White Fang Read online

  CHAPTER III--THE REIGN OF HATE

  Under the tutelage of the mad god, White Fang became a fiend. He waskept chained in a pen at the rear of the fort, and here Beauty Smithteased and irritated and drove him wild with petty torments. The manearly discovered White Fang's susceptibility to laughter, and made it apoint after painfully tricking him, to laugh at him. This laughter wasuproarious and scornful, and at the same time the god pointed his fingerderisively at White Fang. At such times reason fled from White Fang, andin his transports of rage he was even more mad than Beauty Smith.

  Formerly, White Fang had been merely the enemy of his kind, withal aferocious enemy. He now became the enemy of all things, and moreferocious than ever. To such an extent was he tormented, that he hatedblindly and without the faintest spark of reason. He hated the chainthat bound him, the men who peered in at him through the slats of thepen, the dogs that accompanied the men and that snarled malignantly athim in his helplessness. He hated the very wood of the pen that confinedhim. And, first, last, and most of all, he hated Beauty Smith.

  But Beauty Smith had a purpose in all that he did to White Fang. One daya number of men gathered about the pen. Beauty Smith entered, club inhand, and took the chain off from White Fang's neck. When his master hadgone out, White Fang turned loose and tore around the pen, trying to getat the men outside. He was magnificently terrible. Fully five feet inlength, and standing two and one-half feet at the shoulder, he faroutweighed a wolf of corresponding size. From his mother he hadinherited the heavier proportions of the dog, so that he weighed, withoutany fat and without an ounce of superfluous flesh, over ninety pounds. Itwas all muscle, bone, and sinew-fighting flesh in the finest condition.

  The door of the pen was being opened again. White Fang paused. Somethingunusual was happening. He waited. The door was opened wider. Then ahuge dog was thrust inside, and the door was slammed shut behind him.White Fang had never seen such a dog (it was a mastiff); but the size andfierce aspect of the intruder did not deter him. Here was some thing,not wood nor iron, upon which to wreak his hate. He leaped in with aflash of fangs that ripped down the side of the mastiff's neck. Themastiff shook his head, growled hoarsely, and plunged at White Fang. ButWhite Fang was here, there, and everywhere, always evading and eluding,and always leaping in and slashing with his fangs and leaping out againin time to escape punishment.

  The men outside shouted and applauded, while Beauty Smith, in an ecstasyof delight, gloated over the ripping and mangling performed by WhiteFang. There was no hope for the mastiff from the first. He was tooponderous and slow. In the end, while Beauty Smith beat White Fang backwith a club, the mastiff was dragged out by its owner. Then there was apayment of bets, and money clinked in Beauty Smith's hand.

  White Fang came to look forward eagerly to the gathering of the menaround his pen. It meant a fight; and this was the only way that was nowvouchsafed him of expressing the life that was in him. Tormented,incited to hate, he was kept a prisoner so that there was no way ofsatisfying that hate except at the times his master saw fit to putanother dog against him. Beauty Smith had estimated his powers well, forhe was invariably the victor. One day, three dogs were turned in uponhim in succession. Another day a full-grown wolf, fresh-caught from theWild, was shoved in through the door of the pen. And on still anotherday two dogs were set against him at the same time. This was hisseverest fight, and though in the end he killed them both he was himselfhalf killed in doing it.

  In the fall of the year, when the first snows were falling and mush-icewas running in the river, Beauty Smith took passage for himself and WhiteFang on a steamboat bound up the Yukon to Dawson. White Fang had nowachieved a reputation in the land. As "the Fighting Wolf" he was knownfar and wide, and the cage in which he was kept on the steam-boat's deckwas usually surrounded by curious men. He raged and snarled at them, orlay quietly and studied them with cold hatred. Why should he not hatethem? He never asked himself the question. He knew only hate and losthimself in the passion of it. Life had become a hell to him. He had notbeen made for the close confinement wild beasts endure at the hands ofmen. And yet it was in precisely this way that he was treated. Menstared at him, poked sticks between the bars to make him snarl, and thenlaughed at him.

  They were his environment, these men, and they were moulding the clay ofhim into a more ferocious thing than had been intended by Nature.Nevertheless, Nature had given him plasticity. Where many another animalwould have died or had its spirit broken, he adjusted himself and lived,and at no expense of the spirit. Possibly Beauty Smith, arch-fiend andtormentor, was capable of breaking White Fang's spirit, but as yet therewere no signs of his succeeding.

  If Beauty Smith had in him a devil, White Fang had another; and the twoof them raged against each other unceasingly. In the days before, WhiteFang had had the wisdom to cower down and submit to a man with a club inhis hand; but this wisdom now left him. The mere sight of Beauty Smithwas sufficient to send him into transports of fury. And when they cameto close quarters, and he had been beaten back by the club, he went ongrowling and snarling, and showing his fangs. The last growl could neverbe extracted from him. No matter how terribly he was beaten, he hadalways another growl; and when Beauty Smith gave up and withdrew, thedefiant growl followed after him, or White Fang sprang at the bars of thecage bellowing his hatred.

  When the steamboat arrived at Dawson, White Fang went ashore. But hestill lived a public life, in a cage, surrounded by curious men. He wasexhibited as "the Fighting Wolf," and men paid fifty cents in gold dustto see him. He was given no rest. Did he lie down to sleep, he wasstirred up by a sharp stick--so that the audience might get its money'sworth. In order to make the exhibition interesting, he was kept in arage most of the time. But worse than all this, was the atmosphere inwhich he lived. He was regarded as the most fearful of wild beasts, andthis was borne in to him through the bars of the cage. Every word, everycautious action, on the part of the men, impressed upon him his ownterrible ferocity. It was so much added fuel to the flame of hisfierceness. There could be but one result, and that was that hisferocity fed upon itself and increased. It was another instance of theplasticity of his clay, of his capacity for being moulded by the pressureof environment.

  In addition to being exhibited he was a professional fighting animal. Atirregular intervals, whenever a fight could be arranged, he was taken outof his cage and led off into the woods a few miles from town. Usuallythis occurred at night, so as to avoid interference from the mountedpolice of the Territory. After a few hours of waiting, when daylight hadcome, the audience and the dog with which he was to fight arrived. Inthis manner it came about that he fought all sizes and breeds of dogs. Itwas a savage land, the men were savage, and the fights were usually tothe death.

  Since White Fang continued to fight, it is obvious that it was the otherdogs that died. He never knew defeat. His early training, when hefought with Lip-lip and the whole puppy-pack, stood him in good stead.There was the tenacity with which he clung to the earth. No dog couldmake him lose his footing. This was the favourite trick of the wolfbreeds--to rush in upon him, either directly or with an unexpectedswerve, in the hope of striking his shoulder and overthrowing him.Mackenzie hounds, Eskimo and Labrador dogs, huskies and Malemutes--alltried it on him, and all failed. He was never known to lose his footing.Men told this to one another, and looked each time to see it happen; butWhite Fang always disappointed them.

  Then there was his lightning quickness. It gave him a tremendousadvantage over his antagonists. No matter what their fightingexperience, they had never encountered a dog that moved so swiftly as he.Also to be reckoned with, was the immediateness of his attack. Theaverage dog was accustomed to the preliminaries of snarling and bristlingand growling, and the average dog was knocked off his feet and finishedbefore he had begun to fight or recovered from his surprise. So oftendid this happen, that it became the custom to hold White Fang until theother dog went through its prel
iminaries, was good and ready, and evenmade the first attack.

  But greatest of all the advantages in White Fang's favour, was hisexperience. He knew more about fighting than did any of the dogs thatfaced him. He had fought more fights, knew how to meet more tricks andmethods, and had more tricks himself, while his own method was scarcelyto be improved upon.

  As the time went by, he had fewer and fewer fights. Men despaired ofmatching him with an equal, and Beauty Smith was compelled to pit wolvesagainst him. These were trapped by the Indians for the purpose, and afight between White Fang and a wolf was always sure to draw a crowd.Once, a full-grown female lynx was secured, and this time White Fangfought for his life. Her quickness matched his; her ferocity equalledhis; while he fought with his fangs alone, and she fought with her sharp-clawed feet as well.

  But after the lynx, all fighting ceased for White Fang. There were nomore animals with which to fight--at least, there was none consideredworthy of fighting with him. So he remained on exhibition until spring,when one Tim Keenan, a faro-dealer, arrived in the land. With him camethe first bull-dog that had ever entered the Klondike. That this dog andWhite Fang should come together was inevitable, and for a week theanticipated fight was the mainspring of conversation in certain quartersof the town.