автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу  White Fang

Jack London

Part I

I The Trail of the Meat

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen wa­ter­way. The trees had been stripped by a re­cent wind of their white cov­er­ing of frost, and they seemed to lean to­wards each other, black and omin­ous, in the fad­ing light. A vast si­lence reigned over the land. The land it­self was a des­ol­a­tion, life­less, without move­ment, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sad­ness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more ter­rible than any sad­ness—a laughter that was mirth­less as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and par­tak­ing of the grim­ness of in­fal­lib­il­ity. It was the mas­ter­ful and in­com­mu­nic­able wis­dom of etern­ity laugh­ing at the fu­til­ity of life and the ef­fort of life. It was the Wild, the sav­age, frozen-hearted North­land Wild.

But there was life, abroad in the land and de­fi­ant. Down the frozen wa­ter­way toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spout­ing forth in spumes of va­pour that settled upon the hair of their bod­ies and formed into crys­tals of frost. Leather har­ness was on the dogs, and leather traces at­tached them to a sled which dragged along be­hind. The sled was without run­ners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full sur­face res­ted on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in or­der to force down and un­der the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave be­fore it. On the sled, se­curely lashed, was a long and nar­row ob­long box. There were other things on the sled—blankets, an axe, and a cof­fee­pot and fry­ing-pan; but prom­in­ent, oc­cupy­ing most of the space, was the long and nar­row ob­long box.

In ad­vance of the dogs, on wide snow­shoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over—a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down un­til he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like move­ment. Life is an of­fence to it, for life is move­ment; and the Wild aims al­ways to des­troy move­ment. It freezes the wa­ter to pre­vent it run­ning to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most fe­ro­ciously and ter­ribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into sub­mis­sion man—man who is the most rest­less of life, ever in re­volt against the dictum that all move­ment must in the end come to the ces­sa­tion of move­ment.

But at front and rear, un­awed and in­dom­it­able, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their bod­ies were covered with fur and soft-tanned leather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crys­tals from their frozen breath that their faces were not dis­cern­ible. This gave them the seem­ing of ghostly masques, un­der­takers in a spec­tral world at the fu­neral of some ghost. But un­der it all they were men, pen­et­rat­ing the land of des­ol­a­tion and mock­ery and si­lence, puny ad­ven­tur­ers bent on co­lossal ad­ven­ture, pit­ting them­selves against the might of a world as re­mote and alien and pulse­less as the abysses of space.

They trav­elled on without speech, sav­ing their breath for the work of their bod­ies. On every side was the si­lence, press­ing upon them with a tan­gible pres­ence. It af­fected their minds as the many at­mo­spheres of deep wa­ter af­fect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of un­end­ing vast­ness and un­al­ter­able de­cree. It crushed them into the re­motest re­cesses of their own minds, press­ing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ar­dours and ex­al­ta­tions and un­due self-val­ues of the hu­man soul, un­til they per­ceived them­selves fi­nite and small, specks and motes, mov­ing with weak cun­ning and little wis­dom amidst the play and in­ter­play of the great blind ele­ments and forces.

An hour went by, and a second hour. The pale light of the short sun­less day was be­gin­ning to fade, when a faint far cry arose on the still air. It soared up­ward with a swift rush, till it reached its top­most note, where it per­sisted, pal­pit­ant and tense, and then slowly died away. It might have been a lost soul wail­ing, had it not been in­ves­ted with a cer­tain sad fierce­ness and hungry eager­ness. The front man turned his head un­til his eyes met the eyes of the man be­hind. And then, across the nar­row ob­long box, each nod­ded to the other.

A second cry arose, pier­cing the si­lence with needle-like shrill­ness. Both men loc­ated the sound. It was to the rear, some­where in the snow ex­panse they had just tra­versed. A third and an­swer­ing cry arose, also to the rear and to the left of the second cry.

“They’re after us, Bill,” said the man at the front.

His voice soun­ded hoarse and un­real, and he had spoken with ap­par­ent ef­fort.

“Meat is scarce,” answered his com­rade. “I ain’t seen a rab­bit sign for days.”

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

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

“Seems to me, Henry, they’re stayin’ re­mark­able close to camp,” Bill com­men­ted.

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

“They know where their hides is safe,” he said. “They’d sooner eat grub than be grub. They’re pretty wise, them dogs.”

Bill shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know.”

His com­rade looked at him curi­ously. “First time I ever heard you say any­thing about their not bein’ wise.”

“Henry,” said the other, munch­ing with de­lib­er­a­tion the beans he was eat­ing, “did you hap­pen to no­tice the way them dogs kicked up when I was a-feedin’ ’em?”

“They did cut up more’n usual,” Henry ac­know­ledged.

“How many dogs ’ve we got, Henry?”

“Six.”

“Well, Henry …” Bill stopped for a mo­ment, in or­der that his words might gain greater sig­ni­fic­ance. “As I was sayin’, Henry, we’ve got six dogs. I took six fish out of the bag. I gave one fish to each dog, an’, Henry, I was one fish short.”

“You coun­ted wrong.”

“We’ve got six dogs,” the other re­it­er­ated dis­pas­sion­ately. “I took out six fish. One Ear didn’t get no fish. I came back to the bag af­ter­ward an’ got ’m his fish.”

“We’ve only got six dogs,” Henry said.

“Henry,” Bill went on. “I won’t say they was all dogs, but there was seven of ’m that got fish.”

Henry stopped eat­ing to glance across the fire and count the dogs.

“There’s only six now,” he said.

“I saw the other one run off across the snow,” Bill an­nounced with cool pos­it­ive­ness. “I saw seven.”

Henry looked at him com­mis­er­at­ingly, and said, “I’ll be almighty glad when this trip’s over.”

“What d’ye mean by that?” Bill de­man­ded.

“I mean that this load of ourn is get­tin’ on your nerves, an’ that you’re be­gin­nin’ to see things.”

“I thought of that,” Bill answered gravely. “An’ so, when I saw it run off across the snow, I looked in the snow an’ saw its tracks. Then I coun­ted the dogs an’ there was still six of ’em. The tracks is there in the snow now. D’ye want to look at ’em? I’ll show ’em to you.”

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

“Then you’re thinkin’ as it was—”

A long wail­ing cry, fiercely sad, from some­where in the dark­ness, had in­ter­rup­ted him. He stopped to listen to it, then he fin­ished his sen­tence with a wave of his hand to­ward the sound of the cry, “—one of them?”

Bill nod­ded. “I’d a blame sight sooner think that than any­thing else. You no­ticed your­self the row the dogs made.”

Cry after cry, and an­swer­ing cries, were turn­ing the si­lence into a bed­lam. From every side the cries arose, and the dogs be­trayed their fear by hud­dling to­gether and so close to the fire that their hair was scorched by the heat. Bill threw on more wood, be­fore light­ing his pipe.

“I’m think­ing you’re down in the mouth some,” Henry said.

“Henry …” He sucked med­it­at­ively at his pipe for some time be­fore he went on. “Henry, I was a-thinkin’ what a blame sight luck­ier he is than you an’ me’ll ever be.”

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

“You an’ me, Henry, when we die, we’ll be lucky if we get enough stones over our car­cases to keep the dogs off of us.”

“But we ain’t got people an’ money an’ all the rest, like him,” Henry re­joined. “Long-dis­tance fu­ner­als is somethin’ you an’ me can’t ex­actly af­ford.”

“What gets me, Henry, is what a chap like this, that’s a lord or some­thing in his own coun­try, and that’s never had to bother about grub nor blankets; why he comes a-but­tin’ round the God­for­saken ends of the earth—that’s what I can’t ex­actly see.”

“He might have lived to a ripe old age if he’d stayed at home,” Henry agreed.

Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. In­stead, he poin­ted to­wards the wall of dark­ness that pressed about them from every side. There was no sug­ges­tion of form in the ut­ter black­ness; only could be seen a pair of eyes gleam­ing like live coals. Henry in­dic­ated with his head a second pair, and a third. A circle of the gleam­ing eyes had drawn about their camp. Now and again a pair of eyes moved, or dis­ap­peared to ap­pear again a mo­ment later.

The un­rest of the dogs had been in­creas­ing, and they stam­peded, in a surge of sud­den fear, to the near side of the fire, cringing and crawl­ing about the legs of the men. In the scramble one of the dogs had been over­turned on the edge of the fire, and it had yelped with pain and fright as the smell of its singed coat pos­sessed the air. The com­mo­tion caused the circle of eyes to shift rest­lessly for a mo­ment and even to with­draw a bit, but it settled down again as the dogs be­came quiet.

“Henry, it’s a blame mis­for­tune to be out of am­muni­tion.”

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

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

“Three,” came the an­swer. “An’ I wisht ’twas three hun­dred. Then I’d show ’em what for, damn ’em!”

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

“An’ I wisht this cold snap’d break,” he went on. “It’s ben fifty be­low for two weeks now. An’ I wisht I’d never star­ted on this trip, Henry. I don’t like the looks of it. I don’t feel right, some­how. An’ while I’m wishin’, I wisht the trip was over an’ done with, an’ you an’ me a-sit­tin’ by the fire in Fort McGurry just about now an’ play­ing crib­bage—that’s what I wisht.”

Henry grunted and crawled into bed. As he dozed off he was aroused by his com­rade’s voice.

“Say, Henry, that other one that come in an’ got a fish—why didn’t the dogs pitch into it? That’s what’s both­erin’ me.”

“You’re both­erin’ too much, Bill,” came the sleepy re­sponse. “You was never like this be­fore. You jes’ shut up now, an’ go to sleep, an’ you’ll be all hunky-dory in the mornin’. Your stom­ach’s sour, that’s what’s both­erin’ you.”

The men slept, breath­ing heav­ily, side by side, un­der the one cov­er­ing. The fire died down, and the gleam­ing eyes drew closer the circle they had flung about the camp. The dogs clustered to­gether in fear, now and again snarling men­acingly as a pair of eyes drew close. Once their up­roar be­came so loud that Bill woke up. He got out of bed care­fully, so as not to dis­turb the sleep of his com­rade, and threw more wood on the fire. As it began to flame up, the circle of eyes drew farther back. He glanced cas­u­ally at the hud­dling dogs. He rubbed his eyes and looked at them more sharply. Then he crawled back into the blankets.

“Henry,” he said. “Oh, Henry.”

Henry groaned as he passed from sleep to wak­ing, and de­man­ded, “What’s wrong now?”

“Nothin’,” came the an­swer; “only there’s seven of ’em again. I just coun­ted.”

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

In the morn­ing it was Henry who awoke first and routed his com­pan­ion out of bed. Day­light was yet three hours away, though it was already six o’clock; and in the dark­ness Henry went about pre­par­ing break­fast, while Bill rolled the blankets and made the sled ready for lash­ing.

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

“Six.”

“Wrong,” Bill pro­claimed tri­umphantly.

“Seven again?” Henry quer­ied.

“No, five; one’s gone.”

“The hell!” Henry cried in wrath, leav­ing the cook­ing to come and count the dogs.

“You’re right, Bill,” he con­cluded. “Fatty’s gone.”

“An’ he went like greased light­nin’ once he got star­ted. Couldn’t ’ve seen ’m for smoke.”

“No chance at all,” Henry con­cluded. “They jes’ swal­lowed ’m alive. I bet he was yelpin’ as he went down their throats, damn ’em!”

“He al­ways was a fool dog,” said Bill.

“But no fool dog ought to be fool enough to go off an’ com­mit sui­cide that way.” He looked over the re­mainder of the team with a spec­u­lat­ive eye that summed up in­stantly the sa­li­ent traits of each an­imal. “I bet none of the oth­ers would do it.”

“Couldn’t drive ’em away from the fire with a club,” Bill agreed. “I al­ways did think there was somethin’ wrong with Fatty any­way.”

And this was the epi­taph of a dead dog on the North­land trail—less scant than the epi­taph of many an­other dog, of many a man.

II The She-Wolf

Break­fast eaten and the slim camp-out­fit lashed to the sled, the men turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the dark­ness. At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad—cries that called through the dark­ness and cold to one an­other and answered back. Con­ver­sa­tion ceased. Day­light came at nine o’clock. At mid­day the sky to the south warmed to rose-col­our, and marked where the bulge of the earth in­ter­vened between the me­ridian sun and the north­ern world. But the rose-col­our swiftly faded. The grey light of day that re­mained las­ted un­til three o’clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the Arc­tic night des­cen­ded upon the lone and si­lent land.

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

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

“I wisht they’d strike game some­wheres, an’ go away an’ leave us alone.”

“They do get on the nerves hor­rible,” Henry sym­path­ised.

They spoke no more un­til camp was made.

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

“It got half of it,” he an­nounced; “but I got a whack at it jes’ the same. D’ye hear it squeal?”

“What’d it look like?” Henry asked.

“Couldn’t see. But it had four legs an’ a mouth an’ hair an’ looked like any dog.”

“Must be a tame wolf, I reckon.”

“It’s damned tame, whatever it is, comin’ in here at feedin’ time an’ get­tin’ its whack of fish.”

That night, when sup­per was fin­ished and they sat on the ob­long box and pulled at their pipes, the circle of gleam­ing eyes drew in even closer than be­fore.

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

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

“I wisht we was pul­lin’ into McGurry right now,” he began again.

“Shut up your wishin’ and your croakin’,” Henry burst out an­grily. “Your stom­ach’s sour. That’s what’s ailin’ you. Swal­low a spoon­ful of sody, an’ you’ll sweeten up won­der­ful an’ be more pleas­ant com­pany.”

In the morn­ing Henry was aroused by fer­vid blas­phemy that pro­ceeded from the mouth of Bill. Henry propped him­self up on an el­bow and looked to see his com­rade stand­ing among the dogs be­side the re­plen­ished fire, his arms raised in ob­jur­ga­tion, his face dis­tor­ted with pas­sion.

“Hello!” Henry called. “What’s up now?”

“Frog’s gone,” came the an­swer.

“No.”

“I tell you yes.”

Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs. He coun­ted them with care, and then joined his part­ner in curs­ing the power of the Wild that had 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 har­nessed to the sled. The day was a re­pe­ti­tion of the days that had gone be­fore. The men toiled without speech across the face of the frozen world. The si­lence was un­broken save by the cries of their pur­suers, that, un­seen, hung upon their rear. With the com­ing of night in the mid-af­ter­noon, the cries soun­ded closer as the pur­suers drew in ac­cord­ing to their cus­tom; and the dogs grew ex­cited and frightened, and were guilty of pan­ics that tangled the traces and fur­ther de­pressed the two men.

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

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

Henry nod­ded his head ap­prov­ingly.

“It’s the only con­trap­tion that’ll ever hold One Ear,” he said. “He can gnaw through leather as clean as a knife an’ jes’ about half as quick. They all’ll be here in the mornin’ hunky-dory.”

“You jes’ bet they will,” Bill af­firmed. “If one of em’ turns up missin’, I’ll go without my cof­fee.”

“They jes’ know we ain’t loaded to kill,” Henry re­marked at bed­time, in­dic­at­ing the gleam­ing circle that hemmed them in. “If we could put a couple of shots into ’em, they’d be more re­spect­ful. They come closer every night. Get the fire­light out of your eyes an’ look hard—there! Did you see that one?”

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

A sound among the dogs at­trac­ted the men’s at­ten­tion. One Ear was ut­ter­ing quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick to­ward the dark­ness, and de­sist­ing now and again in or­der to make frantic at­tacks on the stick with his teeth.

“Look at that, Bill,” Henry whispered.

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

“That fool One Ear don’t seem scairt much,” Bill said in a low tone.

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

The fire crackled. A log fell apart with a loud splut­ter­ing noise. At the sound of it the strange an­imal leaped back into the dark­ness.

“Henry, I’m a-thinkin’,” Bill an­nounced.

“Thinkin’ what?”

“I’m a-thinkin’ that was the one I lam­basted with the club.”

“Ain’t the slight­est doubt in the world,” was Henry’s re­sponse.

“An’ right here I want to re­mark,” Bill went on, “that that an­imal’s fam­il­yar­ity with camp­fires is sus­pi­cious an’ im­moral.”

“It knows for cer­tain more’n a self-re­spectin’ wolf ought to know,” Henry agreed. “A wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at feedin’ time has had ex­per­i­ences.”

“Ol’ Vil­lan had a dog once that run away with the wolves,” Bill co­git­ates aloud. “I ought to know. I shot it out of the pack in a moose pas­ture over ’on Little Stick. An’ Ol’ Vil­lan cried like a baby. Hadn’t seen it for three years, he said. Ben with the wolves all that time.”

“I reckon you’ve called the turn, Bill. That wolf’s a dog, an’ it’s eaten fish many’s the time from the hand of man.”

“An if I get a chance at it, that wolf that’s a dog’ll be jes’ meat,” Bill de­clared. “We can’t af­ford to lose no more an­im­als.”

“But you’ve only got three cart­ridges,” Henry ob­jec­ted.

“I’ll wait for a dead sure shot,” was the reply.

In the morn­ing Henry re­newed the fire and cooked break­fast to the ac­com­pani­ment of his part­ner’s snor­ing.

“You was sleepin’ jes’ too com­fort­able for any­thing,” Henry told him, as he routed him out for break­fast. “I hadn’t the heart to rouse you.”

Bill began to eat sleepily. He no­ticed that his cup was empty and star­ted to reach for the pot. But the pot was bey­ond arm’s length and be­side Henry.

“Say, Henry,” he chided gently, “ain’t you for­got somethin’?”

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

“You don’t get no cof­fee,” Henry an­nounced.

“Ain’t run out?” Bill asked anxiously.

“Nope.”

“Ain’t thinkin’ it’ll hurt my di­ges­tion?”

“Nope.”

A flush of angry blood per­vaded Bill’s face.

“Then it’s jes’ warm an’ anxious I am to be hearin’ you ex­plain your­self,” he said.

“Spanker’s gone,” Henry answered.

Without haste, with the air of one resigned to mis­for­tune Bill turned his head, and from where he sat coun­ted the dogs.

“How’d it hap­pen?” he asked apathet­ic­ally.

Henry shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know. Un­less One Ear gnawed ’m loose. He couldn’t a-done it him­self, that’s sure.”

“The darned cuss.” Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of the an­ger that was ra­ging within. “Jes’ be­cause he couldn’t chew him­self loose, he chews Spanker loose.”

“Well, Spanker’s troubles is over any­way; I guess he’s di­ges­ted by this time an’ ca­vortin’ over the land­scape in the bel­lies of twenty dif­fer­ent wolves,” was Henry’s epi­taph on this, the latest lost dog. “Have some cof­fee, Bill.”

But Bill shook his head.

“Go on,” Henry pleaded, el­ev­at­ing the pot.

Bill shoved his cup aside. “I’ll be ding-dong-danged if I do. I said I wouldn’t if any dog turned up missin’, an’ I won’t.”

“It’s darn good cof­fee,” Henry said en­ti­cingly.

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

“I’ll tie ’em up out of reach of each other to­night,” Bill said, as they took the trail.

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

“Mebbe you’ll need that in your busi­ness,” Henry said.

Bill uttered an ex­clam­a­tion. It was all that was left of Spanker—the stick with which he had been tied.

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

Henry laughed de­fi­antly. “I ain’t been trailed this way by wolves be­fore, but I’ve gone through a whole lot worse an’ kept my health. Takes more’n a hand­ful of them pesky crit­ters to do for yours truly, Bill, my son.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Bill muttered omin­ously.

“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 as we make McGurry.”

Bill grunted his dis­agree­ment with the dia­gnosis, and lapsed into si­lence. The day was like all the days. Light came at nine o’clock. At twelve o’clock the south­ern ho­ri­zon was warmed by the un­seen sun; and then began the cold grey of af­ter­noon that would merge, three hours later, into night.

It was just after the sun’s fu­tile ef­fort to ap­pear, that Bill slipped the rifle from un­der the sled-lash­ings and said:

“You keep right on, Henry, I’m goin’ to see what I can see.”

“You’d bet­ter stick by the sled,” his part­ner pro­tested. “You’ve only got 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 anxious glances back into the grey solitude where his part­ner had dis­ap­peared. An hour later, tak­ing ad­vant­age of the cutoffs around which the sled had to go, Bill ar­rived.

“They’re scattered an’ ran­gin’ along wide,” he said: “keep­ing up with us an’ lookin’ for game at the same time. You see, they’re sure of us, only they know they’ve got to wait to get us. In the mean­time they’re wil­lin’ to pick up 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. They ain’t had a bite in weeks I reckon, out­side of Fatty an’ Frog an’ Spanker; an’ there’s so many of ’em that that didn’t go far. They’re re­mark­able thin. Their ribs is like wash­boards, an’ their stom­achs is right up against their back­bones. They’re pretty des­per­ate, I can tell you. They’ll be goin’ mad, yet, an’ then watch out.”

A few minutes later, Henry, who was now trav­el­ling be­hind the sled, emit­ted a low, warn­ing whistle. Bill turned and looked, then quietly stopped the dogs. To the rear, from around the last bend and plainly into view, on the very trail they had just covered, trot­ted a furry, slink­ing form. Its nose was to the trail, and it trot­ted with a pe­cu­liar, slid­ing, ef­fort­less gait. When they hal­ted, it hal­ted, throw­ing up its head and re­gard­ing them stead­ily with nos­trils that twitched 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 his part­ner in the sled. To­gether they watched the strange an­imal that had pur­sued them for days and that had already ac­com­plished the de­struc­tion of half their dog-team.

After a search­ing scru­tiny, the an­imal trot­ted for­ward a few steps. This it re­peated sev­eral times, till it was a short hun­dred yards away. It paused, head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sight and scent stud­ied the out­fit of the watch­ing men. It looked at them in a strangely wist­ful way, after the man­ner of a dog; but in its wist­ful­ness there was none of the dog af­fec­tion. It was a wist­ful­ness bred of hun­ger, as cruel as its own fangs, as mer­ci­less as the frost it­self.

It was large for a wolf, its gaunt frame ad­vert­ising the lines of an an­imal that was among the largest of its kind.

“Stands pretty close to two feet an’ a half at the shoulders,” Henry com­men­ted. “An’ I’ll bet it ain’t far from five feet long.”

“Kind of strange col­our for a wolf,” was Bill’s cri­ti­cism. “I never seen a red wolf be­fore. Looks al­most cin­na­mon to me.”

The an­imal was cer­tainly not cin­na­mon-col­oured. Its coat was the true wolf-coat. The dom­in­ant col­our was grey, and yet there was to it a faint red­dish hue—a hue that was baff­ling, that ap­peared and dis­ap­peared, that was more like an il­lu­sion of the vis­ion, now grey, dis­tinctly grey, and again giv­ing hints and glints of a vague red­ness of col­our not clas­si­fi­able in terms of or­din­ary ex­per­i­ence.

“Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog,” Bill said. “I wouldn’t be s’prised to see it wag its tail.”

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

“Ain’t a bit scairt of you,” Henry laughed.

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

“Look here, Henry,” Bill said, un­con­sciously lower­ing his voice to a whis­per be­cause of what he im­it­ated. “We’ve got three cart­ridges. But it’s a dead shot. Couldn’t miss it. It’s got away with three of our dogs, an’ we oughter put a stop to it. What d’ye say?”

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

The two men looked at each other. Henry whistled long and com­pre­hend­ingly.

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

“You needn’t stray off too far in doin’ it,” his part­ner ad­mon­ished. “If that pack ever starts to jump you, them three cart­ridges’d be wuth no more’n three whoops in hell. Them an­im­als is damn hungry, an’ once they start in, they’ll sure get you, Bill.”

They camped early that night. Three dogs could not drag the sled so fast nor for so long hours as could six, and they were show­ing un­mis­tak­able signs of play­ing out. And the men went early to bed, Bill first see­ing to it that the dogs were tied out of gnaw­ing-reach of one an­other.

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

“I’ve hearn sail­ors talk of sharks fol­lowin’ a ship,” Bill re­marked, as he crawled back into the blankets after one such re­plen­ish­ing of the fire. “Well, them wolves is land sharks. They know their busi­ness bet­ter’n we do, an’ they ain’t a-holdin’ our trail this way for their health. They’re goin’ to get us. They’re sure goin’ to get us, Henry.”

“They’ve half got you a’ready, a-talkin’ like that,” Henry re­tor­ted sharply. “A man’s half licked when he says he is. An’ you’re half eaten from the way you’re goin’ on about it.”

“They’ve got away with bet­ter men than you 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 made no sim­ilar dis­play of tem­per. This was not Bill’s way, for he was eas­ily angered by sharp words. Henry thought long over it be­fore he went to sleep, and as his eye­lids fluttered down and he dozed off, the thought in his mind was: “There’s no mis­takin’ it, Bill’s almighty blue. I’ll have to cheer him up to­mor­row.”

III The Hunger Cry

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

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

“Here, you, One Ear!” he cried, straight­en­ing up and turn­ing around on the dog.

But One Ear broke into a run across the snow, his traces trail­ing be­hind him. And there, out in the snow of their back track, was the she-wolf wait­ing for him. As he neared her, he be­came sud­denly cau­tious. He slowed down to an alert and min­cing walk and then stopped. He re­garded her care­fully and du­bi­ously, yet de­sire­fully. She seemed to smile at him, show­ing her teeth in an in­gra­ti­at­ing rather than a men­acing way. She moved to­ward him a few steps, play­fully, and then hal­ted. One Ear drew near to her, still alert and cau­tious, his tail and ears in the air, his head held high.

He tried to sniff noses with her, but she re­treated play­fully and coyly. Every ad­vance on his part was ac­com­pan­ied by a cor­res­pond­ing re­treat on her part. Step by step she was lur­ing him away from the se­cur­ity of his hu­man com­pan­ion­ship. Once, as though a warn­ing had in vague ways flit­ted through his in­tel­li­gence, he turned his head and looked back at the over­turned sled, at his team­mates, and at the two men who were call­ing to him.

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

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

Too late One Ear learned his mis­take. Be­fore they saw the cause, the two men saw him turn and start to run back to­ward them. Then, ap­proach­ing at right angles to the trail and cut­ting off his re­treat they saw a dozen wolves, lean and grey, bound­ing across the snow. On the in­stant, the she-wolf’s coy­ness and play­ful­ness dis­ap­peared. With a snarl she sprang upon One Ear. He thrust her off with his shoulder, and, his re­treat cut off and still in­tent on re­gain­ing the sled, he altered his course in an at­tempt to circle around to it. More wolves were ap­pear­ing every mo­ment and join­ing in the chase. The she-wolf was one leap be­hind One Ear and hold­ing her own.

“Where are you goin’?” Henry sud­denly de­man­ded, lay­ing his hand on his part­ner’s arm.

Bill shook it off. “I won’t stand it,” he said. “They ain’t a-goin’ to get any more of our dogs if I can help it.”

Gun in hand, he plunged into the un­der­brush that lined the side of the trail. His in­ten­tion was ap­par­ent enough. Tak­ing the sled as the centre of the circle that One Ear was mak­ing, Bill planned to tap that circle at a point in ad­vance of the pur­suit. With his rifle, in the broad day­light, it might be pos­sible for him to awe the wolves and save the dog.

“Say, Bill!” Henry called after him. “Be care­ful! Don’t take no chances!”

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

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

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

At last he arose in a weary man­ner, as though all the re­si­li­ence had gone out of his body, and pro­ceeded to fasten the dogs to the sled. He passed a rope over his shoulder, a man-trace, and pulled with the dogs. He did not go far. At the first hint of dark­ness he hastened to make a camp, and he saw to it that he had a gen­er­ous sup­ply of fire­wood. He fed the dogs, cooked and ate his sup­per, and made his bed close to the fire.

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

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

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

Morn­ing found the man hag­gard and worn, wide-eyed from want of sleep. He cooked break­fast in the dark­ness, and at nine o’clock, when, with the com­ing of day­light, the wolf-pack drew back, he set about the task he had planned through the long hours of the night. Chop­ping down young sap­lings, he made them cross­bars of a scaf­fold by lash­ing them high up to the trunks of stand­ing trees. Using the sled-lash­ing for a heav­ing rope, and with the aid of the dogs, he hois­ted the coffin to the top of the scaf­fold.

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

Then he took the trail, the lightened sled bound­ing along be­hind the will­ing dogs; for they, too, knew that safety lay open in the gain­ing of Fort McGurry. The wolves were now more open in their pur­suit, trot­ting sed­ately be­hind and ran­ging along on either side, their red tongues lolling out, their lean sides show­ing the un­du­lat­ing ribs with every move­ment. They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony frames, with strings for muscles—so lean that Henry found it in his mind to mar­vel that they still kept their feet and did not col­lapse forth­right in the snow.

He did not dare travel un­til dark. At mid­day, not only did the sun warm the south­ern ho­ri­zon, but it even thrust its up­per rim, pale and golden, above the sky­line. He re­ceived it as a sign. The days were grow­ing longer. The sun was re­turn­ing. But scarcely had the cheer of its light de­par­ted, than he went into camp. There were still sev­eral hours of grey day­light and sombre twi­light, and he util­ised them in chop­ping an enorm­ous sup­ply of fire­wood.

With night came hor­ror. Not only were the starving wolves grow­ing bolder, but lack of sleep was telling upon Henry. He dozed des­pite him­self, crouch­ing by the fire, the blankets about his shoulders, the axe between his knees, and on either side a dog press­ing close against him. He awoke once and saw in front of him, not a dozen feet away, a big grey wolf, one of the largest of the pack. And even as he looked, the brute de­lib­er­ately stretched him­self after the man­ner of a lazy dog, yawn­ing full in his face and look­ing upon him with a pos­sess­ive eye, as if, in truth, he were merely a delayed meal that was soon to be eaten.

This cer­ti­tude was shown by the whole pack. Fully a score he could count, star­ing hun­grily at him or calmly sleep­ing in the snow. They re­minded him of chil­dren gathered about a spread table and await­ing per­mis­sion to be­gin to eat. And he was the food they were to eat! He wondered how and when the meal would be­gin.

As he piled wood on the fire he dis­covered an ap­pre­ci­ation of his own body which he had never felt be­fore. He watched his mov­ing muscles and was in­ter­ested in the cun­ning mech­an­ism of his fin­gers. By the light of the fire he crooked his fin­gers slowly and re­peatedly now one at a time, now all to­gether, spread­ing them wide or mak­ing quick grip­ping move­ments. He stud­ied the nail-form­a­tion, and prod­ded the fin­ger­tips, now sharply, and again softly, gauging the while the nerve-sen­sa­tions pro­duced. It fas­cin­ated him, and he grew sud­denly fond of this subtle flesh of his that worked so beau­ti­fully and smoothly and del­ic­ately. Then he would cast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn ex­pect­antly about him, and like a blow the real­isa­tion would strike him that this won­der­ful body of his, this liv­ing flesh, was no more than so much meat, a quest of raven­ous an­im­als, to be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to be susten­ance to them as the moose and the rab­bit had of­ten been susten­ance to him.

He came out of a doze that was half night­mare, to see the red-hued she-wolf be­fore him. She was not more than half a dozen feet away sit­ting in the snow and wist­fully re­gard­ing him. The two dogs were whim­per­ing and snarling at his feet, but she took no no­tice of them. She was look­ing at the man, and for some time he re­turned her look. There was noth­ing threat­en­ing about her. She looked at him merely with a great wist­ful­ness, but he knew it to be the wist­ful­ness of an equally great hun­ger. He was the food, and the sight of him ex­cited in her the gust­at­ory sen­sa­tions. Her mouth opened, the saliva drooled forth, and she licked her chops with the pleas­ure of an­ti­cip­a­tion.

A spasm of fear went through him. He reached hast­ily for a brand to throw at her. But even as he reached, and be­fore his fin­gers had closed on the mis­sile, she sprang back into safety; and he knew that she was used to hav­ing things thrown at her. She had snarled as she sprang away, bar­ing her white fangs to their roots, all her wist­ful­ness van­ish­ing, be­ing re­placed by a car­ni­vor­ous ma­lig­nity that made him shud­der. He glanced at the hand that held the brand, no­ti­cing the cun­ning del­ic­acy of the fin­gers that gripped it, how they ad­jus­ted them­selves to all the in­equal­it­ies of the sur­face, curl­ing over and un­der and about the rough wood, and one little fin­ger, too close to the burn­ing por­tion of the brand, sens­it­ively and auto­mat­ic­ally writh­ing back from the hurt­ful heat to a cooler grip­ping-place; and in the same in­stant he seemed to see a vis­ion of those same sens­it­ive and del­ic­ate fin­gers be­ing crushed and torn by the white teeth of the she-wolf. Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his ten­ure of it was so pre­cari­ous.

All night, with burn­ing brands, he fought off the hungry pack. When he dozed des­pite him­self, the whim­per­ing and snarling of the dogs aroused him. Morn­ing came, but for the first time the light of day failed to scat­ter the wolves. The man waited in vain for them to go. They re­mained in a circle about him and his fire, dis­play­ing an ar­rog­ance of pos­ses­sion that shook his cour­age born of the morn­ing light.

He made one des­per­ate at­tempt to pull out on the trail. But the mo­ment he left the pro­tec­tion of the fire, the bold­est wolf leaped for him, but leaped short. He saved him­self by spring­ing back, the jaws snap­ping to­gether a scant six inches from his thigh. The rest of the pack was now up and sur­ging upon him, and a throw­ing of firebrands right and left was ne­ces­sary to drive them back to a re­spect­ful dis­tance.

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

The night was a re­pe­ti­tion of the night be­fore, save that the need for sleep was be­com­ing over­power­ing. The snarling of his dogs was los­ing its ef­fic­acy. Besides, they were snarling all the time, and his be­numbed and drowsy senses no longer took note of chan­ging pitch and in­tens­ity. He awoke with a start. The she-wolf was less than a yard from him. Mech­an­ic­ally, at short range, without let­ting go of it, he thrust a brand full into her open and snarling mouth. She sprang away, yelling with pain, and while he took de­light in the smell of burn­ing flesh and hair, he watched her shak­ing her head and growl­ing wrath­fully a score of feet away.

But this time, be­fore he dozed again, he tied a burn­ing pine-knot to his right hand. His eyes were closed but few minutes when the burn of the flame on his flesh awakened him. For sev­eral hours he ad­hered to this pro­gramme. Every time he was thus awakened he drove back the wolves with fly­ing brands, re­plen­ished the fire, and re­arranged the pine-knot on his hand. All worked well, but there came a time when he fastened the pine-knot 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 warm and com­fort­able, and he was play­ing crib­bage with the Factor. Also, it seemed to him that the fort was be­sieged by wolves. They were howl­ing at the very gates, and some­times he and the Factor paused from the game to listen and laugh at the fu­tile ef­forts of the wolves to get in. And then, so strange was the dream, there was a crash. The door was burst open. He could see the wolves flood­ing into the big liv­ing-room of the fort. They were leap­ing straight for him and the Factor. With the burst­ing open of the door, the noise of their howl­ing had in­creased tre­mend­ously. This howl­ing now bothered him. His dream was mer­ging into some­thing else—he knew not what; but through it all, fol­low­ing him, per­sisted the howl­ing.

And then he awoke to find the howl­ing real. There was a great snarling and yelp­ing. The wolves were rush­ing him. They were all about him and upon him. The teeth of one had closed upon his arm. In­stinct­ively he leaped into the fire, and as he leaped, he felt the sharp slash of teeth that tore through the flesh of his leg. Then began a fire fight. His stout mit­tens tem­por­ar­ily pro­tec­ted his hands, and he scooped live coals into the air in all dir­ec­tions, un­til the camp­fire took on the semb­lance of a vol­cano.

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

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

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

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

Dawn came, and day­light. The fire was burn­ing low. The fuel had run out, and there was need to get more. The man at­temp­ted to step out of his circle of flame, but the wolves surged to meet him. Burn­ing brands made them spring aside, but they no longer sprang back. In vain he strove to drive them back. As he gave up and stumbled in­side his circle, a wolf leaped for him, missed, and landed with all four feet in the coals. It cried out with ter­ror, at the same time snarling, and scrambled back to cool its paws in the snow.

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

“I guess you can come an’ get me any time,” he mumbled. “Any­way, I’m goin’ to sleep.”

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

Again he awakened, a little later, though it seemed hours to him. A mys­ter­i­ous change had taken place—so mys­ter­i­ous a change that he was shocked wider awake. So­mething had happened. He could not un­der­stand at first. Then he dis­covered it. The wolves were gone. Re­mained only the trampled snow to show how closely they had pressed him. Sleep was welling up and grip­ping him again, his head was sink­ing down upon his knees, when he roused with a sud­den start.

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

“Red she-wolf. … Come in with the dogs at feedin’ time. … First she ate the dog-food. … Then she ate the dogs. … An’ after that she ate Bill. …”

“Where’s Lord Al­fred?” one of the men bel­lowed in his ear, shak­ing him roughly.

He shook his head slowly. “No, she didn’t eat him. … He’s roostin’ in a tree at the last camp.”

“Dead?” the man shouted.

“An’ in a box,” Henry answered. He jerked his shoulder petu­lantly away from the grip of his 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 rising on the frosty air.

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

Part II

I The Battle of the Fangs

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

Run­ning at the fore­front of the pack was a large grey wolf—one of its sev­eral lead­ers. It was he who dir­ec­ted the pack’s course on the heels of the she-wolf. It was he who snarled warn­ingly at the younger mem­bers of the pack or slashed at them with his fangs when they am­bi­tiously tried to pass him. And it was he who in­creased the pace when he sighted the she-wolf, now trot­ting slowly across the snow.

She dropped in along­side by him, as though it were her ap­poin­ted po­s­i­tion, and took the pace of the pack. He did not snarl at her, nor show his teeth, when any leap of hers chanced to put her in ad­vance of him. On the con­trary, he seemed kindly dis­posed to­ward her—too kindly to suit her, for he was prone to run near to her, and when he ran too near it was she who snarled and showed her teeth. Nor was she above slash­ing his shoulder sharply on oc­ca­sion. At such times he be­trayed no an­ger. He merely sprang to the side and ran stiffly ahead for sev­eral awk­ward leaps, in car­riage and con­duct re­sem­bling an abashed coun­try swain.

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

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

At such times, con­fron­ted by three sets of sav­age teeth, the young wolf stopped pre­cip­it­ately, throw­ing him­self back on his haunches, with fore­legs stiff, mouth men­acing, and mane brist­ling. This con­fu­sion in the front of the mov­ing pack al­ways caused con­fu­sion in the rear. The wolves be­hind col­lided with the young wolf and ex­pressed their dis­pleas­ure by ad­min­is­ter­ing sharp nips on his hind legs and flanks. He was lay­ing up trouble for him­self, for lack of food and short tem­pers went to­gether; but with the bound­less faith of youth he per­sisted in re­peat­ing the man­oeuvre every little while, though it never suc­ceeded in gain­ing any­thing for him but dis­com­fit­ure.

Had there been food, love­mak­ing and fight­ing would have gone on apace, and the pack-form­a­tion would have been broken up. But the situ­ation of the pack was des­per­ate. It was lean with long­stand­ing hun­ger. It ran be­low its or­din­ary speed. At the rear limped the weak mem­bers, the very young and the very old. At the front were the strongest. Yet all were more like skel­et­ons than full-bod­ied wolves. Never­the­less, with the ex­cep­tion of the ones that limped, the move­ments of the an­im­als were ef­fort­less and tire­less. Their stringy muscles seemed founts of in­ex­haust­ible en­ergy. Be­hind every steel-like con­trac­tion of a muscle, lay an­other steel-like con­trac­tion, and an­other, and an­other, ap­par­ently without end.

They ran many miles that day. They ran through the night. And the next day found them still run­ning. They were run­ning over the sur­face of a world frozen and dead. No life stirred. They alone moved through the vast in­ert­ness. They alone were alive, and they sought for other things that were alive in or­der that they might de­vour them and con­tinue to live.

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

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

There was now much rest­ing and sleep­ing. With full stom­achs, bick­er­ing and quar­rel­ling began among the younger males, and this con­tin­ued through the few days that fol­lowed be­fore the break­ing-up of the pack. The fam­ine was over. The wolves were now in the coun­try of game, and though they still hunted in pack, they hunted more cau­tiously, cut­ting out heavy cows or crippled old bulls from the small moose-herds they ran across.

There came a day, in this land of plenty, when the wolf-pack split in half and went in dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tions. The she-wolf, the young leader on her left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the pack down to the Mack­en­zie River and across into the lake coun­try to the east. Each day this rem­nant of the pack dwindled. Two by two, male and fe­male, the wolves were desert­ing. Oc­ca­sion­ally a sol­it­ary male was driven out by the sharp teeth of his rivals. In the end there re­mained only four: the she-wolf, the young leader, the one-eyed one, and the am­bi­tious three-year-old.

The she-wolf had by now de­veloped a fe­ro­cious tem­per. Her three suit­ors all bore the marks of her teeth. Yet they never replied in kind, never de­fen­ded them­selves against her. They turned their shoulders to her most sav­age slashes, and with wag­ging tails and min­cing steps strove to pla­cate her wrath. But if they were all mild­ness to­ward her, they were all fierce­ness to­ward one an­other. The three-year-old grew too am­bi­tious in his fierce­ness. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side and ripped his ear into rib­bons. Though the grizzled old fel­low could see only on one side, against the youth and vigour of the other he brought into play the wis­dom of long years of ex­per­i­ence. His lost eye and his scarred muzzle bore evid­ence to the nature of his ex­per­i­ence. He had sur­vived too many battles to be in doubt for a mo­ment about what to do.

The battle began fairly, but it did not end fairly. There was no telling what the out­come would have been, for the third wolf joined the elder, and to­gether, old leader and young leader, they at­tacked the am­bi­tious three-year-old and pro­ceeded to des­troy him. He was be­set on either side by the mer­ci­less fangs of his erstwhile com­rades. For­got­ten were the days they had hunted to­gether, the game they had pulled down, the fam­ine they had suffered. That busi­ness was a thing of the past. The busi­ness of love was at hand—ever a sterner and crueller busi­ness than that of food-get­ting.

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

And in the busi­ness of love the three-year-old, who had made this his first ad­ven­ture upon it, yiel­ded up his life. On either side of his body stood his two rivals. They were gaz­ing at the she-wolf, who sat smil­ing in the snow. But the elder leader was wise, very wise, in love even as in battle. The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his shoulder. The curve of his neck was turned to­ward his rival. With his one eye the elder saw the op­por­tun­ity. He dar­ted in low and closed with his fangs. It was a long, rip­ping slash, and deep as well. His teeth, in passing, burst the wall of the great vein of the throat. Then he leaped clear.

The young leader snarled ter­ribly, but his snarl broke mid­most into a tick­ling cough. Bleed­ing and cough­ing, already stricken, he sprang at the elder and fought while life faded from him, his legs go­ing weak be­neath him, the light of day dulling on his eyes, his blows and springs fall­ing shorter and shorter.

And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled. She was made glad in vague ways by the battle, for this was the love­mak­ing of the Wild, the sex-tragedy of the nat­ural world that was tragedy only to those that died. To those that sur­vived it was not tragedy, but real­isa­tion and achieve­ment.

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

For­got­ten already were the van­quished rivals and the love-tale red-writ­ten on the snow. For­got­ten, save once, when old One Eye stopped for a mo­ment to lick his stiff­en­ing wounds. Then it was that his lips half writhed into a snarl, and the hair of his neck and shoulders in­vol­un­tar­ily bristled, while he half crouched for a spring, his claws spas­mod­ic­ally clutch­ing into the snow-sur­face for firmer foot­ing. But it was all for­got­ten the next mo­ment, as he sprang after the she-wolf, who was coyly lead­ing him a chase through the woods.

After that they ran side by side, like good friends who have come to an un­der­stand­ing. The days passed by, and they kept to­gether, hunt­ing their meat and killing and eat­ing it in com­mon. After a time the she-wolf began to grow rest­less. She seemed to be search­ing for some­thing that she could not find. The hol­lows un­der fallen trees seemed to at­tract her, and she spent much time nos­ing about among the lar­ger snow-piled crevices in the rocks and in the caves of over­hanging banks. Old One Eye was not in­ter­ested at all, but he fol­lowed her good-naturedly in her quest, and when her in­vest­ig­a­tions in par­tic­u­lar places were un­usu­ally pro­trac­ted, he would lie down and wait un­til she was ready to go on.

They did not re­main in one place, but trav­elled across coun­try un­til they re­gained the Mack­en­zie River, down which they slowly went, leav­ing it of­ten to hunt game along the small streams that entered it, but al­ways re­turn­ing to it again. So­me­times they chanced upon other wolves, usu­ally in pairs; but there was no friend­li­ness of in­ter­course dis­played on either side, no glad­ness at meet­ing, no de­sire to re­turn to the pack-form­a­tion. Several times they en­countered sol­it­ary wolves. These were al­ways males, and they were press­ingly in­sist­ent on join­ing with One Eye and his mate. This he re­sen­ted, and when she stood shoulder to shoulder with him, brist­ling and show­ing her teeth, the as­pir­ing sol­it­ary ones would back off, turn-tail, and con­tinue on their lonely way.

One moon­light night, run­ning through the quiet forest, One Eye sud­denly hal­ted. His muzzle went up, his tail stiffened, and his nos­trils dilated as he scen­ted the air. One foot also he held up, after the man­ner of a dog. He was not sat­is­fied, and he con­tin­ued to smell the air, striv­ing to un­der­stand the mes­sage borne upon it to him. One care­less sniff had sat­is­fied his mate, and she trot­ted on to re­as­sure him. Though he fol­lowed her, he was still du­bi­ous, and he could not for­bear an oc­ca­sional halt in or­der more care­fully to study the warn­ing.

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

To their ears came the sounds of dogs wrangling and scuff­ling, the gut­tural cries of men, the sharper voices of scold­ing wo­men, and once the shrill and plaint­ive cry of a child. With the ex­cep­tion of the huge bulks of the skin-lodges, little could be seen save the flames of the fire, broken by the move­ments of in­ter­ven­ing bod­ies, and the smoke rising slowly on the quiet air. But to their nos­trils came the myriad smells of an In­dian camp, car­ry­ing a story that was largely in­com­pre­hens­ible to One Eye, but every de­tail of which the she-wolf knew.

She was strangely stirred, and sniffed and sniffed with an in­creas­ing de­light. But old One Eye was doubt­ful. He be­trayed his ap­pre­hen­sion, and star­ted tent­at­ively to go. She turned and touched his neck with her muzzle in a re­as­sur­ing way, then re­garded the camp again. A new wist­ful­ness was in her face, but it was not the wist­ful­ness of hun­ger. She was thrill­ing to a de­sire that urged her to go for­ward, to be in closer to that fire, to be squab­bling with the dogs, and to be avoid­ing and dodging the stum­bling feet of men.

One Eye moved im­pa­tiently be­side her; her un­rest came back upon her, and she knew again her press­ing need to find the thing for which she searched. She turned and trot­ted back into the forest, to the great re­lief of One Eye, who trot­ted a little to the fore un­til they were well within the shel­ter of the trees.

As they slid along, noise­less as shad­ows, in the moon­light, they came upon a run­way. Both noses went down to the foot­prints in the snow. These foot­prints were very fresh. One Eye ran ahead cau­tiously, his mate at his heels. The broad pads of their feet were spread wide and in con­tact with the snow were like vel­vet. One Eye caught sight of a dim move­ment of white in the midst of the white. His slid­ing gait had been de­cept­ively swift, but it was as noth­ing to the speed at which he now ran. Be­fore him was bound­ing the faint patch of white he had dis­covered.

They were run­ning along a nar­row al­ley flanked on either side by a growth of young spruce. Through the trees the mouth of the al­ley could be seen, open­ing out on a moon­lit glade. Old One Eye was rap­idly over­haul­ing the flee­ing shape of white. Bound by bound he gained. Now he was upon it. One leap more and his teeth would be sink­ing into it. But that leap was never made. High in the air, and straight up, soared the shape of white, now a strug­gling snow­shoe rab­bit that leaped and bounded, ex­ecut­ing a fant­astic dance there above him in the air and never once re­turn­ing to earth.

One Eye sprang back with a snort of sud­den fright, then shrank down to the snow and crouched, snarling threats at this thing of fear he did not un­der­stand. But the she-wolf coolly thrust past him. She poised for a mo­ment, then sprang for the dan­cing rab­bit. She, too, soared high, but not so high as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily to­gether with a metal­lic snap. She made an­other leap, and an­other.

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

The she-wolf was angry. She sank her fangs into her mate’s shoulder in re­proof; and he, frightened, un­aware of what con­sti­tuted this new on­slaught, struck back fe­ro­ciously and in still greater fright, rip­ping down the side of the she-wolf’s muzzle. For him to re­sent such re­proof was equally un­ex­pec­ted to her, and she sprang upon him in snarling in­dig­na­tion. Then he dis­covered his mis­take and tried to pla­cate her. But she pro­ceeded to pun­ish him roundly, un­til he gave over all at­tempts at pla­ca­tion, and whirled in a circle, his head away from her, his shoulders re­ceiv­ing the pun­ish­ment of her teeth.

In the mean­time the rab­bit danced above them in the air. The she-wolf sat down in the snow, and old One Eye, now more in fear of his mate than of the mys­ter­i­ous sap­ling, again sprang for the rab­bit. As he sank back with it between his teeth, he kept his eye on the sap­ling. As be­fore, it fol­lowed him back to earth. He crouched down un­der the 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 he moved it moved, and he growled at it through his clenched jaws; when he re­mained still, it re­mained still, and he con­cluded it was safer to con­tinue re­main­ing still. Yet the warm blood of the rab­bit tasted good in his mouth.

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

There were other run­ways and al­leys where rab­bits were hanging in the air, and the wolf-pair pro­spec­ted them all, the she-wolf lead­ing the way, old One Eye fol­low­ing and ob­ser­v­ant, learn­ing the method of rob­bing snares—a know­ledge destined to stand him in good stead in the days to come.

II The Lair

For two days the she-wolf and One Eye hung about the In­dian camp. He was wor­ried and ap­pre­hens­ive, yet the camp lured his mate and she was loath to de­part. But when, one morn­ing, the air was rent with the re­port of a rifle close at hand, and a bul­let smashed against a tree trunk sev­eral inches from One Eye’s head, they hes­it­ated no more, but went off on a long, swinging lope that put quick miles between them and the danger.

They did not go far—a couple of days’ jour­ney. The she-wolf’s need to find the thing for which she searched had now be­come im­per­at­ive. She was get­ting very heavy, and could run but slowly. Once, in the pur­suit of a rab­bit, which she or­din­ar­ily would have caught with ease, she gave over and lay down and res­ted. One Eye came to her; but when he touched her neck gently with his muzzle she snapped at him with such quick fierce­ness that he tumbled over back­ward and cut a ri­dicu­lous fig­ure in his ef­fort to es­cape her teeth. Her tem­per was now shorter than ever; but he had be­come more pa­tient than ever and more so­li­cit­ous.

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

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

One Eye was hungry. Though he lay down in the en­trance and slept, his sleep was fit­ful. He kept awak­ing and cock­ing his ears at the bright world without, where the April sun was blaz­ing across the snow. When he dozed, upon his ears would steal the faint whis­pers of hid­den trickles of run­ning wa­ter, and he would rouse and listen in­tently. The sun had come back, and all the awaken­ing North­land world was call­ing to him. Life was stir­ring. The feel of spring was in the air, the feel of grow­ing life un­der the snow, of sap as­cend­ing in the trees, of buds burst­ing the shackles of the frost.

He cast anxious glances at his mate, but she showed no de­sire to get up. He looked out­side, and half a dozen snow­birds fluttered across his field of vis­ion. He star­ted to get up, then looked back to his mate again, and settled down and dozed. A shrill and minute singing stole upon his hear­ing. Once, and twice, he sleepily brushed his nose with his paw. Then he woke up. There, buzz­ing in the air at the tip of his nose, was a lone mos­quito. It was a full-grown mos­quito, one that had lain frozen in a dry log all winter and that had now been thawed out by the sun. He could res­ist the call of the world no longer. Besides, he was hungry.

He crawled over to his mate and tried to per­suade her to get up. But she only snarled at him, and he walked out alone into the bright sun­shine to find the snow-sur­face soft un­der foot and the trav­el­ling dif­fi­cult. He went up the frozen bed of the stream, where the snow, shaded by the trees, was yet hard and crys­tal­line. He was gone eight hours, and he came back through the dark­ness hun­grier than when he had star­ted. He had found game, but he had not caught it. He had broken through the melt­ing snow crust, and wal­lowed, while the snow­shoe rab­bits had skimmed along on top lightly as ever.

He paused at the mouth of the cave with a sud­den shock of sus­pi­cion. Faint, strange sounds came from within. They were sounds not made by his mate, and yet they were re­motely fa­mil­iar. He bel­lied cau­tiously in­side and was met by a warn­ing snarl from the she-wolf. This he re­ceived without per­turb­a­tion, though he obeyed it by keep­ing his dis­tance; but he re­mained in­ter­ested in the other sounds—faint, muffled sob­bings and slub­ber­ings.

His mate warned him ir­rit­ably away, and he curled up and slept in the en­trance. When morn­ing came and a dim light per­vaded the lair, he again sought after the source of the re­motely fa­mil­iar sounds. There was a new note in his mate’s warn­ing snarl. It was a jeal­ous note, and he was very care­ful in keep­ing a re­spect­ful dis­tance. Never­the­less, he made out, shel­ter­ing between her legs against the length of her body, five strange little bundles of life, very feeble, very help­less, mak­ing tiny whim­per­ing noises, with eyes that did not open to the light. He was sur­prised. It was not the first time in his long and suc­cess­ful life that this thing had happened. It had happened many times, yet each time it was as fresh a sur­prise as ever to him.

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

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 the fath­ers of wolves. He did not ques­tion it, nor puzzle over it. It was there, in the fibre of his be­ing; and it was the most nat­ural thing in the world that he should obey it by turn­ing his back on his new-born fam­ily and by trot­ting out and away on the meat-trail whereby he lived.

Five or six miles from the lair, the stream di­vided, its forks go­ing off among the moun­tains at a right angle. Here, lead­ing up the left fork, he came upon a fresh track. He smelled it and found it so re­cent that he crouched swiftly, and looked in the dir­ec­tion in which it dis­ap­peared. Then he turned de­lib­er­ately and took the right fork. The foot­print was much lar­ger than the one his own feet made, and he knew that in the wake of such a trail there was little meat for him.

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

The por­cu­pine rolled it­self into a ball, ra­di­at­ing long, sharp needles in all dir­ec­tions that de­fied at­tack. In his youth One Eye had once sniffed too near a sim­ilar, ap­par­ently in­ert ball of quills, and had the tail flick out sud­denly in his face. One quill he had car­ried away in his muzzle, where it had re­mained for weeks, a rank­ling flame, un­til it fi­nally worked out. So he lay down, in a com­fort­able crouch­ing po­s­i­tion, his nose fully a foot away, and out of the line of the tail. Thus he waited, keep­ing per­fectly quiet. There was no telling. So­mething might hap­pen. The por­cu­pine might un­roll. There might be op­por­tun­ity for a deft and rip­ping thrust of paw into the tender, un­guarded belly.

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

The urge of his awakened in­stinct of fath­er­hood was strong upon him. He must find meat. In the af­ter­noon he blundered upon a ptar­migan. He came out of a thicket and found him­self face to face with the slow-wit­ted bird. It was sit­ting on a log, not a foot bey­ond the end of his nose. Each saw the other. The bird made a startled rise, but he struck it with his paw, and smashed it down to earth, then pounced upon it, and caught it in his teeth as it scuttled across the snow try­ing to rise in the air again. As his teeth crunched through the tender flesh and fra­gile bones, he began nat­ur­ally to eat. Then he re­membered, and, turn­ing on the back­track, star­ted for home, car­ry­ing the ptar­migan in his mouth.

A mile above the forks, run­ning vel­vet-footed as was his cus­tom, a glid­ing shadow that cau­tiously pro­spec­ted each new vista of the trail, he came upon later im­prints of the large tracks he had dis­covered in the early morn­ing. As the track led his way, he fol­lowed, pre­pared to meet the maker of it at every turn of the stream.

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

He lay down in the snow, de­pos­it­ing the ptar­migan be­side him, and with eyes peer­ing through the needles of a low-grow­ing spruce he watched the play of life be­fore him—the wait­ing lynx and the wait­ing por­cu­pine, each in­tent on life; and, such was the curi­ous­ness of the game, the way of life for one lay in the eat­ing of the other, and the way of life for the other lay in be­ing not eaten. While old One Eye, the wolf crouch­ing in the cov­ert, played his part, too, in the game, wait­ing for some strange freak of Chance, that might help him on the meat-trail which was his way of life.

Half an hour passed, an hour; and noth­ing happened. The ball of quills might have been a stone for all it moved; the lynx might have been frozen to marble; and old One Eye might have been dead. Yet all three an­im­als were keyed to a tense­ness of liv­ing that was al­most pain­ful, and scarcely ever would it come to them to be more alive than they were then in their seem­ing pet­ri­fac­tion.

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

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

Everything had happened at once—the blow, the coun­ter­blow, the squeal of agony from the por­cu­pine, the big cat’s squall of sud­den hurt and as­ton­ish­ment. One Eye half arose in his ex­cite­ment, his ears up, his tail straight out and quiv­er­ing be­hind him. The lynx’s bad tem­per got the best of her. She sprang sav­agely at the thing that had hurt her. But the por­cu­pine, squeal­ing and grunt­ing, with dis­rup­ted ana­tomy try­ing feebly to roll up into its ball-pro­tec­tion, flicked out its tail again, and again the big cat squalled with hurt and as­ton­ish­ment. Then she fell to back­ing away and sneez­ing, her nose brist­ling with quills like a mon­strous pin­cush­ion. She brushed her nose with her paws, try­ing to dis­lodge the fiery darts, thrust it into the snow, and rubbed it against twigs and branches, and all the time leap­ing about, ahead, side­wise, up and down, in a frenzy of pain and fright.

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

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

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

With a nervous, shrink­ing paw, One Eye stretched out the por­cu­pine to its full length and turned it over on its back. Noth­ing had happened. It was surely dead. He stud­ied it in­tently for a mo­ment, then took a care­ful grip with his teeth and star­ted off down the stream, partly car­ry­ing, partly drag­ging the por­cu­pine, with head turned to the side so as to avoid step­ping on the prickly mass. He re­col­lec­ted 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, and this he did by promptly eat­ing the ptar­migan. Then he re­turned and took up his bur­den.

When he dragged the res­ult of his day’s hunt into the cave, the she-wolf in­spec­ted it, turned her muzzle to him, and lightly licked him on the neck. But the next in­stant she was warn­ing him away from the cubs with a snarl that was less harsh than usual and that was more apo­lo­getic than men­acing. Her in­stinct­ive fear of the father of her pro­geny was ton­ing down. He was be­hav­ing as a wolf-father should, and mani­fest­ing no un­holy de­sire to de­vour the young lives she had brought into the world.

III The Grey Cub

He was dif­fer­ent from his broth­ers and sis­ters. Their hair already be­trayed the red­dish hue in­her­ited from their mother, the she-wolf; while he alone, in this par­tic­u­lar, took after his father. He was the one little 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, with but 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 with steady clear­ness. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two broth­ers and his two sis­ters very well. He had be­gun to romp with them in a feeble, awk­ward way, and even to squabble, his little throat vi­brat­ing with a queer rasp­ing noise (the fore­run­ner of the growl), as he worked him­self into a pas­sion. And long be­fore his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell to know his mother—a fount of warmth and li­quid food and ten­der­ness. She pos­sessed a gentle, caress­ing tongue that soothed him when it passed over his soft little body, and that im­pelled him to snuggle close against her and to doze off to sleep.

Most of the first month of his life had been passed thus in sleep­ing; but now he could see quite well, and he stayed awake for longer peri­ods of time, and he was com­ing to learn his world quite well. His world was gloomy; but he did not know that, for he knew no other world. It was dim-lighted; but his eyes had never had to ad­just them­selves to any other light. His world was very small. Its lim­its were the walls of the lair; but as he had no know­ledge of the wide world out­side, he was never op­pressed by the nar­row con­fines of his ex­ist­ence.

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

Al­ways, in the be­gin­ning, be­fore his con­scious life dawned, he had crawled to­ward the mouth of the cave. And in this his broth­ers and sis­ters were one with him. Never, in that period, did any of them crawl to­ward the dark corners of the back-wall. The light drew them as if they were plants; the chem­istry of the life that com­posed them de­man­ded the light as a ne­ces­sity of be­ing; and their little pup­pet-bod­ies crawled blindly and chem­ic­ally, like the tendrils of a vine. Later on, when each de­veloped in­di­vidu­al­ity and be­came per­son­ally con­scious of im­pul­sions and de­sires, the at­trac­tion of the light in­creased. They were al­ways crawl­ing and sprawl­ing to­ward it, and be­ing driven back from it by their mother.

It was in this way that the grey cub learned other at­trib­utes of his mother than the soft, sooth­ing, tongue. In his in­sist­ent crawl­ing to­ward the light, he dis­covered in her a nose that with a sharp nudge ad­min­istered re­buke, and later, a paw, that crushed him down and rolled him over and over with swift, cal­cu­lat­ing stroke. Thus he learned hurt; and on top of it he learned to avoid hurt, first, by not in­cur­ring the risk of it; and second, when he had in­curred the risk, by dodging and by re­treat­ing. These were con­scious ac­tions, and were the res­ults of his first gen­er­al­isa­tions upon the world. Be­fore that he had re­coiled auto­mat­ic­ally from hurt, as he had crawled auto­mat­ic­ally to­ward the light. After that he re­coiled from hurt be­cause he knew that it was hurt.

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

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

The fas­cin­a­tion of the light for the grey cub in­creased from day to day. He was per­petu­ally de­part­ing on yard-long ad­ven­tures to­ward the cave’s en­trance, and as per­petu­ally be­ing driven back. Only he did not know it for an en­trance. He did not know any­thing about en­trances—pas­sages whereby one goes from one place to an­other place. He did not know any other place, much less of a way to get there. So to him the en­trance of the cave was a wall—a wall of light. As the sun was to the out­side dweller, this wall was to him the sun of his world. It at­trac­ted him as a candle at­tracts a moth. He was al­ways striv­ing to at­tain it. The life that was so swiftly ex­pand­ing within him, urged him con­tinu­ally to­ward the wall of light. The life that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he was pre­destined to tread. But he him­self did not know any­thing about it. He did not know there was any out­side at all.

There was one strange thing about this wall of light. His father (he had already come to re­cog­nise his father as the one other dweller in the world, a creature like his mother, who slept near the light and was a bringer of meat)—his father had a way of walk­ing right into the white far wall and dis­ap­pear­ing. The grey cub could not un­der­stand this. Though never per­mit­ted by his mother to ap­proach that wall, he had ap­proached the other walls, and en­countered hard ob­struc­tion on the end of his tender nose. This hurt. And after sev­eral such ad­ven­tures, he left the walls alone. Without think­ing about it, he ac­cep­ted this dis­ap­pear­ing into the wall as a pe­cu­li­ar­ity of his father, as milk and half-di­ges­ted meat were pe­cu­li­ar­it­ies of his mother.

In fact, the grey cub was not given to think­ing—at least, to the kind of think­ing cus­tom­ary of men. His brain worked in dim ways. Yet his con­clu­sions were as sharp and dis­tinct as those achieved by men. He had a method of ac­cept­ing things, without ques­tion­ing the why and where­fore. In real­ity, this was the act of clas­si­fic­a­tion. He was never dis­turbed over why a thing happened. How it happened was suf­fi­cient for him. Thus, when he had bumped his nose on the back-wall a few times, he ac­cep­ted that he would not dis­ap­pear into walls. In the same way he ac­cep­ted that his father could dis­ap­pear into walls. But he was not in the least dis­turbed by de­sire to find out the reason for the dif­fer­ence between his father and him­self. Lo­gic and phys­ics were no part of his men­tal makeup.

Like most creatures of the Wild, he early ex­per­i­enced fam­ine. There came a time when not only did the meat-sup­ply cease, but the milk no longer came from his mother’s breast. At first, the cubs whimpered and cried, but for the most part they slept. It was not long be­fore they were re­duced to a coma of hun­ger. There were no more spats and squabbles, no more tiny rages nor at­tempts at growl­ing; while the ad­ven­tures to­ward the far white wall ceased al­to­gether. The cubs slept, while the life that was in them flickered and died down.

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

When the grey cub came back to life and again took in­terest in the far white wall, he found that the pop­u­la­tion of his world had been re­duced. Only one sis­ter re­mained to him. The rest were gone. As he grew stronger, he found him­self com­pelled to play alone, for the sis­ter no longer lif­ted her head nor moved about. His little body roun­ded out with the meat he now ate; but the food had come too late for her. She slept con­tinu­ously, a tiny skel­eton flung round with skin in which the flame flickered lower and lower and at last went out.

Then there came a time when the grey cub no longer saw his father ap­pear­ing and dis­ap­pear­ing in the wall nor ly­ing down asleep in the en­trance. This had happened at the end of a second and less severe fam­ine. The she-wolf knew why One Eye never came back, but there was no way by which she could tell what she had seen to the grey cub. Hunt­ing her­self for meat, up the left fork of the stream where lived the lynx, she had fol­lowed a day-old trail of One Eye. And she had found him, or what re­mained of him, at the end of the trail. There were many signs of the battle that had been fought, and of the lynx’s with­drawal to her lair after hav­ing won the vic­tory. Be­fore she went away, the she-wolf had found this lair, but the signs told her that the lynx was in­side, and she had not dared to ven­ture in.

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

But the Wild is the Wild, and moth­er­hood is moth­er­hood, at all times fiercely pro­tect­ive whether in the Wild or out of it; and the time was to come when the she-wolf, for her grey cub’s sake, would ven­ture the left fork, and the lair in the rocks, and the lynx’s wrath.

IV The Wall of the World

By the time his mother began leav­ing the cave on hunt­ing ex­ped­i­tions, the cub had learned well the law that for­bade his ap­proach­ing the en­trance. Not only had this law been for­cibly and many times im­pressed on him by his mother’s nose and paw, but in him the in­stinct of fear was de­vel­op­ing. Never, in his brief cave-life, had he en­countered any­thing of which to be afraid. Yet fear was in him. It had come down to him from a re­mote an­ces­try through a thou­sand thou­sand lives. It was a her­it­age he had re­ceived dir­ectly from One Eye and the she-wolf; but to them, in turn, it had been passed down through all the gen­er­a­tions of wolves that had gone be­fore. Fear!—that leg­acy of the Wild which no an­imal may es­cape nor ex­change for pot­tage.

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

He did not reason the ques­tion out in this man fash­ion. He merely clas­si­fied the things that hurt and the things that did not hurt. And after such clas­si­fic­a­tion he avoided the things that hurt, the re­stric­tions and re­straints, in or­der to en­joy the sat­is­fac­tions and the re­mu­ner­a­tions of life.

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

Once, ly­ing awake, he heard a strange sound in the white wall. He did not know that it was a wol­ver­ine, stand­ing out­side, all a-trem­bling with its own dar­ing, and cau­tiously scent­ing out the con­tents of the cave. The cub knew only that the sniff was strange, a some­thing un­clas­si­fied, there­fore un­known and ter­rible—for the un­known was one of the chief ele­ments that went into the mak­ing of fear.

The hair bristled upon the grey cub’s back, but it bristled si­lently. How was he to know that this thing that sniffed was a thing at which to bristle? It was not born of any know­ledge of his, yet it was the vis­ible ex­pres­sion of the fear that was in him, and for which, in his own life, there was no ac­count­ing. But fear was ac­com­pan­ied by an­other in­stinct—that of con­ceal­ment. The cub was in a frenzy of ter­ror, yet he lay without move­ment or sound, frozen, pet­ri­fied into im­mob­il­ity, to all ap­pear­ances dead. His mother, com­ing home, growled as she smelt the wol­ver­ine’s track, and bounded into the cave and licked and nuzzled him with un­due vehe­mence of af­fec­tion. And the cub felt that some­how he had es­caped a great hurt.

But there were other forces at work in the cub, the greatest of which was growth. In­stinct and law de­man­ded of him obed­i­ence. But growth de­man­ded dis­obedi­ence. His mother and fear im­pelled him to keep away from the white wall. Growth is life, and life is forever destined to make for light. So there was no dam­ming up the tide of life that was rising within him—rising with every mouth­ful of meat he swal­lowed, with every breath he drew. In the end, one day, fear and obed­i­ence were swept away by the rush of life, and the cub straddled and sprawled to­ward the en­trance.

Un­like any other wall with which he had had ex­per­i­ence, this wall seemed to re­cede from him as he ap­proached. No hard sur­face col­lided with the tender little nose he thrust out tent­at­ively be­fore him. The sub­stance of the wall seemed as per­meable and yield­ing as light. And as con­di­tion, in his eyes, had the seem­ing of form, so he entered into what had been wall to him and bathed in the sub­stance that com­posed it.

It was be­wil­der­ing. He was sprawl­ing through solid­ity. And ever the light grew brighter. Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on. Sud­denly he found him­self at the mouth of the cave. The wall, in­side which he had thought him­self, as sud­denly leaped back be­fore him to an im­meas­ur­able dis­tance. The light had be­come pain­fully bright. He was dazzled by it. Like­wise he was made dizzy by this ab­rupt and tre­mend­ous ex­ten­sion of space. Auto­mat­ic­ally, his eyes were ad­just­ing them­selves to the bright­ness, fo­cus­ing them­selves to meet the in­creased dis­tance of ob­jects. At first, the wall had leaped bey­ond his vis­ion. He now saw it again; but it had taken upon it­self a re­mark­able re­mote­ness. Also, its ap­pear­ance had changed. It was now a varie­gated wall, com­posed of the trees that fringed the stream, the op­pos­ing moun­tain that towered above the trees, and the sky that out-towered the moun­tain.

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

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

Now the grey cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had never ex­per­i­enced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So he stepped boldly out upon the air. His hind legs still res­ted on the cave-lip, so he fell for­ward head down­ward. The earth struck him a harsh blow on the nose that made him yelp. Then he began rolling down the slope, over and over. He was in a panic of ter­ror. The un­known had caught him at last. It had gripped sav­agely hold of him and was about to wreak upon him some ter­rific hurt. Growth was now routed by fear, and he ki-yi’d like any frightened puppy.

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

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

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

Now that the ter­rible un­known had let go of him, he for­got that the un­known had any ter­rors. He was aware only of curi­os­ity in all the things about him. He in­spec­ted the grass be­neath him, the moss-berry plant just bey­ond, and the dead trunk of the blas­ted pine that stood on the edge of an open space among the trees. A squir­rel, run­ning around the base of the trunk, came full upon him, and gave him a great fright. He cowered down and snarled. But the squir­rel was as badly scared. It ran up the tree, and from a point of safety chattered back sav­agely.

This helped the cub’s cour­age, and though the wood­pecker he next en­countered gave him a start, he pro­ceeded con­fid­ently on his way. Such was his con­fid­ence, that when a moose-bird im­pudently hopped up to him, he reached out at it with a play­ful paw. The res­ult was a sharp peck on the end of his nose that made him cower down and ki-yi. The noise he made was too much for the moose-bird, who sought safety in flight.

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

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

His was the luck of the be­gin­ner. Born to be a hunter of meat (though he did not know it), he blundered upon meat just out­side his own cave-door on his first foray into the world. It was by sheer blun­der­ing that he chanced upon the shrewdly hid­den ptar­migan nest. He fell into it. He had es­sayed to walk along the trunk of a fallen pine. The rot­ten bark gave way un­der his feet, and with a des­pair­ing yelp he pitched down the roun­ded 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 of seven ptar­migan chicks.

They made noises, and at first he was frightened at them. Then he per­ceived that they were very little, and he be­came bolder. They moved. He placed his paw on one, and its move­ments were ac­cel­er­ated. This was a source of en­joy­ment to him. He smelled it. He picked it up in his mouth. It struggled and tickled his tongue. At the same time he was made aware of a sen­sa­tion of hun­ger. His jaws closed to­gether. There was a crunch­ing of fra­gile bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. The taste of it was good. This was meat, the same as his mother gave him, only it was alive between his teeth and there­fore bet­ter. So he ate the ptar­migan. Nor did he stop till he had de­voured the whole brood. Then he licked his chops in quite the same way his mother did, and began to crawl out of the bush.

He en­countered a feathered whirl­wind. He was con­fused and blinded by the rush of it and the beat of angry wings. He hid his head between his paws and yelped. The blows in­creased. The mother ptar­migan was in a fury. Then he be­came angry. He rose up, snarling, strik­ing out with his paws. He sank his tiny teeth into one of the wings and pulled and tugged sturdily. The ptar­migan struggled against him, shower­ing blows upon him with her free wing. It was his first battle. He was elated. He for­got all about the un­known. He no longer was afraid of any­thing. He was fight­ing, tear­ing at a live thing that was strik­ing at him. Also, this live thing was meat. The lust to kill was on him. He had just des­troyed little live things. He would now des­troy a big live thing. He was too busy and happy to know that he was happy. He was thrill­ing and ex­ult­ing in ways new to him and greater to him than any he had known be­fore.

He held on to the wing and growled between his tight-clenched teeth. The ptar­migan dragged him out of the bush. When she turned and tried to drag him back into the bush’s shel­ter, he pulled her away from it and on into the open. And all the time she was mak­ing out­cry and strik­ing with her free wing, while feath­ers were fly­ing like a snow­fall. The pitch to which he was aroused was tre­mend­ous. All the fight­ing blood of his breed was up in him and sur­ging through him. This was liv­ing, though he did not know it. He was real­ising his own mean­ing in the world; he was do­ing that for which he was made—killing meat and bat­tling to kill it. He was jus­ti­fy­ing his ex­ist­ence, than which life can do no greater; for life achieves its sum­mit when it does to the ut­ter­most that which it was equipped to do.

After a time, the ptar­migan ceased her strug­gling. He still held her by the wing, and they lay on the ground and looked at each other. He tried to growl threat­en­ingly, fe­ro­ciously. She pecked on his nose, which by now, what of pre­vi­ous ad­ven­tures, was sore. He winced but held on. She pecked him again and again. From win­cing he went to whim­per­ing. He tried to back away from her, ob­li­vi­ous to the fact that by his hold on her he dragged her after him. A rain of pecks fell on his ill-used nose. The flood of fight ebbed down in him, and, re­leas­ing his prey, he turned tail and scampered on across the open in in­glori­ous re­treat.

He lay down to rest on the other side of the open, near the edge of the bushes, his tongue lolling out, his chest heav­ing and pant­ing, his nose still hurt­ing him and caus­ing him to con­tinue his whim­per. But as he lay there, sud­denly there came to him a feel­ing as of some­thing ter­rible im­pend­ing. The un­known with all its ter­rors rushed upon him, and he shrank back in­stinct­ively into the shel­ter of the bush. As he did so, a draught of air fanned him, and a large, winged body swept omin­ously and si­lently past. A hawk, driv­ing down out of the blue, had barely missed him.

While he lay in the bush, re­cov­er­ing from his fright and peer­ing fear­fully out, the mother-ptar­migan on the other side of the open space fluttered out of the rav­aged nest. It was be­cause of her loss that she paid no at­ten­tion to the winged bolt of the sky. But the cub saw, and it was a warn­ing and a les­son to him—the swift down­ward swoop of the hawk, the short skim of its body just above the ground, the strike of its talons in the body of the ptar­migan, the ptar­migan’s squawk of agony and fright, and the hawk’s rush up­ward into the blue, car­ry­ing the ptar­migan away with it.

It was a long time be­fore the cub left its shel­ter. He had learned much. Live things were meat. They were good to eat. Also, live things when they were large enough, could give hurt. It was bet­ter to eat small live things like ptar­migan chicks, and to let alone large live things like ptar­migan hens. Never­the­less he felt a little prick of am­bi­tion, a sneak­ing de­sire to have an­other battle with that ptar­migan hen—only the hawk had car­ried her away. May be there were other ptar­migan hens. He would go and see.

He came down a shelving bank to the stream. He had never seen wa­ter be­fore. The foot­ing looked good. There were no in­equal­it­ies of sur­face. He stepped boldly out on it; and went down, cry­ing with fear, into the em­brace of the un­known. It was cold, and he gasped, breath­ing quickly. The wa­ter rushed into his lungs in­stead of the air that had al­ways ac­com­pan­ied his act of breath­ing. The suf­foc­a­tion he ex­per­i­enced was like the pang of death. To him it sig­ni­fied death. He had no con­scious know­ledge of death, but like every an­imal of the Wild, he pos­sessed the in­stinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the very es­sence of the un­known; it was the sum of the ter­rors of the un­known, the one cul­min­at­ing and un­think­able cata­strophe that could hap­pen to him, about which he knew noth­ing and about which he feared everything.

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

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

Below the rapid was a second pool, and here, cap­tured by the eddy, he was gently borne to the bank, and as gently de­pos­ited on a bed of gravel. He crawled frantic­ally clear of the wa­ter and lay down. He had learned some more about the world. Water was not alive. Yet it moved. Also, it looked as solid as the earth, but was without any solid­ity at all. His con­clu­sion was that things were not al­ways what they ap­peared to be. The cub’s fear of the un­known was an in­her­ited dis­trust, and it had now been strengthened by ex­per­i­ence. Thence­forth, in the nature of things, he would pos­sess an abid­ing dis­trust of ap­pear­ances. He would have to learn the real­ity of a thing be­fore he could put his faith into it.

One other ad­ven­ture was destined for him that day. He had re­col­lec­ted that there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then there came to him a feel­ing that he wanted her more than all the rest of the things in the world. Not only was his body tired with the ad­ven­tures it had un­der­gone, but his little brain was equally tired. In all the days he had lived it had not worked so hard as on this one day. Fur­ther­more, he was sleepy. So he star­ted out to look for the cave and his mother, feel­ing at the same time an over­whelm­ing rush of loneli­ness and help­less­ness.

He was sprawl­ing along between some bushes, when he heard a sharp in­tim­id­at­ing cry. There was a flash of yel­low be­fore his eyes. He saw a weasel leap­ing swiftly away from him. It was a small live thing, and he had no fear. Then, be­fore him, at his feet, he saw an ex­tremely small live thing, only 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. The next mo­ment the flash of yel­low re­appeared be­fore his eyes. He heard again the in­tim­id­at­ing cry, and at the same in­stant re­ceived a sharp blow on the side of the neck and felt the sharp teeth of the mother-weasel cut into his flesh.

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

He was still whim­per­ing when the mother-weasel re­appeared. She did not rush him, now that her young one was safe. She ap­proached more cau­tiously, and the cub had full op­por­tun­ity to ob­serve her lean, snake­like body, and her head, erect, eager, and snake­like it­self. Her sharp, men­acing cry sent the hair brist­ling along his back, and he snarled warn­ingly at her. She came closer and closer. There was a leap, swifter than his un­prac­tised sight, and the lean, yel­low body dis­ap­peared for a mo­ment out of the field of his vis­ion. The next mo­ment she was at his throat, her teeth bur­ied in his hair and flesh.

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

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

The cub ex­per­i­enced an­other ac­cess of af­fec­tion on the part of his mother. Her joy at find­ing him seemed even greater than his joy at be­ing found. She nuzzled him and caressed him and licked the cuts made in him by the weasel’s teeth. Then, between them, mother and cub, they ate the blood-drinker, and after that went back to the cave and slept.

V The Law of Meat

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

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

He was al­ways a little de­mon of fury when he chanced upon a stray ptar­migan. Never did he fail to re­spond sav­agely to the chat­ter of the squir­rel he had first met on the blas­ted pine. While the sight of a moose-bird al­most in­vari­ably put him into the wild­est of rages; for he never for­got the peck on the nose he had re­ceived from the first of that ilk he en­countered.

But there were times when even a moose-bird failed to af­fect him, and those were times when he felt him­self to be in danger from some other prowl­ing meat hunter. He never for­got the hawk, and its mov­ing shadow al­ways sent him crouch­ing into the nearest thicket. He no longer sprawled and straddled, and already he was de­vel­op­ing the gait of his mother, slink­ing and furt­ive, ap­par­ently without ex­er­tion, yet slid­ing along with a swift­ness that was as de­cept­ive as it was im­per­cept­ible.

In the mat­ter of meat, his luck had been all in the be­gin­ning. The seven ptar­migan chicks and the baby weasel rep­res­en­ted the sum of his killings. His de­sire to kill strengthened with the days, and he cher­ished hungry am­bi­tions for the squir­rel that chattered so vol­ubly and al­ways in­formed all wild creatures that the wolf-cub was ap­proach­ing. But as birds flew in the air, squir­rels could climb trees, and the cub could only try to crawl un­ob­served upon the squir­rel when it was on the ground.

The cub en­ter­tained a great re­spect for his mother. She could get meat, and she never failed to bring him his share. Fur­ther, she was un­afraid of things. It did not oc­cur to him that this fear­less­ness was foun­ded upon ex­per­i­ence and know­ledge. Its ef­fect on him was that of an im­pres­sion of power. His mother rep­res­en­ted power; and as he grew older he felt this power in the sharper ad­mon­ish­ment of her paw; while the re­prov­ing nudge of her nose gave place to the slash of her fangs. For this, like­wise, he re­spec­ted his mother. She com­pelled obed­i­ence from him, and the older he grew the shorter grew her tem­per.

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

Be­fore, he had hunted in play, for the sheer joy­ous­ness of it; now he hunted in deadly earn­est­ness, and found noth­ing. Yet the fail­ure of it ac­cel­er­ated his de­vel­op­ment. He stud­ied the habits of the squir­rel with greater care­ful­ness, and strove with greater craft to steal upon it and sur­prise it. He stud­ied the wood-mice and tried to dig them out of their bur­rows; and he learned much about the ways of moose-birds and wood­peck­ers. And there came a day when the hawk’s shadow did not drive him crouch­ing into the bushes. He had grown stronger and wiser, and more con­fid­ent. Also, he was des­per­ate. So he sat on his haunches, con­spicu­ously in an open space, and chal­lenged the hawk down out of the sky. For he knew that there, float­ing in the blue above him, was meat, the meat his stom­ach yearned after so in­sist­ently. But the hawk re­fused to come down and give battle, and the cub crawled away into a thicket and whimpered his 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 know that it was the rest of the lynx lit­ter that had gone to sat­isfy her. Nor did he know the des­per­ate­ness of her deed. He knew only that the vel­vet-furred kit­ten was meat, and he ate and waxed hap­pier with every mouth­ful.

A full stom­ach con­duces to in­ac­tion, and the cub lay in the cave, sleep­ing against his mother’s side. He was aroused by her snarling. Never had he heard her snarl so ter­ribly. Poss­ibly in her whole life it was the most ter­rible snarl she ever gave. There was reason for it, and none knew it bet­ter than she. A lynx’s lair is not de­spoiled with im­pun­ity. In the full glare of the af­ter­noon light, crouch­ing in the en­trance of the cave, the cub saw the lynx-mother. The hair rippled up along his back at the sight. Here was fear, and it did not re­quire his in­stinct to tell him of it. And if sight alone were not suf­fi­cient, the cry of rage the in­truder gave, be­gin­ning with a snarl and rush­ing ab­ruptly up­ward into a hoarse screech, was con­vin­cing enough in it­self.

The cub felt the prod of the life that was in him, and stood up and snarled vali­antly by his mother’s side. But she thrust him ig­no­mini­ously away and be­hind her. Be­cause of the low-roofed en­trance the lynx could not leap in, and when she made a crawl­ing rush of it the she-wolf sprang upon her and pinned her down. The cub saw little of the battle. There was a tre­mend­ous snarling and spit­ting and screech­ing. The two an­im­als threshed about, the lynx rip­ping and tear­ing with her claws and us­ing her teeth as well, while the she-wolf used her teeth alone.

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

The lynx was dead. But the she-wolf was very weak and sick. At first she caressed the cub and licked his wounded shoulder; but the blood she had lost had taken with it her strength, and for all of a day and a night she lay by her dead foe’s side, without move­ment, scarcely breath­ing. For a week she never left the cave, ex­cept for wa­ter, and then her move­ments were 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 take the meat-trail again.

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

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

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

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

But the cub did not think in man-fash­ion. He did not look at things with wide vis­ion. He was single-pur­posed, and en­ter­tained but one thought or de­sire at a time. Besides the law of meat, there were a myriad other and lesser laws for him to learn and obey. The world was filled with sur­prise. The stir of the life that was in him, the play of his muscles, was an un­end­ing hap­pi­ness. To run down meat was to ex­per­i­ence thrills and ela­tions. His rages and battles were pleas­ures. Ter­ror it­self, and the mys­tery of the un­known, led to his liv­ing.

And there were ease­ments and sat­is­fac­tions. To have a full stom­ach, to doze lazily in the sun­shine—such things were re­mu­ner­a­tion in full for his ar­dours and toils, while his ar­dours and tolls were in them­selves self-re­mu­ner­at­ive. They were ex­pres­sions of life, and life is al­ways happy when it is ex­press­ing it­self. So the cub had no quar­rel with his hos­tile en­vir­on­ment. He was very much alive, very happy, and very proud of him­self.

Part III

I The Makers of Fire

The cub came upon it sud­denly. It was his own fault. He had been care­less. He had left the cave and run down to the stream to drink. It might have been that he took no no­tice be­cause he was heavy with sleep. (He had been out all night on the meat-trail, and had but just then awakened.) And his care­less­ness might have been due to the fa­mili­ar­ity of the trail to the pool. He had trav­elled it of­ten, and noth­ing had ever happened on it.

He went down past the blas­ted pine, crossed the open space, and trot­ted in amongst the trees. Then, at the same in­stant, he saw and smelt. Be­fore him, sit­ting si­lently on their haunches, were five live things, the like of which he had never seen be­fore. It was his first glimpse of man­kind. But at the sight of him the five men did not spring to their feet, nor show their teeth, nor snarl. They did not move, but sat there, si­lent and omin­ous.

Nor did the cub move. Every in­stinct of his nature would have im­pelled him to dash wildly away, had there not sud­denly and for the first time arisen in him an­other and counter in­stinct. A great awe des­cen­ded upon him. He was beaten down to move­less­ness by an over­whelm­ing sense of his own weak­ness and lit­tle­ness. Here was mas­tery and power, some­thing far and away bey­ond him.

The cub had never seen man, yet the in­stinct con­cern­ing man was his. In dim ways he re­cog­nised in man the an­imal that had fought it­self to primacy over the other an­im­als of the Wild. Not alone out of his own eyes, but out of the eyes of all his an­cest­ors was the cub now look­ing upon man—out of eyes that had circled in the dark­ness around count­less winter camp­fires, that had peered from safe dis­tances and from the hearts of thick­ets at the strange, two-legged an­imal that was lord over liv­ing things. The spell of the cub’s her­it­age was upon him, the fear and the re­spect born of the cen­tur­ies of struggle and the ac­cu­mu­lated ex­per­i­ence of the gen­er­a­tions. The her­it­age was too com­pel­ling for a wolf that was only a cub. Had he been full-grown, he would have run away. As it was, he cowered down in a para­lysis of fear, already half prof­fer­ing the sub­mis­sion that his kind had proffered from the first time a wolf came in to sit by man’s fire and be made warm.

One of the In­di­ans arose and walked over to him and stooped above him. The cub cowered closer to the ground. It was the un­known, ob­jec­ti­fied at last, in con­crete flesh and blood, bend­ing over him and reach­ing down to seize hold of him. His hair bristled in­vol­un­tar­ily; his lips writhed back and his little fangs were bared. The hand, poised like doom above him, hes­it­ated, and the man spoke laugh­ing, “Wabam wabisca ip pit tah.” (“Look! The white fangs!”)

The other In­di­ans laughed loudly, and urged the man on to pick up the cub. As the hand des­cen­ded closer and closer, there raged within the cub a battle of the in­stincts. He ex­per­i­enced two great im­pul­sions—to yield and to fight. The res­ult­ing ac­tion was a com­prom­ise. He did both. He yiel­ded till the hand al­most touched him. Then he fought, his teeth flash­ing in a snap that sank them into the hand. The next mo­ment he re­ceived a clout along­side the head that knocked him over on his side. Then all fight fled out of him. His puppy­hood and the in­stinct of sub­mis­sion took charge of him. He sat up on his haunches and ki-yi’d. But the man whose hand he had bit­ten was angry. The cub re­ceived a clout on the other side of his head. Whereupon he sat up and ki-yi’d louder than ever.

The four In­di­ans laughed more loudly, while even the man who had been bit­ten began to laugh. They sur­roun­ded the cub and laughed at him, while he wailed out his ter­ror and his hurt. In the midst of it, he heard some­thing. The In­di­ans heard it too. But the cub knew what it was, and with a last, long wail that had in it more of tri­umph than grief, he ceased his noise and waited for the com­ing of his mother, of his fe­ro­cious and in­dom­it­able mother who fought and killed all things and was never afraid. She was snarling as she ran. She had heard the cry of her cub and was dash­ing to save him.

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

Then it was that a cry went up from one of the men. “Kiche!” was what he uttered. It was an ex­clam­a­tion of sur­prise. The cub felt his mother wilt­ing at the sound.

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

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

The man who had spoken came over to her. He put his hand upon her head, and she only crouched closer. She did not snap, nor threaten to snap. The other men came up, and sur­roun­ded her, and felt her, and pawed her, which ac­tions she made no at­tempt to re­sent. They were greatly ex­cited, and made many noises with their mouths. These noises were not in­dic­a­tion of danger, the cub de­cided, as he crouched near his mother still brist­ling from time to time but do­ing his best to sub­mit.

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

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

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

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

“So it would seem, Three Eagles,” Grey Beaver answered, lay­ing his hand on the cub; “and this be the sign of it.”

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

“This be the sign of it,” Grey Beaver went on. “It is plain that his mother is Kiche. But his father was a wolf. Where­fore is there in him little dog and much wolf. His fangs be white, and White Fang shall be his name. I have spoken. He is my dog. For was not Kiche my brother’s dog? And is not my brother dead?”

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

White Fang fol­lowed and lay down be­side her. Sal­mon Tongue’s hand reached out to him and rolled him over on his back. Kiche looked on anxiously. White Fang felt fear mount­ing in him again. He could not quite sup­press a snarl, but he made no of­fer to snap. The hand, with fin­gers crooked and spread apart, rubbed his stom­ach in a play­ful way and rolled him from side to side. It was ri­dicu­lous and un­gainly, ly­ing there on his back with legs sprawl­ing in the air. Besides, it was a po­s­i­tion of such ut­ter help­less­ness that White Fang’s whole nature re­vol­ted against it. He could do noth­ing to de­fend him­self. If this man-an­imal in­ten­ded harm, White Fang knew that he could not es­cape it. How could he spring away with his four legs in the air above him? Yet sub­mis­sion made him mas­ter his fear, and he only growled softly. This growl he could not sup­press; nor did the man-an­imal re­sent it by giv­ing him a blow on the head. And fur­ther­more, such was the strange­ness of it, White Fang ex­per­i­enced an un­ac­count­able sen­sa­tion of pleas­ure as the hand rubbed back and forth. When he was rolled on his side he ceased to growl, when the fin­gers pressed and prod­ded at the base of his ears the pleas­ur­able sen­sa­tion in­creased; and when, with a fi­nal rub and scratch, the man left him alone and went away, all fear had died out of White Fang. He was to know fear many times in his deal­ing with man; yet it was a token of the fear­less com­pan­ion­ship with man that was ul­ti­mately to be his.

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

White Fang had never seen dogs be­fore, but at sight of them he felt that they were his own kind, only some­how dif­fer­ent. But they dis­played little dif­fer­ence from the wolf when they dis­covered the cub and his mother. There was a rush. White Fang bristled and snarled and snapped in the face of the open-mouthed on­com­ing wave of dogs, and went down and un­der them, feel­ing the sharp slash of teeth in his body, him­self bit­ing and tear­ing at the legs and bel­lies above him. There was a great up­roar. He could hear the snarl of Kiche as she fought for him; and he could hear the cries of the man-an­im­als, the sound of clubs strik­ing upon bod­ies, and the yelps of pain from the dogs so struck.

Only a few seconds elapsed be­fore he was on his feet again. He could now see the man-an­im­als driv­ing back the dogs with clubs and stones, de­fend­ing him, sav­ing him from the sav­age teeth of his kind that some­how was not his kind. And though there was no reason in his brain for a clear con­cep­tion of so ab­stract a thing as justice, nev­er­the­less, in his own way, he felt the justice of the man-an­im­als, and he knew them for what they were—makers of law and ex­ecut­ors of law. Also, he ap­pre­ci­ated the power with which they ad­min­istered the law. Un­like any an­im­als he had ever en­countered, they did not bite nor claw. They en­forced their live strength with the power of dead things. Dead things did their bid­ding. Thus, sticks and stones, dir­ec­ted by these strange creatures, leaped through the air like liv­ing things, in­flict­ing griev­ous hurts upon the dogs.

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

The last dog had been driven back. The hub­bub died down. And White Fang licked his hurts and med­it­ated upon this, his first taste of pack-cruelty and his in­tro­duc­tion to the pack. He had never dreamed that his own kind con­sisted of more than One Eye, his mother, and him­self. They had con­sti­tuted a kind apart, and here, ab­ruptly, he had dis­covered many more creatures ap­par­ently of his own kind. And there was a sub­con­scious re­sent­ment that these, his kind, at first sight had pitched upon him and tried to des­troy him. In the same way he re­sen­ted his mother be­ing tied with a stick, even though it was done by the su­per­ior man-an­im­als. It sa­voured of the trap, of bond­age. Yet of the trap and of bond­age he knew noth­ing. Free­dom to roam and run and lie down at will, had been his her­it­age; and here it was be­ing in­fringed upon. His mother’s move­ments were re­stric­ted to the length of a stick, and by the length of that same stick was he re­stric­ted, for he had not yet got bey­ond the need of his mother’s side.

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

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

It was this last that es­pe­cially af­fected him. The el­ev­a­tion of frames of poles caught his eye; yet this in it­self was not so re­mark­able, be­ing done by the same creatures that flung sticks and stones to great dis­tances. But when the frames of poles were made into te­pees by be­ing covered with cloth and skins, White Fang was astoun­ded. It was the co­lossal bulk of them that im­pressed him. They arose around him, on every side, like some mon­strous quick-grow­ing form of life. They oc­cu­pied nearly the whole cir­cum­fer­ence of his field of vis­ion. He was afraid of them. They loomed omin­ously above him; and when the breeze stirred them into huge move­ments, he cowered down in fear, keep­ing his eyes war­ily upon them, and pre­pared to spring away if they at­temp­ted to pre­cip­it­ate them­selves upon him.

But in a short while his fear of the te­pees passed away. He saw the wo­men and chil­dren passing in and out of them without harm, and he saw the dogs try­ing of­ten to get into them, and be­ing driven away with sharp words and fly­ing stones. After a time, he left Kiche’s side and crawled cau­tiously to­ward the wall of the nearest te­pee. It was the curi­os­ity of growth that urged him on—the ne­ces­sity of learn­ing and liv­ing and do­ing that brings ex­per­i­ence. The last few inches to the wall of the te­pee were crawled with pain­ful slow­ness and pre­cau­tion. The day’s events had pre­pared him for the un­known to mani­fest it­self in most stu­pendous and un­think­able ways. At last his nose touched the can­vas. He waited. Noth­ing happened. Then he smelled the strange fab­ric, sat­ur­ated with the man-smell. He closed on the can­vas with his teeth and gave a gentle tug. Noth­ing happened, though the ad­ja­cent por­tions of the te­pee moved. He tugged harder. There was a greater move­ment. It was de­light­ful. He tugged still harder, and re­peatedly, un­til the whole te­pee was in mo­tion. Then the sharp cry of a squaw in­side sent him scam­per­ing back to Kiche. But after that he was afraid no more of the loom­ing bulks of the te­pees.

A mo­ment later he was stray­ing away again from his mother. Her stick was tied to a peg in the ground and she could not fol­low him. A part-grown puppy, some­what lar­ger and older than he, came to­ward him slowly, with os­ten­ta­tious and bel­li­ger­ent im­port­ance. The puppy’s name, as White Fang was af­ter­ward to hear him called, was Lip-lip. He had had ex­per­i­ence in puppy fights and was already some­thing of a bully.

Lip-lip was White Fang’s own kind, and, be­ing only a puppy, did not seem dan­ger­ous; so White Fang pre­pared to meet him in a friendly spirit. But when the strangers walk be­came stiff-legged and his lips lif­ted clear of his teeth, White Fang stiffened too, and answered with lif­ted lips. They half circled about each other, tent­at­ively, snarling and brist­ling. This las­ted sev­eral minutes, and White Fang was be­gin­ning to en­joy it, as a sort of game. But sud­denly, with re­mark­able swift­ness, Lip-lip leaped in, de­liv­er­ing a slash­ing snap, and leaped away again. The snap had taken ef­fect on the shoulder that had been hurt by the lynx and that was still sore deep down near the bone. The sur­prise and hurt of it brought a yelp out of White Fang; but the next mo­ment, in a rush of an­ger, he was upon Lip-lip and snap­ping vi­ciously.

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

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

Wo­men and chil­dren were car­ry­ing more sticks and branches to Grey Beaver. It was evid­ently an af­fair of mo­ment. White Fang came in un­til he touched Grey Beaver’s knee, so curi­ous was he, and already for­get­ful that this was a ter­rible man-an­imal. Sud­denly he saw a strange thing like mist be­gin­ning to arise from the sticks and moss be­neath Grey Beaver’s hands. 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 the mouth of the cave had drawn him in his early puppy­hood. He crawled the sev­eral 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 the sticks and moss, was sav­agely clutch­ing him by the nose. He scrambled back­ward, burst­ing out in an as­ton­ished ex­plo­sion of ki-yi’s. At the sound, Kiche leaped snarling to the end of her stick, and there raged ter­ribly be­cause she could not come to his aid. But Grey Beaver laughed loudly, and slapped his thighs, and told the hap­pen­ing to all the rest of the camp, till every­body was laugh­ing up­roari­ously. But White Fang sat on his haunches and ki-yi’d and ki-yi’d, a for­lorn and pi­ti­able little fig­ure in the midst of the man-an­im­als.

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

And then shame came to him. He knew laughter and the mean­ing of it. It is not given us to know how some an­im­als know laughter, and know when they are be­ing laughed at; but it was this same way that White Fang knew it. And he felt shame that the man-an­im­als should be laugh­ing at him. He turned and fled away, not from the hurt of the fire, but from the laughter that sank even deeper, and hurt in the spirit of him. And he fled to Kiche, ra­ging at the end of her stick like an an­imal gone mad—to Kiche, the one creature in the world who was not laugh­ing at him.

Twilight drew down and night came on, and White Fang lay by his mother’s side. His nose and tongue still hurt, but he was per­plexed by a greater trouble. He was home­sick. He felt a va­cancy in him, a need for the hush and quiet­ude of the stream and the cave in the cliff. Life had be­come too pop­u­lous. There were so many of the man-an­im­als, men, wo­men, and chil­dren, all mak­ing noises and ir­rit­a­tions. And there were the dogs, ever squab­bling and bick­er­ing, burst­ing into up­roars and cre­at­ing con­fu­sions. The rest­ful loneli­ness of the only life he had known was gone. Here the very air was pal­pit­ant with life. It hummed and buzzed un­ceas­ingly. Continu­ally chan­ging its in­tens­ity and ab­ruptly vari­ant in pitch, it im­pinged on his nerves and senses, made him nervous and rest­less and wor­ried him with a per­petual im­min­ence of hap­pen­ing.

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

II The Bondage

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

To man has been given the grief, of­ten, of see­ing his gods over­thrown and his al­tars crum­bling; but to the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to crouch at man’s feet, this grief has never come. Un­like man, whose gods are of the un­seen and the overguessed, va­pours and mists of fancy elud­ing the gar­men­ture of real­ity, wan­der­ing wraiths of de­sired good­ness and power, in­tan­gible out­crop­pings of self into the realm of spirit—un­like man, the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to the fire find their gods in the liv­ing flesh, solid to the touch, oc­cupy­ing earth-space and re­quir­ing time for the ac­com­plish­ment of their ends and their ex­ist­ence. No ef­fort of faith is ne­ces­sary to be­lieve in such a god; no ef­fort of will can pos­sibly in­duce dis­be­lief in such a god. There is no get­ting away from it. There it stands, on its two hind legs, club in hand, im­mensely po­ten­tial, pas­sion­ate and wrath­ful and lov­ing, god and mys­tery and power all wrapped up and around by flesh that bleeds when it is torn and that is good to eat like any flesh.

And so it was with White Fang. The man-an­im­als were gods un­mis­tak­able and un­es­cap­able. As his mother, Kiche, had rendered her al­le­gi­ance to them at the first cry of her name, so he was be­gin­ning to render his al­le­gi­ance. He gave them the trail as a priv­ilege in­dubit­ably theirs. When they walked, he got out of their way. When they called, he came. When they threatened, he cowered down. When they com­manded him to go, he went away hur­riedly. For be­hind any wish of theirs was power to en­force that wish, power that hurt, power that ex­pressed it­self in clouts and clubs, in fly­ing stones and sting­ing lashes of whips.

He be­longed to them as all dogs be­longed to them. His ac­tions were theirs to com­mand. His body was theirs to maul, to stamp upon, to tol­er­ate. Such was the les­son that was quickly borne in upon him. It came hard, go­ing as it did, counter to much that was strong and dom­in­ant in 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 his des­tiny in an­other’s hands, a shift­ing of the re­spons­ib­il­it­ies of ex­ist­ence. This in it­self was com­pens­a­tion, for it is al­ways easier to lean upon an­other than to stand alone.

But it did not all hap­pen in a day, this giv­ing over of him­self, body and soul, to the man-an­im­als. He could not im­me­di­ately forego his wild her­it­age and his memor­ies of the Wild. There were days when he crept to the edge of the forest and stood and listened to some­thing call­ing him far and away. And al­ways he re­turned, rest­less and un­com­fort­able, to whim­per softly and wist­fully at Kiche’s side and to lick her face with eager, ques­tion­ing tongue.

White Fang learned rap­idly the ways of the camp. He knew the in­justice and greed­i­ness of the older dogs when meat or fish was thrown out to be eaten. He came to know that men were more just, chil­dren more cruel, and wo­men more kindly and more likely to toss him a bit of meat or bone. And after two or three pain­ful ad­ven­tures with the moth­ers of part-grown pup­pies, he came into the know­ledge that it was al­ways good policy to let such moth­ers alone, to keep away from them as far as pos­sible, and to avoid them when he saw them com­ing.

But the bane of his life was Lip-lip. Lar­ger, older, and stronger, Lip-lip had se­lec­ted White Fang for his spe­cial ob­ject of per­se­cu­tion. White Fang fought will­ingly enough, but he was out­classed. His en­emy was too big. Lip-lip be­came a night­mare to him. Whenever he ven­tured away from his mother, the bully was sure to ap­pear, trail­ing at his heels, snarling at him, pick­ing upon him, and watch­ful of an op­por­tun­ity, when no man-an­imal was near, to spring upon him and force a fight. As Lip-lip in­vari­ably won, he en­joyed it hugely. It be­came his chief de­light in life, as it be­came White Fang’s chief tor­ment.

But the ef­fect upon White Fang was not to cow him. Though he suffered most of the dam­age and was al­ways de­feated, his spirit re­mained un­sub­dued. Yet a bad ef­fect was pro­duced. He be­came ma­lig­nant and mor­ose. His tem­per had been sav­age by birth, but it be­came more sav­age un­der this un­end­ing per­se­cu­tion. The gen­ial, play­ful, puppy­ish side of him found little ex­pres­sion. He never played and gam­bolled about with the other pup­pies of the camp. Lip-lip would not per­mit it. The mo­ment White Fang ap­peared near them, Lip-lip was upon him, bul­ly­ing and hec­tor­ing him, or fight­ing with him un­til he had driven him away.

The ef­fect of all this was to rob White Fang of much of his puppy­hood and to make him in his com­port­ment older than his age. Denied the out­let, through play, of his en­er­gies, he re­coiled upon him­self and de­veloped his men­tal pro­cesses. He be­came cun­ning; he had idle time in which to de­vote him­self to thoughts of trick­ery. Pre­ven­ted from ob­tain­ing his share of meat and fish when a gen­eral feed was given to the camp-dogs, he be­came a clever thief. He had to for­age for him­self, and he for­aged well, though he was of­t­times a plague to the squaws in con­sequence. He learned to sneak about camp, to be crafty, to know what was go­ing on every­where, to see and to hear everything and to reason ac­cord­ingly, and suc­cess­fully to de­vise ways and means of avoid­ing his im­plac­able per­se­cutor.

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

Lip-lip, ex­cited by the chase and by the per­sist­ent near­ness of his vic­tim, for­got cau­tion and loc­al­ity. When he re­membered loc­al­ity, it was too late. Dash­ing at top speed around a te­pee, he ran full tilt into Kiche ly­ing at the end of her stick. He gave one yelp of con­sterna­tion, and then her pun­ish­ing jaws closed upon him. She was tied, but he could not get away from her eas­ily. She rolled him off his legs so that he could not run, while she re­peatedly ripped and slashed him with her fangs.

When at last he suc­ceeded in rolling clear of her, he crawled to his feet, badly dishevelled, hurt both in body and in spirit. His hair was stand­ing out all over him in tufts where her teeth had mauled. He stood where he had arisen, opened his mouth, and broke out the long, heart­broken puppy wail. But even this he was not al­lowed to com­plete. In the middle of it, White Fang, rush­ing in, sank his teeth into Lip-lip’s hind leg. There was no fight left in Lip-lip, and he ran away shame­lessly, his vic­tim hot on his heels and wor­ry­ing him all the way back to his own te­pee. Here the squaws came to his aid, and White Fang, trans­formed into a ra­ging de­mon, was fi­nally driven off only by a fu­sil­lade of stones.

Came the day when Grey Beaver, de­cid­ing that the li­ab­il­ity of her run­ning away was past, re­leased Kiche. White Fang was de­lighted with his mother’s free­dom. He ac­com­pan­ied her joy­fully about the camp; and, so long as he re­mained close by her side, Lip-lip kept a re­spect­ful dis­tance. White-Fang even bristled up to him and walked stiff-legged, but Lip-lip ig­nored the chal­lenge. He was no fool him­self, and whatever ven­geance he de­sired to wreak, he could wait un­til he caught White Fang alone.

Later on that day, Kiche and White Fang strayed into the edge of the woods next to the camp. He had led his mother there, step by step, and now when she stopped, he tried to in­veigle her farther. The stream, the lair, and the quiet woods were call­ing to him, and he wanted her to come. He ran on a few steps, stopped, and looked back. She had not moved. He whined plead­ingly, and scur­ried play­fully in and out of the un­der­brush. He ran back to her, licked her face, and ran on again. And still she did not move. He stopped and re­garded her, all of an in­tent­ness and eager­ness, phys­ic­ally ex­pressed, that slowly faded out of him as she turned her head and gazed back at the camp.

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

Kiche turned and slowly trot­ted back to­ward camp. Stronger than the phys­ical re­straint of the stick was the clutch of the camp upon her. Un­seen and oc­cultly, the gods still gripped with their power and would not let her go. White Fang sat down in the shadow of a birch and whimpered softly. There was a strong smell of pine, and subtle wood fra­grances filled the air, re­mind­ing him of his old life of free­dom be­fore the days of his bond­age. But he was still only a part-grown puppy, and stronger than the call either of man or of the Wild was the call of his mother. All the hours of his short life he had de­pended upon her. The time was yet to come for in­de­pend­ence. So he arose and trot­ted for­lornly back to camp, paus­ing once, and twice, to sit down and whim­per and to listen to the call that still soun­ded in the depths of the forest.

In the Wild the time of a mother with her young is short; but un­der the domin­ion of man it is some­times even shorter. Thus it was with White Fang. Grey Beaver was in the debt of Three Eagles. Three Eagles was go­ing away on a trip up the Mack­en­zie to the Great Slave Lake. A strip of scar­let cloth, a bearskin, twenty cart­ridges, and Kiche, went to pay the debt. White Fang saw his mother taken aboard Three Eagles’ ca­noe, and tried to fol­low her. A blow from Three Eagles knocked him back­ward to the land. The ca­noe shoved off. He sprang into the wa­ter and swam after it, deaf to the sharp cries of Grey Beaver to re­turn. Even a man-an­imal, a god, White Fang ig­nored, such was the ter­ror he was in of los­ing his mother.

But gods are ac­cus­tomed to be­ing obeyed, and Grey Beaver wrath­fully launched a ca­noe in pur­suit. When he over­took White Fang, he reached down and by the nape of the neck lif­ted him clear of the wa­ter. He did not de­posit him at once in the bot­tom of the ca­noe. Hold­ing him sus­pen­ded with one hand, with the other hand he pro­ceeded to give him a beat­ing. And it was a beat­ing. His hand was heavy. Every blow was shrewd to hurt; and he de­livered a mul­ti­tude of blows.

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

Grey Beaver con­tin­ued to beat, White Fang con­tin­ued to snarl. But this could not last forever. One or the other must give over, and that one was White Fang. Fear surged through him again. For the first time he was be­ing really man­handled. The oc­ca­sional blows of sticks and stones he had pre­vi­ously ex­per­i­enced were as caresses com­pared with this. He broke down and began to cry and yelp. For a time each blow brought a yelp from him; but fear passed into ter­ror, un­til fi­nally his yelps were voiced in un­broken suc­ces­sion, un­con­nec­ted with the rhythm of the pun­ish­ment.

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

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

When the ca­noe touched the shore, White Fang lay whim­per­ing and mo­tion­less, wait­ing the will of Grey Beaver. It was Grey Beaver’s will that he should go ashore, for ashore he was flung, strik­ing heav­ily on his side and hurt­ing his bruises afresh. He crawled trem­blingly to his feet and stood whim­per­ing. Lip-lip, who had watched the whole pro­ceed­ing from the bank, now rushed upon him, knock­ing him over and sink­ing his teeth into him. White Fang was too help­less to de­fend him­self, and it would 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 to earth a dozen feet away. This was the man-an­imal’s justice; and even then, in his own pi­ti­able plight, White Fang ex­per­i­enced a little grate­ful thrill. At Grey Beaver’s heels he limped obed­i­ently through the vil­lage to the te­pee. And so it came that White Fang learned that the right to pun­ish was some­thing the gods re­served for them­selves and denied to the lesser creatures un­der them.

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

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

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

Nay, Grey Beaver him­self some­times tossed him a piece of meat, and de­fen­ded him against the other dogs in the eat­ing of it. And such a piece of meat was of value. It was worth more, in some strange way, then a dozen pieces of meat from the hand of a squaw. Grey Beaver never pet­ted nor caressed. Per­haps it was the weight of his hand, per­haps his justice, per­haps the sheer power of him, and per­haps it was all these things that in­flu­enced White Fang; for a cer­tain tie of at­tach­ment was form­ing between him and his surly lord.

In­si­di­ously, and by re­mote ways, as well as by the power of stick and stone and clout of hand, were the shackles of White Fang’s bond­age be­ing riv­eted upon him. The qual­it­ies in his kind that in the be­gin­ning made it pos­sible for them to come in to the fires of men, were qual­it­ies cap­able of de­vel­op­ment. They were de­vel­op­ing in him, and the camp-life, re­plete with misery as it was, was secretly en­dear­ing it­self to him all the time. But White Fang was un­aware of it. He knew only grief for the loss of Kiche, hope for her re­turn, and a hungry yearn­ing for the free life that had been his.

III The Outcast

Lip-lip con­tin­ued so to darken his days that White Fang be­came wick­eder and more fe­ro­cious than it was his nat­ural right to be. Sav­age­ness was a part of his makeup, but the sav­age­ness thus de­veloped ex­ceeded his makeup. He ac­quired a repu­ta­tion for wicked­ness amongst the man-an­im­als them­selves. Wherever there was trouble and up­roar in camp, fight­ing and squab­bling or the out­cry of a squaw over a bit of stolen meat, they were sure to find White Fang mixed up in it and usu­ally at the bot­tom of it. They did not bother to look after the causes of his con­duct. They saw only the ef­fects, and the ef­fects were bad. He was a sneak and a thief, a mis­chief-maker, a fo­menter of trouble; and ir­ate squaws told him to his face, the while he eyed them alert and ready to dodge any quick-flung mis­sile, that he was a wolf and worth­less and bound to come to an evil end.

He found him­self an out­cast in the midst of the pop­u­lous camp. All the young dogs fol­lowed Lip-lip’s lead. There was a dif­fer­ence between White Fang and them. Per­haps they sensed his wild­wood breed, and in­stinct­ively felt for him the enmity that the do­mestic dog feels for the wolf. But be that as it may, they joined with Lip-lip in the per­se­cu­tion. And, once de­clared against him, they found good reason to con­tinue de­clared against him. One and all, from time to time, they felt his teeth; and to his credit, he gave more than he re­ceived. Many of them he could whip in single fight; but single fight was denied him. The be­gin­ning of such a fight was a sig­nal for all the young dogs in camp to come run­ning and pitch upon him.

Out of this pack-per­se­cu­tion he learned two im­port­ant things: how to take care of him­self in a mass-fight against him—and how, on a single dog, to in­flict the greatest amount of dam­age in the briefest space of time. To keep one’s feet in the midst of the hos­tile mass meant life, and this he learnt well. He be­came cat­like in his abil­ity to stay on his feet. Even grown dogs might hurtle him back­ward or side­ways with the im­pact of their heavy bod­ies; and back­ward or side­ways he would go, in the air or slid­ing on the ground, but al­ways with his legs un­der him and his feet down­ward to the mother earth.

When dogs fight, there are usu­ally pre­lim­in­ar­ies to the ac­tual com­bat—snarlings and brist­lings and stiff-legged strut­tings. But White Fang learned to omit these pre­lim­in­ar­ies. Delay meant the com­ing against him of all the young dogs. He must do his work quickly and get away. So he learnt to give no warn­ing of his in­ten­tion. He rushed in and snapped and slashed on the in­stant, without no­tice, be­fore his foe could pre­pare to meet him. Thus he learned how to in­flict quick and severe dam­age. Also he learned the value of sur­prise. A dog, taken off its guard, its shoulder slashed open or its ear ripped in rib­bons be­fore it knew what was hap­pen­ing, was a dog half whipped.

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

Be­ing but partly grown his jaws had not yet be­come large enough nor strong enough to make his throat-at­tack deadly; but many a young dog went around camp with a la­cer­ated throat in token of White Fang’s in­ten­tion. And one day, catch­ing one of his en­emies alone on the edge of the woods, he man­aged, by re­peatedly over­throw­ing him and at­tack­ing the throat, to cut the great vein and let out the life. There was a great row that night. He had been ob­served, the news had been car­ried to the dead dog’s mas­ter, the squaws re­membered all the in­stances of stolen meat, and Grey Beaver was be­set by many angry voices. But he res­ol­utely held the door of his te­pee, in­side which he had placed the cul­prit, and re­fused to per­mit the ven­geance for which his tribespeople clam­oured.

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

As for snarling he could snarl more ter­ribly than any dog, young or old, in camp. The in­tent of the snarl is to warn or frighten, and judg­ment is re­quired to know when it should be used. White Fang knew how to make it and when to make it. Into his snarl he in­cor­por­ated all that was vi­cious, ma­lig­nant, and hor­rible. With nose ser­ru­lated by con­tinu­ous spasms, hair brist­ling in re­cur­rent waves, tongue whip­ping out like a red snake and whip­ping back again, ears flattened down, eyes gleam­ing hatred, lips wrinkled back, and fangs ex­posed and drip­ping, he could com­pel a pause on the part of al­most any as­sail­ant. A tem­por­ary pause, when taken off his guard, gave him the vi­tal mo­ment in which to think and de­term­ine his ac­tion. But of­ten a pause so gained lengthened out un­til it evolved into a com­plete ces­sa­tion from the at­tack. And be­fore more than one of the grown dogs White Fang’s snarl en­abled him to beat an hon­our­able re­treat.

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

But White Fang’s re­pris­als did not cease, even when the young dogs had learned thor­oughly that they must stay to­gether. He at­tacked them when he caught them alone, and they at­tacked him when they were bunched. The sight of him was suf­fi­cient to start them rush­ing after him, at which times his swift­ness usu­ally car­ried him into safety. But woe the dog that out­ran his fel­lows in such pur­suit! White Fang had learned to turn sud­denly upon the pur­suer that was ahead of the pack and thor­oughly to rip him up be­fore the pack could ar­rive. This oc­curred with great fre­quency, for, once in full cry, the dogs were prone to for­get them­selves in the ex­cite­ment of the chase, while White Fang never for­got him­self. Steal­ing back­ward glances as he ran, he was al­ways ready to whirl around and down the overzeal­ous pur­suer that out­ran his fel­lows.

Young dogs are bound to play, and out of the ex­i­gen­cies of the situ­ation they real­ised their play in this mimic war­fare. Thus it was that the hunt of White Fang be­came their chief game—a deadly game, withal, and at all times a ser­i­ous game. He, on the other hand, be­ing the fast­est-footed, was un­afraid to ven­ture any­where. Dur­ing the period that he waited vainly for his mother to come back, he led the pack many a wild chase through the ad­ja­cent woods. But the pack in­vari­ably lost him. Its noise and out­cry warned him of its pres­ence, while he ran alone, vel­vet-footed, si­lently, a mov­ing shadow among the trees after the man­ner of his father and mother be­fore him. Fur­ther he was more dir­ectly con­nec­ted with 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 then lie quietly in a nearby thicket while their baffled cries arose around him.

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

IV The Trail of the Gods

In the fall of the year, when the days were short­en­ing and the bite of the frost was com­ing into the air, White Fang got his chance for liberty. For sev­eral days there had been a great hub­bub in the vil­lage. The sum­mer camp was be­ing dis­mantled, and the tribe, bag and bag­gage, was pre­par­ing to go off to the fall hunt­ing. White Fang watched it all with eager eyes, and when the te­pees began to come down and the ca­noes were load­ing at the bank, he un­der­stood. Already the ca­noes were de­part­ing, and some had dis­ap­peared down the river.

Quite de­lib­er­ately he de­term­ined to stay be­hind. He waited his op­por­tun­ity to slink out of camp to the woods. Here, in the run­ning stream where ice was be­gin­ning to form, he hid his trail. Then he crawled into the heart of a dense thicket and waited. The time passed by, and he slept in­ter­mit­tently for hours. Then he was aroused by Grey Beaver’s voice call­ing him by name. There were other voices. White Fang could 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 out of his hid­ing-place, he res­isted it. After a time the voices died away, and some time after that he crept out to en­joy the suc­cess of his un­der­tak­ing. Dark­ness was com­ing on, and for a while he played about among the trees, pleas­ur­ing in his free­dom. Then, and quite sud­denly, he be­came aware of loneli­ness. He sat down to con­sider, listen­ing to the si­lence of the forest and per­turbed by it. That noth­ing moved nor soun­ded, seemed omin­ous. He felt the lurk­ing of danger, un­seen and un­guessed. He was sus­pi­cious of the loom­ing bulks of the trees and of the dark shad­ows that might con­ceal all man­ner of per­il­ous things.

Then it was cold. Here was no warm side of a te­pee against which to snuggle. The frost was in his feet, and he kept lift­ing first one fore­foot and then the other. He curved his bushy tail around to cover them, and at the same time he saw a vis­ion. There was noth­ing strange about it. Upon his in­ward sight was im­pressed a suc­ces­sion of memory-pic­tures. He saw the camp again, the te­pees, and the blaze of the fires. He heard the shrill voices of the wo­men, the gruff basses of the men, and the snarling of the dogs. He was hungry, and he re­membered pieces of meat and fish that had been thrown him. Here was no meat, noth­ing but a threat­en­ing and in­ed­ible si­lence.

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

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

A tree, con­tract­ing in the cool of the night, made a loud noise. It was dir­ectly above him. He yelped in his fright. A panic seized him, and he ran madly to­ward the vil­lage. He knew an over­power­ing de­sire for the pro­tec­tion and com­pan­ion­ship of man. In his nos­trils was the smell of the camp-smoke. In his ears the camp-sounds and cries were ringing loud. He passed out of the forest and into the moon­lit open where were no shad­ows nor dark­nesses. But no vil­lage greeted his eyes. He had for­got­ten. The vil­lage had gone away.

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

He came to where Grey Beaver’s te­pee had stood. In the centre of the space it had oc­cu­pied, he sat down. He poin­ted his nose at the moon. His throat was af­flic­ted by ri­gid spasms, his mouth opened, and in a heart­broken cry bubbled up his loneli­ness and fear, his grief for Kiche, all his past sor­rows and miser­ies as well as his ap­pre­hen­sion of suf­fer­ings and dangers to come. It was the long wolf-howl, full-throated and mourn­ful, the first howl he had ever uttered.

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

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

White Fang was in­tel­li­gent bey­ond the av­er­age of his kind; yet his men­tal vis­ion was not wide enough to em­brace the other bank of the Mack­en­zie. What if the trail of the gods led out on that side? It never entered his head. Later on, when he had trav­elled more and grown older and wiser and come to know more of trails and rivers, it might be that he could grasp and ap­pre­hend such a pos­sib­il­ity. But that men­tal power was yet in the fu­ture. Just now he ran blindly, his own bank of the Mack­en­zie alone en­ter­ing into his cal­cu­la­tions.

All night he ran, blun­der­ing in the dark­ness into mis­haps and obstacles that delayed but did not daunt. By the middle of the second day he had been run­ning con­tinu­ously for thirty hours, and the iron of his flesh was giv­ing out. It was the en­dur­ance of his mind that kept him go­ing. He had not eaten in forty hours, and he was weak with hun­ger. The re­peated drench­ings in the icy wa­ter had like­wise had their ef­fect on him. His hand­some coat was draggled. The broad pads of his feet were bruised and bleed­ing. He had be­gun to limp, and this limp in­creased with the hours. To make it worse, the light of the sky was ob­scured and snow began to fall—a raw, moist, melt­ing, cling­ing snow, slip­pery un­der foot, that hid from him the land­scape he tra­versed, and that covered over the in­equal­it­ies of the ground so that the way of his feet was more dif­fi­cult and pain­ful.

Grey Beaver had in­ten­ded camp­ing that night on the far bank of the Mack­en­zie, for it was in that dir­ec­tion that the hunt­ing lay. But on the near bank, shortly be­fore dark, a moose com­ing down to drink, had been es­pied by Kloo-kooch, who was Grey Beaver’s squaw. Now, had not the moose come down to drink, had not Mit-sah been steer­ing out of the course be­cause of the snow, had not Kloo-kooch sighted the moose, and had not Grey Beaver killed it with a lucky shot from his rifle, all sub­sequent things would have happened dif­fer­ently. Grey Beaver would not have camped on the near side of the Mack­en­zie, and White Fang would have passed by and gone on, either to die or to find his way to his wild broth­ers and be­come one of them—a wolf to the end of his days.

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

White Fang ex­pec­ted a beat­ing. He crouched and bristled a little at the thought of it. Then he went for­ward again. He feared and dis­liked the beat­ing he knew to be wait­ing for him. But he knew, fur­ther, that the com­fort of the fire would be his, the pro­tec­tion of the gods, the com­pan­ion­ship of the dogs—the last, a com­pan­ion­ship of enmity, but none the less a com­pan­ion­ship and sat­is­fy­ing to his gregari­ous needs.

He came cringing and crawl­ing into the fire­light. Grey Beaver saw him, and stopped munch­ing the tal­low. White Fang crawled slowly, cringing and grov­el­ling in the ab­ject­ness of his abase­ment and sub­mis­sion. He crawled straight to­ward Grey Beaver, every inch of his pro­gress be­com­ing slower and more pain­ful. At last he lay at the mas­ter’s feet, into whose pos­ses­sion he now sur­rendered him­self, vol­un­tar­ily, body and soul. Of his own choice, he came in to sit by man’s fire and to be ruled by him. White Fang trembled, wait­ing for the pun­ish­ment to fall upon him. There was a move­ment of the hand above him. He cringed in­vol­un­tar­ily un­der the ex­pec­ted blow. It did not fall. He stole a glance up­ward. Grey Beaver was break­ing the lump of tal­low in half! Grey Beaver was of­fer­ing him one piece of the tal­low! Very gently and some­what sus­pi­ciously, he first smelled the tal­low and then pro­ceeded to eat it. Grey Beaver ordered meat to be brought to him, and guarded him from the other dogs while he ate. After that, grate­ful and con­tent, White Fang lay at Grey Beaver’s feet, gaz­ing at the fire that warmed him, blink­ing and doz­ing, se­cure in the know­ledge that the mor­row would find him, not wan­der­ing for­lorn through bleak forest-stretches, but in the camp of the man-an­im­als, with the gods to whom he had given him­self and upon whom he was now de­pend­ent.

V The Covenant

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

White Fang had seen the camp-dogs toil­ing in the har­ness, so that he did not re­sent over­much the first pla­cing of the har­ness upon him­self. About his neck was put a moss-stuffed col­lar, which was con­nec­ted by two pulling-traces to a strap that passed around his chest and over his back. It was to this that was fastened the long rope by which he pulled at the sled.

There were seven pup­pies in the team. The oth­ers had been born earlier in the year and were nine and ten months old, while White Fang was only eight months old. Each dog was fastened to the sled by a single rope. No two ropes were of the same length, while the dif­fer­ence in length between any two ropes was at least that of a dog’s body. Every rope was brought to a ring at the front end of the sled. The sled it­self was without run­ners, be­ing a birch-bark to­bog­gan, with up­turned for­ward end to keep it from plough­ing un­der the snow. This con­struc­tion en­abled the weight of the sled and load to be dis­trib­uted over the largest snow-sur­face; for the snow was crys­tal-powder and very soft. Ob­serving the same prin­ciple of widest dis­tri­bu­tion of weight, the dogs at the ends of their ropes ra­di­ated fan-fash­ion from the nose of the sled, so that no dog trod in an­other’s foot­steps.

There was, fur­ther­more, an­other vir­tue in the fan-form­a­tion. The ropes of vary­ing length pre­ven­ted the dogs at­tack­ing from the rear those that ran in front of them. For a dog to at­tack an­other, it would have to turn upon one at a shorter rope. In which case it would find it­self face to face with the dog at­tacked, and also it would find it­self fa­cing the whip of the driver. But the most pe­cu­liar vir­tue of all lay in the fact that the dog that strove to at­tack one in front of him must pull the sled faster, and that the faster the sled trav­elled, the faster could the dog at­tacked run away. Thus, the dog be­hind could never catch up with the one in front. The faster he ran, the faster ran the one he was after, and the faster ran all the dogs. In­cid­ent­ally, the sled went faster, and thus, by cun­ning in­dir­ec­tion, did man in­crease his mas­tery over the beasts.

Mit-sah re­sembled his father, much of whose grey wis­dom he pos­sessed. In the past he had ob­served Lip-lip’s per­se­cu­tion of White Fang; but at that time Lip-lip was an­other man’s dog, and Mit-sah had never dared more than to shy an oc­ca­sional stone at him. But now Lip-lip was his dog, and he pro­ceeded to wreak his ven­geance on him by put­ting him at the end of the longest rope. This made Lip-lip the leader, and was ap­par­ently an hon­our! but in real­ity it took away from him all hon­our, and in­stead of be­ing bully and mas­ter of the pack, he now found him­self hated and per­se­cuted by the pack.

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

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

But a still greater cun­ning lurked in the re­cesses of the In­dian mind. To give point to un­end­ing pur­suit of the leader, Mit-sah fa­voured him over the other dogs. These fa­vours aroused in them jeal­ousy and hatred. In their pres­ence Mit-sah would give him meat and would give it to him only. This was mad­den­ing to them. They would rage around just out­side the throw­ing-dis­tance of the whip, while Lip-lip de­voured the meat and Mit-sah pro­tec­ted him. And when there was no meat to give, Mit-sah would keep the team at a dis­tance and make be­lieve to give meat to Lip-lip.

White Fang took kindly to the work. He had trav­elled a greater dis­tance than the other dogs in the yield­ing of him­self to the rule of the gods, and he had learned more thor­oughly the fu­til­ity of op­pos­ing their will. In ad­di­tion, the per­se­cu­tion he had suffered from the pack had made the pack less to him in the scheme of things, and man more. He had not learned to be de­pend­ent on his kind for com­pan­ion­ship. Besides, Kiche was well-nigh for­got­ten; and the chief out­let of ex­pres­sion that re­mained to him was in the al­le­gi­ance he tendered the gods he had ac­cep­ted as mas­ters. So he worked hard, learned dis­cip­line, and was obed­i­ent. Faith­ful­ness and will­ing­ness char­ac­ter­ised his toil. These are es­sen­tial traits of the wolf and the wild-dog when they have be­come do­mest­ic­ated, and these traits White Fang pos­sessed in un­usual meas­ure.

A com­pan­ion­ship did ex­ist between White Fang and the other dogs, but it was one of war­fare and enmity. He had never learned to play with them. He knew only how to fight, and fight with them he did, re­turn­ing to them a hun­dred­fold the snaps and slashes they had given him in the days when Lip-lip was leader of the pack. But Lip-lip was no longer leader—ex­cept when he fled away be­fore his mates at the end of his rope, the sled bound­ing along be­hind. In camp he kept close to Mit-sah or Grey Beaver or Kloo-kooch. He did not dare ven­ture away from the gods, for now the fangs of all dogs were against him, and he tasted to the dregs the per­se­cu­tion that had been White Fang’s.

With the over­throw of Lip-lip, White Fang could have be­come leader of the pack. But he was too mor­ose and sol­it­ary for that. He merely thrashed his team­mates. Other­wise he ig­nored them. They got out of his way when he came along; nor did the bold­est of them ever dare to rob him of his meat. On the con­trary, they de­voured their own meat hur­riedly, for fear that he would take it away from them. White Fang knew the law well: to op­press the weak and obey the strong. He ate his share of meat as rap­idly as he could. And then woe the dog that had not yet fin­ished! A snarl and a flash of fangs, and that dog would wail his in­dig­na­tion to the un­com­fort­ing stars while White Fang fin­ished his por­tion for him.

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

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

He was a mon­strous tyr­ant. His mas­tery was ri­gid as steel. He op­pressed the weak with a ven­geance. Not for noth­ing had he been ex­posed to the piti­less struggles for life in the day of his cub­hood, when his mother and he, alone and un­aided, held their own and sur­vived in the fe­ro­cious en­vir­on­ment of the Wild. And not for noth­ing had he learned to walk softly when su­per­ior strength went by. He op­pressed the weak, but he re­spec­ted the strong. And in the course of the long jour­ney with Grey Beaver he walked softly in­deed amongst the full-grown dogs in the camps of the strange man-an­im­als they en­countered.

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

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

So White Fang knew noth­ing of the heaven a man’s hand might con­tain for him. Besides, he did not like the hands of the man-an­im­als. He was sus­pi­cious of them. It was true that they some­times gave meat, but more of­ten they gave hurt. Hands were things to keep away from. They hurled stones, wiel­ded sticks and clubs and whips, ad­min­istered slaps and clouts, and, when they touched him, were cun­ning to hurt with pinch and twist and wrench. In strange vil­lages he had en­countered the hands of the chil­dren and learned that they were cruel to hurt. Also, he had once nearly had an eye poked out by a tod­dling pa­poose. From these ex­per­i­ences he be­came sus­pi­cious of all chil­dren. He could not tol­er­ate them. When they came near with their omin­ous hands, he got up.

It was in a vil­lage at the Great Slave Lake, that, in the course of re­sent­ing the evil of the hands of the man-an­im­als, he came to modify the law that he had learned from Grey Beaver: namely, that the un­par­don­able crime was to bite one of the gods. In this vil­lage, after the cus­tom of all dogs in all vil­lages, White Fang went for­aging, for food. A boy was chop­ping frozen moose-meat with an axe, and the chips were fly­ing in the snow. White Fang, slid­ing by in quest of meat, stopped and began to eat the chips. He ob­served the boy lay down the axe and take up a stout club. White Fang sprang clear, just in time to es­cape the des­cend­ing blow. The boy pur­sued him, and he, a stranger in the vil­lage, fled between two te­pees to find him­self cornered against a high earth bank.

There was no es­cape for White Fang. The only way out was between the two te­pees, and this the boy guarded. Hold­ing his club pre­pared to strike, he drew in on his cornered quarry. White Fang was furi­ous. He faced the boy, brist­ling and snarling, his sense of justice out­raged. He knew the law of for­age. All the wastage of meat, such as the frozen chips, be­longed to the dog that found it. He had done no wrong, broken no law, yet here was this boy pre­par­ing to give him a beat­ing. White Fang scarcely knew what happened. He did it in a surge of rage. And he did it so quickly that the boy did not know either. All the boy knew was that he had in some un­ac­count­able way been over­turned into the snow, and that his club-hand had been ripped wide open by White Fang’s teeth.

But White Fang knew that he had broken the law of the gods. He had driven his teeth into the sac­red flesh of one of them, and could ex­pect noth­ing but a most ter­rible pun­ish­ment. He fled away to Grey Beaver, be­hind whose pro­tect­ing legs he crouched when the bit­ten boy and the boy’s fam­ily came, de­mand­ing ven­geance. But they went away with ven­geance un­sat­is­fied. Grey Beaver de­fen­ded White Fang. So did Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch. White Fang, listen­ing to the wordy war and watch­ing the angry ges­tures, knew that his act was jus­ti­fied. And so it came that he learned there were gods and gods. There were his gods, and there were other gods, and between them there was a dif­fer­ence. Justice or in­justice, it was all the same, he must take all things from the hands of his own gods. But he was not com­pelled to take in­justice from the other gods. It was his priv­ilege to re­sent it with his teeth. And this also was a law of the gods.

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

It was in line with these ex­per­i­ences that White Fang came to learn the law of prop­erty and the duty of the de­fence of prop­erty. From the pro­tec­tion of his god’s body to the pro­tec­tion of his god’s pos­ses­sions was a step, and this step he made. What was his god’s was to be de­fen­ded against all the world—even to the ex­tent of bit­ing other gods. Not only was such an act sac­ri­le­gious in its nature, but it was fraught with peril. The gods were all-power­ful, and a dog was no match against them; yet White Fang learned to face them, fiercely bel­li­ger­ent and un­afraid. Duty rose above fear, and thiev­ing gods learned to leave Grey Beaver’s prop­erty alone.

One thing, in this con­nec­tion, White Fang quickly learnt, and that was that a thiev­ing god was usu­ally a cow­ardly god and prone to run away at the sound­ing of the alarm. Also, he learned that but brief time elapsed between his sound­ing of the alarm and Grey Beaver com­ing to his aid. He came to know that it was not fear of him that drove the thief away, but fear of Grey Beaver. White Fang did not give the alarm by bark­ing. He never barked. His method was to drive straight at the in­truder, and to sink his teeth in if he could. Be­cause he was mor­ose and sol­it­ary, hav­ing noth­ing to do with the other dogs, he was un­usu­ally fit­ted to guard his mas­ter’s prop­erty; and in this he was en­cour­aged and trained by Grey Beaver. One res­ult of this was to make White Fang more fe­ro­cious and in­dom­it­able, and more sol­it­ary.

The months went by, bind­ing stronger and stronger the cov­en­ant between dog and man. This was the an­cient cov­en­ant that the first wolf that came in from the Wild entered into with man. And, like all suc­ceed­ing wolves and wild dogs that had done like­wise, White Fang worked the cov­en­ant out for him­self. The terms were simple. For the pos­ses­sion of a flesh-and-blood god, he ex­changed his own liberty. Food and fire, pro­tec­tion and com­pan­ion­ship, were some of the things he re­ceived from the god. In re­turn, he guarded the god’s prop­erty, de­fen­ded his body, worked for him, and obeyed him.

The pos­ses­sion of a god im­plies ser­vice. White Fang’s was a ser­vice of duty and awe, but not of love. He did not know what love was. He had no ex­per­i­ence of love. Kiche was a re­mote memory. Besides, not only had he aban­doned the Wild and his kind when he gave him­self up to man, but the terms of the cov­en­ant were such that if ever he met Kiche again he would not desert his god to go with her. His al­le­gi­ance to man seemed some­how a law of his be­ing greater than the love of liberty, of kind and kin.

VI The Famine

The spring of the year was at hand when Grey Beaver fin­ished his long jour­ney. It was April, and White Fang was a year old when he pulled into the home vil­lages and was loosed from the har­ness by Mit-sah. Though a long way from his full growth, White Fang, next to Lip-lip, was the largest yearling in the vil­lage. Both from his father, the wolf, and from Kiche, he had in­her­ited stature and strength, and already he was meas­ur­ing up along­side the full-grown dogs. But he had not yet grown com­pact. His body was slender and rangy, and his strength more stringy than massive. His coat was the true wolf-grey, and to all ap­pear­ances he was true wolf him­self. The quarter-strain of dog he had in­her­ited from Kiche had left no mark on him phys­ic­ally, though it had played its part in his men­tal makeup.

He wandered through the vil­lage, re­cog­nising with staid sat­is­fac­tion the vari­ous gods he had known be­fore the long jour­ney. Then there were the dogs, pup­pies grow­ing up like him­self, and grown dogs that did not look so large and for­mid­able as the memory pic­tures he re­tained of them. Also, he stood less in fear of them than formerly, stalk­ing among them with a cer­tain care­less ease that was as new to him as it was en­joy­able.

There was Baseek, a grizzled old fel­low that in his younger days had but to un­cover his fangs to send White Fang cringing and crouch­ing to the right about. From him White Fang had learned much of his own in­sig­ni­fic­ance; and from him he was now to learn much of the change and de­vel­op­ment that had taken place in him­self. While Baseek had been grow­ing weaker with age, White Fang had been grow­ing stronger with youth.

It was at the cut­ting-up of a moose, fresh-killed, that White Fang learned of the changed re­la­tions in which he stood to the dog-world. He had got for him­self a hoof and part of the shin­bone, to which quite a bit of meat was at­tached. With­drawn from the im­me­di­ate scramble of the other dogs—in fact out of sight be­hind a thicket—he was de­vour­ing his prize, when Baseek rushed in upon him. Be­fore he knew what he was do­ing, he had slashed the in­truder twice and sprung clear. Baseek was sur­prised by the other’s temer­ity and swift­ness of at­tack. He stood, gaz­ing stu­pidly across at White Fang, the raw, red shin­bone between them.

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

And right here Baseek erred. Had he con­ten­ted him­self with look­ing fierce and omin­ous, all would have been well. White Fang, on the verge of re­treat, would have re­treated, leav­ing the meat to him. But Baseek did not wait. He con­sidered the vic­tory already his and stepped for­ward to the meat. As he bent his head care­lessly to smell it, White Fang bristled slightly. Even then it was not too late for Baseek to re­trieve the situ­ation. Had he merely stood over the meat, head up and glower­ing, White Fang would ul­ti­mately have slunk away. But the fresh meat was strong in Baseek’s nos­trils, and greed urged him to take a bite of it.

This was too much for White Fang. Fresh upon his months of mas­tery over his own team­mates, it was bey­ond his self-con­trol to stand idly by while an­other de­voured the meat that be­longed to him. He struck, after his cus­tom, without warn­ing. With the first slash, Baseek’s right ear was ripped into rib­bons. He was astoun­ded at the sud­den­ness of it. But more things, and most griev­ous ones, were hap­pen­ing with equal sud­den­ness. He was knocked off his feet. His throat was bit­ten. While he was strug­gling to his feet the young dog sank teeth twice into his shoulder. The swift­ness of it was be­wil­der­ing. He made a fu­tile rush at White Fang, clip­ping the empty air with an out­raged snap. The next mo­ment his nose was laid open, and he was stag­ger­ing back­ward away from the meat.

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

The ef­fect on White Fang was to give him a greater faith in him­self, and a greater pride. He walked less softly among the grown dogs; his at­ti­tude to­ward them was less com­prom­ising. Not that he went out of his way look­ing for trouble. Far from it. But upon his way he de­man­ded con­sid­er­a­tion. He stood upon his right to go his way un­mo­les­ted and to give trail to no dog. He had to be taken into ac­count, that was all. He was no longer to be dis­reg­arded and ig­nored, as was the lot of pup­pies, and as con­tin­ued to be the lot of the pup­pies that were his team­mates. They got out of the way, gave trail to the grown dogs, and gave up meat to them un­der com­pul­sion. But White Fang, un­com­pan­ion­able, sol­it­ary, mor­ose, scarcely look­ing to right or left, re­doubt­able, for­bid­ding of as­pect, re­mote and alien, was ac­cep­ted as an equal by his puzzled eld­ers. They quickly learned to leave him alone, neither ven­tur­ing hos­tile acts nor mak­ing over­tures of friend­li­ness. If they left him alone, he left them alone—a state of af­fairs that they found, after a few en­coun­ters, to be pree­m­in­ently de­sir­able.

In mid­sum­mer White Fang had an ex­per­i­ence. Trot­ting along in his si­lent way to in­vest­ig­ate a new te­pee which had been erec­ted on the edge of the vil­lage while he was away with the hunters after moose, he came full upon Kiche. He paused and looked at her. He re­membered her vaguely, but he re­membered her, and that was more than could be said for her. She lif­ted her lip at him in the old snarl of men­ace, and his memory be­came clear. His for­got­ten cub­hood, all that was as­so­ci­ated with that fa­mil­iar snarl, rushed back to him. Be­fore he had known the gods, she had been to him the center­pin of the uni­verse. The old fa­mil­iar feel­ings of that time came back upon him, surged up within him. He bounded to­wards her joy­ously, and she met him with shrewd fangs that laid his cheek open to the bone. He did not un­der­stand. He backed away, be­wildered and puzzled.

But it was not Kiche’s fault. A wolf-mother was not made to re­mem­ber her cubs of a year or so be­fore. So she did not re­mem­ber White Fang. He was a strange an­imal, an in­truder; and her present lit­ter of pup­pies gave her the right to re­sent such in­tru­sion.

One of the pup­pies sprawled up to White Fang. They were half-broth­ers, only they did not know it. White Fang sniffed the puppy curi­ously, whereupon Kiche rushed upon him, gash­ing his face a second time. He backed farther away. All the old memor­ies and as­so­ci­ations died down again and passed into the grave from which they had been re­sur­rec­ted. He looked at Kiche lick­ing her puppy and stop­ping now and then to snarl at him. She was without value to him. He had learned to get along without her. Her mean­ing was for­got­ten. There was no place for her in his scheme of things, as there was no place for him in hers.

He was still stand­ing, stu­pid and be­wildered, the memor­ies for­got­ten, won­der­ing what it was all about, when Kiche at­tacked him a third time, in­tent on driv­ing him away al­to­gether from the vi­cin­ity. And White Fang al­lowed him­self to be driven away. This was a fe­male of his kind, and it was a law of his kind that the males must not fight the fe­males. He did not know any­thing about this law, for it was no gen­er­al­isa­tion of the mind, not a some­thing ac­quired by ex­per­i­ence of the world. He knew it as a secret prompt­ing, as an urge of in­stinct—of the same in­stinct that made him howl at the moon and stars of nights, and that made him fear death and the un­known.

The months went by. White Fang grew stronger, heav­ier, and more com­pact, while his char­ac­ter was de­vel­op­ing along the lines laid down by his hered­ity and his en­vir­on­ment. His hered­ity was a life-stuff that may be likened to clay. It pos­sessed many pos­sib­il­it­ies, was cap­able of be­ing moul­ded into many dif­fer­ent forms. En­vir­on­ment served to model the clay, to give it a par­tic­u­lar form. Thus, had White Fang never come in to the fires of man, the Wild would have moul­ded him into a true wolf. But the gods had given him a dif­fer­ent en­vir­on­ment, and he was moul­ded into a dog that was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not a wolf.

And so, ac­cord­ing to the clay of his nature and the pres­sure of his sur­round­ings, his char­ac­ter was be­ing moul­ded into a cer­tain par­tic­u­lar shape. There was no es­cap­ing it. He was be­com­ing more mor­ose, more un­com­pan­ion­able, more sol­it­ary, more fe­ro­cious; while the dogs were learn­ing more and more that it was bet­ter to be at peace with him than at war, and Grey Beaver was com­ing to prize him more greatly with the pas­sage of each day.

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

In the third year of his life there came a great fam­ine to the Mack­en­zie In­di­ans. In the sum­mer the fish failed. In the winter the cari­boo for­sook their ac­cus­tomed track. Moose were scarce, the rab­bits al­most dis­ap­peared, hunt­ing and prey­ing an­im­als per­ished. Denied their usual food-sup­ply, weakened by hun­ger, they fell upon and de­voured one an­other. Only the strong sur­vived. White Fang’s gods were al­ways hunt­ing an­im­als. The old and the weak of them died of hun­ger. There was wail­ing in the vil­lage, where the wo­men and chil­dren went without in or­der that what little they had might go into the bel­lies of the lean and hol­low-eyed hunters who trod the forest in the vain pur­suit of meat.

To such ex­tremity were the gods driven that they ate the soft-tanned leather of their mo­cas­sins and mit­tens, while the dogs ate the har­nesses off their backs and the very whip-lashes. Also, the dogs ate one an­other, and also the gods ate the dogs. The weak­est and the more worth­less were eaten first. The dogs that still lived, looked on and un­der­stood. A few of the bold­est and wisest for­sook the fires of the gods, which had now be­come a shambles, and fled into the forest, where, in the end, they starved to death or were eaten by wolves.

In this time of misery, White Fang, too, stole away into the woods. He was bet­ter fit­ted for the life than the other dogs, for he had the train­ing of his cub­hood to guide him. Espe­cially ad­ept did he be­come in stalk­ing small liv­ing things. He would lie con­cealed for hours, fol­low­ing every move­ment of a cau­tious tree-squir­rel, wait­ing, with a pa­tience as huge as the hun­ger he suffered from, un­til the squir­rel ven­tured out upon the ground. Even then, White Fang was not pre­ma­ture. He waited un­til he was sure of strik­ing be­fore the squir­rel could gain a tree-refuge. Then, and not un­til then, would he flash from his hid­ing-place, a grey pro­jectile, in­cred­ibly swift, never fail­ing its mark—the flee­ing squir­rel that fled not fast enough.

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

In the worst pinches of the fam­ine he stole back to the fires of the gods. But he did not go into the fires. He lurked in the forest, avoid­ing dis­cov­ery and rob­bing the snares at the rare in­ter­vals when game was caught. He even robbed Grey Beaver’s snare of a rab­bit at a time when Grey Beaver staggered and tottered through the forest, sit­ting down of­ten 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 might have gone with him and even­tu­ally found his way into the pack amongst his wild brethren. As it was, he ran the young wolf down and killed and ate him.

For­tune seemed to fa­vour him. Al­ways, when hard­est pressed for food, he found some­thing to kill. Again, when he was weak, it was his luck that none of the lar­ger prey­ing an­im­als chanced upon him. Thus, he was strong from the two days’ eat­ing a lynx had af­forded him when the hungry wolf-pack ran full tilt upon him. It was a long, cruel chase, but he was bet­ter nour­ished than they, and in the end out­ran them. And not only did he out­run them, but, circ­ling widely back on his track, he gathered in one of his ex­hausted pur­suers.

After that he left that part of the coun­try and jour­neyed over to the val­ley wherein he had been born. Here, in the old lair, he en­countered Kiche. Up to her old tricks, she, too, had fled the in­hos­pit­able fires of the gods and gone back to her old refuge to give birth to her young. Of this lit­ter but one re­mained alive when White Fang came upon the scene, and this one was not destined to live long. Young life had little chance in such a fam­ine.

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

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

White Fang came upon him un­ex­pec­tedly. Trot­ting in op­pos­ite dir­ec­tions along the base of a high bluff, they roun­ded a corner of rock and found them­selves face to face. They paused with in­stant alarm, and looked at each other sus­pi­ciously.

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

One day, not long after, he came to the edge of the forest, where a nar­row stretch of open land sloped down to the Mack­en­zie. He had been over this ground be­fore, when it was bare, but now a vil­lage oc­cu­pied it. Still hid­den amongst the trees, he paused to study the situ­ation. Sights and sounds and scents were fa­mil­iar to him. It was the old vil­lage changed to a new place. But sights and sounds and smells were dif­fer­ent from those he had last had when he fled away from it. There was no whim­per­ing nor wail­ing. Con­ten­ted sounds sa­luted his ear, and when he heard the angry voice of a wo­man he knew it to be the an­ger that pro­ceeds from a full stom­ach. And there was a smell in the air of fish. There was food. The fam­ine was gone. He came out boldly from the forest and trot­ted into camp straight to Grey Beaver’s te­pee. Grey Beaver was not there; but Kloo-kooch wel­comed him with glad cries and the whole of a fresh-caught fish, and he lay down to wait Grey Beaver’s com­ing.

Part IV

I The Enemy of his Kind

Had there been in White Fang’s nature any pos­sib­il­ity, no mat­ter how re­mote, of his ever com­ing to frat­ern­ise with his kind, such pos­sib­il­ity was ir­re­triev­ably des­troyed when he was made leader of the sled-team. For now the dogs hated him—hated him for the ex­tra meat be­stowed upon him by Mit-sah; hated him for all the real and fan­cied fa­vours he re­ceived; hated him for that he fled al­ways at the head of the team, his wav­ing brush of a tail and his per­petu­ally re­treat­ing hindquar­ters forever mad­den­ing their eyes.

And White Fang just as bit­terly hated them back. Be­ing sled-leader was any­thing but grat­i­fy­ing to him. To be com­pelled to run away be­fore the yelling pack, every dog of which, for three years, he had thrashed and mastered, was al­most more than he could en­dure. But en­dure it he must, or per­ish, and the life that was in him had no de­sire to per­ish out. The mo­ment 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 would throw the sting­ing lash of the whip into his face. Only re­mained to him to run away. He could not en­counter that howl­ing horde with his tail and hindquar­ters. These were scarcely fit weapons with which to meet the many mer­ci­less fangs. So run away he did, vi­ol­at­ing his own nature and pride with every leap he made, and leap­ing all day long.

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

If ever a creature was the en­emy of its kind, White Fang was that creature. He asked no quarter, gave none. He was con­tinu­ally marred and scarred by the teeth of the pack, and as con­tinu­ally he left his own marks upon the pack. Un­like most lead­ers, who, when camp was made and the dogs were un­hitched, huddled near to the gods for pro­tec­tion, White Fang dis­dained such pro­tec­tion. He walked boldly about the camp, in­flict­ing pun­ish­ment in the night for what he had suffered in the day. In the time be­fore he was made leader of the team, the pack had learned to get out of his way. But now it was dif­fer­ent. Ex­cited by the daylong pur­suit of him, swayed sub­con­sciously by the in­sist­ent it­er­a­tion on their brains of the sight of him flee­ing away, mastered by the feel­ing of mas­tery en­joyed all day, the dogs could not bring them­selves to give way to him. When he ap­peared amongst them, there was al­ways a squabble. His pro­gress was marked by snarl and snap and growl. The very at­mo­sphere he breathed was sur­charged with hatred and malice, and this but served to in­crease the hatred and malice within him.

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

But the dogs could never learn the les­son to leave him alone in camp. Each day, pur­su­ing him and cry­ing de­fi­ance at him, the les­son of the pre­vi­ous night was erased, and that night would have to be learned over again, to be as im­me­di­ately for­got­ten. Besides, there was a greater con­sist­ence in their dis­like of him. They sensed between them­selves and him a dif­fer­ence of kind—cause suf­fi­cient in it­self for hos­til­ity. Like him, they were do­mest­ic­ated wolves. But they had been do­mest­ic­ated for gen­er­a­tions. Much of the Wild had been lost, so that to them the Wild was the un­known, the ter­rible, the ever-men­acing and ever war­ring. But to him, in ap­pear­ance and ac­tion and im­pulse, still clung the Wild. He sym­bol­ised it, was its per­son­i­fic­a­tion: so that when they showed their teeth to him they were de­fend­ing them­selves against the powers of de­struc­tion that lurked in the shad­ows of the forest and in the dark bey­ond the camp­fire.

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

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

So he be­came the en­emy of his kind, do­mest­ic­ated wolves that they were, softened by the fires of man, weakened in the shel­ter­ing shadow of man’s strength. White Fang was bit­ter and im­plac­able. The clay of him was so moul­ded. He de­clared a ven­detta against all dogs. And so ter­ribly did he live this ven­detta that Grey Beaver, fierce sav­age him­self, could not but mar­vel at White Fang’s fe­ro­city. Never, he swore, had there been the like of this an­imal; and the In­di­ans in strange vil­lages swore like­wise when they con­sidered the tale of his killings amongst their dogs.

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

He be­came an ad­ept at fight­ing. He eco­nom­ised. He never wasted his strength, never tussled. He was in too quickly for that, and, if he missed, was out again too quickly. The dis­like of the wolf for close quar­ters was his to an un­usual de­gree. He could not en­dure a pro­longed con­tact with an­other body. It smacked of danger. It made him frantic. He must be away, free, on his own legs, touch­ing no liv­ing thing. It was the Wild still cling­ing to him, as­sert­ing it­self through him. This feel­ing had been ac­cen­tu­ated by the Ish­mael­ite life he had led from his puppy­hood. Danger lurked in con­tacts. It was the trap, ever the trap, the fear of it lurk­ing deep in the life of him, woven into the fibre of him.

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

Another ad­vant­age he pos­sessed was that of cor­rectly judging time and dis­tance. Not that he did this con­sciously, how­ever. He did not cal­cu­late such things. It was all auto­matic. His eyes saw cor­rectly, and the nerves car­ried the vis­ion cor­rectly to his brain. The parts of him were bet­ter ad­jus­ted than those of the av­er­age dog. They worked to­gether more smoothly and stead­ily. His was a bet­ter, far bet­ter, nervous, men­tal, and mus­cu­lar co­ordin­a­tion. When his eyes con­veyed to his brain the mov­ing im­age of an ac­tion, his brain without con­scious ef­fort, knew the space that lim­ited that ac­tion and the time re­quired for its com­ple­tion. Thus, he could avoid the leap of an­other dog, or the drive of its fangs, and at the same mo­ment could seize the in­fin­ites­imal frac­tion of time in which to de­liver his own at­tack. Body and brain, his was a more per­fec­ted mech­an­ism. Not that he was to be praised for it. Nature had been more gen­er­ous to him than to the av­er­age an­imal, that was all.

It was in the sum­mer that White Fang ar­rived at Fort Yukon. Grey Beaver had crossed the great wa­ter­shed between Mack­en­zie and the Yukon in the late winter, and spent the spring in hunt­ing among the west­ern outly­ing spurs of the Rock­ies. Then, after the breakup of the ice on the Por­cu­pine, he had built a ca­noe and paddled down that stream to where it ef­fected its junc­tion with the Yukon just un­der the Ar­tic circle. Here stood the old Hud­son’s Bay Com­pany fort; and here were many In­di­ans, much food, and un­pre­ced­en­ted ex­cite­ment. It was the sum­mer of 1898, and thou­sands of gold-hunters were go­ing up the Yukon to Dawson and the Klondike. Still hun­dreds of miles from their goal, nev­er­the­less many of them had been on the way for a year, and the least any of them had trav­elled to get that far was five thou­sand miles, while some had come from the other side of the world.

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

It was at Fort Yukon that White Fang saw his first white men. As com­pared with the In­di­ans he had known, they were to him an­other race of be­ings, a race of su­per­ior gods. They im­pressed him as pos­sess­ing su­per­ior power, and it is on power that god­head rests. White Fang did not reason it out, did not in his mind make the sharp gen­er­al­isa­tion that the white gods were more power­ful. It was a feel­ing, noth­ing more, and yet none the less po­tent. As, in his puppy­hood, the loom­ing bulks of the te­pees, man-reared, had af­fected him as mani­fest­a­tions of power, so was he af­fected now by the houses and the huge fort all of massive logs. Here was power. Those white gods were strong. They pos­sessed greater mas­tery over mat­ter than the gods he had known, most power­ful among which was Grey 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 of them. Yet it is upon feel­ing, more of­ten than think­ing, that an­im­als act; and every act White Fang now per­formed was based upon the feel­ing that the white men were the su­per­ior gods. In the first place he was very sus­pi­cious of them. There was no telling what un­known ter­rors were theirs, what un­known hurts they could ad­min­is­ter. He was curi­ous to ob­serve them, fear­ful of be­ing no­ticed by them. For the first few hours he was con­tent with slink­ing around and watch­ing them from a safe dis­tance. Then he saw that no harm be­fell the dogs that were near to them, and he came in closer.

In turn he was an ob­ject of great curi­os­ity to them. His wolfish ap­pear­ance caught their eyes at once, and they poin­ted him out to one an­other. This act of point­ing put White Fang on his guard, and when they tried to ap­proach him he showed his teeth and backed away. Not one suc­ceeded in 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 a dozen—lived at this place. Every two or three days a steamer (an­other and co­lossal mani­fest­a­tion of power) came into the bank and stopped for sev­eral hours. The white men came from off these steam­ers and went away on them again. There seemed un­told num­bers of these white men. In the first day or so, he saw more of them than he had seen In­di­ans in all his life; and as the days went by they con­tin­ued to come up the river, stop, and then go on up the river out of sight.

But if the white gods were all-power­ful, their dogs did not amount to much. This White Fang quickly dis­covered by mix­ing with those that came ashore with their mas­ters. They were ir­reg­u­lar shapes and sizes. Some were short-legged—too short; oth­ers were long-legged—too long. They had hair in­stead of fur, and a few had very little hair at that. And none of them knew how to fight.

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

So­me­times this stroke was suc­cess­ful, and a stricken dog rolled in the dirt, to be pounced upon and torn to pieces by the pack of In­dian dogs that waited. White Fang was wise. He had long since learned that the gods were made angry when their dogs were killed. The white men were no ex­cep­tion to this. So he was con­tent, when he had over­thrown and slashed wide the throat of one of their dogs, to drop back and let the pack go in and do the cruel fin­ish­ing work. It was then that the white men rushed in, vis­it­ing their wrath heav­ily on the pack, while White Fang went free. He would stand off at a little dis­tance and look on, while stones, clubs, axes, and all sorts of weapons fell upon his fel­lows. White Fang was very wise.

But his fel­lows grew wise in their own way; and in this White Fang grew wise with them. They learned that it was when a steamer first tied to the bank that they had their fun. After the first two or three strange dogs had been downed and des­troyed, the white men hustled their own an­im­als back on board and wrecked sav­age ven­geance on the of­fend­ers. One white man, hav­ing seen his dog, a set­ter, torn to pieces be­fore his eyes, drew a re­volver. He fired rap­idly, six times, and six of the pack lay dead or dy­ing—an­other mani­fest­a­tion of power that sank deep into White Fang’s con­scious­ness.

White Fang en­joyed it all. He did not love his kind, and he was shrewd enough to es­cape hurt him­self. At first, the killing of the white men’s dogs had been a di­ver­sion. After a time it be­came his oc­cu­pa­tion. There was no work for him to do. Grey Beaver was busy trad­ing and get­ting wealthy. So White Fang hung around the land­ing with the dis­rep­ut­able gang of In­dian dogs, wait­ing for steam­ers. With the ar­rival of a steamer the fun began. After a few minutes, by the time the white men had got over their sur­prise, the gang scattered. The fun was over un­til the next steamer should ar­rive.

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

It did not re­quire much ex­er­tion to pick these quar­rels. All he had to do, when the strange dogs came ashore, was to show him­self. When they saw him they rushed for him. It was their in­stinct. He was the Wild—the un­known, the ter­rible, the ever-men­acing, the thing that prowled in the dark­ness around the fires of the primeval world when they, cower­ing close to the fires, were re­shap­ing their in­stincts, learn­ing to fear the Wild out of which they had come, and which they had deser­ted and be­trayed. Gen­er­a­tion by gen­er­a­tion, down all the gen­er­a­tions, had this fear of the Wild been stamped into their natures. For cen­tur­ies the Wild had stood for ter­ror and de­struc­tion. And dur­ing all this time free li­cence had been theirs, from their mas­ters, to kill the things of the Wild. In do­ing this they had pro­tec­ted both them­selves and the gods whose com­pan­ion­ship they shared.

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

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

Not for noth­ing had he first seen the light of day in a lonely lair and fought his first fights with the ptar­migan, the weasel, and the lynx. And not for noth­ing had his puppy­hood been made bit­ter by the per­se­cu­tion of Lip-lip and the whole puppy pack. It might have been oth­er­wise, and he would then have been oth­er­wise. Had Lip-lip not ex­is­ted, he would have passed his puppy­hood with the other pup­pies and grown up more dog­like and with more lik­ing for dogs. Had Grey Beaver pos­sessed the plum­met of af­fec­tion and love, he might have soun­ded the deeps of White Fang’s nature and brought up to the sur­face all man­ner of kindly qual­it­ies. But these things had not been so. The clay of White Fang had been moul­ded un­til he be­came what he was, mor­ose and lonely, un­lov­ing and fe­ro­cious, the en­emy of all his kind.

II The Mad God

A small num­ber of white men lived in Fort Yukon. These men had been long in the coun­try. They called them­selves Sour­doughs, and took great pride in so clas­si­fy­ing them­selves. For other men, new in the land, they felt noth­ing but dis­dain. The men who came ashore from the steam­ers were new­comers. They were known as chechaquos, and they al­ways wil­ted at the ap­plic­a­tion of the name. They made their bread with bak­ing-powder. This was the in­vi­di­ous dis­tinc­tion between them and the Sour­doughs, who, for­sooth, made their bread from sour­dough be­cause they had no bak­ing-powder.

All of which is neither here nor there. The men in the fort dis­dained the new­comers and en­joyed see­ing them come to grief. Espe­cially did they en­joy the havoc worked amongst the new­comers’ dogs by White Fang and his dis­rep­ut­able gang. When a steamer ar­rived, the men of the fort made it a point al­ways to come down to the bank and see the fun. They looked for­ward to it with as much an­ti­cip­a­tion as did the In­dian dogs, while they were not slow to ap­pre­ci­ate the sav­age and crafty part played by White Fang.

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

This man was called “Beauty” by the other men of the fort. No one knew his first name, and in gen­eral he was known in the coun­try as Beauty Smith. But he was any­thing save a beauty. To an­ti­thesis was due his nam­ing. He was pree­m­in­ently un­beauti­ful. Nature had been nig­gardly with him. He was a small man to be­gin with; and upon his mea­gre frame was de­pos­ited an even more strik­ingly mea­gre head. Its apex might be likened to a point. In fact, in his boy­hood, be­fore he had been named Beauty by his fel­lows, he had been called “Pin­head.”

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

This jaw gave the im­pres­sion of fe­ro­cious de­term­in­a­tion. But some­thing lacked. Per­haps it was from ex­cess. Per­haps the jaw was too large. At any rate, it was a lie. Beauty Smith was known far and wide as the weak­est of weak-kneed and sniv­el­ling cow­ards. To com­plete his de­scrip­tion, his teeth were large and yel­low, while the two eye­teeth, lar­ger than their fel­lows, showed un­der his lean lips like fangs. His eyes were yel­low and muddy, as though Nature had run short on pig­ments and squeezed to­gether the dregs of all her tubes. It was the same with his hair, sparse and ir­reg­u­lar of growth, muddy-yel­low and dirty-yel­low, rising on his head and sprout­ing out of his face in un­ex­pec­ted tufts and bunches, in ap­pear­ance like clumped and wind­blown grain.

In short, Beauty Smith was a mon­stros­ity, and the blame of it lay else­where. He was not re­spons­ible. The clay of him had been so moul­ded in the mak­ing. He did the cook­ing for the other men in the fort, the dish-wash­ing and the drudgery. They did not des­pise him. Rather did they tol­er­ate him in a broad hu­man way, as one tol­er­ates any creature evilly treated in the mak­ing. Also, they feared him. His cow­ardly rages made them dread a shot in the back or poison in their cof­fee. But some­body had to do the cook­ing, and whatever else his short­com­ings, Beauty Smith could cook.

This was the man that looked at White Fang, de­lighted in his fe­ro­cious prowess, and de­sired to pos­sess him. He made over­tures to White Fang from the first. White Fang began by ig­nor­ing him. Later on, when the over­tures be­came more in­sist­ent, White Fang bristled and bared his teeth and backed away. He did not like the man. The feel of him was bad. He sensed the evil in him, and feared the ex­ten­ded hand and the at­tempts at soft-spoken speech. 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 and sur­cease from pain. There­fore, the good is liked. The bad stands for all things that are fraught with dis­com­fort, men­ace, and hurt, and is hated ac­cord­ingly. White Fang’s feel of Beauty Smith was bad. From the man’s dis­tor­ted body and twis­ted mind, in oc­cult ways, like mists rising from mal­arial marshes, came em­an­a­tions of the un­health within. Not by reas­on­ing, not by the five senses alone, but by other and re­moter and un­charted senses, came the feel­ing to White Fang that the man was omin­ous with evil, preg­nant with hurt­ful­ness, and there­fore a thing bad, and wisely to be hated.

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

Grey Beaver re­fused to sell the dog. He had grown rich with his trad­ing and stood in need of noth­ing. Besides, White Fang was a valu­able 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. He could fight. He killed other dogs as eas­ily as men killed mos­qui­toes. (Beauty Smith’s eyes lighted up at this, and he licked his thin lips with an 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 camp of­ten, and hid­den un­der his coat was al­ways a black bottle or so. One of the po­ten­cies of whisky is the breed­ing of thirst. Grey Beaver got the thirst. His fevered mem­branes and burnt stom­ach began to clam­our for more and more of the scorch­ing fluid; while his brain, thrust all awry by the un­wonted stim­u­lant, per­mit­ted him to go any length to ob­tain it. The money he had re­ceived for his furs and mit­tens and moc­cas­ins began to go. It went faster and faster, and the shorter his money-sack grew, the shorter grew his tem­per.

In the end his money and goods and tem­per were all gone. Noth­ing re­mained to him but his thirst, a prodi­gious pos­ses­sion in it­self that grew more prodi­gious with every sober breath he drew. Then it was that Beauty Smith had talk with him again about the sale of White Fang; but this time the price offered was in bottles, not dol­lars, and Grey Beaver’s ears were more eager to hear.

“You ketch um dog you take um all right,” was his last word.

The bottles were de­livered, but after two days. “You ketch um dog,” were Beauty Smith’s words to Grey Beaver.

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

But scarcely had he lain down when Grey Beaver staggered over to him and tied a leather thong around his neck. He sat down be­side White Fang, hold­ing the end of the thong in his hand. In the other hand he held a bottle, which, from time to time, was in­ver­ted above his head to the ac­com­pani­ment of gurg­ling noises.

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

Beauty Smith strode into camp and stood over White Fang. He snarled softly up at the thing of fear, watch­ing keenly the de­port­ment of the hands. One hand ex­ten­ded out­ward and began to des­cend upon his head. His soft snarl grew tense and harsh. The hand con­tin­ued slowly to des­cend, while he crouched be­neath it, eye­ing it ma­lig­nantly, his snarl grow­ing shorter and shorter as, with quick­en­ing breath, it ap­proached its cul­min­a­tion. Sud­denly he snapped, strik­ing with his fangs like a snake. The hand was jerked back, and the teeth came to­gether emptily with a sharp click. Beauty Smith was frightened and angry. Grey Beaver clouted White Fang along­side the head, so that he cowered down close to the earth in re­spect­ful obed­i­ence.

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

He did not rush a second time. One smash from the club was suf­fi­cient to con­vince him that the white god knew how to handle it, and he was too wise to fight the in­ev­it­able. So he fol­lowed mor­osely at Beauty Smith’s heels, his tail between his legs, yet snarling softly un­der his breath. But Beauty Smith kept a wary eye on him, and the club was held al­ways ready to strike.

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

But what had oc­curred be­fore was re­peated—with a dif­fer­ence. Grey Beaver again made him fast with a thong, and in the morn­ing turned him over to Beauty Smith. And here was where the dif­fer­ence came in. Beauty Smith gave him a beat­ing. Tied se­curely, White Fang could only rage fu­tilely and en­dure the pun­ish­ment. Club and whip were both used upon him, and he ex­per­i­enced the worst beat­ing he had ever re­ceived in his life. Even the big beat­ing given him in his puppy­hood by Grey Beaver was mild com­pared with this.

Beauty Smith en­joyed the task. He de­lighted in it. He gloated over his vic­tim, and his eyes flamed dully, as he swung the whip or club and listened to White Fang’s cries of pain and to his help­less bel­lows and snarls. For Beauty Smith was cruel in the way that cow­ards are cruel. Cringing and sniv­el­ling him­self be­fore the blows or angry speech of a man, he re­venged him­self, in turn, upon creatures weaker than he. All life likes power, and Beauty Smith was no ex­cep­tion. Denied the ex­pres­sion of power amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lesser creatures and there vin­dic­ated the life that was in him. But Beauty Smith had not cre­ated him­self, and no blame was to be at­tached to him. He had come into the world with a twis­ted body and a brute in­tel­li­gence. This had con­sti­tuted the clay of him, and it had not been kindly moul­ded by the world.

White Fang knew why he was be­ing beaten. When Grey Beaver tied the thong around his neck, and passed the end of the thong into Beauty Smith’s keep­ing, White Fang knew that it was his god’s will for him to go with Beauty Smith. And when Beauty Smith left him tied out­side the fort, he knew that it was Beauty Smith’s will that he should re­main there. There­fore, he had dis­obeyed the will of both the gods, and earned the con­sequent pun­ish­ment. He had seen dogs change own­ers in the past, and he had seen the run­aways beaten as he was be­ing beaten. He was wise, and yet in the nature of him there were forces greater than wis­dom. One of these was fi­del­ity. He did not love Grey Beaver, yet, even in the face of 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 was the qual­ity that was pe­cu­li­arly the pos­ses­sion of his kind; the qual­ity that set apart his spe­cies from all other spe­cies; the qual­ity that has en­abled the wolf and the wild dog to come in from the open and be the com­pan­ions of man.

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

So, in the night, when the men in the fort were asleep, White Fang ap­plied his teeth to the stick that held him. The wood was seasoned and dry, and it was tied so closely to his neck that he could scarcely get his teeth to it. It was only by the severest mus­cu­lar ex­er­tion and neck-arch­ing that he suc­ceeded in get­ting the wood between his teeth, and barely between his teeth at that; and it was only by the ex­er­cise of an im­mense pa­tience, ex­tend­ing through many hours, that he suc­ceeded in gnaw­ing through the stick. This was some­thing that dogs were not sup­posed to do. It was un­pre­ced­en­ted. But White Fang did it, trot­ting away from the fort in the early morn­ing, with the end of the stick hanging to his neck.

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

Grey Beaver looked on stolidly while the white man wiel­ded the whip. He gave no pro­tec­tion. It was no longer his dog. When the beat­ing was over White Fang was sick. A soft south­land dog would have died un­der it, but not he. His school of life had been sterner, and he was him­self of sterner stuff. He had too great vi­tal­ity. His clutch on life was too strong. But he was very sick. At first he was un­able to drag him­self along, 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 in vain, by lunging, to draw the staple from the tim­ber into which it was driven. After a few days, sober and bank­rupt, Grey Beaver de­par­ted up the Por­cu­pine on his long jour­ney to the Mack­en­zie. White Fang re­mained on the Yukon, the prop­erty of a man more than half mad and all brute. But what is a dog to know in its con­scious­ness of mad­ness? To White Fang, Beauty Smith was a ver­it­able, if ter­rible, god. He was a mad god at best, but White Fang knew noth­ing of mad­ness; he knew only that he must sub­mit to the will of this new mas­ter, obey his every whim and fancy.

III The Reign of Hate

Under the tu­tel­age of the mad god, White Fang be­came a fiend. He was kept chained in a pen at the rear of the fort, and here Beauty Smith teased and ir­rit­ated and drove him wild with petty tor­ments. The man early dis­covered White Fang’s sus­cept­ib­il­ity to laughter, and made it a point after pain­fully trick­ing him, to laugh at him. This laughter was up­roari­ous and scorn­ful, and at the same time the god poin­ted his fin­ger de­ris­ively at White Fang. At such times reason fled from White Fang, and in his trans­ports of rage he was even more mad than Beauty Smith.

Formerly, White Fang had been merely the en­emy of his kind, withal a fe­ro­cious en­emy. He now be­came the en­emy of all things, and more fe­ro­cious than ever. To such an ex­tent was he tor­men­ted, that he hated blindly and without the faintest spark of reason. He hated the chain that bound him, the men who peered in at him through the slats of the pen, the dogs that ac­com­pan­ied the men and that snarled ma­lig­nantly at him in his help­less­ness. He hated the very wood of the pen that con­fined him. And, first, last, and most of all, he hated Beauty Smith.

But Beauty Smith had a pur­pose in all that he did to White Fang. One day a num­ber of men gathered about the pen. Beauty Smith entered, club in hand, and took the chain off from White Fang’s neck. When his mas­ter had gone out, White Fang turned loose and tore around the pen, try­ing to get at the men out­side. He was mag­ni­fi­cently ter­rible. Fully five feet in length, and stand­ing two and one-half feet at the shoulder, he far out­weighed a wolf of cor­res­pond­ing size. From his mother he had in­her­ited the heav­ier pro­por­tions of the dog, so that he weighed, without any fat and without an ounce of su­per­flu­ous flesh, over ninety pounds. It was all muscle, bone, and sinew-fight­ing flesh in the finest con­di­tion.

The door of the pen was be­ing opened again. White Fang paused. So­mething un­usual was hap­pen­ing. He waited. The door was opened wider. Then a huge dog was thrust in­side, and the door was slammed shut be­hind him. White Fang had never seen such a dog (it was a mastiff); but the size and fierce as­pect of the in­truder did not de­ter him. Here was some thing, not wood nor iron, upon which to wreak his hate. He leaped in with a flash of fangs that ripped down the side of the mastiff’s neck. The mastiff shook his head, growled hoarsely, and plunged at White Fang. But White Fang was here, there, and every­where, al­ways evad­ing and elud­ing, and al­ways leap­ing in and slash­ing with his fangs and leap­ing out again in time to es­cape pun­ish­ment.

The men out­side shouted and ap­plauded, while Beauty Smith, in an ec­stasy of de­light, gloated over the rip­ping and mangling per­formed by White Fang. There was no hope for the mastiff from the first. He was too pon­der­ous and slow. In the end, while Beauty Smith beat White Fang back with a club, the mastiff was dragged out by its owner. Then there was a pay­ment of bets, and money clinked in Beauty Smith’s hand.

White Fang came to look for­ward eagerly to the gath­er­ing of the men around his pen. It meant a fight; and this was the only way that was now vouch­safed him of ex­press­ing the life that was in him. Tor­men­ted, in­cited to hate, he was kept a pris­oner so that there was no way of sat­is­fy­ing that hate ex­cept at the times his mas­ter saw fit to put an­other dog against him. Beauty Smith had es­tim­ated his powers well, for he was in­vari­ably the vic­tor. One day, three dogs were turned in upon him in suc­ces­sion. Another day a full-grown wolf, fresh-caught from the Wild, was shoved in through the door of the pen. And on still an­other day two dogs were set against him at the same time. This was his severest fight, and though in the end he killed them both he was him­self half killed in do­ing it.

In the fall of the year, when the first snows were fall­ing and mush-ice was run­ning in the river, Beauty Smith took pas­sage for him­self and White Fang on a steam­boat bound up the Yukon to Dawson. White Fang had now achieved a repu­ta­tion in the land. As “the Fight­ing Wolf” he was known far and wide, and the cage in which he was kept on the steam­boat’s deck was usu­ally sur­roun­ded by curi­ous men. He raged and snarled at them, or lay quietly and stud­ied them with cold hatred. Why should he not hate them? He never asked him­self the ques­tion. He knew only hate and lost him­self in the pas­sion of it. Life had be­come a hell to him. He had not been made for the close con­fine­ment wild beasts en­dure at the hands of men. And yet it was in pre­cisely this way that he was treated. Men stared at him, poked sticks between the bars to make him snarl, and then laughed at him.

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

If Beauty Smith had in him a devil, White Fang had an­other; and the two of them raged against each other un­ceas­ingly. In the days be­fore, White Fang had had the wis­dom to cower down and sub­mit to a man with a club in his hand; but this wis­dom now left him. The mere sight of Beauty Smith was suf­fi­cient to send him into trans­ports of fury. And when they came to close quar­ters, and he had been beaten back by the club, he went on growl­ing and snarling, and show­ing his fangs. The last growl could never be ex­trac­ted from him. No mat­ter how ter­ribly he was beaten, he had al­ways an­other growl; and when Beauty Smith gave up and with­drew, the de­fi­ant growl fol­lowed after him, or White Fang sprang at the bars of the cage bel­low­ing his hatred.

When the steam­boat ar­rived at Dawson, White Fang went ashore. But he still lived a pub­lic life, in a cage, sur­roun­ded by curi­ous men. He was ex­hib­ited as “the Fight­ing Wolf,” and men paid fifty cents in gold dust to see him. He was given no rest. Did he lie down to sleep, he was stirred up by a sharp stick—so that the audi­ence might get its money’s worth. In or­der to make the ex­hib­i­tion in­ter­est­ing, he was kept in a rage most of the time. But worse than all this, was the at­mo­sphere in which he lived. He was re­garded as the most fear­ful of wild beasts, and this was borne in to him through the bars of the cage. Every word, every cau­tious ac­tion, on the part of the men, im­pressed upon him his own ter­rible fe­ro­city. It was so much ad­ded fuel to the flame of his fierce­ness. There could be but one res­ult, and that was that his fe­ro­city fed upon it­self and in­creased. It was an­other in­stance of the plas­ti­city of his clay, of his ca­pa­city for be­ing moul­ded by the pres­sure of en­vir­on­ment.

In ad­di­tion to be­ing ex­hib­ited he was a pro­fes­sional fight­ing an­imal. At ir­reg­u­lar in­ter­vals, whenever a fight could be ar­ranged, he was taken out of his cage and led off into the woods a few miles from town. Usu­ally this oc­curred at night, so as to avoid in­ter­fer­ence from the moun­ted po­lice of the Ter­rit­ory. After a few hours of wait­ing, when day­light had come, the audi­ence and the dog with which he was to fight ar­rived. In this man­ner it came about that he fought all sizes and breeds of dogs. It was a sav­age land, the men were sav­age, and the fights were usu­ally to the death.

Since White Fang con­tin­ued to fight, it is ob­vi­ous that it was the other dogs that died. He never knew de­feat. His early train­ing, when he fought with Lip-lip and the whole puppy-pack, stood him in good stead. There was the tenacity with which he clung to the earth. No dog could make him lose his foot­ing. This was the fa­vour­ite trick of the wolf breeds—to rush in upon him, either dir­ectly or with an un­ex­pec­ted swerve, in the hope of strik­ing his shoulder and over­throw­ing him. Mack­en­zie hounds, Eskimo and Lab­rador dogs, huskies and Male­mutes—all tried it on him, and all failed. He was never known to lose his foot­ing. Men told this to one an­other, and looked each time to see it hap­pen; but White Fang al­ways dis­ap­poin­ted them.

Then there was his light­ning quick­ness. It gave him a tre­mend­ous ad­vant­age over his ant­ag­on­ists. No mat­ter what their fight­ing ex­per­i­ence, they had never en­countered a dog that moved so swiftly as he. Also to be reckoned with, was the im­me­di­ate­ness of his at­tack. The av­er­age dog was ac­cus­tomed to the pre­lim­in­ar­ies of snarling and brist­ling and growl­ing, and the av­er­age dog was knocked off his feet and fin­ished be­fore he had be­gun to fight or re­covered from his sur­prise. So of­ten did this hap­pen, that it be­came the cus­tom to hold White Fang un­til the other dog went through its pre­lim­in­ar­ies, was good and ready, and even made the first at­tack.

But greatest of all the ad­vant­ages in White Fang’s fa­vour, was his ex­per­i­ence. He knew more about fight­ing than did any of the dogs that faced him. He had fought more fights, knew how to meet more tricks and meth­ods, and had more tricks him­self, while his own method was scarcely to be im­proved upon.

As the time went by, he had fewer and fewer fights. Men des­paired of match­ing him with an equal, and Beauty Smith was com­pelled to pit wolves against him. These were trapped by the In­di­ans for the pur­pose, and a fight between White Fang and a wolf was al­ways sure to draw a crowd. Once, a full-grown fe­male lynx was se­cured, and this time White Fang fought for his life. Her quick­ness matched his; her fe­ro­city equalled his; while he fought with his fangs alone, and she fought with her sharp-clawed feet as well.

But after the lynx, all fight­ing ceased for White Fang. There were no more an­im­als with which to fight—at least, there was none con­sidered worthy of fight­ing with him. So he re­mained on ex­hib­i­tion un­til spring, when one Tim Keenan, a faro-dealer, ar­rived in the land. With him came the first bull­dog that had ever entered the Klondike. That this dog and White Fang should come to­gether was in­ev­it­able, and for a week the an­ti­cip­ated fight was the main­spring of con­ver­sa­tion in cer­tain quar­ters of the town.

IV The Clinging Death

Beauty Smith slipped the chain from his neck and stepped back.

For once White Fang did not make an im­me­di­ate at­tack. He stood still, ears pricked for­ward, alert and curi­ous, sur­vey­ing the strange an­imal that faced him. He had never seen such a dog be­fore. Tim Keenan shoved the bull­dog for­ward with a muttered “Go to it.” The an­imal waddled to­ward the centre of the circle, short and squat and un­gainly. He came to a stop and blinked across at White Fang.

There were cries from the crowd of, “Go to him, Cher­o­kee! Sick ’m, Cher­o­kee! Eat ’m up!”

But Cher­o­kee did not seem anxious to fight. He turned his head and blinked at the men who shouted, at the same time wag­ging his stump of a tail good-naturedly. He was not afraid, but merely lazy. Besides, it did not seem to him that it was in­ten­ded he should fight with the dog he saw be­fore him. He was not used to fight­ing with that kind of dog, and he was wait­ing for them to bring on the real dog.

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

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

The bull­dog was bleed­ing back of one ear from a rip in his thick neck. He gave no sign, did not even snarl, but turned and fol­lowed after White Fang. The dis­play on both sides, the quick­ness of the one and the stead­i­ness 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, and still his strange foe fol­lowed after him, without too great haste, not slowly, but de­lib­er­ately and de­term­inedly, in a busi­ness­like sort of way. There was pur­pose in his method—some­thing for him to do that he was in­tent upon do­ing and from which noth­ing could dis­tract him.

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

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

But White Fang could not get at the soft un­der­side of the throat. The bull­dog stood too short, while its massive jaws were an ad­ded pro­tec­tion. White Fang dar­ted in and out un­scathed, while Cher­o­kee’s wounds in­creased. Both sides of his neck and head were ripped and slashed. He bled freely, but showed no signs of be­ing dis­con­cer­ted. He con­tin­ued his plod­ding pur­suit, though once, for the mo­ment baffled, he came to a full stop and blinked at the men who looked on, at the same time wag­ging his stump of a tail as an ex­pres­sion of his will­ing­ness to fight.

In that mo­ment White Fang was in upon him and out, in passing rip­ping his trimmed rem­nant of an ear. With a slight mani­fest­a­tion of an­ger, Cher­o­kee took up the pur­suit again, run­ning on the in­side of the circle White Fang was mak­ing, and striv­ing to fasten his deadly grip on White Fang’s throat. The bull­dog missed by a hair’s-breadth, and cries of praise went up as White Fang doubled sud­denly out of danger in the op­pos­ite dir­ec­tion.

The time went by. White Fang still danced on, dodging and doub­ling, leap­ing in and out, and ever in­flict­ing dam­age. And still the bull­dog, with grim cer­ti­tude, toiled after him. Sooner or later he would ac­com­plish his pur­pose, get the grip that would win the battle. In the mean­time, he ac­cep­ted all the pun­ish­ment the other could deal him. His tufts of ears had be­come tas­sels, his neck and shoulders were slashed in a score of places, and his very lips were cut and bleed­ing—all from these light­ning snaps that were bey­ond his fore­see­ing and guard­ing.

Time and again White Fang had at­temp­ted to knock Cher­o­kee off his feet; but the dif­fer­ence in their height was too great. Cher­o­kee was too squat, too close to the ground. White Fang tried the trick once too of­ten. The chance came in one of his quick doub­lings and counter-circ­lings. He caught Cher­o­kee with head turned away as he whirled more slowly. His shoulder was ex­posed. White Fang drove in upon it: but his own shoulder was high above, while he struck with such force that his mo­mentum car­ried him on across over the other’s body. For the first time in his fight­ing his­tory, men saw White Fang lose his foot­ing. His body turned a half-somer­sault in the air, and he would have landed on his back had he not twis­ted, cat­like, still in the air, in the ef­fort to bring his feet to the earth. As it was, he struck heav­ily on his side. The next in­stant he was on his feet, but in that in­stant Cher­o­kee’s teeth closed on his throat.

It was not a good grip, be­ing too low down to­ward the chest; but Cher­o­kee held on. White Fang sprang to his feet and tore wildly around, try­ing to shake off the bull­dog’s body. It made him frantic, this cling­ing, drag­ging weight. It bound his move­ments, re­stric­ted his free­dom. It was like the trap, and all his in­stinct re­sen­ted it and re­vol­ted against it. It was a mad re­volt. For sev­eral minutes he was to all in­tents in­sane. The ba­sic life that was in him took charge of him. The will to ex­ist of his body surged over him. He was dom­in­ated by this mere flesh-love of life. All in­tel­li­gence was gone. It was as though he had no brain. His reason was un­seated by the blind yearn­ing of the flesh to ex­ist and move, at all haz­ards to move, to con­tinue to move, for move­ment was the ex­pres­sion of its ex­ist­ence.

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

White Fang ceased only when he had tired him­self out. He could do noth­ing, and he could not un­der­stand. Never, in all his fight­ing, had this thing happened. The dogs he had fought with did not fight that way. With them it was snap and slash and get away, snap and slash and get away. He lay partly on his side, pant­ing for breath. Cher­o­kee still hold­ing his grip, urged against him, try­ing to get him over en­tirely on his side. White Fang res­isted, and he could feel the jaws shift­ing their grip, slightly re­lax­ing and com­ing to­gether again in a chew­ing move­ment. Each shift brought the grip closer to his throat. The bull­dog’s method was to hold what he had, and when op­por­tun­ity fa­voured to work in for more. Op­por­tun­ity fa­voured when White Fang re­mained quiet. When White Fang struggled, Cher­o­kee was con­tent merely to hold on.

The bul­ging back of Cher­o­kee’s neck was the only por­tion of his body that White Fang’s teeth could reach. He got hold to­ward the base where the neck comes out from the shoulders; but he did not know the chew­ing method of fight­ing, nor were his jaws ad­ap­ted to it. He spas­mod­ic­ally ripped and tore with his fangs for a space. Then a change in their po­s­i­tion di­ver­ted him. The bull­dog had man­aged to roll him over on his back, and still hanging on to his throat, was on top of him. Like a cat, White Fang bowed his hindquar­ters in, and, with the feet dig­ging into his en­emy’s ab­do­men above him, he began to claw with long tear­ing-strokes. Cher­o­kee might well have been dis­em­bowelled had he not quickly pivoted on his grip and got his body off of White Fang’s and at right angles to it.

There was no es­cap­ing that grip. It was like Fate it­self, and as in­ex­or­able. Slowly it shif­ted up along the jug­u­lar. All that saved White Fang from death was the loose skin of his neck and the thick fur that covered it. This served to form a large roll in Cher­o­kee’s mouth, the fur of which well-nigh de­fied his teeth. But bit by bit, whenever the chance offered, he was get­ting more of the loose skin and fur in his mouth. The res­ult was that he was slowly throt­tling White Fang. The lat­ter’s breath was drawn with greater and greater dif­fi­culty as the mo­ments went by.

It began to look as though the battle were over. The back­ers of Cher­o­kee waxed ju­bil­ant and offered ri­dicu­lous odds. White Fang’s back­ers were cor­res­pond­ingly de­pressed, and re­fused bets of ten to one and twenty to one, though one man was rash enough to close a wager of fifty to one. This man was Beauty Smith. He took a step into the ring and poin­ted his fin­ger at White Fang. Then he began to laugh de­ris­ively and scorn­fully. This pro­duced the de­sired ef­fect. White Fang went wild with rage. He called up his re­serves of strength, and gained his feet. As he struggled around the ring, the fifty pounds of his foe ever drag­ging on his throat, his an­ger passed on into panic. The ba­sic life of him dom­in­ated him again, and his in­tel­li­gence fled be­fore the will of his flesh to live. Round and round and back again, stum­bling and fall­ing and rising, even up­rear­ing at times on his hind legs and lift­ing his foe clear of the earth, he struggled vainly to shake off the cling­ing death.

At last he fell, top­pling back­ward, ex­hausted; and the bull­dog promptly shif­ted his grip, get­ting in closer, mangling more and more of the fur-fol­ded flesh, throt­tling White Fang more severely than ever. Shouts of ap­plause went up for the vic­tor, and there were many cries of “Cher­o­kee!” “Cher­o­kee!” To this Cher­o­kee re­spon­ded by vig­or­ous wag­ging of the stump of his tail. But the clam­our of ap­proval did not dis­tract him. There was no sym­path­etic re­la­tion between his tail and his massive jaws. The one might wag, but the oth­ers held their ter­rible grip on White Fang’s throat.

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

White Fang had prac­tic­ally ceased strug­gling. Now and again he res­isted spas­mod­ic­ally and to no pur­pose. He could get little air, and that little grew less and less un­der the mer­ci­less grip that ever tightened. In spite of his ar­mour of fur, the great vein of his throat would have long since been torn open, had not the first grip of the bull­dog been so low down as to be prac­tic­ally on the chest. It had taken Cher­o­kee a long time to shift that grip up­ward, and this had also ten­ded fur­ther to clog his jaws with fur and skin-fold.

In the mean­time, the abysmal brute in Beauty Smith had been rising into his brain and mas­ter­ing the small bit of san­ity that he pos­sessed at best. When he saw White Fang’s eyes be­gin­ning to glaze, he knew bey­ond doubt that the fight was lost. Then he broke loose. He sprang upon White Fang and began sav­agely to kick him. There were hisses from the crowd and cries of protest, but that was all. While this went on, and Beauty Smith con­tin­ued to kick White Fang, there was a com­mo­tion in the crowd. The tall young new­comer was for­cing his way through, shoul­der­ing men right and left without ce­re­mony or gen­tle­ness. When he broke through into the ring, Beauty Smith was just in the act of de­liv­er­ing an­other kick. All his weight was on one foot, and he was in a state of un­stable equi­lib­rium. At that mo­ment the new­comer’s fist landed a smash­ing blow full in his face. Beauty Smith’s re­main­ing leg left the ground, and his whole body seemed to lift into the air as he turned over back­ward and struck the snow. The new­comer turned upon the crowd.

“You cow­ards!” he cried. “You beasts!”

He was in a rage him­self—a sane rage. His grey eyes seemed metal­lic and steel-like as they flashed upon the crowd. Beauty Smith re­gained his feet and came to­ward him, sniff­ling and cow­ardly. The new­comer did not un­der­stand. He did not know how ab­ject a cow­ard the other was, and thought he was com­ing back in­tent on fight­ing. So, with a “You beast!” he smashed Beauty Smith over back­ward with a second blow in the face. Beauty Smith de­cided that the snow was the safest place for him, and lay where he had fallen, mak­ing no ef­fort to get up.

“Come on, Matt, lend a hand,” the new­comer called the dog-musher, who had fol­lowed him into the ring.

Both men bent over the dogs. Matt took hold of White Fang, ready to pull when Cher­o­kee’s jaws should be loosened. This the younger man en­deav­oured to ac­com­plish by clutch­ing the bull­dog’s jaws in his hands and try­ing to spread them. It was a vain un­der­tak­ing. As he pulled and tugged and wrenched, he kept ex­claim­ing with every ex­pul­sion of breath, “Beasts!”

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

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

“It’s no use, Mr. Scott, you can’t break ’m apart that way,” Matt said at last.

The pair paused and sur­veyed the locked dogs.

“Ain’t bleedin’ much,” Matt an­nounced. “Ain’t got all the way in yet.”

“But he’s li­able to any mo­ment,” Scott answered. “There, did you see that! He shif­ted his grip in a bit.”

The younger man’s ex­cite­ment and ap­pre­hen­sion for White Fang was grow­ing. He struck Cher­o­kee about the head sav­agely again and again. But that did not loosen the jaws. Cher­o­kee wagged the stump of his tail in ad­vert­ise­ment that he un­der­stood the mean­ing of the blows, but that he knew he was him­self in the right and only do­ing his duty by keep­ing his grip.

“Won’t some of you help?” Scott cried des­per­ately at the crowd.

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

“You’ll have to get a pry,” Matt coun­selled.

The other reached into the hol­ster at his hip, drew his re­volver, and tried to thrust its muzzle between the bull­dog’s jaws. He shoved, and shoved hard, till the grat­ing of the steel against the locked teeth could be dis­tinctly heard. Both men were on their knees, bend­ing over the dogs. Tim Keenan strode into the ring. He paused be­side Scott and touched him on the shoulder, say­ing omin­ously:

“Don’t break them teeth, stranger.”

“Then I’ll break his neck,” Scott re­tor­ted, con­tinu­ing his shov­ing and wedging with the re­volver muzzle.

“I said don’t break them teeth,” the faro-dealer re­peated more omin­ously than be­fore.

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

“Your dog?”

The faro-dealer grunted.

“Then get in here and break this grip.”

“Well, stranger,” the other drawled ir­rit­at­ingly, “I don’t mind telling you that’s some­thing I ain’t worked out for my­self. I don’t know how to turn the trick.”

“Then get out of the way,” was the reply, “and don’t bother me. I’m busy.”

Tim Keenan con­tin­ued stand­ing over him, but Scott took no fur­ther no­tice of his pres­ence. He had man­aged to get the muzzle in between the jaws on one side, and was try­ing to get it out between the jaws on the other side. This ac­com­plished, he pried gently and care­fully, loosen­ing the jaws a bit at a time, while Matt, a bit at a time, ex­tric­ated White Fang’s mangled neck.

“Stand by to re­ceive your dog,” was Scott’s per­emp­tory or­der to Cher­o­kee’s owner.

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

“Now!” Scott warned, giv­ing the fi­nal pry.

The dogs were drawn apart, the bull­dog strug­gling vig­or­ously.

“Take him away,” Scott com­manded, and Tim Keenan dragged Cher­o­kee back into the crowd.

White Fang made sev­eral in­ef­fec­tual ef­forts to get up. Once he gained his feet, but his legs were too weak to sus­tain him, and he slowly wil­ted and sank back into the snow. His eyes were half closed, and the sur­face of them was glassy. His jaws were apart, and through them the tongue pro­truded, draggled and limp. To all ap­pear­ances he looked like a dog that had been strangled to death. Matt 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 Beauty Smith.

“Did you hear, Mr. Beast? I’m go­ing to take your dog from you, and I’m go­ing to give you a hun­dred and fifty for him.”

He opened his pock­et­book and coun­ted out the bills.

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

“I ain’t a-sel­lin’,” he said.

“Oh, yes you are,” the other as­sured him. “Be­cause I’m buy­ing. Here’s your money. The dog’s mine.”

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

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

“I’ve got my rights,” he whimpered.

“You’ve for­feited your rights to own that dog,” was the re­join­der. “Are you go­ing to take the money? or do I have to hit you again?”

“All right,” Beauty Smith spoke up with the alac­rity of fear. “But I take the money un­der 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 got his rights. But you’re not a man. You’re a beast.”

“Wait till I get back to Dawson,” Beauty Smith threatened. “I’ll have the law on you.”

“If you open your mouth when you get back to Dawson, I’ll have you run out of town. Under­stand?”

Beauty Smith replied with a grunt.

“Under­stand?” the other thundered with ab­rupt fierce­ness.

“Yes,” Beauty Smith grunted, shrink­ing away.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, sir,” Beauty Smith snarled.

“Look out! He’ll bite!” someone shouted, and a guf­faw of laughter went up.

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

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

“Who’s that mug?” he asked.

“Weedon Scott,” someone 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 big bugs. If you want to keep out of trouble, you’ll steer clear of him, that’s my talk. He’s all hunky with the of­fi­cials. The Gold Com­mis­sioner’s a spe­cial pal of his.”

“I thought he must be some­body,” was the faro-dealer’s com­ment. “That’s why I kept my hands of­fen him at the start.”

V The Indomitable

“It’s hope­less,” Weedon Scott con­fessed.

He sat on the step of his cabin and stared at the dog-musher, who re­spon­ded with a shrug that was equally hope­less.

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

“It’s a wolf and there’s no tam­ing it,” Weedon Scott an­nounced.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Matt ob­jec­ted. “Might be a lot of dog in ’m, for all you can tell. But there’s one thing I know sure, an’ that there’s no get­tin’ away from.”

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

“Well, don’t be a miser with what you know,” Scott said sharply, after wait­ing a suit­able length of time. “Spit it out. What is it?”

The dog-musher in­dic­ated White Fang with a 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 them marks across the chest?”

“You’re right, Matt. He was a sled-dog be­fore Beauty Smith got hold of him.”

“And there’s not much reason against his bein’ a sled-dog again.”

“What d’ye think?” Scott quer­ied eagerly. Then the hope died down as he ad­ded, shak­ing his head, “We’ve had him two weeks now, and if any­thing he’s wilder than ever at the present mo­ment.”

“Give ’m a chance,” Matt coun­selled. “Turn ’m loose for a spell.”

The other looked at him in­cred­u­lously.

“Yes,” Matt went on, “I know you’ve tried to, but you didn’t take a club.”

“You try it then.”

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

“See ’m keep his eye on that club,” Matt said. “That’s a good sign. He’s no fool. Don’t dast tackle me so long as I got that club handy. He’s not clean crazy, sure.”

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

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

He did not know what to make of it. Per­haps some new dev­ilry of the gods was about to be per­pet­rated on him. He walked slowly and cau­tiously, pre­pared to be as­sailed at any mo­ment. He did not know what to do, it was all so un­pre­ced­en­ted. He took the pre­cau­tion to sheer off from the two watch­ing gods, and walked care­fully to the corner of the cabin. Noth­ing happened. He was plainly per­plexed, and he came back again, paus­ing a dozen feet away and re­gard­ing the two men in­tently.

“Won’t he run away?” his new owner asked.

Matt shrugged his shoulders. “Got to take a gamble. Only way to find out is to find out.”

“Poor devil,” Scott mur­mured pity­ingly. “What he needs is some show of hu­man kind­ness,” he ad­ded, turn­ing and go­ing into the cabin.

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

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

Ma­jor had made a spring for the meat. At the in­stant his jaws closed on it, White Fang struck him. He was over­thrown. Matt rushed in, but quicker than he was White Fang. Ma­jor staggered to his feet, but the blood spout­ing from his throat reddened the snow in a widen­ing path.

“It’s too bad, but it served him right,” Scott said hast­ily.

But Matt’s foot had already star­ted on its way to kick White Fang. There was a leap, a flash of teeth, a sharp ex­clam­a­tion. White Fang, snarling fiercely, scrambled back­ward for sev­eral yards, while Matt stooped and in­vest­ig­ated his leg.

“He got me all right,” he an­nounced, point­ing to the torn trousers and un­der­cloths, and the grow­ing stain of red.

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

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

“Look here, Mr. Scott,” Matt ob­jec­ted; “that dog’s ben through hell. You can’t ex­pect ’m to come out a white an’ shinin’ an­gel. Give ’m time.”

“Look at Ma­jor,” the other re­joined.

The dog-musher sur­veyed the stricken dog. He had sunk down on the snow in the circle of his blood and was plainly in the last gasp.

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

“But look at your­self, Matt. It’s all right about the dogs, but we must draw the line some­where.”

“Served me right,” Matt ar­gued stub­bornly. “What’d I want to kick ’m for? You said your­self that he’d done right. Then I had no right to kick ’m.”

“It would be a mercy to kill him,” Scott in­sisted. “He’s un­tam­able.”

“Now look here, Mr. Scott, give the poor devil a fightin’ chance. He ain’t had no chance yet. He’s just come through hell, an’ this is the first time he’s ben loose. Give ’m a fair chance, an’ if he don’t de­liver the goods, I’ll kill ’m my­self. There!”

“God knows I don’t want to kill him or have him killed,” Scott answered, put­ting away the re­volver. “We’ll let him run loose and see what kind­ness can do for him. And here’s a try at it.”

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

“Bet­ter have a club handy,” Matt warned.

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

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

Weedon Scott had be­lieved that he was quick enough to avoid any snap or slash. But he had yet to learn the re­mark­able quick­ness of White Fang, who struck with the cer­tainty and swift­ness of a coiled snake.

Scott cried out sharply with sur­prise, catch­ing his torn hand and hold­ing it tightly in his other hand. Matt uttered a great oath and sprang to his side. White Fang crouched down, and backed away, brist­ling, show­ing his fangs, his eyes ma­lig­nant with men­ace. Now he could ex­pect a beat­ing as fear­ful as any he had re­ceived from Beauty Smith.

“Here! What are you do­ing?” Scott cried sud­denly.

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

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

“No you don’t!”

“Yes I do. Watch me.”

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

“You said to give him a chance. Well, give it to him. We’ve only just star­ted, and we can’t quit at the be­gin­ning. It served me right, this time. And—look at him!”

White Fang, near the corner of the cabin and forty feet away, was snarling with blood­curd­ling vi­cious­ness, not at Scott, but at the dog-musher.

“Well, I’ll be ever­last­ingly gosh-swoggled!” was the dog-musher’s ex­pres­sion of as­ton­ish­ment.

“Look at the in­tel­li­gence of him,” Scott went on hast­ily. “He knows the mean­ing of fire­arms as well as you do. He’s got in­tel­li­gence and we’ve got to give that in­tel­li­gence a chance. Put up the gun.”

“All right, I’m wil­lin’,” Matt agreed, lean­ing the rifle against the wood­pile.

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

White Fang had quieted down and ceased snarling. “This is worth in­vest­ig­atin’. Watch.”

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

“Now, just for fun.”

Matt took the rifle and began slowly to raise it to his shoulder. White Fang’s snarling began with the move­ment, and in­creased as the move­ment ap­proached its cul­min­a­tion. But the mo­ment be­fore the rifle came to a level on him, he leaped side­wise be­hind the corner of the cabin. Matt stood star­ing along the sights at the empty space of snow which had been oc­cu­pied by White Fang.

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

“I agree with you, Mr. Scott. That dog’s too in­tel­li­gent to kill.”

VI The Love-Master

As White Fang watched Weedon Scott ap­proach, he bristled and snarled to ad­vert­ise that he would not sub­mit to pun­ish­ment. Twenty-four hours had passed since he had slashed open the hand that was now band­aged and held up by a sling to keep the blood out of it. In the past White Fang had ex­per­i­enced delayed pun­ish­ments, and he ap­pre­hen­ded that such a one was about to be­fall him. How could it be oth­er­wise? He had com­mit­ted what was to him sac­ri­lege, sunk his fangs into the holy flesh of a god, and of a white-skinned su­per­ior god at that. In the nature of things, and of in­ter­course with gods, some­thing ter­rible awaited him.

The god sat down sev­eral feet away. White Fang could see noth­ing dan­ger­ous in that. When the gods ad­min­istered pun­ish­ment they stood on their legs. Besides, this god had no club, no whip, no fire­arm. And fur­ther­more, he him­self was free. No chain nor stick bound him. He could es­cape into safety while the god was scram­bling to his feet. In the mean­time he would wait and see.

The god re­mained quiet, made no move­ment; and White Fang’s snarl slowly dwindled to a growl that ebbed down in his throat and ceased. Then the god spoke, and at the first sound of his voice, the hair rose on White Fang’s neck and the growl rushed up in his throat. But the god made no hos­tile move­ment, and went on calmly talk­ing. For a time White Fang growled in uni­son with him, a cor­res­pond­ence of rhythm be­ing es­tab­lished between growl and voice. But the god talked on in­ter­min­ably. He talked to White Fang as White Fang had never been talked to be­fore. He talked softly and sooth­ingly, with a gen­tle­ness that some­how, some­where, touched White Fang. In spite of him­self and all the prick­ing warn­ings of his in­stinct, White Fang began to have con­fid­ence in this god. He had a feel­ing 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 Fang scanned him ap­pre­hens­ively when he came out. He had neither whip nor club nor weapon. Nor was his un­injured hand be­hind his back hid­ing some­thing. He sat down as be­fore, in the same spot, sev­eral feet away. He held out a small piece of meat. White Fang pricked his ears and in­vest­ig­ated it sus­pi­ciously, man­aging to look at the same time both at the meat and the god, alert for any overt act, his body tense and ready to spring away at the first sign of hos­til­ity.

Still the pun­ish­ment delayed. The god merely held near to his nose a piece of meat. And about the meat there seemed noth­ing wrong. Still White Fang sus­pec­ted; and though the meat was proffered to him with short in­vit­ing thrusts of the hand, he re­fused to touch it. The gods were all-wise, and there was no telling what mas­ter­ful treach­ery lurked be­hind that ap­par­ently harm­less piece of meat. In past ex­per­i­ence, es­pe­cially in deal­ing with squaws, meat and pun­ish­ment had of­ten been dis­astrously re­lated.

In the end, the god tossed the meat on the snow at White Fang’s feet. He smelled the meat care­fully; but he did not look at it. While he smelled it he kept his eyes on the god. Noth­ing happened. He took the meat into his mouth and swal­lowed it. Still noth­ing happened. The god was ac­tu­ally of­fer­ing him an­other piece of meat. Again he re­fused to take it from the hand, and again it was tossed to him. This was re­peated a num­ber of times. But there came a time when the god re­fused to toss it. He kept it in his hand and stead­fastly proffered it.

The meat was good meat, and White Fang was hungry. Bit by bit, in­fin­itely cau­tious, he ap­proached the hand. At last the time came that he de­cided to eat the meat from the hand. He never took his eyes from the god, thrust­ing his head for­ward with ears flattened back and hair in­vol­un­tar­ily rising and crest­ing on his neck. Also a low growl rumbled in his throat as warn­ing that he was not to be trifled with. He ate the meat, and noth­ing happened. Piece by piece, he ate all the meat, and noth­ing happened. Still the pun­ish­ment delayed.

He licked his chops and waited. The god went on talk­ing. In his voice was kind­ness—some­thing of which White Fang had no ex­per­i­ence whatever. And within him it aroused feel­ings which he had like­wise never ex­per­i­enced be­fore. He was aware of a cer­tain strange sat­is­fac­tion, as though some need were be­ing grat­i­fied, as though some void in his be­ing were be­ing filled. Then again came the prod of his in­stinct and the warn­ing of past ex­per­i­ence. The gods were ever crafty, and they had un­guessed ways of at­tain­ing their ends.

Ah, he had thought so! There it came now, the god’s hand, cun­ning to hurt, thrust­ing out at him, des­cend­ing upon his head. But the god went on talk­ing. His voice was soft and sooth­ing. In spite of the men­acing hand, the voice in­spired con­fid­ence. And in spite of the as­sur­ing voice, the hand in­spired dis­trust. White Fang was torn by con­flict­ing feel­ings, im­pulses. It seemed he would fly to pieces, so ter­rible was the con­trol he 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 he neither snapped nor sprang away. The hand des­cen­ded. Nearer and nearer it came. It touched the ends of his up­stand­ing hair. He shrank down un­der it. It fol­lowed down after him, press­ing more closely against him. Shrink­ing, al­most shiv­er­ing, he still man­aged to hold him­self 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 at the hands of men. But it was the will of the god, and he strove to sub­mit.

The hand lif­ted and des­cen­ded again in a pat­ting, caress­ing move­ment. This con­tin­ued, but every time the hand lif­ted, the hair lif­ted un­der it. And every time the hand des­cen­ded, the ears flattened down and a cav­ernous growl surged in his throat. White Fang growled and growled with in­sist­ent warn­ing. By this means he an­nounced that he was pre­pared to re­tali­ate for any hurt he might re­ceive. There was no telling when the god’s ul­terior motive might be dis­closed. At any mo­ment that soft, con­fid­ence-in­spir­ing voice might break forth in a roar of wrath, that gentle and caress­ing hand trans­form it­self into a vice-like grip to hold him help­less and ad­min­is­ter pun­ish­ment.

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

“Well, I’ll be gosh-swoggled!”

So spoke Matt, com­ing out of the cabin, his sleeves rolled up, a pan of dirty dish­wa­ter in his hands, ar­res­ted in the act of empty­ing the pan by the sight of Weedon Scott pat­ting White Fang.

At the in­stant his voice broke the si­lence, White Fang leaped back, snarling sav­agely at him.

Matt re­garded his em­ployer with grieved dis­ap­proval.

“If you don’t mind my ex­pressin’ my feelin’s, Mr. Scott, I’ll make free to say you’re sev­en­teen kinds of a damn fool an’ all of ’em dif­fer­ent, an’ then some.”

Weedon Scott smiled with a su­per­ior air, gained his feet, and walked over to White Fang. He talked sooth­ingly to him, but not for long, then slowly put out his hand, res­ted it on White Fang’s head, and re­sumed the in­ter­rup­ted pat­ting. White Fang en­dured it, keep­ing his eyes fixed sus­pi­ciously, not upon the man that pat­ted him, but upon the man that stood 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 chance of your life when you was a boy an’ didn’t run off an’ join a cir­cus.”

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

It was the be­gin­ning of the end for White Fang—the end­ing of the old life and the reign of hate. A new and in­com­pre­hens­ibly fairer life was dawn­ing. It re­quired much think­ing and end­less pa­tience on the part of Weedon Scott to ac­com­plish this. And on the part of White Fang it re­quired noth­ing less than a re­volu­tion. He had to ig­nore the urges and prompt­ings of in­stinct and reason, defy ex­per­i­ence, give the lie to life it­self.

Life, as he had known it, not only had had no place in it for much that he now did; but all the cur­rents had gone counter to those to which he now aban­doned him­self. In short, when all things were con­sidered, he had to achieve an ori­ent­a­tion far vaster than the one he had achieved at the time he came vol­un­tar­ily in from the Wild and ac­cep­ted Grey Beaver as his lord. At that time he was a mere puppy, soft from the mak­ing, without form, ready for the thumb of cir­cum­stance to be­gin its work upon him. But now it was dif­fer­ent. The thumb of cir­cum­stance had done its work only too well. By it he had been formed and hardened into the Fight­ing Wolf, fierce and im­plac­able, un­lov­ing and un­lov­able. To ac­com­plish the change was like a re­flux of be­ing, and this when the plas­ti­city of youth was no longer his; when the fibre of him had be­come tough and knotty; when the warp and the woof of him had made of him an adam­antine tex­ture, harsh and un­yield­ing; when the face of his spirit had be­come iron and all his in­stincts and ax­ioms had crys­tal­lised into set rules, cau­tions, dis­likes, and de­sires.

Yet again, in this new ori­ent­a­tion, it was the thumb of cir­cum­stance that pressed and prod­ded him, soften­ing that which had be­come hard and re­mould­ing it into fairer form. Weedon Scott was in truth this thumb. He had gone to the roots of White Fang’s nature, and with kind­ness touched to life po­ten­cies that had lan­guished and well-nigh per­ished. One such po­tency was love. It took the place of like, which lat­ter had been the highest feel­ing that thrilled him in his in­ter­course with the gods.

But this love did not come in a day. It began with like and out of it slowly de­veloped. White Fang did not run away, though he was al­lowed to re­main loose, be­cause he liked this new god. This was cer­tainly bet­ter than the life he had lived in the cage of Beauty Smith, and it was ne­ces­sary that he should have some god. The lord­ship of man was a need of his nature. The seal of his de­pend­ence on man had been set upon him in that early day when he turned his back on the Wild and crawled to Grey Beaver’s feet to re­ceive the ex­pec­ted beat­ing. This seal had been stamped upon him again, and in­erad­ic­ably, on his second re­turn from the Wild, when the long fam­ine was over and there was fish once more in the vil­lage of Grey Beaver.

And so, be­cause he needed a god and be­cause he pre­ferred Weedon Scott to Beauty Smith, White Fang re­mained. In ac­know­ledg­ment of fealty, he pro­ceeded to take upon him­self the guard­i­an­ship of his mas­ter’s prop­erty. He prowled about the cabin while the sled-dogs slept, and the first night-vis­itor to the cabin fought him off with a club un­til Weedon Scott came to the res­cue. But White Fang soon learned to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between thieves and hon­est men, to ap­praise the true value of step and car­riage. The man who trav­elled, loud-step­ping, the dir­ect line to the cabin door, he let alone—though he watched him vi­gil­antly un­til the door opened and he re­ceived the en­dorse­ment of the mas­ter. But the man who went softly, by cir­cuit­ous ways, peer­ing with cau­tion, seek­ing after secrecy—that was the man who re­ceived no sus­pen­sion of judg­ment from White Fang, and who went 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 a mat­ter of prin­ciple and con­science. He felt that the ill done White Fang was a debt in­curred by man and that it must be paid. So he went out of his way to be es­pe­cially kind to the Fight­ing Wolf. Each day he made it a point to caress and pet White Fang, and to do it at length.

At first sus­pi­cious and hos­tile, White Fang grew to like this pet­ting. But there was one thing that he never out­grew—his growl­ing. Growl he would, from the mo­ment the pet­ting began till it ended. But it was a growl with a new note in it. A stranger could not hear this note, and to such a stranger the growl­ing of White Fang was an ex­hib­i­tion of prim­or­dial sav­agery, nerver­ack­ing and blood­curd­ling. But White Fang’s throat had be­come harsh-fibred from the mak­ing of fe­ro­cious sounds through the many years since his first little rasp of an­ger in the lair of his cub­hood, and he could not soften the sounds of that throat now to ex­press the gen­tle­ness he felt. Never­the­less, Weedon Scott’s ear and sym­pathy were fine enough to catch the new note all but drowned in the fierce­ness—the note that was the faintest hint of a croon of con­tent and that none but he could hear.

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

White Fang was in the pro­cess of find­ing him­self. In spite of the ma­tur­ity of his years and of the sav­age ri­gid­ity of the mould that had formed him, his nature was un­der­go­ing an ex­pan­sion. There was a bur­geon­ing within him of strange feel­ings and un­wonted im­pulses. His old code of con­duct was chan­ging. In the past he had liked com­fort and sur­cease from pain, dis­liked dis­com­fort and pain, and he had ad­jus­ted his ac­tions ac­cord­ingly. But now it was dif­fer­ent. Be­cause of this new feel­ing within him, he of­t­times elec­ted dis­com­fort and pain for the sake of his god. Thus, in the early morn­ing, in­stead of roam­ing and for­aging, or ly­ing in a sheltered nook, he would wait for hours on the cheer­less cabin-stoop for a sight of the god’s face. At night, when the god re­turned home, White Fang would leave the warm sleep­ing-place he had bur­rowed in the snow in or­der to re­ceive the friendly snap of fin­gers and the word of greet­ing. Meat, even meat it­self, he would forego to be with his god, to re­ceive a caress from him or to ac­com­pany him down into the town.

Like had been re­placed by love. And love was the plum­met dropped down into the deeps of him where like had never gone. And re­spons­ive out of his deeps had come the new thing—love. That which was given unto him did he re­turn. This was a god in­deed, a love-god, a warm and ra­di­ant god, in whose light White Fang’s nature ex­pan­ded as a flower ex­pands un­der the sun.

But White Fang was not demon­strat­ive. He was too old, too firmly moul­ded, to be­come ad­ept at ex­press­ing him­self in new ways. He was too self-pos­sessed, too strongly poised in his own isol­a­tion. Too long had he cul­tiv­ated reti­cence, aloof­ness, and mor­ose­ness. He had never barked in his life, and he could not now learn to bark a wel­come when his god ap­proached. He was never in the way, never ex­tra­vag­ant nor fool­ish in the ex­pres­sion of his love. He never ran to meet his god. He waited at a dis­tance; but he al­ways waited, was al­ways there. His love par­took of the nature of wor­ship, dumb, in­ar­tic­u­late, a si­lent ad­or­a­tion. Only by the steady re­gard of his eyes did he ex­press his love, and by the un­ceas­ing fol­low­ing with his eyes of his god’s every move­ment. Also, at times, when his god looked at him and spoke to him, he be­trayed an awk­ward self-con­scious­ness, caused by the struggle of his love to ex­press it­self and his phys­ical in­ab­il­ity to ex­press it.

He learned to ad­just him­self in many ways to his new mode of life. It was borne in upon him that he must let his mas­ter’s dogs alone. Yet his dom­in­ant nature as­ser­ted it­self, and he had first to thrash them into an ac­know­ledg­ment of his su­peri­or­ity and lead­er­ship. This ac­com­plished, he had little trouble with them. They gave trail to him when he came and went or walked among them, and when he 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 White Fang di­vined that it was his mas­ter’s food he ate and that it was his mas­ter who thus fed him vi­cari­ously. Matt it was who tried to put him into the har­ness and make him haul sled with the other dogs. But Matt failed. It was not un­til Weedon Scott put the har­ness on White Fang and worked him, that he un­der­stood. He took it as his mas­ter’s will that Matt should drive him and work him just as he drove and worked his mas­ter’s other dogs.

Dif­fer­ent from the Mack­en­zie to­bog­gans were the Klondike sleds with run­ners un­der them. And dif­fer­ent was the method of driv­ing the dogs. There was no fan-form­a­tion of the team. The dogs worked in single file, one be­hind an­other, haul­ing on double traces. And here, in the Klondike, the leader was in­deed the leader. The wisest as well as strongest dog was the leader, and the team obeyed him and feared him. That White Fang should quickly gain this post was in­ev­it­able. He could not be sat­is­fied with less, as Matt learned after much in­con­veni­ence and trouble. White Fang picked out the post for him­self, and Matt backed his judg­ment with strong lan­guage after the ex­per­i­ment had been tried. But, though he worked in the sled in the day, White Fang did not forego the guard­ing of his mas­ter’s prop­erty in the night. Thus he was on duty all the time, ever vi­gil­ant and faith­ful, the most valu­able of all the dogs.

“Makin’ free to spit out what’s in me,” Matt said one day, “I beg to state that you was a wise guy all right when you paid the price you did for that dog. You clean swindled Beauty Smith on top of pushin’ his face in with your fist.”

A re­cru­des­cence of an­ger glin­ted in Weedon Scott’s grey eyes, and he muttered 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 was un­versed in such things and did not un­der­stand the pack­ing of a grip. He re­membered af­ter­wards that his pack­ing had pre­ceded the mas­ter’s dis­ap­pear­ance; but at the time he sus­pec­ted noth­ing. That night he waited for the mas­ter to re­turn. At mid­night the chill wind that blew drove him to shel­ter at the rear of the cabin. There he drowsed, only half asleep, his ears keyed for the first sound of the fa­mil­iar step. But, at two in the morn­ing, his anxi­ety drove him out to the cold front stoop, where he crouched, and waited.

But no mas­ter came. In the morn­ing the door opened and Matt stepped out­side. White Fang gazed at him wist­fully. There was no com­mon speech by which he might learn what he wanted to know. The days came and went, but never the mas­ter. White Fang, who had never known sick­ness in his life, be­came sick. He be­came very sick, so sick that Matt was fi­nally com­pelled to bring him in­side the cabin. Also, in writ­ing to his em­ployer, Matt de­voted a post­script to White Fang.

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

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

It was as Matt had said. White Fang had ceased eat­ing, lost heart, and al­lowed every dog of the team to thrash him. In the cabin he lay on the floor near the stove, without in­terest in food, in Matt, nor in life. Matt might talk gently to him or swear at him, it was all the same; he never did more than turn his dull eyes upon the man, then drop his head back to its cus­tom­ary po­s­i­tion on his fore­paws.

And then, one night, Matt, read­ing to him­self with mov­ing lips and mumbled sounds, was startled by a low whine from White Fang. He had got upon his feet, his ears cocked to­wards the door, and he was listen­ing in­tently. A mo­ment later, Matt heard a foot­step. The door opened, and Weedon Scott stepped in. The two men shook hands. Then Scott looked around the room.

“Where’s the wolf?” he asked.

Then he dis­covered him, stand­ing where he had been ly­ing, near to the stove. He had not rushed for­ward after the man­ner of other dogs. He stood, watch­ing and wait­ing.

“Holy smoke!” Matt ex­claimed. “Look at ’m wag his tail!”

Weedon Scott strode half across the room to­ward him, at the same time call­ing him. White Fang came to him, not with a great bound, yet quickly. He was awakened from self-con­scious­ness, but as he drew near, his eyes took on a strange ex­pres­sion. So­mething, an in­com­mu­nic­able vast­ness of feel­ing, rose up into his eyes as a light and shone forth.

“He never looked at me that way all the time you was gone!” Matt com­men­ted.

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

But that was not all. What of his joy, the great love in him, ever sur­ging and strug­gling to ex­press it­self, suc­ceeded in find­ing a new mode of ex­pres­sion. He sud­denly thrust his head for­ward and nudged his way in between the mas­ter’s arm and body. And here, con­fined, hid­den from view all ex­cept his ears, no longer growl­ing, he con­tin­ued to nudge and snuggle.

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

“Gosh!” said Matt in an awestricken voice.

A mo­ment later, when he had re­covered him­self, he said, “I al­ways in­sisted that wolf was a dog. Look at ’m!”

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

“Talk about your rough­houses,” Matt mur­mured glee­fully, stand­ing in the door­way and look­ing on.

“Give ’m hell, you wolf! Give ’m hell!—an’ then some!”

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

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

One night, not long after the re­turn, Scott and Matt sat at a game of crib­bage pre­lim­in­ary to go­ing to bed. “Fif­teen-two, fif­teen-four an’ a pair makes six,” Mat was peg­ging up, when there was an out­cry and sound of snarling without. They looked at each other as they star­ted to rise to their feet.

“The wolf’s nailed some­body,” Matt said.

A wild scream of fear and an­guish hastened them.

“Bring a light!” Scott shouted, as he sprang out­side.

Matt fol­lowed with the lamp, and by its light they saw a man ly­ing on his back in the snow. His arms were fol­ded, one above the other, across his face and throat. Thus he was try­ing to shield him­self from White Fang’s teeth. And there was need for it. White Fang was in a rage, wickedly mak­ing his at­tack on the most vul­ner­able spot. From shoulder to wrist of the crossed arms, the coat-sleeve, blue flan­nel shirt and un­der­shirt were ripped in rags, while the arms them­selves were ter­ribly slashed and stream­ing blood.

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

Matt helped the man to his feet. As he arose he lowered his crossed arms, ex­pos­ing the bes­tial face of Beauty Smith. The dog-musher let go of him pre­cip­it­ately, with ac­tion sim­ilar to that of a man who has picked up live fire. Beauty Smith blinked in the lamp­light and looked about him. He caught sight of White Fang and ter­ror rushed into his face.

At the same mo­ment Matt no­ticed two ob­jects ly­ing in the snow. He held the lamp close to them, in­dic­at­ing them with his toe for his em­ployer’s be­ne­fit—a steel dog-chain and a stout club.

Weedon Scott saw and nod­ded. Not a word was spoken. The dog-musher laid his hand on Beauty Smith’s shoulder and faced him to the right about. No word needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith star­ted.

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

“Tried to steal you, eh? And you wouldn’t have it! Well, well, he made a mis­take, didn’t he?”

“Must ’a’ thought he had hold of sev­en­teen dev­ils,” the dog-musher sniggered.

White Fang, still wrought up and brist­ling, growled and growled, the hair slowly ly­ing down, the croon­ing note re­mote and dim, but grow­ing in his throat.

Part V

I The Long Trail

It was in the air. White Fang sensed the com­ing calam­ity, even be­fore there was tan­gible evid­ence of it. In vague ways it was borne in upon him that a change was im­pend­ing. He knew not how nor why, yet he got his feel of the on­com­ing event from the gods them­selves. In ways subtler than they knew, they be­trayed their in­ten­tions to the wolf-dog that haunted the cabin-stoop, and that, though he never came in­side the cabin, knew what went on in­side their brains.

“Listen to that, will you!” the dug-musher ex­claimed at sup­per one night.

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

“I do be­lieve that wolf’s on to you,” the dog-musher said.

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

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

“That’s what I say,” Matt answered. “What the devil can you do with a wolf in Cali­for­nia?”

But this did not sat­isfy Weedon Scott. The other seemed to be judging him in a non­com­mit­tal sort of way.

“White man’s dogs would have no show against him,” Scott went on. “He’d kill them on sight. If he didn’t bank­rupt me with dam­aged suits, the au­thor­it­ies 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 si­lence that fol­lowed, the low, half-sob­bing whine was heard at the door and then the long, quest­ing sniff.

“There’s no denyin’ he thinks a hell of a lot of you,” Matt said.

The other glared at him in sud­den wrath. “Damn it all, man! I know my own mind and what’s best!”

“I’m agreein’ with you, only …”

“Only what?” Scott snapped out.

“Only …” the dog-musher began softly, then changed his mind and be­trayed a rising an­ger of his own. “Well, you needn’t get so all-fired het up about it. Judgin’ by your ac­tions one’d think you didn’t know your own mind.”

Weedon Scott de­bated with him­self for a while, and then said more gently: “You are right, Matt. I don’t know my own mind, and that’s what’s the trouble.”

“Why, it would be rank ri­dicu­lous­ness for me to take that dog along,” he broke out after an­other pause.

“I’m agreein’ with you,” was Matt’s an­swer, and again his em­ployer was not quite sat­is­fied with him.

“But how in the name of the great Sard­ana­polis he knows you’re goin’ is what gets me,” the dog-musher con­tin­ued in­no­cently.

“It’s bey­ond me, Matt,” Scott answered, with a mourn­ful shake of the head.

Then came the day when, through the open cabin door, White Fang saw the fatal grip on the floor and the love-mas­ter pack­ing things into it. Also, there were com­ings and go­ings, and the erstwhile pla­cid at­mo­sphere of the cabin was vexed with strange per­turb­a­tions and un­rest. Here was in­dubit­able evid­ence. White Fang had already scen­ted it. He now reasoned it. His god was pre­par­ing for an­other flight. And since he had not taken him with him be­fore, so, now, he could look to be left be­hind.

That night he lif­ted the long wolf-howl. As he had howled, in his puppy days, when he fled back from the Wild to the vil­lage to find it van­ished and naught but a rub­bish-heap to mark the site of Grey Beaver’s te­pee, so now he poin­ted his muzzle to the cold stars and told to them his woe.

In­side the cabin the two men had just gone to bed.

“He’s gone off his food again,” Matt re­marked from his bunk.

There was a grunt from Weedon Scott’s bunk, and a stir of blankets.

“From the way he cut up the other time you went away, I wouldn’t won­der this time but what he died.”

The blankets in the other bunk stirred ir­rit­ably.

“Oh, shut up!” Scott cried out through the dark­ness. “You nag worse than a wo­man.”

“I’m agreein’ with you,” the dog-musher answered, and Weedon Scott was not quite sure whether or not the other had snickered.

The next day White Fang’s anxi­ety and rest­less­ness were even more pro­nounced. He dogged his mas­ter’s heels whenever he left the cabin, and haunted the front stoop when he re­mained in­side. Through the open door he could catch glimpses of the lug­gage on the floor. The grip had been joined by two large can­vas bags and a box. Matt was rolling the mas­ter’s blankets and fur robe in­side a small tar­paulin. White Fang whined as he watched the op­er­a­tion.

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

“You poor devil,” he said gently, rub­bing White Fang’s ears and tap­ping his spine. “I’m hit­ting the long trail, old man, where you can­not fol­low. Now give me a growl—the last, good, good­bye growl.”

But White Fang re­fused to growl. In­stead, and after a wist­ful, search­ing look, he snuggled in, bur­row­ing his head out of sight between the mas­ter’s arm and body.

“There she blows!” Matt cried. From the Yukon arose the hoarse bel­low­ing of a river steam­boat. “You’ve got to cut it short. Be sure and lock the front door. I’ll go out the back. Get a move on!”

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

“You must take good care of him, Matt,” Scott said, as they star­ted down the hill. “Write and let me know how he gets along.”

“Sure,” the dog-musher answered. “But listen to that, will you!”

Both men stopped. White Fang was howl­ing as dogs howl when their mas­ters lie dead. He was voicing an ut­ter woe, his cry burst­ing up­ward in great heart­break­ing rushes, dy­ing down into quaver­ing misery, and burst­ing up­ward again with a rush upon rush of grief.

The Aur­ora was the first steam­boat of the year for the Out­side, and her decks were jammed with pros­per­ous ad­ven­tur­ers and broken gold seekers, all equally as mad to get to the Out­side as they had been ori­gin­ally to get to the In­side. Near the gang­plank, Scott was shak­ing hands with Matt, who was pre­par­ing to go ashore. But Matt’s hand went limp in the other’s grasp as his gaze shot past and re­mained fixed on some­thing be­hind him. Scott turned to see. Sit­ting on the deck sev­eral feet away and watch­ing wist­fully was White Fang.

The dog-musher swore softly, in awestricken ac­cents. Scott could only look in won­der.

“Did you lock the front door?” Matt de­man­ded. The other nod­ded, and asked, “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 away from him. The dog-musher made a rush of it, and White Fang dodged between the legs of a group of men. Duck­ing, turn­ing, doub­ling, he slid about the deck, elud­ing the other’s ef­forts to cap­ture him.

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

“Won’t come to the hand that’s fed ’m all these months,” the dog-musher muttered re­sent­fully. “And you—you ain’t never fed ’m after them first days of get­tin’ ac­quain­ted. I’m blamed if I can see how he works it out that you’re the boss.”

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

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

“We 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 were scur­ry­ing down the gang­plank to the shore. Matt loosened the bandana from his own neck and star­ted to put it around White Fang’s. Scott grasped the dog-musher’s hand.

“Good­bye, Matt, old man. About the wolf—you needn’t write. You see, I’ve … !”

“What!” the dog-musher ex­ploded. “You don’t mean to say … ?”

“The very thing I mean. Here’s your bandana. I’ll write to you about him.”

Matt paused halfway down the gang­plank.

“He’ll never stand the cli­mate!” he shouted back. “Un­less you clip ’m in warm weather!”

The gang­plank was hauled in, and the Aur­ora swung out from the bank. Weedon Scott waved a last good­bye. Then he turned and bent over White Fang, stand­ing by his side.

“Now growl, damn you, growl,” he said, as he pat­ted the re­spons­ive head and rubbed the flat­ten­ing ears.

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 had as­so­ci­ated power with god­head. And never had the white men seemed such mar­vel­lous gods as now, when he trod the slimy pave­ment of San Fran­cisco. The log cab­ins he had known were re­placed by tower­ing build­ings. The streets were crowded with per­ils—wag­ons, carts, auto­mo­biles; great, strain­ing horses pulling huge trucks; and mon­strous cable and elec­tric cars hoot­ing and clanging through the midst, screech­ing their in­sist­ent men­ace after the man­ner of the lynxes he had known in the north­ern woods.

All this was the mani­fest­a­tion of power. Through it all, be­hind it all, was man, gov­ern­ing and con­trolling, ex­press­ing him­self, as of old, by his mas­tery over mat­ter. It was co­lossal, stun­ning. White Fang was awed. Fear sat upon him. As in his cub­hood he had been made to feel his small­ness and puni­ness on the day he first came in from the Wild to the vil­lage of Grey Beaver, so now, in his full-grown stature and pride of strength, he was made to feel small and puny. And there were so many gods! He was made dizzy by the swarm­ing of them. The thun­der of the streets smote upon his ears. He was be­wildered by the tre­mend­ous and end­less rush and move­ment of things. As never be­fore, he felt his de­pend­ence on the love-mas­ter, close at whose heels he fol­lowed, no mat­ter what happened never los­ing sight of him.

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

And here, in this in­ferno of lug­gage, was White Fang deser­ted by the mas­ter. Or at least White Fang thought he was deser­ted, un­til he smelled out the mas­ter’s can­vas clothes-bags along­side of him, and pro­ceeded to mount guard over them.

“ ’Bout time you come,” growled the god of the car, an hour later, when Weedon Scott ap­peared at the door. “That dog of yourn won’t let me lay a fin­ger on your stuff.”

White Fang emerged from the car. He was as­ton­ished. The night­mare city was gone. The car had been to him no more than a room in a house, and when he had entered it the city had been all around him. In the in­ter­val the city had dis­ap­peared. The roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears. Be­fore him was smil­ing coun­try, stream­ing with sun­shine, lazy with quiet­ude. But he had little time to mar­vel at the trans­form­a­tion. He ac­cep­ted it as he ac­cep­ted all the un­ac­count­able do­ings and mani­fest­a­tions of the gods. It was their way.

There was a car­riage wait­ing. A man and a wo­man ap­proached the mas­ter. The wo­man’s arms went out and clutched the mas­ter around the neck—a hos­tile act! The next mo­ment Weedon Scott had torn loose from the em­brace and closed with White Fang, who had be­come a snarling, ra­ging de­mon.

“It’s all right, mother,” Scott was say­ing as he kept tight hold of White Fang and pla­cated him. “He thought you were go­ing to in­jure me, and he wouldn’t stand for it. It’s all right. It’s all right. He’ll learn soon enough.”

“And in the mean­time I may be per­mit­ted to love my son when his dog is not around,” she laughed, though she was pale and weak from the fright.

She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled and glared malevol­ently.

“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 voice be­came firm.

“Down, sir! Down with you!”

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

“Now, mother.”

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

“Down!” he warned. “Down!”

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

At the end of fif­teen minutes, the car­riage swung in through a stone gate­way and on between a double row of arched and in­ter­la­cing wal­nut trees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here and there by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near dis­tance, in con­trast with the young-green of the ten­ded grass, sun­burnt hay­fields showed tan and gold; while bey­ond were the tawny hills and up­land pas­tures. From the head of the lawn, on the first soft swell from the val­ley-level, looked down the deep-porched, many-win­dowed house.

Little op­por­tun­ity was given White Fang to see all this. Hardly had the car­riage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep­dog, bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, right­eously in­dig­nant and angry. It was between him and the mas­ter, cut­ting him off. White Fang snarled no warn­ing, but his hair bristled as he made his si­lent and deadly rush. This rush was never com­pleted. He hal­ted with awk­ward ab­rupt­ness, with stiff fore­legs bra­cing him­self against his mo­mentum, al­most sit­ting down on his haunches, so de­sirous was he of avoid­ing con­tact with the dog he was in the act of at­tack­ing. It was a fe­male, and the law of his kind thrust a bar­rier between. For him to at­tack her would re­quire noth­ing less than a vi­ol­a­tion of his in­stinct.

But with the sheep­dog it was oth­er­wise. Be­ing a fe­male, she pos­sessed no such in­stinct. On the other hand, be­ing a sheep­dog, her in­stinct­ive fear of the Wild, and es­pe­cially of the wolf, was un­usu­ally keen. White Fang was to her a wolf, the hered­it­ary ma­rauder who had preyed upon her flocks from the time sheep were first her­ded and guarded by some dim an­cestor of hers. And so, as he aban­doned his rush at her and braced him­self to avoid the con­tact, she sprang upon him. He snarled in­vol­un­tar­ily as he felt her teeth in his shoulder, but bey­ond this made no of­fer to hurt her. He backed away, stiff-legged with self-con­scious­ness, and tried to go around her. He dodged this way and that, and curved and turned, but to no pur­pose. She re­mained al­ways between him and the way he wanted to go.

“Here, Col­lie!” called the strange man in the car­riage.

Weedon Scott laughed.

“Never mind, father. It is good dis­cip­line. White Fang will have to learn many things, and it’s just as well that he be­gins now. He’ll ad­just him­self all right.”

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

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

White Fang did not wait. The way was clear, and that was all he had wanted. She took after him, never ceas­ing her out­cry. It was the straight­away now, and when it came to real run­ning, White Fang could teach her things. She ran frantic­ally, hys­ter­ic­ally, strain­ing to the ut­most, ad­vert­ising the ef­fort she was mak­ing with every leap: and all the time White Fang slid smoothly away from her si­lently, without ef­fort, glid­ing like a ghost over the ground.

As he roun­ded the house to the porte-cochère, he came upon the car­riage. It had stopped, and the mas­ter was alight­ing. At this mo­ment, still run­ning at top speed, White Fang be­came sud­denly aware of an at­tack from the side. It was a deer­hound rush­ing upon him. White Fang tried to face it. But he was go­ing too fast, and the hound was too close. It struck him on the side; and such was his for­ward mo­mentum and the un­ex­pec­ted­ness of it, White Fang was hurled to the ground and rolled clear over. He came out of the tangle a spec­tacle of ma­lig­nancy, ears flattened back, lips writh­ing, nose wrink­ling, his teeth clip­ping to­gether as the fangs barely missed the hound’s soft throat.

The mas­ter was run­ning up, but was too far away; and it was Col­lie that saved the hound’s life. Be­fore White Fang could spring in and de­liver the fatal stroke, and just as he was in the act of spring­ing in, Col­lie ar­rived. She had been out­man­oeuvred and out­run, to say noth­ing of her hav­ing been un­ce­re­mo­ni­ously tumbled in the gravel, and her ar­rival was like that of a tor­nado—made up of of­fen­ded dig­nity, jus­ti­fi­able wrath, and in­stinct­ive hatred for this ma­rauder from the Wild. She struck White Fang at right angles in the midst of his spring, and again he was knocked off his feet and rolled over.

The next mo­ment the mas­ter ar­rived, and with one hand held White Fang, while the father called off the dogs.

“I say, this is a pretty warm re­cep­tion for a poor lone wolf from the Arc­tic,” the mas­ter said, while White Fang calmed down un­der his caress­ing hand. “In all his life he’s only been known once to go off his feet, and here he’s been rolled twice in thirty seconds.”

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

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

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

“Take Col­lie in­side and leave the two of them to fight it out,” sug­ges­ted Scott’s father. “After that they’ll be friends.”

“Then White Fang, to show his friend­ship, will have to be chief mourner at the fu­neral,” laughed the mas­ter.

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

“You mean … ?”

Weedon nod­ded his head. “I mean just that. You’d have a dead Dick in­side one minute—two minutes at the farthest.”

He turned to White Fang. “Come on, you wolf. It’s you that’ll have to come in­side.”

White Fang walked stiff-legged up the steps and across the porch, with tail ri­gidly erect, keep­ing his eyes on Dick to guard against a flank at­tack, and at the same time pre­pared for whatever fierce mani­fest­a­tion of the un­known that might pounce out upon him from the in­terior of the house. But no thing of fear pounced out, and when he had gained the in­side he scouted care­fully around, look­ing at it and find­ing it not. Then he lay down with a con­ten­ted grunt at the mas­ter’s feet, ob­serving all that went on, ever ready to spring to his feet and fight for life with the ter­rors he felt must lurk un­der the trap-roof of the dwell­ing.

III The God’s Domain

Not only was White Fang ad­apt­able by nature, but he had trav­elled much, and knew the mean­ing and ne­ces­sity of ad­just­ment. Here, in Si­erra Vista, which was the name of Judge Scott’s place, White Fang quickly began to make him­self at home. He had no fur­ther ser­i­ous trouble with the dogs. They knew more about the ways of the South­land gods than did he, and in their eyes he had qual­i­fied when he ac­com­pan­ied the gods in­side the house. Wolf that he was, and un­pre­ced­en­ted as it was, the gods had sanc­tioned his pres­ence, and they, the dogs of the gods, could only re­cog­nise this sanc­tion.

Dick, per­force, had to go through a few stiff form­al­it­ies at first, after which he calmly ac­cep­ted White Fang as an ad­di­tion to the premises. Had Dick had his way, they would have been good friends. All but White Fang was averse to friend­ship. All he asked of other dogs was to be let alone. His whole life he had kept aloof from his kind, and he still de­sired to keep aloof. Dick’s over­tures bothered him, so he snarled Dick away. In the north he had learned the les­son that he must let the mas­ter’s dogs alone, and he did not for­get that les­son now. But he in­sisted on his own pri­vacy and self-se­clu­sion, and so thor­oughly ig­nored Dick that that good-natured creature fi­nally gave him up and scarcely took as much in­terest in him as in the hitch­ing-post near the stable.

Not so with Col­lie. While she ac­cep­ted him be­cause it was the man­date of the gods, that was no reason that she should leave him in peace. Woven into her be­ing was the memory of count­less crimes he and his had per­pet­rated against her an­ces­try. Not in a day nor a gen­er­a­tion were the rav­aged sheep­folds to be for­got­ten. All this was a spur to her, prick­ing her to re­tali­ation. She could not fly in the face of the gods who per­mit­ted him, but that did not pre­vent her from mak­ing life miser­able for him in petty ways. A feud, ages old, was between them, and she, for one, would see to it that he was re­minded.

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

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

But in this mat­ter there was a dif­fer­ence, and many dif­fer­ences. Si­erra Vista was a far vaster af­fair than the te­pee of Grey Beaver. There were many per­sons to be con­sidered. There was Judge Scott, and there was his wife. There were the mas­ter’s two sis­ters, Beth and Mary. There was his wife, Alice, and then there were his chil­dren, Weedon and Maud, tod­dlers of four and six. There was no way for any­body to tell him about all these people, and of blood-ties and re­la­tion­ship he knew noth­ing whatever and never would be cap­able of know­ing. Yet he quickly worked it out that all of them be­longed to the mas­ter. Then, by ob­ser­va­tion, whenever op­por­tun­ity offered, by study of ac­tion, speech, and the very in­ton­a­tions of the voice, he slowly learned the in­tim­acy and the de­gree of fa­vour they en­joyed with the mas­ter. And by this as­cer­tained stand­ard, White Fang treated them ac­cord­ingly. What was of value to the mas­ter he val­ued; what was dear to the mas­ter was to be cher­ished by White Fang and guarded care­fully.

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

Yet White Fang was never ef­fus­ively af­fec­tion­ate. He yiel­ded to the mas­ter’s chil­dren with an ill but hon­est grace, and en­dured their fool­ing as one would en­dure a pain­ful op­er­a­tion. When he could no longer en­dure, he would get up and stalk de­term­inedly away from them. But after a time, he grew even to like the chil­dren. Still he was not demon­strat­ive. He would not go up to them. On the other hand, in­stead of walk­ing away at sight of them, he waited for them to come to him. And still later, it was no­ticed that a pleased light came into his eyes when he saw them ap­proach­ing, and that he looked after them with an ap­pear­ance of curi­ous re­gret when they left him for other amuse­ments.

All this was a mat­ter of de­vel­op­ment, and took time. Next in his re­gard, after the chil­dren, was Judge Scott. There were two reas­ons, pos­sibly, for this. First, he was evid­ently a valu­able pos­ses­sion of the mas­ter’s, and next, he was un­demon­strat­ive. White Fang liked to lie at his feet on the wide porch when he read the news­pa­per, from time to time fa­vour­ing White Fang with a look or a word—un­trouble­some tokens that he re­cog­nised White Fang’s pres­ence and ex­ist­ence. But this was only when the mas­ter was not around. When the mas­ter ap­peared, all other be­ings ceased to ex­ist so far as White Fang was con­cerned.

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

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

Out­side the house­hold there was even more for White Fang to learn. The mas­ter’s do­main was wide and com­plex, yet it had its metes and bounds. The land it­self ceased at the county road. Out­side was the com­mon do­main of all gods—the roads and streets. Then in­side other fences were the par­tic­u­lar do­mains of other gods. A myriad laws gov­erned all these things and de­term­ined con­duct; yet he did not know the speech of the gods, nor was there any way for him to learn save by ex­per­i­ence. He obeyed his nat­ural im­pulses un­til they ran him counter to some law. When this had been done a few times, he learned the law and after that ob­served it.

But most po­tent in his edu­ca­tion was the cuff of the mas­ter’s hand, the cen­sure of the mas­ter’s voice. Be­cause of White Fang’s very great love, a cuff from the mas­ter hurt him far more than any beat­ing Grey Beaver or Beauty Smith had ever given him. They had hurt only the flesh of him; be­neath the flesh the spirit had still raged, splen­did and in­vin­cible. But with the mas­ter the cuff was al­ways too light to hurt the flesh. Yet it went deeper. It was an ex­pres­sion of the mas­ter’s dis­ap­proval, and White Fang’s spirit wil­ted un­der it.

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

In the North­land, the only do­mest­ic­ated an­imal was the dog. All other an­im­als lived in the Wild, and were, when not too for­mid­able, law­ful spoil for any dog. All his days White Fang had for­aged among the live things for food. It did not enter his head that in the South­land it was oth­er­wise. But this he was to learn early in his res­id­ence in Santa Clara Val­ley. Saun­ter­ing around the corner of the house in the early morn­ing, he came upon a chicken that had es­caped from the chicken-yard. White Fang’s nat­ural im­pulse was to eat it. A couple of bounds, a flash of teeth and a frightened squawk, and he had scooped in the ad­ven­tur­ous fowl. It was farm-bred and fat and tender; and White Fang licked his chops and de­cided that such fare was good.

Later in the day, he chanced upon an­other stray chicken near the stables. One of the grooms ran to the res­cue. He did not know White Fang’s breed, so for weapon he took a light buggy-whip. At the first cut of the whip, White Fang left the chicken for the man. A club might have stopped White Fang, but not a whip. Si­lently, without flinch­ing, he took a second cut in his for­ward rush, and as he leaped for the throat the groom cried out, “My God!” and staggered back­ward. He dropped the whip and shiel­ded his throat with his arms. In con­sequence, his fore­arm was ripped open to the bone.

The man was badly frightened. It was not so much White Fang’s fe­ro­city as it was his si­lence that un­nerved the groom. Still pro­tect­ing his throat and face with his torn and bleed­ing arm, he tried to re­treat to the barn. And it would have gone hard with him had not Col­lie ap­peared on the scene. As she had saved Dick’s life, she now saved the groom’s. She rushed upon White Fang in fren­zied wrath. She had been right. She had known bet­ter than the blun­der­ing gods. All her sus­pi­cions were jus­ti­fied. Here was the an­cient ma­rauder up to his old tricks again.

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

“He’ll learn to leave chick­ens alone,” the mas­ter said. “But I can’t give him the les­son un­til I catch him in the act.”

Two nights later came the act, but on a more gen­er­ous scale than the mas­ter had an­ti­cip­ated. White Fang had ob­served closely the chicken-yards and the habits of the chick­ens. In the night­time, after they had gone to roost, he climbed to the top of a pile of newly hauled lum­ber. From there he gained the roof of a chicken-house, passed over the ridge­pole and dropped to the ground in­side. A mo­ment later he was in­side the house, and the slaughter began.

In the morn­ing, when the mas­ter came out on to the porch, fifty white Leg­horn hens, laid out in a row by the groom, greeted his eyes. He whistled to him­self, softly, first with sur­prise, and then, at the end, with ad­mir­a­tion. His eyes were like­wise greeted by White Fang, but about the lat­ter there were no signs of shame nor guilt. He car­ried him­self with pride, as though, for­sooth, he had achieved a deed praise­worthy and mer­it­ori­ous. There was about him no con­scious­ness of sin. The mas­ter’s lips tightened as he faced the dis­agree­able task. Then he talked harshly to the un­wit­ting cul­prit, and in his voice there was noth­ing but god­like wrath. Also, he held White Fang’s nose down to the slain hens, and at the same time cuffed him soundly.

White Fang never raided a chicken-roost again. It was against the law, and he had learned it. Then the mas­ter took him into the chicken-yards. White Fang’s nat­ural im­pulse, when he saw the live food flut­ter­ing about him and un­der his very nose, was to spring upon it. He obeyed the im­pulse, but was checked by the mas­ter’s voice. They con­tin­ued in the yards for half an hour. Time and again the im­pulse surged over White Fang, and each time, as he yiel­ded to it, he was checked by the mas­ter’s voice. Thus it was he learned the law, and ere he left the do­main of the chick­ens, he had learned to ig­nore their ex­ist­ence.

“You can never cure a chicken-killer.” Judge Scott shook his head sadly at lunch­eon table, when his son nar­rated the les­son he had given White Fang. “Once they’ve got the habit and the taste of blood …” Again he shook his head sadly.

But Weedon Scott did not agree with his father. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he chal­lenged fi­nally. “I’ll lock White Fang in with the chick­ens all af­ter­noon.”

“But think of the chick­ens,” ob­jec­ted the judge.

“And fur­ther­more,” the son went on, “for every chicken he kills, I’ll pay you one dol­lar gold coin of the realm.”

“But you should pen­al­ise father, too,” in­ter­pose Beth.

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

“All right.” Weedon Scott pondered for a mo­ment. “And if, at the end of the af­ter­noon White Fang hasn’t harmed a chicken, for every ten minutes of the time he has spent in the yard, you will have to say to him, gravely and with de­lib­er­a­tion, just as if you were sit­ting on the bench and sol­emnly passing judg­ment, ‘White Fang, you are smarter than I thought.’ ”

From hid­den points of vant­age the fam­ily watched the per­form­ance. But it was a fizzle. Locked in the yard and there deser­ted by the mas­ter, White Fang lay down and went to sleep. Once he got up and walked over to the trough for a drink of wa­ter. The chick­ens he calmly ig­nored. So far as he was con­cerned they did not ex­ist. At four o’clock he ex­ecuted a run­ning jump, gained the roof of the chicken-house and leaped to the ground out­side, whence he sauntered gravely to the house. He had learned the law. And on the porch, be­fore the de­lighted fam­ily, Judge Scott, face to face with White Fang, said slowly and sol­emnly, six­teen times, “White Fang, you are smarter than I thought.”

But it was the mul­ti­pli­city of laws that be­fuddled White Fang and of­ten brought him into dis­grace. He had to learn that he must not touch the chick­ens that be­longed to other gods. Then there were cats, and rab­bits, and tur­keys; all these he must let alone. In fact, when he had but partly learned the law, his im­pres­sion was that he must leave all live things alone. Out in the back-pas­ture, a quail could flut­ter up un­der his nose un­harmed. All tense and trem­bling with eager­ness and de­sire, he mastered his in­stinct and stood still. He was obey­ing the will of the gods.

And then, one day, again out in the back-pas­ture, he saw Dick start a jack­rab­bit and run it. The mas­ter him­self was look­ing on and did not in­ter­fere. Nay, he en­cour­aged White Fang to join in the chase. And thus he learned that there was no ta­boo on jack­rab­bits. In the end he worked out the com­plete law. Between him and all do­mestic an­im­als there must be no hos­til­it­ies. If not amity, at least neut­ral­ity must ob­tain. But the other an­im­als—the squir­rels, and quail, and cot­ton­tails, were creatures of the Wild who had never yiel­ded al­le­gi­ance to man. They were the law­ful prey of any dog. It was only the tame that the gods pro­tec­ted, and between the tame deadly strife was not per­mit­ted. The gods held the power of life and death over their sub­jects, and the gods were jeal­ous of their power.

Life was com­plex in the Santa Clara Val­ley after the sim­pli­cit­ies of the North­land. And the chief thing de­man­ded by these in­tric­a­cies of civil­isa­tion was con­trol, re­straint—a poise of self that was as del­ic­ate as the flut­ter­ing of gos­samer wings and at the same time as ri­gid as steel. Life had a thou­sand faces, and White Fang found he must meet them all—thus, when he went to town, in to San Jose, run­ning be­hind the car­riage or loaf­ing about the streets when the car­riage stopped. Life flowed past him, deep and wide and var­ied, con­tinu­ally impinging upon his senses, de­mand­ing of him in­stant and end­less ad­just­ments and cor­res­pond­ences, and com­pel­ling him, al­most al­ways, to sup­press his nat­ural im­pulses.

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

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

Never­the­less, White Fang was not quite sat­is­fied with the ar­range­ment. He had no ab­stract ideas about justice and fair play. But there is a cer­tain sense of equity that resides in life, and it was this sense in him that re­sen­ted the un­fair­ness of his be­ing per­mit­ted no de­fence against the stone-throw­ers. He for­got that in the cov­en­ant entered into between him and the gods they were pledged to care for him and de­fend him. But one day the mas­ter sprang from the car­riage, whip in hand, and gave the stone-throw­ers a thrash­ing. After that they threw stones no more, and White Fang un­der­stood and was sat­is­fied.

One other ex­per­i­ence of sim­ilar nature was his. On the way to town, hanging around the sa­loon at the cross­roads, were three dogs that made a prac­tice of rush­ing out upon him when he went by. Know­ing his deadly method of fight­ing, the mas­ter had never ceased im­press­ing upon White Fang the law that he must not fight. As a res­ult, hav­ing learned the les­son well, White Fang was hard put whenever he passed the cross­roads sa­loon. After the first rush, each time, his snarl kept the three dogs at a dis­tance but they trailed along be­hind, yelp­ing and bick­er­ing and in­sult­ing him. This en­dured for some time. The men at the sa­loon even urged the dogs on to at­tack White Fang. One day they openly sicked the dogs on him. The mas­ter stopped the car­riage.

“Go to it,” he said to White Fang.

But White Fang could not be­lieve. He looked at the mas­ter, and he looked at the dogs. Then he looked back eagerly and ques­tion­ingly at the mas­ter.

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

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

With this triple killing his main troubles with dogs ceased. The word went up and down the val­ley, and men saw to it that their dogs did not mo­lest the Fight­ing Wolf.

IV The Call of Kind

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

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

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

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

But there was one trial in White Fang’s life—Col­lie. She never gave him a mo­ment’s peace. She was not so amen­able to the law as he. She de­fied all ef­forts of the mas­ter to make her be­come friends with White Fang. Ever in his ears was sound­ing her sharp and nervous snarl. She had never for­given him the chicken-killing epis­ode, and per­sist­ently held to the be­lief that his in­ten­tions were bad. She found him guilty be­fore the act, and treated him ac­cord­ingly. She be­came a pest to him, like a po­lice­man fol­low­ing him around the stable and the hounds, and, if he even so much as glanced curi­ously at a pi­geon or chicken, burst­ing into an out­cry of in­dig­na­tion and wrath. His fa­vour­ite way of ig­nor­ing her was to lie down, with his head on his fore­paws, and pre­tend sleep. This al­ways dum­foun­ded and si­lenced her.

With the ex­cep­tion of Col­lie, all things went well with White Fang. He had learned con­trol and poise, and he knew the law. He achieved a staid­ness, and calmness, and philo­sophic tol­er­ance. He no longer lived in a hos­tile en­vir­on­ment. Danger and hurt and death did not lurk every­where about him. In time, the un­known, as a thing of ter­ror and men­ace ever im­pend­ing, faded away. Life was soft and easy. It flowed along smoothly, and neither fear nor foe lurked by the way.

He missed the snow without be­ing aware of it. “An un­duly long sum­mer,” would have been his thought had he thought about it; as it was, he merely missed the snow in a vague, sub­con­scious way. In the same fash­ion, es­pe­cially in the heat of sum­mer when he suffered from the sun, he ex­per­i­enced faint long­ings for the North­land. Their only ef­fect upon him, how­ever, was to make him un­easy and rest­less without his know­ing what was the mat­ter.

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

Like­wise he learned to romp with the mas­ter, to be tumbled down and rolled over, and be the vic­tim of in­nu­mer­able rough tricks. In re­turn he feigned an­ger, brist­ling and growl­ing fe­ro­ciously, and clip­ping his teeth to­gether in snaps that had all the seem­ing of deadly in­ten­tion. But he never for­got him­self. Those snaps were al­ways de­livered on the empty air. At the end of such a romp, when blow and cuff and snap and snarl were last and furi­ous, they would break off sud­denly and stand sev­eral feet apart, glar­ing at each other. And then, just as sud­denly, like the sun rising on a stormy sea, they would be­gin to laugh. This would al­ways cul­min­ate with the mas­ter’s arms go­ing around White Fang’s neck and shoulders while the lat­ter crooned and growled his love-song.

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

The mas­ter went out on horse­back a great deal, and to ac­com­pany him was one of White Fang’s chief du­ties in life. In the North­land he had evid­enced his fealty by toil­ing in the har­ness; but there were no sleds in the South­land, nor did dogs pack bur­dens on their backs. So he rendered fealty in the new way, by run­ning with the mas­ter’s horse. The longest day never played White Fang out. His was the gait of the wolf, smooth, tire­less and ef­fort­less, and at the end of fifty miles he would come in jauntily ahead of the horse.

It was in con­nec­tion with the rid­ing, that White Fang achieved one other mode of ex­pres­sion—re­mark­able in that he did it but twice in all his life. The first time oc­curred when the mas­ter was try­ing to teach a spir­ited thor­ough­bred the method of open­ing and clos­ing gates without the rider’s dis­mount­ing. Time and again and many times he ranged the horse up to the gate in the ef­fort to close it and each time the horse be­came frightened and backed and plunged away. It grew more nervous and ex­cited every mo­ment. When it reared, the mas­ter put the spurs to it and made it drop its fore­legs back to earth, whereupon it would be­gin kick­ing with its hind legs. White Fang watched the per­form­ance with in­creas­ing anxi­ety un­til he could con­tain him­self no longer, when he sprang in front of the horse and barked sav­agely and warn­ingly.

Though he of­ten tried to bark there­after, and the mas­ter en­cour­aged him, he suc­ceeded only once, and then it was not in the mas­ter’s pres­ence. A scamper across the pas­ture, a jack­rab­bit rising sud­denly un­der the horse’s feet, a vi­ol­ent sheer, a stumble, a fall to earth, and a broken leg for the mas­ter, was the cause of it. White Fang sprang in a rage at the throat of the of­fend­ing horse, but was checked by the mas­ter’s voice.

“Home! Go home!” the mas­ter com­manded when he had as­cer­tained his in­jury.

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

The lat­ter re­garded him wist­fully, star­ted away, then re­turned and whined softly. The mas­ter talked to him gently but ser­i­ously, and he cocked his ears, and listened with pain­ful in­tent­ness.

“That’s all right, old fel­low, you just run along home,” ran the talk. “Go on home and tell them what’s happened to me. Home with you, you wolf. Get along home!”

White Fang knew the mean­ing of “home,” and though he did not un­der­stand the re­mainder of the mas­ter’s lan­guage, he knew it was his will that he should go home. He turned and trot­ted re­luct­antly away. Then he stopped, un­de­cided, and looked back over his shoulder.

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

The fam­ily was on the porch, tak­ing the cool of the af­ter­noon, when White Fang ar­rived. He came in among them, pant­ing, covered with dust.

“Weedon’s back,” Weedon’s mother an­nounced.

The chil­dren wel­comed White Fang with glad cries and ran to meet him. He avoided them and passed down the porch, but they cornered him against a rock­ing-chair and the rail­ing. He growled and tried to push by them. Their mother looked ap­pre­hens­ively in their dir­ec­tion.

“I con­fess, he makes me nervous around the chil­dren,” she said. “I have a dread that he will turn upon them un­ex­pec­tedly some day.”

Growl­ing sav­agely, White Fang sprang out of the corner, over­turn­ing the boy and the girl. The mother called them to her and com­for­ted them, telling them not to bother White Fang.

“A wolf is a wolf!” com­men­ted Judge Scott. “There is no trust­ing one.”

“But he is not all wolf,” in­ter­posed Beth, stand­ing for her brother in his ab­sence.

“You have only Weedon’s opin­ion for that,” re­joined the judge. “He merely sur­mises that there is some strain of dog in White Fang; but as he will tell you him­self, he knows noth­ing about it. As for his ap­pear­ance—”

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

“Go away! Lie down, sir!” Judge Scott com­manded.

White Fang turned to the love-mas­ter’s wife. She screamed with fright as he seized her dress in his teeth and dragged on it till the frail fab­ric tore away. By this time he had be­come the centre of in­terest.

He had ceased from his growl­ing and stood, head up, look­ing into their faces. His throat worked spas­mod­ic­ally, but made no sound, while he struggled with all his body, con­vulsed with the ef­fort to rid him­self of the in­com­mu­nic­able some­thing that strained for ut­ter­ance.

“I hope he is not go­ing mad,” said Weedon’s mother. “I told Weedon that I was afraid the warm cli­mate would not agree with an Arc­tic an­imal.”

“He’s try­ing to speak, I do be­lieve,” Beth an­nounced.

At this mo­ment speech came to White Fang, rush­ing up in a great burst of bark­ing.

“So­mething has happened to Weedon,” his wife said de­cis­ively.

They were all on their feet now, and White Fang ran down the steps, look­ing back for them to fol­low. For the second and last time in his life he had barked and made him­self un­der­stood.

After this event he found a warmer place in the hearts of the Si­erra Vista people, and even the groom whose arm he had slashed ad­mit­ted that he was a wise dog even if he was a wolf. Judge Scott still held to the same opin­ion, and proved it to every­body’s dis­sat­is­fac­tion by meas­ure­ments and de­scrip­tions taken from the en­cyc­lo­pae­dia and vari­ous works on nat­ural his­tory.

The days came and went, stream­ing their un­broken sun­shine over the Santa Clara Val­ley. But as they grew shorter and White Fang’s second winter in the South­land came on, he made a strange dis­cov­ery. Col­lie’s teeth were no longer sharp. There was a play­ful­ness about her nips and a gen­tle­ness that pre­ven­ted them from really hurt­ing him. He for­got that she had made life a bur­den to him, and when she dis­por­ted her­self around him he re­spon­ded sol­emnly, striv­ing to be play­ful and be­com­ing no more than ri­dicu­lous.

One day she led him off on a long chase through the back-pas­ture land into the woods. It was the af­ter­noon that the mas­ter was to ride, and White Fang knew it. The horse stood saddled and wait­ing at the door. White Fang hes­it­ated. But there was that in him deeper than all the law he had learned, than the cus­toms that had moul­ded him, than his love for the mas­ter, than the very will to live of him­self; and when, in the mo­ment of his in­de­cision, Col­lie nipped him and scampered off, he turned and fol­lowed after. The mas­ter rode alone that day; and in the woods, side by side, White Fang ran with Col­lie, as his mother, Kiche, and old One Eye had run long years be­fore in the si­lent North­land forest.

V The Sleeping Wolf

It was about this time that the news­pa­pers were full of the dar­ing es­cape of a con­vict from San Quentin prison. He was a fe­ro­cious man. He had been ill-made in the mak­ing. He had not been born right, and he had not been helped any by the mould­ing he had re­ceived at the hands of so­ci­ety. The hands of so­ci­ety are harsh, and this man was a strik­ing sample of its handi­work. He was a beast—a hu­man beast, it is true, but nev­er­the­less so ter­rible a beast that he can best be char­ac­ter­ised as car­ni­vor­ous.

In San Quentin prison he had proved in­cor­ri­gible. Punish­ment failed to break his spirit. He could die dumb-mad and fight­ing to the last, but he could not live and be beaten. The more fiercely he fought, the more harshly so­ci­ety handled him, and the only ef­fect of harsh­ness was to make him fiercer. Strait­jack­ets, star­va­tion, and beat­ings and club­bings were the wrong treat­ment for Jim Hall; but it was the treat­ment he re­ceived. It was the treat­ment he had re­ceived from the time he was a little pulpy boy in a San Fran­cisco slum—soft clay in the hands of so­ci­ety and ready to be formed into some­thing.

It was dur­ing Jim Hall’s third term in prison that he en­countered a guard that was al­most as great a beast as he. The guard treated him un­fairly, lied about him to the warden, lost his cred­its, per­se­cuted him. The dif­fer­ence between them was that the guard car­ried a bunch of keys and a re­volver. Jim Hall had only his na­ked hands and his teeth. But he sprang upon the guard one day and used his teeth on the other’s throat just like any jungle an­imal.

After this, Jim Hall went to live in the in­cor­ri­gible cell. He lived there three years. The cell was of iron, the floor, the walls, the roof. He never left this cell. He never saw the sky nor the sun­shine. Day was a twi­light and night was a black si­lence. He was in an iron tomb, bur­ied alive. He saw no hu­man face, spoke to no hu­man thing. When his food was shoved in to him, he growled like a wild an­imal. He hated all things. For days and nights he bel­lowed his rage at the uni­verse. For weeks and months he never made a sound, in the black si­lence eat­ing his very soul. He was a man and a mon­stros­ity, as fear­ful a thing of fear as ever gibbered in the vis­ions of a maddened brain.

And then, one night, he es­caped. The ward­ers said it was im­possible, but nev­er­the­less the cell was empty, and half in half out of it lay the body of a dead guard. Two other dead guards marked his trail through the prison to the outer walls, and he had killed with his hands to avoid noise.

He was armed with the weapons of the slain guards—a live ar­senal that fled through the hills pur­sued by the or­gan­ised might of so­ci­ety. A heavy price of gold was upon his head. Avar­i­cious farm­ers hunted him with shot­guns. His blood might pay off a mort­gage or send a son to col­lege. Public-spir­ited cit­izens took down their rifles and went out after him. A pack of blood­hounds fol­lowed the way of his bleed­ing feet. And the sleuth­hounds of the law, the paid fight­ing an­im­als of so­ci­ety, with tele­phone, and tele­graph, and spe­cial train, clung to his trail night and day.

So­me­times they came upon him, and men faced him like her­oes, or stam­peded through barbed-wire fences to the de­light of the com­mon­wealth read­ing the ac­count at the break­fast table. It was after such en­coun­ters that the dead and wounded were car­ted back to the towns, and their places filled by men eager for the man­hunt.

And then Jim Hall dis­ap­peared. The blood­hounds vainly ques­ted on the lost trail. Inof­fens­ive ranch­ers in re­mote val­leys were held up by armed men and com­pelled to identify them­selves. While the re­mains of Jim Hall were dis­covered on a dozen moun­tain­sides by greedy claimants for blood-money.

In the mean­time the news­pa­pers were read at Si­erra Vista, not so much with in­terest as with anxi­ety. The wo­men were afraid. Judge Scott pooh-poo­hed and laughed, but not with reason, for it was in his last days on the bench that Jim Hall had stood be­fore him and re­ceived sen­tence. And in open courtroom, be­fore all men, Jim Hall had pro­claimed that the day would come when he would wreak ven­geance on the Judge that sen­tenced him.

For once, Jim Hall was right. He was in­no­cent of the crime for which he was sen­tenced. It was a case, in the par­lance of thieves and po­lice, of “rail­road­ing.” Jim Hall was be­ing “rail­roaded” to prison for a crime he 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 was party to a po­lice con­spir­acy, that the evid­ence was hatched and per­jured, that Jim Hall was guilt­less of the crime charged. And Jim Hall, on the other hand, did not know that Judge Scott was merely ig­nor­ant. Jim Hall be­lieved that the judge knew all about it and was hand in glove with the po­lice in the per­pet­ra­tion of the mon­strous in­justice. So it was, when the doom of fifty years of liv­ing death was uttered by Judge Scott, that Jim Hall, hat­ing all things in the so­ci­ety that mis­used him, rose up and raged in the courtroom un­til dragged down by half a dozen of his blue-coated en­emies. To him, Judge Scott was the key­stone in the arch of in­justice, and upon Judge Scott he emp­tied the vi­als of his wrath and hurled the threats of his re­venge yet to come. Then Jim Hall went to his liv­ing death … and es­caped.

Of all this White Fang knew noth­ing. But between him and Alice, the mas­ter’s wife, there ex­is­ted a secret. Each night, after Si­erra Vista had gone to bed, she 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 the house; so each morn­ing, early, she slipped down and let him out be­fore the fam­ily was awake.

On one such night, while all the house slept, White Fang awoke and lay very quietly. And very quietly he smelled the air and read the mes­sage it bore of a strange god’s pres­ence. And to his ears came sounds of the strange god’s move­ments. White Fang burst into no furi­ous out­cry. It was not his way. The strange god walked softly, but more softly walked White Fang, for he had no clothes to rub against the flesh of his body. He fol­lowed si­lently. In the Wild he had hunted live meat that was in­fin­itely timid, and he knew the ad­vant­age of sur­prise.

The strange god paused at the foot of the great stair­case and listened, and White Fang was as dead, so without move­ment was he as he watched and waited. Up that stair­case the way led to the love-mas­ter and to the love-mas­ter’s dearest pos­ses­sions. White Fang bristled, but waited. The strange god’s foot lif­ted. He was be­gin­ning the as­cent.

Then it was that White Fang struck. He gave no warn­ing, with no snarl an­ti­cip­ated his own ac­tion. Into the air he lif­ted his body in the spring that landed him on the strange god’s back. White Fang clung with his fore­paws to the man’s shoulders, at the same time bury­ing his fangs into the back of the man’s neck. He clung on for a mo­ment, long enough to drag the god over back­ward. To­gether they crashed to the floor. White Fang leaped clear, and, as the man struggled to rise, was in again with the slash­ing fangs.

Si­erra Vista awoke in alarm. The noise from down­stairs was as that of a score of bat­tling fiends. There were re­volver shots. A man’s voice screamed once in hor­ror and an­guish. There was a great snarling and growl­ing, and over all arose a smash­ing and crash­ing of fur­niture and glass.

But al­most as quickly as it had arisen, the com­mo­tion died away. The struggle had not las­ted more than three minutes. The frightened house­hold clustered at the top of the stair­way. From be­low, as from out an abyss of black­ness, came up a gurg­ling sound, as of air bub­bling through wa­ter. So­me­times this gurgle be­came sib­il­ant, al­most a whistle. But this, too, quickly died down and ceased. Then naught came up out of the black­ness save a heavy pant­ing of some creature strug­gling sorely for air.

Weedon Scott pressed a but­ton, and the stair­case and down­stairs hall were flooded with light. Then he and Judge Scott, re­volvers in hand, cau­tiously des­cen­ded. There was no need for this cau­tion. White Fang had done his work. In the midst of the wreck­age of over­thrown and smashed fur­niture, partly on his side, his face hid­den by an arm, lay a man. Weedon Scott bent over, re­moved the arm and turned the man’s face up­ward. A gap­ing throat ex­plained the man­ner of his death.

“Jim Hall,” said Judge Scott, and father and son looked sig­ni­fic­antly at each other.

Then they turned to White Fang. He, too, was ly­ing on his side. His eyes were closed, but the lids slightly lif­ted in an ef­fort to look at them as they bent over him, and the tail was per­cept­ibly agit­ated in a vain ef­fort to wag. Weedon Scott pat­ted him, and his throat rumbled an ac­know­ledging growl. But it was a weak growl at best, and it quickly ceased. His eye­lids drooped and went shut, and his whole body seemed to re­lax and flat­ten out upon the floor.

“He’s all in, poor devil,” muttered the mas­ter.

“We’ll see about that,” as­ser­ted the Judge, as he star­ted for the tele­phone.

“Frankly, he has one chance in a thou­sand,” an­nounced the sur­geon, after he had worked an hour and a half on White Fang.

Dawn was break­ing through the win­dows and dim­ming the elec­tric lights. With the ex­cep­tion of the chil­dren, the whole fam­ily was gathered about the sur­geon to hear his ver­dict.

“One broken hind leg,” he went on. “Three broken ribs, one at least of which has pierced the lungs. He has lost nearly all the blood in his body. There is a large like­li­hood of in­ternal in­jur­ies. He must have been jumped upon. To say noth­ing of three bul­let holes clear through him. One chance in a thou­sand is really op­tim­istic. He hasn’t a chance in ten thou­sand.”

“But he mustn’t lose any chance that might be of help to him,” Judge Scott ex­claimed. “Never mind ex­pense. Put him un­der the X-ray—any­thing. Weedon, tele­graph at once to San Fran­cisco for Doc­tor Nich­ols. No re­flec­tion on you, doc­tor, you un­der­stand; but he must have the ad­vant­age of every chance.”

The sur­geon smiled in­dul­gently. “Of course I un­der­stand. He de­serves all that can be done for him. He must be nursed as you would nurse a hu­man be­ing, a sick child. And don’t for­get what I told you about tem­per­at­ure. I’ll be back at ten o’clock again.”

White Fang re­ceived the nurs­ing. Judge Scott’s sug­ges­tion of a trained nurse was in­dig­nantly clam­oured down by the girls, who them­selves un­der­took the task. And White Fang won out on the one chance in ten thou­sand denied him by the sur­geon.

The lat­ter was not to be cen­sured for his mis­judg­ment. All his life he had ten­ded and op­er­ated on the soft hu­mans of civil­isa­tion, who lived sheltered lives and had des­cen­ded out of many sheltered gen­er­a­tions. Com­pared with White Fang, they were frail and flabby, and clutched life without any strength in their grip. White Fang had come straight from the Wild, where the weak per­ish early and shel­ter is vouch­safed to none. In neither his father nor his mother was there any weak­ness, nor in the gen­er­a­tions be­fore them. A con­sti­tu­tion of iron and the vi­tal­ity of the Wild were White Fang’s in­her­it­ance, and he clung to life, the whole of him and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity that of old be­longed to all creatures.

Bound down a pris­oner, denied even move­ment by the plaster casts and band­ages, White Fang lingered out the weeks. He slept long hours and dreamed much, and through his mind passed an un­end­ing pa­geant of North­land vis­ions. All the ghosts of the past arose and were with him. Once again he lived in the lair with Kiche, crept trem­bling to the knees of Grey Beaver to tender his al­le­gi­ance, ran for his life be­fore Lip-lip and all the howl­ing bed­lam of the puppy-pack.

He ran again through the si­lence, hunt­ing his liv­ing food through the months of fam­ine; and again he ran at the head of the team, the gut-whips of Mit-sah and Grey Beaver snap­ping be­hind, their voices cry­ing “Ra! Raa!” when they came to a nar­row pas­sage and the team closed to­gether like a fan to go through. He lived again all his days with Beauty Smith and the fights he had fought. At such times he whimpered and snarled in his sleep, and they that looked on said that his dreams were bad.

But there was one par­tic­u­lar night­mare from which he suffered—the clank­ing, clanging mon­sters of elec­tric cars that were to him co­lossal scream­ing lynxes. He would lie in a screen of bushes, watch­ing for a squir­rel to ven­ture far enough out on the ground from its tree-refuge. Then, when he sprang out upon it, it would trans­form it­self into an elec­tric car, men­acing and ter­rible, tower­ing over him like a moun­tain, scream­ing and clanging and spit­ting fire at him. It was the same when he chal­lenged the hawk down out of the sky. Down out of the blue it would rush, as it dropped upon him chan­ging it­self into the ubi­quit­ous elec­tric car. Or again, he would be in the pen of Beauty Smith. Out­side the pen, men would be gath­er­ing, and he knew that a fight was on. He watched the door for his ant­ag­on­ist to enter. The door would open, and thrust in upon him would come the aw­ful elec­tric car. A thou­sand times this oc­curred, and each time the ter­ror it in­spired was as vivid and great as ever.

Then came the day when the last band­age and the last plaster cast were taken off. It was a gala day. All Si­erra Vista was gathered around. The mas­ter rubbed his ears, and he crooned his love-growl. The mas­ter’s wife called him the “Blessed Wolf,” which name was taken up with ac­claim and all the wo­men called him the Blessed Wolf.

He tried to rise to his feet, and after sev­eral at­tempts fell down from weak­ness. He had lain so long that his muscles had lost their cun­ning, and all the strength had gone out of them. He felt a little shame be­cause of his weak­ness, as though, for­sooth, he were fail­ing the gods in the ser­vice he owed them. Be­cause of this he made heroic ef­forts to arise and at last he stood on his four legs, tot­ter­ing and sway­ing back and forth.

“The Blessed Wolf!” chor­used the wo­men.

Judge Scott sur­veyed them tri­umphantly.

“Out of your own mouths be it,” he said. “Just as I con­ten­ded right along. No mere dog could have done what he did. He’s a wolf.”

“A Blessed Wolf,” amended the Judge’s wife.

“Yes, Blessed Wolf,” agreed the Judge. “And hence­forth that shall be my name for him.”

“He’ll have to learn to walk again,” said the sur­geon; “so he might as well start in right now. It won’t hurt him. Take him out­side.”

And out­side he went, like a king, with all Si­erra Vista about him and tend­ing on him. He was very weak, and when he reached the lawn he lay down and res­ted for a while.

Then the pro­ces­sion star­ted on, little spurts of strength com­ing into White Fang’s muscles as he used them and the blood began to surge through them. The stables were reached, and there in the door­way, lay Col­lie, a half-dozen pudgy pup­pies play­ing about her in the sun.

White Fang looked on with a won­der­ing eye. Col­lie snarled warn­ingly at him, and he was care­ful to keep his dis­tance. The mas­ter with his toe helped one sprawl­ing puppy to­ward him. He bristled sus­pi­ciously, but the mas­ter warned him that all was well. Col­lie, clasped in the arms of one of the wo­men, watched him jeal­ously and with a snarl warned him that all was not well.

The puppy sprawled in front of him. He cocked his ears and watched it curi­ously. Then their noses touched, and he felt the warm little tongue of the puppy on his jowl. White Fang’s tongue went out, he knew not why, and he licked the puppy’s face.

Hand-clap­ping and pleased cries from the gods greeted the per­form­ance. He was sur­prised, and looked at them in a puzzled way. Then his weak­ness as­ser­ted it­self, and he lay down, his ears cocked, his head on one side, as he watched the puppy. The other pup­pies came sprawl­ing to­ward him, to Col­lie’s great dis­gust; and he gravely per­mit­ted them to clam­ber and tumble over him. At first, amid the ap­plause of the gods, he be­trayed a trifle of his old self-con­scious­ness and awk­ward­ness. This passed away as the pup­pies’ antics and maul­ing con­tin­ued, and he lay with half-shut pa­tient eyes, drows­ing in the sun.