White Fang..........................................................................................................................................................1

Jack London .............................................................................................................................................1

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,

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 birchbark, 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 fryingpan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the

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

But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their bodies were

covered with fur and softtanned 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 selfvalues of the human soul, until they perceived

themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play

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 needlelike 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

Thereafter they spoke no more, though their ears were keen for the huntingcries that continued to rise

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 wolfdogs, clustered on the far

side of the fire, snarled and bickered among themselves, but evinced no inclination to stray off into the

Henry, squatting over the fire and settling the pot of coffee with a piece of ice, nodded. Nor did he speak till

"They know where their hides is safe," he said. "They'd sooner eat grub than be grub. They're pretty wise,

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

"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

"We've got six dogs," the other reiterated dispassionately. "I took out six fish. One Ear didn't get no fish. I

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

"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."

"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

Henry did not reply, but munched on in silence, until, the meal finished, he topped it with a final cup a of

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

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

"Henry . . . " He sucked meditatively at his pipe for some time before he went on. "Henry, I was athinkin'

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

"But we ain't got people an' money an' all the rest, like him," Henry rejoined. "Longdistance funerals is

"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 abuttin' round the Godforsaken ends of the earth

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

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

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 mocassins.

"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 asittin' by the fire in Fort McGurry just about now an'

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

"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 hunkydory in the mornin'. Your stomach's sour, that's what's botherin'

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 groaned as he passed from sleep to waking, and demanded, "What's wrong now?"

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

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,

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

"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

"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

"Couldn't drive 'em away from the fire with a club," Bill agreed. "I always did think there was somethin'

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

Breakfast eaten and the slim campoutfit 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 rosecolour, and marked where the bulge of the earth

intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rosecolour 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

As darkness came on, the huntingcries 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 shortlived panics.

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

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

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

"Couldn't see. But it had four legs an' a mouth an' hair an' looked like any dog."

"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

"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

"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.

Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs. He counted them with care, and then joined his partner in

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 midafternoon, 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

"There, that'll fix you fool critters," Bill said with satisfaction that night, standing erect at completion of his

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

"It's the only contraption that'll ever hold One Ear," he said. "He can gnaw through leather as clean as a knife

"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

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

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.

"It's a shewolf," Henry whispered back, "an' that accounts for Fatty an' Frog. She's the decoy for the pack.

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

"An' right here I want to remark," Bill went on, "that that animal's familyarity with campfires is suspicious an'

"It knows for certain more'n a selfrespectin' wolf ought to know," Henry agreed. "A wolf that knows enough

"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

"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

"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

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

Bill began to eat sleepily. He noticed that his cup was empty and started to reach for the pot. But the pot was

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

"Then it's jes' warm an' anxious I am to be hearin' you explain yourself," he said.

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

Henry shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. Unless One Ear gnawed 'm loose. He couldn't adone it himself,

"The darned cuss." Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of the anger that was raging within. "Jes'

"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 shoved his cup aside. "I'll be dingdongdanged if I do. I said I wouldn't if ary dog turned up missin', an'

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

"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

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."

"You're off colour, that's what's the matter with you," Henry dogmatised. "What you need is quinine, an' I'm

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

It was just after the sun's futile effort to appear, that Bill slipped the rifle from under the sledlashings and

"You'd better stick by the sled," his partner protested. "You've only got three cartridges, an' there's no tellin'

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

"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

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

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.

The dogs had laid 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

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

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

"Stands pretty close to two feet an' a half at the shoulders," Henry commented. "An' I'll bet it ain't far from

"Kind of strange colour for a wolf," was Bill's criticism. "I never seen a red wolf before. Looks almost

The animal was certainly not cinnamoncoloured. Its coat was the true wolfcoat. 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

"Looks for all the world like a big husky sleddog," Bill said. "I wouldn't be s'prised to see it wag its tail."

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

Henry nodded his consent. Bill cautiously slipped the gun from under the sledlashing. The gun was on the

way to his shoulder, but it never got there. For in that instant the shewolf leaped sidewise from the trail into

"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 shootingirons. 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

"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

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

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

"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 aholdin' our trail this way for their health. They're goin' to get us. They're sure goin' to get us,

"They've half got you a'ready, atalkin' like that," Henry retorted sharply. "A man's half licked when he says

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

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

It was an awkward mixup. The sled was upside down and jammed between a treetrunk 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

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 shewolf 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,

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

But whatever idea was forming in his mind, was dissipated by the shewolf, 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 shewolf were too close together and the

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 shewolf'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 shewolf was one leap behind One Ear and

"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 agoin' 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

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 wolfpack 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

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 wolfpack, 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 wolfcry 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

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 mantrace, 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,

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

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 an yelps and frightened snarls when a wellaimed brand

Morning found the man haggard and worn, wideeyed from want of sleep. He cooked breakfast in the

darkness, and at nine o'clock, when, with the coming of daylight, the wolfpack 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 sledlashing 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

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, theirlean sides showing the

udulating ribs with every movement. They were very lean, mere skinbags 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

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

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 nailformation, and prodded the fingertips, now

sharply, and again softly, gauging the while the nervesensations 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 wolfcircle 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

He came out of a doze that was half nightmare, to see the redhued shewolf 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

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 grippingplace; 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 shewolf. Never had he been so

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

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 shewolf 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 pineknot 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 pineknot on his hand. All worked well, but there came a time when he fastened the

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 livingroom 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

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

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

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

"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 shewolf slid up close to him across the

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

closedrawn circle, like so many dogs, blinking and yawning and stretching their lean bodies in the

unaccustomed warmth. Then the shewolf 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

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 shewolf gazing at

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

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.

"Red shewolf. . . . Come in with the dogs at feedin' time. . . . First she ate the dogfood. . . . Then she ate the

He shook his head slowly. "No, she didn't eat him. . . . He's roostin' in a tree at the last camp."

"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

But there was another sound. Far and faint it was, in the remote distance, the cry of the hungry wolfpack as

It was the shewolf who had first caught the sound of men's voices and the whining of the sleddogs; and it

was the shewolf 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

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 shewolf. 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 shewolf, 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 hungerneed of the pack.

After each repulse, when the old wolf sheered abruptly away from the sharptoothed object of his desire, he

shouldered against a young threeyearold 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 oneeyed 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 shewolf. This was doubly resented, even triply resented. When she snarled her displeasure,

the old leader would whirl on the threeyearold. Sometimes she whirled with him. And sometimes the

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 hindlegs 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

Had there been food, lovemaking and fighting would have gone on apace, and the packformation 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 fullbodied wolves. Nevertheless, with the

exception of the ones that limped, the movements of the animals were eftortless and tireless. Their stringy

muscles seemed founts of inexhaustible energy. Behind every steellike contraction of a muscle, lay another

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

They crossed low divides and ranged a dozen small streams in a lowerlying 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 shewolf tearing savagely at his

throat, and with other teeth fixed everywhere upon him, devouring him alive, before ever his last struggles

There was food in plenty. The bull weighed over eight hundred pounds fully twenty pounds of meat per

mouth for the fortyodd 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

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 breakingup 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 mooseherds they

There came a day, in this land of plenty, when the wolfpack split in half and went in different directions.

The shewolf, the young leader on her left, and the oneeyed 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 shewolf, the young leader, the

The shewolf 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 threeyearold grew too ambitious in

his fierceness. He caught the oneeyed 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

threeyearold 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

And in the meanwhile, the shewolf, 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

And in the business of love the threeyearold, 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 shewolf, 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 shewolf 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 sextragedy 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 shewolf. 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

Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the lovetale redwritten 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 snowsurface for firmer footing. But it was all forgotten the next

moment, as he sprang after the shewolf, 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 shewolf

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 snowpiled

crevices in the rocks and in the caves of overhanging banks. Old One Eye was not interested at all, but he

followed her goodnaturedly in her quest, and when her investigations in particular places were unusually

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

packformation. 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, turntail, and

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,

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

skinlodges, 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 shewolf 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

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

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 shewolf 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 shewolf 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 shewolf'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

In the meantime the rabbit danced above them in the air. The shewolf 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

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 shewolf and One Eye devoured

There were other runways and alleys where rabbits were hanging in the air, and the wolfpair prospected

them all, the shewolf leading the way, old One Eye following and observant, learning the method of robbing

For two days the shewolf 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 shewolf'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 shewolf 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

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 softerlined 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 cosey. 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 goodnaturedly. 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

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 heating. 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 fullgrown 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 snowsurface 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

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 shewolf. This he received without perturbation, though he

obeyed it by keeping his distance; but he remained interested in the other sounds faint, muffled sobbings

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 newborn 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 newborn family and by trotting out and away on the meattrail 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

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

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

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

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 slowwitted

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,

A mile above the forks, running velvetfooted 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

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 tightrolled 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,

He lay down in the snow, depositing the ptarmigan beside him, and with eyes peering through the needles of

a lowgrowing 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

Half an hour passed, an hour; and nothing happened. The balls 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

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 sideflick 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 ballprotection, 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

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

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 bloodsoaked 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 shewolf 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 wolffather should, and manifesting no unholy

He was different from his brothers and sisters. Their hair already betrayed the reddish hue inherited from

their mother, the shewolf; 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 wolfstock 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 dimlighted; 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

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, warmcoloured 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

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 backwall. 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 puppetbodies 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

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

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 meatkillers and meateaters. 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

halfdigested by the shewolf and disgorged for the five growing cubs that already made too great demand

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 fellowcub over

with a cunning pawstroke. And it was he that first gripped another cub by the ear and pulled and tugged and

growled through jaws tightclenched. And certainly it was he that caused the mother the most trouble in

The fascination of the light for the grey cub increased from day to day. He was perpetually departing on

yardlong 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

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 halfdigested 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 backwall 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

Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced famine. There came a time when not only did the

meatsupply 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 shewolf, 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

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

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

shewolf 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 dayold 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 shewolf had found this lair, but the signs told her that the lynx

After that, the shewolf 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, badtempered 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

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 shewolf, for her grey cub's sake, would venture the left fork,

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 cavelife, 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

shewolf; 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

cavewall, 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

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,

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 atrembling 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

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 nozzled 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 for ever 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

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

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 pinetree 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

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 hindlegs still rested on the cavelip, 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

The unknown bore him on he knew not to what frightful hurt, and he yelped and kiyi'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

But the slope grew more gradual, and its base was grasscovered. 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

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

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 mossberry 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

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 moosebird 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 kiyi. The noise he made was too much for the moosebird, 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

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

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 cavedoor 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,

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

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

He held on to the wing and growled between his tightclenched 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

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 illused 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

While he lay in the bush, recovering from his fright and peering fearfully out, the motherptarmigan 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,

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

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 longestablished 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

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

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

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

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

While he yelped and kiyi'd and scrambled backward, he saw the motherweasel 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 motherweasel 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 motherweasel 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

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 were 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 shewolf

come bounding through the bushes. The weasel let go the cub and flashed at the shewolf's throat, missing,

but getting a hold on the jaw instead. The shewolf 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 shewolf's jaws closed on the lean,

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 nozzled 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 blooddrinker, and after that went

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,

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 moosebird

almost invariably put him into the wildest of rages; for he never forgot the peck on the nose he had received

But there were times when even a moosebird 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

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 wolfcub

was approaching. But as birds flew in the air, squirrels could climb trees, and the cub could only try to crawl

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

shewolf ran herself thin in the quest for meat. She rarely slept any more in the cave, spending most of her

time on the meattrail, 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 woodmice and tried

to dig them out of their burrows; and he learned much about the ways of moosebirds 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 shewolf 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 velvetfurred

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 lynxmother. 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 lowroofed entrance the lynx could not

leap in, and when she made a crawling rush of it the shewolf 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 shewolf

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

The lynx was dead. But the shewolf 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 shewolf's wounds had healed sufficiently to permit her to take the meattrail 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

He began to accompany his mother on the meattrail, 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 nonkillers 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 saw the law operating around him on every side. He had eaten the ptarmigan chicks. The hawk had eaten

the ptarmiganmother. 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 lynxmother 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

Had the cub thought in manfashion, 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,

But the cub did not think in manfashion. He did not look at things with wide vision. He was

singlepurposed, 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

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

selfremunerative. 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

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 meattrail, 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

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

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.

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, twolegged 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 fullgrown, 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

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

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 kiyi'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

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

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 mananimals went back hastily several steps. The shewolf 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

And then the cub saw his mother, the shewolf, 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

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

"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

"It is not strange, Salmon Tongue," Grey Beaver answered. "It was the time of the famine, and there was no

"So it would seem, Three Eagles," Grey Beaver answered, lying his hand on the cub; "and this be the sign of

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

"This be the sign of it," Grey Beaver went on. "It is plain that his mother is Kiche. But this 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 mananimals continued

to make their mouthnoises. 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,

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 mananimal 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 mananimal 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 mananimal 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

partgrown puppies, were likewise burdened with camp outfit. On their backs, in bags that fastened tightly

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 openmouthed

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 mananimals, the sound of clubs striking upon

Only a few seconds elapsed before he was on his feet again. He could now see the mananimals 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 mananimals, 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 mananimals in ways

resembled what would be the wonder and awe of man at sight of some celestial creature, on a mountain top,

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 packcruelty 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 mananimals. 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

He did not like it. Nor did he like it when the mananimals arose and went on with their march; for a tiny

mananimal 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 fishracks for the drying of fish, camp was made; and White Fang looked on with

wondering eyes. The superiority of these mananimals increased with every moment. There was their

mastery over all these sharpfanged dogs. It breathed of power. But greater than that, to the wolfcub, was

their mastery over things not alive; their capacity to communicate motion to unmoving things; their capacity

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 quickgrowing 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

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 mansmell. 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

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 partgrown 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 Liplip. He had had experience in puppy fights and was already something of a bully.

Liplip 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 stifflegged 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, Liplip 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

But Liphp 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 Liplip, for they were

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 mananimals, 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

mouthnoises 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 mananimal. 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 kiyi' 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 kiyi' d and kiyi'd,

It was the worst hurt he had ever known. Both nose and tongue had been scorched by the live thing,

suncoloured, 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 mananimals. He tried to soothe his nose with

his tongue, but the tongue was burnt too, and the two hurts coming together produced greater hurt;

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 mananimals 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

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 mananimals, 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 mananimals 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 mananimals before him. They

were superior creatures, of a verity, gods. To his dim comprehension they were as much wonderworkers 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, suncoloured and biting life, to grow out of dead moss and wood.

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 mananimals, 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

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 earthspace 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 hindlegs, 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 mananimals 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

But it did not all happen in a day, this giving over of himself, body and soul, to the mananimals. 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,

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 partgrown 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

But the bane of his life was Liplip. Larger, older, and stronger, Liplip had selected White Fang for his

special object of persecution. While Fang fought willingly enough, but he was outclassed. His enemy was too

big. Liplip 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

mananimal was near, to spring upon him and force a fight. As Liplip invariably won, he enjoyed it hugely.

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. Liplip would not permit it. The moment White Fang appeared near them, Liplip 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 campdogs, 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

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 Liplip into Kiche's avenging jaws. Retreating

before Liplip, 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 Liplip. But he did not run

Liplip, 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

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 Liplip's hind leg. There

was no fight left in Liplip, 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

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, Liplip kept a respectful distance. WhiteFang even bristled up to him

and walked stifflegged, but Liplip ignored the challenge. He was no fool himself, and whatever vengeance

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

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

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 partgrown 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

mananimal, 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;

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

Grey Beaver continued to beat, White Fang continued to snarl. But this could not last for ever. 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

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

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

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. Liplip, 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 Liplip into the air with its violence so that he smashed down to earth a

dozen feet away. This was the mananimal'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

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

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 mananimals 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 camplife, 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,

Liplip 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 mananimals 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 mischiefmaker, a fomenter of trouble; and irate squaws told him to his face, the while he eyed them

alert and ready to dodge any quickflung missile, that he was a wolf and worthless and bound to come to an

He found himself an outcast in the midst of the populous camp. All the young dogs followed Liplip'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 Liplip 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 packpersecution he learned two important things: how to take care of himself in a massfight

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

When dogs fight, there are usually preliminaries to the actual combat snarlings and bristlings and

stifflegged 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

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

throatattack 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

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

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

An outcast himself from the pack of the partgrown 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 Liplip, 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 wolfcub 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 fastestfooted, 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, velvetfooted, 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

Hated by his kind and by mankind, indomitable, perpetually warred upon and himself waging perpetual war,

his development was rapid and onesided. 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 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

White Fang trembled with fear, and though the impulse came to crawl out of his hidingplace, 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

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 memorypictures. 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

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

He gave a great start of fright. A colossal and formless something was rushing across the field of his vision. It

was a treeshadow 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

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 campsmoke. In his ears the

campsounds 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 rubbishheaps 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 Liplip 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 wolfhowl, fullthroated and

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 for ever. 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

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 rimice 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

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 Klookooch, who was Grey Beaver's squaw. Now, had not the moose come down to drink, had not

Mitsah been steering out of the course because of the snow, had not Klookooch 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

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

campsounds came to his ears. He saw the blaze of the fire, Klookooch cooking, and Grey Beaver squatting

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 foreststretches, but in the camp of the mananimals, with the gods

When December was well along, Grey Beaver went on a journey up the Mackenzie. Mitsah and

Klookooch 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 Mitsah, 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 Mitsah, 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

White Fang had seen the campdogs 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 mossstuffed collar, which was connected by

two pullingtraces to a strap that passed around his chest and over his back. It was to this that was fastened

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 birchbark 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 snowsurface; for

the snow was crystalpowder and very soft. Observing the same principle of widest distribution of weight,

the dogs at the ends of their ropes radiated fanfashion from the nose of the sled, so that no dog trod in

There was, furthermore, another virtue in the fanformation. 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,

Mitsah resembled his father, much of whose grey wisdom he possessed. In the past he had observed

Liplip's persecution of White Fang; but at that time Liplip was another man's dog, and Mitsah had never

dared more than to shy an occasional stone at him. But now Liplip was his dog, and he proceeded to wreak

his vengeance on him by putting him at the end of the longest rope. This made Liplip the leader, and was

apparently an honour! but in reality it took away from him all honour, and instead of being bully and master

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 Liplip 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 Mitsah

would throw the stinging lash of the thirtyfoot cariboogut whip into his face and compel him to turn tail

and run on. Liplip might face the pack, but he could not face that whip, and all that was left him to do was

But a still greater cunning lurked in the recesses of the Indian mind. To give point to unending pursuit of the

leader, Mitsah favoured him over the other dogs. These favours aroused in them jealousy and hatred. In

their presence Mitsah would give him meat and would give it to him only. This was maddening to them.

They would rage around just outside the throwingdistance of the whip, while Liplip devoured the meat and

Mitsah protected him. And when there was no meat to give, Mitsah would keep the team at a distance and

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 wellnigh 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 wilddog

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 Liplip was leader of the

pack. But Liplip 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 Mitsah or Grey Beaver or Klookooch. 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

With the overthrow of Liplip, 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

As rigid as the sleddiscipline 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 stiffleggedness 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 fullgrown dogs in the camps of the strange mananimals 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 wellnigh 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

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 mananimals. 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

It was in a village at the Great Slave Lake, that, in the course of resenting the evil of the hands of the

mananimals, 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 moosemeat 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

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 clubhand had been ripped wide open

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 Mitsah and

Klookooch. 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

Before the day was out, White Fang was to learn more about this law. Mitsah, 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 Mitsah. 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

Mitsah, 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 Mitsah 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

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 allpowerful, 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

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

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 fleshandblood 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

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

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 Mitsah. Though a

long way from his full growth, White Fang, next to Liplip, 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 fullgrown 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 wolfgrey, and to all appearances he was true wolf

himself. The quarterstrain of dog he had inherited from Kiche had left no mark on him physically, though it

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

It was at the cuttingup of a moose, freshkilled, that White Fang learned of the changed relations in which

he stood to the dogworld. 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

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 selfcontrol 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

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 lightningflash, 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

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

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 centrepin 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

But it was not Kiche's fault. A wolfmother 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

One of the puppies sprawled up to White Fang. They were halfbrothers, only they did not know it. White

Fang sniffed the puppy curiously, whereupon Kiche rushed upon him, gashing is 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 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 lifestuff 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

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

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

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 foodsupply, 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 holloweyed hunters

To such extremity were the gods driven that they ate the softtanned leather of their mocassins and mittens,

while the dogs ate the harnesses off their backs and the very whiplashes. 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 treesquirrel,

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 treerefuge. Then, and not until then, would he flash from his hidingplace, 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 woodmice 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, loosejointed 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 wolfpack 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

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.

During the early summer, in the last days of the famine, he met Liplip, who had likewise taken to the

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

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 Liplip 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 Liplip's bullying and persecution. As in the past he had bristled and

snarled at sight of Liplip, so now, and automatically, he bristled and snarled. He did not waste any time. The

thing was done thoroughly and with despatch. Liplip essayed to back away, but White Fang struck him

hard, shoulder to shoulder. Liplip was overthrown and rolled upon his back. White Fang's teeth drove into

the scrawny throat. There was a deathstruggle, during which White Fang walked around, stifflegged 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

Klookooch welcomed him with glad cries and the whole of a freshcaught fish, and he lay down to wait

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 sledteam. For

now the dogs hated him hated him for the extra meat bestowed upon him by Mitsah; 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 for ever maddening their eyes.

And White Fang just as bitterly hated them back. Being sledleader 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 Mitsah gave his order for the start, that moment the whole team,

There was no defence for him. If he turned upon them, Mitsah 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 cariboogut with its biting thirtyfoot lash. So White

Fang could only eat his heart in bitterness and develop a hatred and malice commensurate with the ferocity

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

When Mitsah 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 Mitsah, 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 evermenacing 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

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 singlehanded. They met him with the massformation, 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 throatstroke. At the first

hint of conflict, the whole team drew together and faced him. The dogs had quarrels among themselves, but

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

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 lightningflash of slaughter. They bristled

up to him, stifflegged 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

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

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

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

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 goldhunters 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

Here Grey Beaver stopped. A whisper of the goldrush had reached his ears, and he had come with several

bales of furs, and another of gutsewn 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 per cent. profit; he made a thousand per cent. 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

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, manreared, 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 childgod among

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

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

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

But if the white gods were allpowerful, 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 shortlegged too short; others were longlegged too long. They had hair instead of fur, and a

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,

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

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

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

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 evermenacing, 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

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 townreared 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

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

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

Liplip and the whole puppy pack. It might have been otherwise, and he would then have been otherwise.

Had Liplip 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

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 bakingpowder. This was the invidious distinction between them and the Sourdoughs, who, forsooth,

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 deathcry 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

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

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 weakkneed 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, muddyyellow and dirtyyellow, rising on his head

and sprouting out of his face in unexpected tufts and bunches, in appearance like clumped and windblown

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

dishwashing 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

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

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 wolffashion

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 sleddog 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

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

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

The bottles were delivered, but after two days. "You ketch um dog," were Beauty Smith's words to Grey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 neckarching 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

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.

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 halfanhour for him. And then, blind and reeling, he followed at Beauty

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.

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

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

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 onehalf 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

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

The men outside shouted and applauded, while Beauty Smith, in an ecstasy of delight, gloated over the

rippling and manging 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 fullgrown wolf,

freshcaught 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

In the fall of the year, when the first snows were falling and mushice 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

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

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

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

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,

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 Liplip and the whole puppypack, 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

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 fullgrown 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 sharpclawed 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 farodealer, 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.

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 goodnaturedly. 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

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, pushingforward 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 forwardpushing 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

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

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

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

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'sbreadth, and cries of praise went up as White Fang doubled suddenly out of danger in the opposite

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

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 countercirclings. 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

halfsomersault 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

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 fleshlove 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

Round and round he went, whirling and turning and reversing, trying to shake off the fiftypound 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, willynilly, careless of any hurt that might thereby come to it. That did not

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 tearingstrokes.

Cherokee might well have been disembowelled had he not quickly pivoted on his grip and got his body off of

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 wellnigh 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

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 hindlegs and lifting his foe clear of the earth, he struggled vainly to shake off the

At last he fell, toppling backward, exhausted; and the bulldog promptly shifted his grip, getting in closer,

mangling more and more of the furfolded 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

It was at this time that a diversion came to the spectators. There was a jingle of bells. Dogmushers' 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 dogmusher wore a moustache, but the other, a

taller and younger man, was smoothshaven, his skin rosy from the pounding of his blood and the running in

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 skinfold.

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

loot, 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.

He was in a rage himself a sane rage. His grey eyes seemed metallic and steellike 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

"Come on, Matt, lend a hand," the newcomer called the dogmusher, 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

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.

"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

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

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

"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 farodealer 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

"Well, stranger," the other drawled irritatingly, "I don't mind telling you that's something I ain't worked out

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

"Stand by to receive your dog," was Scott's peremptory order to Cherokee's owner.

"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.

The dogmusher, still on his knees and stooped over White Fang, calculated for a moment.

"And how much for one that's all chewed up like this one?" Scott asked, nudging White Fang with his foot.

"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

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

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

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

"You've forfeited your rights to own that dog," was the rejoinder. "Are you going to take the money? or do I

"All right," Beauty Smith spoke up with the alacrity of fear. "But I take the money under protest," he added.

"Correct," Scott answered, passing the money over to him. "A man's got his rights. But you're not a man.

"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?"

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

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

"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

"I thought he must be somebody," was the farodealer's comment. "That's why I kept my hands offen him at

He sat on the step of his cabin and stared at the dogmusher, who responded with a shrug that was equally

Together they looked at White Fang at the end of his stretched chain, bristling, snarling, ferocious, straining

to get at the sleddogs. Having received sundry lessons from Matt, said lessons being imparted by means of a

club, the sleddogs had learned to leave White Fang alone; and even then they were lying down at a distance,

"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

"Well, don't be a miser with what you know," Scott said sharply, after waiting a suitable length of time. "Spit

"I tell you yes, an' broke to harness. Look close there. D'ye see them marks across the chest?"

"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."

The dogmusher secured a club and went over to the chained animal. White Fang watched the club after the

"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 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

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,

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

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

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

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

"He got me all right," he announced, pointing to the torn trousers and undercloths, and the growing stain of

"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

"Look here, Mr. Scott," Matt objected; "that dog's ben through hell. You can't expect 'm to come out a white

The dogmusher surveyed the stricken dog. He had sunk down on the snow in the circle of his blood and was

"Served 'm right. You said so yourself, Mr. Scott. He tried to take White Fang's meat, an' he's deadO. 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

"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

"God knows I don't want to kill him or have him killed," Scott answered, putting away the revolver. "We'll let

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

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

"Nothin'," he said slowly, with a careless calmness that was assumed, "only goin' to keep that promise I

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

White Fang, near the corner of the cabin and forty feet away, was snarling with bloodcurdling viciousness,

"Well, I'll be everlastingly goshswoggled!" was the dogmusher'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."

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

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

The dogmusher put the rifle down solemnly, then turned and looked at his employer.

As White Fang watched Weedon Scott approach, he bristled and snarled to advertise that he would not

submit to punishment. Twentyfour 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 whiteskinned

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

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

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 allwise, and there was no telling what

masterful treachery lurked behind that apparently harmless piece of meat. In past experience, especially in

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

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 counterforces that struggled within him for

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

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, confidenceinspiring voice might break

forth in a roar of wrath, that gentle and caressing hand transform itself into a vicelike grip to hold him

But the god talked on softly, and ever the hand rose and fell with nonhostile 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.

So spoke Matt, coming out of the cabin, his sleeves rolled up, a pan of dirty dishwater in his hands, arrested

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

"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

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

"You may be a number one, tiptop minin' expert, all right all right," the dogmusher 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

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,

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

wellnigh perished. One such potency was LOVE. It took the place of LIKE, which latter had been the

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 sleddogs slept, and the first nightvisitor 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,

loudstepping, 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

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 harshfibred 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

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,

keenthrilling 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 cabinstoop for a sight of the god's face. At night,

when the god returned home, White Fang would leave the warm sleepingplace 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 lovegod, a warm and radiant god, in whose light White

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 selfpossessed, 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

selfconsciousness, 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 led 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

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 fanformation 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

"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

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 lovemaster 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

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

"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

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

Then he discovered him, standing where he had been lying, near to the stove. He had not rushed forward after

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 selfconsciousness, 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

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

But that was not all. What of his joy, the great love in him, ever surging and struggling to express itself,

succeeding 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

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 lovemaster, White Fang's recovery was rapid. Two nights and a day he spent in the

cabin. Then he sallied forth. The sleddogs 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.

White Fang did not need the encouragement. The return of the lovemaster 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

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

lovemaster, his snuggling was the deliberate act of putting himself into a position of hopeless helplessness.

It was an expression of perfect confidence, of absolute selfsurrender, as though he said: "I put myself into

One night, not long after the return, Scott and Matt sat at a game of cribbage preliminary to going to bed.

"Fifteentwo, fifteenfour 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.

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 coatsleeve, 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

Matt helped the man to his feet. As he arose he lowered his crossed arms, exposing the bestial face of Beauty

Smith. The dogmusher 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

At the same moment Matt noticed two objects lying in the snow. He held the lamp close to them, indicating

Weedon Scott saw and nodded. Not a word was spoken. The dogmusher laid his hand on Beauty Smith's

shoulder and faced him to the right about. No word needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith started.

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

White Fang, still wrought up and bristling, growled and growled, the hair slowly lying down, the crooning

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 wolfdog that haunted the cabinstoop, and that, though he never came inside the cabin,

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

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

"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."

"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, halfsobbing

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

"Only . . . " the dogmusher began softly, then changed his mind and betrayed a rising anger of his own.

"Well, you needn't get so allfired het up about it. Judgin' by your actions one'd think you didn't know your

Weedon Scott debated with himself for a while, and then said more gently: "You are right, Matt. I don't know

"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 dogmusher

Then came the day when, through the open cabin door, White Fang saw the fatal grip on the floor and the

lovemaster 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

That night he lifted the long wolfhowl. 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 rubbishheap to mark the site of Grey Beaver's tepee,

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

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

"I'm agreein' with you," the dogmusher answered, and Weedon Scott was not quite sure whether or not the

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

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

"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, deepdrawn sniffs.

"You must take good care of him, Matt," Scott said, as they started down the hill. "Write and let me know

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

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

The dogmusher 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?"

White Fang flattened his ears ingratiatingly, but remained where he was, making no attempt to approach.

Matt made a couple of steps toward White Fang, but the latter slid away from him. The dogmusher made a

rush of it, and White Fang dodged between the legs of a group of men. Ducking, turning, doubling, he slid

"Won't come to the hand that's fed 'm all these months," the dogmusher 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

Scott, who had been patting White Fang, suddenly bent closer and pointed out freshmade cuts on his

"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 dogmusher's hand.

"Goodbye, Matt, old man. About the wolfyou needn't write. You see, I've . . . !"

"He'll never stand the climate!" he shouted back. "Unless you clip 'm in warm weather!"

The gangplank was hauled in, and the AURORA swang out from the bank. Weedon Scott waved a last

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

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 waggons, carts,

automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; and monstrous cable and electric ears hooting and

clanging through the midst, screeching their insistent menace after the manner of the lynxes he had known in

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 fullgrown 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 lovemaster, close at whose heels he

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 baggagecar 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 clothesbags alongside of him, and proceeded to

"'Bout time you come," growled the god of the car, an hour later, when Weedon Scott appeared at the door.

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

"It's all right, mother," Scott was saving 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

He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted him, then his voice became firm.

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

White Fang, bristling silently, halfcrouching as he rose, sank back and watched the hostile act repeated. But

no harm came of it, nor of the embrace from the strange mangod that followed. Then the clothesbags were

taken into the carriage, the strange gods and the lovemaster 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

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 sturdylimbed oaks. In the near distance, in contrast with the younggreen 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 valleylevel, looked down the deepporched,

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, brighteyed, sharpmuzzled, 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, stifflegged with selfconsciousness,

and tried to go around her. He dodged this way and that, and curved and turned, but to no purpose. She

"Never mind, father. It is good discipline. White Fang will have to learn many things, and it's just as well that

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

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

As he rounded the house to the PORTECOCHERE, 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

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

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

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 womangods, 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

All the gods started up the steps to enter the house. White Fang followed closely at the master's heels. Dick,

"Take Collie inside and leave the two of them to fight it out," suggested Scott's father. "After that they'll be

"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.

Weedon nodded his head. "I mean just that. You'd have a dead Dick inside one minute two minutes at the

He turned to White Fang. "Come on, you wolf. It's you that'll have to come inside."

White Fang walked stifflegged 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 traproof of the dwelling.

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

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 selfseclusion, and so thoroughly ignored Dick that that goodnatured

creature finally gave him up and scarcely took as much interest in him as in the hitchingpost 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

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 furprotected shoulder to her sharp teeth and walked away stifflegged 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

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 Mitsah and Klookooch had belonged to Grey Beaver, sharing his

food, his fire, and his blankets, so now, at Sierra Vista, belonged to the lovemaster all the denizens of the

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 bloodties 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

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

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

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 lovecroon 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

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

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

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

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 chickenyard. 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 farmbred 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 buggywhip. 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

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

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

Two nights later came the act, but on a more generous scale than the master had anticipated. White Fang had

observed closely the chickenyards 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

chickenhouse, passed over the ridgepole and dropped to the ground inside. A moment later he was inside the

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

White Fang never raided a chickenroost again. It was against the law, and he had learned it. Then the master

took him into the chickenyards. 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

"You can never cure a chickenkiller." 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

But Weedon Scott did not agree with his father. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he challenged finally. "I'll lock

"And furthermore," the son went on, "for every chicken he kills, I'll pay you one dollar gold coin of the

Her sister seconded her, and a chorus of approval arose from around the table. Judge Scott nodded his head in

"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

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 chickenhouse 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,

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 backpasture, 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

And then, one day, again out in the backpasture, 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

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 butchershops 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 selfconscious. 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

selfpreservation, 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 stonethrowers. 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 stonethrowers a thrashing. After that

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

But White Fang could not believe. He looked at the master, and he looked at the dogs. Then he looked back

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

With this triple killing his main troubles with dogs ceased. The word went up and down the valley, and men

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 Liplip and the puppypack, and in his

fighting days with Beauty Smith, he had acquired a fixed aversion for dogs. The natural course of his life had

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 chickenkilling

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,

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,

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

White Fang had never been very demonstrative. Beyond his snuggling and the throwing of a crooning note

into his lovegrowl, 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 lovemaster, and when that god elected to

laugh at him in a goodnatured, 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

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

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 hindlegs. 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.

White Fang was disinclined to desert him. The master thought of writing a note, but searched his pockets

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

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

The family was on the porch, taking the cool of the afternoon, when White Fang arrived. He came in among

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 rockingchair and the railing. He growled and tried to push by

"I confess, he makes me nervous around the children," she said. "I have a dread that he will turn upon them

Growling savagely, White Fang sprang out of the corner, overturning the boy and the girl. The mother called

"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 "

White Fang turned to the lovemaster'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

"I hope he is not going mad," said Weedon's mother. "I told Weedon that I was afraid the warm climate

At this moment speech came to White Fang, rushing up in a great burst of barking.

They were all on their feet now, and White Fang ran down the steps, looking back for them to follow. For the

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

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 backpasture 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

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 illmade 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

dumbmad 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. Straightjackets,

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

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

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

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

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. Publicspirited 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

Sometimes they came upon him, and men faced him like heroes, or stampeded through barbedwire 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 bloodmoney.

In the meantime the newspapers were read at Sierra Vista, not so much with interest as with anxiety. The

women were afraid. Judge Scott poohpoohed 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

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

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

bluecoated 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

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 housedog, nor was he permitted to sleep in the house; so each morning, early, she

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

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 lovemaster and to the

lovemaster's dearest possessions. White Fang bristled, but waited. The strange god's foot lifted. He was

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,

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

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

"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

"Frankly, he has one chance in a thousand," announced the surgeon, after he had worked an hour and a half

Dawn was breaking through the windows and dimming the electric lights. With the exception of the children,

"One broken hindleg," 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

"But he mustn't lose any chance that might be of help to him," Judge Scott exclaimed. "Never mind expense.

Put him under the Xray 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

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

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 Liplip and

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 gutwhips of Mitsah 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

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 treerefuge. 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

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 lovegrowl. The master's wife

called him the "Blessed Wolf," which name was taken up with acclaim and all the women called him the

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.

"Out of your own mouths be it," he said. "Just as I contended right along. No mere dog could have done what

"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.

And outside he went, like a king, with all Sierra Vista about him and tending on him. He was very weak, and

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

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

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,

Handclapping 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 selfconsciousness and awkwardness. This passed away as the puppies' antics and