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master around the neck. White Fang, however, was beginning to tolerate
this act. No harm seemed to come of it, while the noises the gods made
were certainly not threatening. These gods also made overtures to
White Fang, but he warned them off with a snarl, and the master did
likewise with word of mouth. At such times White Fang leaned in
close against the master's legs and received reassuring pats on the
head.
The hound, under the command, 'Dick! Lie down, sir!' had gone up the
steps and lain down to one side on the porch, still growling and
keeping a sullen watch on the intruder. Collie had been taken in
charge by one of the woman-gods, who held arms around her neck and
petted and caressed her; but Collie was very much perplexed and
worried, whining and restless, outraged by the permitted presence of
this wolf and confident that the gods were making a mistake.
All the gods started up the steps to enter the house. White Fang
followed closely at the master's heels. Dick, on the porch, growled,
and White Fang, on the steps, bristled and growled back.
'Take Collie inside and leave the two of them to fight it out,'
suggested Scott's father. 'After that they'll be friends.'
'Then White Fang, to show his friendship, will have to be chief
mourner at the funeral,' laughed the master.
The elder Scott looked incredulously, first at White Fang, then at
Dick, and finally at his son.
'You mean that...?'
Weedon nodded his head. 'I mean just that. You'd have a dead Dick
inside one minute- two minutes at the farthest.'
He turned to White Fang. 'Come on, you wolf. It's you that'll have
to come inside.'
White Fang walked stiff-legged up the steps and across the porch,
with tail rigidly erect, keeping his eyes on Dick to guard against a
flank attack, and at the same time prepared for whatever fierce
manifestation of the unknown that might pounce out upon him from the
interior of the house. But no thing of fear pounced out, and when he
had gained the inside he scouted carefully around, looking for it
and finding it not. Then he lay down with a contented grunt at the
master's feet, observing all that went on, ever ready to spring to his
feet and fight for life with the terrors he felt must lurk under the
trap-roof of the dwelling.
CHAPTER THREE.
The God's Domain.
NOT ONLY WAS WHITE FANG adaptable by nature, but he had traveled
much, and knew the meaning and necessity of adjustment. Here, in
Sierra Vista, which was the name of Judge Scott's place, White Fang
quickly began to make himself at home. He had no further serious
trouble with the dogs. They knew more about the ways of the
Southland gods than he did, and in their eyes he had qualified when he
accompanied the gods inside the house. Wolf that he was, and
unprecedented as it was, the gods had sanctioned his presence, and
they, the dogs of the gods, could only recognize this sanction.
Dick, perforce, had to go through a few stiff formalities at
first, after which he calmly accepted White Fang as an addition to the
premises. Had Dick had his way, they would have been good friends; but
White Fang was averse to friendship. All he asked of other dogs was to
be let alone. His whole life he had kept aloof from his kind, and he
still desired to keep aloof. Dick's overtures bothered him, so he
snarled Dick away. In the north he had learned the lesson that he must
let the master's dogs alone, and he did not forget that lesson now.
But he insisted on his own privacy and self-seclusion, and so
thoroughly ignored Dick that that good-natured creature finally gave
him up and scarcely took as much interest in him as in the
hitching-post near the stable.
Not so with Collie. While she accepted him because it was the
mandate of the gods, that was no reason that she should leave him in
peace. Woven into her being was the memory of countless crimes he
and his had perpetrated against her ancestry. Not in a day nor a
generation were the ravaged sheepfolds to be forgotten. All this was a
spur to her, pricking her to retaliation. She could not fly in the
face of the gods who permitted him, but that did not prevent her
from making life miserable for him in petty ways. A feud, ages old,
was between them, and she, for one, would see to it that he was
reminded.
So Collie took advantage of her sex to pick upon White Fang and
maltreat him. His instinct would not permit him to attack her, while
her persistence would not permit him to ignore her. When she rushed at
him he turned his fur-protected shoulder to her sharp teeth and walked
away stiff-legged and stately. When she forced him too hard, he was
compelled to go about in a circle, his shoulder presented to her,
his head turned from her, and on his face and in his eyes a patient
and bored expression. Sometimes, however, a nip on his hind-quarters
hastened his retreat and made it anything but stately. But as a rule
he managed to maintain a dignity that was almost solemnity. He ignored
her existence whenever it was possible, and made it a point to keep
out of her way. When he saw or heard her coming, he got up and
walked off.
There was much in other matters for White Fang to learn. Life in the
Northland was simplicity itself when compared with the complicated
affairs of Sierra Vista. First of all, he had to learn the family of
the master. In a way he was prepared to do this. As Mit-sah and
Kloo-kooch had belonged to Gray Beaver, sharing his food, his fire,
and his blankets, so now, at Sierra Vista, belonged to the love-master
all the denizens of the house.
But in this matter there was a difference, and many differences.
Sierra Vista was a far vaster affair than the tepee of Gray Beaver.
There were many persons to be considered. There was Judge Scott, and
there was his wife. There were the master's two sisters, Beth and
Mary. There was his wife, Alice, and then there were his children,
Weedon and Maud, toddlers of four and six. There was no way for
anybody to tell him about all these people, and of blood-ties and
relationship he knew nothing whatever and never would be capable of
knowing. Yet he quickly worked it out that all of them belonged to the
master. Then, by observation, whenever opportunity offered, by study
of action, speech, and the very intonations of the voice, he slowly
learned the intimacy and the degree of favor they enjoyed with the
master. And by this ascertained standard, White Fang treated them
accordingly. What was of value to the master he valued; what was
dear to the master was to be cherished by White Fang and guarded
carefully.
Thus it was with the two children. All his life he had disliked
children. He hated and feared their hands. The lessons were not tender
that he had learned of their tyranny and cruelty in the days of the
Indian villages. When Weedon and Maud had first approached him, he
growled warningly and looked malignant. A cuff from the master and a
sharp word had then compelled him to permit their caresses, though
he growled and growled under their tiny hands, and in the growl
there was no crooning note. Later, he observed that the boy and girl
were of great value in the master's eyes. Then it was that no cuff nor
sharp word was necessary before they could pat him.
Yet White Fang was never effusively affectionate. He yielded to
the master's children with an ill but honest grace, and endured
their fooling as one would endure a painful operation. When he could
no longer endure, he would get up and stalk determinedly away from
them. But after a time, he grew even to like the children. Still he
was not demonstrative. He would not go up to them. On the other
hand, instead of walking away at sight of them, he waited for them
to come to him. And still later, it was noticed that a pleased light
came into his eyes when he saw them approaching, and that he looked
after them with an appearance of curious regret when they left him for
other amusements.
All this was a matter of development, and took time. Next in his
regard, after the children, was Judge Scott. There were two reasons,
possibly, for this. First, he was evidently a valuable possession of
the master's, and next, he was undemonstrative. White Fang liked to
lie at his feet on the wide porch when he read the newspaper, from
time to time favoring White Fang with a look or a word-
untroublesome tokens that he recognized White Fang's presence and
existence. But this was only when the master was not around. When
the master appeared, all other beings ceased to exist so far as
White Fang was concerned.
White Fang allowed all the members of the family to pet him and make
much of him; but he never gave to them what he gave to the master.
No caress of theirs could put the love-croon into his throat, and, try
as they would, they could never persuade him into snuggling against
them. This expression of abandon and surrender, of absolute trust,
he reserved for the master alone. In fact, he never regarded the
members of the family in any other light than possessions of the
love-master.
Also White Fang had early come to differentiate between the family
and the servants of the household. The latter were afraid of him,
while he merely refrained from attacking them. This because he
considered that they were likewise possessions of the master.
Between White Fang and them existed a neutrality and no more. They
cooked for the master and washed the dishes and did other things, just
as Matt had done up in the Klondike. They were, in short,
appurtenances of the household.
Outside the household there was even more for White Fang to learn.
The master's domain was wide and complex, yet it had its metes and
bounds.
The land itself ceased at the country road. Outside was the common
domain of all gods- the roads and streets. Then inside other fences
were the particular domains of other dogs. A myriad laws governed
all these things and determined conduct; yet he did not know the
speech of the gods, nor was there any way for him to learn save by
experience. He obeyed his natural impulses until they ran him
counter to some law. When this had been done a few times, he learned
the law and after that observed it.
But most potent in his education were the cuff of the master's hand,
the censure of the master's voice. Because of White Fang's very
great love, a cuff from the master hurt him far more than any
beating Gray Beaver or Beauty Smith had ever given him. They had
hurt only the flesh of him; beneath the flesh the spirit had still
raged, splendid and invincible. But with the master the cuff was
always too light to hurt the flesh. Yet it went deeper. It was an
expression of the master's disapproval, and White Fang's spirit wilted
under it.
In point of fact, the cuff was rarely administered. The master's
voice was sufficient. By it White Fang knew whether he did right or
not. By it he trimmed his conduct and adjusted his actions. It was the
compass by which he steered and learned to chart the manners of a
new land and life.
In the Northland, the only domesticated animal was the dog. All
other animals lived in the Wild, and were, when not too formidable,
lawful spoil for any dogs. All his days White Fang had foraged among
the live things for food. It did not enter his head that in the
Southland it was otherwise. But this he was to learn early in his
residence in Santa Clara Valley. Sauntering around the corner of the
house in the early morning, he came upon a chicken that had escaped
from the chicken-yard. White Fang's natural impulse was to eat it. A
couple of bounds, a flash of teeth and a frightened squawk, and he had
scooped in the adventurous fowl. It was farm-bred and fat and
tender; and White Fang licked his chops and decided that such fare was
good.
Later in the day, he chanced upon another stray chicken near the
stables. One of the grooms ran to the rescue. He did not know White
Fang's breed, so for weapon he took a light buggy-w...
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