retreat. He dared not risk a fight with this young lightning-flash, and again
he knew, and more bitterly, the enfeeblement of oncoming age. His
attempt to maintain his dignity was heroic. Calmly turning his back upon
young dog and shin-bone, as though both were beneath his notice and
unworthy of his consideration, he stalked grandly away. Nor, until well out
of sight, did he stop to lick his bleeding wounds.
The effect on White Fang was to give him a greater faith in himself, and a
greater pride. He walked less softly among the grown dogs; his attitude
toward them was less compromising. Not that he went out of his way
looking for trouble. Far from it. But upon his way he demanded
consideration. He stood upon his right to go his way unmolested and to
give trail to no dog. He had to be taken into account, that was all. He was
no longer to be disregarded and ignored, as was the lot of puppies, and as
continued to be the lot of the puppies that were his team-mates. They got
out of the way, gave trail to the grown dogs, and gave up meat to them
under compulsion. But White Fang, uncompanionable, solitary, morose,
scarcely looking to right or left, redoubtable, forbidding of aspect, remote
and alien, was accepted as an equal by his puzzled elders. They quickly
learned to leave him alone, neither venturing hostile acts nor making
overtures of friendliness. If they left him alone, he left them alone—a state
of affairs that they found, after a few encounters, to be pre-eminently
desirable.
In midsummer White Fang had an experience. Trotting along in his silent
way to investigate a new tepee which had been erected on the edge of the
village while he was away with the hunters after moose, he came full upon
Kiche. He paused and looked at her. He remembered her vaguely, but
he
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