[Previous page]...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 offense there was no
condoning nor overlooking.
When the canoe touched the shore, White Fang lay whimpering and
motionless, waiting the will of Gray Beaver. It was Gray 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. Lip-lip, 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 Gray Beaver's
foot shot out, lifting Lip-lip into the air with its violence so
that he smashed down to earth a dozen feet away. This was the
man-animal's justice; and even then, in his own pitiable plight, White
Fang experienced a little grateful thrill. At Gray 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 themselves and denied to the lesser creatures
under them.
That night, when all was still, White Fang remembered his mother and
sorrowed for her. He sorrowed too loudly and woke up Gray 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 with loud
whimperings and wailings.
It was during this period that he might have hearkened to the
memories of the lair and the stream and run back into the Wild. But
the memory of his mother held him. As the hunting man-animals went out
and came back, so she would come back to the village sometime. 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 Gray Beaver. Obedience,
rigid, undeviating obedience, was what was expected of him; and in
return he escaped beatings and his existence was tolerated.
Nay, Gray 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,
than a dozen pieces of meat from the hand of a squaw. Gray 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 into the fires of men,
were qualities capable of development. They were developing in him,
and the camp-life, 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, and
a hungry yearning for the free life that had been his.
CHAPTER THREE.
The Outcast.
LIP-LIP 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 make-up, but the savageness thus
developed exceeded his make-up. He acquired a reputation for
wickedness amongst the man-animals 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 mischief-maker,
a fomenter of trouble; and irate squaws told him to his face, the
while he eyed them alert and ready to dodge any quick-flung missile,
that he was a wolf and worthless and bound to come to an evil end.
He found himself an outcast in the midst of the populous camp. All
the young dogs followed Lip-lip's lead. There was a difference between
White Fang and them. Perhaps they sensed his wild-wood 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 Lip-lip 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 a 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 pack-persecution he learned two important things: how to
take care of himself in a mass-fight 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 learned well. He became cat-like 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 legs under him and his feet downward to the mother
earth.
When dogs fight, there are usually preliminaries to the actual
combat- snarlings and bristlings and stiff-legged 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 learned 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 happening, was a dog half whipped.
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 generations 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 throat-attack 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 had been 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 the stolen meat, and Gray 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 vengeance for which his tribes-people clamored.
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 leap in with a flash of teeth, or to leap
away with a menacing snarl.
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 grown
dogs White Fang's snarl enabled him to beat an honorable retreat.
An outcast himself from the pack of the part-grown 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 Lip-lip, they were
compelled to bunch 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 wolf-cub 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 to 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 realized their play in the 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 fastest-footed, 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, velvet-footed, 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 favorite trick
of his was to lose his trail in running water and then lie quietly
in a nearby thicket while their baffled cries arose around him.
Hated by his kind and by mankind, indomitable, perpetually warred
upon and himself waging perpetual war, his development was rapid and
one-sided. 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 w...
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