White Fang
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 fore-paws.
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 awe-stricken 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 rough-houses,” 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
CHAPTER 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 dog-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 non-committal sort of way.
“White man’s dogs would have no show against him,” Scott went on. “He’d