White Fang
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.
CHAPTER 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 make-up.
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 shin-bone, to which quite a
bit of meat was attached. Withdrawn from the immediate scramble of the
other dogs—in fact out of sight behind a thicket—he was devouring his
prize, when Baseek rushed in upon him. Before he knew what he was
doing, he had slashed the intruder twice and sprung clear. Baseek was
surprised by the other’s temerity and swiftness of attack. He stood,
gazing stupidly across at White Fang, the raw, red shin-bone between
them.
Baseek was old, and already he had come to know the 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 shin-bone
at White Fang. And White Fang, resurrecting quite a deal of the old
awe, seemed to wilt and to shrink in upon himself and grow small, as he
cast about in his mind for a way to beat a retreat not too inglorious.
And right here Baseek erred. Had he contented himself with looking
fierce and ominous, all would have been well. White Fang, on the verge
of 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 team-mates, 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