PART
3
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C
HAPTER
1.
T
HE
M
AKERS
O
F
F
IRE
The cub came upon it suddenly. It was his own fault. He had been
careless. He had left the cave and run down to the stream to drink. It might
have been that he took no notice because he was heavy with sleep. (He had
been out all night on the meat-trail, and had but just then awakened.) And
his carelessness might have been due to the familiarity of the trail to the
pool. He had travelled it often, and nothing had ever happened on it.
He went down past the blasted pine, crossed the open space, and trotted in
amongst the trees. Then, at the same instant, he saw and smelt. Before
him, sitting silently on their haunches, were five live things, the like of which
he had never seen before. It was his first glimpse of mankind. But at the
sight of him the five men did not spring to their feet, nor show their teeth,
nor snarl. They did not move, but sat there, silent and ominous.
Nor did the cub move. Every instinct of his nature would have impelled him
to dash wildly away, had there not suddenly and for the first time arisen in
him another and counter instinct. A great awe descended upon him. He
was beaten down to movelessness by an overwhelming sense of his own
weakness and littleness. Here was mastery and power, something far and
away beyond him.
The cub had never seen man, yet the instinct concerning man was his. In
dim ways he recognised in man the animal that had fought itself to primacy
over the other animals of the Wild. Not alone out of his own eyes, but out
of the eyes of all his ancestors was the cub now looking upon man—out of
eyes that had circled in the darkness around countless winter camp-fires,
that had peered from safe distances and from the hearts of thickets at the
strange, two-legged animal that was lord over living things. The spell of the
cub’s heritage was upon him, the fear and the respect born of the centuries
of struggle and the accumulated experience of the generations. The
heritage was too compelling for a wolf that was only a cub. Had he been
full-grown, he would have run away. As it was, he cowered down in a
paralysis of fear, already half proffering the submission that his kind had
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proffered from the first time a wolf came in to sit by man’s fire and be made
warm.
One of the Indians arose and walked over to him and stooped above
him. The cub cowered closer to the ground. It was the unknown,
objectified at last, in concrete flesh and blood, bending over him and
reaching down to seize hold of him. His hair bristled involuntarily; his lips
writhed back and his little fangs were bared. The hand, poised like doom
above him, hesitated, and the man spoke laughing, “
Wabam wabisca ip pit
tah
.” (“Look! The white fangs!”)
The other Indians laughed loudly, and urged the man on to pick up the
cub. As the hand descended closer and closer, there raged within the cub a
battle of the instincts. He experienced two great impulsions—to yield and
to fight. The resulting action was a compromise. He did both. He yielded till
the hand almost touched him. Then he fought, his teeth flashing in a snap
that sank them into the hand. The next moment he received a clout
alongside the head that knocked him over on his side. Then all fight fled out
of him. His puppyhood and the instinct of submission took charge of
him. He sat up on his haunches and ki-yi’d. But the man whose hand he had
bitten was angry. The cub received a clout on the other side of his
head. Whereupon he sat up and ki-yi’d louder than ever.
The four Indians laughed more loudly, while even the man who had been
bitten began to laugh. They surrounded the cub and laughed at him, while
he wailed out his terror and his hurt. In the midst of it, he heard
something. The Indians heard it too. But the cub knew what it was, and
with a last, long wail that had in it more of triumph than grief, he ceased his
noise and waited for the coming of his mother, of his ferocious and
indomitable mother who fought and killed all things and was never
afraid. She was snarling as she ran. She had heard the cry of her cub and
was dashing to save him.
She bounded in amongst them, her anxious and militant motherhood
making her anything but a pretty sight. But to the cub the spectacle of her
protective rage was pleasing. He uttered a glad little cry and bounded to
meet her, while the man-animals went back hastily several steps. The she-
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wolf stood over against her cub, facing the men, with bristling hair, a snarl
rumbling deep in her throat. Her face was distorted and malignant with
menace, even the bridge of the nose wrinkling from tip to eyes so
prodigious was her snarl.
Then it was that a cry went up from one of the men. “Kiche!” was what he
uttered. It was an exclamation of surprise. The cub felt his mother wilting
at the sound.
“Kiche!” the man cried again, this time with sharpness and authority.
And then the cub saw his mother, the she-wolf, the fearless one, crouching
down till her belly touched the ground, whimpering, wagging her tail,
making peace signs. The cub could not understand. He was appalled. The
awe of man rushed over him again. His instinct had been true. His mother
verified it. She, too, rendered submission to the man-animals.
The man who had spoken came over to her. He put his hand upon her head,
and she only crouched closer. She did not snap, nor threaten to snap. The
other men came up, and surrounded her, and felt her, and pawed her, which
actions she made no attempt to resent. They were greatly excited, and
made many noises with their mouths. These noises were not indication of
danger, the cub decided, as he crouched near his mother still bristling from
time to time but doing his best to submit.
“It is not strange,” an Indian was saying. “Her father was a wolf. It is true,
her mother was a dog; but did not my brother tie her out in the woods all of
three nights in the mating season? Therefore was the father of Kiche a
wolf.”
“It is a year, Grey Beaver, since she ran away,” spoke a second Indian.
“It is not strange, Salmon Tongue,” Grey Beaver answered. “It was the time
of the famine, and there was no meat for the dogs.”
“She has lived with the wolves,” said a third Indian.
“So it would seem, Three Eagles,” Grey Beaver answered, laying his hand on
the cub; “and this be the sign of it.”
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The cub snarled a little at the touch of the hand, and the hand flew back to
administer a clout. Whereupon the cub covered its fangs, and sank down
submissively, while the hand, returning, rubbed behind his ears, and up and
down his back.
“This be the sign of it,” Grey Beaver went on. “It is plain that his mother is
Kiche. But his father was a wolf. Wherefore is there in him little dog and
much wolf. His fangs be white, and White Fang shall be his name. I have
spoken. He is my dog. For was not Kiche my brother’s dog? And is not my
brother dead?”
The cub, who had thus received a name in the world, lay and watched. For a
time the man-animals continued to make their mouth-noises. Then Grey
Beaver took a knife from a sheath that hung around his neck, and went into
the thicket and cut a stick. White Fang watched him. He notched the stick
at each end and in the notches fastened strings of raw-hide. One string he
tied around the throat of Kiche. Then he led her to a small pine, around
which he tied the other string.
White Fang followed and lay down beside her. Salmon Tongue’s hand
reached out to him and rolled him over on his back. Kiche looked on
anxiously. White Fang felt fear mounting in him again. He could not quite
suppress a snarl, but he made no offer to snap. The hand, with fingers
crooked and spread apart, rubbed his stomach in a playful way and rolled
him from side to side. It was ridiculous and ungainly, lying there on his back
with legs sprawling in the air. Besides, it was a position of such utter
helplessness that White Fang’s whole nature revolted against it. He could
do nothing to defend himself. If this man-animal intended harm, White Fang
knew that he could not escape it. How could he spring away with his four
legs in the air above him? Yet submission made him master his fear, and he
only growled softly. This growl he could not suppress; nor did the man-
animal resent it by giving him a blow on the head. And furthermore, such
was the strangeness of it, White Fang experienced an unaccountable
sensation of pleasure as the hand rubbed back and forth. When he was
rolled on his side he ceased to growl, when the fingers pressed and prodded
at the base of his ears the pleasurable sensation increased; and when, with a
final rub and scratch, the man left him alone and went away, all fear had
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died out of White Fang. He was to know fear many times in his dealing with
man; yet it was a token of the fearless companionship with man that was
ultimately to be his.
After a time, White Fang heard strange noises approaching. He was quick in
his classification, for he knew them at once for man-animal noises. A few
minutes later the remainder of the tribe, strung out as it was on the march,
trailed in. There were more men and many women and children, forty souls
of them, and all heavily burdened with camp equipage and outfit. Also there
were many dogs; and these, with the exception of the part-grown puppies,
were likewise burdened with camp outfit. On their backs, in bags that
fastened tightly around underneath, the dogs carried from twenty to thirty
pounds of weight.
White Fang had never seen dogs before, but at sight of them he felt that
they were his own kind, only somehow different. But they displayed little
difference from the wolf when they discovered the cub and his
mother. There was a rush. White Fang bristled and snarled and snapped in
the face of the open-mouthed oncoming wave of dogs, and went down and
under them, feeling the sharp slash of teeth in his body, himself biting and
tearing at the legs and bellies above him. There was a great uproar. He
could hear the snarl of Kiche as she fought for him; and he could hear the
cries of the man-animals, the sound of clubs striking upon bodies, and the
yelps of pain from the dogs so struck.
Only a few seconds elapsed before he was on his feet again. He could now
see the man-animals driving back the dogs with clubs and stones, defending
him, saving him from the savage teeth of his kind that somehow was not his
kind. And though there was no reason in his brain for a clear conception of
so abstract a thing as justice, nevertheless, in his own way, he felt the justice
of the man-animals, and he knew them for what they were—makers of law
and executors of law. Also, he appreciated the power with which they
administered the law. Unlike any animals he had ever encountered, they did
not bite nor claw. They enforced their live strength with the power of dead
things. Dead things did their bidding. Thus, sticks and stones, directed by
these strange creatures, leaped through the air like living things, inflicting
grievous hurts upon the dogs.
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To his mind this was power unusual, power inconceivable and beyond the
natural, power that was godlike. White Fang, in the very nature of him,
could never know anything about gods; at the best he could know only
things that were beyond knowing—but the wonder and awe that he had of
these man-animals in ways resembled what would be the wonder and awe
of man at sight of some celestial creature, on a mountain top, hurling
thunderbolts from either hand at an astonished world.
The last dog had been driven back. The hubbub died down. And White Fang
licked his hurts and meditated upon this, his first taste of pack-cruelty and
his introduction to the pack. He had never dreamed that his own kind
consisted of more than One Eye, his mother, and himself. They had
constituted a kind apart, and here, abruptly, he had discovered many more
creatures apparently of his own kind. And there was a subconscious
resentment that these, his kind, at first sight had pitched upon him and tried
to destroy him. In the same way he resented his mother being tied with a
stick, even though it was done by the superior man-animals. It savoured of
the trap, of bondage. Yet of the trap and of bondage he knew
nothing. Freedom to roam and run and lie down at will, had been his
heritage; and here it was being infringed upon. His mother’s movements
were restricted to the length of a stick, and by the length of that same stick
was he restricted, for he had not yet got beyond the need of his mother’s
side.
He did not like it. Nor did he like it when the man-animals arose and went on
with their march; for a tiny man-animal took the other end of the stick and
led Kiche captive behind him, and behind Kiche followed White Fang, greatly
perturbed and worried by this new adventure he had entered upon.
They went down the valley of the stream, far beyond White Fang’s widest
ranging, until they came to the end of the valley, where the stream ran into
the Mackenzie River. Here, where canoes were cached on poles high in the
air and where stood fish-racks for the drying of fish, camp was made; and
White Fang looked on with wondering eyes. The superiority of these man-
animals increased with every moment. There was their mastery over all
these sharp-fanged dogs. It breathed of power. But greater than that, to
the wolf-cub, was their mastery over things not alive; their capacity to
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communicate motion to unmoving things; their capacity to change the very
face of the world.
It was this last that especially affected him. The elevation of frames of poles
caught his eye; yet this in itself was not so remarkable, being done by the
same creatures that flung sticks and stones to great distances. But when
the frames of poles were made into tepees by being covered with cloth and
skins, White Fang was astounded. It was the colossal bulk of them that
impressed him. They arose around him, on every side, like some monstrous
quick-growing form of life. They occupied nearly the whole circumference
of his field of vision. He was afraid of them. They loomed ominously above
him; and when the breeze stirred them into huge movements, he cowered
down in fear, keeping his eyes warily upon them, and prepared to spring
away if they attempted to precipitate themselves upon him.
But in a short while his fear of the tepees passed away. He saw the women
and children passing in and out of them without harm, and he saw the dogs
trying often to get into them, and being driven away with sharp words and
flying stones. After a time, he left Kiche’s side and crawled cautiously
toward the wall of the nearest tepee. It was the curiosity of growth that
urged him on—the necessity of learning and living and doing that brings
experience. The last few inches to the wall of the tepee were crawled with
painful slowness and precaution. The day’s events had prepared him for the
unknown to manifest itself in most stupendous and unthinkable ways. At
last his nose touched the canvas. He waited. Nothing happened. Then he
smelled the strange fabric, saturated with the man-smell. He closed on the
canvas with his teeth and gave a gentle tug. Nothing happened, though the
adjacent portions of the tepee moved. He tugged harder. There was a
greater movement. It was delightful. He tugged still harder, and
repeatedly, until the whole tepee was in motion. Then the sharp cry of a
squaw inside sent him scampering back to Kiche. But after that he was
afraid no more of the looming bulks of the tepees.
A moment later he was straying away again from his mother. Her stick was
tied to a peg in the ground and she could not follow him. A part-grown
puppy, somewhat larger and older than he, came toward him slowly, with
ostentatious and belligerent importance. The puppy’s name, as White Fang
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was afterward to hear him called, was Lip-lip. He had had experience in
puppy fights and was already something of a bully.
Lip-lip was White Fang’s own kind, and, being only a puppy, did not seem
dangerous; so White Fang prepared to meet him in a friendly spirit. But
when the strangers walk became stiff-legged and his lips lifted clear of his
teeth, White Fang stiffened too, and answered with lifted lips. They half
circled about each other, tentatively, snarling and bristling. This lasted
several minutes, and White Fang was beginning to enjoy it, as a sort of
game. But suddenly, with remarkable swiftness, Lip-lip leaped in, delivering
a slashing snap, and leaped away again. The snap had taken effect on the
shoulder that had been hurt by the lynx and that was still sore deep down
near the bone. The surprise and hurt of it brought a yelp out of White Fang;
but the next moment, in a rush of anger, he was upon Lip-lip and snapping
viciously.
But Lip-lip had lived his life in camp and had fought many puppy
fights. Three times, four times, and half a dozen times, his sharp little teeth
scored on the newcomer, until White Fang, yelping shamelessly, fled to the
protection of his mother. It was the first of the many fights he was to have
with Lip-lip, for they were enemies from the start, born so, with natures
destined perpetually to clash.
Kiche licked White Fang soothingly with her tongue, and tried to prevail
upon him to remain with her. But his curiosity was rampant, and several
minutes later he was venturing forth on a new quest. He came upon one of
the man-animals, Grey Beaver, who was squatting on his hams and doing
something with sticks and dry moss spread before him on the
ground. White Fang came near to him and watched. Grey Beaver made
mouth-noises which White Fang interpreted as not hostile, so he came still
nearer.
Women and children were carrying more sticks and branches to Grey
Beaver. It was evidently an affair of moment. White Fang came in until he
touched Grey Beaver’s knee, so curious was he, and already forgetful that
this was a terrible man-animal. Suddenly he saw a strange thing like mist
beginning to arise from the sticks and moss beneath Grey Beaver’s
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hands. Then, amongst the sticks themselves, appeared a live thing, twisting
and turning, of a colour like the colour of the sun in the sky. White Fang
knew nothing about fire. It drew him as the light, in the mouth of the cave
had drawn him in his early puppyhood. He crawled the several steps toward
the flame. He heard Grey Beaver chuckle above him, and he knew the sound
was not hostile. Then his nose touched the flame, and at the same instant
his little tongue went out to it.
For a moment he was paralysed. The unknown, lurking in the midst of the
sticks and moss, was savagely clutching him by the nose. He scrambled
backward, bursting out in an astonished explosion of ki-yi’s. At the sound,
Kiche leaped snarling to the end of her stick, and there raged terribly
because she could not come to his aid. But Grey Beaver laughed loudly, and
slapped his thighs, and told the happening to all the rest of the camp, till
everybody was laughing uproariously. But White Fang sat on his haunches
and ki-yi’d and ki-yi’d, a forlorn and pitiable little figure in the midst of the
man-animals. It was the worst hurt he had ever known. Both nose and
tongue had been scorched by the live thing, sun-coloured, that had grown
up under Grey Beaver’s hands. He cried and cried interminably, and every
fresh wail was greeted by bursts of laughter on the part of the man-
animals. He tried to soothe his nose with his tongue, but the tongue was
burnt too, and the two hurts coming together produced greater hurt;
whereupon he cried more hopelessly and helplessly than ever.
And then shame came to him. He knew laughter and the meaning of it. It is
not given us to know how some animals know laughter, and know when
they are being laughed at; but it was this same way that White Fang knew
it. And he felt shame that the man-animals should be laughing at him. He
turned and fled away, not from the hurt of the fire, but from the laughter
that sank even deeper, and hurt in the spirit of him. And he fled to Kiche,
raging at the end of her stick like an animal gone mad—to Kiche, the one
creature in the world who was not laughing at him.
Twilight drew down and night came on, and White Fang lay by his mother’s
side. His nose and tongue still hurt, but he was perplexed by a greater
trouble. He was homesick. He felt a vacancy in him, a need for the hush and
quietude of the stream and the cave in the cliff. Life had become too
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populous. There were so many of the man-animals, men, women, and
children, all making noises and irritations. And there were the dogs, ever
squabbling and bickering, bursting into uproars and creating
confusions. The restful loneliness of the only life he had known was
gone. Here the very air was palpitant with life. It hummed and buzzed
unceasingly. Continually changing its intensity and abruptly variant in pitch,
it impinged on his nerves and senses, made him nervous and restless and
worried him with a perpetual imminence of happening. He watched the
man-animals coming and going and moving about the camp. In fashion
distantly resembling the way men look upon the gods they create, so looked
White Fang upon the man-animals before him. They were superior
creatures, of a verity, gods. To his dim comprehension they were as much
wonder-workers as gods are to men. They were creatures of mastery,
possessing all manner of unknown and impossible potencies, overlords of
the alive and the not alive—making obey that which moved, imparting
movement to that which did not move, and making life, sun-coloured and
biting life, to grow out of dead moss and wood. They were fire-
makers! They were gods.
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