[Previous page]...ng to fasten his deadly
grip on White Fang's throat. The bulldog missed by a hair's-breadth,
and cries of praise went up as White Fang doubled suddenly out of
danger in the opposite direction.
The time went by. White Fang still danced on, dodging and
doubling, leaping in and out, and even 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 those lightning snaps that were beyond his
foreseeing and guarding.
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
counter-circlings. 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 half-somersault 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 feet, but
in that instant Cherokee's teeth closed on his throat.
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 a 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 flesh-love 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 to move, for movement was the expression of its existence.
Round and round he went, whirling and turning and reversing,
trying to shake off the fifty-pound 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, willy-nilly, careless of any hurt that might thereby come
to it. That did not count. The grip was the thing, and the grip he
kept.
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 in
to his throat. The bulldog's method was to hold what he had, and
when opportunity favored to work in for more. Opportunity favored 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 hind-quarters in, and, with
his feet digging into his enemy's abdomen above him, he began to
claw with long, tearing strokes. Cherokee might well have been
disemboweled had he not quickly pivoted on his grip and got his body
off of White Fang's and at right angles to it.
There was no escaping that grip. It was like Fate itself, and was
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 well-nigh 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 the moments went by.
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 hind-legs and lifting his foe clear of the earth, he struggled
vainly to shake off the clinging death.
At last he fell, toppling backward, exhausted; and the bulldog
promptly shifted his grip, getting in closer, mangling more and more
of the fur-folded 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 clamor 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 held their terrible grip on White Fang's throat.
It was at this time that a diversion came to the spectators. There
was a jingle of bells. Dog-mushers' 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 sleds 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 dog-musher wore a mustache, but the other, a taller
and younger man, was smooth-shaven, his skin rosy from the pounding of
his blood and the running in the frosty air.
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 armor 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 skin-fold.
In the meantime, the abysmal brute in Beauty Smith had been rising
up 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. A 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 foot,
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.
'You cowards!' he cried. 'You beasts!'
He was in a rage himself- a sane rage. His gray eyes seemed metallic
and steel-like 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 effort to get up.
'Come on, Matt, lend a hand,' the newcomer called to the dog-musher,
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 was the
younger man endeavored 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 with every
expulsion of breath, 'Beasts!'
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.
'You damn beasts!' he finally exploded, and went back to his task.
'It's no use, Mr. Scott, you can't break 'm apart that way,' Matt
said at last.
The pair paused and surveyed the locked dogs.
'Ain't bleedin much,' Matt announced. 'Ain't got all the way in
yet.'
'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 jaw. 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 only doing his duty by keeping
his grip.
'Won't some of you help?' Scott cried desperately at the crowd.
But no help was offered. Instead, the crowd began sarcastically to
cheer him on and showered him with facetious advice.
'You'll have to get a pry,' Matt counseled.
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 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
paused beside Scott and touched him on the shoulder, saying ominously:
'Don't break them teeth, strange...
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