Chapter IV. THE TRAIL OF THE GODS

In autumn White Fang got his chance for liberty. The tribe was preparing to go off to the autumn hunting. White Fang watched it all with eager eyes, and when the tepees began to come down and the canoes were loading at the bank, he understood. Already the canoes were departing, and some had disappeared down the river.

Quite deliberately he decided to stay behind. He waited his opportunity to ran out of camp to the woods. He crawled into the heart of a dense bush and waited. The time passed by, and he slept for hours. Then he was woken by Grey Beaver’s voice calling him by name. There were other voices. White Fang could hear Grey Beaver’s squaw taking part in the search, and Mit-sah, who was Grey Beaver’s son.

White Fang trembled with fear. He resisted the impulse to crawl out of his hiding-place. After a time the voices died away. For a while he played about among the trees, pleasuring in his freedom. Then, and quite suddenly, he felt lonely. And then it was cold. Here was no warm side of a tepee. He curved his bushy tail around to cover his legs, and at the same time he saw a vision. There was nothing strange about it. He saw the camp again, the tepees, and the blaze of the fires. He heard the voices of the women, the basses of the men, and the snarling of the dogs. He was hungry, and he remembered pieces of meat and fish that had been thrown to him. Here was no meat, nothing but scary silence.

His bondage had softened him, irresponsibility had weakened him. The night yawned about him. There was nothing to do, nothing to see or to hear.

He tried to stand it, but could not. Finally a shadow of a tree, then a loud noise of branches frightened him. A panic seized him, and he ran madly toward the village. He knew an overpowering desire for the protection and companionship of man. In his nostrils was the smell of the camp- smoke. In his ears the camp-sounds and cries were ringing loud. But no village met his eyes. He had forgotten. The village had gone away.

There was no place to which to flee. He would have been glad if somebody threw a stone in him or kicked him or shouted at him angrily. But there was nobody even for that.

He came to where Grey Beaver’s tepee had stood. In the centre of the space it had occupied, he sat down. He pointed his nose at the moon. His throat was afflicted by spasms, his mouth opened, and in a heart-broken cry went up his loneliness and fear, his grief for Kiche, all his past sorrows as well as his apprehension of sufferings and dangers in future. It was a long, mournful wolf-howl, the first howl he had ever uttered.

The coming of daylight broke his fears but increased his loneliness. It did not take him long to make up his mind.

All day he ran. He did not rest. He seemed made to run on forever. His iron-like body ignored tiredness.

White Fang was intelligent beyond the average of his kind; yet his mental vision was not wide enough to embrace the other bank of the Mackenzie. What if the trail of the gods led out on that side? It never entered his head. He was too young for such conclusions.

By the middle of the second day he had been running continuously for thirty hours. It was the endurance of his mind that kept him going. He had not eaten in forty hours, and he was weak with hunger. His handsome coat was in bad condition. The broad pads of his feet were bleeding. He had begun to limp. To make it worse, snow began to fall.

Grey Beaver had intended camping that night on the far bank of the Mackenzie, for it was in that direction that the hunting lay. But on the near bank, shortly before dark, Kloo-kooch (who was Grey Beaver’s squaw) saw a moose. They killed it. Otherwise Grey Beaver would not have camped on the near side of the Mackenzie, and White Fang would have passed by and gone on, either to die or to find his way to his wild brothers and become one of them—a wolf to the end of his days.

Night had fallen. The snow was flying more thickly. White Fang, whimpering softly to himself as he stumbled and limped along, came upon a fresh trail in the snow. He recognized it immediately. Whining with eagerness, he followed back from the river bank and in among the trees. The camp-sounds came to his ears. He saw the blaze of the fire, Kloo-kooch cooking, and Grey Beaver with a piece of raw meat. There was fresh meat in camp!

White Fang expected a beating. He crouched and bristled a little at the thought of it. Then he went forward again. He knew, further, that the comfort of the fire would be his, the protection of the gods, the companionship of the dogs—the last, a companionship of enemies.

He came crawling into the firelight. Grey Beaver saw him. White Fang crawled straight toward him, every inch of his progress becoming slower and more painful. At last he lied at the master’s feet, into whose possession he now surrendered himself, voluntarily, body and soul. Of his own choice, he came to sit by man’s fire and to be ruled by him. White Fang trembled, waiting for the punishment. There was a movement of the hand above him. He waited for the blow to fall. It did not fall. He looked upward. Grey Beaver was breaking the piece of meat in half! Grey Beaver was offering him one piece of it! Very gently and somewhat suspiciously, he first smelled the meat and then ate it. Grey Beaver ordered meat to be brought to him, and guarded him from the other dogs while he ate. After that White Fang lay at Grey Beaver’s feet, gazing at the fire that warmed him, secure in the knowledge that the morning would find him not wandering alone through forest, but in the camp of the man-animals, with the gods to whom he had given himself and upon whom he was now dependent.

Chapter V. THE COVENANT

In December Grey Beaver went on another journey up the Mackenzie. Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch went with him. One sled he drove himself. A second and smaller sled was driven by Mit-sah, and to this was harnessed a team of puppies, not adult dogs. It was more of a toy affair than anything else, yet it was the delight of Mit-sah, who felt that he was beginning to do a man’s work in the world. Also, he was learning to drive dogs and to train dogs.

White Fang did not protest. About his neck was put a collar, which was connected by two pulling-traces to a strap that passed around his chest and over his back. To this was fastened the long rope by which he pulled at the sled.

There were seven puppies in the team. They were nine and ten months old, while White Fang was only eight months old.

The dogs’ ropes were of different length, which prevented the dogs attacking from the behind those that ran in front of them. To attack another, a dog would have to turn upon one at a shorter rope. In which case it would find itself facing the whip of the driver.

Mit-sah looked like his father and had much of his grey wisdom. In the past he had observed Lip-lip’s persecution of White Fang, and he decided to wreak his vengeance on him by putting him at the end of the longest rope. This made Lip-lip the leader, and was apparently an honour, but in reality it took away from him all honour, and instead he now found himself hated and persecuted by the pack.

Because he ran at the end of the longest rope, the dogs always saw him running before them. All that they saw of him was his bushy tail and hind-legs—a view far less scary than his bristling mane and sharp fangs. Also, the sight of him running away gave the dogs desire to run after him and a feeling that he ran away from them.

The moment the sled started, the team took after Lip-lip in a chase that continued all day. Lip-lip might face the pack, but he could not face that whip, and all that was left him to do was to keep his long rope taut and run.

To give point to the pursuit of the leader, Mit-sah favoured him over the other dogs. These favours woke in them jealousy and hatred. In their presence Mit-sah gave meat to him only. This was maddening to them, and they ran faster after Lip-lip.

White Fang took kindly to the work. The persecution he had suffered from the pack had made the pack less to him in the scheme of things, and man—more. Kiche was almost forgotten. So he worked hard, learned discipline, and was obedient. Faithfulness and willingness characterized him. These are essential features of the wolf and the wild-dog when they have become domesticated, and these features White Fang possessed in unusual measure.

A companionship did exist between White Fang and the other dogs, but it was war-like. He had never learned to play with them. He knew only how to fight. But now Lip-lip was no longer a leader. In camp he kept close to Mit-sah or Grey Beaver or Kloo-kooch. He did not dare to go away from the gods, for now the fangs of all dogs were against him, and he tasted the persecution that had been White Fang’s.

Now White Fang could have become the leader of the pack. But he was too morose and solitary for that.

White Fang knew the law well: to oppress the weak and obey the strong. He ate his share of meat as quickly as he could. And then came up to the dog that had not yet finished. A snarl and a flash of fangs, and White Fang finished his portion for him.

White Fang was jealous of the isolation in which he kept himself in the midst of the pack, and he fought often to preserve it. But such fights were short.

As strict as the sled-discipline of the gods, was the discipline kept by White Fang amongst his fellows. He never allowed them any familiarity. They had to feel respect for him.

He was a monstrous tyrant. He oppressed the weak easily. Not for nothing had he struggled for life in his cubhood, when his mother and he had to survive in the Wild alone. He learned to walk softly when superior strength went by. He oppressed the weak, but he respected the strong.

The months passed by. Still continued the journey of Grey Beaver. White Fang’s strength was developed by the long hours on the trail, and it seemed that his mental development was nearly complete. The world as he saw it was a fierce and brutal world, a world without warmth, a world in which care and affection did not exist.

He had no affection for Grey Beaver. True, he was a god, but a most savage god. White Fang was glad to endure his lordship, but it was a lordship based upon superior intelligence and brute strength. His primacy was savage, and savagely he ruled, punishing with a blow, and rewarding merit, not by kindness, but by not giving a blow.

White Fang desired lordship.

However, he did not like the hands of the man-animals. He was suspicious of them. It was true that they sometimes gave meat, but more often they gave hurt. Hands were things to keep away from, even the hands of children.

It was in a village at the Great Slave Lake, that he modified the law that he had learned from Grey Beaver: namely, that the unpardonable crime was to bite one of the gods. In this village, after the custom of all dogs in all villages, White Fang went looking for food. A boy was cutting frozen moose-meat with an axe, and the chips were flying in the snow. White Fang, sliding by in quest of meat, stopped and began eating the chips. He saw the boy lay down the axe and take up a club. White Fang sprang aside, just in time to escape the blow. The boy pursued him, and he, a stranger in the village, fled between two tepees to find himself cornered against a high earth bank.

There was no escape. The only way out was between the two tepees, and the boy guarded it. White Fang was furious. All the wastage of meat, such as the frozen chips, belonged to the dog that found it. He had done no wrong, broken no law, yet here was this boy preparing to give him a beating. White Fang hardly understood what happened. And all the boy knew was that he had been overturned, and that his club-hand had been ripped wide open by White Fang’s teeth.

But White Fang knew that he had broken the law of the gods. He had driven his teeth into the sacred flesh of one of them, and could expect nothing but a most terrible punishment. He ran away to Grey Beaver, behind whose protecting legs he crouched when the bitten boy and the boy’s family came. But Grey Beaver defended White Fang. So did Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch. White Fang, listening to the wordy war and watching the angry gestures, knew that his act was justified. And so he learned there were gods and gods. There were his gods, and there were other gods, and between them there was a difference. But he did not have to take injustice from the other gods. And this also was a law of the gods.

Later that day Mit-sah, alone, came across the boy that had been bitten. With him were other boys. Then all the boys attacked Mit-sah. Blows were raining upon him from all sides. This was an affair of the gods, and no concern of his, White Fang decided. Then he saw that this was Mit-sah, one of his own particular gods. He was mad with anger. Five minutes later the boys ran away, many of them with the traces of his teeth on them. When Mit-sah told the story in camp, Grey Beaver ordered meat to be given to White Fang. He ordered much meat to be given, and White Fang knew that the law had got its verification.

It was in line with these experiences that White Fang came to learn the law of property and the duty of the defence of property. From the protection of his god’s body to the protection of his god’s possessions was a step, and this step he made.

The months went by, making stronger and stronger the relationship between dog and man. This was the ancient relationship that the first wolf that came in from the Wild knew. And White Fang understood it. The terms were simple. For the possession of a flesh-and-blood god, he exchanged his own liberty. Food and fire, protection and companionship, were some of the things he received from the god. In return, he guarded the god’s property, defended his body, worked for him, and obeyed him.

The possession of a god means service. White Fang’s service was of duty, but not of love. He did not know what love was. He had no experience of love. Kiche was a remote memory. Besides, not only had he left the Wild and his kind when he gave himself up to man, but the terms of the relationship were such that if ever he met Kiche again he would not leave his god to go with her. His loyalty to man seemed a greater law than the love of liberty, of kind and kin.