Like
had been replaced by
love
. And love was the plummet dropped down
into the deeps of him where like had never gone. And responsive out of his
deeps had come the new thing—love. That which was given unto him did
he return. This was a god indeed, a love-god, a warm and radiant god, in
whose light White Fang’s nature expanded as a flower expands under the
sun.
But White Fang was not demonstrative. He was too old, too firmly
moulded, to become adept at expressing himself in new ways. He was too
self-possessed, too strongly poised in his own isolation. Too long had he
cultivated reticence, aloofness, and moroseness. He had never barked in his
life, and he could not now learn to bark a welcome when his god
approached. He was never in the way, never extravagant nor foolish in the
expression of his love. He never ran to meet his god. He waited at a
distance; but he always waited, was always there. His love partook of the
nature of worship, dumb, inarticulate, a silent adoration. Only by the steady
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regard of his eyes did he express his love, and by the unceasing following
with his eyes of his god’s every movement. Also, at times, when his god
looked at him and spoke to him, he betrayed an awkward self-
consciousness, caused by the struggle of his love to express itself and his
physical inability to express it.
He learned to adjust himself in many ways to his new mode of life. It was
borne in upon him that he must let his master’s dogs alone. Yet his
dominant nature asserted itself, and he had first to thrash them into an
acknowledgment of his superiority and leadership. This accomplished, he
had little trouble with them. They gave trail to him when he came and went
or walked among them, and when he asserted his will they obeyed.
In the same way, he came to tolerate Matt—as a possession of his
master. His master rarely fed him. Matt did that, it was his business; yet
White Fang divined that it was his master’s food he ate and that it was his
master who thus fed him vicariously. Matt it was who tried to put him into
the harness and make him haul sled with the other dogs. But Matt failed. It
was not until Weedon Scott put the harness on White Fang and worked him,
that he understood. He took it as his master’s will that Matt should drive
him and work him just as he drove and worked his master’s other dogs.
Different from the Mackenzie toboggans were the Klondike sleds with
runners under them. And different was the method of driving the
dogs. There was no fan-formation of the team. The dogs worked in single
file, one behind another, hauling on double traces. And here, in the
Klondike, the leader was indeed the leader. The wisest as well as strongest
dog was the leader, and the team obeyed him and feared him. That White
Fang should quickly gain this post was inevitable. He could not be satisfied
with less, as Matt learned after much inconvenience and trouble. White
Fang picked out the post for himself, and Matt backed his judgment with
strong language after the experiment had been tried. But, though he
worked in the sled in the day, White Fang did not forego the guarding of his
master’s property in the night. Thus he was on duty all the time, ever
vigilant and faithful, the most valuable of all the dogs.
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“Makin’ free to spit out what’s in me,” Matt said one day, “I beg to state
that you was a wise guy all right when you paid the price you did for that
dog. You clean swindled Beauty Smith on top of pushin’ his face in with
your fist.”
A recrudescence of anger glinted in Weedon Scott’s grey eyes, and he
muttered savagely, “The beast!”
In the late spring a great trouble came to White Fang. Without warning, the
love-master disappeared. There had been warning, but White Fang was
unversed in such things and did not understand the packing of a grip. He
remembered afterwards that his packing had preceded the master’s
disappearance; but at the time he suspected nothing. That night he waited
for the master to return. At midnight the chill wind that blew drove him to
shelter at the rear of the cabin. There he drowsed, only half asleep, his ears
keyed for the first sound of the familiar step. But, at two in the morning, his
anxiety drove him out to the cold front stoop, where he crouched, and
waited.
But no master came. In the morning the door opened and Matt stepped
outside. White Fang gazed at him wistfully. There was no common speech
by which he might learn what he wanted to know. The days came and went,
but never the master. White Fang, who had never known sickness in his life,
became sick. He became very sick, so sick that Matt was finally compelled
to bring him inside the cabin. Also, in writing to his employer, Matt devoted
a postscript to White Fang.
Weedon Scott reading the letter down in Circle City, came upon the
following:
“That dam wolf won’t work. Won’t eat. Aint got no spunk left. All the dogs
is licking him. Wants to know what has become of you, and I don’t know
how to tell him. Mebbe he is going to die.”
It was as Matt had said. White Fang had ceased eating, lost heart, and
allowed every dog of the team to thrash him. In the cabin he lay on the floor
near the stove, without interest in food, in Matt, nor in life. Matt might talk
gently to him or swear at him, it was all the same; he never did more than
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turn his dull eyes upon the man, then drop his head back to its customary
position on his fore-paws.
And then, one night, Matt, reading to himself with moving lips and mumbled
sounds, was startled by a low whine from White Fang. He had got upon his
feet, his ears cocked towards the door, and he was listening intently. A
moment later, Matt heard a footstep. The door opened, and Weedon Scott
stepped in. The two men shook hands. Then Scott looked around the room.
“Where’s the wolf?” he asked.
Then he discovered him, standing where he had been lying, near to the
stove. He had not rushed forward after the manner of other dogs. He
stood, watching and waiting.
“Holy smoke!” Matt exclaimed. “Look at ’m wag his tail!”
Weedon Scott strode half across the room toward him, at the same time
calling him. White Fang came to him, not with a great bound, yet
quickly. He was awakened from self-consciousness, but as he drew near, his
eyes took on a strange expression. Something, an incommunicable vastness
of feeling, rose up into his eyes as a light and shone forth.
“He never looked at me that way all the time you was gone!” Matt
commented.
Weedon Scott did not hear. He was squatting down on his heels, face to
face with White Fang and petting him—rubbing at the roots of the ears,
making long caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders, tapping the
spine gently with the balls of his fingers. And White Fang was growling
responsively, the crooning note of the growl more pronounced than ever.
But that was not all. What of his joy, the great love in him, ever surging and
struggling to express itself, succeeding 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.
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“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 upon him.
“Talk about your rough-houses,” Matt murmured gleefully, standing in the
doorway and looking on.
“Give ’m hell, you wolf! Give ’m hell!—an’ 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 a 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,” Mat was pegging up, when there was an outcry and sound of
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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 his 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 the 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.
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“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.
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