porte-cochère
, he came upon the
carriage. It had stopped, and the master was alighting. At this moment, still
running at top speed, White Fang became suddenly aware of an attack from
the side. It was a deer-hound rushing upon him. White Fang tried to face
it. But he was going too fast, and the hound was too close. It struck him on
the side; and such was his forward momentum and the unexpectedness of
it, White Fang was hurled to the ground and rolled clear over. He came out
of the tangle a spectacle of malignancy, ears flattened back, lips writhing,
nose wrinkling, his teeth clipping together as the fangs barely missed the
hound’s soft throat.
The master was running up, but was too far away; and it was Collie that
saved the hound’s life. Before White Fang could spring in and deliver the
fatal stroke, and just as he was in the act of springing in, Collie arrived. She
had been out-manoeuvred and out-run, to say nothing of her having been
unceremoniously tumbled in the gravel, and her arrival was like that of a
tornado—made up of offended dignity, justifiable wrath, and instinctive
hatred for this marauder from the Wild. She struck White Fang at right
angles in the midst of his spring, and again he was knocked off his feet and
rolled over.
The next moment the master arrived, and with one hand held White Fang,
while the father called off the dogs.
“I say, this is a pretty warm reception for a poor lone wolf from the Arctic,”
the master said, while White Fang calmed down under his caressing
hand. “In all his life he’s only been known once to go off his feet, and here
he’s been rolled twice in thirty seconds.”
The carriage had driven away, and other strange gods had appeared from
out the house. Some of these stood respectfully at a distance; but two of
them, women, perpetrated the hostile act of clutching the 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
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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 of 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 . . .?”
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 at it and finding it not. Then he lay down with a
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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.
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