[Previous page]...t was not all. What of his joy, the great love in him, ever
surging and struggling to express itself, succeeded 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 growling, he continued to
nudge and snuggle.
The two men looked at each other. Scott's eyes were shining.
'Gosh!' said Matt in an awe-stricken voice.
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 love-master, White Fang's recovery was rapid.
Two nights and a day he spent in the cabin. Then he sallied forth. The
sled-dogs 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 about him.
'Talk about your rough-houses,' Matt murmured gleefully, standing in
the doorway and looking on. 'Give 'm hell, you wolf! Give 'm hell!-
and then some!'
White Fang did not need the encouragement. The return of the
love-master 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 meekness and humility signifying their fealty to White Fang.
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 love-master, his snuggling was the
deliberate act of putting himself into position of hopeless
helplessness. It was an expression of perfect confidence, of
absolute self-surrender, as though he said. 'I put myself into thy
hands. Work thou thy will with me.'
One night, not long after the return, Scott and Matt sat at a game
of cribbage preliminary to going to bed. 'Fifteen- two, fifteen-
four an' a pair makes six,' Matt 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.
'The wolf's nailed somebody,' Matt said.
A wild scream of fear and anguish hastened them. 'Bring a light!'
Scott shouted, as he sprang outside.
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 the attack on the most vulnerable spot.
From shoulder to wrist of the crossed arms, the coat-sleeve, 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 quieted down at a sharp word from his master.
Matt helped the man to his feet. As he arose he lowered his
crossed arms, exposing the bestial face of Beauty Smith. The
dog-musher 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 rushed into his face.
At the same moment Matt noticed two objects lying in the snow. He
held the lamp close to them, indicating them with his toe for his
employer's benefit- a steel dog-chain and a stout club.
Weedon Scott saw and nodded. Not a word was spoken. The dog-musher
laid his hand on Beauty Smith's shoulder and faced him to the
right-about. No word needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith started.
In the meantime the love-master was patting White Fang and talking
to him.
'Tried to steal you, eh? And you wouldn't have it! Well, well, he
made a mistake, didn't he?'
'Must 'a' thought he had hold of seventeen devils,' the dog-musher
sniggered.
White Fang, still wrought up and bristling, growled and growled, the
hair slowly lying down, the crooning note remote and dim, but
growing in his throat.
PART FIVE.
CHAPTER ONE.
The Long Trail.
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
wolf-dog that haunted the cabin-stoop, and that, though he never
came inside the cabin, knew what went on inside their brains.
'Listen to that, will you!' the dog-musher exclaimed at supper one
night.
Weedon Scott listened. Through the door came a low, anxious whine,
like a sobbing under the breath that has just grown audible. Then came
the long sniff, as White Fang reassured himself that his god was still
inside and had not yet taken himself off in mysterious and solitary
flight.
'I do believe that wolf's on to you,' the dog-musher said.
Weedon Scott looked across at his companion with eyes that almost
pleaded, though this was given the lie by his words.
'What the devil can I do with a wolf in California?' he demanded.
'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 non-committal 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 damage
suits, the authorities would take him away from me and electrocute
him.'
'He's a downright murderer, I know,' was the dog-musher's comment.
Weedon Scott looked at him suspiciously.
'It would never do,' he said decisively.
'It would never do,' Matt concurred. 'Why, you'd have to hire a
man specially to take care of 'm.'
The other's suspicion was allayed. He nodded cheerfully. In the
silence that followed, the low, half-sobbing whine was heard at the
door and then the long, questing sniff.
'There's no denyin' he thinks a hell of a lot of you,' Matt said.
The other glared at him in sudden wrath. 'Damn it all, man! I know
my own mind and what's best!'
'I'm agreein' with you, only...'
'Only what?' Scott snapped out.
'Only...' the dog-musher began softly, then changed his mind and
betrayed a rising anger of his own, 'Well, you needn't get so
all-fired het up about it. Judgin' by your actions one'd think you
didn't know your own mind.'
Weedon Scott debated with himself for a while, and then said more
gently: 'You are right, Matt. I don't know my own mind, and that's
what's the trouble.'
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 Sardanapalus he knows you're goin'
is what gets me,' the dog-musher continued innocently.
'It's beyond me, Matt,' Scott answered, with a mournful shake of the
head.
Then came the day when, through the open cabin door, White Fang
saw the fatal grip on the floor and the love-master 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 sensed
it. He now reasoned it. His god was preparing for another flight.
And since he had not taken him with him before, so, now, he could look
to be left behind.
That night he lifted the long wolf-howl. 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 rubbish-heap to mark the site of Gray
Beaver's tepee, so now he pointed his muzzle to the cold stars and
told to them his woe.
Inside the cabin the two men had just gone to bed.
'He's gone off his food again,' Matt remarked from his bunk.
There was a grunt from Weedon Scott's bunk, and a stir of blankets.
'From the way he cut up the other time you went away, I wouldn't
wonder this time but what he died.'
The blankets in the other bunk stirred irritably.
'Oh, shut up!' Scott cried out through the darkness. 'You nag
worse than a woman.'
'I'm agreein' with you,' the dog-musher answered, and Weedon Scott
was not quite sure whether or not the other had snickered.
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 he watched the operation.
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, good-by growl.'
But White Fang refused to growl. Instead, and after a wistful,
searching look, he snuggled in, burrowing his head out of sight
between the master's arm and body.
'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, deep-drawn sniffs.
'You must take good care of him, Matt,' Scott said, as they
started down the hill. 'Write and let me know how he gets along.'
'Sure,' the dog-musher answered. 'But listen to that, will you!'
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 bursting upward again with rush upon rush of grief.
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 White Fang.
The dog-musher swore softly, in awe-stricken accents. Scott could
only look in wonder.
'Did you lock the front door?' Matt demanded.
The other nodded, and asked, 'How about the back?'
'You just bet I did,' was the fervent reply.
White Fang flattened his ears ingratiatingly, but remained where
he was, making no attempt to approach.
'I'll have to take 'm ashore with me.'
Matt made a couple...
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