.
You clean swindled Beauty Smith on top of pushin'
his face in with your fist. "

A recrudescence of anger glinted in Weedon Scott's

gray eyes, and he muttered savagely, " The beast ! "
In the late spring a great trouble came to White
Fang. Without warning, the love-master disap-
peared. There had been warning, but White Fang
was unversed in such things and did not understand
the packing of a grip. He remembered afterward
 THE LOVE-MASTER 263

that this packing had preceded the master's disap-

pearance ; but at the time he suspected nothing.
That night he waited for the master to return. At

midnight the chill wind that blew drove him to

shelter at the rear of the cabin. There he drowsed,

only half asleep , his ears keyed 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 and waited.
But no master came. In the morning the door

opened and Matt stepped outside. White Fang

gazed at him wistfully. There was no common

speech by which he might learn what he wanted to

know. The days came and went, but never the
master. White Fang, who had never known sickness

in his life, became sick. He became very sick, so

sick that Matt was finally compelled 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 the following :
" That dam wolf wont work. Wont eat. Aint

got no spunk left. All the dogs is licking him.

Wants to know what has become of you, and I dont
know how to tell him. Mebbe he is going to die."
It was as Matt had said. White Fang had ceased
eating, lost heart, and allowed every dog of the team
to thrash him. In the cabin he lay on the floor near
264 WHITE FANG

the stove, without interest in food, in Matt, nor in

life. Matt might talk gently to him or swear at him,
it was all the same ; he never did more than turn his
dull eyes upon the man, then drop his head back to
its customary position on his fore-paws.
And then, one night, Matt, reading to himself with
moving lips and mumbled sounds, was startled by a
low whine from White Fang. He had got upon his
feet, his ears cocked toward the door, and he was
listening intently. A moment later, Matt heard a
footstep. The door opened, and Weedon Scott
stepped in. The two men shook hands. Then Scott
looked around the room.

"Where's the wolf ? " he asked.

Then he discovered him, standing where he had been

lying, near to the stove. 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 same time calling him. White Fang

came to him, not with a great bound, yet quickly.

He was awkward from self-consciousness, but as he
drew near, his eyes took on a strange expression.
Something, an incommunicable vastness 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," Matt commented.
 THE LOVE-MASTER 265

Weedon Scott did not hear. He was squatting

down on his heels, face to face with White Fang and
petting him — rubbing at the roots of the ears, mak-
ing long, caressing strokes down the neck to the

shoulders, tapping the spine gently with the balls of

his fingers. And White Fang was growling respon-
sively, the crooning note of the growl more pro-
nounced than ever.

But that was not all. What of his joy, the great
love in him, ever surging and struggling to express

itself, succeeded in finding a new mode of expression .

He suddenly thrust his head forward and nudged his
way in between the master's arm and body. And
here, confined , hidden from view all 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 always insisted 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. The sled-dogs

had forgotten his prowess. They remembered only

the latest, which was his weakness and sickness. At

the sight of him as he came out of the cabin, they

sprang upon him.
266 WHITE FANG

"Talk about your rough-houses," Matt murmured

gleefully, standing in the doorway and looking on.
"Give ' m hell, you wolf ! Give ' m hell ! -and then
some ! "

White Fang did not need the encouragement. The

return of the love-master was enough. Life was
flowing through him again, splendid and indomitable.
1
He fought from sheer joy, finding in it an expression
of much that he felt and that otherwise was without

speech. There could be but one ending. The team

dispersed in ignominious defeat, and it was not until
after dark that the dogs came sneaking back, one by

one, by meekness and humility signifying their fealty

to White Fang.

Having learned to snuggle, White Fang was guilty

of it often.It was the final word. He could not

go beyond it. The one thing of which he had always

been particularly jealous, was his head. He had
always disliked to have 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 the mandate of his instinct that that head

must be free. And now, with the love-master, his

snuggling was the deliberate act of putting himself

into a position of hopeless helplessness. It was an
expression of perfect confidence, of absolute self-

surrender, as though he said : " I put myself into thy

hands. Work thou thy will with me."
 THE LOVE-MASTER 267

One night, not long after the return, Scott and

Matt sat at a game of cribbage preliminary to going
to bed. "Fifteen-two, fifteen-four an' a pair makes

six," Matt was pegging up, when there was an outcry

and sound of snarling without. They looked at each
other as they started to rise to their feet.

"The wolf's nailed somebody," Matt said.

A wild scream of fear and anguish hastened them.
" Bring a light ! " Scott shouted, as he sprang out-
side.

Matt followed with the lamp, and by its light they

saw a man lying on his back in the snow. His arms

were folded, one above the other, across his face and

throat. Thus he was trying to shield himself from

White Fang's teeth. And there was need for it.

White Fang was in a rage, wickedly making his

attack on the most vulnerable spot. From shoulder

to wrist of the crossed arms, the coat-sleeve, blue
flannel shirt and undershirt were ripped in rags,

while the arms themselves were terribly slashed and

streaming blood .
All this the two men saw in the first instant. The

next instant Weedon Scott had White Fang by the

throat and was dragging him clear. White Fang

struggled and snarled , but made no attempt to bite,

while he quickly quieted down at a sharp word from
the master.

Matt helped the man to his feet. As he arose he

268 WHITE FANG

lowered his crossed arms, exposing the bestial face of

Beauty Smith. The dog-musher let go of him pre-

cipitately, with action similar to that of a man who
has picked up 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. He held the lamp close to them,
indicating them with his toe for his employer'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 the right-about.
No word needed to be spoken . Beauty Smith
started.

In the meantime the love-master was patting White

Fang and talking to him.
"Tried to steal you, eh ? And you wouldn't have
it ! Well, well, he made a mistake, didn't he ? "
" Must ' a' thought he had hold of seventeen devils, "
the dog-musher sniggered.
White Fang, still wrought up and bristling, growled
and growled , the hair slowly lying down, the croon-
ing note remote and dim, but growing in his throat.
 PART FIVE

THE TAME

CHARTER I THE LONG TRAIL

CHAPTER II THE SOUTHLAND
CHAPTER III • THE GOD'S Domain
CHAPTER IV THE CALL OF KIND
CHAPTER V THE SLEEPING WOLF
 CHAPTER I

THE LONG TRAIL

It was in the air. White Fang sensed the coming

calamity, even before there was tangible evidence of
it. In vague ways it was borne in upon him that a
change was impending. He knew not how nor why,
yet he got his feel of the oncoming event from the
gods themselves. In ways subtler than they knew,
they betrayed their intentions to the wolf-dog that
haunted the cabin-stoop, and that, though he never
came inside the cabin, knew what went on inside
their brains.

"Listen to that, will you ! " the dog-musher ex-

claimed at supper one night.
Weedon Scott listened. Through the door came a
low, anxious whine, like a sobbing under the breath
that has just grown audible. Then came the long sniff,
as White Fang reassured himself that his god was
still inside and had not yet taken himself off in
mysterious and solitary flight.
" I do believe that wolf's on to you," the dog-musher
said.
271
272 WHITE FANG

Weedon Scott looked across at his companion with

eyes that almost pleaded, though this was given the
lie by his words.
"What the devil can I do with a wolf in Califor-
nia ? " he demanded.
" That's what I say," Matt answered. "What the
devil can you do with a wolf in California ? "

But this did not satisfy Weedon Scott. The other

seemed to be judging him 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 damage suits, the authori-

ties 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's suspicion was allayed . He nodded

cheerfully. In the silence that followed, the low,
half-sobbing whine was heard at the door and then
the long, questing sniff.
" There's no denyin' he thinks a hell of a lot of
you," Matt said.
 THE LONG TRAIL 273

The other glared at him in sudden wrath. " Damn

it all , man ! I know my 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 and betrayed a rising anger of his
own . " Well , you needn't get so all-fired het up about

it. Judgin g by your actions one'd think you didn't

know your own mind ."
Weedon Scott debated with himself for a while,
and then said more gently : " You are right, Matt. I
don't know my own mind, and that's what's the
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 employer was not quite satisfied with him.
"But how in the name of the great Sardanapalus

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 Fang saw the fatal grip on the floor and
the love-master packing things into it. Also , there
were comings and goings, and the erstwhile placid at-
mosphere of the cabin was vexed with strange pertur-
bations and unrest. Here was indubitable evidence.
274 WHITE FANG

White Fang had already sensed it. He now rea-

soned it. His god was preparing for another flight.

And since he had not taken him 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 his puppy days, when he fled back
from the Wild to the village to find it vanished and
naught but a rubbish-heap to mark the site of Gray
Beaver's tepee, 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't wonder this time but what he
died."

The blankets in the other bunk stirred irritably.

" Oh, shut up ! " Scott cried out through the dark-
ness. "You nag worse than a woman."

" I'm agreein' with you," the dog-musher answered,

and Weedon Scott was not quite sure whether or not
the other had snickered.

The next day White Fang's anxiety and restless-

ness were even more pronounced . He dogged his
master's heels whenever he left the cabin, and
haunted the front stoop when he remained inside.
 THE LONG TRAIL 275

Through the open door he could catch glimpses of the

luggage on the floor. The grip had been joined by
two large canvas bags and a box. Matt was rolling
the master's blankets and fur robe inside a small

tarpaulin. White Fang whined as he watched the

operation.
Later on, two Indians arrived . He watched them
closely as they shouldered the luggage and were led
off down the hill by Matt, who carried the bedding
and the grip. But White Fang did not follow them.
The master was still in the cabin. After a time,
Matt returned. The master came to the door and

called White Fang inside.

"You poor devil," he said gently, rubbing White

Fang's ears and tapping his spine. "I'm hitting the
long trail, old man, where you cannot follow. Now

give me a growl- the last, good, good-by growl."

But White Fang refused to growl. Instead , and

after a wistful, searching look, he snuggled in, burrow-

ing his head out of sight between the master's arm
and body.
"There she blows ! " Matt cried. From the Yukon

arose the hoarse bellowing of a river steamboat.

" You've got to cut it short. Be sure and lock the
front door. I'll go out the back. Get a move on ! "
The two doors slammed at the same moment,
and Weedon Scott waited for Matt to come around
to the front. From inside the door came a low
276 WHITE FANG

whining and sobbing. Then there were long, deep-

drawn sniffs.

" You must take good care of him, Matt," Scott

said, as they started down 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 their masters lie dead . He was
voicing an utter woe, his cry bursting upward in
great, heart-breaking rushes, dying down into quaver-
ing misery, and bursting upward again with rush
upon rush of grief.
The Aurora was the first steamboat of the year
for the Outside, and her decks were jammed with
prosperous adventurers and broken gold seekers, all
equally as mad to get to the Outside as they had
been originally to get to the Inside. Near the gang-
plank, Scott was shaking hands with Matt, who was
preparing to go ashore. But Matt's hand went limp
in the other's grasp as his gaze shot past and remained
fixed on something behind him. Scott turned to see.

Sitting on the deck several feet away and watching

wistfully was White Fang.
The dog-musher swore softly, in awe-stricken

accents. Scott could only look in wonder.

" Did you lock the front door ? " Matt demanded .
The other nodded , and asked, " How about the
back ? "
 THE LONG TRAIL 277

“ You just bet I did," was the fervent reply.

White Fang flattened his ears ingratiatingly, but
remained where he was, 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 slid away from him. The dog-musher
made a rush of it, and White Fang dodged between
the legs of a group of men. Ducking, turning, doub-
ling, 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 prompt obedience.
"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 them first days of
gettin' acquainted. I'm blamed if I can see how he
works it out that you're the boss."
Scott, who had been patting White Fang, suddenly
bent closer and pointed 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 plumb 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. The Aurora's whistle hooted a

278 WHITE FANG

final announcement of departure. Men were scurry-

ing down the gang-plank to the shore. Matt loosened
the bandana from his own neck and started to put it
around White Fang's. Scott grasped the dog-musher's
hand.
"Good-by, 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 about him."
Matt paused halfway down the gang-plank.
"He'll never stand the climate ! " he shouted back.

"Unless you clip 'm in warm weather ! "

The gang-plank was hauled in, and the Aurora
swung out from the bank. Weedon Scott waved a
last good-by. Then he turned and bent over White
Fang, standing by his side.
"Now growl, damn you, growl," he said, as he
patted the responsive head and rubbed the flattening
ears.
 CHAPTER II

THE SOUTHLAND

White Fang landed from the steamer in San Fran-

cisco. He was appalled . Deep in him, below any

reasoning process or act of consciousness , he had asso-
ciated power with godhead. And never had the

white men seemed such marvellous gods as now, when

he trod the slimy pavement of San Francisco. The

log cabins he had known were replaced by towering

buildings. The streets were crowded with perils-
wagons, carts, automobiles ; great, straining horses
pulling huge trucks ; and monstrous cable and electric
cars hooting and clanging through the midst, screech-
ing their insistent menace after the manner of the
lynxes he had known in the northern woods.
All this was the manifestation of power. Through
it all , behind it all, was man, governing and control-
ling, expressing himself, as of old, by his mastery
over matter. It was colossal, stunning. White Fang

was awed. Fear sat upon him. As in his cubhood

he had been made to feel his smallness and puniness
on the day he first came in from the Wild to the
279
280 WHITE FANG

village of Gray Beaver, so now, in his full-grown stature

and pride of strength, he was made to feel small and
puny. And there were so many gods ! He was made
dizzy by the swarming of them. The thunder of the
streets smote upon his ears. He was bewildered by
the tremendous and endless rush and movement of

things. As never before, he felt his dependence on

the love-master, close at whose heels he followed, no
matter what happened never losing sight of him.
But White Fang was to have no more than a night-
— an experience that was like
mare vision of the city -
a bad dream, unreal and terrible, that haunted him
for long after in his dreams . He was put into a
baggage-car by the 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

trunks and boxes about, dragging them in through the
door and tossing them into the piles, or flinging them
out of the door, smashing and crashing, to other gods
who awaited them .

And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White

Fang deserted by the master. Or at least White
Fang thought he was deserted, until he smelled out
the master's canvas clothes-bags alongside of him and
proceeded to mount guard over them.

"'Bout time you come," growled the god of the

car, an hour later, when Weedon Scott appeared at
the door. "That dog of yours won't let me lay a

finger on your stuff.”

 THE SOUTHLAND 281

White Fang emerged from the car. He was

astonished. The nightmare city 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 interval the city had disappeared . The
roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears. Before

him was smiling country , streaming with sunshine,

lazy with quietude. But he had little time to marvel
at the transformation . He accepted it as he accepted
all the unaccountable doings and manifestations of
the gods. It was their way.
There was a carriage waiting. A man and a
woman approached the master. The woman's arms
went out and clutched the master around the neck
a hostile act ! The next moment Weedon Scott
had torn loose from the embrace and closed with

White Fang, who had become a snarling, raging

demon.

" It's all right, mother," Scott was saying as he

kept tight hold of White Fang and placated him.
"He thought you were going to injure me, and he
wouldn'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 dog is not around ," she laughed,
though she was pale and weak from the fright.
She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled
and glared malevolently.
282 WHITE FANG

"He'll have to learn, and he shall, without post-

ponement," Scott said .

He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted

him, then his voice became firm .

"Down, sir ! Down with you ! "

This had been one of the things taught him by the
master, and White Fang 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 and watched the hostile act repeated.
But no harm came of it, nor of the embrace from the
strange man-god that followed. Then the clothes-bags
were taken into the carriage, the strange gods and
the love-master followed , and White Fang pursued,
now running vigilantly behind, now bristling up to
the running horses and warning them that he was
there to see 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 stone gateway and on between a double
row of arched and interlacing walnut trees. On
either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken,

here and there, by great, sturdy-limbed oaks. In the

near distance, in contrast with the young green of the
 THE SOUTHLAND 283

tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tan and

gold ; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland
pastures. From the head of the lawn, on the first
soft swell from the valley-level, looked down the deep-
porched, many-windowed house.

Little opportunity was given White Fang to see

all this. Hardly had the carriage entered the grounds,
when he was set upon by a sheep-dog, bright-eyed,
sharp-muzzled , righteously indignant and angry. It

was between him and the master, cutting him off.

White Fang snarled no warning, but his hair bristled
as he made his silent and deadly rush. This rush
was never completed. He halted with awkward

abruptness, with stiff fore-legs bracing himself against

his momentum, almost sitting down on his haunches,
so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the dog
he was in the act of attacking. It was a female, and
the law of his kind thrust a barrier between . For

him to attack her would require nothing less than a

violation of his instinct.

But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise. Being a

female, she possessed no such instinct. On the other

hand, being a sheep-dog, her instinctive fear of the

Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen.

White Fang was to her a wolf, the hereditary

marauder who had preyed upon her flocks from the

time sheep were first herded and guarded by some
dim ancestor of hers. And so, as he abandoned his
284 WHITE FANG

rush at her and braced himself to avoid the contact, she

sprang upon him. He snarled involuntarily as he felt

her teeth in his shoulder, but beyond this made no
offer 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 and turned, but
to no purpose. She remained always between him
and the way he 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 to learn many things, and it's just

as well that he begins now. He'll adjust himself all

right."
The carriage drove on, and still Collie blocked
White Fang's way. He tried to outrun her by leav-
ing the drive and circling across the lawn ; but she
ran on the inner and smaller circle, and was always
there, facing him with her two rows of gleaming
teeth. Back he circled, across the drive to the other
lawn, and again she headed him off.

The carriage was bearing the master away. White

Fang caught glimpses 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 to shoulder, he struck her
 THE SOUTHLAND 285

squarely. Not only was she overthrown. So fast

had she 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 her
hurt pride and indignation .
White Fang did not wait. The way was clear,
and that was all he had wanted . She took after

him, never ceasing her outcry. It was the straight-

away now, and when it came to real running, White
Fang could teach her things. She ran frantically,
hysterically, straining to the utmost, advertising the
effort she was making with every leap ; and all the time
White Fang slid smoothly away from her, silently,
without effort, gliding like a ghost over the ground.
As he rounded the house to the porte-cochère, he
came upon the carriage. It had stopped, and the
master was alighting. At this moment, still running
at top speed, White Fang became suddenly aware of
an attack from the side. It was a deer-hound rush-
ing upon him. White Fang tried to face it. But he
was going too fast, and the hound was too close. It
struck him on the side ; and such was his forward
momentum and the unexpectedness of it, White Fang
was hurled to the ground and rolled clear over. He

came out of the tangle a spectacle of malignancy,

ears flattened back, lips writhing, nose wrinkling, his
teeth clipping together as the fangs barely missed the
hound's soft throat.
286 WHITE FANG

The master was running up, but was too far away ;
and it was Collie that saved the hound's life. Before
White Fang could spring in and deliver the 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 having been unceremo-

niously tumbled in the gravel, and her arrival was
like that of a tornado - made up of offended dignity,
justifiable wrath, and instinctive hatred for this ma-
rauder from the Wild. She struck White Fang at
right angles in the midst of his spring, and again
he was knocked off his feet and rolled over.

The next moment the master arrived, and with

one hand held White Fang, while the father called
off the dogs.

" I say, this is a pretty warm reception for a poor

lone wolf from the Arctic," the master said, while
White Fang calmed down under his caressing 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 appeared from out the house. Some of
these stood respectfully at a distance ; but two of
them, women, perpetrated the hostile act of clutch-

ing the master around the neck. White Fang, how-

ever, was beginning to tolerate this act. No harm
seemed to come of it, while the noises the gods made
 THE SOUTHLAND 287

were certainly not threatening. These gods also

made overtures to White Fang, but he warned them
off with a snarl, and the master did likewise with
word of mouth . At such times White Fang leaned
in close against the master's legs and received reas-
suring pats on the head .
The hound, under the command, " Dick ! Lie

down, sir ! " had gone up the steps and lain down to
one side on the porch, still growling and keeping a
sullen watch on the intruder. Collie had been taken

in charge by one of the woman-gods, who held arms

around her neck and petted and caressed her ; but
Collie was very much perplexed and worried, whin-
ing and restless, outraged by the permitted presence
of this wolf and confident that the gods were making
a mistake.

All the gods started up the steps to enter the

house. White Fang followed closely at the master's
heels. Dick, on the porch, growled , and White 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 chief mourner at the funeral," laughed the
master.

The elder Scott looked incredulously, first at White

Fang, then at Dick, and finally at his son.
288 WHITE FANG

"You mean that · · ?"

Weedon nodded his head . " I mean just that.
You'd have a dead Dick inside one minute - two
minutes at the farthest. "
He turned to White Fang. "Come on, you wolf.
It's you that'll have to come inside."
White Fang walked stiff-legged up the steps and

across the porch, with tail rigidly erect, keeping his

eyes on Dick to guard against a flank attack, and at
the same time prepared for whatever fierce manifesta-
tion of the unknown 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 he
scouted carefully around, looking for it and finding it
not. Then he lay down with a contented grunt at
the master's feet, observing all that went on, ever
ready to spring to his feet and fight for life with the
terrors he felt must lurk under the trap-roof of the
dwelling .
 CHAPTER III

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 recognize 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 ; 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
U 289
290 WHITE FANG

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 sheep-
folds 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 com-
 THE GOD'S DOMAIN 291

pelled 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 . Some-

times, 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 when-
ever 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 Gray 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 Gray 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
292 WHITE FANG

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 mas-

ter. Then, by observation, whenever opportunity
offered, by study of action, speech, and the very into-
nations of the voice, he slowly learned the intimacy
and the degree of favor they enjoyed with the mas-
ter. 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
 THE GOD'S DOMAIN 293

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 favor-
ing White Fang with a look or a word - untrouble-
some tokens that he recognized 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
294 WHITE FANG

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 posses-
sions 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 con-
sidered 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
 THE GOD'S DOMAIN 295

law. When this had been done a few times, he

learned the law and after that observed it.
But most potent in his education were 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 Gray
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
296 WHITE FANG

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.

1
 THE GOD'S DOMAIN 297

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 gen-

erous 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
298 WHITE FANG

greeted by White Fang, but about the latter there

were no signs of shame nor guilt. He carried him-

self 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 the 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.
 THE GOD'S DOMAIN 299

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 penalize father, too," interposed

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 delibera-

tion, just as if you were sitting on the bench and
6 White Fang, you are
solemnly passing judgment,
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 con-

cerned they did not exist. At four o'clock he exe
300 WHITE FANG

cuted 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 trem-
bling with eagerness and desire, he mastered his in-

stinct 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 jack-
rabbits. 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
 THE GOD'S DOMAIN 301

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 civilization 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 adjust-

ments 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
302 WHITE FANG

look at him, point him out to one another, examine

him, talk to 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 condescen-
sion 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 becom-
ing tame and qualifying himself for civilization.
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
 THE GOD'S DOMAIN 303

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. Know-
ing 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
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

304 WHITE FANG

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.
 CHAPTER IV

THE CALL OF KIND

wen . Ther was ple ty of The m nth came nd

food and no work in the Southland, and White Fang

lived fat and prosperous and happy. Not alone was

he in the geographical Southland , for he was in the
Southland of life. Human kindness was like a sun
shining upon him, and he flourished like a flower
planted in good soil .

And yet he remained somehow different from other

dogs . He knew the law even better than did the
dogs that had known no other life, and he observed
the law more punctiliously ; but still there was about
him a suggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the
Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely
slept.
He never chummed with other dogs. Lonely he
had lived, so far as his kind was concerned , and lonely
he would continue to live. In his puppyhood, under

the persecution of Lip-lip and the puppy-pack, and in

his fighting days with Beauty Smith, he had acquired
a fixed aversion for dogs . The natural course of his
X 305
306 WHITE FANG

life had been diverted, and , recoiling from his kind,

he had clung to the human.
Besides, all Southland dogs looked upon him with
suspicion. He aroused in them their instinctive fear

of the Wild, and they greeted him always 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 naked fangs and writhing lips
were uniformly efficacious, rarely failing to send a
bellowing on-rushing dog back on its haunches.

But there was one trial in White Fang's life-

Collie. She never gave him a moment's peace. She
was not so amenable to the law as he. She defied
all efforts of the master to make her become friends

with White Fang. Ever in his ears was sounding

her sharp and nervous snarl. She had never forgiven
him the chicken-killing episode, and persistently held
to the belief that his intentions were bad. She found

him guilty before the act, and treated him accord-

ingly. She became a pest to him, like a policeman
following him around the stable and the grounds, and,
if he even so much as glanced curiously at a pigeon
or chicken, bursting into an outcry of indignation and
wrath. His favorite way of ignoring her was to lie
down, with his head on his fore-paws, and pretend
sleep. This always dumfounded and silenced her.
With the exception of Collie, all things went well
with White Fang. He had learned control and poise,
 THE CALL OF KIND 307

and he knew the law. He achieved a staidness, and

calmness, and philosophic tolerance. He no longer

lived in a hostile environment. Danger and hurt and

death did not lurk everywhere about him. In time,
the unknown, as a thing of terror and menace ever
impending, 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 long summer " 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 same fashion, especially in the heat of summer

when he suffered from the sun, he experienced faint
longings for the Northland. Their only effect upon
him, however, was to make him uneasy and restless
without his knowing what was the matter.
White Fang had never been very demonstrative.
Beyond his smuggling and the throwing of a crooning
note into his love-growl, he had no way of expressing
his love. Yet it was given him to discover a third
way . He had always been susceptible to the laughter
of the gods. Laughter had affected him with mad-
ness, made him frantic with rage. But he did not

have it in him to be angry with the love-master, and

when that god elected to laugh at him in a good-

natured, bantering way, he was nonplussed . He could

feel the pricking and stinging of the old anger as it

308 WHITE FANG

strove to rise up in him, but it strove against love.

He could not be angry ; yet he had to do something.
At first he was dignified, and the master laughed the
harder. Then he tried to be more dignified, and

the master laughed harder than before. In the end,

the master laughed him out of his dignity. His jaws
slightly parted, his lips lifted a little, and a quizzical
expression that was more love than humor came into
his eyes. He had learned to laugh.
Likewise he learned to romp with the master, to
be tumbled down and rolled over, and be the victim
of innumerable rough tricks. In return he feigned
anger, bristling and growling ferociously, and clipping
his teeth together in snaps that had all the seeming
of deadly intention. But he never forgot himself.
Those snaps were always delivered on the empty air.
At the end of such a romp, when blow and cuff and
snap and snarl were fast and furious, they would
break off suddenly and stand several feet apart, glar-
ing at each other. And then, just as suddenly, like
the sun rising on a stormy sea, they would begin to
laugh. This would always culminate with the mas-
ter's arms going around White Fang's neck and
shoulders while the latter 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 and
 1
THE CALL OF KIND 309

1
bristling mane were anything but playful. That he
allowed the master these liberties was no reason that

he should be a common dog, loving here and loving

there, everybody's property for a romp and good time.

He loved with single heart and refused to cheapen
himself or his love.

The master went out on horseback a great deal,

and to accompany him was one of White Fang's chief
duties in life. In the Northland he had evidenced

his fealty by toiling in the harness ; but there were

no sleds in the Southland, nor did dogs pack burdens
on their backs. So he rendered fealty in the new
way, by running with the master's horse. The long-

est day never played White Fang out. His was the

gait of the wolf, smooth , tireless, and effortless, and

at the end of fifty miles he would come in jauntily
ahead of the horse.

It was in connection with the riding, that White

Fang achieved one other mode of expression
remarkable in that he did it but twice in all his life.

The first time occurred when the master was trying

to teach a spirited thoroughbred the method of open-
ing and closing gates without the rider's dismounting.
Time and again and many times he ranged the horse
up to the gate in the effort to close it, and each time

the horse became frightened and backed and plunged

away. It grew more nervous and excited every
moment. When it reared, the master put the spurs
810 WHITE FANG

to it and made it drop its fore-legs back to earth,

whereupon it would begin kicking with its hind-legs.
White Fang watched the performance with increasing
anxiety until he could contain himself no longer, when
he sprang in front of the horse and barked savagely
and warningly.

Though he often tried to bark thereafter, and the

master encouraged him, he succeeded only once,
and then it was not in the master's presence. A

scamper across the pasture, a jackrabbit rising sud-

denly under the horse's feet, a violent sheer, a stumble,
a fall to earth, and a broken leg for the master were
the cause of it. White Fang sprang in a rage at the
throat of the 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 of writing a note, but searched his
pockets vainly for pencil and paper. Again he com-
manded White Fang to go home.
The latter regarded him wistfully, started away,

then returned and whined softly. The master talked

to him gently but seriously, and he cocked his ears
and listened with painful intentness.
" That's all right, old fellow, you just run along
home," ran the talk. " Go on home and tell them
what's happened to me. Home with you, you wolf.
Get along home ! "
 THE CALL OF KIND 311

White Fang knew the meaning of " home," and

though he did not understand the remainder of the
master's language, he knew it was his will that he
should go home. He turned and trotted reluctantly
away . Then he stopped, 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, when White 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 meet him. 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 by them. Their mother looked
apprehensively in their direction.
" I confess, he makes me nervous around the chil-
dren," she said. " I have a dread that he will turn

upon them unexpectedly some day."

Growling savagely, White Fang sprang out of the
corner, overturning the 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.
812 WHITE FANG

" You have only Weedon's opinion for that," re-

joined the Judge. " He merely surmises that there
is some strain of dog in White Fang ; but as he will
tell you himself, he knows nothing about it. As for
his appearance— "
He did not finish the sentence. White Fang stood
before him, growling fiercely.

" Go away ! Lie down, sir ! " Judge Scott com-

manded.

White Fang turned to the love-master's wife. She

screamed with fright as he seized her dress in his
teeth and dragged on it till the frail fabric tore away.
By this time he had become the centre of interest.
He had ceased from his growling and stood, head up,
looking into their faces. His throat worked spas-
modically, but made no sound, while he struggled
with all his body, convulsed with the effort to rid
himself of the incommunicable something that
strained for utterance.

"I hope he is not going mad," said Weedon's

mother. " I told Weedon that I was afraid the warm

climate would not agree with an Arctic animal."

" He's trying to speak, I do believe," Beth an-
nounced.

At this moment speech came to White Fang, rush-

ing up in a great burst of barking.
"Something has happened to Weedon," his wife
said decisively.
 THE CALL OF KIND 318

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 he had
barked and made himself understood.

After this event he found a warmer place in the

hearts of the Sierra Vista people, and even the groom
whose arm he had slashed admitted that he was a

wise dog even if he was a wolf. Judge Scott still

held to the same opinion, and proved it to every-
body's dissatisfaction by measurements and descrip-
tions taken from the encyclopædia and various works
on natural history.

The days came and went, streaming their unbroken

sunshine over the Santa Clara Valley. But as they
grew shorter and White Fang's second winter in the
Southland came on, he made a strange discovery.
Collie's teeth were no longer sharp. There was a

playfulness about her nips and a gentleness that pre-

vented them from really hurting him. He forgot
that she had made life a burden to him, and when
she disported herself around him he responded sol-
emnly, striving to be playful and becoming no more
than ridiculous.

One day she led him off on a long chase through

the back-pasture and into the woods. It was the
afternoon that the master was to ride, and White
Fang knew it. The horse stood saddled and waiting
at the door. White Fang hesitated. But there was
814 WHITE FANG

that in him deeper than all the law he had learned,

than the customs that had moulded him, than his
love for the master, than the very will to live of him-
self ; and when, in the moment of his indecision,
Collie nipped him and scampered off, he turned and
followed after. The master rode alone that day ; and
in the woods, side by side, White Fang ran with
Collie, as his mother, Kiche, and old One Eye had
run long years before in the silent Northland forest.
 CHAPTER V

THE SLEEPING WOLF

It was about this time that the newspapers were

full of the daring escape of a convict from San Quen-

tin prison. He was a ferocious man. He had been

ill-made in the making. He had not been born right,

and he had not been helped any by the moulding he
had received at the hands of society. The hands of
society are harsh, and this man was a striking sample
of its handiwork. He was a beast ― a human beast,
it is true, but nevertheless so terrible a beast that he
can best be characterized as carnivorous.

In San Quentin prison he had proved incorrigible.

Punishment failed to break his spirit. He could die
dumb-mad and fighting to the last, but he could not
live and be beaten . The more fiercely he fought, the
more harshly society handled him, and the only effect
of harshness was to make him fiercer. Straight-
jackets, starvation, and beatings and clubbings were
the wrong treatment for Jim Hall ; but it was the
treatment he received . It was the treatment he had

received from the time he was a little pulpy boy in

315
316 WHITE FANG

a San Francisco slum - soft clay in the hands of

society and ready to be formed into something.
It was during Jim Hall's third term in prison that
he encountered a guard that was almost as great a
beast as he. The guard treated him unfairly , lied
about him to the warden, lost him his credits, perse-
cuted him. The difference between them was that

the guard carried a bunch of keys and a revolver.

Jim Hall had only his naked hands and his teeth.
But he sprang upon the guard one day and used
his teeth on the other's throat just like any jungle
animal.

After this, Jim Hall went to live in the incorrigible

cell. He lived there three years. The cell was of
iron, the floor, the walls, the roof. He never left this

cell. He never saw the sky nor the sunshine. Day

was a twilight and night was a black silence. He

was in an iron tomb, buried alive. He saw no

human face, spoke to no human thing. When his

food was shoved in to him, he growled like a wild
animal. He hated all things . For days and nights
he bellowed his rage at the universe. For weeks and

months he never made a sound, in the black silence

eating his very soul. He was a man and a mon-

strosity, as fearful a thing of fear as ever gibbered

in the visions of a maddened brain.

And then, one night, he escaped. The warden said

it was impossible, but nevertheless the cell was empty,
 THE SLEEPING WOLF 317

and half in half out of it lay the body of a dead

guard. Two other dead guards marked his trail
through the prison to 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 that fled through the hills

pursued by the organized might of society. A heavy

price 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 of bloodhounds followed the way of his bleed-

ing feet. And the sleuth-hounds of the law, the paid
fighting animals of society, with telephone, and tele-
graph, and special train, clung to his trail night and day.
Sometimes they came upon him, and men faced

him like heroes, or stampeded through barb-wire

fences to the delight of the commonwealth reading
the account at the breakfast table. It was after such
encounters that the dead and wounded were carted

back to the towns, and their places filled by men

eager for the man-hunt.

And then Jim Hall disappeared . The bloodhounds

vainly quested on the lost trail. Inoffensive ranchers
in remote valleys were held up by armed men and
compelled to identify themselves ; while the remains
of Jim Hall were discovered on a dozen mountain-

sides by greedy claimants for blood-money.

318 WHITE FANG

In the meantime the newspapers were read at

Sierra Vista, not so much with 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 the bench that Jim Hall had
stood before him and received sentence . And in open

courtroom, before all men, Jim Hall had proclaimed

that the day would come when he would wreak ven-
geance on the judge that sentenced him .
For once, Jim Hall was right. He was innocent
of the crime for which he was sentenced . It was a

case, in the parlance of thieves and police, of " rail-

roading." Jim Hall was being " railroaded " to prison
for a crime he had not committed . Because of the

two prior convictions against him, Judge Scott im-

posed upon him a sentence of fifty years.
Judge Scott did not know all things, and he did
not know that he was party to a police conspiracy,
that the evidence was hatched and perjured, that Jim
Hall was guiltless of the crime charged. And Jim
Hall, on the other hand, did not know that Judge
Scott was merely ignorant. Jim Hall believed that

the judge knew all about it and was hand in glove

with the police in the perpetration of the monstrous
injustice. So it was, when the doom of fifty years
of living death was uttered by Judge Scott, that Jim
Hall, hating all things in the society that misused
him , rose up and raged in the courtroom until dragged
 THE SLEEPING WOLF 319

down by half a dozen of his blue-coated enemies.

To him, Judge Scott was the keystone in the arch of
injustice, and upon Judge Scott he emptied the vials
of his wrath and hurled the threats of his revenge yet
to come. Then Jim Hall went to his living death

. . and escaped.

Of all this White Fang knew nothing. But between

him and Alice, the master's wife, there existed a
secret. Each night, after Sierra Vista had gone to

bed, she arose and let in White Fang to sleep in the

big hall. Now White Fang was not a house-dog, nor
was he permitted to sleep in the house ; so each
morning, early, she slipped down and let him out
before the family was awake.
On one such night, while all the house slept, White
Fang awoke and lay very quietly. And very quietly
he smelled the air and read the message it bore of a
strange god's presence. And to his ears came sounds of

the strange god's movements . White Fang burst into

no furious outcry. It was not his way. The strange
god walked softly, but more softly walked White
Fang, 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 infinitely timid, 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 watched and
320 WHITE FANG

waited. Up that staircase the way led to the love-

master and to the love-master's dearest possessions.

White Fang bristled , but waited. The strange god's

foot lifted . He was beginning the ascent.

Then it was that White Fang struck. He gave no

warning, with no snarl anticipated his own action.

Into the air he lifted his body in the spring that landed
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 the back of the man's
neck. He clung on for a moment, long enough to
drag the god over backward . Together they crashed
to the floor. White Fang leaped clear, and, as the

man struggled to rise, was in again with the slashing

fangs.
Sierra Vista awoke in alarm . The noise from

downstairs was as that of a score of battling fiends.

There were revolver shots. A man's voice screamed

once in horror and anguish. There was a great

snarling and growling, and over all arose a smashing
and crashing of furniture and glass.
But almost as quickly as it had arisen, the commo-
tion died away . The struggle had not lasted more
than three minutes. The frightened household clus-

tered at the top of the stairway. From below, as

from out an abyss of blackness, came up a gurgling
sound, as of air bubbling through water. Sometimes

this gurgle became sibilant, almost a whistle . But

 THE SLEEPING WOLF 321

this, too, quickly died down and ceased . Then

naught came up out of the blackness save a heavy

panting of some creature struggling sorely for air.
Weedon Scott pressed a button, and the staircase
and downstairs hall were flooded with light. Then
he and Judge Scott, revolvers in hand, cautiously
descended. There was no need for this caution.

White Fang had done his work. In the midst of the

wreckage of overthrown and smashed furniture ,
partly on his side, his face hidden by an arm , lay a
man . Weedon Scott bent over, removed the arm ,

and turned the man's face upward. A gaping 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. His eyes were closed , but the lids
slightly lifted in an effort to look at them as they
bent over him, and the tail was perceptibly agitated
in a vain effort to wag. Weedon Scott patted him ,

and his throat rumbled an acknowledging growl.

But it was a weak growl at best, and it quickly
ceased . His eyelids drooped and went shut, and
his whole body seemed to relax and flatten out upon
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.
I
322 WHITE FANG

66
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 electric lights. With the exception of
the children, the whole family was gathered about
the surgeon to hear his verdict.
"One broken hind-leg," he went on. " Three

broken ribs, one at least of which 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 jumped upon. To say nothing of
three bullet holes clear through him. One chance
in 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," Judge Scott exclaimed. " Never
mind expense . Put him under the X-ray — any-

thing. Weedon , telegraph at once to San Francisco

for Doctor Nichols. No reflection on you, doctor,

you understand ; but he must have the advantage

of every chance."

The surgeon smiled indulgently. " Of course I

understand . He deserves all that can be done for
him. He must be nursed as you would nurse a

human being, a sick child . And don't forget what

I told you about temperature. I'll be back at ten
o'clock again."
 THE SLEEPING WOLF 323

White Fang received the nursing. Judge Scott's

suggestion of a trained nurse was indignantly clam-
ored down by the girls, who themselves undertook
the task. And White Fang won out on the one
chance in ten thousand denied him by the surgeon.

The latter was not to be censured for his misjudg-

ment. All his life he had tended and operated on

the soft humans of civilization, who lived sheltered

lives and had descended out of many sheltered gen-
erations. Compared with White Fang, they were
frail and flabby, and clutched life without any
strength in their grip . White Fang had come
straight from the Wild , where the weak perish early
and shelter is vouchsafed to none. In neither his

father nor his mother was there any weakness, nor

in the generations before them. A constitution of
iron and the vitality of the Wild were White Fang's
inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole of him
and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the
tenacity that of old belonged to all creatures.
Bound down a prisoner, denied even movement by
the plaster casts and bandages, White Fang lingered
out the weeks. He slept long hours and dreamed

much, and through his mind passed an unending

pageant of Northland 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
of Gray Beaver to tender his allegiance, ran for his
324 WHITE FANG

life before Lip-lip and all the howling bedlam of the

puppy-pack.
He ran again through the silence, hunting his living
food through the months of famine ; and again he ran
at the head of the team , the gut-whips of Mit- sah and
Gray Beaver snapping behind, their voices crying
" Raa ! Raa ! " when they came to a narrow passage
and the team closed together like a fan to go through.

He lived again all his days with Beauty Smith and

the fights he had fought. At such times he whim-
pered and snarled in his sleep, and they that looked
on said that his dreams were bad .

But there was one particular nightmare from which

he suffered -
— the clanking, clanging monsters of
electric cars that were to him colossal screaming
lynxes. He would lie in a screen of bushes, watch-
ing for a squirrel 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 and clanging and spitting fire at
him . It was the same when he challenged the hawk

down out of the sky. Down out of the blue it would

rush, as it dropped 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
be gathering, and he knew that a fight was on. He

watched the door for his antagonist to enter. The

 THE SLEEPING WOLF 325

door would open, and thrust in upon him would come

the awful electric car. A thousand times this

occurred, and each time the terror it inspired was as

vivid and great as ever.
Then came the day when the last bandage and the
last plaster cast were taken off. It was a gala day.

All Sierra Vista was gathered around . The master

rubbed his ears, and he crooned his love-growl. The
master's wife called him the " Blessed Wolf," which

name was taken up with acclaim and all the women

called him the Blessed Wolf.

He tried to rise to his feet, and after several

attempts fell down from weakness. He had lain

so long that his muscles had lost their cunning, and

all the strength had gone out of them. He felt a

little shame because of his weakness, as though, for-

sooth, he were failing the gods in the service he owed
them. Because of this he made heroic efforts to arise,
and at last he stood 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 right along. 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 be my name for him. "

326 WHITE FANG

"He'll have to learn to walk again," said the sur-

geon ; " so he might as well 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 and tending on him. He was very

weak, and when he reached the lawn he lay down

and rested for a while.

Then the procession started on, little spurts of

strength coming into White Fang's muscles as he used

them and the blood began to surge through them .

The stables were reached, and there in the doorway

lay Collie, a half-dozen pudgy puppies playing about
her in the sun.

White Fang looked on with a wondering eye.

Collie snarled warningly at him, and he was careful
to keep his distance.
The master with his toe helped
one sprawling puppy toward him. He bristled sus-

piciously, but " the master warned him that all was
well. Collie, clasped in the arms of one of the
women, watched him jealously and with a snarl
warned him that all was not well.
The puppy sprawled in front of him. He cocked

his ears and watched it curiously. Then their noses

touched, and he felt the warm little tongue of the
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 the performance. He was surprised , and
 THE SLEEPING WOLF 327

looked at them in a puzzled way. Then his weak.

ness asserted itself, and he lay down, his ears cocked ,
his head on one side, as he watched the puppy. The

other puppies came sprawling toward him, to Collie's

great disgust ; and he gravely permitted them to
clamber and tumble over him . At first, amid the
applause of the gods, he betrayed a trifle of his old
self-consciousness and awkwardness. This passed

away as the puppies' antics and mauling continued,

and he lay with half-shut, patient eyes, drowsing in
the sun .
Recent Works by Jack London
SOUTH SEA TALES
Illustrated, decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net
Jack London's stories of the South Seas have a sense of reality
about them which, even if the author were obscure and his goings
and comings unknown, would prove that he had been on the
ground and had himself taken part in the combats, physical and
mental, which he describes. The present volume is a collection of
vivid tales, which, both in their subject matter and in their setting,
give the author free hand.

THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK

Illustrated with over 150 halftones from photographs
by the author and a frontispiece in colors
Decorated cloth, 8vo, boxed, $2.00 net
One of the most adventurous voyages ever planned was that of
Mr. Jack London's famous Snark, the little craft in which he and
Mrs. London set forth to sail around the world. Mr. London has
told the story in a fashion to bring out all the excitement of the
cruise, its fun and exhilaration as well as its moments and days of
breathless danger.

ADVENTURE
Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.50
This story is just what its title indicates -a rousing adventure tale,
with lots of excitement, no little humor and considerable sentiment.
While there is something doing from first to last, the reader is not
conscious of that straining after effect which is evident in so many
stories of rapid and exciting plot.

WHEN GOD LAUGHS

Illustrated, decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.50
A remarkably stirring volume into which have entered all of the
elements which have gone to make its author one of the most
widely read novelists of his time. To depict graphically "the
struggles of strong men in a world of strong men," a reviewer once
declared to be Mr. London's special province. Certainly it is the
province which he has selected for himself in this book. " When
God Laughs," the initial tale, deals with a novel conception of the
love of man and wife. What this love is, and what it brings to
pass, make a yarn which is as finished and complete a piece of
work as one often finds in the much discussed short-story field.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
Mr. Jack London's Novels, etc.
Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50

THE CALL OF THE WILD Illustrated in colors

"A big story in sober English, and with thorough art in the con-
struction; a wonderfully perfect bit of work ; a book that will be
heard of long. The dog's adventures are as exciting as any man's
exploits could be, and Mr. London's workmanship is wholly satis-
fying."-- The New York Sun.

THE SEA-WOLF Illustrated in colors

"Jack London's The Sea-Wolf' is marvellously truthful.
Reading it through at a sitting we have found it poignantly inter-
esting ; ... a superb piece of craftmanship.” -- The New York
Tribune.

WHITE FANG Illustrated in colors

"A thrilling story of adventure stirring indeed and it
touches a chord of tenderness that is all too rare in Mr. London's
work." - Record-Herald, Chicago.

BEFORE ADAM Illustrated in colors

"The story moves with a wonderful sequence of interesting and
wholly credible events. The marvel of it all is not in the story it-
self, but in the audacity of the man who undertook such a task as
the writing of it. . . From an artistic standpoint the work is an
undoubted success. And it is no less a success from the stand-
point of the reader who seeks to be entertained ." — The Plain
Dealer, Cleveland.

THE IRON HEEL Uniform with the above

" London is one of the half-dozen Americans with the real story-
telling gift."- Baltimore Sun.

SHORTER STORIES
Children of the Frost The Game
Faith of Men Moon Face
Tales of the Fish Patrol Love of Life

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York