[Previous page]...t 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 his privilege to resent it
with his teeth. And this also was a law of the gods.
Before the day was out, White Fang was to learn more about this law.
Mit-sah, 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 Mit-sah. 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 realized that this was Mit-sah, 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 Mit-sah told his
story in camp, Gray Beaver ordered meat to be given to White Fang.
He ordered much meat to be given, and White Fang, gorged and sleepy by
the fire, knew that the law had received its verification.
It was in line with these experiences that White Fang came to
learn the law of property and the duty of the defense 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 all-powerful, 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 Gray Beaver's property alone.
One thing, in this connection, White Fang quickly learned, 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 Gray Beaver's
coming to his aid. He came to know that it was not fear of him that
drove the thief away, but fear of Gray 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 Gray Beaver. One result
of this was to make White Fang more ferocious and indomitable, and
more solitary.
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 flesh-and-blood 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 god's property,
defended his body, worked for him, and obeyed him.
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 he ever met
Kiche again he would not desert his god to go with her. His allegiance
to man seemed somehow a law of his being greater than the love of
liberty, of kind and kin.
CHAPTER SIX.
The Famine.
THE SPRING OF THE YEAR was at hand when Gray Beaver finished his
long journey. It was April, and White Fang was a year old when he
pulled into the home village and was loosed from the harness by
Mit-sah. Though a long way from his full growth, White Fang, next to
Lip-lip, 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 full-grown
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 wolf-gray, and to all appearances he was true wolf himself. The
quarter-strain of dog he had inherited from Kiche had left no mark
on him physically, though it played its part in his mental make-up.
He wandered through the village, recognizing 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 case 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
youth.
It was at the cutting-up of a moose, fresh-killed, that White Fang
learned of the changed relations in which he stood to the dog-world.
He had got for himself a hoof and part of the shin-bone, 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
shin-bone between them.
Baseek was old, and already he had come to know the increasing valor
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 shin-bone 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 inglorious.
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 self-control 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 staggering backward away from the meat.
The situation was now reversed. White Fang stood over the shin-bone,
bristling and menacing, while Baseek stood a little way off, preparing
to retreat. He dared not risk a fight with this young lightning-flash,
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 shin-bone, as though both were beneath his
notice and unworthy of consideration, he stalked grandly away. Nor,
until well out of sight, did he stop to lick his bleeding wounds.
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
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
preeminently desirable.
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 centre-pin of the universe. The
old familiar feelings of that time came back upon him, surged up
within him. He bounded toward 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 and puzzled.
But it was not Kiche's fault. A wolf-mother 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 gave her the right to resent such intrusions.
One of the puppies sprawled up to White Fang. They were
half-brothers, only they did not know it. White Fang sniffed the puppy
curiously, whereupon Kiche rushed upon him, gashing his 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 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
with females. He did not know anything about this law, for it was no
generalization of the mind, not a something acquired by experience
in the world. He knew it was a secret prompting, as an urge of
instinct- of ...
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