[Previous page]...hip. At the first
cut of the whip, White Fang left the chicken for the man. A club might
have stopped White Fang, but not a whip. Silently, without
flinching, he took a second cut in his forward rush, and as he
leaped for the throat the groom cried out, 'My God!' and staggered
backward. He dropped the whip and shielded his throat with his arms.
In consequence, his forearm was ripped open to the bone.
The man was badly frightened. It was not so much White Fang's
ferocity as it was his silence that unnerved the groom. Still
protecting his throat and face with his torn and bleeding arm, he
tried to retreat to the barn. And it would have gone hard with him had
not Collie appeared on the scene. As she had saved Dick's life, she
now saved the groom's. She rushed upon White Fang in frenzied wrath.
She had been right. She had known better than the blundering gods. All
her suspicions were justified. Here was the ancient marauder up to his
old tricks again.
The groom escaped into the stables, and White Fang backed away
before Collie's wicked teeth, or presented his shoulder to them and
circled round and round. But Collie did not give over, as was her
wont, after a decent interval of chastisement. On the contrary, she
grew more excited and angry every moment, until, in the end, White
Fang flung dignity to the winds and frankly fled away from her
across the fields.
'He'll learn to leave chickens alone,' the master said. 'But I can't
give him the lesson until I catch him in the act.'
Two nights later came the act, but on a more generous scale than the
master had anticipated. White Fang had observed closely the
chicken-yards and the habits of the chickens. In the night-time, after
they had gone to roost, he climbed to the top of a pile of newly
hauled lumber. From there he gained the roof of a chicken-house,
passed over the ridgepole and dropped to the ground inside. A moment
later he was inside the house, and the slaughter began.
In the morning, when the master came out on the porch, fifty white
Leghorn hens, laid out in a row by the groom, greeted his eyes. He
whistled to himself, softly, first with surprise, and then, at the
end, with admiration. His eyes were likewise greeted by White Fang,
but about the latter there were no signs of shame nor guilt. He
carried himself with pride, as though, forsooth, he had achieved a
deed praiseworthy and meritorious. There was about him no
consciousness of sin. The master's lips tightened as he faced the
disagreeable task. Then he talked harshly to the unwitting culprit,
and in his voice there was nothing but godlike wrath. Also, he held
White Fang's nose down to the slain hens, and at the same time
cuffed him soundly.
White Fang never raided a chicken-roost again. It was against the
law, and he had learned it. Then the master took him into the
chicken-yards. White Fang's natural impulse, when he saw the live food
fluttering about him and under his very nose, was to spring upon it.
He obeyed the impulse, but was checked by the master's voice. They
continued in the yards for half an hour. Time and again the impulse
surged over White Fang, and each time, as he yielded to it, he was
checked by the master's voice. Thus it was he learned the law, and ere
he left the domain of the chickens, he had learned to ignore their
existence.
'You can never cure a chicken-killer.' Judge Scott shook his head
sadly at the luncheon table, when his son narrated the lesson he had
given White Fang. 'Once they've got the habit and the taste of
blood...' Again he shook his head sadly.
But Weedon Scott did not agree with his father.
'I'll tell you what I'll do,' he challenged finally. 'I'll lock
White Fang in with the chickens all afternoon.'
'But think of the chickens,' objected the Judge.
'And furthermore,' the son went on, 'for every chicken he kills,
I'll pay you one dollar gold coin of the realm.'
'But you should penalize father, too,' interposed Beth.
Her sister seconded her, and a chorus of approval arose from
around the table. Judge Scott nodded his head in agreement.
'All right.' Weedon Scott pondered for a moment. 'And if, at the end
of the afternoon, White Fang hasn't harmed a chicken, for every ten
minutes of the time he has spent in the yard, you will have to say
to him, gravely and with deliberation, just as if you were sitting
on the bench and solemnly passing judgment, "White Fang, you are
smarter than I thought."'
From hidden points of vantage the family watched the performance.
But it was a fizzle. Locked in the yard and there deserted by the
master, White Fang lay down and went to sleep. Once he got up and
walked over to the trough for a drink of water. The chickens he calmly
ignored. So far as he was concerned they did not exist. At four
o'clock he executed a running jump, gained the roof of the chicken
house and leaped to the ground outside, whence he sauntered gravely to
the house. He had learned the law. And on the porch, before the
delighted family, Judge Scott, face to face with White Fang, said
slowly and solemnly sixteen times, 'White Fang, you are smarter than I
thought.'
But it was the multiplicity of laws that befuddled White Fang and
often brought him into disgrace. He had to learn that he must not
touch the chickens that belonged to other gods. Then there were
cats, and rabbits, and turkeys; all these he must let alone. In
fact, when he had but partly learned the law, his impression was
that he must leave all live things alone. Out in the back-pasture, a
quail could flutter up under his nose unharmed. All tense and
trembling with eagerness and desire, he mastered his instinct and
stood still. He was obeying the will of the gods.
And then, one day, again out in the back-pasture, he saw Dick
start a jackrabbit and run it. The master himself was looking on and
did not interfere. Nay, he encouraged White Fang to join in the chase.
And thus he learned that there was no taboo on jackrabbits. In the end
he worked out the complete law. Between him and all domestic animals
there must be no hostilities. If not amity, at least neutrality must
obtain. But the other animals- the squirrels, and quail, and
cottontails- were creatures of the Wild who had never yielded
allegiance to man. They were the lawful prey of any dog. It was only
the tame that the gods protected, and between the tame deadly strife
was not permitted. The gods held the power of life and death over
their subjects, and the gods were jealous of their power.
Life was complex in the Santa Clara Valley after the simplicities of
the Northland. And the chief thing demanded by these intricacies of
civilization was control, restraint- a poise of self that was as
delicate as the fluttering of gossamer wings and at the same time as
rigid as steel. Life had a thousand faces, and White Fang found he
must meet them all. Thus, when he went to town, in to San Jose running
behind the carriage or loafing about the streets when the carriage
stopped, life flowed past him, deep and wide and varied, continually
impinging upon his senses, demanding of him instant and endless
adjustments and correspondences, and compelling him, almost always, to
suppress his natural impulses.
There were butcher-shops where meat hung within reach. This meat
he must not touch. There were cats at the houses the master visited
that must be let alone. And there were dogs everywhere that snarled at
him and that he must not attack. And then, on the crowded sidewalks,
there were persons innumerable whose attention he attracted. They
would stop and look at him, point him out to one another, examine him,
talk to him, and, worst of all, pat him. And these perilous contacts
from all these strange hands he must endure. Yet this endurance he
achieved. Furthermore he got over being awkward and self-conscious. In
a lofty way he received the attentions of the multitudes of strange
gods. With condescension he accepted their condescension. On the other
hand, there was something about him that prevented great
familiarity. They patted him on the head and passed on, contented
and pleased with their own daring.
But it was not all easy for White Fang. Running behind the
carriage in the outskirts of San Jose, he encountered certain small
boys who made a practice of flinging stones at him. Yet he knew that
it was not permitted him to pursue and drag them down. Here he was
compelled to violate his instinct of self-preservation, and violate it
he did, for he was becoming tame and qualifying himself for
civilization.
Nevertheless, White Fang was not quite satisfied with the
arrangement. He had no abstract ideas about justice and fair play. But
there is a certain sense of equity that resides in life, and it was
this sense in him that resented the unfairness of his being
permitted no defense against the stone-throwers. He forgot that in the
covenant entered into between him and the gods they were pledged to
care for him and defend him. But one day the master sprang from the
carriage, whip in hand, and gave the stone-throwers a thrashing. After
that they threw stones no more, and White Fang understood and was
satisfied.
One other experience of similar nature was his. On the way to
town, hanging around the saloon at the crossroads, were three dogs
that made a practice of rushing out upon him when he went by.
Knowing his deadly method of fighting, the master had never ceased
impressing upon White Fang the law that he must not fight. As a
result, having learned the lesson well, White Fang was hard put
whenever he passed the crossroads saloon. After the first rush, each
time, his snarl kept the three dogs at a distance, but they trailed
along behind, yelping and bickering and insulting him. This endured
for some time. The men at the saloon even urged the dogs on to
attack White Fang. One day they openly sicked the dogs on him. The
master stopped the carriage.
'Go to it,' he said to White Fang.
But White Fang could not believe. He looked at the master, and he
looked at the dogs. Then he looked back eagerly and questioningly at
the master.
The master nodded his head. 'Go to them, old fellow. Eat them up.'
White Fang no longer hesitated. He turned and leaped silently
among his enemies. All three faced him. There was a great snarling and
growling, a clashing of teeth and a flurry of bodies. The dust of
the road arose in a cloud and screened the battle. But at the end of
several minutes two dogs were struggling in the dirt and the third was
in full flight. He leaped a ditch, went through a rail fence, and fled
across a field. White Fang followed, sliding over the ground in wolf
fashion and with wolf speed, swiftly and without noise, and in the
center of the field he dragged down and slew the dog.
With this triple killing his main trouble with dogs ceased. The word
went up and down the valley, and men saw to it that their dogs did not
molest the Fighting Wolf.
CHAPTER FOUR.
The Call of Kind.
THE MONTHS CAME AND went. There was plenty of food and no work in
the Southland, and White Fang lived fat and prosperous and happy.
Not alone was he in the geographical Southland, for he was in the
Southland of Life. Human kindness was like a sun shining upon him, and
he flourished like a flower planted in good soil.
And yet he remained somehow different from other dogs. He knew the
law even better than did the dogs that had known no other life, and he
observed the law more punctiliously; but still there was about him a
suggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the Wild still lingered in
him and the wolf in him merely slept.
He never chummed with other dogs. Lonely he had lived, so far as his
kind was concerned, and lonely he would continue to live. In his
puppyhood, under the persecution of Lip-lip and the puppy-pack, and in
his fighting days with Beauty Smith, he had acquired a fixed
aversion for dogs. The natural course of his life had bee...
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