WHITE FANG

PART I

CHAPTER I--THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The treeshad been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, andthey seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fadinglight. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was adesolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spiritof it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness--a laughter that wasmirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost andpartaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful andincommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life andthe effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-heartedNorthland Wild. 

But there _was_ life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozenwaterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimedwith frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of theirbodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on thedogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged alongbehind. 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 wasturned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore ofsoft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securelylashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on thesled--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 ofthe sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third manwhose toil was over, --a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten downuntil he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of theWild 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 toprevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees tillthey are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terriblyof all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man--man who is themost restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that allmovement must in the end come to the cessation of movement. 

But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men whowere not yet dead. Their bodies were covered with fur and soft-tannedleather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystalsfrom their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. Thisgave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral worldat the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, punyadventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against themight of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses ofspace. 

They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work oftheir bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with atangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres ofdeep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weightof unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into theremotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juicesfrom the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undueself-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite andsmall, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdomamidst 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 sunlessday was beginning to fade, when a faint far cry arose on the still air. It soared upward with a swift rush, till it reached its topmost note, where it persisted, palpitant and tense, and then slowly died away. Itmight have been a lost soul wailing, had it not been invested with acertain sad fierceness and hungry eagerness. The front man turned hishead until his eyes met the eyes of the man behind. And then, across thenarrow 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 snowexpanse they had just traversed. A third and answering cry arose, alsoto 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 apparenteffort. 

"Meat is scarce, " answered his comrade. "I ain't seen a rabbit sign fordays. "

Thereafter they spoke no more, though their ears were keen for thehunting-cries that continued to rise behind them. 

At the fall of darkness they swung the dogs into a cluster of sprucetrees on the edge of the waterway and made a camp. The coffin, at theside of the fire, served for seat and table. The wolf-dogs, clustered onthe far side of the fire, snarled and bickered among themselves, butevinced no inclination to stray off into the darkness. 

"Seems to me, Henry, they're stayin' remarkable close to camp, " Billcommented. 

Henry, squatting over the fire and settling the pot of coffee with apiece of ice, nodded. Nor did he speak till he had taken his seat on thecoffin and begun to eat. 

"They know where their hides is safe, " he said. "They'd sooner eat grubthan 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 sayanything about their not bein' wise. "

"Henry, " said the other, munching with deliberation the beans he waseating, "did you happen to notice the way them dogs kicked up when I wasa-feedin' 'em?"

"They did cut up more'n usual, " Henry acknowledged. 

"How many dogs 've we got, Henry?"

"Six. "

"Well, Henry . . . " Bill stopped for a moment, in order that his wordsmight gain greater significance. "As I was sayin', Henry, we've got sixdogs. I took six fish out of the bag. I gave one fish to each dog, an', Henry, I was one fish short. "

"You counted wrong. "

"We've got six dogs, " the other reiterated dispassionately. "I took outsix fish. One Ear didn't get no fish. I came back to the bag afterwardan' 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 wasseven 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 coolpositiveness. "I saw seven. "

Henry looked at him commiseratingly, and said, "I'll be almighty gladwhen 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'rebeginnin' to see things. "

"I thought of that, " Bill answered gravely. "An' so, when I saw it runoff across the snow, I looked in the snow an' saw its tracks. Then Icounted the dogs an' there was still six of 'em. The tracks is there inthe snow now. D'ye want to look at 'em? I'll show 'em to you. "

Henry did not reply, but munched on in silence, until, the meal finished, he topped it with a final cup of coffee. He wiped his mouth with theback of his hand and said:

"Then you're thinkin' as it was--"

A long wailing cry, fiercely sad, from somewhere in the darkness, hadinterrupted him. He stopped to listen to it, then he finished hissentence with a wave of his hand toward the sound of the cry, "--one ofthem?"

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 abedlam. From every side the cries arose, and the dogs betrayed theirfear by huddling together and so close to the fire that their hair wasscorched by the heat. Bill threw on more wood, before lighting his pipe. 

"I'm thinking you're down in the mouth some, " Henry said. 

"Henry . . . " He sucked meditatively at his pipe for some time beforehe went on. "Henry, I was a-thinkin' what a blame sight luckier he isthan you an' me'll ever be. "

He indicated the third person by a downward thrust of the thumb to thebox on which they sat. 

"You an' me, Henry, when we die, we'll be lucky if we get enough stonesover our carcases to keep the dogs off of us. "

"But we ain't got people an' money an' all the rest, like him, " Henryrejoined. "Long-distance funerals is somethin' you an' me can't exactlyafford. "

"What gets me, Henry, is what a chap like this, that's a lord orsomething in his own country, and that's never had to bother about grubnor blankets; why he comes a-buttin' round the Godforsaken ends of theearth--that's what I can't exactly see. "

"He might have lived to a ripe old age if he'd stayed at home, " Henryagreed. 

Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. Instead, hepointed towards the wall of darkness that pressed about them from everyside. There was no suggestion of form in the utter blackness; only couldbe seen a pair of eyes gleaming like live coals. Henry indicated withhis head a second pair, and a third. A circle of the gleaming eyes haddrawn about their camp. Now and again a pair of eyes moved, ordisappeared to appear again a moment later. 

The unrest of the dogs had been increasing, and they stampeded, in asurge of sudden fear, to the near side of the fire, cringing and crawlingabout the legs of the men. In the scramble one of the dogs had beenoverturned on the edge of the fire, and it had yelped with pain andfright as the smell of its singed coat possessed the air. The commotioncaused the circle of eyes to shift restlessly for a moment and even towithdraw a bit, but it settled down again as the dogs became quiet. 

"Henry, it's a blame misfortune to be out of ammunition. "

Bill had finished his pipe and was helping his companion to spread thebed of fur and blanket upon the spruce boughs which he had laid over thesnow before supper. Henry grunted, and began unlacing his mocassins. 

"How many cartridges did you say you had left?" he asked. 

"Three, " came the answer. "An' I wisht 'twas three hundred. Then I'dshow 'em what for, damn 'em!"

He shook his fist angrily at the gleaming eyes, and began securely toprop his moccasins before the fire. 

"An' I wisht this cold snap'd break, " he went on. "It's ben fifty belowfor two weeks now. An' I wisht I'd never started on this trip, Henry. Idon't like the looks of it. I don't feel right, somehow. An' while I'mwishin', I wisht the trip was over an' done with, an' you an' mea-sittin' by the fire in Fort McGurry just about now an' playingcribbage--that's what I wisht. "

Henry grunted and crawled into bed. As he dozed off he was aroused byhis comrade's voice. 

"Say, Henry, that other one that come in an' got a fish--why didn't thedogs pitch into it? That's what's botherin' me. "

"You're botherin' too much, Bill, " came the sleepy response. "You wasnever like this before. You jes' shut up now, an' go to sleep, an'you'll be all hunkydory in the mornin'. Your stomach's sour, that'swhat's botherin' you. "

The men slept, breathing heavily, side by side, under the one covering. The fire died down, and the gleaming eyes drew closer the circle they hadflung about the camp. The dogs clustered together in fear, now and againsnarling menacingly as a pair of eyes drew close. Once their uproarbecame so loud that Bill woke up. He got out of bed carefully, so as notto disturb the sleep of his comrade, and threw more wood on the fire. Asit began to flame up, the circle of eyes drew farther back. He glancedcasually at the huddling dogs. He rubbed his eyes and looked at themmore 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'swrong now?"

"Nothin', " came the answer; "only there's seven of 'em again. I justcounted. "

Henry acknowledged receipt of the information with a grunt that slid intoa snore as he drifted back into sleep. 

In the morning it was Henry who awoke first and routed his companion outof bed. Daylight was yet three hours away, though it was already sixo'clock; and in the darkness Henry went about preparing breakfast, whileBill rolled the blankets and made the sled ready for lashing. 

"Say, Henry, " he asked suddenly, "how many dogs did you say we had?"

"Six. "

"Wrong, " Bill proclaimed triumphantly. 

"Seven again?" Henry queried. 

"No, five; one's gone. "

"The hell!" Henry cried in wrath, leaving the cooking to come and countthe dogs. 

"You're right, Bill, " he concluded. "Fatty's gone. "

"An' he went like greased lightnin' once he got started. Couldn't 'veseen 'm for smoke. "

"No chance at all, " Henry concluded. "They jes' swallowed 'm alive. Ibet he was yelpin' as he went down their throats, damn 'em!"

"He always was a fool dog, " said Bill. 

"But no fool dog ought to be fool enough to go off an' commit suicidethat way. " He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculativeeye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal. "I betnone of the others would do it. "

"Couldn't drive 'em away from the fire with a club, " Bill agreed. "Ialways did think there was somethin' wrong with Fatty anyway. "

And this was the epitaph of a dead dog on the Northland trail--less scantthan 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 menturned 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 calledthrough the darkness and cold to one another and answered back. Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine o'clock. At midday the skyto the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of theearth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. Butthe rose-colour swiftly faded. The grey light of day that remainedlasted until three o'clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of theArctic night descended upon the lone and silent land. 

As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drewcloser--so close that more than once they sent surges of fear through thetoiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics. 

At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the dogsback in the traces, Bill said:

"I wisht they'd strike game somewheres, an' go away an' leave us alone. "

"They do get on the nerves horrible, " Henry sympathised. 

They spoke no more until camp was made. 

Henry was bending over and adding ice to the babbling pot of beans whenhe was startled by the sound of a blow, an exclamation from Bill, and asharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. He straightened up intime to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter ofthe dark. Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half triumphant, half crestfallen, in one hand a stout club, in the other the tail andpart of the body of a sun-cured salmon. 

"It got half of it, " he announced; "but I got a whack at it jes' thesame. 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 likeany 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 andpulled at their pipes, the circle of gleaming eyes drew in even closerthan before. 

"I wisht they'd spring up a bunch of moose or something, an' go away an'leave us alone, " Bill said. 

Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for aquarter of an hour they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, andBill at the circle of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond thefirelight. 

"I wisht we was pullin' into McGurry right now, " he began again. 

"Shut up your wishin' and your croakin', " Henry burst out angrily. "Yourstomach's sour. That's what's ailin' you. Swallow a spoonful of sody, an' you'll sweeten up wonderful an' be more pleasant company. "

In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded fromthe mouth of Bill. Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked tosee his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire, hisarms 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 withcare, and then joined his partner in cursing the power of the Wild thathad robbed them of another dog. 

"Frog was the strongest dog of the bunch, " Bill pronounced finally. 

"An' he was no fool dog neither, " Henry added. 

And so was recorded the second epitaph in two days. 

A gloomy breakfast was eaten, and the four remaining dogs were harnessedto 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. Thesilence was unbroken save by the cries of their pursuers, that, unseen, hung upon their rear. With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, thecries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom;and the dogs grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics thattangled the traces and further depressed the two men. 

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

Henry left the cooking to come and see. Not only had his partner tiedthe dogs up, but he had tied them, after the Indian fashion, with sticks. About the neck of each dog he had fastened a leather thong. To this, andso close to the neck that the dog could not get his teeth to it, he hadtied a stout stick four or five feet in length. The other end of thestick, in turn, was made fast to a stake in the ground by means of aleather thong. The dog was unable to gnaw through the leather at his ownend of the stick. The stick prevented him from getting at the leatherthat fastened the other end. 

Henry nodded his head approvingly. 

"It's the only contraption that'll ever hold One Ear, " he said. "He cangnaw through leather as clean as a knife an' jes' about half as quick. They all'll be here in the mornin' hunkydory. "

"You jes' bet they will, " Bill affirmed. "If one of em' turns upmissin', I'll go without my coffee. "

"They jes' know we ain't loaded to kill, " Henry remarked at bed-time, indicating the gleaming circle that hemmed them in. "If we could put acouple of shots into 'em, they'd be more respectful. They come closerevery night. Get the firelight out of your eyes an' look hard--there!Did you see that one?"

For some time the two men amused themselves with watching the movement ofvague forms on the edge of the firelight. By looking closely andsteadily at where a pair of eyes burned in the darkness, the form of theanimal would slowly take shape. They could even see these forms move attimes. 

A sound among the dogs attracted the men's attention. One Ear wasuttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick towardthe darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make franticattacks on the stick with his teeth. 

"Look at that, Bill, " Henry whispered. 

Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong movement, glided adoglike animal. It moved with commingled mistrust and daring, cautiouslyobserving the men, its attention fixed on the dogs. One Ear strained thefull length of the stick toward the intruder and whined with eagerness. 

"That fool One Ear don't seem scairt much, " Bill said in a low tone. 

"It's a she-wolf, " Henry whispered back, "an' that accounts for Fatty an'Frog. She's the decoy for the pack. She draws out the dog an' then allthe rest pitches in an' eats 'm up. "

The fire crackled. A log fell apart with a loud spluttering noise. Atthe 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'sfamilyarity with campfires is suspicious an' immoral. "

"It knows for certain more'n a self-respectin' wolf ought to know, " Henryagreed. "A wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at feedin'time has had experiences. "

"Ol' Villan had a dog once that run away with the wolves, " Bill cogitatesaloud. "I ought to know. I shot it out of the pack in a moose pastureover 'on Little Stick. An' Ol' Villan cried like a baby. Hadn't seen itfor three years, he said. Ben with the wolves all that time. "

"I reckon you've called the turn, Bill. That wolf's a dog, an' it'seaten 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 theaccompaniment of his partner's snoring. 

"You was sleepin' jes' too comfortable for anything, " Henry told him, ashe routed him out for breakfast. "I hadn't the heart to rouse you. "

Bill began to eat sleepily. He noticed that his cup was empty andstarted to reach for the pot. But the pot was beyond arm's length andbeside Henry. 

"Say, Henry, " he chided gently, "ain't you forgot somethin'?"

Henry looked about with great carefulness and shook his head. Bill heldup the empty cup. 

"You don't get no coffee, " Henry announced. 

"Ain't run out?" Bill asked anxiously. 

"Nope. "

"Ain't thinkin' it'll hurt my digestion?"

"Nope. "

A flush of angry blood pervaded Bill's face. 

"Then it's jes' warm an' anxious I am to be hearin' you explainyourself, " he said. 

"Spanker's gone, " Henry answered. 

Without haste, with the air of one resigned to misfortune Bill turned hishead, 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 'mloose. He couldn't a-done it himself, that's sure. "

"The darned cuss. " Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of theanger that was raging within. "Jes' because he couldn't chew himselfloose, he chews Spanker loose. "

"Well, Spanker's troubles is over anyway; I guess he's digested by thistime an' cavortin' over the landscape in the bellies of twenty differentwolves, " was Henry's epitaph on this, the latest lost dog. "Have somecoffee, Bill. "

But Bill shook his head. 

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

Bill shoved his cup aside. "I'll be ding-dong-danged if I do. I said Iwouldn't if ary dog turned up missin', an' I won't. "

"It's darn good coffee, " Henry said enticingly. 

But Bill was stubborn, and he ate a dry breakfast washed down withmumbled curses at One Ear for the trick he had played. 

"I'll tie 'em up out of reach of each other to-night, " Bill said, as theytook the trail. 

They had travelled little more than a hundred yards, when Henry, who wasin front, bent down and picked up something with which his snowshoe hadcollided. It was dark, and he could not see it, but he recognised it bythe touch. He flung it back, so that it struck the sled and bouncedalong until it fetched up on Bill's snowshoes. 

"Mebbe you'll need that in your business, " Henry said. 

Bill uttered an exclamation. It was all that was left of Spanker--thestick with which he had been tied. 

"They ate 'm hide an' all, " Bill announced. "The stick's as clean as awhistle. They've ate the leather offen both ends. They're damn hungry, Henry, an' they'll have you an' me guessin' before this trip's over. "

Henry laughed defiantly. "I ain't been trailed this way by wolvesbefore, but I've gone through a whole lot worse an' kept my health. Takesmore'n a handful of them pesky critters to do for yours truly, Bill, myson. "

"I don't know, I don't know, " Bill muttered ominously. 

"Well, you'll know all right when we pull into McGurry. "

"I ain't feelin' special enthusiastic, " Bill persisted. 

"You're off colour, that's what's the matter with you, " Henry dogmatised. "What you need is quinine, an' I'm goin' to dose you up stiff as soon aswe make McGurry. "

Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed intosilence. The day was like all the days. Light came at nine o'clock. Attwelve o'clock the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun; andthen began the cold grey of afternoon that would merge, three hourslater, into night. 

It was just after the sun's futile effort to appear, that Bill slippedthe 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 protested. "You've onlygot three cartridges, an' there's no tellin' what might happen. "

"Who's croaking now?" Bill demanded triumphantly. 

Henry made no reply, and plodded on alone, though often he cast anxiousglances back into the grey solitude where his partner had disappeared. Anhour later, taking advantage of the cut-offs around which the sled had togo, Bill arrived. 

"They're scattered an' rangin' along wide, " he said: "keeping up with usan' lookin' for game at the same time. You see, they're sure of us, onlythey know they've got to wait to get us. In the meantime they're willin'to pick up anything eatable that comes handy. "

"You mean they _think_ they're sure of us, " Henry objected pointedly. 

But Bill ignored him. "I seen some of them. They're pretty thin. Theyain't had a bite in weeks I reckon, outside of Fatty an' Frog an'Spanker; an' there's so many of 'em that that didn't go far. They'reremarkable thin. Their ribs is like wash-boards, an' their stomachs isright up against their backbones. They're pretty desperate, I can tellyou. They'll be goin' mad, yet, an' then watch out. "

A few minutes later, Henry, who was now travelling behind the sled, emitted a low, warning whistle. Bill turned and looked, then quietlystopped the dogs. To the rear, from around the last bend and plainlyinto view, on the very trail they had just covered, trotted a furry, slinking form. Its nose was to the trail, and it trotted with apeculiar, sliding, effortless gait. When they halted, it halted, throwing up its head and regarding them steadily with nostrils thattwitched as it caught and studied the scent of them. 

"It's the she-wolf, " Bill answered. 

The dogs had lain down in the snow, and he walked past them to join hispartner in the sled. Together they watched the strange animal that hadpursued them for days and that had already accomplished the destructionof half their dog-team. 

After a searching scrutiny, the animal trotted forward a few steps. Thisit repeated several times, till it was a short hundred yards away. Itpaused, head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sight andscent studied the outfit of the watching men. It looked at them in astrangely wistful way, after the manner of a dog; but in its wistfulnessthere was none of the dog affection. It was a wistfulness bred ofhunger, 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 ananimal that was among the largest of its kind. 

"Stands pretty close to two feet an' a half at the shoulders, " Henrycommented. "An' I'll bet it ain't far from five feet long. "

"Kind of strange colour for a wolf, " was Bill's criticism. "I never seena red wolf before. Looks almost cinnamon to me. "

The animal was certainly not cinnamon-coloured. Its coat was the truewolf-coat. The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a faintreddish hue--a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, thatwas more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, andagain giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour notclassifiable in terms of ordinary experience. 

"Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog, " Bill said. "Iwouldn't be s'prised to see it wag its tail. "

"Hello, you husky!" he called. "Come here, you whatever-your-name-is. "

"Ain't a bit scairt of you, " Henry laughed. 

Bill waved his hand at it threateningly and shouted loudly; but theanimal betrayed no fear. The only change in it that they could noticewas an accession of alertness. It still regarded them with the mercilesswistfulness of hunger. They were meat, and it was hungry; and it wouldlike to go in and eat them if it dared. 

"Look here, Henry, " Bill said, unconsciously lowering his voice to awhisper because of what he imitated. "We've got three cartridges. Butit's a dead shot. Couldn't miss it. It's got away with three of ourdogs, an' we oughter put a stop to it. What d'ye say?"

Henry nodded his consent. Bill cautiously slipped the gun from under thesled-lashing. The gun was on the way to his shoulder, but it never gotthere. For in that instant the she-wolf leaped sidewise from the trailinto the clump of spruce trees and disappeared. 

The two men looked at each other. Henry whistled long andcomprehendingly. 

"I might have knowed it, " Bill chided himself aloud as he replaced thegun. "Of course a wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs atfeedin' time, 'd know all about shooting-irons. I tell you right now, Henry, that critter's the cause of all our trouble. We'd have six dogsat the present time, 'stead of three, if it wasn't for her. An' I tellyou right now, Henry, I'm goin' to get her. She's too smart to be shotin the open. But I'm goin' to lay for her. I'll bushwhack her as sureas my name is Bill. "

"You needn't stray off too far in doin' it, " his partner admonished. "Ifthat pack ever starts to jump you, them three cartridges'd be wuth nomore'n three whoops in hell. Them animals is damn hungry, an' once theystart in, they'll sure get you, Bill. "

They camped early that night. Three dogs could not drag the sled so fastnor for so long hours as could six, and they were showing unmistakablesigns of playing out. And the men went early to bed, Bill first seeingto it that the dogs were tied out of gnawing-reach of one another. 

But the wolves were growing bolder, and the men were aroused more thanonce from their sleep. So near did the wolves approach, that the dogsbecame frantic with terror, and it was necessary to replenish the firefrom time to time in order to keep the adventurous marauders at saferdistance. 

"I've hearn sailors talk of sharks followin' a ship, " Bill remarked, ashe crawled back into the blankets after one such replenishing of thefire. "Well, them wolves is land sharks. They know their businessbetter'n we do, an' they ain't a-holdin' our trail this way for theirhealth. They're goin' to get us. They're sure goin' to get us, Henry. "

"They've half got you a'ready, a-talkin' like that, " Henry retortedsharply. "A man's half licked when he says he is. An' you're half eatenfrom the way you're goin' on about it. "

"They've got away with better men than you an' me, " Bill answered. 

"Oh, shet up your croakin'. You make me all-fired tired. "

Henry rolled over angrily on his side, but was surprised that Bill madeno similar display of temper. This was not Bill's way, for he was easilyangered by sharp words. Henry thought long over it before he went tosleep, and as his eyelids fluttered down and he dozed off, the thought inhis mind was: "There's no mistakin' it, Bill's almighty blue. I'll haveto cheer him up to-morrow. "

CHAPTER III--THE HUNGER CRY

The day began auspiciously. They had lost no dogs during the night, andthey swung out upon the trail and into the silence, the darkness, and thecold with spirits that were fairly light. Bill seemed to have forgottenhis forebodings of the previous night, and even waxed facetious with thedogs when, at midday, they overturned the sled on a bad piece of trail. 

It was an awkward mix-up. The sled was upside down and jammed between atree-trunk and a huge rock, and they were forced to unharness the dogs inorder to straighten out the tangle. The two men were bent over the sledand trying to right it, when Henry observed One Ear sidling away. 

"Here, you, One Ear!" he cried, straightening up and turning around onthe dog. 

But One Ear broke into a run across the snow, his traces trailing behindhim. And there, out in the snow of their back track, was the she-wolfwaiting for him. As he neared her, he became suddenly cautious. Heslowed down to an alert and mincing walk and then stopped. He regardedher carefully and dubiously, yet desirefully. She seemed to smile athim, showing her teeth in an ingratiating rather than a menacing way. Shemoved toward him a few steps, playfully, and then halted. One Ear drewnear to her, still alert and cautious, his tail and ears in the air, hishead 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 onher part. Step by step she was luring him away from the security of hishuman companionship. Once, as though a warning had in vague ways flittedthrough his intelligence, he turned his head and looked back at theoverturned sled, at his team-mates, and at the two men who were callingto him. 

But whatever idea was forming in his mind, was dissipated by theshe-wolf, who advanced upon him, sniffed noses with him for a fleetinginstant, and then resumed her coy retreat before his renewed advances. 

In the meantime, Bill had bethought himself of the rifle. But it wasjammed beneath the overturned sled, and by the time Henry had helped himto right the load, One Ear and the she-wolf were too close together andthe distance too great to risk a shot. 

Too late One Ear learned his mistake. Before they saw the cause, the twomen saw him turn and start to run back toward them. Then, approaching atright angles to the trail and cutting off his retreat they saw a dozenwolves, lean and grey, bounding across the snow. On the instant, the she-wolf's coyness and playfulness disappeared. With a snarl she sprang uponOne Ear. He thrust her off with his shoulder, and, his retreat cut offand still intent on regaining the sled, he altered his course in anattempt to circle around to it. More wolves were appearing every momentand joining in the chase. The she-wolf was one leap behind One Ear andholding her own. 

"Where are you goin'?" Henry suddenly demanded, laying his hand on hispartner's arm. 

Bill shook it off. "I won't stand it, " he said. "They ain't a-goin' toget any more of our dogs if I can help it. "

Gun in hand, he plunged into the underbrush that lined the side of thetrail. His intention was apparent enough. Taking the sled as the centreof the circle that One Ear was making, Bill planned to tap that circle ata point in advance of the pursuit. With his rifle, in the broaddaylight, it might be possible for him to awe the wolves and save thedog. 

"Say, Bill!" Henry called after him. "Be careful! Don't take nochances!"

Henry sat down on the sled and watched. There was nothing else for himto do. Bill had already gone from sight; but now and again, appearingand disappearing amongst the underbrush and the scattered clumps ofspruce, could be seen One Ear. Henry judged his case to be hopeless. Thedog was thoroughly alive to its danger, but it was running on the outercircle while the wolf-pack was running on the inner and shorter circle. It was vain to think of One Ear so outdistancing his pursuers as to beable to cut across their circle in advance of them and to regain thesled. 

The different lines were rapidly approaching a point. Somewhere outthere in the snow, screened from his sight by trees and thickets, Henryknew that the wolf-pack, One Ear, and Bill were coming together. All tooquickly, far more quickly than he had expected, it happened. He heard ashot, then two shots, in rapid succession, and he knew that Bill'sammunition was gone. Then he heard a great outcry of snarls and yelps. He recognised One Ear's yell of pain and terror, and he heard a wolf-crythat bespoke a stricken animal. And that was all. The snarls ceased. The yelping died away. Silence settled down again over the lonely land. 

He sat for a long while upon the sled. There was no need for him to goand see what had happened. He knew it as though it had taken placebefore his eyes. Once, he roused with a start and hastily got the axeout from underneath the lashings. But for some time longer he sat andbrooded, the two remaining dogs crouching and trembling at his feet. 

At last he arose in a weary manner, as though all the resilience had goneout of his body, and proceeded to fasten the dogs to the sled. He passeda rope over his shoulder, a man-trace, and pulled with the dogs. He didnot go far. At the first hint of darkness he hastened to make a camp, and he saw to it that he had a generous supply of firewood. He fed thedogs, cooked and ate his supper, and made his bed close to the fire. 

But he was not destined to enjoy that bed. Before his eyes closed thewolves had drawn too near for safety. It no longer required an effort ofthe vision to see them. They were all about him and the fire, in anarrow circle, and he could see them plainly in the firelight lying down, sitting up, crawling forward on their bellies, or slinking back andforth. They even slept. Here and there he could see one curled up inthe snow like a dog, taking the sleep that was now denied himself. 

He kept the fire brightly blazing, for he knew that it alone intervenedbetween the flesh of his body and their hungry fangs. His two dogsstayed close by him, one on either side, leaning against him forprotection, crying and whimpering, and at times snarling desperately whena wolf approached a little closer than usual. At such moments, when hisdogs snarled, the whole circle would be agitated, the wolves coming totheir feet and pressing tentatively forward, a chorus of snarls and eageryelps rising about him. Then the circle would lie down again, and hereand there a wolf would resume its broken nap. 

But this circle had a continuous tendency to draw in upon him. Bit bybit, an inch at a time, with here a wolf bellying forward, and there awolf bellying forward, the circle would narrow until the brutes werealmost within springing distance. Then he would seize brands from thefire and hurl them into the pack. A hasty drawing back always resulted, accompanied by angry yelps and frightened snarls when a well-aimed brandstruck and scorched a too daring animal. 

Morning found the man haggard and worn, wide-eyed from want of sleep. Hecooked breakfast in the darkness, and at nine o'clock, when, with thecoming of daylight, the wolf-pack drew back, he set about the task he hadplanned through the long hours of the night. Chopping down youngsaplings, he made them cross-bars of a scaffold by lashing them high upto the trunks of standing trees. Using the sled-lashing for a heavingrope, and with the aid of the dogs, he hoisted the coffin to the top ofthe scaffold. 

"They got Bill, an' they may get me, but they'll sure never get you, young man, " he said, addressing the dead body in its tree-sepulchre. 

Then he took the trail, the lightened sled bounding along behind thewilling dogs; for they, too, knew that safety lay open in the gaining ofFort McGurry. The wolves were now more open in their pursuit, trottingsedately behind and ranging along on either side, their red tongueslolling out, their lean sides showing the undulating ribs with everymovement. They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bonyframes, with strings for muscles--so lean that Henry found it in his mindto marvel that they still kept their feet and did not collapse forthrightin the snow. 

He did not dare travel until dark. At midday, not only did the sun warmthe southern horizon, but it even thrust its upper rim, pale and golden, above the sky-line. He received it as a sign. The days were growinglonger. The sun was returning. But scarcely had the cheer of its lightdeparted, than he went into camp. There were still several hours of greydaylight and sombre twilight, and he utilised them in chopping anenormous supply of fire-wood. 

With night came horror. Not only were the starving wolves growingbolder, but lack of sleep was telling upon Henry. He dozed despitehimself, crouching by the fire, the blankets about his shoulders, the axebetween 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 greywolf, one of the largest of the pack. And even as he looked, the brutedeliberately stretched himself after the manner of a lazy dog, yawningfull in his face and looking upon him with a possessive eye, as if, intruth, he were merely a delayed meal that was soon to be eaten. 

This certitude was shown by the whole pack. Fully a score he couldcount, staring hungrily at him or calmly sleeping in the snow. Theyreminded him of children gathered about a spread table and awaitingpermission to begin to eat. And he was the food they were to eat! Hewondered how and when the meal would begin. 

As he piled wood on the fire he discovered an appreciation of his ownbody which he had never felt before. He watched his moving muscles andwas interested in the cunning mechanism of his fingers. By the light ofthe fire he crooked his fingers slowly and repeatedly now one at a time, now all together, spreading them wide or making quick gripping movements. He studied the nail-formation, and prodded the finger-tips, now sharply, and again softly, gauging the while the nerve-sensations produced. Itfascinated him, and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle flesh of histhat worked so beautifully and smoothly and delicately. Then he wouldcast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, andlike a blow the realisation would strike him that this wonderful body ofhis, this living flesh, was no more than so much meat, a quest ofravenous animals, to be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to besustenance to them as the moose and the rabbit had often been sustenanceto 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 inthe snow and wistfully regarding him. The two dogs were whimpering andsnarling at his feet, but she took no notice of them. She was looking atthe man, and for some time he returned her look. There was nothingthreatening about her. She looked at him merely with a greatwistfulness, but he knew it to be the wistfulness of an equally greathunger. He was the food, and the sight of him excited in her thegustatory sensations. Her mouth opened, the saliva drooled forth, andshe licked her chops with the pleasure of anticipation. 

A spasm of fear went through him. He reached hastily for a brand tothrow at her. But even as he reached, and before his fingers had closedon the missile, she sprang back into safety; and he knew that she wasused 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. Heglanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy ofthe fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all theinequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the roughwood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of thebrand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heatto a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see avision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being crushed andtorn by the white teeth of the she-wolf. Never had he been so fond ofthis 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 hedozed despite himself, the whimpering and snarling of the dogs arousedhim. Morning came, but for the first time the light of day failed toscatter the wolves. The man waited in vain for them to go. Theyremained in a circle about him and his fire, displaying an arrogance ofpossession that shook his courage born of the morning light. 

He made one desperate attempt to pull out on the trail. But the momenthe left the protection of the fire, the boldest wolf leaped for him, butleaped short. He saved himself by springing back, the jaws snappingtogether a scant six inches from his thigh. The rest of the pack was nowup and surging upon him, and a throwing of firebrands right and left wasnecessary to drive them back to a respectful distance. 

Even in the daylight he did not dare leave the fire to chop fresh wood. Twenty feet away towered a huge dead spruce. He spent half the dayextending his campfire to the tree, at any moment a half dozen burningfaggots ready at hand to fling at his enemies. Once at the tree, hestudied the surrounding forest in order to fell the tree in the directionof the most firewood. 

The night was a repetition of the night before, save that the need forsleep was becoming overpowering. The snarling of his dogs was losing itsefficacy. Besides, they were snarling all the time, and his benumbed anddrowsy senses no longer took note of changing pitch and intensity. Heawoke with a start. The she-wolf was less than a yard from him. Mechanically, at short range, without letting go of it, he thrust a brandfull into her open and snarling mouth. She sprang away, yelling withpain, 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 feetaway. 

But this time, before he dozed again, he tied a burning pine-knot to hisright hand. His eyes were closed but few minutes when the burn of theflame on his flesh awakened him. For several hours he adhered to thisprogramme. Every time he was thus awakened he drove back the wolves withflying brands, replenished the fire, and rearranged the pine-knot on hishand. All worked well, but there came a time when he fastened the pine-knot insecurely. As his eyes closed it fell away from his hand. 

He dreamed. It seemed to him that he was in Fort McGurry. It was warmand comfortable, and he was playing cribbage with the Factor. Also, itseemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves. They were howling atthe very gates, and sometimes he and the Factor paused from the game tolisten and laugh at the futile efforts of the wolves to get in. Andthen, so strange was the dream, there was a crash. The door was burstopen. He could see the wolves flooding into the big living-room of thefort. They were leaping straight for him and the Factor. With thebursting open of the door, the noise of their howling had increasedtremendously. This howling now bothered him. His dream was merging intosomething 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 snarlingand yelping. The wolves were rushing him. They were all about him andupon him. The teeth of one had closed upon his arm. Instinctively heleaped into the fire, and as he leaped, he felt the sharp slash of teeththat tore through the flesh of his leg. Then began a fire fight. Hisstout mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he scooped live coalsinto the air in all directions, until the campfire took on the semblanceof a volcano. 

But it could not last long. His face was blistering in the heat, hiseyebrows and lashes were singed off, and the heat was becoming unbearableto his feet. With a flaming brand in each hand, he sprang to the edge ofthe fire. The wolves had been driven back. On every side, wherever thelive coals had fallen, the snow was sizzling, and every little while aretiring wolf, with wild leap and snort and snarl, announced that onesuch live coal had been stepped upon. 

Flinging his brands at the nearest of his enemies, the man thrust hissmouldering mittens into the snow and stamped about to cool his feet. Histwo dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had served as a coursein the protracted meal which had begun days before with Fatty, the lastcourse of which would likely be himself in the days to follow. 

"You ain't got me yet!" he cried, savagely shaking his fist at the hungrybeasts; and at the sound of his voice the whole circle was agitated, there was a general snarl, and the she-wolf slid up close to him acrossthe snow and watched him with hungry wistfulness. 

He set to work to carry out a new idea that had come to him. He extendedthe fire into a large circle. Inside this circle he crouched, hissleeping outfit under him as a protection against the melting snow. Whenhe had thus disappeared within his shelter of flame, the whole pack camecuriously to the rim of the fire to see what had become of him. Hithertothey had been denied access to the fire, and they now settled down in aclose-drawn circle, like so many dogs, blinking and yawning andstretching their lean bodies in the unaccustomed warmth. Then the she-wolf sat down, pointed her nose at a star, and began to howl. One by onethe wolves joined her, till the whole pack, on haunches, with nosespointed skyward, was howling its hunger cry. 

Dawn came, and daylight. The fire was burning low. The fuel had runout, and there was need to get more. The man attempted to step out ofhis circle of flame, but the wolves surged to meet him. Burning brandsmade them spring aside, but they no longer sprang back. In vain hestrove 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 thecoals. It cried out with terror, at the same time snarling, andscrambled back to cool its paws in the snow. 

The man sat down on his blankets in a crouching position. His bodyleaned forward from the hips. His shoulders, relaxed and drooping, andhis head on his knees advertised that he had given up the struggle. Nowand again he raised his head to note the dying down of the fire. Thecircle of flame and coals was breaking into segments with openings inbetween. These openings grew in size, the segments diminished. 

"I guess you can come an' get me any time, " he mumbled. "Anyway, I'mgoin' to sleep. "

Once he awakened, and in an opening in the circle, directly in front ofhim, he saw the she-wolf gazing at him. 

Again he awakened, a little later, though it seemed hours to him. Amysterious change had taken place--so mysterious a change that he wasshocked wider awake. Something had happened. He could not understand atfirst. Then he discovered it. The wolves were gone. Remained only thetrampled snow to show how closely they had pressed him. Sleep waswelling up and gripping him again, his head was sinking down upon hisknees, when he roused with a sudden start. 

There were cries of men, and churn of sleds, the creaking of harnesses, and the eager whimpering of straining dogs. Four sleds pulled in fromthe river bed to the camp among the trees. Half a dozen men were aboutthe man who crouched in the centre of the dying fire. They were shakingand prodding him into consciousness. He looked at them like a drunkenman and maundered in strange, sleepy speech. 

"Red she-wolf. . . . Come in with the dogs at feedin' time. . . . Firstshe ate the dog-food. . . . Then she ate the dogs. . . . An' after thatshe ate Bill. . . . "

"Where's Lord Alfred?" one of the men bellowed in his ear, shaking himroughly. 

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 awayfrom the grip of his questioner. "Say, you lemme alone. . . . I'm jes'plump tuckered out. . . . Goo' night, everybody. "

His eyes fluttered and went shut. His chin fell forward on his chest. And even as they eased him down upon the blankets his snores were risingon the frosty air. 

But there was another sound. Far and faint it was, in the remotedistance, the cry of the hungry wolf-pack as it took the trail of othermeat than the man it had just missed. 

PART II

CHAPTER I--THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS

It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men's voices andthe whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first tospring away from the cornered man in his circle of dying flame. The packhad been loath to forego the kill it had hunted down, and it lingered forseveral minutes, making sure of the sounds, and then it, too, sprang awayon the trail made by the she-wolf. 

Running at the forefront of the pack was a large grey wolf--one of itsseveral leaders. It was he who directed the pack's course on the heelsof the she-wolf. It was he who snarled warningly at the younger membersof the pack or slashed at them with his fangs when they ambitiously triedto pass him. And it was he who increased the pace when he sighted theshe-wolf, now trotting slowly across the snow. 

She dropped in alongside by him, as though it were her appointedposition, and took the pace of the pack. He did not snarl at her, norshow his teeth, when any leap of hers chanced to put her in advance ofhim. On the contrary, he seemed kindly disposed toward her--too kindlyto suit her, for he was prone to run near to her, and when he ran toonear it was she who snarled and showed her teeth. Nor was she aboveslashing his shoulder sharply on occasion. At such times he betrayed noanger. He merely sprang to the side and ran stiffly ahead for severalawkward leaps, in carriage and conduct resembling an abashed countryswain. 

This was his one trouble in the running of the pack; but she had othertroubles. On her other side ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled and markedwith the scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side. Thefact that he had but one eye, and that the left eye, might account forthis. He, also, was addicted to crowding her, to veering toward her tillhis scarred muzzle touched her body, or shoulder, or neck. As with therunning mate on the left, she repelled these attentions with her teeth;but when both bestowed their attentions at the same time she was roughlyjostled, being compelled, with quick snaps to either side, to drive bothlovers away and at the same time to maintain her forward leap with thepack and see the way of her feet before her. At such times her runningmates flashed their teeth and growled threateningly across at each other. They might have fought, but even wooing and its rivalry waited upon themore pressing hunger-need of the pack. 

After each repulse, when the old wolf sheered abruptly away from thesharp-toothed object of his desire, he shouldered against a young three-year-old that ran on his blind right side. This young wolf had attainedhis full size; and, considering the weak and famished condition of thepack, he possessed more than the average vigour and spirit. Nevertheless, he ran with his head even with the shoulder of his one-eyed elder. Whenhe ventured to run abreast of the older wolf (which was seldom), a snarland a snap sent him back even with the shoulder again. Sometimes, however, he dropped cautiously and slowly behind and edged in between theold leader and the she-wolf. This was doubly resented, even triplyresented. When she snarled her displeasure, the old leader would whirlon the three-year-old. Sometimes she whirled with him. And sometimesthe young leader on the left whirled, too. 

At such times, confronted by three sets of savage teeth, the young wolfstopped precipitately, throwing himself back on his haunches, with fore-legs stiff, mouth menacing, and mane bristling. This confusion in thefront of the moving pack always caused confusion in the rear. The wolvesbehind collided with the young wolf and expressed their displeasure byadministering sharp nips on his hind-legs and flanks. He was laying uptrouble for himself, for lack of food and short tempers went together;but with the boundless faith of youth he persisted in repeating themanoeuvre every little while, though it never succeeded in gaininganything 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 ofthe pack was desperate. It was lean with long-standing hunger. It ranbelow its ordinary speed. At the rear limped the weak members, the veryyoung and the very old. At the front were the strongest. Yet all weremore like skeletons than full-bodied wolves. Nevertheless, with theexception of the ones that limped, the movements of the animals wereeffortless and tireless. Their stringy muscles seemed founts ofinexhaustible energy. Behind every steel-like contraction of a muscle, lay another steel-like contraction, and another, and another, apparentlywithout end. 

They ran many miles that day. They ran through the night. And the nextday found them still running. They were running over the surface of aworld frozen and dead. No life stirred. They alone moved through thevast inertness. They alone were alive, and they sought for other thingsthat were alive in order that they might devour them and continue tolive. 

They crossed low divides and ranged a dozen small streams in alower-lying country before their quest was rewarded. Then they came uponmoose. It was a big bull they first found. Here was meat and life, andit was guarded by no mysterious fires nor flying missiles of flame. Splayhoofs and palmated antlers they knew, and they flung their customarypatience and caution to the wind. It was a brief fight and fierce. Thebig bull was beset on every side. He ripped them open or split theirskulls with shrewdly driven blows of his great hoofs. He crushed themand broke them on his large horns. He stamped them into the snow underhim in the wallowing struggle. But he was foredoomed, and he went downwith the she-wolf tearing savagely at his throat, and with other teethfixed everywhere upon him, devouring him alive, before ever his laststruggles ceased or his last damage had been wrought. 

There was food in plenty. The bull weighed over eight hundredpounds--fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for the forty-odd wolves ofthe pack. But if they could fast prodigiously, they could feedprodigiously, and soon a few scattered bones were all that remained ofthe splendid live brute that had faced the pack a few hours before. 

There was now much resting and sleeping. With full stomachs, bickeringand quarrelling began among the younger males, and this continued throughthe few days that followed before the breaking-up of the pack. Thefamine was over. The wolves were now in the country of game, and thoughthey still hunted in pack, they hunted more cautiously, cutting out heavycows 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 inhalf and went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader onher left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the packdown to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east. Each day this remnant of the pack dwindled. Two by two, male and female, the wolves were deserting. Occasionally a solitary male was driven outby 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 suitorsall bore the marks of her teeth. Yet they never replied in kind, neverdefended themselves against her. They turned their shoulders to her mostsavage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove toplacate her wrath. But if they were all mildness toward her, they wereall fierceness toward one another. The three-year-old grew too ambitiousin his fierceness. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side andripped his ear into ribbons. Though the grizzled old fellow could seeonly on one side, against the youth and vigour of the other he broughtinto play the wisdom of long years of experience. His lost eye and hisscarred muzzle bore evidence to the nature of his experience. He hadsurvived 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 tellingwhat the outcome would have been, for the third wolf joined the elder, and together, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitiousthree-year-old and proceeded to destroy him. He was beset on either sideby the merciless fangs of his erstwhile comrades. Forgotten were thedays they had hunted together, the game they had pulled down, the faminethey had suffered. That business was a thing of the past. The businessof love was at hand--ever a sterner and crueller business than that offood-getting. 

And in the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat downcontentedly on her haunches and watched. She was even pleased. This washer day--and it came not often--when manes bristled, and fang smote fangor ripped and tore the yielding flesh, all for the possession of her. 

And in the business of love the three-year-old, who had made this hisfirst adventure upon it, yielded up his life. On either side of his bodystood his two rivals. They were gazing at the she-wolf, who sat smilingin the snow. But the elder leader was wise, very wise, in love even asin battle. The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on hisshoulder. The curve of his neck was turned toward his rival. With hisone eye the elder saw the opportunity. He darted in low and closed withhis 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 heleaped clear. 

The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl broke midmost into atickling cough. Bleeding and coughing, already stricken, he sprang atthe elder and fought while life faded from him, his legs going weakbeneath him, the light of day dulling on his eyes, his blows and springsfalling shorter and shorter. 

And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled. She wasmade glad in vague ways by the battle, for this was the love-making ofthe Wild, the sex-tragedy of the natural world that was tragedy only tothose that died. To those that survived it was not tragedy, butrealisation and achievement. 

When the young leader lay in the snow and moved no more, One Eye stalkedover to the she-wolf. His carriage was one of mingled triumph andcaution. He was plainly expectant of a rebuff, and he was just asplainly surprised when her teeth did not flash out at him in anger. Forthe first time she met him with a kindly manner. She sniffed noses withhim, and even condescended to leap about and frisk and play with him inquite puppyish fashion. And he, for all his grey years and sageexperience, behaved quite as puppyishly and even a little more foolishly. 

Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the love-talered-written on the snow. Forgotten, save once, when old One Eye stoppedfor a moment to lick his stiffening wounds. Then it was that his lipshalf writhed into a snarl, and the hair of his neck and shouldersinvoluntarily bristled, while he half crouched for a spring, his clawsspasmodically clutching into the snow-surface for firmer footing. But itwas all forgotten the next moment, as he sprang after the she-wolf, whowas coyly leading him a chase through the woods. 

After that they ran side by side, like good friends who have come to anunderstanding. The days passed by, and they kept together, hunting theirmeat and killing and eating it in common. After a time the she-wolfbegan to grow restless. She seemed to be searching for something thatshe could not find. The hollows under fallen trees seemed to attracther, and she spent much time nosing about among the larger snow-piledcrevices in the rocks and in the caves of overhanging banks. Old One Eyewas not interested at all, but he followed her good-naturedly in herquest, and when her investigations in particular places were unusuallyprotracted, 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 theyregained the Mackenzie River, down which they slowly went, leaving itoften to hunt game along the small streams that entered it, but alwaysreturning to it again. Sometimes they chanced upon other wolves, usuallyin pairs; but there was no friendliness of intercourse displayed oneither side, no gladness at meeting, no desire to return to thepack-formation. Several times they encountered solitary wolves. Thesewere always males, and they were pressingly insistent on joining with OneEye and his mate. This he resented, and when she stood shoulder toshoulder with him, bristling and showing her teeth, the aspiring solitaryones would back off, turn-tail, and continue on their lonely way. 

One moonlight night, running through the quiet forest, One Eye suddenlyhalted. His muzzle went up, his tail stiffened, and his nostrils dilatedas he scented the air. One foot also he held up, after the manner of adog. He was not satisfied, and he continued to smell the air, strivingto understand the message borne upon it to him. One careless sniff hadsatisfied his mate, and she trotted on to reassure him. Though hefollowed her, he was still dubious, and he could not forbear anoccasional halt in order more carefully to study the warning. 

She crept out cautiously on the edge of a large open space in the midstof the trees. For some time she stood alone. Then One Eye, creeping andcrawling, every sense on the alert, every hair radiating infinitesuspicion, joined her. They stood side by side, watching and listeningand smelling. 

To their ears came the sounds of dogs wrangling and scuffling, theguttural cries of men, the sharper voices of scolding women, and once theshrill and plaintive cry of a child. With the exception of the hugebulks of the skin-lodges, little could be seen save the flames of thefire, broken by the movements of intervening bodies, and the smoke risingslowly on the quiet air. But to their nostrils came the myriad smells ofan Indian camp, carrying a story that was largely incomprehensible to OneEye, but every detail of which the she-wolf knew. 

She was strangely stirred, and sniffed and sniffed with an increasingdelight. But old One Eye was doubtful. He betrayed his apprehension, and started tentatively to go. She turned and touched his neck with hermuzzle in a reassuring way, then regarded the camp again. A newwistfulness 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 incloser to that fire, to be squabbling with the dogs, and to be avoidingand dodging the stumbling feet of men. 

One Eye moved impatiently beside her; her unrest came back upon her, andshe knew again her pressing need to find the thing for which shesearched. She turned and trotted back into the forest, to the greatrelief of One Eye, who trotted a little to the fore until they were wellwithin the shelter of the trees. 

As they slid along, noiseless as shadows, in the moonlight, they cameupon a run-way. Both noses went down to the footprints in the snow. These footprints were very fresh. One Eye ran ahead cautiously, his mateat his heels. The broad pads of their feet were spread wide and incontact with the snow were like velvet. One Eye caught sight of a dimmovement of white in the midst of the white. His sliding gait had beendeceptively swift, but it was as nothing to the speed at which he nowran. 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 growthof young spruce. Through the trees the mouth of the alley could be seen, opening out on a moonlit glade. Old One Eye was rapidly overhauling thefleeing 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 wasnever made. High in the air, and straight up, soared the shape of white, now a struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded, executing afantastic dance there above him in the air and never once returning toearth. 

One Eye sprang back with a snort of sudden fright, then shrank down tothe snow and crouched, snarling threats at this thing of fear he did notunderstand. But the she-wolf coolly thrust past him. She poised for amoment, then sprang for the dancing rabbit. She, too, soared high, butnot so high as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily together with ametallic snap. She made another leap, and another. 

Her mate had slowly relaxed from his crouch and was watching her. He nowevinced displeasure at her repeated failures, and himself made a mightyspring upward. His teeth closed upon the rabbit, and he bore it back toearth with him. But at the same time there was a suspicious cracklingmovement beside him, and his astonished eye saw a young spruce saplingbending down above him to strike him. His jaws let go their grip, and heleaped backward to escape this strange danger, his lips drawn back fromhis fangs, his throat snarling, every hair bristling with rage andfright. And in that moment the sapling reared its slender length uprightand the rabbit soared dancing in the air again. 

The she-wolf was angry. She sank her fangs into her mate's shoulder inreproof; and he, frightened, unaware of what constituted this newonslaught, struck back ferociously and in still greater fright, rippingdown the side of the she-wolf's muzzle. For him to resent such reproofwas equally unexpected to her, and she sprang upon him in snarlingindignation. Then he discovered his mistake and tried to placate her. But she proceeded to punish him roundly, until he gave over all attemptsat placation, and whirled in a circle, his head away from her, hisshoulders receiving the punishment of her teeth. 

In the meantime the rabbit danced above them in the air. The she-wolfsat down in the snow, and old One Eye, now more in fear of his mate thanof the mysterious sapling, again sprang for the rabbit. As he sank backwith it between his teeth, he kept his eye on the sapling. As before, itfollowed him back to earth. He crouched down under the impending blow, his hair bristling, but his teeth still keeping tight hold of the rabbit. But the blow did not fall. The sapling remained bent above him. When hemoved it moved, and he growled at it through his clenched jaws; when heremained still, it remained still, and he concluded it was safer tocontinue remaining still. Yet the warm blood of the rabbit tasted goodin his mouth. 

It was his mate who relieved him from the quandary in which he foundhimself. She took the rabbit from him, and while the sapling swayed andteetered threateningly above her she calmly gnawed off the rabbit's head. At once the sapling shot up, and after that gave no more trouble, remaining in the decorous and perpendicular position in which nature hadintended it to grow. Then, between them, the she-wolf and One Eyedevoured the game which the mysterious sapling had caught for them. 

There were other run-ways and alleys where rabbits were hanging in theair, and the wolf-pair prospected them all, the she-wolf leading the way, old One Eye following and observant, learning the method of robbingsnares--a knowledge destined to stand him in good stead in the days tocome. 

CHAPTER II--THE LAIR

For two days the she-wolf and One Eye hung about the Indian camp. He wasworried and apprehensive, yet the camp lured his mate and she was loathto depart. But when, one morning, the air was rent with the report of arifle close at hand, and a bullet smashed against a tree trunk severalinches from One Eye's head, they hesitated no more, but went off on along, 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 tofind the thing for which she searched had now become imperative. She wasgetting very heavy, and could run but slowly. Once, in the pursuit of arabbit, which she ordinarily would have caught with ease, she gave overand lay down and rested. One Eye came to her; but when he touched herneck gently with his muzzle she snapped at him with such quick fiercenessthat he tumbled over backward and cut a ridiculous figure in his effortto escape her teeth. Her temper was now shorter than ever; but he hadbecome more patient than ever and more solicitous. 

And then she found the thing for which she sought. It was a few miles upa small stream that in the summer time flowed into the Mackenzie, butthat then was frozen over and frozen down to its rocky bottom--a deadstream of solid white from source to mouth. The she-wolf was trottingwearily along, her mate well in advance, when she came upon theoverhanging, high clay-bank. She turned aside and trotted over to it. The wear and tear of spring storms and melting snows had underwashed thebank and in one place had made a small cave out of a narrow fissure. 

She paused at the mouth of the cave and looked the wall over carefully. Then, on one side and the other, she ran along the base of the wall towhere its abrupt bulk merged from the softer-lined landscape. Returningto the cave, she entered its narrow mouth. For a short three feet shewas compelled to crouch, then the walls widened and rose higher in alittle round chamber nearly six feet in diameter. The roof barelycleared her head. It was dry and cosey. She inspected it withpainstaking care, while One Eye, who had returned, stood in the entranceand patiently watched her. She dropped her head, with her nose to theground and directed toward a point near to her closely bunched feet, andaround this point she circled several times; then, with a tired sigh thatwas almost a grunt, she curled her body in, relaxed her legs, and droppeddown, her head toward the entrance. One Eye, with pointed, interestedears, laughed at her, and beyond, outlined against the white light, shecould see the brush of his tail waving good-naturedly. Her own ears, with a snuggling movement, laid their sharp points backward and downagainst the head for a moment, while her mouth opened and her tonguelolled peaceably out, and in this way she expressed that she was pleasedand satisfied. 

One Eye was hungry. Though he lay down in the entrance and slept, hissleep was fitful. He kept awaking and cocking his ears at the brightworld without, where the April sun was blazing across the snow. When hedozed, upon his ears would steal the faint whispers of hidden trickles ofrunning water, and he would rouse and listen intently. The sun had comeback, and all the awakening Northland world was calling to him. Life wasstirring. The feel of spring was in the air, the feel of growing lifeunder the snow, of sap ascending in the trees, of buds bursting theshackles 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 fieldof vision. He started to get up, then looked back to his mate again, andsettled down and dozed. A shrill and minute singing stole upon hisheating. 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 alone mosquito. It was a full-grown mosquito, one that had lain frozen ina dry log all winter and that had now been thawed out by the sun. Hecould 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 sheonly snarled at him, and he walked out alone into the bright sunshine tofind the snow-surface soft under foot and the travelling difficult. Hewent up the frozen bed of the stream, where the snow, shaded by thetrees, was yet hard and crystalline. He was gone eight hours, and hecame back through the darkness hungrier than when he had started. He hadfound game, but he had not caught it. He had broken through the meltingsnow crust, and wallowed, while the snowshoe rabbits had skimmed along ontop lightly as ever. 

He paused at the mouth of the cave with a sudden shock of suspicion. Faint, strange sounds came from within. They were sounds not made by hismate, and yet they were remotely familiar. He bellied cautiously insideand was met by a warning snarl from the she-wolf. This he receivedwithout perturbation, though he obeyed it by keeping his distance; but heremained interested in the other sounds--faint, muffled sobbings andslubberings. 

His mate warned him irritably away, and he curled up and slept in theentrance. When morning came and a dim light pervaded the lair, he againsought after the source of the remotely familiar sounds. There was a newnote in his mate's warning snarl. It was a jealous note, and he was verycareful in keeping a respectful distance. Nevertheless, he made out, sheltering between her legs against the length of her body, five strangelittle bundles of life, very feeble, very helpless, making tinywhimpering noises, with eyes that did not open to the light. He wassurprised. It was not the first time in his long and successful lifethat this thing had happened. It had happened many times, yet each timeit was as fresh a surprise as ever to him. 

His mate looked at him anxiously. Every little while she emitted a lowgrowl, and at times, when it seemed to her he approached too near, thegrowl shot up in her throat to a sharp snarl. Of her own experience shehad no memory of the thing happening; but in her instinct, which was theexperience of all the mothers of wolves, there lurked a memory of fathersthat had eaten their new-born and helpless progeny. It manifested itselfas a fear strong within her, that made her prevent One Eye from moreclosely inspecting the cubs he had fathered. 

But there was no danger. Old One Eye was feeling the urge of an impulse, that was, in turn, an instinct that had come down to him from all thefathers of wolves. He did not question it, nor puzzle over it. It wasthere, in the fibre of his being; and it was the most natural thing inthe world that he should obey it by turning his back on his new-bornfamily 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 offamong the mountains at a right angle. Here, leading up the left fork, hecame upon a fresh track. He smelled it and found it so recent that hecrouched swiftly, and looked in the direction in which it disappeared. Then he turned deliberately and took the right fork. The footprint wasmuch larger than the one his own feet made, and he knew that in the wakeof such a trail there was little meat for him. 

Half a mile up the right fork, his quick ears caught the sound of gnawingteeth. He stalked the quarry and found it to be a porcupine, standingupright against a tree and trying his teeth on the bark. One Eyeapproached carefully but hopelessly. He knew the breed, though he hadnever met it so far north before; and never in his long life hadporcupine served him for a meal. But he had long since learned thatthere was such a thing as Chance, or Opportunity, and he continued todraw near. There was never any telling what might happen, for with livethings events were somehow always happening differently. 

The porcupine rolled itself into a ball, radiating long, sharp needles inall directions that defied attack. In his youth One Eye had once sniffedtoo near a similar, apparently inert ball of quills, and had the tailflick out suddenly in his face. One quill he had carried away in hismuzzle, where it had remained for weeks, a rankling flame, until itfinally 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 hewaited, keeping perfectly quiet. There was no telling. Something mighthappen. The porcupine might unroll. There might be opportunity for adeft and ripping thrust of paw into the tender, unguarded belly. 

But at the end of half an hour he arose, growled wrathfully at themotionless ball, and trotted on. He had waited too often and futilely inthe past for porcupines to unroll, to waste any more time. He continuedup the right fork. The day wore along, and nothing rewarded his hunt. 

The urge of his awakened instinct of fatherhood was strong upon him. Hemust find meat. In the afternoon he blundered upon a ptarmigan. He cameout of a thicket and found himself face to face with the slow-wittedbird. It was sitting on a log, not a foot beyond the end of his nose. Each saw the other. The bird made a startled rise, but he struck it withhis paw, and smashed it down to earth, then pounced upon it, and caughtit in his teeth as it scuttled across the snow trying to rise in the airagain. 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, agliding shadow that cautiously prospected each new vista of the trail, hecame upon later imprints of the large tracks he had discovered in theearly morning. As the track led his way, he followed, prepared to meetthe maker of it at every turn of the stream. 

He slid his head around a corner of rock, where began an unusually largebend in the stream, and his quick eyes made out something that sent himcrouching swiftly down. It was the maker of the track, a large femalelynx. She was crouching as he had crouched once that day, in front ofher the tight-rolled ball of quills. If he had been a gliding shadowbefore, he now became the ghost of such a shadow, as he crept and circledaround, and came up well to leeward of the silent, motionless pair. 

He lay down in the snow, depositing the ptarmigan beside him, and witheyes peering through the needles of a low-growing spruce he watched theplay of life before him--the waiting lynx and the waiting porcupine, eachintent on life; and, such was the curiousness of the game, the way oflife for one lay in the eating of the other, and the way of life for theother lay in being not eaten. While old One Eye, the wolf crouching inthe covert, played his part, too, in the game, waiting for some strangefreak of Chance, that might help him on the meat-trail which was his wayof life. 

Half an hour passed, an hour; and nothing happened. The balls of quillsmight have been a stone for all it moved; the lynx might have been frozento marble; and old One Eye might have been dead. Yet all three animalswere keyed to a tenseness of living that was almost painful, and scarcelyever would it come to them to be more alive than they were then in theirseeming petrifaction. 

One Eye moved slightly and peered forth with increased eagerness. Something was happening. The porcupine had at last decided that itsenemy had gone away. Slowly, cautiously, it was unrolling its ball ofimpregnable armour. It was agitated by no tremor of anticipation. Slowly, slowly, the bristling ball straightened out and lengthened. OneEye watching, felt a sudden moistness in his mouth and a drooling ofsaliva, involuntary, excited by the living meat that was spreading itselflike a repast before him. 

Not quite entirely had the porcupine unrolled when it discovered itsenemy. In that instant the lynx struck. The blow was like a flash oflight. The paw, with rigid claws curving like talons, shot under thetender belly and came back with a swift ripping movement. Had theporcupine been entirely unrolled, or had it not discovered its enemy afraction of a second before the blow was struck, the paw would haveescaped unscathed; but a side-flick of the tail sank sharp quills into itas it was withdrawn. 

Everything had happened at once--the blow, the counter-blow, the squealof agony from the porcupine, the big cat's squall of sudden hurt andastonishment. One Eye half arose in his excitement, his ears up, histail straight out and quivering behind him. The lynx's bad temper gotthe best of her. She sprang savagely at the thing that had hurt her. Butthe porcupine, squealing and grunting, with disrupted anatomy tryingfeebly to roll up into its ball-protection, flicked out its tail again, and again the big cat squalled with hurt and astonishment. Then she fellto backing away and sneezing, her nose bristling with quills like amonstrous pin-cushion. She brushed her nose with her paws, trying todislodge the fiery darts, thrust it into the snow, and rubbed it againsttwigs and branches, and all the time leaping about, ahead, sidewise, upand down, in a frenzy of pain and fright. 

She sneezed continually, and her stub of a tail was doing its best towardlashing about by giving quick, violent jerks. She quit her antics, andquieted down for a long minute. One Eye watched. And even he could notrepress a start and an involuntary bristling of hair along his back whenshe suddenly leaped, without warning, straight up in the air, at the sametime emitting a long and most terrible squall. Then she sprang away, upthe trail, squalling with every leap she made. 

It was not until her racket had faded away in the distance and died outthat One Eye ventured forth. He walked as delicately as though all thesnow were carpeted with porcupine quills, erect and ready to pierce thesoft pads of his feet. The porcupine met his approach with a furioussquealing and a clashing of its long teeth. It had managed to roll up ina ball again, but it was not quite the old compact ball; its muscles weretoo much torn for that. It had been ripped almost in half, and was stillbleeding profusely. 

One Eye scooped out mouthfuls of the blood-soaked snow, and chewed andtasted and swallowed. This served as a relish, and his hunger increasedmightily; but he was too old in the world to forget his caution. Hewaited. He lay down and waited, while the porcupine grated its teeth anduttered grunts and sobs and occasional sharp little squeals. In a littlewhile, One Eye noticed that the quills were drooping and that a greatquivering had set up. The quivering came to an end suddenly. There wasa final defiant clash of the long teeth. Then all the quills droopedquite down, and the body relaxed and moved no more. 

With a nervous, shrinking paw, One Eye stretched out the porcupine to itsfull length and turned it over on its back. Nothing had happened. Itwas surely dead. He studied it intently for a moment, then took acareful grip with his teeth and started off down the stream, partlycarrying, partly dragging the porcupine, with head turned to the side soas to avoid stepping on the prickly mass. He recollected something, 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, andthis he did by promptly eating the ptarmigan. Then he returned and tookup his burden. 

When he dragged the result of his day's hunt into the cave, the she-wolfinspected it, turned her muzzle to him, and lightly licked him on theneck. But the next instant she was warning him away from the cubs with asnarl that was less harsh than usual and that was more apologetic thanmenacing. Her instinctive fear of the father of her progeny was toningdown. He was behaving as a wolf-father should, and manifesting no unholydesire to devour the young lives she had brought into the world. 

CHAPTER III--THE GREY CUB

He was different from his brothers and sisters. Their hair alreadybetrayed the reddish hue inherited from their mother, the she-wolf; whilehe alone, in this particular, took after his father. He was the onelittle grey cub of the litter. He had bred true to the straight wolf-stock--in fact, he had bred true to old One Eye himself, physically, withbut a single exception, and that was he had two eyes to his father's one. 

The grey cub's eyes had not been open long, yet already he could see withsteady clearness. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his two sisters verywell. He had begun to romp with them in a feeble, awkward way, and evento squabble, his little throat vibrating with a queer rasping noise (theforerunner of the growl), as he worked himself into a passion. And longbefore his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell toknow his mother--a fount of warmth and liquid food and tenderness. Shepossessed a gentle, caressing tongue that soothed him when it passed overhis soft little body, and that impelled him to snuggle close against herand to doze off to sleep. 

Most of the first month of his life had been passed thus in sleeping; butnow he could see quite well, and he stayed awake for longer periods oftime, and he was coming to learn his world quite well. His world wasgloomy; but he did not know that, for he knew no other world. It was dim-lighted; but his eyes had never had to adjust themselves to any otherlight. 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 neveroppressed by the narrow confines of his existence. 

But he had early discovered that one wall of his world was different fromthe rest. This was the mouth of the cave and the source of light. Hehad discovered that it was different from the other walls long before hehad any thoughts of his own, any conscious volitions. It had been anirresistible attraction before ever his eyes opened and looked upon it. The light from it had beat upon his sealed lids, and the eyes and theoptic nerves had pulsated to little, sparklike flashes, warm-coloured andstrangely pleasing. The life of his body, and of every fibre of hisbody, the life that was the very substance of his body and that was apartfrom his own personal life, had yearned toward this light and urged hisbody toward it in the same way that the cunning chemistry of a planturges it toward the sun. 

Always, in the beginning, before his conscious life dawned, he hadcrawled toward the mouth of the cave. And in this his brothers andsisters were one with him. Never, in that period, did any of them crawltoward the dark corners of the back-wall. The light drew them as if theywere plants; the chemistry of the life that composed them demanded thelight as a necessity of being; and their little puppet-bodies crawledblindly and chemically, like the tendrils of a vine. Later on, when eachdeveloped individuality and became personally conscious of impulsions anddesires, the attraction of the light increased. They were alwayscrawling and sprawling toward it, and being driven back from it by theirmother. 

It was in this way that the grey cub learned other attributes of hismother than the soft, soothing, tongue. In his insistent crawling towardthe light, he discovered in her a nose that with a sharp nudgeadministered rebuke, and later, a paw, that crushed him down and rolledhim 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 therisk of it; and second, when he had incurred the risk, by dodging and byretreating. These were conscious actions, and were the results of hisfirst generalisations upon the world. Before that he had recoiledautomatically from hurt, as he had crawled automatically toward thelight. After that he recoiled from hurt because he _knew_ that it washurt. 

He was a fierce little cub. So were his brothers and sisters. It was tobe expected. He was a carnivorous animal. He came of a breed of meat-killers and meat-eaters. His father and mother lived wholly upon meat. The milk he had sucked with his first flickering life, was milktransformed directly from meat, and now, at a month old, when his eyeshad been open for but a week, he was beginning himself to eat meat--meathalf-digested by the she-wolf and disgorged for the five growing cubsthat already made too great demand upon her breast. 

But he was, further, the fiercest of the litter. He could make a louderrasping growl than any of them. His tiny rages were much more terriblethan theirs. It was he that first learned the trick of rolling a fellow-cub over with a cunning paw-stroke. And it was he that first grippedanother cub by the ear and pulled and tugged and growled through jawstight-clenched. And certainly it was he that caused the mother the mosttrouble in keeping her litter from the mouth of the cave. 

The fascination of the light for the grey cub increased from day to day. He was perpetually departing on yard-long adventures toward the cave'sentrance, and as perpetually being driven back. Only he did not know itfor an entrance. He did not know anything about entrances--passageswhereby one goes from one place to another place. He did not know anyother place, much less of a way to get there. So to him the entrance ofthe cave was a wall--a wall of light. As the sun was to the outsidedweller, this wall was to him the sun of his world. It attracted him asa candle attracts a moth. He was always striving to attain it. The lifethat was so swiftly expanding within him, urged him continually towardthe wall of light. The life that was within him knew that it was the oneway out, the way he was predestined to tread. But he himself did notknow 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 hadalready come to recognise his father as the one other dweller in theworld, a creature like his mother, who slept near the light and was abringer of meat)--his father had a way of walking right into the whitefar wall and disappearing. The grey cub could not understand this. Though never permitted by his mother to approach that wall, he hadapproached the other walls, and encountered hard obstruction on the endof his tender nose. This hurt. And after several such adventures, heleft the walls alone. Without thinking about it, he accepted thisdisappearing into the wall as a peculiarity of his father, as milk andhalf-digested meat were peculiarities of his mother. 

In fact, the grey cub was not given to thinking--at least, to the kind ofthinking customary of men. His brain worked in dim ways. Yet hisconclusions were as sharp and distinct as those achieved by men. He hada method of accepting things, without questioning the why and wherefore. In reality, this was the act of classification. He was never disturbedover 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 acceptedthat he would not disappear into walls. In the same way he accepted thathis father could disappear into walls. But he was not in the leastdisturbed by desire to find out the reason for the difference between hisfather and himself. Logic and physics were no part of his mental make-up. 

Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced famine. There camea time when not only did the meat-supply cease, but the milk no longercame 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 werereduced to a coma of hunger. There were no more spats and squabbles, nomore tiny rages nor attempts at growling; while the adventures toward thefar white wall ceased altogether. The cubs slept, while the life thatwas in them flickered and died down. 

One Eye was desperate. He ranged far and wide, and slept but little inthe lair that had now become cheerless and miserable. The she-wolf, too, left her litter and went out in search of meat. In the first days afterthe birth of the cubs, One Eye had journeyed several times back to theIndian camp and robbed the rabbit snares; but, with the melting of thesnow and the opening of the streams, the Indian camp had moved away, andthat source of supply was closed to him. 

When the grey cub came back to life and again took interest in the farwhite wall, he found that the population of his world had been reduced. Only one sister remained to him. The rest were gone. As he grewstronger, he found himself compelled to play alone, for the sister nolonger lifted her head nor moved about. His little body rounded out withthe meat he now ate; but the food had come too late for her. She sleptcontinuously, a tiny skeleton flung round with skin in which the flameflickered lower and lower and at last went out. 

Then there came a time when the grey cub no longer saw his fatherappearing and disappearing in the wall nor lying down asleep in theentrance. This had happened at the end of a second and less severefamine. The she-wolf knew why One Eye never came back, but there was noway by which she could tell what she had seen to the grey cub. Huntingherself 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, orwhat remained of him, at the end of the trail. There were many signs ofthe battle that had been fought, and of the lynx's withdrawal to her lairafter having won the victory. Before she went away, the she-wolf hadfound this lair, but the signs told her that the lynx was inside, and shehad not dared to venture in. 

After that, the she-wolf in her hunting avoided the left fork. For sheknew that in the lynx's lair was a litter of kittens, and she knew thelynx for a fierce, bad-tempered creature and a terrible fighter. It wasall very well for half a dozen wolves to drive a lynx, spitting andbristling, up a tree; but it was quite a different matter for a lone wolfto encounter a lynx--especially when the lynx was known to have a litterof hungry kittens at her back. 

But the Wild is the Wild, and motherhood is motherhood, at all timesfiercely protective whether in the Wild or out of it; and the time was tocome when the she-wolf, for her grey cub's sake, would venture the leftfork, and the lair in the rocks, and the lynx's wrath. 

CHAPTER IV--THE WALL OF THE WORLD

By the time his mother began leaving the cave on hunting expeditions, thecub had learned well the law that forbade his approaching the entrance. Not only had this law been forcibly and many times impressed on him byhis mother's nose and paw, but in him the instinct of fear wasdeveloping. Never, in his brief cave-life, had he encountered anythingof which to be afraid. Yet fear was in him. It had come down to himfrom a remote ancestry through a thousand thousand lives. It was aheritage he had received directly from One Eye and the she-wolf; but tothem, in turn, it had been passed down through all the generations ofwolves that had gone before. Fear!--that legacy of the Wild which noanimal may escape nor exchange for pottage. 

So the grey cub knew fear, though he knew not the stuff of which fear wasmade. Possibly he accepted it as one of the restrictions of life. Forhe had already learned that there were such restrictions. Hunger he hadknown; and when he could not appease his hunger he had felt restriction. The hard obstruction of the cave-wall, the sharp nudge of his mother'snose, the smashing stroke of her paw, the hunger unappeased of severalfamines, had borne in upon him that all was not freedom in the world, that to life there was limitations and restraints. These limitations andrestraints were laws. To be obedient to them was to escape hurt and makefor happiness. 

He did not reason the question out in this man fashion. He merelyclassified the things that hurt and the things that did not hurt. Andafter such classification he avoided the things that hurt, therestrictions and restraints, in order to enjoy the satisfactions and theremunerations of life. 

Thus it was that in obedience to the law laid down by his mother, and inobedience to the law of that unknown and nameless thing, fear, he keptaway from the mouth of the cave. It remained to him a white wall oflight. When his mother was absent, he slept most of the time, whileduring the intervals that he was awake he kept very quiet, suppressingthe whimpering cries that tickled in his throat and strove for noise. 

Once, lying awake, he heard a strange sound in the white wall. He didnot know that it was a wolverine, standing outside, all a-trembling withits own daring, and cautiously scenting out the contents of the cave. Thecub knew only that the sniff was strange, a something unclassified, therefore unknown and terrible--for the unknown was one of the chiefelements that went into the making of fear. 

The hair bristled upon the grey cub's back, but it bristled silently. Howwas he to know that this thing that sniffed was a thing at which tobristle? It was not born of any knowledge of his, yet it was the visibleexpression of the fear that was in him, and for which, in his own life, there was no accounting. But fear was accompanied by anotherinstinct--that of concealment. The cub was in a frenzy of terror, yet helay without movement or sound, frozen, petrified into immobility, to allappearances dead. His mother, coming home, growled as she smelt thewolverine's track, and bounded into the cave and licked and nozzled himwith undue vehemence of affection. And the cub felt that somehow he hadescaped a great hurt. 

But there were other forces at work in the cub, the greatest of which wasgrowth. Instinct and law demanded of him obedience. But growth demandeddisobedience. His mother and fear impelled him to keep away from thewhite wall. Growth is life, and life is for ever destined to make forlight. So there was no damming up the tide of life that was risingwithin him--rising with every mouthful of meat he swallowed, with everybreath he drew. In the end, one day, fear and obedience were swept awayby the rush of life, and the cub straddled and sprawled toward theentrance. 

Unlike any other wall with which he had had experience, this wall seemedto recede from him as he approached. No hard surface collided with thetender little nose he thrust out tentatively before him. The substanceof 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 beenwall to him and bathed in the substance that composed it. 

It was bewildering. He was sprawling through solidity. And ever thelight grew brighter. Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on. Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of the cave. The wall, insidewhich he had thought himself, as suddenly leaped back before him to animmeasurable distance. The light had become painfully bright. He wasdazzled by it. Likewise he was made dizzy by this abrupt and tremendousextension of space. Automatically, his eyes were adjusting themselves tothe brightness, focusing themselves to meet the increased distance ofobjects. At first, the wall had leaped beyond his vision. He now saw itagain; but it had taken upon itself a remarkable remoteness. Also, itsappearance had changed. It was now a variegated wall, composed of thetrees that fringed the stream, the opposing mountain that towered abovethe trees, and the sky that out-towered the mountain. 

A great fear came upon him. This was more of the terrible unknown. Hecrouched down on the lip of the cave and gazed out on the world. He wasvery much afraid. Because it was unknown, it was hostile to him. Therefore the hair stood up on end along his back and his lips wrinkledweakly in an attempt at a ferocious and intimidating snarl. Out of hispuniness and fright he challenged and menaced the whole wide world. 

Nothing happened. He continued to gaze, and in his interest he forgot tosnarl. Also, he forgot to be afraid. For the time, fear had been routedby growth, while growth had assumed the guise of curiosity. He began tonotice near objects--an open portion of the stream that flashed in thesun, the blasted pine-tree that stood at the base of the slope, and theslope itself, that ran right up to him and ceased two feet beneath thelip of the cave on which he crouched. 

Now the grey cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had neverexperienced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So hestepped boldly out upon the air. His hind-legs still rested on the cave-lip, so he fell forward head downward. The earth struck him a harsh blowon the nose that made him yelp. Then he began rolling down the slope, over and over. He was in a panic of terror. The unknown had caught himat last. It had gripped savagely hold of him and was about to wreak uponhim some terrific hurt. Growth was now routed by fear, and he ki-yi'dlike any frightened puppy. 

The unknown bore him on he knew not to what frightful hurt, and he yelpedand ki-yi'd unceasingly. This was a different proposition from crouchingin frozen fear while the unknown lurked just alongside. Now the unknownhad caught tight hold of him. Silence would do no good. Besides, it wasnot fear, but terror, that convulsed him. 

But the slope grew more gradual, and its base was grass-covered. Herethe cub lost momentum. When at last he came to a stop, he gave one lastagonised yell and then a long, whimpering wail. Also, and quite as amatter of course, as though in his life he had already made a thousandtoilets, he proceeded to lick away the dry clay that soiled him. 

After that he sat up and gazed about him, as might the first man of theearth who landed upon Mars. The cub had broken through the wall of theworld, the unknown had let go its hold of him, and here he was withouthurt. But the first man on Mars would have experienced lessunfamiliarity than did he. Without any antecedent knowledge, without anywarning whatever that such existed, he found himself an explorer in atotally new world. 

Now that the terrible unknown had let go of him, he forgot that theunknown had any terrors. He was aware only of curiosity in all thethings about him. He inspected the grass beneath him, the moss-berryplant just beyond, and the dead trunk of the blasted pine that stood onthe edge of an open space among the trees. A squirrel, running aroundthe 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. Itran up the tree, and from a point of safety chattered back savagely. 

This helped the cub's courage, and though the woodpecker he nextencountered gave him a start, he proceeded confidently on his way. Suchwas 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 onthe end of his nose that made him cower down and ki-yi. The noise hemade was too much for the moose-bird, who sought safety in flight. 

But the cub was learning. His misty little mind had already made anunconscious classification. There were live things and things not alive. Also, he must watch out for the live things. The things not aliveremained always in one place, but the live things moved about, and therewas no telling what they might do. The thing to expect of them was theunexpected, and for this he must be prepared. 

He travelled very clumsily. He ran into sticks and things. A twig thathe thought a long way off, would the next instant hit him on the nose orrake along his ribs. There were inequalities of surface. Sometimes heoverstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped andstubbed his feet. Then there were the pebbles and stones that turnedunder him when he trod upon them; and from them he came to know that thethings not alive were not all in the same state of stable equilibrium aswas his cave--also, that small things not alive were more liable thanlarge things to fall down or turn over. But with every mishap he waslearning. The longer he walked, the better he walked. He was adjustinghimself. He was learning to calculate his own muscular movements, toknow his physical limitations, to measure distances between objects, andbetween objects and himself. 

His was the luck of the beginner. Born to be a hunter of meat (though hedid not know it), he blundered upon meat just outside his own cave-dooron his first foray into the world. It was by sheer blundering that hechanced upon the shrewdly hidden ptarmigan nest. He fell into it. Hehad essayed to walk along the trunk of a fallen pine. The rotten barkgave way under his feet, and with a despairing yelp he pitched down therounded crescent, smashed through the leafage and stalks of a small bush, and in the heart of the bush, on the ground, fetched up in the midst ofseven ptarmigan chicks. 

They made noises, and at first he was frightened at them. Then heperceived that they were very little, and he became bolder. They moved. He placed his paw on one, and its movements were accelerated. This was asource of enjoyment to him. He smelled it. He picked it up in hismouth. It struggled and tickled his tongue. At the same time he wasmade aware of a sensation of hunger. His jaws closed together. Therewas a crunching of fragile bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. Thetaste 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 theptarmigan. Nor did he stop till he had devoured the whole brood. Thenhe licked his chops in quite the same way his mother did, and began tocrawl out of the bush. 

He encountered a feathered whirlwind. He was confused and blinded by therush of it and the beat of angry wings. He hid his head between his pawsand 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 tuggedsturdily. The ptarmigan struggled against him, showering blows upon himwith her free wing. It was his first battle. He was elated. He forgotall about the unknown. He no longer was afraid of anything. He wasfighting, tearing at a live thing that was striking at him. Also, thislive thing was meat. The lust to kill was on him. He had just destroyedlittle live things. He would now destroy a big live thing. He was toobusy and happy to know that he was happy. He was thrilling and exultingin 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. Theptarmigan dragged him out of the bush. When she turned and tried to draghim back into the bush's shelter, he pulled her away from it and on intothe open. And all the time she was making outcry and striking with herfree wing, while feathers were flying like a snow-fall. The pitch towhich he was aroused was tremendous. All the fighting blood of his breedwas up in him and surging through him. This was living, though he didnot know it. He was realising his own meaning in the world; he was doingthat for which he was made--killing meat and battling to kill it. He wasjustifying his existence, than which life can do no greater; for lifeachieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it wasequipped to do. 

After a time, the ptarmigan ceased her struggling. He still held her bythe wing, and they lay on the ground and looked at each other. He triedto growl threateningly, ferociously. She pecked on his nose, which bynow, what of previous adventures was sore. He winced but held on. Shepecked him again and again. From wincing he went to whimpering. Hetried to back away from her, oblivious to the fact that by his hold onher 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 turnedtail and scampered on across the open in inglorious retreat. 

He lay down to rest on the other side of the open, near the edge of thebushes, his tongue lolling out, his chest heaving and panting, his nosestill hurting him and causing him to continue his whimper. But as he laythere, suddenly there came to him a feeling as of something terribleimpending. The unknown with all its terrors rushed upon him, and heshrank back instinctively into the shelter of the bush. As he did so, adraught of air fanned him, and a large, winged body swept ominously andsilently past. A hawk, driving down out of the blue, had barely missedhim. 

While he lay in the bush, recovering from his fright and peeringfearfully out, the mother-ptarmigan on the other side of the open spacefluttered out of the ravaged nest. It was because of her loss that shepaid no attention to the winged bolt of the sky. But the cub saw, and itwas 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 itstalons in the body of the ptarmigan, the ptarmigan's squawk of agony andfright, and the hawk's rush upward into the blue, carrying the ptarmiganaway with it, It was a long time before the cub left its shelter. He had learned much. Live things were meat. They were good to eat. Also, live things whenthey were large enough, could give hurt. It was better to eat small livethings like ptarmigan chicks, and to let alone large live things likeptarmigan hens. Nevertheless he felt a little prick of ambition, asneaking desire to have another battle with that ptarmigan hen--only thehawk had carried her away. May be there were other ptarmigan hens. Hewould go and see. 

He came down a shelving bank to the stream. He had never seen waterbefore. The footing looked good. There were no inequalities of surface. He stepped boldly out on it; and went down, crying with fear, into theembrace of the unknown. It was cold, and he gasped, breathing quickly. The water rushed into his lungs instead of the air that had alwaysaccompanied his act of breathing. The suffocation he experienced waslike the pang of death. To him it signified death. He had no consciousknowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed theinstinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was thevery essence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of theunknown, the one culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that couldhappen to him, about which he knew nothing and about which he fearedeverything. 

He came to the surface, and the sweet air rushed into his open mouth. Hedid not go down again. Quite as though it had been a long-establishedcustom of his he struck out with all his legs and began to swim. Thenear bank was a yard away; but he had come up with his back to it, andthe first thing his eyes rested upon was the opposite bank, toward whichhe immediately began to swim. The stream was a small one, but in thepool it widened out to a score of feet. 

Midway in the passage, the current picked up the cub and swept himdownstream. He was caught in the miniature rapid at the bottom of thepool. Here was little chance for swimming. The quiet water had becomesuddenly angry. Sometimes he was under, sometimes on top. At all timeshe was in violent motion, now being turned over or around, and again, being smashed against a rock. And with every rock he struck, he yelped. His progress was a series of yelps, from which might have been adducedthe number of rocks he encountered. 

Below the rapid was a second pool, and here, captured by the eddy, he wasgently borne to the bank, and as gently deposited on a bed of gravel. Hecrawled frantically clear of the water and lay down. He had learned somemore about the world. Water was not alive. Yet it moved. Also, itlooked as solid as the earth, but was without any solidity at all. Hisconclusion was that things were not always what they appeared to be. Thecub's fear of the unknown was an inherited distrust, and it had now beenstrengthened by experience. Thenceforth, in the nature of things, hewould possess an abiding distrust of appearances. He would have to learnthe reality of a thing before he could put his faith into it. 

One other adventure was destined for him that day. He had recollectedthat there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then therecame to him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the rest of thethings in the world. Not only was his body tired with the adventures ithad undergone, but his little brain was equally tired. In all the dayshe 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 andhelplessness. 

He was sprawling along between some bushes, when he heard a sharpintimidating cry. There was a flash of yellow before his eyes. He saw aweasel leaping swiftly away from him. It was a small live thing, and hehad no fear. Then, before him, at his feet, he saw an extremely smalllive thing, only several 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. Thenext moment the flash of yellow reappeared before his eyes. He heardagain the intimidating cry, and at the same instant received a sharp blowon the side of the neck and felt the sharp teeth of the mother-weasel cutinto his flesh. 

While he yelped and ki-yi'd and scrambled backward, he saw the mother-weasel leap upon her young one and disappear with it into theneighbouring thicket. The cut of her teeth in his neck still hurt, buthis feelings were hurt more grievously, and he sat down and weaklywhimpered. This mother-weasel was so small and so savage. He was yet tolearn that for size and weight the weasel was the most ferocious, vindictive, and terrible of all the killers of the Wild. But a portionof this knowledge was quickly to be his. 

He was still whimpering when the mother-weasel reappeared. She did notrush him, now that her young one was safe. She approached morecautiously, and the cub had full opportunity to observe her lean, snakelike body, and her head, erect, eager, and snake-like itself. Hersharp, menacing cry sent the hair bristling along his back, and hesnarled warningly at her. She came closer and closer. There was a leap, swifter than his unpractised sight, and the lean, yellow body disappearedfor a moment out of the field of his vision. The next moment she was athis throat, her teeth buried in his hair and flesh. 

At first he snarled and tried to fight; but he was very young, and thiswas only his first day in the world, and his snarl became a whimper, hisfight a struggle to escape. The weasel never relaxed her hold. She hungon, striving to press down with her teeth to the great vein where hislife-blood bubbled. The weasel was a drinker of blood, and it was everher preference to drink from the throat of life itself. 

The grey cub would have died, and there would have been no story to writeabout him, had not the she-wolf come bounding through the bushes. Theweasel let go the cub and flashed at the she-wolf's throat, missing, butgetting a hold on the jaw instead. The she-wolf flirted her head likethe snap of a whip, breaking the weasel's hold and flinging it high inthe air. And, still in the air, the she-wolf's jaws closed on the lean, yellow body, and the weasel knew death between the crunching teeth. 

The cub experienced another access of affection on the part of hismother. Her joy at finding him seemed even greater than his joy at beingfound. She nozzled him and caressed him and licked the cuts made in himby the weasel's teeth. Then, between them, mother and cub, they ate theblood-drinker, and after that went back to the cave and slept. 

CHAPTER V--THE LAW OF MEAT

The cub's development was rapid. He rested for two days, and thenventured forth from the cave again. It was on this adventure that hefound the young weasel whose mother he had helped eat, and he saw to itthat the young weasel went the way of its mother. But on this trip hedid not get lost. When he grew tired, he found his way back to the caveand slept. And every day thereafter found him out and ranging a widerarea. 

He began to get accurate measurement of his strength and his weakness, and to know when to be bold and when to be cautious. He found itexpedient to be cautious all the time, except for the rare moments, when, assured of his own intrepidity, he abandoned himself to petty rages andlusts. 

He was always a little demon of fury when he chanced upon a strayptarmigan. Never did he fail to respond savagely to the chatter of thesquirrel he had first met on the blasted pine. While the sight of amoose-bird almost invariably put him into the wildest of rages; for henever forgot the peck on the nose he had received from the first of thatilk he encountered. 

But there were times when even a moose-bird failed to affect him, andthose were times when he felt himself to be in danger from some otherprowling meat hunter. He never forgot the hawk, and its moving shadowalways sent him crouching into the nearest thicket. He no longersprawled and straddled, and already he was developing the gait of hismother, slinking and furtive, apparently without exertion, yet slidingalong 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 sevenptarmigan chicks and the baby weasel represented the sum of his killings. His desire to kill strengthened with the days, and he cherished hungryambitions for the squirrel that chattered so volubly and always informedall wild creatures that the wolf-cub was approaching. But as birds flewin the air, squirrels could climb trees, and the cub could only try tocrawl 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 unafraidof things. It did not occur to him that this fearlessness was foundedupon experience and knowledge. Its effect on him was that of animpression of power. His mother represented power; and as he grew olderhe felt this power in the sharper admonishment of her paw; while thereproving nudge of her nose gave place to the slash of her fangs. Forthis, likewise, he respected his mother. She compelled obedience fromhim, and the older he grew the shorter grew her temper. 

Famine came again, and the cub with clearer consciousness knew once morethe bite of hunger. The she-wolf ran herself thin in the quest for meat. She rarely slept any more in the cave, spending most of her time on themeat-trail, and spending it vainly. This famine was not a long one, butit was severe while it lasted. The cub found no more milk in hismother's breast, nor did he get one mouthful of meat for himself. 

Before, he had hunted in play, for the sheer joyousness of it; now hehunted in deadly earnestness, and found nothing. Yet the failure of itaccelerated his development. He studied the habits of the squirrel withgreater carefulness, and strove with greater craft to steal upon it andsurprise it. He studied the wood-mice and tried to dig them out of theirburrows; and he learned much about the ways of moose-birds andwoodpeckers. And there came a day when the hawk's shadow did not drivehim crouching into the bushes. He had grown stronger and wiser, and moreconfident. Also, he was desperate. So he sat on his haunches, conspicuously in an open space, and challenged the hawk down out of thesky. For he knew that there, floating in the blue above him, was meat, the meat his stomach yearned after so insistently. But the hawk refusedto come down and give battle, and the cub crawled away into a thicket andwhimpered his disappointment and hunger. 

The famine broke. The she-wolf brought home meat. It was 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 elsewhere; though he did not knowthat it was the rest of the lynx litter that had gone to satisfy her. Nordid 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 itwas the most terrible snarl she ever gave. There was reason for it, andnone knew it better than she. A lynx's lair is not despoiled withimpunity. In the full glare of the afternoon light, crouching in theentrance of the cave, the cub saw the lynx-mother. The hair rippled upalong his back at the sight. Here was fear, and it did not require hisinstinct to tell him of it. And if sight alone were not sufficient, thecry of rage the intruder gave, beginning with a snarl and rushingabruptly 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 andsnarled valiantly by his mother's side. But she thrust him ignominiouslyaway and behind her. Because of the low-roofed entrance the lynx couldnot leap in, and when she made a crawling rush of it the she-wolf sprangupon her and pinned her down. The cub saw little of the battle. Therewas a tremendous snarling and spitting and screeching. The two animalsthreshed about, the lynx ripping and tearing with her claws and using herteeth as well, while the she-wolf used her teeth alone. 

Once, the cub sprang in and sank his teeth into the hind leg of the lynx. He clung on, growling savagely. Though he did not know it, by the weightof his body he clogged the action of the leg and thereby saved his mothermuch damage. A change in the battle crushed him under both their bodiesand wrenched loose his hold. The next moment the two mothers separated, and, before they rushed together again, the lynx lashed out at the cubwith a huge fore-paw that ripped his shoulder open to the bone and senthim hurtling sidewise against the wall. Then was added to the uproar thecub's shrill yelp of pain and fright. But the fight lasted so long thathe had time to cry himself out and to experience a second burst ofcourage; and the end of the battle found him again clinging to a hind-legand furiously growling between his teeth. 

The lynx was dead. But the she-wolf was very weak and sick. At firstshe caressed the cub and licked his wounded shoulder; but the blood shehad lost had taken with it her strength, and for all of a day and a nightshe lay by her dead foe's side, without movement, scarcely breathing. Fora week she never left the cave, except for water, and then her movementswere slow and painful. At the end of that time the lynx was devoured, while the she-wolf's wounds had healed sufficiently to permit her to takethe meat-trail again. 

The cub's shoulder was stiff and sore, and for some time he limped fromthe terrible slash he had received. But the world now seemed changed. Hewent about in it with greater confidence, with a feeling of prowess thathad not been his in the days before the battle with the lynx. He hadlooked upon life in a more ferocious aspect; he had fought; he had buriedhis teeth in the flesh of a foe; and he had survived. And because of allthis, he carried himself more boldly, with a touch of defiance that wasnew in him. He was no longer afraid of minor things, and much of histimidity had vanished, though the unknown never ceased to press upon himwith its mysteries and terrors, intangible and ever-menacing. 

He began to accompany his mother on the meat-trail, and he saw much ofthe killing of meat and began to play his part in it. And in his own dimway he learned the law of meat. There were two kinds of life--his ownkind and the other kind. His own kind included his mother and himself. The other kind included all live things that moved. But the other kindwas divided. One portion was what his own kind killed and ate. Thisportion was composed of the non-killers and the small killers. The otherportion killed and ate his own kind, or was killed and eaten by his ownkind. And out of this classification arose the law. The aim of life wasmeat. Life itself was meat. Life lived on life. There were the eatersand the eaten. The law was: EAT OR BE EATEN. He did not formulate thelaw in clear, set terms and moralise about it. He did not even think thelaw; he merely lived the law without thinking about it at all. 

He saw the law operating around him on every side. He had eaten theptarmigan chicks. The hawk had eaten the ptarmigan-mother. The hawkwould also have eaten him. Later, when he had grown more formidable, hewanted to eat the hawk. He had eaten the lynx kitten. The lynx-motherwould have eaten him had she not herself been killed and eaten. And soit went. The law was being lived about him by all live things, and hehimself was part and parcel of the law. He was a killer. His only foodwas meat, live meat, that ran away swiftly before him, or flew into theair, or climbed trees, or hid in the ground, or faced him and fought withhim, or turned the tables and ran after him. 

Had the cub thought in man-fashion, he might have epitomised life as avoracious appetite and the world as a place wherein ranged a multitude ofappetites, pursuing and being pursued, hunting and being hunted, eatingand being eaten, all in blindness and confusion, with violence anddisorder, a chaos of gluttony and slaughter, ruled over by chance, merciless, planless, endless. 

But the cub did not think in man-fashion. He did not look at things withwide vision. He was single-purposed, and entertained but one thought ordesire at a time. Besides the law of meat, there were a myriad other andlesser laws for him to learn and obey. The world was filled withsurprise. 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 thrillsand elations. His rages and battles were pleasures. Terror itself, andthe mystery of the unknown, led to his living. 

And there were easements and satisfactions. To have a full stomach, todoze lazily in the sunshine--such things were remuneration in full forhis ardours and toils, while his ardours and tolls were in themselvesself-remunerative. They were expressions of life, and life is alwayshappy when it is expressing itself. So the cub had no quarrel with hishostile environment. He was very much alive, very happy, and very proudof himself. 

PART III

CHAPTER I--THE MAKERS OF FIRE

The cub came upon it suddenly. It was his own fault. He had beencareless. He had left the cave and run down to the stream to drink. Itmight 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 thenawakened. ) And his carelessness might have been due to the familiarityof the trail to the pool. He had travelled it often, and nothing hadever happened on it. 

He went down past the blasted pine, crossed the open space, and trottedin 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 ofmankind. But at the sight of him the five men did not spring to theirfeet, 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 impelledhim to dash wildly away, had there not suddenly and for the first timearisen in him another and counter instinct. A great awe descended uponhim. He was beaten down to movelessness by an overwhelming sense of hisown weakness and littleness. Here was mastery and power, something farand away beyond him. 

The cub had never seen man, yet the instinct concerning man was his. Indim ways he recognised in man the animal that had fought itself toprimacy over the other animals of the Wild. Not alone out of his owneyes, but out of the eyes of all his ancestors was the cub now lookingupon man--out of eyes that had circled in the darkness around countlesswinter camp-fires, that had peered from safe distances and from thehearts of thickets at the strange, two-legged animal that was lord overliving things. The spell of the cub's heritage was upon him, the fearand the respect born of the centuries of struggle and the accumulatedexperience of the generations. The heritage was too compelling for awolf that was only a cub. Had he been full-grown, he would have runaway. As it was, he cowered down in a paralysis of fear, already halfproffering the submission that his kind had proffered from the first timea 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 atlast, in concrete flesh and blood, bending over him and reaching down toseize hold of him. His hair bristled involuntarily; his lips writhedback and his little fangs were bared. The hand, poised like doom abovehim, hesitated, and the man spoke laughing, "_Wabam wabisca ip pit tah_. "("Look! The white fangs!")

The other Indians laughed loudly, and urged the man on to pick up thecub. As the hand descended closer and closer, there raged within the cuba battle of the instincts. He experienced two great impulsions--to yieldand to fight. The resulting action was a compromise. He did both. Heyielded till the hand almost touched him. Then he fought, his teethflashing in a snap that sank them into the hand. The next moment hereceived a clout alongside the head that knocked him over on his side. Then all fight fled out of him. His puppyhood and the instinct ofsubmission 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 clouton the other side of his head. Whereupon he sat up and ki-yi'd louderthan ever. 

The four Indians laughed more loudly, while even the man who had beenbitten began to laugh. They surrounded the cub and laughed at him, whilehe wailed out his terror and his hurt. In the midst of it, he heardsomething. The Indians heard it too. But the cub knew what it was, andwith a last, long wail that had in it more of triumph than grief, heceased his noise and waited for the coming of his mother, of hisferocious and indomitable mother who fought and killed all things and wasnever afraid. She was snarling as she ran. She had heard the cry of hercub and was dashing to save him. 

She bounded in amongst them, her anxious and militant motherhood makingher anything but a pretty sight. But to the cub the spectacle of herprotective rage was pleasing. He uttered a glad little cry and boundedto meet her, while the man-animals went back hastily several steps. Theshe-wolf stood over against her cub, facing the men, with bristling hair, a snarl rumbling deep in her throat. Her face was distorted andmalignant with menace, even the bridge of the nose wrinkling from tip toeyes so prodigious was her snarl. 

Then it was that a cry went up from one of the men. "Kiche!" was what heuttered. It was an exclamation of surprise. The cub felt his motherwilting at the sound. 

"Kiche!" the man cried again, this time with sharpness and authority. 

And then the cub saw his mother, the she-wolf, the fearless one, crouching down till her belly touched the ground, whimpering, wagging hertail, making peace signs. The cub could not understand. He wasappalled. The awe of man rushed over him again. His instinct had beentrue. His mother verified it. She, too, rendered submission to the man-animals. 

The man who had spoken came over to her. He put his hand upon 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 indicationof danger, the cub decided, as he crouched near his mother stillbristling from time to time but doing his best to submit. 

"It is not strange, " an Indian was saying. "Her father was a wolf. Itis true, her mother was a dog; but did not my brother tie her out in thewoods all of three nights in the mating season? Therefore was the fatherof Kiche a wolf. "

"It is a year, Grey Beaver, since she ran away, " spoke a second Indian. 

"It is not strange, Salmon Tongue, " Grey Beaver answered. "It was thetime of the famine, and there was no meat for the dogs. "

"She has lived with the wolves, " said a third Indian. 

"So it would seem, Three Eagles, " Grey Beaver answered, laying his handon the cub; "and this be the sign of it. "

The cub snarled a little at the touch of the hand, and the hand flew backto administer a clout. Whereupon the cub covered its fangs, and sankdown submissively, while the hand, returning, rubbed behind his ears, andup and down his back. 

"This be the sign of it, " Grey Beaver went on. "It is plain that hismother is Kiche. But this father was a wolf. Wherefore is there in himlittle dog and much wolf. His fangs be white, and White Fang shall behis name. I have spoken. He is my dog. For was not Kiche my brother'sdog? And is not my brother dead?"

The cub, who had thus received a name in the world, lay and watched. Fora time the man-animals continued to make their mouth-noises. Then GreyBeaver took a knife from a sheath that hung around his neck, and wentinto the thicket and cut a stick. White Fang watched him. He notchedthe stick at each end and in the notches fastened strings of raw-hide. One string he tied around the throat of Kiche. Then he led her to asmall pine, around which he tied the other string. 

White Fang followed and lay down beside her. Salmon Tongue's handreached out to him and rolled him over on his back. Kiche looked onanxiously. White Fang felt fear mounting in him again. He could notquite suppress a snarl, but he made no offer to snap. The hand, withfingers crooked and spread apart, rubbed his stomach in a playful way androlled him from side to side. It was ridiculous and ungainly, lyingthere on his back with legs sprawling in the air. Besides, it was aposition of such utter helplessness that White Fang's whole naturerevolted against it. He could do nothing to defend himself. If this man-animal intended harm, White Fang knew that he could not escape it. Howcould he spring away with his four legs in the air above him? Yetsubmission made him master his fear, and he only growled softly. Thisgrowl he could not suppress; nor did the man-animal resent it by givinghim a blow on the head. And furthermore, such was the strangeness of it, White Fang experienced an unaccountable sensation of pleasure as the handrubbed back and forth. When he was rolled on his side he ceased togrowl, when the fingers pressed and prodded at the base of his ears thepleasurable sensation increased; and when, with a final rub and scratch, the man left him alone and went away, all fear had died out of WhiteFang. He was to know fear many times in his dealing with man; yet it wasa token of the fearless companionship with man that was ultimately to behis. 

After a time, White Fang heard strange noises approaching. He was quickin his classification, for he knew them at once for man-animal noises. Afew minutes later the remainder of the tribe, strung out as it was on themarch, trailed in. There were more men and many women and children, forty souls of them, and all heavily burdened with camp equipage andoutfit. Also there were many dogs; and these, with the exception of thepart-grown puppies, were likewise burdened with camp outfit. On theirbacks, in bags that fastened tightly around underneath, the dogs carriedfrom twenty to thirty pounds of weight. 

White Fang had never seen dogs before, but at sight of them he felt thatthey were his own kind, only somehow different. But they displayedlittle difference from the wolf when they discovered the cub and hismother. There was a rush. White Fang bristled and snarled and snappedin the face of the open-mouthed oncoming wave of dogs, and went down andunder them, feeling the sharp slash of teeth in his body, himself bitingand 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 hearthe 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 nowsee the man-animals driving back the dogs with clubs and stones, defending him, saving him from the savage teeth of his kind that somehowwas not his kind. And though there was no reason in his brain for aclear conception of so abstract a thing as justice, nevertheless, in hisown way, he felt the justice of the man-animals, and he knew them forwhat they were--makers of law and executors of law. Also, he appreciatedthe power with which they administered the law. Unlike any animals hehad ever encountered, they did not bite nor claw. They enforced theirlive strength with the power of dead things. Dead things did theirbidding. Thus, sticks and stones, directed by these strange creatures, leaped through the air like living things, inflicting grievous hurts uponthe dogs. 

To his mind this was power unusual, power inconceivable and beyond thenatural, power that was godlike. White Fang, in the very nature of him, could never know anything about gods; at the best he could know onlythings that were beyond knowing--but the wonder and awe that he had ofthese man-animals in ways resembled what would be the wonder and awe ofman at sight of some celestial creature, on a mountain top, hurlingthunderbolts from either hand at an astonished world. 

The last dog had been driven back. The hubbub died down. And White Fanglicked his hurts and meditated upon this, his first taste of pack-crueltyand his introduction to the pack. He had never dreamed that his own kindconsisted of more than One Eye, his mother, and himself. They hadconstituted a kind apart, and here, abruptly, he had discovered many morecreatures apparently of his own kind. And there was a subconsciousresentment that these, his kind, at first sight had pitched upon him andtried to destroy him. In the same way he resented his mother being tiedwith a stick, even though it was done by the superior man-animals. Itsavoured of the trap, of bondage. Yet of the trap and of bondage he knewnothing. Freedom to roam and run and lie down at will, had been hisheritage; and here it was being infringed upon. His mother's movementswere restricted to the length of a stick, and by the length of that samestick was he restricted, for he had not yet got beyond the need of hismother's side. 

He did not like it. Nor did he like it when the man-animals arose andwent on with their march; for a tiny man-animal took the other end of thestick and led Kiche captive behind him, and behind Kiche followed WhiteFang, greatly perturbed and worried by this new adventure he had enteredupon. 

They went down the valley of the stream, far beyond White Fang's widestranging, until they came to the end of the valley, where the stream raninto the Mackenzie River. Here, where canoes were cached on poles highin the air and where stood fish-racks for the drying of fish, camp wasmade; and White Fang looked on with wondering eyes. The superiority ofthese man-animals increased with every moment. There was their masteryover all these sharp-fanged dogs. It breathed of power. But greaterthan that, to the wolf-cub, was their mastery over things not alive;their capacity to communicate motion to unmoving things; their capacityto change the very face of the world. 

It was this last that especially affected him. The elevation of framesof poles caught his eye; yet this in itself was not so remarkable, beingdone by the same creatures that flung sticks and stones to greatdistances. But when the frames of poles were made into tepees by beingcovered with cloth and skins, White Fang was astounded. It was thecolossal bulk of them that impressed him. They arose around him, onevery side, like some monstrous quick-growing form of life. Theyoccupied nearly the whole circumference of his field of vision. He wasafraid of them. They loomed ominously above him; and when the breezestirred them into huge movements, he cowered down in fear, keeping hiseyes warily upon them, and prepared to spring away if they attempted toprecipitate themselves upon him. 

But in a short while his fear of the tepees passed away. He saw thewomen and children passing in and out of them without harm, and he sawthe dogs trying often to get into them, and being driven away with sharpwords and flying stones. After a time, he left Kiche's side and crawledcautiously toward the wall of the nearest tepee. It was the curiosity ofgrowth that urged him on--the necessity of learning and living and doingthat brings experience. The last few inches to the wall of the tepeewere crawled with painful slowness and precaution. The day's events hadprepared him for the unknown to manifest itself in most stupendous andunthinkable ways. At last his nose touched the canvas. He waited. Nothing happened. Then he smelled the strange fabric, saturated with theman-smell. He closed on the canvas with his teeth and gave a gentle tug. Nothing happened, though the adjacent portions of the tepee moved. Hetugged harder. There was a greater movement. It was delightful. Hetugged 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 wastied to a peg in the ground and she could not follow him. A part-grownpuppy, somewhat larger and older than he, came toward him slowly, withostentatious and belligerent importance. The puppy's name, as White Fangwas afterward to hear him called, was Lip-lip. He had had experience inpuppy fights and was already something of a bully. 

Lip-lip was White Fang's own kind, and, being only a puppy, did not seemdangerous; so White Fang prepared to meet him in a friendly spirit. Butwhen the strangers walk became stiff-legged and his lips lifted clear ofhis teeth, White Fang stiffened too, and answered with lifted lips. Theyhalf circled about each other, tentatively, snarling and bristling. Thislasted several minutes, and White Fang was beginning to enjoy it, as asort of game. But suddenly, with remarkable swiftness, Lip-lip leapedin, delivering a slashing snap, and leaped away again. The snap hadtaken effect on the shoulder that had been hurt by the lynx and that wasstill sore deep down near the bone. The surprise and hurt of it broughta yelp out of White Fang; but the next moment, in a rush of anger, he wasupon Lip-lip and snapping viciously. 

But Lip-hp had lived his life in camp and had fought many puppy fights. Three times, four times, and half a dozen times, his sharp little teethscored on the newcomer, until White Fang, yelping shamelessly, fled tothe protection of his mother. It was the first of the many fights he wasto have with Lip-lip, for they were enemies from the start, born so, withnatures destined perpetually to clash. 

Kiche licked White Fang soothingly with her tongue, and tried to prevailupon him to remain with her. But his curiosity was rampant, and severalminutes later he was venturing forth on a new quest. He came upon one ofthe man-animals, Grey Beaver, who was squatting on his hams and doingsomething with sticks and dry moss spread before him on the ground. WhiteFang came near to him and watched. Grey Beaver made mouth-noises whichWhite Fang interpreted as not hostile, so he came still nearer. 

Women and children were carrying more sticks and branches to Grey Beaver. It was evidently an affair of moment. White Fang came in until hetouched Grey Beaver's knee, so curious was he, and already forgetful thatthis was a terrible man-animal. Suddenly he saw a strange thing likemist beginning to arise from the sticks and moss beneath Grey Beaver'shands. Then, amongst the sticks themselves, appeared a live thing, twisting and turning, of a colour like the colour of the sun in the sky. White Fang knew nothing about fire. It drew him as the light, in themouth of the cave had drawn him in his early puppyhood. He crawled theseveral steps toward the flame. He heard Grey 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 paralysed. The unknown, lurking in the midst of thesticks and moss, was savagely clutching him by the nose. He scrambledbackward, bursting out in an astonished explosion of ki-yi's. At thesound, Kiche leaped snarling to the end of her stick, and there ragedterribly because she could not come to his aid. But Grey Beaver laughedloudly, and slapped his thighs, and told the happening to all the rest ofthe camp, till everybody was laughing uproariously. But White Fang saton his haunches and ki-yi'd and ki-yi'd, a forlorn and pitiable littlefigure in the midst of the man-animals. 

It was the worst hurt he had ever known. Both nose and tongue had beenscorched by the live thing, sun-coloured, that had grown up under GreyBeaver's hands. He cried and cried interminably, and every fresh wailwas greeted by bursts of laughter on the part of the man-animals. Hetried to soothe his nose with his tongue, but the tongue was burnt too, and the two hurts coming together produced greater hurt; whereupon hecried more hopelessly and helplessly than ever. 

And then shame came to him. He knew laughter and the meaning of it. Itis not given us to know how some animals know laughter, and know whenthey are being laughed at; but it was this same way that White Fang knewit. And he felt shame that the man-animals should be laughing at him. Heturned and fled away, not from the hurt of the fire, but from thelaughter that sank even deeper, and hurt in the spirit of him. And hefled to Kiche, raging at the end of her stick like an animal gone mad--toKiche, 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'sside. His nose and tongue still hurt, but he was perplexed by a greatertrouble. He was homesick. He felt a vacancy in him, a need for the hushand quietude of the stream and the cave in the cliff. Life had becometoo populous. There were so many of the man-animals, men, women, andchildren, all making noises and irritations. And there were the dogs, ever squabbling and bickering, bursting into uproars and creatingconfusions. The restful loneliness of the only life he had known wasgone. Here the very air was palpitant with life. It hummed and buzzedunceasingly. Continually changing its intensity and abruptly variant inpitch, it impinged on his nerves and senses, made him nervous andrestless and worried him with a perpetual imminence of happening. 

He watched the man-animals coming and going and moving about the camp. Infashion distantly resembling the way men look upon the gods they create, so looked White Fang upon the man-animals before him. They were superiorcreatures, of a verity, gods. To his dim comprehension they were as muchwonder-workers as gods are to men. They were creatures of mastery, possessing all manner of unknown and impossible potencies, overlords ofthe alive and the not alive--making obey that which moved, impartingmovement to that which did not move, and making life, sun-coloured andbiting life, to grow out of dead moss and wood. They were fire-makers!They were gods. 

CHAPTER II--THE BONDAGE

The days were thronged with experience for White Fang. During the timethat Kiche was tied by the stick, he ran about over all the camp, inquiring, investigating, learning. He quickly came to know much of theways of the man-animals, but familiarity did not breed contempt. Themore he came to know them, the more they vindicated their superiority, the more they displayed their mysterious powers, the greater loomed theirgod-likeness. 

To man has been given the grief, often, of seeing his gods overthrown andhis altars crumbling; but to the wolf and the wild dog that have come into crouch at man's feet, this grief has never come. Unlike man, whosegods are of the unseen and the overguessed, vapours and mists of fancyeluding the garmenture of reality, wandering wraiths of desired goodnessand power, intangible out-croppings of self into the realm ofspirit--unlike man, the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to thefire find their gods in the living flesh, solid to the touch, occupyingearth-space and requiring time for the accomplishment of their ends andtheir existence. No effort of faith is necessary to believe in such agod; no effort of will can possibly induce disbelief in such a god. Thereis no getting away from it. There it stands, on its two hind-legs, clubin hand, immensely potential, passionate and wrathful and loving, god andmystery and power all wrapped up and around by flesh that bleeds when itis torn and that is good to eat like any flesh. 

And so it was with White Fang. The man-animals were gods unmistakableand unescapable. As his mother, Kiche, had rendered her allegiance tothem at the first cry of her name, so he was beginning to render hisallegiance. 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, hewent away hurriedly. For behind any wish of theirs was power to enforcethat wish, power that hurt, power that expressed itself in clouts andclubs, in flying stones and stinging lashes of whips. 

He belonged to them as all dogs belonged to them. His actions weretheirs to command. His body was theirs to maul, to stamp upon, totolerate. Such was the lesson that was quickly borne in upon him. Itcame hard, going as it did, counter to much that was strong and dominantin his own nature; and, while he disliked it in the learning of it, unknown to himself he was learning to like it. It was a placing of hisdestiny in another's hands, a shifting of the responsibilities ofexistence. This in itself was compensation, for it is always easier tolean upon another than to stand alone. 

But it did not all happen in a day, this giving over of himself, body andsoul, to the man-animals. He could not immediately forego his wildheritage and his memories of the Wild. There were days when he crept tothe edge of the forest and stood and listened to something calling himfar and away. And always he returned, restless and uncomfortable, towhimper softly and wistfully at Kiche's side and to lick her face witheager, questioning tongue. 

White Fang learned rapidly the ways of the camp. He knew the injusticeand greediness of the older dogs when meat or fish was thrown out to beeaten. He came to know that men were more just, children more cruel, andwomen more kindly and more likely to toss him a bit of meat or bone. Andafter two or three painful adventures with the mothers of part-grownpuppies, he came into the knowledge that it was always good policy to letsuch mothers alone, to keep away from them as far as possible, and toavoid them when he saw them coming. 

But the bane of his life was Lip-lip. Larger, older, and stronger, Lip-lip had selected White Fang for his special object of persecution. WhileFang fought willingly enough, but he was outclassed. His enemy was toobig. Lip-lip became a nightmare to him. Whenever he ventured away fromhis mother, the bully was sure to appear, trailing at his heels, snarlingat 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-lipinvariably won, he enjoyed it hugely. It became his chief delight inlife, as it became White Fang's chief torment. 

But the effect upon White Fang was not to cow him. Though he sufferedmost of the damage and was always defeated, his spirit remainedunsubdued. Yet a bad effect was produced. He became malignant andmorose. His temper had been savage by birth, but it became more savageunder this unending persecution. The genial, playful, puppyish side ofhim found little expression. He never played and gambolled about withthe other puppies of the camp. Lip-lip would not permit it. The momentWhite Fang appeared near them, Lip-lip was upon him, bullying andhectoring 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 andto make him in his comportment older than his age. Denied the outlet, through play, of his energies, he recoiled upon himself and developed hismental processes. He became cunning; he had idle time in which to devotehimself to thoughts of trickery. Prevented from obtaining his share ofmeat and fish when a general feed was given to the camp-dogs, he became aclever thief. He had to forage for himself, and he foraged well, thoughhe was oft-times a plague to the squaws in consequence. He learned tosneak about camp, to be crafty, to know what was going on everywhere, tosee and to hear everything and to reason accordingly, and successfully todevise ways and means of avoiding his implacable persecutor. 

It was early in the days of his persecution that he played his firstreally big crafty game and got there from his first taste of revenge. AsKiche, when with the wolves, had lured out to destruction dogs from thecamps of men, so White Fang, in manner somewhat similar, lured Lip-lipinto Kiche's avenging jaws. Retreating before Lip-lip, White Fang madean indirect flight that led in and out and around the various tepees ofthe camp. He was a good runner, swifter than any puppy of his size, andswifter than Lip-lip. But he did not run his best in this chase. Hebarely held his own, one leap ahead of his pursuer. 

Lip-lip, excited by the chase and by the persistent nearness of hisvictim, forgot caution and locality. When he remembered locality, it wastoo late. Dashing at top speed around a tepee, he ran full tilt intoKiche 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 couldnot get away from her easily. She rolled him off his legs so that hecould not run, while she repeatedly ripped and slashed him with herfangs. 

When at last he succeeded in rolling clear of her, he crawled to hisfeet, badly dishevelled, hurt both in body and in spirit. His hair wasstanding out all over him in tufts where her teeth had mauled. He stoodwhere 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 intoLip-lip's hind leg. There was no fight left in Lip-lip, and he ran awayshamelessly, his victim hot on his heels and worrying him all the wayback 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 afusillade of stones. 

Came the day when Grey Beaver, deciding that the liability of her runningaway was past, released Kiche. White Fang was delighted with hismother's freedom. He accompanied her joyfully about the camp; and, solong as he remained close by her side, Lip-lip kept a respectfuldistance. White-Fang even bristled up to him and walked stiff-legged, but Lip-lip ignored the challenge. He was no fool himself, and whatevervengeance he desired to wreak, he could wait until he caught White Fangalone. 

Later on that day, Kiche and White Fang strayed into the edge of thewoods next to the camp. He had led his mother there, step by step, andnow when she stopped, he tried to inveigle her farther. The stream, thelair, 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. Hewhined pleadingly, and scurried playfully in and out of the underbrush. He ran back to her, licked her face, and ran on again. And still she didnot move. He stopped and regarded her, all of an intentness andeagerness, physically expressed, that slowly faded out of him as sheturned her head and gazed back at the camp. 

There was something calling to him out there in the open. His motherheard it too. But she heard also that other and louder call, the call ofthe fire and of man--the call which has been given alone of all animalsto the wolf to answer, to the wolf and the wild-dog, who are brothers. 

Kiche turned and slowly trotted back toward camp. Stronger than thephysical restraint of the stick was the clutch of the camp upon her. Unseen and occultly, the gods still gripped with their power and wouldnot let her go. White Fang sat down in the shadow of a birch andwhimpered softly. There was a strong smell of pine, and subtle woodfragrances filled the air, reminding him of his old life of freedombefore the days of his bondage. But he was still only a part-grownpuppy, and stronger than the call either of man or of the Wild was thecall of his mother. All the hours of his short life he had depended uponher. The time was yet to come for independence. So he arose and trottedforlornly back to camp, pausing once, and twice, to sit down and whimperand 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 thedominion of man it is sometimes even shorter. Thus it was with WhiteFang. Grey Beaver was in the debt of Three Eagles. Three Eagles wasgoing away on a trip up the Mackenzie to the Great Slave Lake. A stripof scarlet cloth, a bearskin, twenty cartridges, and Kiche, went to paythe debt. White Fang saw his mother taken aboard Three Eagles' canoe, and tried to follow her. A blow from Three Eagles knocked him backwardto the land. The canoe shoved off. He sprang into the water and swamafter it, deaf to the sharp cries of Grey Beaver to return. Even a man-animal, a god, White Fang ignored, such was the terror he was in oflosing his mother. 

But gods are accustomed to being obeyed, and Grey Beaver wrathfullylaunched a canoe in pursuit. When he overtook White Fang, he reacheddown and by the nape of the neck lifted him clear of the water. He didnot deposit him at once in the bottom of the canoe. Holding himsuspended with one hand, with the other hand he proceeded to give him abeating. And it _was_ a beating. His hand was heavy. Every blow wasshrewd to hurt; and he delivered a multitude of blows. 

Impelled by the blows that rained upon him, now from this side, now fromthat, White Fang swung back and forth like an erratic and jerky pendulum. Varying were the emotions that surged through him. At first, he hadknown surprise. Then came a momentary fear, when he yelped several timesto the impact of the hand. But this was quickly followed by anger. Hisfree nature asserted itself, and he showed his teeth and snarledfearlessly in the face of the wrathful god. This but served to make thegod more wrathful. The blows came faster, heavier, more shrewd to hurt. 

Grey Beaver continued to beat, White Fang continued to snarl. But thiscould not last for ever. One or the other must give over, and that onewas White Fang. Fear surged through him again. For the first time hewas being really man-handled. The occasional blows of sticks and stoneshe had previously experienced were as caresses compared with this. Hebroke down and began to cry and yelp. For a time each blow brought ayelp from him; but fear passed into terror, until finally his yelps werevoiced in unbroken succession, unconnected with the rhythm of thepunishment. 

At last Grey Beaver withheld his hand. White Fang, hanging limply, continued to cry. This seemed to satisfy his master, who flung him downroughly in the bottom of the canoe. In the meantime the canoe haddrifted down the stream. Grey Beaver picked up the paddle. White Fangwas in his way. He spurned him savagely with his foot. In that momentWhite Fang's free nature flashed forth again, and he sank his teeth intothe moccasined foot. 

The beating that had gone before was as nothing compared with the beatinghe now received. Grey Beaver's wrath was terrible; likewise was WhiteFang's fright. Not only the hand, but the hard wooden paddle was usedupon him; and he was bruised and sore in all his small body when he wasagain flung down in the canoe. Again, and this time with purpose, didGrey Beaver kick him. White Fang did not repeat his attack on the foot. He had learned another lesson of his bondage. Never, no matter what thecircumstance, must he dare to bite the god who was lord and master overhim; the body of the lord and master was sacred, not to be defiled by theteeth of such as he. That was evidently the crime of crimes, the oneoffence there was no condoning nor overlooking. 

When the canoe touched the shore, White Fang lay whimpering andmotionless, waiting the will of Grey Beaver. It was Grey Beaver's willthat he should go ashore, for ashore he was flung, striking heavily onhis side and hurting his bruises afresh. He crawled tremblingly to hisfeet and stood whimpering. Lip-lip, who had watched the whole proceedingfrom the bank, now rushed upon him, knocking him over and sinking histeeth into him. White Fang was too helpless to defend himself, and itwould have gone hard with him had not Grey Beaver's foot shot out, lifting Lip-lip into the air with its violence so that he smashed down toearth a dozen feet away. This was the man-animal's justice; and eventhen, in his own pitiable plight, White Fang experienced a littlegrateful thrill. At Grey Beaver's heels he limped obediently through thevillage to the tepee. And so it came that White Fang learned that theright to punish was something the gods reserved for themselves and deniedto the lesser creatures under them. 

That night, when all was still, White Fang remembered his mother andsorrowed for her. He sorrowed too loudly and woke up Grey Beaver, whobeat him. After that he mourned gently when the gods were around. Butsometimes, straying off to the edge of the woods by himself, he gave ventto his grief, and cried it out with loud whimperings and wailings. 

It was during this period that he might have harkened to the memories ofthe lair and the stream and run back to the Wild. But the memory of hismother held him. As the hunting man-animals went out and came back, soshe would come back to the village some time. So he remained in hisbondage waiting for her. 

But it was not altogether an unhappy bondage. There was much to interesthim. Something was always happening. There was no end to the strangethings these gods did, and he was always curious to see. Besides, he waslearning how to get along with Grey Beaver. Obedience, rigid, undeviating obedience, was what was exacted of him; and in return heescaped beatings and his existence was tolerated. 

Nay, Grey Beaver himself sometimes tossed him a piece of meat, anddefended him against the other dogs in the eating of it. And such apiece of meat was of value. It was worth more, in some strange way, thena dozen pieces of meat from the hand of a squaw. Grey Beaver neverpetted nor caressed. Perhaps it was the weight of his hand, perhaps hisjustice, perhaps the sheer power of him, and perhaps it was all thesethings that influenced White Fang; for a certain tie of attachment wasforming between him and his surly lord. 

Insidiously, and by remote ways, as well as by the power of stick andstone and clout of hand, were the shackles of White Fang's bondage beingriveted upon him. The qualities in his kind that in the beginning madeit possible for them to come in to the fires of men, were qualitiescapable of development. They were developing in him, and the camp-life, replete with misery as it was, was secretly endearing itself to him allthe time. But White Fang was unaware of it. He knew only grief for theloss of Kiche, hope for her return, and a hungry yearning for the freelife that had been his. 

CHAPTER III--THE OUTCAST

Lip-lip continued so to darken his days that White Fang became wickederand more ferocious than it was his natural right to be. Savageness was apart of his make-up, but the savageness thus developed exceeded his make-up. He acquired a reputation for wickedness amongst the man-animalsthemselves. Wherever there was trouble and uproar in camp, fighting andsquabbling or the outcry of a squaw over a bit of stolen meat, they weresure 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 sawonly 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 hisface, the while he eyed them alert and ready to dodge any quick-flungmissile, that he was a wolf and worthless and bound to come to an evilend. 

He found himself an outcast in the midst of the populous camp. All theyoung dogs followed Lip-lip's lead. There was a difference between WhiteFang and them. Perhaps they sensed his wild-wood breed, andinstinctively felt for him the enmity that the domestic dog feels for thewolf. But be that as it may, they joined with Lip-lip in thepersecution. And, once declared against him, they found good reason tocontinue declared against him. One and all, from time to time, they felthis teeth; and to his credit, he gave more than he received. Many ofthem he could whip in single fight; but single fight was denied him. Thebeginning of such a fight was a signal for all the young dogs in camp tocome running and pitch upon him. 

Out of this pack-persecution he learned two important things: how to takecare of himself in a mass-fight against him--and how, on a single dog, toinflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of time. Tokeep one's feet in the midst of the hostile mass meant life, and this helearnt well. He became cat-like in his ability to stay on his feet. Evengrown dogs might hurtle him backward or sideways with the impact of theirheavy bodies; and backward or sideways he would go, in the air or slidingon the ground, but always with his legs under him and his feet downwardto the mother earth. 

When dogs fight, there are usually preliminaries to the actualcombat--snarlings and bristlings and stiff-legged struttings. But WhiteFang learned to omit these preliminaries. Delay meant the coming againsthim of all the young dogs. He must do his work quickly and get away. Sohe learnt to give no warning of his intention. He rushed in and snappedand slashed on the instant, without notice, before his foe could prepareto 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, itsshoulder slashed open or its ear ripped in ribbons before it knew whatwas happening, was a dog half whipped. 

Furthermore, it was remarkably easy to overthrow a dog taken by surprise;while a dog, thus overthrown, invariably exposed for a moment the softunderside of its neck--the vulnerable point at which to strike for itslife. White Fang knew this point. It was a knowledge bequeathed to himdirectly from the hunting generation of wolves. So it was that WhiteFang's method when he took the offensive, was: first to find a young dogalone; second, to surprise it and knock it off its feet; and third, todrive in with his teeth at the soft throat. 

Being but partly grown his jaws had not yet become large enough norstrong enough to make his throat-attack deadly; but many a young dog wentaround 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 managed, by repeatedly overthrowing him and attacking the throat, tocut the great vein and let out the life. There was a great row thatnight. He had been observed, the news had been carried to the dead dog'smaster, the squaws remembered all the instances of stolen meat, and GreyBeaver was beset by many angry voices. But he resolutely held the doorof his tepee, inside which he had placed the culprit, and refused topermit the vengeance for which his tribespeople clamoured. 

White Fang became hated by man and dog. During this period of hisdevelopment he never knew a moment's security. The tooth of every dogwas against him, the hand of every man. He was greeted with snarls byhis kind, with curses and stones by his gods. He lived tensely. He wasalways keyed up, alert for attack, wary of being attacked, with an eyefor sudden and unexpected missiles, prepared to act precipitately andcoolly, to leap in with a flash of teeth, or to leap away with a menacingsnarl. 

As for snarling he could snarl more terribly than any dog, young or old, in camp. The intent of the snarl is to warn or frighten, and judgment isrequired to know when it should be used. White Fang knew how to make itand when to make it. Into his snarl he incorporated all that wasvicious, malignant, and horrible. With nose serrulated by continuousspasms, hair bristling in recurrent waves, tongue whipping out like a redsnake and whipping back again, ears flattened down, eyes gleaming hatred, lips wrinkled back, and fangs exposed and dripping, he could compel apause on the part of almost any assailant. A temporary pause, when takenoff his guard, gave him the vital moment in which to think and determinehis action. But often a pause so gained lengthened out until it evolvedinto a complete cessation from the attack. And before more than one ofthe grown dogs White Fang's snarl enabled him to beat an honourableretreat. 

An outcast himself from the pack of the part-grown dogs, his sanguinarymethods and remarkable efficiency made the pack pay for its persecutionof him. Not permitted himself to run with the pack, the curious state ofaffairs obtained that no member of the pack could run outside the pack. White Fang would not permit it. What of his bushwhacking and waylayingtactics, the young dogs were afraid to run by themselves. With theexception of Lip-lip, they were compelled to hunch together for mutualprotection against the terrible enemy they had made. A puppy alone bythe river bank meant a puppy dead or a puppy that aroused the camp withits shrill pain and terror as it fled back from the wolf-cub that hadwaylaid it. 

But White Fang's reprisals did not cease, even when the young dogs hadlearned thoroughly that they must stay together. He attacked them whenhe caught them alone, and they attacked him when they were bunched. Thesight of him was sufficient to start them rushing after him, at whichtimes his swiftness usually carried him into safety. But woe the dogthat outran his fellows in such pursuit! White Fang had learned to turnsuddenly upon the pursuer that was ahead of the pack and thoroughly torip him up before the pack could arrive. This occurred with greatfrequency, for, once in full cry, the dogs were prone to forgetthemselves in the excitement of the chase, while White Fang never forgothimself. Stealing backward glances as he ran, he was always ready towhirl around and down the overzealous pursuer that outran his fellows. 

Young dogs are bound to play, and out of the exigencies of the situationthey realised their play in this mimic warfare. Thus it was that thehunt of White Fang became their chief game--a deadly game, withal, and atall times a serious game. He, on the other hand, being thefastest-footed, was unafraid to venture anywhere. During the period thathe waited vainly for his mother to come back, he led the pack many a wildchase through the adjacent woods. But the pack invariably lost him. Itsnoise and outcry warned him of its presence, while he ran alone, velvet-footed, silently, a moving shadow among the trees after the manner of hisfather and mother before him. Further he was more directly connectedwith the Wild than they; and he knew more of its secrets and stratagems. A favourite trick of his was to lose his trail in running water and thenlie quietly in a near-by thicket while their baffled cries arose aroundhim. 

Hated by his kind and by mankind, indomitable, perpetually warred uponand himself waging perpetual war, his development was rapid andone-sided. This was no soil for kindliness and affection to blossom in. Of such things he had not the faintest glimmering. The code he learnedwas to obey the strong and to oppress the weak. Grey Beaver was a god, and strong. Therefore White Fang obeyed him. But the dog younger orsmaller than himself was weak, a thing to be destroyed. His developmentwas in the direction of power. In order to face the constant danger ofhurt and even of destruction, his predatory and protective faculties wereunduly developed. He became quicker of movement than the other dogs, swifter of foot, craftier, deadlier, more lithe, more lean with ironlikemuscle and sinew, more enduring, more cruel, more ferocious, and moreintelligent. He had to become all these things, else he would not haveheld his own nor survive the hostile environment in which he foundhimself. 

CHAPTER IV--THE TRAIL OF THE GODS

In the fall of the year, when the days were shortening and the bite ofthe frost was coming into the air, White Fang got his chance for liberty. For several days there had been a great hubbub in the village. Thesummer camp was being dismantled, and the tribe, bag and baggage, waspreparing to go off to the fall hunting. White Fang watched it all witheager eyes, and when the tepees began to come down and the canoes wereloading 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 hisopportunity to slink out of camp to the woods. Here, in the runningstream where ice was beginning to form, he hid his trail. Then hecrawled into the heart of a dense thicket and waited. The time passedby, and he slept intermittently for hours. Then he was aroused by GreyBeaver's voice calling him by name. There were other voices. White Fangcould hear Grey Beaver's squaw taking part in the search, and Mit-sah, who was Grey Beaver's son. 

White Fang trembled with fear, and though the impulse came to crawl outof his hiding-place, he resisted it. After a time the voices died away, and some time after that he crept out to enjoy the success of hisundertaking. Darkness was coming on, and for a while he played aboutamong the trees, pleasuring in his freedom. Then, and quite suddenly, hebecame aware of loneliness. He sat down to consider, listening to thesilence of the forest and perturbed by it. That nothing moved norsounded, seemed ominous. He felt the lurking of danger, unseen andunguessed. He was suspicious of the looming bulks of the trees and ofthe dark shadows that might conceal all manner of perilous things. 

Then it was cold. Here was no warm side of a tepee against which tosnuggle. The frost was in his feet, and he kept lifting first one fore-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 aboutit. 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 heardthe shrill voices of the women, the gruff basses of the men, and thesnarling of the dogs. He was hungry, and he remembered pieces of meatand fish that had been thrown him. Here was no meat, nothing but athreatening and inedible silence. 

His bondage had softened him. Irresponsibility had weakened him. He hadforgotten how to shift for himself. The night yawned about him. Hissenses, accustomed to the hum and bustle of the camp, used to thecontinuous impact of sights and sounds, were now left idle. There wasnothing to do, nothing to see nor hear. They strained to catch someinterruption of the silence and immobility of nature. They were appalledby inaction and by the feel of something terrible impending. 

He gave a great start of fright. A colossal and formless something wasrushing across the field of his vision. It was a tree-shadow flung bythe moon, from whose face the clouds had been brushed away. Reassured, he whimpered softly; then he suppressed the whimper for fear that itmight attract the attention of the lurking dangers. 

A tree, contracting in the cool of the night, made a loud noise. It wasdirectly above him. He yelped in his fright. A panic seized him, and heran madly toward the village. He knew an overpowering desire for theprotection and companionship of man. In his nostrils was the smell ofthe 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 noshadows nor darknesses. But no village greeted his eyes. He hadforgotten. The village had gone away. 

His wild flight ceased abruptly. There was no place to which to flee. Heslunk forlornly through the deserted camp, smelling the rubbish-heaps andthe discarded rags and tags of the gods. He would have been glad for therattle of stones about him, flung by an angry squaw, glad for the hand ofGrey Beaver descending upon him in wrath; while he would have welcomedwith delight Lip-lip and the whole snarling, cowardly pack. 

He came to where Grey Beaver's tepee had stood. In the centre of thespace it had occupied, he sat down. He pointed his nose at the moon. Histhroat was afflicted by rigid spasms, his mouth opened, and in a heart-broken cry bubbled up his loneliness and fear, his grief for Kiche, allhis past sorrows and miseries as well as his apprehension of sufferingsand dangers to come. It was the long wolf-howl, full-throated andmournful, the first howl he had ever uttered. 

The coming of daylight dispelled his fears but increased his loneliness. The naked earth, which so shortly before had been so populous; thrust hisloneliness more forcibly upon him. It did not take him long to make uphis mind. He plunged into the forest and followed the river bank downthe stream. All day he ran. He did not rest. He seemed made to run onfor ever. His iron-like body ignored fatigue. And even after fatiguecame, his heritage of endurance braced him to endless endeavour andenabled him to drive his complaining body onward. 

Where the river swung in against precipitous bluffs, he climbed the highmountains behind. Rivers and streams that entered the main river heforded or swam. Often he took to the rim-ice that was beginning to form, and more than once he crashed through and struggled for life in the icycurrent. Always he was on the lookout for the trail of the gods where itmight leave the river and proceed inland. 

White Fang was intelligent beyond the average of his kind; yet his mentalvision 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 hishead. Later on, when he had travelled more and grown older and wiser andcome to know more of trails and rivers, it might be that he could graspand apprehend such a possibility. But that mental power was yet in thefuture. Just now he ran blindly, his own bank of the Mackenzie aloneentering into his calculations. 

All night he ran, blundering in the darkness into mishaps and obstaclesthat delayed but did not daunt. By the middle of the second day he hadbeen running continuously for thirty hours, and the iron of his flesh wasgiving out. It was the endurance of his mind that kept him going. Hehad not eaten in forty hours, and he was weak with hunger. The repeateddrenchings in the icy water had likewise had their effect on him. Hishandsome coat was draggled. The broad pads of his feet were bruised andbleeding. He had begun to limp, and this limp increased with the hours. To make it worse, the light of the sky was obscured and snow began tofall--a raw, moist, melting, clinging snow, slippery under foot, that hidfrom him the landscape he traversed, and that covered over theinequalities of the ground so that the way of his feet was more difficultand painful. 

Grey Beaver had intended camping that night on the far bank of theMackenzie, for it was in that direction that the hunting lay. But on thenear bank, shortly before dark, a moose coming down to drink, had beenespied by Kloo-kooch, who was Grey Beaver's squaw. Now, had not themoose come down to drink, had not Mit-sah been steering out of the coursebecause of the snow, had not Kloo-kooch sighted the moose, and had notGrey Beaver killed it with a lucky shot from his rifle, all subsequentthings would have happened differently. Grey Beaver would not havecamped on the near side of the Mackenzie, and White Fang would havepassed by and gone on, either to die or to find his way to his wildbrothers and become one of them--a wolf to the end of his days. 

Night had fallen. The snow was flying more thickly, and White Fang, whimpering softly to himself as he stumbled and limped along, came upon afresh trail in the snow. So fresh was it that he knew it immediately forwhat it was. Whining with eagerness, he followed back from the riverbank and in among the trees. The camp-sounds came to his ears. He sawthe blaze of the fire, Kloo-kooch cooking, and Grey Beaver squatting onhis hams and mumbling a chunk of raw tallow. There was fresh meat incamp!

White Fang expected a beating. He crouched and bristled a little at thethought of it. Then he went forward again. He feared and disliked thebeating he knew to be waiting for him. But he knew, further, that thecomfort of the fire would be his, the protection of the gods, thecompanionship of the dogs--the last, a companionship of enmity, but nonethe less a companionship and satisfying to his gregarious needs. 

He came cringing and crawling into the firelight. Grey Beaver saw him, and stopped munching the tallow. White Fang crawled slowly, cringing andgrovelling in the abjectness of his abasement and submission. He crawledstraight toward Grey Beaver, every inch of his progress becoming slowerand more painful. At last he lay at the master's feet, into whosepossession he now surrendered himself, voluntarily, body and soul. Ofhis own choice, he came in to sit by man's fire and to be ruled by him. White Fang trembled, waiting for the punishment to fall upon him. Therewas a movement of the hand above him. He cringed involuntarily under theexpected blow. It did not fall. He stole a glance upward. Grey Beaverwas breaking the lump of tallow in half! Grey Beaver was offering himone piece of the tallow! Very gently and somewhat suspiciously, he firstsmelled the tallow and then proceeded to eat it. Grey Beaver orderedmeat to be brought to him, and guarded him from the other dogs while heate. After that, grateful and content, White Fang lay at Grey Beaver'sfeet, gazing at the fire that warmed him, blinking and dozing, secure inthe knowledge that the morrow would find him, not wandering forlornthrough bleak forest-stretches, but in the camp of the man-animals, withthe gods to whom he had given himself and upon whom he was now dependent. 

CHAPTER V--THE COVENANT

When December was well along, Grey Beaver went on a journey up theMackenzie. Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch went with him. One sled he drovehimself, drawn by dogs he had traded for or borrowed. A second andsmaller sled was driven by Mit-sah, and to this was harnessed a team ofpuppies. It was more of a toy affair than anything else, yet it was thedelight of Mit-sah, who felt that he was beginning to do a man's work inthe world. Also, he was learning to drive dogs and to train dogs; whilethe puppies themselves were being broken in to the harness. Furthermore, the sled was of some service, for it carried nearly two hundred pounds ofoutfit and food. 

White Fang had seen the camp-dogs toiling in the harness, so that he didnot resent overmuch the first placing of the harness upon himself. Abouthis neck was put a moss-stuffed collar, which was connected by twopulling-traces to a strap that passed around his chest and over his back. It was to this that was fastened the long rope by which he pulled at thesled. 

There were seven puppies in the team. The others had been born earlierin the year and were nine and ten months old, while White Fang was onlyeight months old. Each dog was fastened to the sled by a single rope. Notwo ropes were of the same length, while the difference in length betweenany two ropes was at least that of a dog's body. Every rope was broughtto a ring at the front end of the sled. The sled itself was withoutrunners, being a birch-bark toboggan, with upturned forward end to keepit from ploughing under the snow. This construction enabled the weightof the sled and load to be distributed over the largest snow-surface; forthe snow was crystal-powder and very soft. Observing the same principleof widest distribution of weight, the dogs at the ends of their ropesradiated fan-fashion from the nose of the sled, so that no dog trod inanother's footsteps. 

There was, furthermore, another virtue in the fan-formation. The ropesof varying length prevented the dogs attacking from the rear those thatran in front of them. For a dog to attack another, it would have to turnupon one at a shorter rope. In which case it would find itself face toface with the dog attacked, and also it would find itself facing the whipof the driver. But the most peculiar virtue of all lay in the fact thatthe dog that strove to attack one in front of him must pull the sledfaster, and that the faster the sled travelled, the faster could the dogattacked run away. Thus, the dog behind could never catch up with theone 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, andthus, by cunning indirection, did man increase his mastery over thebeasts. 

Mit-sah resembled his father, much of whose grey wisdom he possessed. Inthe past he had observed Lip-lip's persecution of White Fang; but at thattime Lip-lip was another man's dog, and Mit-sah had never dared more thanto shy an occasional stone at him. But now Lip-lip was his dog, and heproceeded to wreak his vengeance on him by putting him at the end of thelongest rope. This made Lip-lip the leader, and was apparently anhonour! but in reality it took away from him all honour, and instead ofbeing bully and master of the pack, he now found himself hated andpersecuted by the pack. 

Because he ran at the end of the longest rope, the dogs had always theview of him running away before them. All that they saw of him was hisbushy tail and fleeing hind legs--a view far less ferocious andintimidating than his bristling mane and gleaming fangs. Also, dogsbeing so constituted in their mental ways, the sight of him running awaygave desire to run after him and a feeling that he ran away from them. 

The moment the sled started, the team took after Lip-lip in a chase thatextended throughout the day. At first he had been prone to turn upon hispursuers, jealous of his dignity and wrathful; but at such times Mit-sahwould throw the stinging lash of the thirty-foot cariboo-gut whip intohis face and compel him to turn tail and run on. Lip-lip might face thepack, but he could not face that whip, and all that was left him to dowas to keep his long rope taut and his flanks ahead of the teeth of hismates. 

But a still greater cunning lurked in the recesses of the Indian mind. Togive point to unending pursuit of the leader, Mit-sah favoured him overthe other dogs. These favours aroused in them jealousy and hatred. Intheir 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 thethrowing-distance of the whip, while Lip-lip devoured the meat and Mit-sah protected him. And when there was no meat to give, Mit-sah wouldkeep the team at a distance and make believe to give meat to Lip-lip. 

White Fang took kindly to the work. He had travelled a greater distancethan 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 suffered from the pack had made thepack less to him in the scheme of things, and man more. He had notlearned to be dependent on his kind for companionship. Besides, Kichewas well-nigh forgotten; and the chief outlet of expression that remainedto him was in the allegiance he tendered the gods he had accepted asmasters. So he worked hard, learned discipline, and was obedient. Faithfulness and willingness characterised his toil. These are essentialtraits of the wolf and the wild-dog when they have become domesticated, and these traits White Fang possessed in unusual measure. 

A companionship did exist between White Fang and the other dogs, but itwas 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 thema hundred-fold the snaps and slashes they had given him in the days whenLip-lip was leader of the pack. But Lip-lip was no longer leader--exceptwhen he fled away before his mates at the end of his rope, the sledbounding along behind. In camp he kept close to Mit-sah or Grey Beaveror Kloo-kooch. He did not dare venture away from the gods, for now thefangs of all dogs were against him, and he tasted to the dregs thepersecution that had been White Fang's. 

With the overthrow of Lip-lip, White Fang could have become leader of thepack. But he was too morose and solitary for that. He merely thrashedhis team-mates. Otherwise he ignored them. They got out of his way whenhe came along; nor did the boldest of them ever dare to rob him of hismeat. On the contrary, they devoured their own meat hurriedly, for fearthat he would take it away from them. White Fang knew the law well: _tooppress the weak and obey the strong_. He ate his share of meat asrapidly as he could. And then woe the dog that had not yet finished! Asnarl and a flash of fangs, and that dog would wail his indignation tothe uncomforting stars while White Fang finished his portion for him. 

Every little while, however, one dog or another would flame up in revoltand be promptly subdued. Thus White Fang was kept in training. He wasjealous of the isolation in which he kept himself in the midst of thepack, and he fought often to maintain it. But such fights were of briefduration. He was too quick for the others. They were slashed open andbleeding before they knew what had happened, were whipped almost beforethey had begun to fight. 

As rigid as the sled-discipline of the gods, was the disciplinemaintained by White Fang amongst his fellows. He never allowed them anylatitude. He compelled them to an unremitting respect for him. Theymight do as they pleased amongst themselves. That was no concern of his. But it _was_ his concern that they leave him alone in his isolation, getout of his way when he elected to walk among them, and at all timesacknowledge his mastery over them. A hint of stiff-leggedness on theirpart, a lifted lip or a bristle of hair, and he would be upon them, merciless and cruel, swiftly convincing them of the error of their way. 

He was a monstrous tyrant. His mastery was rigid as steel. He oppressedthe weak with a vengeance. Not for nothing had he been exposed to thepitiless struggles for life in the day of his cubhood, when his motherand he, alone and unaided, held their own and survived in the ferociousenvironment of the Wild. And not for nothing had he learned to walksoftly when superior strength went by. He oppressed the weak, but herespected the strong. And in the course of the long journey with GreyBeaver he walked softly indeed amongst the full-grown dogs in the campsof the strange man-animals they encountered. 

The months passed by. Still continued the journey of Grey Beaver. WhiteFang's strength was developed by the long hours on trail and the steadytoil at the sled; and it would have seemed that his mental developmentwas well-nigh complete. He had come to know quite thoroughly the worldin which he lived. His outlook was bleak and materialistic. The worldas he saw it was a fierce and brutal world, a world without warmth, aworld in which caresses and affection and the bright sweetnesses of thespirit did not exist. 

He had no affection for Grey Beaver. True, he was a god, but a mostsavage god. White Fang was glad to acknowledge his lordship, but it wasa lordship based upon superior intelligence and brute strength. Therewas something in the fibre of White Fang's being that made his lordship athing to be desired, else he would not have come back from the Wild whenhe did to tender his allegiance. There were deeps in his nature whichhad never been sounded. A kind word, a caressing touch of the hand, onthe part of Grey Beaver, might have sounded these deeps; but Grey Beaverdid not caress, nor speak kind words. It was not his way. His primacywas savage, and savagely he ruled, administering justice with a club, punishing transgression with the pain of a blow, and rewarding merit, notby kindness, but by withholding a blow. 

So White Fang knew nothing of the heaven a man's hand might contain forhim. Besides, he did not like the hands of the man-animals. He wassuspicious of them. It was true that they sometimes gave meat, but moreoften they gave hurt. Hands were things to keep away from. They hurledstones, wielded sticks and clubs and whips, administered slaps andclouts, and, when they touched him, were cunning to hurt with pinch andtwist and wrench. In strange villages he had encountered the hands ofthe children and learned that they were cruel to hurt. Also, he had oncenearly had an eye poked out by a toddling papoose. From theseexperiences he became suspicious of all children. He could not toleratethem. 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 ofresenting the evil of the hands of the man-animals, he came to modify thelaw that he had learned from Grey Beaver: namely, that the unpardonablecrime was to bite one of the gods. In this village, after the custom ofall dogs in all villages, White Fang went foraging, for food. A boy waschopping frozen moose-meat with an axe, and the chips were flying in thesnow. White Fang, sliding by in quest of meat, stopped and began to eatthe chips. He observed the boy lay down the axe and take up a stoutclub. White Fang sprang clear, just in time to escape the descendingblow. The boy pursued him, and he, a stranger in the village, fledbetween 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 twotepees, and this the boy guarded. Holding his club prepared to strike, he drew in on his cornered quarry. White Fang was furious. He faced theboy, bristling and snarling, his sense of justice outraged. He knew thelaw 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 Fangscarcely knew what happened. He did it in a surge of rage. And he didit so quickly that the boy did not know either. All the boy knew wasthat he had in some unaccountable way been overturned into the snow, andthat 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 haddriven his teeth into the sacred flesh of one of them, and could expectnothing but a most terrible punishment. He fled away to Grey Beaver, behind whose protecting legs he crouched when the bitten boy and theboy's family came, demanding vengeance. But they went away withvengeance unsatisfied. Grey Beaver defended White Fang. So did Mit-sahand Kloo-kooch. White Fang, listening to the wordy war and watching theangry gestures, knew that his act was justified. And so it came that helearned there were gods and gods. There were his gods, and there wereother gods, and between them there was a difference. Justice orinjustice, it was all the same, he must take all things from the hands ofhis own gods. But he was not compelled to take injustice from the othergods. It was his privilege to resent it with his teeth. And this alsowas a law of the gods. 

Before the day was out, White Fang was to learn more about this law. Mit-sah, alone, gathering firewood in the forest, encountered the boy thathad been bitten. With him were other boys. Hot words passed. Then allthe boys attacked Mit-sah. It was going hard with him. Blows wereraining upon him from all sides. White Fang looked on at first. Thiswas an affair of the gods, and no concern of his. Then he realised thatthis was Mit-sah, one of his own particular gods, who was beingmaltreated. It was no reasoned impulse that made White Fang do what hethen did. A mad rush of anger sent him leaping in amongst thecombatants. Five minutes later the landscape was covered with fleeingboys, many of whom dripped blood upon the snow in token that White Fang'steeth had not been idle. When Mit-sah told the story in camp, GreyBeaver ordered meat to be given to White Fang. He ordered much meat tobe given, and White Fang, gorged and sleepy by the fire, knew that thelaw had received its verification. 

It was in line with these experiences that White Fang came to learn thelaw of property and the duty of the defence of property. From theprotection of his god's body to the protection of his god's possessionswas a step, and this step he made. What was his god's was to be defendedagainst all the world--even to the extent of biting other gods. Not onlywas such an act sacrilegious in its nature, but it was fraught withperil. 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 Grey Beaver'sproperty alone. 

One thing, in this connection, White Fang quickly learnt, and that wasthat a thieving god was usually a cowardly god and prone to run away atthe sounding of the alarm. Also, he learned that but brief time elapsedbetween his sounding of the alarm and Grey Beaver coming to his aid. Hecame to know that it was not fear of him that drove the thief away, butfear of Grey Beaver. White Fang did not give the alarm by barking. Henever barked. His method was to drive straight at the intruder, and tosink his teeth in if he could. Because he was morose and solitary, having nothing to do with the other dogs, he was unusually fitted toguard his master's property; and in this he was encouraged and trained byGrey Beaver. One result of this was to make White Fang more ferociousand indomitable, and more solitary. 

The months went by, binding stronger and stronger the covenant betweendog and man. This was the ancient covenant that the first wolf that camein from the Wild entered into with man. And, like all succeeding wolvesand wild dogs that had done likewise, White Fang worked the covenant outfor himself. The terms were simple. For the possession of a flesh-and-blood god, he exchanged his own liberty. Food and fire, protection andcompanionship, were some of the things he received from the god. Inreturn, he guarded the god's property, defended his body, worked for him, and obeyed him. 

The possession of a god implies service. White Fang's was a service ofduty and awe, but not of love. He did not know what love was. He had noexperience of love. Kiche was a remote memory. Besides, not only had heabandoned the Wild and his kind when he gave himself up to man, but theterms of the covenant were such that if ever he met Kiche again he wouldnot desert his god to go with her. His allegiance to man seemed somehowa law of his being greater than the love of liberty, of kind and kin. 

CHAPTER VI--THE FAMINE

The spring of the year was at hand when Grey Beaver finished his longjourney. It was April, and White Fang was a year old when he pulled intothe home villages and was loosed from the harness by Mit-sah. Though along way from his full growth, White Fang, next to Lip-lip, was thelargest yearling in the village. Both from his father, the wolf, andfrom Kiche, he had inherited stature and strength, and already he wasmeasuring up alongside the full-grown dogs. But he had not yet growncompact. His body was slender and rangy, and his strength more stringythan massive, His coat was the true wolf-grey, and to all appearances hewas true wolf himself. The quarter-strain of dog he had inherited fromKiche had left no mark on him physically, though it had played its partin his mental make-up. 

He wandered through the village, recognising with staid satisfaction thevarious gods he had known before the long journey. Then there were thedogs, puppies growing up like himself, and grown dogs that did not lookso 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 acertain 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 butto uncover his fangs to send White Fang cringing and crouching to theright about. From him White Fang had learned much of his owninsignificance; and from him he was now to learn much of the change anddevelopment that had taken place in himself. While Baseek had beengrowing weaker with age, White Fang had been growing stronger with youth. 

It was at the cutting-up of a moose, fresh-killed, that White Fanglearned of the changed relations in which he stood to the dog-world. Hehad got for himself a hoof and part of the shin-bone, to which quite abit of meat was attached. Withdrawn from the immediate scramble of theother dogs--in fact out of sight behind a thicket--he was devouring hisprize, when Baseek rushed in upon him. Before he knew what he was doing, he had slashed the intruder twice and sprung clear. Baseek was surprisedby the other's temerity and swiftness of attack. He stood, gazingstupidly across at White Fang, the raw, red shin-bone between them. 

Baseek was old, and already he had come to know the increasing valour ofthe dogs it had been his wont to bully. Bitter experiences these, which, perforce, he swallowed, calling upon all his wisdom to cope with them. Inthe old days he would have sprung upon White Fang in a fury of righteouswrath. But now his waning powers would not permit such a course. Hebristled fiercely and looked ominously across the shin-bone at WhiteFang. And White Fang, resurrecting quite a deal of the old awe, seemedto wilt and to shrink in upon himself and grow small, as he cast about inhis mind for a way to beat a retreat not too inglorious. 

And right here Baseek erred. Had he contented himself with lookingfierce and ominous, all would have been well. White Fang, on the vergeof retreat, would have retreated, leaving the meat to him. But Baseekdid not wait. He considered the victory already his and stepped forwardto the meat. As he bent his head carelessly to smell it, White Fangbristled slightly. Even then it was not too late for Baseek to retrievethe situation. Had he merely stood over the meat, head up and glowering, White Fang would ultimately have slunk away. But the fresh meat wasstrong 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 overhis own team-mates, it was beyond his self-control to stand idly by whileanother devoured the meat that belonged to him. He struck, after hiscustom, without warning. With the first slash, Baseek's right ear wasripped into ribbons. He was astounded at the suddenness of it. But morethings, and most grievous ones, were happening with equal suddenness. Hewas knocked off his feet. His throat was bitten. While he wasstruggling to his feet the young dog sank teeth twice into his shoulder. The swiftness of it was bewildering. He made a futile rush at WhiteFang, clipping the empty air with an outraged snap. The next moment hisnose was laid open, and he was staggering backward away from the meat. 

The situation was now reversed. White Fang stood over the shin-bone, bristling and menacing, while Baseek stood a little way off, preparing toretreat. He dared not risk a fight with this young lightning-flash, andagain he knew, and more bitterly, the enfeeblement of oncoming age. Hisattempt to maintain his dignity was heroic. Calmly turning his back uponyoung dog and shin-bone, as though both were beneath his notice andunworthy of his consideration, he stalked grandly away. Nor, until wellout of sight, did he stop to lick his bleeding wounds. 

The effect on White Fang was to give him a greater faith in himself, anda greater pride. He walked less softly among the grown dogs; hisattitude toward them was less compromising. Not that he went out of hisway looking for trouble. Far from it. But upon his way he demandedconsideration. He stood upon his right to go his way unmolested and togive trail to no dog. He had to be taken into account, that was all. Hewas no longer to be disregarded 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 meatto them under compulsion. But White Fang, uncompanionable, solitary, morose, scarcely looking to right or left, redoubtable, forbidding ofaspect, remote and alien, was accepted as an equal by his puzzled elders. They quickly learned to leave him alone, neither venturing hostile actsnor making overtures of friendliness. If they left him alone, he leftthem alone--a state of affairs that they found, after a few encounters, to be pre-eminently desirable. 

In midsummer White Fang had an experience. Trotting along in his silentway to investigate a new tepee which had been erected on the edge of thevillage while he was away with the hunters after moose, he came full uponKiche. He paused and looked at her. He remembered her vaguely, but he_remembered_ her, and that was more than could be said for her. Shelifted her lip at him in the old snarl of menace, and his memory becameclear. His forgotten cubhood, all that was associated with that familiarsnarl, rushed back to him. Before he had known the gods, she had been tohim the centre-pin of the universe. The old familiar feelings of thattime came back upon him, surged up within him. He bounded towards herjoyously, and she met him with shrewd fangs that laid his cheek open tothe bone. He did not understand. He backed away, bewildered andpuzzled. 

But it was not Kiche's fault. A wolf-mother was not made to remember hercubs of a year or so before. So she did not remember White Fang. He wasa strange animal, an intruder; and her present litter of puppies gave herthe 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. Hebacked farther away. All the old memories and associations died downagain and passed into the grave from which they had been resurrected. Helooked at Kiche licking her puppy and stopping now and then to snarl athim. She was without value to him. He had learned to get along withouther. Her meaning was forgotten. There was no place for her in hisscheme of things, as there was no place for him in hers. 

He was still standing, stupid and bewildered, the memories forgotten, wondering what it was all about, when Kiche attacked him a third time, intent on driving him away altogether from the vicinity. And White Fangallowed himself to be driven away. This was a female of his kind, and itwas a law of his kind that the males must not fight the females. He didnot know anything about this law, for it was no generalisation of themind, not a something acquired by experience of the world. He knew it asa secret prompting, as an urge of instinct--of the same instinct thatmade him howl at the moon and stars of nights, and that made him feardeath 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 hisheredity and his environment. His heredity was a life-stuff that may belikened to clay. It possessed many possibilities, was capable of beingmoulded into many different forms. Environment served to model the clay, to give it a particular form. Thus, had White Fang never come in to thefires of man, the Wild would have moulded him into a true wolf. But thegods had given him a different environment, and he was moulded into a dogthat was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not a wolf. 

And so, according to the clay of his nature and the pressure of hissurroundings, his character was being moulded into a certain particularshape. There was no escaping it. He was becoming more morose, moreuncompanionable, more solitary, more ferocious; while the dogs werelearning more and more that it was better to be at peace with him than atwar, and Grey Beaver was coming to prize him more greatly with thepassage of each day. 

White Fang, seeming to sum up strength in all his qualities, neverthelesssuffered from one besetting weakness. He could not stand being laughedat. The laughter of men was a hateful thing. They might laugh amongthemselves about anything they pleased except himself, and he did notmind. But the moment laughter was turned upon him he would fly into amost terrible rage. Grave, dignified, sombre, a laugh made him franticto ridiculousness. It so outraged him and upset him that for hours hewould behave like a demon. And woe to the dog that at such times ranfoul of him. He knew the law too well to take it out of Grey Beaver;behind Grey Beaver were a club and godhead. But behind the dogs therewas nothing but space, and into this space they flew when White Fang cameon the scene, made mad by laughter. 

In the third year of his life there came a great famine to the MackenzieIndians. In the summer the fish failed. In the winter the caribooforsook their accustomed track. Moose were scarce, the rabbits almostdisappeared, hunting and preying animals perished. Denied their usualfood-supply, weakened by hunger, they fell upon and devoured one another. Only the strong survived. White Fang's gods were always hunting animals. The old and the weak of them died of hunger. There was wailing in thevillage, where the women and children went without in order that whatlittle they had might go into the bellies of the lean and hollow-eyedhunters who trod the forest in the vain pursuit of meat. 

To such extremity were the gods driven that they ate the soft-tannedleather of their mocassins and mittens, while the dogs ate the harnessesoff their backs and the very whip-lashes. Also, the dogs ate oneanother, and also the gods ate the dogs. The weakest and the moreworthless were eaten first. The dogs that still lived, looked on andunderstood. A few of the boldest and wisest forsook the fires of thegods, 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. Hewas better fitted for the life than the other dogs, for he had thetraining of his cubhood to guide him. Especially adept did he become instalking small living things. He would lie concealed for hours, following every movement of a cautious tree-squirrel, waiting, with apatience as huge as the hunger he suffered from, until the squirrelventured out upon the ground. Even then, White Fang was not premature. He waited until he was sure of striking before the squirrel could gain atree-refuge. Then, and not until then, would he flash from his hiding-place, a grey projectile, incredibly swift, never failing its mark--thefleeing squirrel that fled not fast enough. 

Successful as he was with squirrels, there was one difficulty thatprevented him from living and growing fat on them. There were not enoughsquirrels. So he was driven to hunt still smaller things. So acute didhis hunger become at times that he was not above rooting out wood-micefrom their burrows in the ground. Nor did he scorn to do battle with aweasel as hungry as himself and many times more ferocious. 

In the worst pinches of the famine he stole back to the fires of thegods. But he did not go into the fires. He lurked in the forest, avoiding discovery and robbing the snares at the rare intervals when gamewas caught. He even robbed Grey Beaver's snare of a rabbit at a timewhen Grey Beaver staggered and tottered through the forest, sitting downoften to rest, what of weakness and of shortness of breath. 

One day While Fang encountered a young wolf, gaunt and scrawny, loose-jointed with famine. Had he not been hungry himself, White Fang mighthave gone with him and eventually found his way into the pack amongst hiswild brethren. As it was, he ran the young wolf down and killed and atehim. 

Fortune seemed to favour him. Always, when hardest pressed for food, hefound something to kill. Again, when he was weak, it was his luck thatnone of the larger preying animals chanced upon him. Thus, he was strongfrom the two days' eating a lynx had afforded him when the hungry wolf-pack ran full tilt upon him. It was a long, cruel chase, but he wasbetter nourished than they, and in the end outran them. And not only didhe outrun them, but, circling widely back on his track, he gathered inone of his exhausted pursuers. 

After that he left that part of the country and journeyed over to thevalley wherein he had been born. Here, in the old lair, he encounteredKiche. Up to her old tricks, she, too, had fled the inhospitable firesof 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 thescene, and this one was not destined to live long. Young life had littlechance in such a famine. 

Kiche's greeting of her grown son was anything but affectionate. ButWhite Fang did not mind. He had outgrown his mother. So he turned tailphilosophically and trotted on up the stream. At the forks he took theturning to the left, where he found the lair of the lynx with whom hismother and he had fought long before. Here, in the abandoned lair, hesettled down and rested for a day. 

During the early summer, in the last days of the famine, he met Lip-lip, who had likewise taken to the woods, where he had eked out a miserableexistence. 

White Fang came upon him unexpectedly. Trotting in opposite directionsalong the base of a high bluff, they rounded a corner of rock and foundthemselves face to face. They paused with instant alarm, and looked ateach other suspiciously. 

White Fang was in splendid condition. His hunting had been good, and fora week he had eaten his fill. He was even gorged from his latest kill. But in the moment he looked at Lip-lip his hair rose on end all along hisback. It was an involuntary bristling on his part, the physical statethat in the past had always accompanied the mental state produced in himby Lip-lip's bullying and persecution. As in the past he had bristledand snarled at sight of Lip-lip, so now, and automatically, he bristledand snarled. He did not waste any time. The thing was done thoroughlyand with despatch. Lip-lip essayed to back away, but White Fang struckhim hard, shoulder to shoulder. Lip-lip was overthrown and rolled uponhis back. White Fang's teeth drove into the scrawny throat. There was adeath-struggle, during which White Fang walked around, stiff-legged andobservant. Then he resumed his course and trotted on along the base ofthe bluff. 

One day, not long after, he came to the edge of the forest, where anarrow stretch of open land sloped down to the Mackenzie. He had beenover this ground before, when it was bare, but now a village occupied it. Still hidden amongst the trees, he paused to study the situation. Sightsand sounds and scents were familiar to him. It was the old villagechanged to a new place. But sights and sounds and smells were differentfrom those he had last had when he fled away from it. There was nowhimpering nor wailing. Contented sounds saluted his ear, and when heheard the angry voice of a woman he knew it to be the anger that proceedsfrom a full stomach. And there was a smell in the air of fish. Therewas food. The famine was gone. He came out boldly from the forest andtrotted into camp straight to Grey Beaver's tepee. Grey Beaver was notthere; but Kloo-kooch welcomed him with glad cries and the whole of afresh-caught fish, and he lay down to wait Grey Beaver's coming. 

PART IV

CHAPTER I--THE ENEMY OF HIS KIND

Had there been in White Fang's nature any possibility, no matter howremote, of his ever coming to fraternise with his kind, such possibilitywas irretrievably destroyed when he was made leader of the sled-team. Fornow the dogs hated him--hated him for the extra meat bestowed upon him byMit-sah; hated him for all the real and fancied favours he received;hated him for that he fled always at the head of the team, his wavingbrush of a tail and his perpetually retreating hind-quarters for evermaddening their eyes. 

And White Fang just as bitterly hated them back. Being sled-leader wasanything but gratifying to him. To be compelled to run away before theyelling pack, every dog of which, for three years, he had thrashed andmastered, 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 out. Themoment Mit-sah gave his order for the start, that moment the whole team, with eager, savage cries, sprang forward at White Fang. 

There was no defence for him. If he turned upon them, Mit-sah wouldthrow the stinging lash of the whip into his face. Only remained to himto run away. He could not encounter that howling horde with his tail andhind-quarters. These were scarcely fit weapons with which to meet themany merciless fangs. So run away he did, violating his own nature andpride with every leap he made, and leaping all day long. 

One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having thatnature recoil upon itself. Such a recoil is like that of a hair, made togrow out from the body, turning unnaturally upon the direction of itsgrowth and growing into the body--a rankling, festering thing of hurt. And so with White Fang. Every urge of his being impelled him to springupon the pack that cried at his heels, but it was the will of the godsthat this should not be; and behind the will, to enforce it, was the whipof cariboo-gut with its biting thirty-foot lash. So White Fang couldonly eat his heart in bitterness and develop a hatred and malicecommensurate with the ferocity and indomitability of his nature. 

If ever a creature was the enemy of its kind, White Fang was thatcreature. He asked no quarter, gave none. He was continually marred andscarred by the teeth of the pack, and as continually he left his ownmarks upon the pack. Unlike most leaders, who, when camp was made andthe dogs were unhitched, huddled near to the gods for protection, WhiteFang 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 learnedto get out of his way. But now it was different. Excited by the day-long pursuit of him, swayed subconsciously by the insistent iteration ontheir brains of the sight of him fleeing away, mastered by the feeling ofmastery enjoyed all day, the dogs could not bring themselves to give wayto him. When he appeared amongst them, there was always a squabble. Hisprogress was marked by snarl and snap and growl. The very atmosphere hebreathed was surcharged with hatred and malice, and this but served toincrease the hatred and malice within him. 

When Mit-sah cried out his command for the team to stop, White Fangobeyed. At first this caused trouble for the other dogs. All of themwould spring upon the hated leader only to find the tables turned. Behindhim would be Mit-sah, the great whip singing in his hand. So the dogscame to understand that when the team stopped by order, White Fang was tobe let alone. But when White Fang stopped without orders, then it wasallowed them to spring upon him and destroy him if they could. Afterseveral experiences, White Fang never stopped without orders. He learnedquickly. It was in the nature of things, that he must learn quickly ifhe were to survive the unusually severe conditions under which life wasvouchsafed him. 

But the dogs could never learn the lesson to leave him alone in camp. Each day, pursuing him and crying defiance at him, the lesson of theprevious night was erased, and that night would have to be learned overagain, to be as immediately forgotten. Besides, there was a greaterconsistence in their dislike of him. They sensed between themselves andhim a difference of kind--cause sufficient in itself for hostility. Likehim, they were domesticated wolves. But they had been domesticated forgenerations. Much of the Wild had been lost, so that to them the Wildwas the unknown, the terrible, the ever-menacing and ever warring. Butto him, in appearance and action and impulse, still clung the Wild. Hesymbolised it, was its personification: so that when they showed theirteeth to him they were defending themselves against the powers ofdestruction that lurked in the shadows of the forest and in the darkbeyond the camp-fire. 

But there was one lesson the dogs did learn, and that was to keeptogether. White Fang was too terrible for any of them to face single-handed. They met him with the mass-formation, otherwise he would havekilled them, one by one, in a night. As it was, he never had a chance tokill them. He might roll a dog off its feet, but the pack would be uponhim before he could follow up and deliver the deadly throat-stroke. Atthe first hint of conflict, the whole team drew together and faced him. The dogs had quarrels among themselves, but these were forgotten whentrouble was brewing with White Fang. 

On the other hand, try as they would, they could not kill White Fang. Hewas too quick for them, too formidable, too wise. He avoided tightplaces and always backed out of it when they bade fair to surround him. While, as for getting him off his feet, there was no dog among themcapable of doing the trick. His feet clung to the earth with the sametenacity that he clung to life. For that matter, life and footing weresynonymous in this unending warfare with the pack, and none knew itbetter than White Fang. 

So he became the enemy of his kind, domesticated wolves that they were, softened by the fires of man, weakened in the sheltering shadow of man'sstrength. White Fang was bitter and implacable. The clay of him was somoulded. He declared a vendetta against all dogs. And so terribly didhe live this vendetta that Grey Beaver, fierce savage himself, could notbut marvel at White Fang's ferocity. Never, he swore, had there been thelike of this animal; and the Indians in strange villages swore likewisewhen they considered the tale of his killings amongst their dogs. 

When White Fang was nearly five years old, Grey Beaver took him onanother great journey, and long remembered was the havoc he workedamongst the dogs of the many villages along the Mackenzie, across theRockies, and down the Porcupine to the Yukon. He revelled in thevengeance he wreaked upon his kind. They were ordinary, unsuspectingdogs. They were not prepared for his swiftness and directness, for hisattack without warning. They did not know him for what he was, alightning-flash of slaughter. They bristled up to him, stiff-legged andchallenging, while he, wasting no time on elaborate preliminaries, snapping into action like a steel spring, was at their throats anddestroying them before they knew what was happening and while they wereyet in the throes of surprise. 

He became an adept at fighting. He economised. He never wasted hisstrength, never tussled. He was in too quickly for that, and, if hemissed, was out again too quickly. The dislike of the wolf for closequarters was his to an unusual degree. He could not endure a prolongedcontact 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 wasthe Wild still clinging to him, asserting itself through him. Thisfeeling had been accentuated by the Ishmaelite life he had led from hispuppyhood. 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 ofhim. 

In consequence, the strange dogs he encountered had no chance againsthim. He eluded their fangs. He got them, or got away, himself untouchedin either event. In the natural course of things there were exceptionsto this. There were times when several dogs, pitching on to him, punished him before he could get away; and there were times when a singledog scored deeply on him. But these were accidents. In the main, soefficient a fighter had he become, he went his way unscathed. 

Another advantage he possessed was that of correctly judging time anddistance. Not that he did this consciously, however. He did notcalculate such things. It was all automatic. His eyes saw correctly, and the nerves carried the vision correctly to his brain. The parts ofhim were better adjusted than those of the average dog. They workedtogether more smoothly and steadily. His was a better, far better, nervous, mental, and muscular co-ordination. When his eyes conveyed tohis brain the moving image of an action, his brain without consciouseffort, knew the space that limited that action and the time required forits completion. Thus, he could avoid the leap of another dog, or thedrive of its fangs, and at the same moment could seize the infinitesimalfraction of time in which to deliver his own attack. Body and brain, hiswas 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 wasall. 

It was in the summer that White Fang arrived at Fort Yukon. Grey Beaverhad crossed the great watershed between Mackenzie and the Yukon in thelate winter, and spent the spring in hunting among the western outlyingspurs of the Rockies. Then, after the break-up of the ice on thePorcupine, he had built a canoe and paddled down that stream to where iteffected its junction with the Yukon just under the Artic circle. Herestood the old Hudson's Bay Company fort; and here were many Indians, muchfood, and unprecedented excitement. It was the summer of 1898, andthousands of gold-hunters were going up the Yukon to Dawson and theKlondike. Still hundreds of miles from their goal, nevertheless many ofthem had been on the way for a year, and the least any of them hadtravelled to get that far was five thousand miles, while some had comefrom the other side of the world. 

Here Grey Beaver stopped. A whisper of the gold-rush had reached hisears, and he had come with several bales of furs, and another of gut-sewnmittens and moccasins. He would not have ventured so long a trip had henot expected generous profits. But what he had expected was nothing towhat he realised. His wildest dreams had not exceeded a hundred percent. Profit; he made a thousand per cent. And like a true Indian, hesettled down to trade carefully and slowly, even if it took all summerand the rest of the winter to dispose of his goods. 

It was at Fort Yukon that White Fang saw his first white men. Ascompared with the Indians he had known, they were to him another race ofbeings, a race of superior gods. They impressed him as possessingsuperior power, and it is on power that godhead rests. White Fang didnot reason it out, did not in his mind make the sharp generalisation thatthe white gods were more powerful. It was a feeling, nothing more, andyet none the less potent. As, in his puppyhood, the looming bulks of thetepees, man-reared, had affected him as manifestations of power, so washe affected now by the houses and the huge fort all of massive logs. Herewas power. Those white gods were strong. They possessed greater masteryover matter than the gods he had known, most powerful among which wasGrey Beaver. And yet Grey Beaver was as a child-god among these white-skinned ones. 

To be sure, White Fang only felt these things. He was not conscious ofthem. Yet it is upon feeling, more often than thinking, that animalsact; and every act White Fang now performed was based upon the feelingthat the white men were the superior gods. In the first place he wasvery suspicious of them. There was no telling what unknown terrors weretheirs, what unknown hurts they could administer. He was curious toobserve them, fearful of being noticed by them. For the first few hourshe was content with slinking around and watching them from a safedistance. Then he saw that no harm befell the dogs that were near tothem, and he came in closer. 

In turn he was an object of great curiosity to them. His wolfishappearance caught their eyes at once, and they pointed him out to oneanother. This act of pointing put White Fang on his guard, and when theytried to approach him he showed his teeth and backed away. Not onesucceeded in laying a hand on him, and it was well that they did not. 

White Fang soon learned that very few of these gods--not more than adozen--lived at this place. Every two or three days a steamer (anotherand colossal manifestation of power) came into the bank and stopped forseveral hours. The white men came from off these steamers and went awayon them again. There seemed untold numbers of these white men. In thefirst day or so, he saw more of them than he had seen Indians in all hislife; and as the days went by they continued to come up the river, stop, and then go on up the river out of sight. 

But if the white gods were all-powerful, their dogs did not amount tomuch. This White Fang quickly discovered by mixing with those that cameashore with their masters. They were irregular shapes and sizes. Somewere short-legged--too short; others were long-legged--too long. Theyhad hair instead of fur, and a few had very little hair at that. Andnone of them knew how to fight. 

As an enemy of his kind, it was in White Fang's province to fight withthem. This he did, and he quickly achieved for them a mighty contempt. They were soft and helpless, made much noise, and floundered aroundclumsily trying to accomplish by main strength what he accomplished bydexterity and cunning. They rushed bellowing at him. He sprang to theside. They did not know what had become of him; and in that moment hestruck them on the shoulder, rolling them off their feet and deliveringhis stroke at the throat. 

Sometimes this stroke was successful, and a stricken dog rolled in thedirt, to be pounced upon and torn to pieces by the pack of Indian dogsthat waited. White Fang was wise. He had long since learned that thegods were made angry when their dogs were killed. The white men were noexception to this. So he was content, when he had overthrown and slashedwide the throat of one of their dogs, to drop back and let the pack go inand do the cruel finishing work. It was then that the white men rushedin, 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 wasvery wise. 

But his fellows grew wise in their own way; and in this White Fang grewwise with them. They learned that it was when a steamer first tied tothe bank that they had their fun. After the first two or three strangedogs had been downed and destroyed, the white men hustled their ownanimals back on board and wrecked savage vengeance on the offenders. Onewhite 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 laydead or dying--another manifestation of power that sank deep into WhiteFang's consciousness. 

White Fang enjoyed it all. He did not love his kind, and he was shrewdenough to escape hurt himself. At first, the killing of the white men'sdogs had been a diversion. After a time it became his occupation. Therewas no work for him to do. Grey Beaver was busy trading and gettingwealthy. So White Fang hung around the landing with the disreputablegang of Indian dogs, waiting for steamers. With the arrival of a steamerthe fun began. After a few minutes, by the time the white men had gotover their surprise, the gang scattered. The fun was over until the nextsteamer should arrive. 

But it can scarcely be said that White Fang was a member of the gang. Hedid not mingle with it, but remained aloof, always himself, and was evenfeared by it. It is true, he worked with it. He picked the quarrel withthe strange dog while the gang waited. And when he had overthrown thestrange dog the gang went in to finish it. But it is equally true thathe then withdrew, leaving the gang to receive the punishment of theoutraged gods. 

It did not require much exertion to pick these quarrels. All he had todo, when the strange dogs came ashore, was to show himself. When theysaw him they rushed for him. It was their instinct. He was the Wild--theunknown, the terrible, the ever-menacing, the thing that prowled in thedarkness around the fires of the primeval world when they, cowering closeto the fires, were reshaping their instincts, learning to fear the Wildout of which they had come, and which they had deserted and betrayed. Generation by generation, down all the generations, had this fear of theWild been stamped into their natures. For centuries the Wild had stoodfor terror and destruction. And during all this time free licence hadbeen theirs, from their masters, to kill the things of the Wild. Indoing this they had protected both themselves and the gods whosecompanionship they shared. 

And so, fresh from the soft southern world, these dogs, trotting down thegang-plank and out upon the Yukon shore had but to see White Fang toexperience the irresistible impulse to rush upon him and destroy him. They might be town-reared dogs, but the instinctive fear of the Wild wastheirs just the same. Not alone with their own eyes did they see thewolfish creature in the clear light of day, standing before them. Theysaw him with the eyes of their ancestors, and by their inherited memorythey knew White Fang for the wolf, and they remembered the ancient feud. 

All of which served to make White Fang's days enjoyable. If the sight ofhim drove these strange dogs upon him, so much the better for him, somuch the worse for them. They looked upon him as legitimate prey, and aslegitimate prey he looked upon them. 

Not for nothing had he first seen the light of day in a lonely lair andfought his first fights with the ptarmigan, the weasel, and the lynx. Andnot for nothing had his puppyhood been made bitter by the persecution ofLip-lip and the whole puppy pack. It might have been otherwise, and hewould then have been otherwise. Had Lip-lip not existed, he would havepassed his puppyhood with the other puppies and grown up more doglike andwith more liking for dogs. Had Grey Beaver possessed the plummet ofaffection and love, he might have sounded the deeps of White Fang'snature and brought up to the surface all manner of kindly qualities. Butthese things had not been so. The clay of White Fang had been mouldeduntil he became what he was, morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious, the enemy of all his kind. 

CHAPTER II--THE MAD GOD

A small number of white men lived in Fort Yukon. These men had been longin the country. They called themselves Sour-doughs, and took great pridein so classifying themselves. For other men, new in the land, they feltnothing but disdain. The men who came ashore from the steamers werenewcomers. They were known as _chechaquos_, and they always wilted atthe 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 disdainedthe newcomers and enjoyed seeing them come to grief. Especially did theyenjoy the havoc worked amongst the newcomers' dogs by White Fang and hisdisreputable gang. When a steamer arrived, the men of the fort made it apoint always to come down to the bank and see the fun. They lookedforward to it with as much anticipation as did the Indian dogs, whilethey were not slow to appreciate the savage and crafty part played byWhite Fang. 

But there was one man amongst them who particularly enjoyed the sport. Hewould come running at the first sound of a steamboat's whistle; and whenthe last fight was over and White Fang and the pack had scattered, hewould return slowly to the fort, his face heavy with regret. Sometimes, when a soft southland dog went down, shrieking its death-cry under thefangs of the pack, this man would be unable to contain himself, and wouldleap into the air and cry out with delight. And always he had a sharpand covetous eye for White Fang. 

This man was called "Beauty" by the other men of the fort. No one knewhis first name, and in general he was known in the country as BeautySmith. But he was anything save a beauty. To antithesis was due hisnaming. He was pre-eminently unbeautiful. Nature had been niggardlywith him. He was a small man to begin with; and upon his meagre framewas deposited an even more strikingly meagre head. Its apex might belikened to a point. In fact, in his boyhood, before he had been namedBeauty by his fellows, he had been called "Pinhead. "

Backward, from the apex, his head slanted down to his neck and forward itslanted uncompromisingly to meet a low and remarkably wide forehead. Beginning here, as though regretting her parsimony, Nature had spread hisfeatures with a lavish hand. His eyes were large, and between them wasthe distance of two eyes. His face, in relation to the rest of him, wasprodigious. In order to discover the necessary area, Nature had givenhim an enormous prognathous jaw. It was wide and heavy, and protrudedoutward and down until it seemed to rest on his chest. Possibly thisappearance was due to the weariness of the slender neck, unable properlyto support so great a burden. 

This jaw gave the impression of ferocious determination. But somethinglacked. Perhaps it was from excess. Perhaps the jaw was too large. Atany rate, it was a lie. Beauty Smith was known far and wide as theweakest of weak-kneed and snivelling cowards. To complete hisdescription, his teeth were large and yellow, while the two eye-teeth, larger than their fellows, showed under his lean lips like fangs. Hiseyes were yellow and muddy, as though Nature had run short on pigmentsand squeezed together the dregs of all her tubes. It was the same withhis hair, sparse and irregular of growth, muddy-yellow and dirty-yellow, rising on his head and sprouting out of his face in unexpected tufts andbunches, in appearance like clumped and wind-blown grain. 

In short, Beauty Smith was a monstrosity, and the blame of it layelsewhere. He was not responsible. The clay of him had been so mouldedin the making. He did the cooking for the other men in the fort, thedish-washing and the drudgery. They did not despise him. Rather didthey tolerate him in a broad human way, as one tolerates any creatureevilly treated in the making. Also, they feared him. His cowardly ragesmade them dread a shot in the back or poison in their coffee. Butsomebody 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 ferociousprowess, and desired to possess him. He made overtures to White Fangfrom the first. White Fang began by ignoring him. Later on, when theovertures became more insistent, White Fang bristled and bared his teethand backed away. He did not like the man. The feel of him was bad. Hesensed the evil in him, and feared the extended hand and the attempts atsoft-spoken speech. Because of all this, he hated the man. 

With the simpler creatures, good and bad are things simply understood. The good stands for all things that bring easement and satisfaction andsurcease from pain. Therefore, the good is liked. The bad stands forall things that are fraught with discomfort, menace, and hurt, and ishated accordingly. White Fang's feel of Beauty Smith was bad. From theman's distorted body and twisted mind, in occult ways, like mists risingfrom malarial marshes, came emanations of the unhealth within. Not byreasoning, not by the five senses alone, but by other and remoter anduncharted senses, came the feeling to White Fang that the man was ominouswith evil, pregnant with hurtfulness, and therefore a thing bad, andwisely to be hated. 

White Fang was in Grey Beaver's camp when Beauty Smith first visited it. At the faint sound of his distant feet, before he came in sight, WhiteFang knew who was coming and began to bristle. He had been lying down inan abandon of comfort, but he arose quickly, and, as the man arrived, slid away in true wolf-fashion to the edge of the camp. He did not knowwhat they said, but he could see the man and Grey Beaver talkingtogether. Once, the man pointed at him, and White Fang snarled back asthough the hand were just descending upon him instead of being, as itwas, fifty feet away. The man laughed at this; and White Fang slunk awayto the sheltering woods, his head turned to observe as he glided softlyover the ground. 

Grey Beaver refused to sell the dog. He had grown rich with his tradingand stood in need of nothing. Besides, White Fang was a valuable animal, the strongest sled-dog he had ever owned, and the best leader. Furthermore, there was no dog like him on the Mackenzie nor the Yukon. Hecould fight. He killed other dogs as easily as men killed mosquitoes. (Beauty Smith's eyes lighted up at this, and he licked his thin lips withan eager tongue). No, White Fang was not for sale at any price. 

But Beauty Smith knew the ways of Indians. He visited Grey Beaver's campoften, and hidden under his coat was always a black bottle or so. One ofthe potencies of whisky is the breeding of thirst. Grey Beaver got thethirst. His fevered membranes and burnt stomach began to clamour formore and more of the scorching fluid; while his brain, thrust all awry bythe unwonted stimulant, permitted him to go any length to obtain it. Themoney he had received for his furs and mittens and moccasins began to go. It went faster and faster, and the shorter his money-sack grew, theshorter grew his temper. 

In the end his money and goods and temper were all gone. Nothingremained to him but his thirst, a prodigious possession in itself thatgrew more prodigious with every sober breath he drew. Then it was thatBeauty Smith had talk with him again about the sale of White Fang; butthis time the price offered was in bottles, not dollars, and GreyBeaver'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. "You ketch um dog, " wereBeauty Smith's words to Grey Beaver. 

White Fang slunk into camp one evening and dropped down with a sigh ofcontent. The dreaded white god was not there. For days hismanifestations of desire to lay hands on him had been growing moreinsistent, and during that time White Fang had been compelled to avoidthe camp. He did not know what evil was threatened by those insistenthands. He knew only that they did threaten evil of some sort, and thatit was best for him to keep out of their reach. 

But scarcely had he lain down when Grey Beaver staggered over to him andtied 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 abottle, which, from time to time, was inverted above his head to theaccompaniment of gurgling noises. 

An hour of this passed, when the vibrations of feet in contact with theground foreran the one who approached. White Fang heard it first, and hewas bristling with recognition while Grey Beaver still nodded stupidly. White Fang tried to draw the thong softly out of his master's hand; butthe relaxed fingers closed tightly and Grey Beaver roused himself. 

Beauty Smith strode into camp and stood over White Fang. He snarledsoftly up at the thing of fear, watching keenly the deportment of thehands. One hand extended outward and began to descend upon his head. Hissoft snarl grew tense and harsh. The hand continued slowly to descend, while he crouched beneath it, eyeing it malignantly, his snarl growingshorter and shorter as, with quickening breath, it approached itsculmination. Suddenly he snapped, striking with his fangs like a snake. The hand was jerked back, and the teeth came together emptily with asharp click. Beauty Smith was frightened and angry. Grey Beaver cloutedWhite Fang alongside the head, so that he cowered down close to the earthin respectful obedience. 

White Fang's suspicious eyes followed every movement. He saw BeautySmith go away and return with a stout club. Then the end of the thongwas given over to him by Grey Beaver. Beauty Smith started to walk away. The thong grew taut. White Fang resisted it. Grey Beaver clouted himright and left to make him get up and follow. He obeyed, but with arush, hurling himself upon the stranger who was dragging him away. BeautySmith did not jump away. He had been waiting for this. He swung theclub smartly, stopping the rush midway and smashing White Fang down uponthe ground. Grey Beaver laughed and nodded approval. Beauty Smithtightened the thong again, and White Fang crawled limply and dizzily tohis feet. 

He did not rush a second time. One smash from the club was sufficient toconvince him that the white god knew how to handle it, and he was toowise to fight the inevitable. So he followed morosely at Beauty Smith'sheels, his tail between his legs, yet snarling softly under his breath. But Beauty Smith kept a wary eye on him, and the club was held alwaysready to strike. 

At the fort Beauty Smith left him securely tied and went in to bed. WhiteFang waited an hour. Then he applied his teeth to the thong, and in thespace of ten seconds was free. He had wasted no time with his teeth. There had been no useless gnawing. The thong was cut across, diagonally, almost as clean as though done by a knife. White Fang looked up at thefort, at the same time bristling and growling. Then he turned andtrotted back to Grey Beaver's camp. He owed no allegiance to thisstrange and terrible god. He had given himself to Grey Beaver, and toGrey Beaver he considered he still belonged. 

But what had occurred before was repeated--with a difference. GreyBeaver again made him fast with a thong, and in the morning turned himover to Beauty Smith. And here was where the difference came in. BeautySmith gave him a beating. Tied securely, White Fang could only ragefutilely and endure the punishment. Club and whip were both used uponhim, and he experienced the worst beating he had ever received in hislife. Even the big beating given him in his puppyhood by Grey Beaver wasmild compared with this. 

Beauty Smith enjoyed the task. He delighted in it. He gloated over hisvictim, and his eyes flamed dully, as he swung the whip or club andlistened to White Fang's cries of pain and to his helpless bellows andsnarls. For Beauty Smith was cruel in the way that cowards are cruel. Cringing and snivelling himself before the blows or angry speech of aman, he revenged himself, in turn, upon creatures weaker than he. Alllife likes power, and Beauty Smith was no exception. Denied theexpression of power amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lessercreatures and there vindicated the life that was in him. But BeautySmith had not created himself, and no blame was to be attached to him. Hehad 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 mouldedby the world. 

White Fang knew why he was being beaten. When Grey Beaver tied the thongaround his neck, and passed the end of the thong into Beauty Smith'skeeping, White Fang knew that it was his god's will for him to go withBeauty Smith. And when Beauty Smith left him tied outside the fort, heknew that it was Beauty Smith's will that he should remain there. Therefore, he had disobeyed the will of both the gods, and earned theconsequent punishment. He had seen dogs change owners in the past, andhe had seen the runaways beaten as he was being beaten. He was wise, andyet in the nature of him there were forces greater than wisdom. One ofthese was fidelity. He did not love Grey Beaver, yet, even in the faceof his will and his anger, he was faithful to him. He could not help it. This faithfulness was a quality of the clay that composed him. It wasthe quality that was peculiarly the possession of his kind; the qualitythat set apart his species from all other species; the quality that hasenabled the wolf and the wild dog to come in from the open and be thecompanions of man. 

After the beating, White Fang was dragged back to the fort. But thistime Beauty Smith left him tied with a stick. One does not give up a godeasily, and so with White Fang. Grey Beaver was his own particular god, and, in spite of Grey Beaver's will, White Fang still clung to him andwould not give him up. Grey Beaver had betrayed and forsaken him, butthat had no effect upon him. Not for nothing had he surrendered himselfbody and soul to Grey Beaver. There had been no reservation on WhiteFang's part, and the bond was not to be broken easily. 

So, in the night, when the men in the fort were asleep, White Fangapplied his teeth to the stick that held him. The wood was seasoned anddry, and it was tied so closely to his neck that he could scarcely gethis teeth to it. It was only by the severest muscular exertion and neck-arching that he succeeded in getting the wood between his teeth, andbarely between his teeth at that; and it was only by the exercise of animmense patience, extending through many hours, that he succeeded ingnawing through the stick. This was something that dogs were notsupposed to do. It was unprecedented. But White Fang did it, trottingaway from the fort in the early morning, with the end of the stickhanging to his neck. 

He was wise. But had he been merely wise he would not have gone back toGrey Beaver who had already twice betrayed him. But there was hisfaithfulness, and he went back to be betrayed yet a third time. Again heyielded to the tying of a thong around his neck by Grey Beaver, and againBeauty Smith came to claim him. And this time he was beaten even moreseverely than before. 

Grey Beaver looked on stolidly while the white man wielded the whip. Hegave no protection. It was no longer his dog. When the beating was overWhite Fang was sick. A soft southland dog would have died under it, butnot he. His school of life had been sterner, and he was himself ofsterner stuff. He had too great vitality. His clutch on life was toostrong. But he was very sick. At first he was unable to drag himselfalong, and Beauty Smith had to wait half-an-hour for 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 invain, by lunging, to draw the staple from the timber into which it wasdriven. After a few days, sober and bankrupt, Grey Beaver departed upthe Porcupine on his long journey to the Mackenzie. White Fang remainedon the Yukon, the property of a man more than half mad and all brute. Butwhat is a dog to know in its consciousness of madness? To White Fang, Beauty Smith was a veritable, if terrible, god. He was a mad god atbest, but White Fang knew nothing of madness; he knew only that he mustsubmit to the will of this new master, obey his every whim and fancy. 

CHAPTER III--THE REIGN OF HATE

Under the tutelage of the mad god, White Fang became a fiend. He waskept chained in a pen at the rear of the fort, and here Beauty Smithteased and irritated and drove him wild with petty torments. The manearly discovered White Fang's susceptibility to laughter, and made it apoint after painfully tricking him, to laugh at him. This laughter wasuproarious and scornful, and at the same time the god pointed his fingerderisively at White Fang. At such times reason fled from White Fang, andin his transports of rage he was even more mad than Beauty Smith. 

Formerly, White Fang had been merely the enemy of his kind, withal aferocious enemy. He now became the enemy of all things, and moreferocious than ever. To such an extent was he tormented, that he hatedblindly and without the faintest spark of reason. He hated the chainthat bound him, the men who peered in at him through the slats of thepen, the dogs that accompanied the men and that snarled malignantly athim in his helplessness. He hated the very wood of the pen that confinedhim. 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 daya number of men gathered about the pen. Beauty Smith entered, club inhand, and took the chain off from White Fang's neck. When his master hadgone out, White Fang turned loose and tore around the pen, trying to getat the men outside. He was magnificently terrible. Fully five feet inlength, and standing two and one-half feet at the shoulder, he faroutweighed a wolf of corresponding size. From his mother he hadinherited the heavier proportions of the dog, so that he weighed, withoutany fat and without an ounce of superfluous flesh, over ninety pounds. Itwas all muscle, bone, and sinew-fighting flesh in the finest condition. 

The door of the pen was being opened again. White Fang paused. Somethingunusual was happening. He waited. The door was opened wider. Then ahuge 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 andfierce aspect of the intruder did not deter him. Here was some thing, not wood nor iron, upon which to wreak his hate. He leaped in with aflash of fangs that ripped down the side of the mastiff's neck. Themastiff shook his head, growled hoarsely, and plunged at White Fang. ButWhite Fang was here, there, and everywhere, always evading and eluding, and always leaping in and slashing with his fangs and leaping out againin time to escape punishment. 

The men outside shouted and applauded, while Beauty Smith, in an ecstasyof delight, gloated over the ripping and mangling performed by WhiteFang. There was no hope for the mastiff from the first. He was tooponderous and slow. In the end, while Beauty Smith beat White Fang backwith a club, the mastiff was dragged out by its owner. Then there was apayment of bets, and money clinked in Beauty Smith's hand. 

White Fang came to look forward eagerly to the gathering of the menaround his pen. It meant a fight; and this was the only way that was nowvouchsafed him of expressing the life that was in him. Tormented, incited to hate, he was kept a prisoner so that there was no way ofsatisfying that hate except at the times his master saw fit to putanother dog against him. Beauty Smith had estimated his powers well, forhe was invariably the victor. One day, three dogs were turned in uponhim in succession. Another day a full-grown wolf, fresh-caught from theWild, was shoved in through the door of the pen. And on still anotherday two dogs were set against him at the same time. This was hisseverest fight, and though in the end he killed them both he was himselfhalf killed in doing it. 

In the fall of the year, when the first snows were falling and mush-icewas running in the river, Beauty Smith took passage for himself and WhiteFang on a steamboat bound up the Yukon to Dawson. White Fang had nowachieved a reputation in the land. As "the Fighting Wolf" he was knownfar and wide, and the cage in which he was kept on the steam-boat's deckwas usually surrounded by curious men. He raged and snarled at them, orlay quietly and studied them with cold hatred. Why should he not hatethem? He never asked himself the question. He knew only hate and losthimself in the passion of it. Life had become a hell to him. He had notbeen made for the close confinement wild beasts endure at the hands ofmen. And yet it was in precisely this way that he was treated. Menstared at him, poked sticks between the bars to make him snarl, and thenlaughed at him. 

They were his environment, these men, and they were moulding the clay ofhim into a more ferocious thing than had been intended by Nature. Nevertheless, Nature had given him plasticity. Where many another animalwould have died or had its spirit broken, he adjusted himself and lived, and at no expense of the spirit. Possibly Beauty Smith, arch-fiend andtormentor, was capable of breaking White Fang's spirit, but as yet therewere no signs of his succeeding. 

If Beauty Smith had in him a devil, White Fang had another; and the twoof them raged against each other unceasingly. In the days before, WhiteFang had had the wisdom to cower down and submit to a man with a club inhis hand; but this wisdom now left him. The mere sight of Beauty Smithwas sufficient to send him into transports of fury. And when they cameto close quarters, and he had been beaten back by the club, he went ongrowling and snarling, and showing his fangs. The last growl could neverbe extracted from him. No matter how terribly he was beaten, he hadalways another growl; and when Beauty Smith gave up and withdrew, thedefiant growl followed after him, or White Fang sprang at the bars of thecage bellowing his hatred. 

When the steamboat arrived at Dawson, White Fang went ashore. But hestill lived a public life, in a cage, surrounded by curious men. He wasexhibited as "the Fighting Wolf, " and men paid fifty cents in gold dustto see him. He was given no rest. Did he lie down to sleep, he wasstirred up by a sharp stick--so that the audience might get its money'sworth. In order to make the exhibition interesting, he was kept in arage most of the time. But worse than all this, was the atmosphere inwhich he lived. He was regarded as the most fearful of wild beasts, andthis was borne in to him through the bars of the cage. Every word, everycautious action, on the part of the men, impressed upon him his ownterrible ferocity. It was so much added fuel to the flame of hisfierceness. There could be but one result, and that was that hisferocity fed upon itself and increased. It was another instance of theplasticity of his clay, of his capacity for being moulded by the pressureof environment. 

In addition to being exhibited he was a professional fighting animal. Atirregular intervals, whenever a fight could be arranged, he was taken outof his cage and led off into the woods a few miles from town. Usuallythis occurred at night, so as to avoid interference from the mountedpolice of the Territory. After a few hours of waiting, when daylight hadcome, the audience and the dog with which he was to fight arrived. Inthis manner it came about that he fought all sizes and breeds of dogs. Itwas a savage land, the men were savage, and the fights were usually tothe death. 

Since White Fang continued to fight, it is obvious that it was the otherdogs that died. He never knew defeat. His early training, when hefought 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 couldmake him lose his footing. This was the favourite trick of the wolfbreeds--to rush in upon him, either directly or with an unexpectedswerve, in the hope of striking his shoulder and overthrowing him. Mackenzie hounds, Eskimo and Labrador dogs, huskies and Malemutes--alltried 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; butWhite Fang always disappointed them. 

Then there was his lightning quickness. It gave him a tremendousadvantage over his antagonists. No matter what their fightingexperience, they had never encountered a dog that moved so swiftly as he. Also to be reckoned with, was the immediateness of his attack. Theaverage dog was accustomed to the preliminaries of snarling and bristlingand growling, and the average dog was knocked off his feet and finishedbefore he had begun to fight or recovered from his surprise. So oftendid this happen, that it became the custom to hold White Fang until theother dog went through its preliminaries, was good and ready, and evenmade the first attack. 

But greatest of all the advantages in White Fang's favour, was hisexperience. He knew more about fighting than did any of the dogs thatfaced him. He had fought more fights, knew how to meet more tricks andmethods, and had more tricks himself, while his own method was scarcelyto be improved upon. 

As the time went by, he had fewer and fewer fights. Men despaired ofmatching him with an equal, and Beauty Smith was compelled to pit wolvesagainst him. These were trapped by the Indians for the purpose, and afight 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 Fangfought for his life. Her quickness matched his; her ferocity equalledhis; while he fought with his fangs alone, and she fought with her sharp-clawed feet as well. 

But after the lynx, all fighting ceased for White Fang. There were nomore animals with which to fight--at least, there was none consideredworthy of fighting with him. So he remained on exhibition until spring, when one Tim Keenan, a faro-dealer, arrived in the land. With him camethe first bull-dog that had ever entered the Klondike. That this dog andWhite Fang should come together was inevitable, and for a week theanticipated fight was the mainspring of conversation in certain quartersof 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 animalthat faced him. He had never seen such a dog before. Tim Keenan shovedthe bull-dog forward with a muttered "Go to it. " The animal waddledtoward the centre of the circle, short and squat and ungainly. He cameto 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 andblinked at the men who shouted, at the same time wagging his stump of atail good-naturedly. He was not afraid, but merely lazy. Besides, itdid not seem to him that it was intended he should fight with the dog hesaw before him. He was not used to fighting with that kind of dog, andhe was waiting for them to bring on the real dog. 

Tim Keenan stepped in and bent over Cherokee, fondling him on both sidesof the shoulders with hands that rubbed against the grain of the hair andthat made slight, pushing-forward movements. These were so manysuggestions. Also, their effect was irritating, for Cherokee began togrowl, very softly, deep down in his throat. There was a correspondencein rhythm between the growls and the movements of the man's hands. Thegrowl rose in the throat with the culmination of each forward-pushingmovement, and ebbed down to start up afresh with the beginning of thenext movement. The end of each movement was the accent of the rhythm, the movement ending abruptly and the growling rising with a jerk. 

This was not without its effect on White Fang. The hair began to rise onhis neck and across the shoulders. Tim Keenan gave a final shove forwardand stepped back again. As the impetus that carried Cherokee forwarddied down, he continued to go forward of his own volition, in a swift, bow-legged run. Then White Fang struck. A cry of startled admirationwent up. He had covered the distance and gone in more like a cat than adog; and with the same cat-like swiftness he had slashed with his fangsand leaped clear. 

The bull-dog was bleeding back of one ear from a rip in his thick neck. He gave no sign, did not even snarl, but turned and followed after WhiteFang. The display on both sides, the quickness of the one and thesteadiness of the other, had excited the partisan spirit of the crowd, and the men were making new bets and increasing original bets. Again, and yet again, White Fang sprang in, slashed, and got away untouched, andstill his strange foe followed after him, without too great haste, notslowly, but deliberately and determinedly, in a businesslike sort of way. There was purpose in his method--something for him to do that he wasintent upon doing and from which nothing could distract him. 

His whole demeanour, every action, was stamped with this purpose. Itpuzzled White Fang. Never had he seen such a dog. It had no hairprotection. It was soft, and bled easily. There was no thick mat of furto baffle White Fang's teeth as they were often baffled by dogs of hisown breed. Each time that his teeth struck they sank easily into theyielding flesh, while the animal did not seem able to defend itself. Another disconcerting thing was that it made no outcry, such as he hadbeen accustomed to with the other dogs he had fought. Beyond a growl ora grunt, the dog took its punishment silently. And never did it flag inits pursuit of him. 

Not that Cherokee was slow. He could turn and whirl swiftly enough, butWhite Fang was never there. Cherokee was puzzled, too. He had neverfought before with a dog with which he could not close. The desire toclose had always been mutual. But here was a dog that kept at adistance, dancing and dodging here and there and all about. And when itdid get its teeth into him, it did not hold on but let go instantly anddarted away again. 

But White Fang could not get at the soft underside of the throat. Thebull-dog stood too short, while its massive jaws were an addedprotection. White Fang darted in and out unscathed, while Cherokee'swounds increased. Both sides of his neck and head were ripped andslashed. He bled freely, but showed no signs of being disconcerted. Hecontinued his plodding pursuit, though once, for the moment baffled, hecame to a full stop and blinked at the men who looked on, at the sametime wagging his stump of a tail as an expression of his willingness tofight. 

In that moment White Fang was in upon him and out, in passing ripping histrimmed remnant of an ear. With a slight manifestation of anger, Cherokee took up the pursuit again, running on the inside of the circleWhite Fang was making, and striving to fasten his deadly grip on WhiteFang's throat. The bull-dog missed by a hair's-breadth, and cries ofpraise went up as White Fang doubled suddenly out of danger in theopposite direction. 

The time went by. White Fang still danced on, dodging and doubling, leaping in and out, and ever inflicting damage. And still the bull-dog, with grim certitude, toiled after him. Sooner or later he wouldaccomplish his purpose, get the grip that would win the battle. In themeantime, he accepted all the punishment the other could deal him. Histufts of ears had become tassels, his neck and shoulders were slashed ina score of places, and his very lips were cut and bleeding--all fromthese 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 toosquat, too close to the ground. White Fang tried the trick once toooften. The chance came in one of his quick doublings andcounter-circlings. He caught Cherokee with head turned away as hewhirled more slowly. His shoulder was exposed. White Fang drove in uponit: but his own shoulder was high above, while he struck with such forcethat his momentum carried him on across over the other's body. For thefirst 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 onhis back had he not twisted, catlike, still in the air, in the effort tobring 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 teethclosed on his throat. 

It was not a good grip, being too low down toward the chest; but Cherokeeheld on. White Fang sprang to his feet and tore wildly around, trying toshake off the bull-dog's body. It made him frantic, this clinging, dragging weight. It bound his movements, restricted his freedom. It waslike the trap, and all his instinct resented it and revolted against it. It was 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 ofhis body surged over him. He was dominated by this mere flesh-love oflife. All intelligence was gone. It was as though he had no brain. Hisreason 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 theexpression of its existence. 

Round and round he went, whirling and turning and reversing, trying toshake off the fifty-pound weight that dragged at his throat. The bull-dog did little but keep his grip. Sometimes, and rarely, he managed toget his feet to the earth and for a moment to brace himself against WhiteFang. But the next moment his footing would be lost and he would bedragging around in the whirl of one of White Fang's mad gyrations. Cherokee identified himself with his instinct. He knew that he was doingthe right thing by holding on, and there came to him certain blissfulthrills of satisfaction. At such moments he even closed his eyes andallowed his body to be hurled hither and thither, willy-nilly, carelessof any hurt that might thereby come to it. That did not count. The gripwas the thing, and the grip he kept. 

White Fang ceased only when he had tired himself out. He could donothing, and he could not understand. Never, in all his fighting, hadthis 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 getaway. He lay partly on his side, panting for breath. Cherokee stillholding his grip, urged against him, trying to get him over entirely onhis side. White Fang resisted, and he could feel the jaws shifting theirgrip, slightly relaxing and coming together again in a chewing movement. Each shift brought the grip closer to his throat. The bull-dog's methodwas to hold what he had, and when opportunity favoured to work in formore. Opportunity favoured when White Fang remained quiet. When WhiteFang struggled, Cherokee was content merely to hold on. 

The bulging back of Cherokee's neck was the only portion of his body thatWhite Fang's teeth could reach. He got hold toward the base where theneck comes out from the shoulders; but he did not know the chewing methodof fighting, nor were his jaws adapted to it. He spasmodically rippedand tore with his fangs for a space. Then a change in their positiondiverted him. The bull-dog had managed to roll him over on his back, andstill hanging on to his throat, was on top of him. Like a cat, WhiteFang bowed his hind-quarters in, and, with the feet digging into hisenemy's abdomen above him, he began to claw with long tearing-strokes. Cherokee might well have been disembowelled had he not quickly pivoted onhis 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 asinexorable. Slowly it shifted up along the jugular. All that savedWhite Fang from death was the loose skin of his neck and the thick furthat covered it. This served to form a large roll in Cherokee's mouth, the fur of which well-nigh defied his teeth. But bit by bit, wheneverthe chance offered, he was getting more of the loose skin and fur in hismouth. The result was that he was slowly throttling White Fang. Thelatter's breath was drawn with greater and greater difficulty as themoments went by. 

It began to look as though the battle were over. The backers of Cherokeewaxed jubilant and offered ridiculous odds. White Fang's backers werecorrespondingly depressed, and refused bets of ten to one and twenty toone, though one man was rash enough to close a wager of fifty to one. This man was Beauty Smith. He took a step into the ring and pointed hisfinger at White Fang. Then he began to laugh derisively and scornfully. This produced the desired effect. White Fang went wild with rage. Hecalled up his reserves of strength, and gained his feet. As he struggledaround 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 himagain, and his intelligence fled before the will of his flesh to live. Round and round and back again, stumbling and falling and rising, evenuprearing at times on his hind-legs and lifting his foe clear of theearth, he struggled vainly to shake off the clinging death. 

At last he fell, toppling backward, exhausted; and the bull-dog promptlyshifted his grip, getting in closer, mangling more and more of the fur-folded flesh, throttling White Fang more severely than ever. Shouts ofapplause went up for the victor, and there were many cries of "Cherokee!""Cherokee!" To this Cherokee responded by vigorous wagging of the stumpof his tail. But the clamour of approval did not distract him. Therewas no sympathetic relation between his tail and his massive jaws. Theone might wag, but the others held their terrible grip on White Fang'sthroat. 

It was at this time that a diversion came to the spectators. There was ajingle of bells. Dog-mushers' cries were heard. Everybody, save BeautySmith, looked apprehensively, the fear of the police strong upon them. But they saw, up the trail, and not down, two men running with sled anddogs. They were evidently coming down the creek from some prospectingtrip. At sight of the crowd they stopped their dogs and came over andjoined it, curious to see the cause of the excitement. The dog-musherwore a moustache, but the other, a taller and younger man, was smooth-shaven, his skin rosy from the pounding of his blood and the running inthe frosty air. 

White Fang had practically ceased struggling. Now and again he resistedspasmodically and to no purpose. He could get little air, and thatlittle grew less and less under the merciless grip that ever tightened. In spite of his armour of fur, the great vein of his throat would havelong since been torn open, had not the first grip of the bull-dog been solow down as to be practically on the chest. It had taken Cherokee a longtime to shift that grip upward, and this had also tended further to cloghis jaws with fur and skin-fold. 

In the meantime, the abysmal brute in Beauty Smith had been rising intohis brain and mastering the small bit of sanity that he possessed atbest. When he saw White Fang's eyes beginning to glaze, he knew beyonddoubt that the fight was lost. Then he broke loose. He sprang uponWhite Fang and began savagely to kick him. There were hisses from thecrowd and cries of protest, but that was all. While this went on, andBeauty Smith continued to kick White Fang, there was a commotion in thecrowd. The tall young newcomer was forcing his way through, shoulderingmen right and left without ceremony or gentleness. When he broke throughinto the ring, Beauty Smith was just in the act of delivering anotherkick. All his weight was on one foot, and he was in a state of unstableequilibrium. At that moment the newcomer's fist landed a smashing blowfull in his face. Beauty Smith's remaining leg left the ground, and hiswhole body seemed to lift into the air as he turned over backward andstruck the snow. The newcomer turned upon the crowd. 

"You cowards!" he cried. "You beasts!"

He was in a rage himself--a sane rage. His grey eyes seemed metallic andsteel-like as they flashed upon the crowd. Beauty Smith regained hisfeet and came toward him, sniffling and cowardly. The new-comer did notunderstand. He did not know how abject a coward the other was, andthought he was coming back intent on fighting. So, with a "You beast!"he smashed Beauty Smith over backward with a second blow in the face. Beauty Smith decided that the snow was the safest place for him, and laywhere he had fallen, making no effort to get up. 

"Come on, Matt, lend a hand, " the newcomer called the dog-musher, who hadfollowed him into the ring. 

Both men bent over the dogs. Matt took hold of White Fang, ready to pullwhen Cherokee's jaws should be loosened. This the younger manendeavoured to accomplish by clutching the bulldog's jaws in his handsand trying to spread them. It was a vain undertaking. As he pulled andtugged and wrenched, he kept exclaiming with every expulsion of breath, "Beasts!"

The crowd began to grow unruly, and some of the men were protestingagainst the spoiling of the sport; but they were silenced when thenewcomer lifted his head from his work for a moment and glared at them. 

"You damn beasts!" he finally exploded, and went back to his task. 

"It's no use, Mr. Scott, you can't break 'm apart that way, " Matt said atlast. 

The pair paused and surveyed the locked dogs. 

"Ain't bleedin' much, " Matt announced. "Ain't got all the way in yet. "

"But he's liable to any moment, " Scott answered. "There, did you seethat! He shifted his grip in a bit. "

The younger man's excitement and apprehension for White Fang was growing. He struck Cherokee about the head savagely again and again. But that didnot loosen the jaws. Cherokee wagged the stump of his tail inadvertisement that he understood the meaning of the blows, but that heknew he was himself in the right and only doing his duty by keeping hisgrip. 

"Won't some of you help?" Scott cried desperately at the crowd. 

But no help was offered. Instead, the crowd began sarcastically to cheerhim on and showered him with facetious advice. 

"You'll have to get a pry, " Matt counselled. 

The other reached into the holster at his hip, drew his revolver, andtried to thrust its muzzle between the bull-dog's jaws. He shoved, andshoved hard, till the grating of the steel against the locked teeth couldbe distinctly heard. Both men were on their knees, bending over thedogs. Tim Keenan strode into the ring. He paused beside Scott andtouched him on the shoulder, saying ominously:

"Don't break them teeth, stranger. "

"Then I'll break his neck, " Scott retorted, continuing his shoving andwedging with the revolver muzzle. 

"I said don't break them teeth, " the faro-dealer repeated more ominouslythan before. 

But if it was a bluff he intended, it did not work. Scott never desistedfrom his efforts, though he looked up coolly and asked:

"Your dog?"

The faro-dealer grunted. 

"Then get in here and break this grip. "

"Well, stranger, " the other drawled irritatingly, "I don't mind tellingyou that's something I ain't worked out for myself. I don't know how toturn the trick. "

"Then get out of the way, " was the reply, "and don't bother me. I'mbusy. "

Tim Keenan continued standing over him, but Scott took no further noticeof his presence. He had managed to get the muzzle in between the jaws onone side, and was trying to get it out between the jaws on the otherside. This accomplished, he pried gently and carefully, loosening thejaws a bit at a time, while Matt, a bit at a time, extricated WhiteFang's mangled neck. 

"Stand by to receive your dog, " was Scott's peremptory order toCherokee's owner. 

The faro-dealer stooped down obediently and got a firm hold on Cherokee. 

"Now!" Scott warned, giving the final pry. 

The dogs were drawn apart, the bull-dog struggling vigorously. 

"Take him away, " Scott commanded, and Tim Keenan dragged Cherokee backinto the crowd. 

White Fang made several ineffectual efforts to get up. Once he gainedhis feet, but his legs were too weak to sustain him, and he slowly wiltedand sank back into the snow. His eyes were half closed, and the surfaceof them was glassy. His jaws were apart, and through them the tongueprotruded, draggled and limp. To all appearances he looked like a dogthat had been strangled to death. Matt examined him. 

"Just about all in, " he announced; "but he's breathin' all right. "

Beauty Smith had regained his feet and come over to look at 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 BeautySmith. 

"Did you hear, Mr. Beast? I'm going to take your dog from you, and I'mgoing to give you a hundred and fifty for him. "

He opened his pocket-book and counted out the bills. 

Beauty Smith put his hands behind his back, refusing to touch theproffered money. 

"I ain't a-sellin', " he said. 

"Oh, yes you are, " the other assured him. "Because I'm buying. Here'syour money. The dog's mine. "

Beauty Smith, his hands still behind him, began to back away. 

Scott sprang toward him, drawing his fist back to strike. Beauty Smithcowered down in anticipation of the blow. 

"I've got my rights, " he whimpered. 

"You've forfeited your rights to own that dog, " was the rejoinder. "Areyou going to take the money? or do I have to hit you again?"

"All right, " Beauty Smith spoke up with the alacrity of fear. "But Itake the money under protest, " 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 gothis rights. But you're not a man. You're a beast. "

"Wait till I get back to Dawson, " Beauty Smith threatened. "I'll havethe law on you. "

"If you open your mouth when you get back to Dawson, I'll have you runout of town. Understand?"

Beauty Smith replied with a grunt. 

"Understand?" the other thundered with abrupt fierceness. 

"Yes, " Beauty Smith grunted, shrinking away. 

"Yes what?"

"Yes, sir, " Beauty Smith snarled. 

"Look out! He'll bite!" some one shouted, and a guffaw of laughter wentup. 

Scott turned his back on him, and returned to help the dog-musher, whowas working over White Fang. 

Some of the men were already departing; others stood in groups, lookingon and talking. Tim Keenan joined one of the groups. 

"Who's that mug?" he asked. 

"Weedon Scott, " some one answered. 

"And who in hell is Weedon Scott?" the faro-dealer demanded. 

"Oh, one of them crackerjack minin' experts. He's in with all the bigbugs. If you want to keep out of trouble, you'll steer clear of him, that's my talk. He's all hunky with the officials. The GoldCommissioner's a special pal of his. "

"I thought he must be somebody, " was the faro-dealer's comment. "That'swhy 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, whoresponded with a shrug that was equally hopeless. 

Together they looked at White Fang at the end of his stretched chain, bristling, snarling, ferocious, straining to get at the sled-dogs. Havingreceived sundry lessons from Matt, said lessons being imparted by meansof a club, the sled-dogs had learned to leave White Fang alone; and eventhen they were lying down at a distance, apparently oblivious of hisexistence. 

"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' thatthere's no gettin' away from. "

The dog-musher paused and nodded his head confidentially at MoosehideMountain. 

"Well, don't be a miser with what you know, " Scott said sharply, afterwaiting a suitable length of time. "Spit it out. What is it?"

The dog-musher indicated White Fang with a backward thrust of his thumb. 

"Wolf or dog, it's all the same--he's ben tamed 'ready. "

"No!"

"I tell you yes, an' broke to harness. Look close there. D'ye see themmarks across the chest?"

"You're right, Matt. He was a sled-dog before Beauty Smith got hold ofhim. "

"And there's not much reason against his bein' a sled-dog again. "

"What d'ye think?" Scott queried eagerly. Then the hope died down as headded, shaking his head, "We've had him two weeks now, and if anythinghe'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 aclub. "

"You try it then. "

The dog-musher secured a club and went over to the chained animal. WhiteFang watched the club after the manner of a caged lion watching the whipof its trainer. 

"See 'm keep his eye on that club, " Matt said. "That's a good sign. He'sno fool. Don't dast tackle me so long as I got that club handy. He'snot clean crazy, sure. "

As the man's hand approached his neck, White Fang bristled and snarledand crouched down. But while he eyed the approaching hand, he at thesame time contrived to keep track of the club in the other hand, suspended threateningly above him. Matt unsnapped the chain from thecollar and stepped back. 

White Fang could scarcely realise that he was free. Many months had goneby since he passed into the possession of Beauty Smith, and in all thatperiod he had never known a moment of freedom except at the times he hadbeen loosed to fight with other dogs. Immediately after such fights hehad always been imprisoned again. 

He did not know what to make of it. Perhaps some new devilry of the godswas about to be perpetrated on him. He walked slowly and cautiously, prepared to be assailed at any moment. He did not know what to do, itwas all so unprecedented. He took the precaution to sheer off from thetwo 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. 

"Won't he run away?" his new owner asked. 

Matt shrugged his shoulders. "Got to take a gamble. Only way to findout is to find out. "

"Poor devil, " Scott murmured pityingly. "What he needs is some show ofhuman kindness, " he added, turning and going into the cabin. 

He came out with a piece of meat, which he tossed to White Fang. Hesprang away from it, and from a distance studied it suspiciously. 

"Hi-yu, Major!" Matt shouted warningly, but too late. 

Major had made a spring for the meat. At the instant his jaws closed onit, White Fang struck him. He was overthrown. Matt rushed in, butquicker than he was White Fang. Major staggered to his feet, but theblood 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. Therewas a leap, a flash of teeth, a sharp exclamation. White Fang, snarlingfiercely, scrambled backward for several yards, while Matt stooped andinvestigated his leg. 

"He got me all right, " he announced, pointing to the torn trousers andundercloths, and the growing stain of red. 

"I told you it was hopeless, Matt, " Scott said in a discouraged voice. "I've thought about it off and on, while not wanting to think of it. Butwe've come to it now. It's the only thing to do. "

As he talked, with reluctant movements he drew his revolver, threw openthe cylinder, and assured himself of its contents. 

"Look here, Mr. Scott, " Matt objected; "that dog's ben through hell. Youcan'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 snowin the circle of his blood and was plainly in the last gasp. 

"Served 'm right. You said so yourself, Mr. Scott. He tried to takeWhite Fang's meat, an' he's dead-O. That was to be expected. I wouldn'tgive two whoops in hell for a dog that wouldn't fight for his own meat. "

"But look at yourself, Matt. It's all right about the dogs, but we mustdraw the line somewhere. "

"Served me right, " Matt argued stubbornly. "What'd I want to kick 'mfor? You said yourself that he'd done right. Then I had no right tokick 'm. "

"It would be a mercy to kill him, " Scott insisted. "He's untamable. "

"Now look here, Mr. Scott, give the poor devil a fightin' chance. Heain't had no chance yet. He's just come through hell, an' this is thefirst time he's ben loose. Give 'm a fair chance, an' if he don'tdeliver 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 whatkindness can do for him. And here's a try at it. "

He walked over to White Fang and began talking to him gently andsoothingly. 

"Better have a club handy, " Matt warned. 

Scott shook his head and went on trying to win White Fang's confidence. 

White Fang was suspicious. Something was impending. He had killed thisgod's dog, bitten his companion god, and what else was to be expectedthan some terrible punishment? But in the face of it he was indomitable. He bristled and showed his teeth, his eyes vigilant, his whole body waryand prepared for anything. The god had no club, so he suffered him toapproach quite near. The god's hand had come out and was descending uponhis head. White Fang shrank together and grew tense as he crouched underit. Here was danger, some treachery or something. He knew the hands ofthe gods, their proved mastery, their cunning to hurt. Besides, therewas his old antipathy to being touched. He snarled more menacingly, crouched still lower, and still the hand descended. He did not want tobite the hand, and he endured the peril of it until his instinct surgedup in him, mastering him with its insatiable yearning for life. 

Weedon Scott had believed that he was quick enough to avoid any snap orslash. 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 holdingit tightly in his other hand. Matt uttered a great oath and sprang tohis side. White Fang crouched down, and backed away, bristling, showinghis fangs, his eyes malignant with menace. Now he could expect a beatingas fearful as any he had received from Beauty Smith. 

"Here! What are you doing?" Scott cried suddenly. 

Matt had dashed into the cabin and come out with a rifle. 

"Nothin', " he said slowly, with a careless calmness that was assumed, "only goin' to keep that promise I made. I reckon it's up to me to kill'm as I said I'd do. "

"No you don't!"

"Yes I do. Watch me. "

As Matt had pleaded for White Fang when he had been bitten, it was nowWeedon Scott's turn to plead. 

"You said to give him a chance. Well, give it to him. We've only juststarted, and we can't quit at the beginning. It served me right, thistime. And--look at him!"

White Fang, near the corner of the cabin and forty feet away, wassnarling with blood-curdling viciousness, not at Scott, but at the dog-musher. 

"Well, I'll be everlastingly gosh-swoggled!" was the dog-musher'sexpression of astonishment. 

"Look at the intelligence of him, " Scott went on hastily. "He knows themeaning of firearms as well as you do. He's got intelligence and we'vegot to give that intelligence a chance. Put up the gun. "

"All right, I'm willin', " Matt agreed, leaning the rifle against thewoodpile. 

"But will you look at that!" he exclaimed the next moment. 

White Fang had quieted down and ceased snarling. "This is worthinvestigatin'. Watch. "

Matt, reached for the rifle, and at the same moment White Fang snarled. He stepped away from the rifle, and White Fang's lifted lips descended, covering his teeth. 

"Now, just for fun. "

Matt took the rifle and began slowly to raise it to his shoulder. WhiteFang's snarling began with the movement, and increased as the movementapproached its culmination. But the moment before the rifle came to alevel on him, he leaped sidewise behind the corner of the cabin. Mattstood staring along the sights at the empty space of snow which had beenoccupied by White Fang. 

The dog-musher put the rifle down solemnly, then turned and looked at hisemployer. 

"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 toadvertise that he would not submit to punishment. Twenty-four hours hadpassed since he had slashed open the hand that was now bandaged and heldup by a sling to keep the blood out of it. In the past White Fang hadexperienced delayed punishments, and he apprehended that such a one wasabout to befall him. How could it be otherwise? He had committed whatwas to him sacrilege, sunk his fangs into the holy flesh of a god, and ofa white-skinned superior god at that. In the nature of things, and ofintercourse with gods, something terrible awaited him. 

The god sat down several feet away. White Fang could see nothingdangerous in that. When the gods administered punishment they stood ontheir legs. Besides, this god had no club, no whip, no firearm. Andfurthermore, he himself was free. No chain nor stick bound him. Hecould escape into safety while the god was scrambling to his feet. Inthe meantime he would wait and see. 

The god remained quiet, made no movement; and White Fang's snarl slowlydwindled to a growl that ebbed down in his throat and ceased. Then thegod spoke, and at the first sound of his voice, the hair rose on WhiteFang's neck and the growl rushed up in his throat. But the god made nohostile movement, and went on calmly talking. For a time White Fanggrowled in unison with him, a correspondence of rhythm being establishedbetween growl and voice. But the god talked on interminably. He talkedto White Fang as White Fang had never been talked to before. He talkedsoftly and soothingly, with a gentleness that somehow, somewhere, touchedWhite Fang. In spite of himself and all the pricking warnings of hisinstinct, White Fang began to have confidence in this god. He had afeeling of security that was belied by all his experience with men. 

After a long time, the god got up and went into the cabin. White Fangscanned him apprehensively when he came out. He had neither whip norclub nor weapon. Nor was his uninjured hand behind his back hidingsomething. He sat down as before, in the same spot, several feet away. He held out a small piece of meat. White Fang pricked his ears andinvestigated it suspiciously, managing to look at the same time both atthe meat and the god, alert for any overt act, his body tense and readyto spring away at the first sign of hostility. 

Still the punishment delayed. The god merely held near to his nose apiece of meat. And about the meat there seemed nothing wrong. StillWhite Fang suspected; and though the meat was proffered to him with shortinviting thrusts of the hand, he refused to touch it. The gods were all-wise, and there was no telling what masterful treachery lurked behindthat apparently harmless piece of meat. In past experience, especiallyin dealing with squaws, meat and punishment had often been disastrouslyrelated. 

In the end, the god tossed the meat on the snow at White Fang's feet. Hesmelled the meat carefully; but he did not look at it. While he smelledit he kept his eyes on the god. Nothing happened. He took the meat intohis mouth and swallowed it. Still nothing happened. The god wasactually offering him another piece of meat. Again he refused to take itfrom the hand, and again it was tossed to him. This was repeated anumber 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 approached the hand. At last the time came thathe decided to eat the meat from the hand. He never took his eyes fromthe god, thrusting his head forward with ears flattened back and hairinvoluntarily rising and cresting on his neck. Also a low growl rumbledin his throat as warning that he was not to be trifled with. He ate themeat, and nothing happened. Piece by piece, he ate all the meat, andnothing happened. Still the punishment delayed. 

He licked his chops and waited. The god went on talking. In his voicewas kindness--something of which White Fang had no experience whatever. And within him it aroused feelings which he had likewise neverexperienced before. He was aware of a certain strange satisfaction, asthough some need were being gratified, as though some void in his beingwere being filled. Then again came the prod of his instinct and thewarning of past experience. The gods were ever crafty, and they hadunguessed ways of attaining their ends. 

Ah, he had thought so! There it came now, the god's hand, cunning tohurt, thrusting out at him, descending upon his head. But the god wenton talking. His voice was soft and soothing. In spite of the menacinghand, the voice inspired confidence. And in spite of the assuring voice, the hand inspired distrust. White Fang was torn by conflicting feelings, impulses. It seemed he would fly to pieces, so terrible was the controlhe was exerting, holding together by an unwonted indecision the counter-forces that struggled within him for mastery. 

He compromised. He snarled and bristled and flattened his ears. But heneither snapped nor sprang away. The hand descended. Nearer and nearerit came. It touched the ends of his upstanding hair. He shrank downunder it. It followed down after him, pressing more closely against him. Shrinking, almost shivering, he still managed to hold himself together. 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 atthe hands of men. But it was the will of the god, and he strove tosubmit. 

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 acavernous growl surged in his throat. White Fang growled and growledwith insistent warning. By this means he announced that he was preparedto retaliate for any hurt he might receive. There was no telling whenthe god's ulterior motive might be disclosed. At any moment that soft, confidence-inspiring voice might break forth in a roar of wrath, thatgentle and caressing hand transform itself into a vice-like grip to holdhim helpless and administer punishment. 

But the god talked on softly, and ever the hand rose and fell with non-hostile pats. White Fang experienced dual feelings. It was distastefulto his instinct. It restrained him, opposed the will of him towardpersonal liberty. And yet it was not physically painful. On thecontrary, it was even pleasant, in a physical way. The patting movementslowly and carefully changed to a rubbing of the ears about their bases, and the physical pleasure even increased a little. Yet he continued tofear, and he stood on guard, expectant of unguessed evil, alternatelysuffering and enjoying as one feeling or the other came uppermost andswayed him. 

"Well, I'll be gosh-swoggled!"

So spoke Matt, coming out of the cabin, his sleeves rolled up, a pan ofdirty dish-water in his hands, arrested in the act of emptying the pan bythe 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 disapproval. 

"If you don't mind my expressin' my feelin's, Mr. Scott, I'll make freeto say you're seventeen kinds of a damn fool an' all of 'em different, an' then some. "

Weedon Scott smiled with a superior air, gained his feet, and walked overto White Fang. He talked soothingly to him, but not for long, thenslowly put out his hand, rested it on White Fang's head, and resumed theinterrupted patting. White Fang endured it, keeping his eyes fixedsuspiciously, not upon the man that patted him, but upon the man thatstood in the doorway. 

"You may be a number one, tip-top minin' expert, all right all right, "the dog-musher delivered himself oracularly, "but you missed the chanceof your life when you was a boy an' didn't run off an' join a circus. "

White Fang snarled at the sound of his voice, but this time did not leapaway from under the hand that was caressing his head and the back of hisneck with long, soothing strokes. 

It was the beginning of the end for White Fang--the ending of the oldlife and the reign of hate. A new and incomprehensibly fairer life wasdawning. It required much thinking and endless patience on the part ofWeedon Scott to accomplish this. And on the part of White Fang itrequired nothing less than a revolution. He had to ignore the urges andpromptings of instinct and reason, defy experience, give the lie to lifeitself. 

Life, as he had known it, not only had had no place in it for much thathe now did; but all the currents had gone counter to those to which henow abandoned himself. In short, when all things were considered, he hadto achieve an orientation far vaster than the one he had achieved at thetime he came voluntarily in from the Wild and accepted Grey Beaver as hislord. At that time he was a mere puppy, soft from the making, withoutform, ready for the thumb of circumstance to begin its work upon him. Butnow it was different. The thumb of circumstance had done its work onlytoo well. By it he had been formed and hardened into the Fighting Wolf, fierce and implacable, unloving and unlovable. To accomplish the changewas like a reflux of being, and this when the plasticity of youth was nolonger his; when the fibre of him had become tough and knotty; when thewarp and the woof of him had made of him an adamantine texture, harsh andunyielding; when the face of his spirit had become iron and all hisinstincts and axioms had crystallised into set rules, cautions, dislikes, and desires. 

Yet again, in this new orientation, it was the thumb of circumstance thatpressed and prodded him, softening that which had become hard andremoulding it into fairer form. Weedon Scott was in truth this thumb. Hehad gone to the roots of White Fang's nature, and with kindness touchedto life potencies that had languished and well-nigh perished. One suchpotency was _love_. It took the place of _like_, which latter had beenthe 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 itslowly developed. White Fang did not run away, though he was allowed toremain loose, because he liked this new god. This was certainly betterthan the life he had lived in the cage of Beauty Smith, and it wasnecessary that he should have some god. The lordship of man was a needof his nature. The seal of his dependence on man had been set upon himin that early day when he turned his back on the Wild and crawled to GreyBeaver's feet to receive the expected beating. This seal had beenstamped upon him again, and ineradicably, on his second return from theWild, when the long famine was over and there was fish once more in thevillage of Grey Beaver. 

And so, because he needed a god and because he preferred Weedon Scott toBeauty Smith, White Fang remained. In acknowledgment of fealty, heproceeded 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 cameto the rescue. But White Fang soon learned to differentiate betweenthieves 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 andhe received the endorsement of the master. But the man who went softly, by circuitous ways, peering with caution, seeking after secrecy--that wasthe man who received no suspension of judgment from White Fang, and whowent away abruptly, hurriedly, and without dignity. 

Weedon Scott had set himself the task of redeeming White Fang--or rather, of redeeming mankind from the wrong it had done White Fang. It was amatter of principle and conscience. He felt that the ill done White Fangwas a debt incurred by man and that it must be paid. So he went out ofhis way to be especially kind to the Fighting Wolf. Each day he made ita point to caress and pet White Fang, and to do it at length. 

At first suspicious and hostile, White Fang grew to like this petting. But there was one thing that he never outgrew--his growling. Growl hewould, from the moment the petting began till it ended. But it was agrowl with a new note in it. A stranger could not hear this note, and tosuch a stranger the growling of White Fang was an exhibition ofprimordial savagery, nerve-racking and blood-curdling. But White Fang'sthroat had become harsh-fibred from the making of ferocious soundsthrough the many years since his first little rasp of anger in the lairof his cubhood, and he could not soften the sounds of that throat now toexpress the gentleness he felt. Nevertheless, Weedon Scott's ear andsympathy were fine enough to catch the new note all but drowned in thefierceness--the note that was the faintest hint of a croon of content andthat none but he could hear. 

As the days went by, the evolution of _like_ into _love_ was accelerated. White Fang himself began to grow aware of it, though in his consciousnesshe knew not what love was. It manifested itself to him as a void in hisbeing--a hungry, aching, yearning void that clamoured to be filled. Itwas a pain and an unrest; and it received easement only by the touch ofthe new god's presence. At such times love was joy to him, a wild, keen-thrilling satisfaction. But when away from his god, the pain and theunrest returned; the void in him sprang up and pressed against him withits emptiness, and the hunger gnawed and gnawed unceasingly. 

White Fang was in the process of finding himself. In spite of thematurity of his years and of the savage rigidity of the mould that hadformed him, his nature was undergoing an expansion. There was aburgeoning within him of strange feelings and unwonted impulses. His oldcode of conduct was changing. In the past he had liked comfort andsurcease from pain, disliked discomfort and pain, and he had adjusted hisactions accordingly. But now it was different. Because of this newfeeling within him, he ofttimes elected discomfort and pain for the sakeof 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 cheerlesscabin-stoop for a sight of the god's face. At night, when the godreturned home, White Fang would leave the warm sleeping-place he hadburrowed in the snow in order to receive the friendly snap of fingers andthe word of greeting. Meat, even meat itself, he would forego to be withhis god, to receive a caress from him or to accompany him down into thetown. 

_Like_ had been replaced by _love_. And love was the plummet droppeddown into the deeps of him where like had never gone. And responsive outof his deeps had come the new thing--love. That which was given unto himdid he return. This was a god indeed, a love-god, a warm and radiantgod, in whose light White Fang's nature expanded as a flower expandsunder the sun. 

But White Fang was not demonstrative. He was too old, too firmlymoulded, to become adept at expressing himself in new ways. He was tooself-possessed, too strongly poised in his own isolation. Too long hadhe cultivated reticence, aloofness, and moroseness. He had never barkedin his life, and he could not now learn to bark a welcome when his godapproached. He was never in the way, never extravagant nor foolish inthe expression of his love. He never ran to meet his god. He waited ata distance; but he always waited, was always there. His love partook ofthe nature of worship, dumb, inarticulate, a silent adoration. Only bythe steady regard of his eyes did he express his love, and by theunceasing following with his eyes of his god's every movement. Also, attimes, when his god looked at him and spoke to him, he betrayed anawkward self-consciousness, caused by the struggle of his love to expressitself and his physical inability to express it. 

He learned to adjust himself in many ways to his new mode of life. Itwas borne in upon him that he must let his master's dogs alone. Yet hisdominant nature asserted itself, and he had first to thrash them into anacknowledgment of his superiority and leadership. This accomplished, hehad little trouble with them. They gave trail to him when he came andwent or walked among them, and when he asserted his will they obeyed. 

In the same way, he came to tolerate Matt--as a possession of his master. His master rarely fed him. Matt did that, it was his business; yet WhiteFang divined that it was his master's food he ate and that it was hismaster who thus fed him vicariously. Matt it was who tried to put himinto the harness and make him haul sled with the other dogs. But Mattfailed. It was not until Weedon Scott put the harness on White Fang andworked him, that he understood. He took it as his master's will thatMatt should drive him and work him just as he drove and worked hismaster's other dogs. 

Different from the Mackenzie toboggans were the Klondike sleds withrunners under them. And different was the method of driving the dogs. There was no fan-formation of the team. The dogs worked in single file, one behind another, hauling on double traces. And here, in the Klondike, the leader was indeed the leader. The wisest as well as strongest dogwas the leader, and the team obeyed him and feared him. That White Fangshould quickly gain this post was inevitable. He could not be satisfiedwith less, as Matt learned after much inconvenience and trouble. WhiteFang picked out the post for himself, and Matt backed his judgment withstrong language after the experiment had been tried. But, though heworked in the sled in the day, White Fang did not forego the guarding ofhis 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 tostate that you was a wise guy all right when you paid the price you didfor that dog. You clean swindled Beauty Smith on top of pushin' his facein with your fist. "

A recrudescence of anger glinted in Weedon Scott's grey eyes, and hemuttered savagely, "The beast!"

In the late spring a great trouble came to White Fang. Without warning, the love-master disappeared. There had been warning, but White Fang wasunversed in such things and did not understand the packing of a grip. Heremembered afterwards that his packing had preceded the master'sdisappearance; but at the time he suspected nothing. That night hewaited for the master to return. At midnight the chill wind that blewdrove him to shelter at the rear of the cabin. There he drowsed, onlyhalf 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 frontstoop, where he crouched, and waited. 

But no master came. In the morning the door opened and Matt steppedoutside. White Fang gazed at him wistfully. There was no common speechby which he might learn what he wanted to know. The days came and went, but never the master. White Fang, who had never known sickness in hislife, became sick. He became very sick, so sick that Matt was finallycompelled to bring him inside the cabin. Also, in writing to hisemployer, Matt devoted a postscript to White Fang. 

Weedon Scott reading the letter down in Circle City, came upon thefollowing:

"That dam wolf won't work. Won't eat. Aint got no spunk left. All thedogs is licking him. Wants to know what has become of you, and I don'tknow how to tell him. Mebbe he is going to die. "

It was as Matt had said. White Fang had ceased eating, lost heart, andallowed every dog of the team to thrash him. In the cabin he lay on thefloor near the stove, without interest in food, in Matt, nor in life. Matt might talk gently to him or swear at him, it was all the same; henever did more than turn his dull eyes upon the man, then drop his headback to its customary position on his fore-paws. 

And then, one night, Matt, reading to himself with moving lips andmumbled sounds, was startled by a low whine from White Fang. He had gotupon his feet, his ears cocked towards the door, and he was listeningintently. A moment later, Matt heard a footstep. The door opened, andWeedon Scott stepped in. The two men shook hands. Then Scott lookedaround the room. 

"Where's the wolf?" he asked. 

Then he discovered him, standing where he had been lying, near to thestove. He had not rushed forward after the manner of other dogs. Hestood, 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 timecalling him. White Fang came to him, not with a great bound, yetquickly. He was awakened from self-consciousness, but as he drew near, his eyes took on a strange expression. Something, an incommunicablevastness of feeling, rose up into his eyes as a light and shone forth. 

"He never looked at me that way all the time you was gone!" Mattcommented. 

Weedon Scott did not hear. He was squatting down on his heels, face toface with White Fang and petting him--rubbing at the roots of the ears, making long caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders, tapping thespine gently with the balls of his fingers. And White Fang was growlingresponsively, the crooning note of the growl more pronounced than ever. 

But that was not all. What of his joy, the great love in him, eversurging and struggling to express itself, succeeding in finding a newmode of expression. He suddenly thrust his head forward and nudged hisway in between the master's arm and body. And here, confined, hiddenfrom view all except his ears, no longer growling, he continued to nudgeand snuggle. 

The two men looked at each other. Scott's eyes were shining. 

"Gosh!" said Matt in an awe-stricken voice. 

A moment later, when he had recovered himself, he said, "I alwaysinsisted that wolf was a dog. Look at 'm!"

With the return of the love-master, White Fang's recovery was rapid. Twonights and a day he spent in the cabin. Then he sallied forth. The sled-dogs had forgotten his prowess. They remembered only the latest, whichwas his weakness and sickness. At the sight of him as he came out of thecabin, they sprang upon him. 

"Talk about your rough-houses, " Matt murmured gleefully, standing in thedoorway and looking on. 

"Give 'm hell, you wolf! Give 'm hell!--an' then some!"

White Fang did not need the encouragement. The return of the love-masterwas enough. Life was flowing through him again, splendid andindomitable. He fought from sheer joy, finding in it an expression ofmuch that he felt and that otherwise was without speech. There could bebut one ending. The team dispersed in ignominious defeat, and it was notuntil after dark that the dogs came sneaking back, one by one, bymeekness and humility signifying their fealty to White Fang. 

Having learned to snuggle, White Fang was guilty of it often. It was thefinal word. He could not go beyond it. The one thing of which he hadalways been particularly jealous was his head. He had always disliked tohave it touched. It was the Wild in him, the fear of hurt and of thetrap, that had given rise to the panicky impulses to avoid contacts. Itwas the mandate of his instinct that that head must be free. And now, with the love-master, his snuggling was the deliberate act of puttinghimself into a position of hopeless helplessness. It was an expressionof perfect confidence, of absolute self-surrender, as though he said: "Iput myself into thy hands. Work thou thy will with me. "

One night, not long after the return, Scott and Matt sat at a game ofcribbage preliminary to going to bed. "Fifteen-two, fifteen-four an' apair makes six, " Mat was pegging up, when there was an outcry and soundof snarling without. They looked at each other as they started to riseto 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 outside. 

Matt followed with the lamp, and by its light they saw a man lying on hisback in the snow. His arms were folded, one above the other, across hisface and throat. Thus he was trying to shield himself from White Fang'steeth. And there was need for it. White Fang was in a rage, wickedlymaking his attack on the most vulnerable spot. From shoulder to wrist ofthe crossed arms, the coat-sleeve, blue flannel shirt and undershirt wereripped in rags, while the arms themselves were terribly slashed andstreaming blood. 

All this the two men saw in the first instant. The next instant WeedonScott had White Fang by the throat and was dragging him clear. WhiteFang struggled and snarled, but made no attempt to bite, while he quicklyquieted down at a sharp word from the master. 

Matt helped the man to his feet. As he arose he lowered his crossedarms, exposing the bestial face of Beauty Smith. The dog-musher let goof him precipitately, with action similar to that of a man who has pickedup live fire. Beauty Smith blinked in the lamplight and looked abouthim. 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 heldthe lamp close to them, indicating them with his toe for his employer'sbenefit--a steel dog-chain and a stout club. 

Weedon Scott saw and nodded. Not a word was spoken. The dog-musher laidhis hand on Beauty Smith's shoulder and faced him to the right about. Noword needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith started. 

In the meantime the love-master was patting White Fang and talking tohim. 

"Tried to steal you, eh? And you wouldn't have it! Well, well, he madea mistake, didn't he?"

"Must 'a' thought he had hold of seventeen devils, " the dog-mushersniggered. 

White Fang, still wrought up and bristling, growled and growled, the hairslowly lying down, the crooning note remote and dim, but growing in histhroat. 

PART V

CHAPTER I--THE LONG TRAIL

It was in the air. White Fang sensed the coming calamity, even beforethere was tangible evidence of it. In vague ways it was borne in uponhim that a change was impending. He knew not how nor why, yet he got hisfeel of the oncoming event from the gods themselves. In ways subtlerthan they knew, they betrayed their intentions to the wolf-dog thathaunted 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 dug-musher exclaimed at supper one night. 

Weedon Scott listened. Through the door came a low, anxious whine, likea sobbing under the breath that had just grown audible. Then came thelong sniff, as White Fang reassured himself that his god was still insideand had not yet taken himself off in mysterious and solitary flight. 

"I do believe that wolf's on to you, " the dog-musher said. 

Weedon Scott looked across at his companion with eyes that almostpleaded, though this was given the lie by his words. 

"What the devil can I do with a wolf in California?" he demanded. 

"That's what I say, " Matt answered. "What the devil can you do with awolf in California?"

But this did not satisfy Weedon Scott. The other seemed to be judginghim in a non-committal sort of way. 

"White man's dogs would have no show against him, " Scott went on. "He'dkill them on sight. If he didn't bankrupt me with damaged suits, theauthorities would take him away from me and electrocute him. "

"He's a downright murderer, I know, " was the dog-musher's comment. 

Weedon Scott looked at him suspiciously. 

"It would never do, " he said decisively. 

"It would never do!" Matt concurred. "Why you'd have to hire a man'specially to take care of 'm. "

The other suspicion was allayed. He nodded cheerfully. In the silencethat followed, the low, half-sobbing whine was heard at the door and thenthe long, questing sniff. 

"There's no denyin' he thinks a hell of a lot of you, " Matt said. 

The other glared at him in sudden wrath. "Damn it all, man! I know myown mind and what's best!"

"I'm agreein' with you, only . . . "

"Only what?" Scott snapped out. 

"Only . . . " the dog-musher began softly, then changed his mind andbetrayed a rising anger of his own. "Well, you needn't get so all-firedhet up about it. Judgin' by your actions one'd think you didn't knowyour 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 thetrouble. "

"Why, it would be rank ridiculousness for me to take that dog along, " hebroke out after another pause. 

"I'm agreein' with you, " was Matt's answer, and again his employer wasnot quite satisfied with him. 

"But how in the name of the great Sardanapolis he knows you're goin' iswhat gets me, " the dog-musher continued innocently. 

"It's beyond me, Matt, " Scott answered, with a mournful shake of thehead. 

Then came the day when, through the open cabin door, White Fang saw thefatal grip on the floor and the love-master packing things into it. Also, there were comings and goings, and the erstwhile placid atmosphere of thecabin was vexed with strange perturbations and unrest. Here wasindubitable evidence. White Fang had already scented it. He nowreasoned it. His god was preparing for another flight. And since he hadnot 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 puppydays, when he fled back from the Wild to the village to find it vanishedand naught but a rubbish-heap to mark the site of Grey Beaver's tepee, sonow 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 wonderthis time but what he died. "

The blankets in the other bunk stirred irritably. 

"Oh, shut up!" Scott cried out through the darkness. "You nag worse thana woman. "

"I'm agreein' with you, " the dog-musher answered, and Weedon Scott wasnot quite sure whether or not the other had snickered. 

The next day White Fang's anxiety and restlessness were even morepronounced. He dogged his master's heels whenever he left the cabin, andhaunted the front stoop when he remained inside. Through the open doorhe could catch glimpses of the luggage on the floor. The grip had beenjoined by two large canvas bags and a box. Matt was rolling the master'sblankets and fur robe inside a small tarpaulin. White Fang whined as hewatched the operation. 

Later on two Indians arrived. He watched them closely as they shoulderedthe luggage and were led off down the hill by Matt, who carried thebedding and the grip. But White Fang did not follow them. The masterwas still in the cabin. After a time, Matt returned. The master came tothe door and called White Fang inside. 

"You poor devil, " he said gently, rubbing White Fang's ears and tappinghis spine. "I'm hitting the long trail, old man, where you cannotfollow. Now give me a growl--the last, good, good-bye growl. "

But White Fang refused to growl. Instead, and after a wistful, searchinglook, he snuggled in, burrowing his head out of sight between themaster's arm and body. 

"There she blows!" Matt cried. From the Yukon arose the hoarse bellowingof a river steamboat. "You've got to cut it short. Be sure and lock thefront door. I'll go out the back. Get a move on!"

The two doors slammed at the same moment, and Weedon Scott waited forMatt to come around to the front. From inside the door came a lowwhining and sobbing. Then there were long, deep-drawn sniffs. 

"You must take good care of him, Matt, " Scott said, as they started downthe 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 masterslie dead. He was voicing an utter woe, his cry bursting upward in greatheart-breaking rushes, dying down into quavering misery, and burstingupward again with a rush upon rush of grief. 

The _Aurora_ was the first steamboat of the year for the Outside, and herdecks were jammed with prosperous adventurers and broken gold seekers, all equally as mad to get to the Outside as they had been originally toget to the Inside. Near the gang-plank, Scott was shaking hands withMatt, who was preparing to go ashore. But Matt's hand went limp in theother's grasp as his gaze shot past and remained fixed on somethingbehind him. Scott turned to see. Sitting on the deck several feet awayand watching wistfully was White Fang. 

The dog-musher swore softly, in awe-stricken accents. Scott could onlylook in wonder. 

"Did you lock the front door?" Matt demanded. The other nodded, andasked, "How about the back?"

"You just bet I did, " was the fervent reply. 

White Fang flattened his ears ingratiatingly, but remained where 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 awayfrom him. The dog-musher made a rush of it, and White Fang dodgedbetween the legs of a group of men. Ducking, turning, doubling, he slidabout the deck, eluding the other's efforts to capture him. 

But when the love-master spoke, White Fang came to him with promptobedience. 

"Won't come to the hand that's fed 'm all these months, " the dog-mushermuttered resentfully. "And you--you ain't never fed 'm after them firstdays of gettin' acquainted. I'm blamed if I can see how he works it outthat you're the boss. "

Scott, who had been patting White Fang, suddenly bent closer and pointedout fresh-made cuts on his muzzle, and a gash between the eyes. 

Matt bent over and passed his hand along White Fang's belly. 

"We plump forgot the window. He's all cut an' gouged underneath. Must'a' butted clean through it, b'gosh!"

But Weedon Scott was not listening. He was thinking rapidly. The_Aurora's_ whistle hooted a final announcement of departure. Men werescurrying down the gang-plank to the shore. Matt loosened the bandanafrom his own neck and started to put it around White Fang's. Scottgrasped the dog-musher's hand. 

"Good-bye, Matt, old man. About the wolf--you needn't write. You see, I've . . . !"

"What!" the dog-musher exploded. "You don't mean to say . . . ?"

"The very thing I mean. Here's your bandana. I'll write to you abouthim. "

Matt paused halfway down the gang-plank. 

"He'll never stand the climate!" he shouted back. "Unless you clip 'm inwarm weather!"

The gang-plank was hauled in, and the _Aurora_ swung out from the bank. Weedon Scott waved a last good-bye. Then he turned and bent over WhiteFang, standing by his side. 

"Now growl, damn you, growl, " he said, as he patted the responsive headand rubbed the flattening ears. 

CHAPTER II--THE SOUTHLAND

White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco. He was appalled. Deep in him, below any reasoning process or act of consciousness, he hadassociated power with godhead. And never had the white men seemed suchmarvellous gods as now, when he trod the slimy pavement of San Francisco. The log cabins he had known were replaced by towering buildings. Thestreets were crowded with perils--waggons, carts, automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; and monstrous cable and electriccars hooting and clanging through the midst, screeching their insistentmenace 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 controlling, expressing himself, as of old, by hismastery over matter. It was colossal, stunning. White Fang was awed. Fear sat upon him. As in his cubhood he had been made to feel hissmallness and puniness on the day he first came in from the Wild to thevillage of Grey Beaver, so now, in his full-grown stature and pride ofstrength, he was made to feel small and puny. And there were so manygods! He was made dizzy by the swarming of them. The thunder of thestreets smote upon his ears. He was bewildered by the tremendous andendless rush and movement of things. As never before, he felt hisdependence on the love-master, close at whose heels he followed, nomatter what happened never losing sight of him. 

But White Fang was to have no more than a nightmare vision of the city--anexperience that was like a bad dream, unreal and terrible, that hauntedhim for long after in his dreams. He was put into a baggage-car by themaster, chained in a corner in the midst of heaped trunks and valises. Here a squat and brawny god held sway, with much noise, hurling trunksand boxes about, dragging them in through the door and tossing them intothe piles, or flinging them out of the door, smashing and crashing, toother gods who awaited them. 

And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White Fang deserted by themaster. Or at least White Fang thought he was deserted, until he smelledout the master's canvas clothes-bags alongside of him, and proceeded tomount guard over them. 

"'Bout time you come, " growled the god of the car, an hour later, whenWeedon Scott appeared at the door. "That dog of yourn won't let me lay afinger on your stuff. "

White Fang emerged from the car. He was astonished. The nightmare citywas gone. The car had been to him no more than a room in a house, andwhen he had entered it the city had been all around him. In the intervalthe city had disappeared. The roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears. Before him was smiling country, streaming with sunshine, lazy withquietude. But he had little time to marvel at the transformation. Heaccepted it as he accepted all the unaccountable doings andmanifestations 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--ahostile act! The next moment Weedon Scott had torn loose from theembrace and closed with White Fang, who had become a snarling, ragingdemon. 

"It's all right, mother, " Scott was saying as he kept tight hold of WhiteFang and placated him. "He thought you were going to injure me, and hewouldn't stand for it. It's all right. It's all right. He'll learnsoon enough. "

"And in the meantime I may be permitted to love my son when his dog isnot around, " she laughed, though she was pale and weak from the fright. 

She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled and glaredmalevolently. 

"He'll have to learn, and he shall, without postponement, " Scott said. 

He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted him, then his voicebecame firm. 

"Down, sir! Down with you!"

This had been one of the things taught him by the master, and White Fangobeyed, though he lay down reluctantly and sullenly. 

"Now, mother. "

Scott opened his arms to her, but kept his eyes on White Fang. 

"Down!" he warned. "Down!"

White Fang, bristling silently, half-crouching as he rose, sank back andwatched the hostile act repeated. But no harm came of it, nor of theembrace from the strange man-god that followed. Then the clothes-bagswere taken into the carriage, the strange gods and the love-masterfollowed, and White Fang pursued, now running vigilantly behind, nowbristling up to the running horses and warning them that he was there tosee that no harm befell the god they dragged so swiftly across the earth. 

At the end of fifteen minutes, the carriage swung in through a stonegateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnuttrees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here andthere by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near distance, in contrastwith the young-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tanand gold; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures. Fromthe 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 thecarriage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep-dog, bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, righteously indignant and angry. It was between himand the master, cutting him off. White Fang snarled no warning, but hishair bristled as he made his silent and deadly rush. This rush was nevercompleted. He halted with awkward abruptness, with stiff fore-legsbracing himself against his momentum, almost sitting down on hishaunches, so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the dog he was inthe act of attacking. It was a female, and the law of his kind thrust abarrier between. For him to attack her would require nothing less than aviolation of his instinct. 

But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise. Being a female, she possessedno such instinct. On the other hand, being a sheep-dog, her instinctivefear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen. WhiteFang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyed upon herflocks from the time sheep were first herded and guarded by some dimancestor of hers. And so, as he abandoned his rush at her and bracedhimself to avoid the contact, she sprang upon him. He snarledinvoluntarily as he felt her teeth in his shoulder, but beyond this madeno offer to hurt her. He backed away, stiff-legged withself-consciousness, and tried to go around her. He dodged this way andthat, and curved and turned, but to no purpose. She remained alwaysbetween 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 tolearn many things, and it's just as well that he begins now. He'lladjust himself all right. "

The carriage drove on, and still Collie blocked White Fang's way. Hetried to outrun her by leaving the drive and circling across the lawn butshe ran on the inner and smaller circle, and was always there, facing himwith her two rows of gleaming teeth. Back he circled, across the driveto the other lawn, and again she headed him off. 

The carriage was bearing the master away. White Fang caught glimpses ofit disappearing amongst the trees. The situation was desperate. Heessayed another circle. She followed, running swiftly. And then, suddenly, he turned upon her. It was his old fighting trick. Shoulderto shoulder, he struck her squarely. Not only was she overthrown. Sofast had she been running that she rolled along, now on her back, now onher side, as she struggled to stop, clawing gravel with her feet andcrying shrilly her hurt pride and indignation. 

White Fang did not wait. The way was clear, and that was all he hadwanted. She took after him, never ceasing her outcry. It was thestraightaway now, and when it came to real running, White Fang couldteach her things. She ran frantically, hysterically, straining to theutmost, advertising the effort she was making with every leap: and allthe 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-cochere_, he came upon thecarriage. It had stopped, and the master was alighting. At this moment, still running at top speed, White Fang became suddenly aware of an attackfrom the side. It was a deer-hound rushing upon him. White Fang triedto face it. But he was going too fast, and the hound was too close. Itstruck him on the side; and such was his forward momentum and theunexpectedness of it, White Fang was hurled to the ground and rolledclear over. He came out of the tangle a spectacle of malignancy, earsflattened back, lips writhing, nose wrinkling, his teeth clippingtogether as the fangs barely missed the hound's soft throat. 

The master was running up, but was too far away; and it was Collie thatsaved the hound's life. Before White Fang could spring in and deliverthe fatal stroke, and just as he was in the act of springing in, Colliearrived. She had been out-manoeuvred and out-run, to say nothing of herhaving been unceremoniously tumbled in the gravel, and her arrival waslike that of a tornado--made up of offended dignity, justifiable wrath, and instinctive hatred for this marauder from the Wild. She struck WhiteFang at right angles in the midst of his spring, and again he was knockedoff 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 theArctic, " the master said, while White Fang calmed down under hiscaressing hand. "In all his life he's only been known once to go off hisfeet, and here he's been rolled twice in thirty seconds. "

The carriage had driven away, and other strange gods had appeared fromout the house. Some of these stood respectfully at a distance; but twoof them, women, perpetrated the hostile act of clutching the masteraround the neck. White Fang, however, was beginning to tolerate thisact. No harm seemed to come of it, while the noises the gods made werecertainly not threatening. These gods also made overtures to White Fang, but he warned them off with a snarl, and the master did likewise withword of mouth. At such times White Fang leaned in close against themaster's legs and received reassuring pats on the head. 

The hound, under the command, "Dick! Lie down, sir!" had gone up thesteps and lain down to one side of the porch, still growling and keepinga sullen watch on the intruder. Collie had been taken in charge by oneof the woman-gods, who held arms around her neck and petted and caressedher; but Collie was very much perplexed and worried, whining andrestless, outraged by the permitted presence of this wolf and confidentthat the gods were making a mistake. 

All the gods started up the steps to enter the house. White Fangfollowed closely at the master's heels. Dick, on the porch, growled, andWhite Fang, on the steps, bristled and growled back. 

"Take Collie inside and leave the two of them to fight it out, " suggestedScott's father. "After that they'll be friends. "

"Then White Fang, to show his friendship, will have to be chief mournerat the funeral, " laughed the master. 

The elder Scott looked incredulously, first at White Fang, then at Dick, and finally at his son. 

"You mean . . . ?"

Weedon nodded his head. "I mean just that. You'd have a dead Dickinside one minute--two minutes at the farthest. "

He turned to White Fang. "Come on, you wolf. It's you that'll have tocome inside. "

White Fang walked stiff-legged up the steps and across the porch, withtail rigidly erect, keeping his eyes on Dick to guard against a flankattack, and at the same time prepared for whatever fierce manifestationof the unknown that might pounce out upon him from the interior of thehouse. But no thing of fear pounced out, and when he had gained theinside he scouted carefully around, looking at it and finding it not. Then he lay down with a contented grunt at the master's feet, observingall that went on, ever ready to spring to his feet and fight for lifewith 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 tomake 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 intheir eyes he had qualified when he accompanied the gods inside thehouse. Wolf that he was, and unprecedented as it was, the gods hadsanctioned his presence, and they, the dogs of the gods, could onlyrecognise this sanction. 

Dick, perforce, had to go through a few stiff formalities at first, afterwhich he calmly accepted White Fang as an addition to the premises. HadDick had his way, they would have been good friends. All but White Fangwas averse to friendship. All he asked of other dogs was to be letalone. His whole life he had kept aloof from his kind, and he stilldesired to keep aloof. Dick's overtures bothered him, so he snarled Dickaway. In the north he had learned the lesson that he must let themaster's dogs alone, and he did not forget that lesson now. But heinsisted on his own privacy and self-seclusion, and so thoroughly ignoredDick that that good-natured creature finally gave him up and scarcelytook 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 ofthe gods, that was no reason that she should leave him in peace. Woveninto her being was the memory of countless crimes he and his hadperpetrated against her ancestry. Not in a day nor a generation were theravaged sheepfolds to be forgotten. All this was a spur to her, prickingher to retaliation. She could not fly in the face of the gods whopermitted him, but that did not prevent her from making life miserablefor him in petty ways. A feud, ages old, was between them, and she, forone, would see to it that he was reminded. 

So Collie took advantage of her sex to pick upon White Fang and maltreathim. His instinct would not permit him to attack her, while herpersistence would not permit him to ignore her. When she rushed at himhe turned his fur-protected shoulder to her sharp teeth and walked awaystiff-legged and stately. When she forced him too hard, he was compelledto go about in a circle, his shoulder presented to her, his head turnedfrom her, and on his face and in his eyes a patient and bored expression. Sometimes, however, a nip on his hind-quarters hastened his retreat andmade it anything but stately. But as a rule he managed to maintain adignity that was almost solemnity. He ignored her existence whenever itwas possible, and made it a point to keep out of her way. When he saw orheard her coming, he got up and walked off. 

There was much in other matters for White Fang to learn. Life in theNorthland was simplicity itself when compared with the complicatedaffairs of Sierra Vista. First of all, he had to learn the family of themaster. In a way he was prepared to do this. As Mit-sah and Kloo-koochhad belonged to Grey Beaver, sharing his food, his fire, and hisblankets, so now, at Sierra Vista, belonged to the love-master all thedenizens of the house. 

But in this matter there was a difference, and many differences. SierraVista was a far vaster affair than the tepee of Grey Beaver. There weremany persons to be considered. There was Judge Scott, and there was hiswife. There were the master's two sisters, Beth and Mary. There was hiswife, Alice, and then there were his children, Weedon and Maud, toddlersof four and six. There was no way for anybody to tell him about allthese people, and of blood-ties and relationship he knew nothing whateverand never would be capable of knowing. Yet he quickly worked it out thatall of them belonged to the master. Then, by observation, wheneveropportunity offered, by study of action, speech, and the very intonationsof the voice, he slowly learned the intimacy and the degree of favourthey enjoyed with the master. And by this ascertained standard, WhiteFang treated them accordingly. What was of value to the master hevalued; what was dear to the master was to be cherished by White Fang andguarded carefully. 

Thus it was with the two children. All his life he had dislikedchildren. He hated and feared their hands. The lessons were not tenderthat he had learned of their tyranny and cruelty in the days of theIndian villages. When Weedon and Maud had first approached him, hegrowled warningly and looked malignant. A cuff from the master and asharp word had then compelled him to permit their caresses, though hegrowled and growled under their tiny hands, and in the growl there was nocrooning note. Later, he observed that the boy and girl were of greatvalue in the master's eyes. Then it was that no cuff nor sharp word wasnecessary before they could pat him. 

Yet White Fang was never effusively affectionate. He yielded to themaster's children with an ill but honest grace, and endured their foolingas 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. Hewould not go up to them. On the other hand, instead of walking away atsight of them, he waited for them to come to him. And still later, itwas noticed that a pleased light came into his eyes when he saw themapproaching, and that he looked after them with an appearance of curiousregret 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 onthe wide porch when he read the newspaper, from time to time favouringWhite Fang with a look or a word--untroublesome tokens that he recognisedWhite Fang's presence and existence. But this was only when the masterwas not around. When the master appeared, all other beings ceased toexist so far as White Fang was concerned. 

White Fang allowed all the members of the family to pet him and make muchof him; but he never gave to them what he gave to the master. No caressof theirs could put the love-croon into his throat, and, try as theywould, they could never persuade him into snuggling against them. Thisexpression of abandon and surrender, of absolute trust, he reserved forthe master alone. In fact, he never regarded the members of the familyin any other light than possessions of the love-master. 

Also White Fang had early come to differentiate between the family andthe servants of the household. The latter were afraid of him, while hemerely refrained from attacking them. This because he considered thatthey were likewise possessions of the master. Between White Fang andthem existed a neutrality and no more. They cooked for the master andwashed the dishes and did other things just as Matt had done up in theKlondike. They were, in short, appurtenances of the household. 

Outside the household there was even more for White Fang to learn. Themaster'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 domainof all gods--the roads and streets. Then inside other fences were theparticular domains of other gods. A myriad laws governed all thesethings and determined conduct; yet he did not know the speech of thegods, nor was there any way for him to learn save by experience. Heobeyed his natural impulses until they ran him counter to some law. Whenthis had been done a few times, he learned the law and after thatobserved it. 

But most potent in his education was the cuff of the master's hand, thecensure of the master's voice. Because of White Fang's very great love, a cuff from the master hurt him far more than any beating Grey Beaver orBeauty 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. Yetit went deeper. It was an expression of the master's disapproval, andWhite Fang's spirit wilted under it. 

In point of fact, the cuff was rarely administered. The master's voicewas sufficient. By it White Fang knew whether he did right or not. Byit he trimmed his conduct and adjusted his actions. It was the compassby which he steered and learned to chart the manners of a new land andlife. 

In the Northland, the only domesticated animal was the dog. All otheranimals lived in the Wild, and were, when not too formidable, lawfulspoil for any dog. All his days White Fang had foraged among the livethings for food. It did not enter his head that in the Southland it wasotherwise. But this he was to learn early in his residence in SantaClara Valley. Sauntering around the corner of the house in the earlymorning, he came upon a chicken that had escaped from the chicken-yard. White Fang's natural impulse was to eat it. A couple of bounds, a flashof teeth and a frightened squawk, and he had scooped in the adventurousfowl. It was farm-bred and fat and tender; and White Fang licked hischops 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 WhiteFang, but not a whip. Silently, without flinching, he took a second cutin 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 histhroat with his arms. In consequence, his forearm was ripped open to thebone. 

The man was badly frightened. It was not so much White Fang's ferocityas it was his silence that unnerved the groom. Still protecting histhroat and face with his torn and bleeding arm, he tried to retreat tothe barn. And it would have gone hard with him had not Collie appearedon 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. Shehad known better than the blundering gods. All her suspicions werejustified. Here was the ancient marauder up to his old tricks again. 

The groom escaped into the stables, and White Fang backed away beforeCollie's wicked teeth, or presented his shoulder to them and circledround and round. But Collie did not give over, as was her wont, after adecent interval of chastisement. On the contrary, she grew more excitedand angry every moment, until, in the end, White Fang flung dignity tothe winds and frankly fled away from her across the fields. 

"He'll learn to leave chickens alone, " the master said. "But I can'tgive him the lesson until I catch him in the act. "

Two nights later came the act, but on a more generous scale than themaster had anticipated. White Fang had observed closely thechicken-yards and the habits of the chickens. In the night-time, afterthey had gone to roost, he climbed to the top of a pile of newly hauledlumber. From there he gained the roof of a chicken-house, passed overthe ridgepole and dropped to the ground inside. A moment later he wasinside the house, and the slaughter began. 

In the morning, when the master came out on to the porch, fifty whiteLeghorn hens, laid out in a row by the groom, greeted his eyes. Hewhistled to himself, softly, first with surprise, and then, at the end, with admiration. His eyes were likewise greeted by White Fang, but aboutthe latter there were no signs of shame nor guilt. He carried himselfwith pride, as though, forsooth, he had achieved a deed praiseworthy andmeritorious. There was about him no consciousness of sin. The master'slips tightened as he faced the disagreeable task. Then he talked harshlyto the unwitting culprit, and in his voice there was nothing but godlikewrath. Also, he held White Fang's nose down to the slain hens, and atthe 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 abouthim and under his very nose, was to spring upon it. He obeyed theimpulse, but was checked by the master's voice. They continued in theyards for half an hour. Time and again the impulse surged over WhiteFang, and each time, as he yielded to it, he was checked by the master'svoice. Thus it was he learned the law, and ere he left the domain of thechickens, he had learned to ignore their existence. 

"You can never cure a chicken-killer. " Judge Scott shook his head sadlyat luncheon table, when his son narrated the lesson he had given WhiteFang. "Once they've got the habit and the taste of blood . . . " Againhe shook his head sadly. 

But Weedon Scott did not agree with his father. "I'll tell you what I'lldo, " he challenged finally. "I'll lock White Fang in with the chickensall afternoon. "

"But think of the chickens, " objected the judge. 

"And furthermore, " the son went on, "for every chicken he kills, I'll payyou one dollar gold coin of the realm. "

"But you should penalise father, too, " interpose Beth. 

Her sister seconded her, and a chorus of approval arose from around thetable. Judge Scott nodded his head in agreement. 

"All right. " Weedon Scott pondered for a moment. "And if, at the end ofthe afternoon White Fang hasn't harmed a chicken, for every ten minutesof the time he has spent in the yard, you will have to say to him, gravely and with deliberation, just as if you were sitting on the benchand solemnly passing judgment, 'White Fang, you are smarter than Ithought. '"

From hidden points of vantage the family watched the performance. But itwas a fizzle. Locked in the yard and there deserted by the master, WhiteFang lay down and went to sleep. Once he got up and walked over to thetrough for a drink of water. The chickens he calmly ignored. So far ashe was concerned they did not exist. At four o'clock he executed arunning jump, gained the roof of the chicken-house and leaped to theground outside, whence he sauntered gravely to the house. He had learnedthe 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 oftenbrought him into disgrace. He had to learn that he must not touch thechickens that belonged to other gods. Then there were cats, and rabbits, and turkeys; all these he must let alone. In fact, when he had butpartly learned the law, his impression was that he must leave all livethings alone. Out in the back-pasture, a quail could flutter up underhis nose unharmed. All tense and trembling with eagerness and desire, hemastered his instinct and stood still. He was obeying the will of thegods. 

And then, one day, again out in the back-pasture, he saw Dick start ajackrabbit and run it. The master himself was looking on and did notinterfere. Nay, he encouraged White Fang to join in the chase. And thushe learned that there was no taboo on jackrabbits. In the end he workedout the complete law. Between him and all domestic animals there must beno hostilities. If not amity, at least neutrality must obtain. But theother animals--the squirrels, and quail, and cottontails, were creaturesof the Wild who had never yielded allegiance to man. They were thelawful 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 thepower of life and death over their subjects, and the gods were jealous oftheir power. 

Life was complex in the Santa Clara Valley after the simplicities of theNorthland. And the chief thing demanded by these intricacies ofcivilisation was control, restraint--a poise of self that was as delicateas the fluttering of gossamer wings and at the same time as rigid assteel. Life had a thousand faces, and White Fang found he must meet themall--thus, when he went to town, in to San Jose, running behind thecarriage or loafing about the streets when the carriage stopped. Lifeflowed past him, deep and wide and varied, continually impinging upon hissenses, demanding of him instant and endless adjustments andcorrespondences, and compelling him, almost always, to suppress hisnatural impulses. 

There were butcher-shops where meat hung within reach. This meat he mustnot touch. There were cats at the houses the master visited that must belet alone. And there were dogs everywhere that snarled at him and thathe must not attack. And then, on the crowded sidewalks there werepersons innumerable whose attention he attracted. They would stop andlook at him, point him out to one another, examine him, talk of him, and, worst of all, pat him. And these perilous contacts from all thesestrange hands he must endure. Yet this endurance he achieved. Furthermore, he got over being awkward and self-conscious. In a loftyway he received the attentions of the multitudes of strange gods. Withcondescension he accepted their condescension. On the other hand, therewas something about him that prevented great familiarity. They pattedhim on the head and passed on, contented and pleased with their owndaring. 

But it was not all easy for White Fang. Running behind the carriage inthe outskirts of San Jose, he encountered certain small boys who made apractice of flinging stones at him. Yet he knew that it was notpermitted him to pursue and drag them down. Here he was compelled toviolate his instinct of self-preservation, and violate it he did, for hewas becoming tame and qualifying himself for civilisation. 

Nevertheless, White Fang was not quite satisfied with the arrangement. Hehad no abstract ideas about justice and fair play. But there is acertain sense of equity that resides in life, and it was this sense inhim that resented the unfairness of his being permitted no defenceagainst the stone-throwers. He forgot that in the covenant entered intobetween him and the gods they were pledged to care for him and defendhim. But one day the master sprang from the carriage, whip in hand, andgave the stone-throwers a thrashing. After that they threw stones nomore, 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 apractice of rushing out upon him when he went by. Knowing his deadlymethod of fighting, the master had never ceased impressing upon WhiteFang the law that he must not fight. As a result, having learned thelesson well, White Fang was hard put whenever he passed the cross-roadssaloon. After the first rush, each time, his snarl kept the three dogsat a distance but they trailed along behind, yelping and bickering andinsulting him. This endured for some time. The men at the saloon evenurged the dogs on to attack White Fang. One day they openly sicked thedogs 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 lookedat the dogs. Then he looked back eagerly and questioningly at themaster. 

The master nodded his head. "Go to them, old fellow. Eat them up. "

White Fang no longer hesitated. He turned and leaped silently among hisenemies. All three faced him. There was a great snarling and growling, a clashing of teeth and a flurry of bodies. The dust of the road arosein a cloud and screened the battle. But at the end of several minutestwo dogs were struggling in the dirt and the third was in full flight. Heleaped a ditch, went through a rail fence, and fled across a field. WhiteFang followed, sliding over the ground in wolf fashion and with wolfspeed, swiftly and without noise, and in the centre of the field hedragged down and slew the dog. 

With this triple killing his main troubles with dogs ceased. The wordwent up and down the valley, and men saw to it that their dogs did notmolest the Fighting Wolf. 

CHAPTER IV--THE CALL OF KIND

The months came and went. There was plenty of food and no work in theSouthland, and White Fang lived fat and prosperous and happy. Not alonewas he in the geographical Southland, for he was in the Southland oflife. Human kindness was like a sun shining upon him, and he flourishedlike a flower planted in good soil. 

And yet he remained somehow different from other dogs. He knew the laweven better than did the dogs that had known no other life, and heobserved the law more punctiliously; but still there was about him asuggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the Wild still lingered in himand the wolf in him merely slept. 

He never chummed with other dogs. Lonely he had lived, so far as hiskind was concerned, and lonely he would continue to live. In hispuppyhood, under the persecution of Lip-lip and the puppy-pack, and inhis fighting days with Beauty Smith, he had acquired a fixed aversion fordogs. The natural course of his life had been diverted, and, recoilingfrom his kind, he had clung to the human. 

Besides, all Southland dogs looked upon him with suspicion. He arousedin them their instinctive fear of the Wild, and they greeted him alwayswith snarl and growl and belligerent hatred. He, on the other hand, learned that it was not necessary to use his teeth upon them. His nakedfangs and writhing lips were uniformly efficacious, rarely failing tosend a bellowing on-rushing dog back on its haunches. 

But there was one trial in White Fang's life--Collie. She never gave hima moment's peace. She was not so amenable to the law as he. She defiedall 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 neverforgiven him the chicken-killing episode, and persistently held to thebelief that his intentions were bad. She found him guilty before theact, and treated him accordingly. She became a pest to him, like apoliceman following him around the stable and the hounds, and, if he evenso much as glanced curiously at a pigeon or chicken, bursting into anoutcry of indignation and wrath. His favourite way of ignoring her wasto lie down, with his head on his fore-paws, and pretend sleep. Thisalways dumfounded and silenced her. 

With the exception of Collie, all things went well with White Fang. Hehad learned control and poise, and he knew the law. He achieved astaidness, and calmness, and philosophic tolerance. He no longer livedin a hostile environment. Danger and hurt and death did not lurkeverywhere about him. In time, the unknown, as a thing of terror andmenace ever impending, faded away. Life was soft and easy. It flowedalong 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 merelymissed the snow in a vague, subconscious way. In the same fashion, especially in the heat of summer when he suffered from the sun, heexperienced faint longings for the Northland. Their only effect uponhim, however, was to make him uneasy and restless without his knowingwhat was the matter. 

White Fang had never been very demonstrative. Beyond his snuggling andthe throwing of a crooning note into his love-growl, he had no way ofexpressing his love. Yet it was given him to discover a third way. Hehad always been susceptible to the laughter of the gods. Laughter hadaffected him with madness, made him frantic with rage. But he did nothave it in him to be angry with the love-master, and when that godelected to laugh at him in a good-natured, bantering way, he wasnonplussed. He could feel the pricking and stinging of the old anger asit strove to rise up in him, but it strove against love. He could not beangry; yet he had to do something. At first he was dignified, and themaster laughed the harder. Then he tried to be more dignified, and themaster laughed harder than before. In the end, the master laughed himout of his dignity. His jaws slightly parted, his lips lifted a little, and a quizzical expression that was more love than humour came into hiseyes. He had learned to laugh. 

Likewise he learned to romp with the master, to be tumbled down androlled over, and be the victim of innumerable rough tricks. In return hefeigned anger, bristling and growling ferociously, and clipping his teethtogether in snaps that had all the seeming of deadly intention. But henever forgot himself. Those snaps were always delivered on the emptyair. At the end of such a romp, when blow and cuff and snap and snarlwere last and furious, they would break off suddenly and stand severalfeet apart, glaring at each other. And then, just as suddenly, like thesun rising on a stormy sea, they would begin to laugh. This would alwaysculminate with the master's arms going around White Fang's neck andshoulders while the latter crooned and growled his love-song. 

But nobody else ever romped with White Fang. He did not permit it. Hestood on his dignity, and when they attempted it, his warning snarl andbristling mane were anything but playful. That he allowed the masterthese liberties was no reason that he should be a common dog, loving hereand loving there, everybody's property for a romp and good time. Heloved with single heart and refused to cheapen himself or his love. 

The master went out on horseback a great deal, and to accompany him wasone of White Fang's chief duties in life. In the Northland he hadevidenced his fealty by toiling in the harness; but there were no sledsin the Southland, nor did dogs pack burdens on their backs. So herendered fealty in the new way, by running with the master's horse. Thelongest 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 wouldcome in jauntily ahead of the horse. 

It was in connection with the riding, that White Fang achieved one othermode of expression--remarkable in that he did it but twice in all hislife. The first time occurred when the master was trying to teach aspirited thoroughbred the method of opening and closing gates without therider's dismounting. Time and again and many times he ranged the horseup to the gate in the effort to close it and each time the horse becamefrightened and backed and plunged away. It grew more nervous and excitedevery moment. When it reared, the master put the spurs to it and made itdrop its fore-legs back to earth, whereupon it would begin kicking withits hind-legs. White Fang watched the performance with increasinganxiety until he could contain himself no longer, when he sprang in frontof 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. Ascamper across the pasture, a jackrabbit rising suddenly under thehorse's feet, a violent sheer, a stumble, a fall to earth, and a brokenleg for the master, was the cause of it. White Fang sprang in a rage atthe throat of the offending horse, but was checked by the master's voice. 

"Home! Go home!" the master commanded when he had ascertained hisinjury. 

White Fang was disinclined to desert him. The master thought of writinga note, but searched his pockets vainly for pencil and paper. Again hecommanded White Fang to go home. 

The latter regarded him wistfully, started away, then returned and whinedsoftly. The master talked to him gently but seriously, and he cocked hisears, 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, youwolf. Get along home!"

White Fang knew the meaning of "home, " and though he did not understandthe remainder of the master's language, he knew it was his will that heshould go home. He turned and trotted reluctantly away. Then hestopped, undecided, and looked back over his shoulder. 

"Go home!" came the sharp command, and this time he obeyed. 

The family was on the porch, taking the cool of the afternoon, when WhiteFang 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. Heavoided them and passed down the porch, but they cornered him against arocking-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 children, " she said. "I havea dread that he will turn upon them unexpectedly some day. "

Growling savagely, White Fang sprang out of the corner, overturning theboy 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 inhis absence. 

"You have only Weedon's opinion for that, " rejoined the judge. "Hemerely surmises that there is some strain of dog in White Fang; but as hewill tell you himself, he knows nothing about it. As for hisappearance--"

He did not finish his sentence. White Fang stood before him, growlingfiercely. 

"Go away! Lie down, sir!" Judge Scott commanded. 

White Fang turned to the love-master's wife. She screamed with fright ashe seized her dress in his teeth and dragged on it till the frail fabrictore away. By this time he had become the centre of interest. 

He had ceased from his growling and stood, head up, looking into theirfaces. His throat worked spasmodically, but made no sound, while hestruggled with all his body, convulsed with the effort to rid himself ofthe incommunicable something that strained for utterance. 

"I hope he is not going mad, " said Weedon's mother. "I told Weedon thatI was afraid the warm climate would not agree with an Arctic animal. "

"He's trying to speak, I do believe, " Beth announced. 

At this moment speech came to White Fang, rushing up in a great burst ofbarking. 

"Something has happened to Weedon, " his wife said decisively. 

They were all on their feet now, and White Fang ran down the steps, looking back for them to follow. For the second and last time in hislife he had barked and made himself understood. 

After this event he found a warmer place in the hearts of the SierraVista people, and even the groom whose arm he had slashed admitted thathe was a wise dog even if he was a wolf. Judge Scott still held to thesame opinion, and proved it to everybody's dissatisfaction bymeasurements and descriptions taken from the encyclopaedia and variousworks on natural history. 

The days came and went, streaming their unbroken sunshine over the SantaClara Valley. But as they grew shorter and White Fang's second winter inthe Southland came on, he made a strange discovery. Collie's teeth wereno longer sharp. There was a playfulness about her nips and a gentlenessthat prevented them from really hurting him. He forgot that she had madelife a burden to him, and when she disported herself around him heresponded solemnly, striving to be playful and becoming no more thanridiculous. 

One day she led him off on a long chase through the back-pasture landinto the woods. It was the afternoon that the master was to ride, andWhite Fang knew it. The horse stood saddled and waiting at the door. White Fang hesitated. But there was that in him deeper than all the lawhe had learned, than the customs that had moulded him, than his love forthe master, than the very will to live of himself; and when, in themoment of his indecision, Collie nipped him and scampered off, he turnedand 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 oldOne 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 escapeof a convict from San Quentin prison. He was a ferocious man. He hadbeen ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he had notbeen 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 itshandiwork. He was a beast--a human beast, it is true, but neverthelessso terrible a beast that he can best be characterised as carnivorous. 

In San Quentin prison he had proved incorrigible. Punishment failed tobreak his spirit. He could die dumb-mad and fighting to the last, but hecould not live and be beaten. The more fiercely he fought, the moreharshly society handled him, and the only effect of harshness was to makehim fiercer. Straight-jackets, starvation, and beatings and clubbingswere the wrong treatment for Jim Hall; but it was the treatment hereceived. It was the treatment he had received from the time he was alittle pulpy boy in a San Francisco slum--soft clay in the hands ofsociety and ready to be formed into something. 

It was during Jim Hall's third term in prison that he encountered a guardthat was almost as great a beast as he. The guard treated him unfairly, lied about him to the warden, lost his credits, persecuted him. Thedifference between them was that the guard carried a bunch of keys and arevolver. Jim Hall had only his naked hands and his teeth. But hesprang upon the guard one day and used his teeth on the other's throatjust like any jungle animal. 

After this, Jim Hall went to live in the incorrigible cell. He livedthere 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 wasa twilight and night was a black silence. He was in an iron tomb, buriedalive. He saw no human face, spoke to no human thing. When his food wasshoved 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 andmonths he never made a sound, in the black silence eating his very soul. He was a man and a monstrosity, as fearful a thing of fear as evergibbered in the visions of a maddened brain. 

And then, one night, he escaped. The warders said it was impossible, butnevertheless the cell was empty, and half in half out of it lay the bodyof a dead guard. Two other dead guards marked his trail through theprison to the outer walls, and he had killed with his hands to avoidnoise. 

He was armed with the weapons of the slain guards--a live arsenal thatfled through the hills pursued by the organised might of society. Aheavy price of gold was upon his head. Avaricious farmers hunted himwith shot-guns. His blood might pay off a mortgage or send a son tocollege. Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went outafter him. A pack of bloodhounds followed the way of his bleeding feet. And the sleuth-hounds of the law, the paid fighting animals of society, with telephone, and telegraph, and special train, clung to his trailnight and day. 

Sometimes they came upon him, and men faced him like heroes, or stampededthrough barbed-wire fences to the delight of the commonwealth reading theaccount at the breakfast table. It was after such encounters that thedead and wounded were carted back to the towns, and their places filledby men eager for the man-hunt. 

And then Jim Hall disappeared. The bloodhounds vainly quested on thelost trail. Inoffensive ranchers in remote valleys were held up by armedmen and compelled to identify themselves. While the remains of Jim Hallwere discovered on a dozen mountain-sides by greedy claimants for blood-money. 

In the meantime the newspapers were read at Sierra Vista, not so muchwith interest as with anxiety. The women were afraid. Judge Scott pooh-poohed and laughed, but not with reason, for it was in his last days onthe bench that Jim Hall had stood before him and received sentence. Andin open court-room, before all men, Jim Hall had proclaimed that the daywould come when he would wreak vengeance on the Judge that sentenced him. 

For once, Jim Hall was right. He was innocent of the crime for which hewas sentenced. It was a case, in the parlance of thieves and police, of"rail-roading. " Jim Hall was being "rail-roaded" to prison for a crimehe had not committed. Because of the two prior convictions against him, Judge Scott imposed upon him a sentence of fifty years. 

Judge Scott did not know all things, and he did not know that he wasparty to a police conspiracy, that the evidence was hatched and perjured, that Jim Hall was guiltless of the crime charged. And Jim Hall, on theother hand, did not know that Judge Scott was merely ignorant. Jim Hallbelieved that the judge knew all about it and was hand in glove with thepolice in the perpetration of the monstrous injustice. So it was, whenthe doom of fifty years of living death was uttered by Judge Scott, thatJim Hall, hating all things in the society that misused him, rose up andraged in the court-room until dragged down by half a dozen of his blue-coated enemies. To him, Judge Scott was the keystone in the arch ofinjustice, and upon Judge Scott he emptied the vials of his wrath andhurled the threats of his revenge yet to come. Then Jim Hall went to hisliving death . . . And escaped. 

Of all this White Fang knew nothing. But between him and Alice, themaster's wife, there existed a secret. Each night, after Sierra Vistahad gone to bed, she rose 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 thehouse; so each morning, early, she slipped down and let him out beforethe family was awake. 

On one such night, while all the house slept, White Fang awoke and layvery quietly. And very quietly he smelled the air and read the messageit bore of a strange god's presence. And to his ears came sounds of thestrange god's movements. White Fang burst into no furious outcry. Itwas not his way. The strange god walked softly, but more softly walkedWhite 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 wasinfinitely 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 andwaited. Up that staircase the way led to the love-master and to the love-master's dearest possessions. White Fang bristled, but waited. Thestrange god's foot lifted. He was beginning the ascent. 

Then it was that White Fang struck. He gave no warning, with no snarlanticipated his own action. Into the air he lifted his body in thespring that landed him on the strange god's back. White Fang clung withhis fore-paws to the man's shoulders, at the same time burying his fangsinto the back of the man's neck. He clung on for a moment, long enoughto drag the god over backward. Together they crashed to the floor. WhiteFang leaped clear, and, as the man struggled to rise, was in again withthe slashing fangs. 

Sierra Vista awoke in alarm. The noise from downstairs was as that of ascore of battling fiends. There were revolver shots. A man's voicescreamed once in horror and anguish. There was a great snarling andgrowling, and over all arose a smashing and crashing of furniture andglass. 

But almost as quickly as it had arisen, the commotion died away. Thestruggle had not lasted more than three minutes. The frightenedhousehold clustered at the top of the stairway. From below, as from outan abyss of blackness, came up a gurgling sound, as of air bubblingthrough water. Sometimes this gurgle became sibilant, almost a whistle. But this, too, quickly died down and ceased. Then naught came up out ofthe blackness save a heavy panting of some creature struggling sorely forair. 

Weedon Scott pressed a button, and the staircase and downstairs hall wereflooded with light. Then he and Judge Scott, revolvers in hand, cautiously descended. There was no need for this caution. White Fanghad done his work. In the midst of the wreckage of overthrown andsmashed furniture, partly on his side, his face hidden by an arm, lay aman. Weedon Scott bent over, removed the arm and turned the man's faceupward. A gaping throat explained the manner of his death. 

"Jim Hall, " said Judge Scott, and father and son looked significantly ateach other. 

Then they turned to White Fang. He, too, was lying on his side. Hiseyes were closed, but the lids slightly lifted in an effort to look atthem as they bent over him, and the tail was perceptibly agitated in avain effort to wag. Weedon Scott patted him, and his throat rumbled anacknowledging growl. But it was a weak growl at best, and it quicklyceased. His eyelids drooped and went shut, and his whole body seemed torelax 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 thetelephone. 

"Frankly, he has one chance in a thousand, " announced the surgeon, afterhe 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 aboutthe surgeon to hear his verdict. 

"One broken hind-leg, " he went on. "Three broken ribs, one at least ofwhich has pierced the lungs. He has lost nearly all the blood in hisbody. There is a large likelihood of internal injuries. He must havebeen jumped upon. To say nothing of three bullet holes clear throughhim. One chance in a thousand is really optimistic. He hasn't a chancein ten thousand. "

"But he mustn't lose any chance that might be of help to him, " JudgeScott exclaimed. "Never mind expense. Put him under the X-ray--anything. Weedon, telegraph at once to San Francisco for Doctor Nichols. Noreflection on you, doctor, you understand; but he must have the advantageof every chance. "

The surgeon smiled indulgently. "Of course I understand. He deservesall that can be done for him. He must be nursed as you would nurse ahuman being, a sick child. And don't forget what I told you abouttemperature. I'll be back at ten o'clock again. "

White Fang received the nursing. Judge Scott's suggestion of a trainednurse was indignantly clamoured down by the girls, who themselvesundertook the task. And White Fang won out on the one chance in tenthousand denied him by the surgeon. 

The latter was not to be censured for his misjudgment. All his life hehad tended and operated on the soft humans of civilisation, who livedsheltered lives and had descended out of many sheltered generations. Compared with White Fang, they were frail and flabby, and clutched lifewithout any strength in their grip. White Fang had come straight fromthe 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 thegenerations before them. A constitution of iron and the vitality of theWild were White Fang's inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole ofhim and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity thatof old belonged to all creatures. 

Bound down a prisoner, denied even movement by the plaster casts andbandages, White Fang lingered out the weeks. He slept long hours anddreamed much, and through his mind passed an unending pageant ofNorthland visions. All the ghosts of the past arose and were with him. Once again he lived in the lair with Kiche, crept trembling to the kneesof Grey Beaver to tender his allegiance, ran for his life before Lip-lipand all the howling bedlam of the puppy-pack. 

He ran again through the silence, hunting his living food through themonths of famine; and again he ran at the head of the team, the gut-whipsof Mit-sah and Grey Beaver snapping behind, their voices crying "Ra!Raa!" when they came to a narrow passage and the team closed togetherlike a fan to go through. He lived again all his days with Beauty Smithand the fights he had fought. At such times he whimpered and snarled inhis sleep, and they that looked on said that his dreams were bad. 

But there was one particular nightmare from which he suffered--theclanking, clanging monsters of electric cars that were to him colossalscreaming lynxes. He would lie in a screen of bushes, watching for asquirrel to venture far enough out on the ground from its tree-refuge. Then, when he sprang out upon it, it would transform itself into anelectric car, menacing and terrible, towering over him like a mountain, screaming and clanging and spitting fire at him. It was the same when hechallenged the hawk down out of the sky. Down out of the blue it wouldrush, as it dropped upon him changing itself into the ubiquitous electriccar. 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 thedoor for his antagonist to enter. The door would open, and thrust inupon him would come the awful electric car. A thousand times thisoccurred, and each time the terror it inspired was as vivid and great asever. 

Then came the day when the last bandage and the last plaster cast weretaken off. It was a gala day. All Sierra Vista was gathered around. Themaster rubbed his ears, and he crooned his love-growl. The master's wifecalled him the "Blessed Wolf, " which name was taken up with acclaim andall the women called him the Blessed Wolf. 

He tried to rise to his feet, and after several attempts fell down fromweakness. He had lain so long that his muscles had lost their cunning, and all the strength had gone out of them. He felt a little shamebecause of his weakness, as though, forsooth, he were failing the gods inthe service he owed them. Because of this he made heroic efforts toarise and at last he stood on his four legs, tottering and swaying backand forth. 

"The Blessed Wolf!" chorused the women. 

Judge Scott surveyed them triumphantly. 

"Out of your own mouths be it, " he said. "Just as I contended rightalong. No mere dog could have done what he did. He's a wolf. "

"A Blessed Wolf, " amended the Judge's wife. 

"Yes, Blessed Wolf, " agreed the Judge. "And henceforth that shall be myname for him. "

"He'll have to learn to walk again, " said the surgeon; "so he might aswell start in right now. It won't hurt him. Take him outside. "

And outside he went, like a king, with all Sierra Vista about him andtending on him. He was very weak, and when he reached the lawn he laydown and rested for a while. 

Then the procession started on, little spurts of strength coming intoWhite Fang's muscles as he used them and the blood began to surge throughthem. The stables were reached, and there in the doorway, lay Collie, ahalf-dozen pudgy puppies playing about her in the sun. 

White Fang looked on with a wondering eye. Collie snarled warningly athim, and he was careful to keep his distance. The master with his toehelped one sprawling puppy toward him. He bristled suspiciously, but themaster warned him that all was well. Collie, clasped in the arms of oneof the women, watched him jealously and with a snarl warned him that allwas not well. 

The puppy sprawled in front of him. He cocked his ears and watched itcuriously. Then their noses touched, and he felt the warm little tongueof 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. Hewas surprised, and looked at them in a puzzled way. Then his weaknessasserted 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, toCollie's great disgust; and he gravely permitted them to clamber andtumble over him. At first, amid the applause of the gods, he betrayed atrifle of his old self-consciousness and awkwardness. This passed awayas the puppies' antics and mauling continued, and he lay with half-shutpatient eyes, drowsing in the sun.