[Previous page]...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 birch-bark
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 snow-surface; for the snow as
crystal-powder and very soft. Observing the same principle of widest
distribution of weight, the dogs at the ends of their ropes radiated
fan-fashion from the nose of the sled, so that no dog trod in
another's footsteps.
There was, furthermore, another virtue in the fan-formation. 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 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
traveled, 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, and thus, by cunning
indiscretion, did man increase his mastery over the beasts.
Mit-sah resembled his father, much of whose gray wisdom he
possessed. In the past he had observed Lip-lip's persecution of
White Fang; but at that time Lip-lip was another man's dog, and
Mit-sah had never dared more than to shy an occasional stone at him.
But now Lip-lip was his dog, and he proceeded to wreak his vengeance
upon him by putting him at the end of the longest rope. This made
Lip-lip the leader, and was apparently an honor; but in reality it
took away from him all honor, and instead of being bully and master of
the pack, he now found himself hated and persecuted by the pack.
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 Lip-lip 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 Mit-sah would throw the stinging lash of the thirty-foot
cariboo-gut whip into his face and compel him to turn tail and run on.
Lip-lip might face the pack, but he could not face that whip, and
all that was left to do was to keep his long rope taut and his
flanks ahead of the teeth of his mates.
But a still greater cunning lurked in the recesses of the Indian
mind. To give point to unending pursuit of the leader, Mit-sah favored
him over the other dogs. These favors aroused in them jealousy and
hatred. In their presence Mit-sah would give him meat and would give
it to him only. This was maddening to them. They would rage around
just outside the throwing distance of the whip, while Lip-lip devoured
the meat and Mit-sah protected him. And when there was no meat to
give, Mit-sah would keep the team at a distance and make believe to
give meat to Lip-lip.
White Fang took kindly to the work. He had traveled 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 well-nigh 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
characterized his toil. These are essential traits of the wolf and the
wild-dog 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 hundred-fold the snaps and slashes they had given him in the
days when Lip-lip was leader of the pack. But Lip-lip 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 Mit-sah
or Gray Beaver or Kloo-kooch. He did not venture away from the gods,
for now the fangs of all dogs were against him, and he tasted to the
dregs the persecution that had been White Fang's.
With the overthrow of Lip-lip, 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 before they had begun to fight.
As rigid as the sled-discipline 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 please 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
stiff-leggedness 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 struggle for life in the days 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 Gray Beaver he walked softly indeed amongst
the full-grown dogs in the camps of the strange man-animals they
encountered.
The months passed by. Still continued the journey of Gray Beaver.
White Fang's strength was developed by the long hours on the trail and
the steady toil at the sled; and it would have seemed that his
mental development was well-nigh 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 Gray 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 this 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 Gray Beaver, might
have sounded these deeps; but Gray Beaver did not caress nor speak
kind words. It was not his way. His primacy was savage, and savagely
he ruled, administering justice with a club, punishing transgression
with the pain of a blow, and rewarding merit, not by kindness, but
by withholding a blow.
So White Fang knew nothing of the heaven a man's hand might
contain for him. Besides, he did not like the hands of the
man-animals. He was suspicious of them. It was true that they
sometimes gave meat, but more often they gave hurt. Hands were
things to keep away from. They hurled stones, wielded sticks and clubs
and whips, administered slaps and clouts, and, when they touched
him, were cunning to hurt with pinch and twist and wrench. In
strange villages he had encountered the hands of the children and
learned that they were cruel to hurt. Also, he had once nearly had
an eye poked out by a toddling papoose. From these experiences he
became suspicious of all children. He could not tolerate them. When
they came near with their ominous hands, he got up.
It was in a village at Great Slave Lake, that, in the course of
resenting the evil of the hands of the man-animals, he came to
modify the law that he had learned from Gray Beaver; namely, that
the unpardonable crime was to bite one of the gods. In this village,
after the custom of all dogs in all villages, White Fang went foraging
for food. A boy was chopping frozen moose-meat with an axe, and the
chips were flying in the snow. White Fang, sliding by in quest of
meat, stopped and began to eat the chips. He observed the boy lay down
the axe and take up a stout club. White Fang sprang clear, just in
time to escape the descending blow. The boy pursued him, and he, a
stranger in the village, fled between two tepees, to find himself
cornered against a high earth bank.
There was no escape for White Fang. The only way out was between the
two tepees, and this the boy guarded. Holding the 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 so quickly that the boy did not know,
either. All the boy knew was that he had in some unaccountable way
been overturned into the snow, and that his club-hand had been
ripped wide open by White Fang's teeth.
But White Fang knew that he had broken the law of the gods. He had
driven his teeth into the sacred flesh of one of them, and could
expect nothing but a most terrible punishment. He fled away to Gray
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. Gray Beaver defended White Fang. So did
Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch. White Fang, listening to the wordy war and
watching the angry gestures, knew that his act was justified. And so
it came that he learned there were gods and gods. There were his gods,
and there were other gods, and between them there was a difference.
Justice or injustice, i...
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