White Fang Page 16

  CHAPTER II--THE MAD GOD

  A small number of white men lived in Fort Yukon. These men had been longin the country. They called themselves Sour-doughs, and took great pridein so classifying themselves. For other men, new in the land, they feltnothing but disdain. The men who came ashore from the steamers werenewcomers. They were known as _chechaquos_, and they always wilted atthe application of the name. They made their bread with baking-powder.This was the invidious distinction between them and the Sour-doughs, who,forsooth, made their bread from sour-dough because they had no baking-powder.

  All of which is neither here nor there. The men in the fort disdainedthe newcomers and enjoyed seeing them come to grief. Especially did theyenjoy the havoc worked amongst the newcomers' dogs by White Fang and hisdisreputable gang. When a steamer arrived, the men of the fort made it apoint always to come down to the bank and see the fun. They lookedforward to it with as much anticipation as did the Indian dogs, whilethey were not slow to appreciate the savage and crafty part played byWhite Fang.

  But there was one man amongst them who particularly enjoyed the sport. Hewould come running at the first sound of a steamboat's whistle; and whenthe last fight was over and White Fang and the pack had scattered, hewould return slowly to the fort, his face heavy with regret. Sometimes,when a soft southland dog went down, shrieking its death-cry under thefangs of the pack, this man would be unable to contain himself, and wouldleap into the air and cry out with delight. And always he had a sharpand covetous eye for White Fang.

  This man was called "Beauty" by the other men of the fort. No one knewhis first name, and in general he was known in the country as BeautySmith. But he was anything save a beauty. To antithesis was due hisnaming. He was pre-eminently unbeautiful. Nature had been niggardlywith him. He was a small man to begin with; and upon his meagre framewas deposited an even more strikingly meagre head. Its apex might belikened to a point. In fact, in his boyhood, before he had been namedBeauty by his fellows, he had been called "Pinhead."

  Backward, from the apex, his head slanted down to his neck and forward itslanted uncompromisingly to meet a low and remarkably wide forehead.Beginning here, as though regretting her parsimony, Nature had spread hisfeatures with a lavish hand. His eyes were large, and between them wasthe distance of two eyes. His face, in relation to the rest of him, wasprodigious. In order to discover the necessary area, Nature had givenhim an enormous prognathous jaw. It was wide and heavy, and protrudedoutward and down until it seemed to rest on his chest. Possibly thisappearance was due to the weariness of the slender neck, unable properlyto support so great a burden.

  This jaw gave the impression of ferocious determination. But somethinglacked. Perhaps it was from excess. Perhaps the jaw was too large. Atany rate, it was a lie. Beauty Smith was known far and wide as theweakest of weak-kneed and snivelling cowards. To complete hisdescription, his teeth were large and yellow, while the two eye-teeth,larger than their fellows, showed under his lean lips like fangs. Hiseyes were yellow and muddy, as though Nature had run short on pigmentsand squeezed together the dregs of all her tubes. It was the same withhis hair, sparse and irregular of growth, muddy-yellow and dirty-yellow,rising on his head and sprouting out of his face in unexpected tufts andbunches, in appearance like clumped and wind-blown grain.

  In short, Beauty Smith was a monstrosity, and the blame of it layelsewhere. He was not responsible. The clay of him had been so mouldedin the making. He did the cooking for the other men in the fort, thedish-washing and the drudgery. They did not despise him. Rather didthey tolerate him in a broad human way, as one tolerates any creatureevilly treated in the making. Also, they feared him. His cowardly ragesmade them dread a shot in the back or poison in their coffee. Butsomebody had to do the cooking, and whatever else his shortcomings,Beauty Smith could cook.

  This was the man that looked at White Fang, delighted in his ferociousprowess, and desired to possess him. He made overtures to White Fangfrom the first. White Fang began by ignoring him. Later on, when theovertures became more insistent, White Fang bristled and bared his teethand backed away. He did not like the man. The feel of him was bad. Hesensed the evil in him, and feared the extended hand and the attempts atsoft-spoken speech. Because of all this, he hated the man.

  With the simpler creatures, good and bad are things simply understood.The good stands for all things that bring easement and satisfaction andsurcease from pain. Therefore, the good is liked. The bad stands forall things that are fraught with discomfort, menace, and hurt, and ishated accordingly. White Fang's feel of Beauty Smith was bad. From theman's distorted body and twisted mind, in occult ways, like mists risingfrom malarial marshes, came emanations of the unhealth within. Not byreasoning, not by the five senses alone, but by other and remoter anduncharted senses, came the feeling to White Fang that the man was ominouswith evil, pregnant with hurtfulness, and therefore a thing bad, andwisely to be hated.

  White Fang was in Grey Beaver's camp when Beauty Smith first visited it.At the faint sound of his distant feet, before he came in sight, WhiteFang knew who was coming and began to bristle. He had been lying down inan abandon of comfort, but he arose quickly, and, as the man arrived,slid away in true wolf-fashion to the edge of the camp. He did not knowwhat they said, but he could see the man and Grey Beaver talkingtogether. Once, the man pointed at him, and White Fang snarled back asthough the hand were just descending upon him instead of being, as itwas, fifty feet away. The man laughed at this; and White Fang slunk awayto the sheltering woods, his head turned to observe as he glided softlyover the ground.

  Grey Beaver refused to sell the dog. He had grown rich with his tradingand stood in need of nothing. Besides, White Fang was a valuable animal,the strongest sled-dog he had ever owned, and the best leader.Furthermore, there was no dog like him on the Mackenzie nor the Yukon. Hecould fight. He killed other dogs as easily as men killed mosquitoes.(Beauty Smith's eyes lighted up at this, and he licked his thin lips withan eager tongue). No, White Fang was not for sale at any price.

  But Beauty Smith knew the ways of Indians. He visited Grey Beaver's campoften, and hidden under his coat was always a black bottle or so. One ofthe potencies of whisky is the breeding of thirst. Grey Beaver got thethirst. His fevered membranes and burnt stomach began to clamour formore and more of the scorching fluid; while his brain, thrust all awry bythe unwonted stimulant, permitted him to go any length to obtain it. Themoney he had received for his furs and mittens and moccasins began to go.It went faster and faster, and the shorter his money-sack grew, theshorter grew his temper.

  In the end his money and goods and temper were all gone. Nothingremained to him but his thirst, a prodigious possession in itself thatgrew more prodigious with every sober breath he drew. Then it was thatBeauty Smith had talk with him again about the sale of White Fang; butthis time the price offered was in bottles, not dollars, and GreyBeaver's ears were more eager to hear.

  "You ketch um dog you take um all right," was his last word.

  The bottles were delivered, but after two days. "You ketch um dog," wereBeauty Smith's words to Grey Beaver.

  White Fang slunk into camp one evening and dropped down with a sigh ofcontent. The dreaded white god was not there. For days hismanifestations of desire to lay hands on him had been growing moreinsistent, and during that time White Fang had been compelled to avoidthe camp. He did not know what evil was threatened by those insistenthands. He knew only that they did threaten evil of some sort, and thatit was best for him to keep out of their reach.

  But scarcely had he lain down when Grey Beaver staggered over to him andtied a leather thong around his neck. He sat down beside White Fang,holding the end of the thong in his hand. In the other hand he held abottle, which, from time to time, was inverted above his head to theaccompaniment of gurgling noises.

  An hour of this passed, when the vibrations of feet in contact with theground foreran the one who approached. White Fang hear
d it first, and hewas bristling with recognition while Grey Beaver still nodded stupidly.White Fang tried to draw the thong softly out of his master's hand; butthe relaxed fingers closed tightly and Grey Beaver roused himself.

  Beauty Smith strode into camp and stood over White Fang. He snarledsoftly up at the thing of fear, watching keenly the deportment of thehands. One hand extended outward and began to descend upon his head. Hissoft snarl grew tense and harsh. The hand continued slowly to descend,while he crouched beneath it, eyeing it malignantly, his snarl growingshorter and shorter as, with quickening breath, it approached itsculmination. Suddenly he snapped, striking with his fangs like a snake.The hand was jerked back, and the teeth came together emptily with asharp click. Beauty Smith was frightened and angry. Grey Beaver cloutedWhite Fang alongside the head, so that he cowered down close to the earthin respectful obedience.

  White Fang's suspicious eyes followed every movement. He saw BeautySmith go away and return with a stout club. Then the end of the thongwas given over to him by Grey Beaver. Beauty Smith started to walk away.The thong grew taut. White Fang resisted it. Grey Beaver clouted himright and left to make him get up and follow. He obeyed, but with arush, hurling himself upon the stranger who was dragging him away. BeautySmith did not jump away. He had been waiting for this. He swung theclub smartly, stopping the rush midway and smashing White Fang down uponthe ground. Grey Beaver laughed and nodded approval. Beauty Smithtightened the thong again, and White Fang crawled limply and dizzily tohis feet.

  He did not rush a second time. One smash from the club was sufficient toconvince him that the white god knew how to handle it, and he was toowise to fight the inevitable. So he followed morosely at Beauty Smith'sheels, his tail between his legs, yet snarling softly under his breath.But Beauty Smith kept a wary eye on him, and the club was held alwaysready to strike.

  At the fort Beauty Smith left him securely tied and went in to bed. WhiteFang waited an hour. Then he applied his teeth to the thong, and in thespace of ten seconds was free. He had wasted no time with his teeth.There had been no useless gnawing. The thong was cut across, diagonally,almost as clean as though done by a knife. White Fang looked up at thefort, at the same time bristling and growling. Then he turned andtrotted back to Grey Beaver's camp. He owed no allegiance to thisstrange and terrible god. He had given himself to Grey Beaver, and toGrey Beaver he considered he still belonged.

  But what had occurred before was repeated--with a difference. GreyBeaver again made him fast with a thong, and in the morning turned himover to Beauty Smith. And here was where the difference came in. BeautySmith gave him a beating. Tied securely, White Fang could only ragefutilely and endure the punishment. Club and whip were both used uponhim, and he experienced the worst beating he had ever received in hislife. Even the big beating given him in his puppyhood by Grey Beaver wasmild compared with this.

  Beauty Smith enjoyed the task. He delighted in it. He gloated over hisvictim, and his eyes flamed dully, as he swung the whip or club andlistened to White Fang's cries of pain and to his helpless bellows andsnarls. For Beauty Smith was cruel in the way that cowards are cruel.Cringing and snivelling himself before the blows or angry speech of aman, he revenged himself, in turn, upon creatures weaker than he. Alllife likes power, and Beauty Smith was no exception. Denied theexpression of power amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lessercreatures and there vindicated the life that was in him. But BeautySmith had not created himself, and no blame was to be attached to him. Hehad come into the world with a twisted body and a brute intelligence.This had constituted the clay of him, and it had not been kindly mouldedby the world.

  White Fang knew why he was being beaten. When Grey Beaver tied the thongaround his neck, and passed the end of the thong into Beauty Smith'skeeping, White Fang knew that it was his god's will for him to go withBeauty Smith. And when Beauty Smith left him tied outside the fort, heknew that it was Beauty Smith's will that he should remain there.Therefore, he had disobeyed the will of both the gods, and earned theconsequent punishment. He had seen dogs change owners in the past, andhe had seen the runaways beaten as he was being beaten. He was wise, andyet in the nature of him there were forces greater than wisdom. One ofthese was fidelity. He did not love Grey Beaver, yet, even in the faceof his will and his anger, he was faithful to him. He could not help it.This faithfulness was a quality of the clay that composed him. It wasthe quality that was peculiarly the possession of his kind; the qualitythat set apart his species from all other species; the quality that hasenabled the wolf and the wild dog to come in from the open and be thecompanions of man.

  After the beating, White Fang was dragged back to the fort. But thistime Beauty Smith left him tied with a stick. One does not give up a godeasily, and so with White Fang. Grey Beaver was his own particular god,and, in spite of Grey Beaver's will, White Fang still clung to him andwould not give him up. Grey Beaver had betrayed and forsaken him, butthat had no effect upon him. Not for nothing had he surrendered himselfbody and soul to Grey Beaver. There had been no reservation on WhiteFang's part, and the bond was not to be broken easily.

  So, in the night, when the men in the fort were asleep, White Fangapplied his teeth to the stick that held him. The wood was seasoned anddry, and it was tied so closely to his neck that he could scarcely gethis teeth to it. It was only by the severest muscular exertion and neck-arching that he succeeded in getting the wood between his teeth, andbarely between his teeth at that; and it was only by the exercise of animmense patience, extending through many hours, that he succeeded ingnawing through the stick. This was something that dogs were notsupposed to do. It was unprecedented. But White Fang did it, trottingaway from the fort in the early morning, with the end of the stickhanging to his neck.

  He was wise. But had he been merely wise he would not have gone back toGrey Beaver who had already twice betrayed him. But there was hisfaithfulness, and he went back to be betrayed yet a third time. Again heyielded to the tying of a thong around his neck by Grey Beaver, and againBeauty Smith came to claim him. And this time he was beaten even moreseverely than before.

  Grey Beaver looked on stolidly while the white man wielded the whip. Hegave no protection. It was no longer his dog. When the beating was overWhite Fang was sick. A soft southland dog would have died under it, butnot he. His school of life had been sterner, and he was himself ofsterner stuff. He had too great vitality. His clutch on life was toostrong. But he was very sick. At first he was unable to drag himselfalong, and Beauty Smith had to wait half-an-hour for him. And then,blind and reeling, he followed at Beauty Smith's heels back to the fort.

  But now he was tied with a chain that defied his teeth, and he strove invain, by lunging, to draw the staple from the timber into which it wasdriven. After a few days, sober and bankrupt, Grey Beaver departed upthe Porcupine on his long journey to the Mackenzie. White Fang remainedon the Yukon, the property of a man more than half mad and all brute. Butwhat is a dog to know in its consciousness of madness? To White Fang,Beauty Smith was a veritable, if terrible, god. He was a mad god atbest, but White Fang knew nothing of madness; he knew only that he mustsubmit to the will of this new master, obey his every whim and fancy.