White Fang
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 bull-dog 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 new-comer 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 bull-dog’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 bull-dog 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 pocket-book 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!” some one shouted, and a guffaw of laughter went
up.
Scott turned his back on him, and returned to help the dog-musher, who
was working over White Fang.
Some of the men were already departing; others stood in groups, looking
on and talking. Tim Keenan joined one of the groups.
“Who’s that mug?” he asked.
“Weedon Scott,” some one answered.
“And who in hell is Weedon Scott?” the faro-dealer demanded.
“Oh, one of them 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.”
CHAPTER V
THE INDOMITABLE
“It’s hopeless,” Weedon Scott confessed.
He sat on the step of his cabin and stared at the dog-musher, who
responded with a shrug that was equally hopeless.
Together they looked at White Fang at the end of his stretched chain,
bristling, snarling, ferocious, straining to get at the sled-dogs.
Having received sundry lessons from Matt, said lessons being imparted
by means of a club, the sled-dogs had learned to leave White Fang
alone; and even then they were lying down at a distance, apparently
oblivious of his existence.
“It’s a wolf and there’s no taming it,” Weedon Scott announced.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Matt objected. “Might be a lot of dog in
’m, for all you can tell. But there’s one thing I know sure, an’ that
there’s no gettin’ away from.”
The dog-musher paused and nodded his head 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