White Fang
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