Part 5 (1/2)

But Gods are accusto obeyed, and Grey Beaver wrathfully launched a canoe in pursuit When he overtook White Fang, he reached down and by the nape of the neck lifted him clear of the water He did not deposit hi him suspended with one hand, with the other hand he proceeded to give hi His hand was heavy Every bloas shrewd to hurt; and he delivered a multitude of blows

Impelled by the blows that rained upon hi back and forth like an erratic and jerky penduluh him At first, he had known surprise Then came a momentary fear, when he yelped several times to the ier His free nature asserted itself, and he showed his teeth and snarled fearlessly in the face of the wrathful God This but served to make the God more wrathful The blows came faster, heavier, more shrewd to hurt

Grey Beaver continued to beat, White Fang continued to snarl But this could not last for ever One or the other ed through hi really man-handled The occasional blows of sticks and stones he had previously experienced were as caresses coan to cry and yelp For a tiht a yelp from him; but fear passed into terror, until finally his yelps were voiced in unbroken succession, unconnected with the rhythm of the punish, hanging limply, continued to cry This seehly in the bottom of the canoe In the meantime the canoe had drifted down the strea was in his way He spurned hi's free nature flashed forth again, and he sank his teeth into the one before was as nothing co he now received Grey Beaver's wrath was terrible; likeas White Fang's fright Not only the hand, but the hard wooden paddle was used upon him; and he was bruised and sore in all his sain, and this ti did not repeat his attack on the foot He had learned another lesson of his bondage Never, no matter what the circumstance, must he dare to bite the God as lord and master over him; the body of the lord and master was sacred, not to be defiled by the teeth of such as he That was evidently the cri nor overlooking

When the canoe touched the shore, White Fang lay whi the will of Grey Beaver It was Grey Beaver's will that he should go ashore, for ashore he was flung, striking heavily on his side and hurting his bruises afresh He crawled tre Lip-lip, who had watched the whole proceeding fro his teeth into hi was too helpless to defend hione hard with hi Lip-lip into the air with its violence so that he smashed down to earth a dozen feet away This was the ht, White Fang experienced a little grateful thrill At Grey Beaver's heels he lie to the tepee And so it caht to punish was so the Gods reserved for themselves and denied to the lesser creatures under the remembered his mother and sorrowed for her He sorrowed too loudly and woke up Grey Beaver, who beat hiently when the Gods were around But soe of the woods by hirief, and cried it out with loud whi this period that he ht have harkened to the memories of the lair and the stream and run back to the Wild But theman-animals went out and cae so for her

But it was not altogether an unhappy bondage There wasThere was no end to the strange things these Gods did, and he was always curious to see Besides, he was learning how to get along with Grey Beaver Obedience, rigid, undeviating obedience, as exacted of his and his existence was tolerated

Nay, Grey Beaver himself soainst the other dogs in the eating of it And such a piece of e way, then a dozen pieces of meat from the hand of a squaw Grey Beaver never petted nor caressed Perhaps it was the weight of his hand, perhaps his justice, perhaps the sheer power of his that influenced White Fang; for a certain tie of attach between him and his surly lord

Insidiously, and by remote ways, as well as by the power of stick and stone and clout of hand, were the shackles of White Fang's bondage being riveted upon hi made it possible for them to come in to the fires of men, were qualities capable of develop in him, and the ca itself to hi was unaware of it He knew only grief for the loss of Kiche, hope for her return, and a hungry yearning for the free life that had been his

CHAPTER III

--THE OUTCAST

Lip-lip continued so to darken his days that White Fang becaht to be Savageness was a part of his eness thus developed exceeded his st the man-animals thehting and squabbling or the outcry of a squaw over a bit of stolenmixed up in it and usually at the bottom of it They did not bother to look after the causes of his conduct They saw only the effects, and the effects were bad He was a sneak and a thief, a mischief-maker, a fomenter of trouble; and irate squaws told hie any quick-flung missile, that he was a wolf and worthless and bound to come to an evil end

He found himself an outcast in the s followed Lip-lip's lead There was a difference between White Fang and them Perhaps they sensed his ood breed, and instinctively felt for hi feels for the wolf But be that as it may, they joined with Lip-lip in the persecution And, once declared against hiainst him One and all, froave le fight; but single fight was denied hinal for all the young dogs in ca and pitch upon him

Out of this pack-persecution he learned two iht against hireatest ae in the briefest space of time To keep one's feet in the midst of the hostile mass meant life, and this he learnt well He becas ht hurtle him backward or sideith the impact of their heavy bodies; and backward or sideways he would go, in the air or sliding on the ground, but alith his legs under his fight, there are usually prelis and stiff-legged struttings But White Fang learned to oainst hiet away So he learnt to give no warning of his intention He rushed in and snapped and slashed on the instant, without notice, before his foe could prepare to meet hie Also he learned the value of surprise A dog, taken off its guard, its shoulder slashed open or its ear ripped in ribbons before it kneas happening, was a dog half whipped

Further taken by surprise; while a dog, thus overthrown, invariably exposed for a moment the soft underside of its neck--the vulnerable point at which to strike for its life White Fang knew this point It was a knowledge bequeathed to hieneration of wolves So it was that White Fang'sdog alone; second, to surprise it and knock it off its feet; and third, to drive in with his teeth at the soft throat

Being but partly grown his jaws had not yet becoh towent around ca's intention And one day, catching one of his eneed, by repeatedly overthrowing hireat vein and let out the life There was a great row that night He had been observed, the news had been carried to the dead dog's master, the squaws remembered all the instances of stolen ry voices But he resolutely held the door of his tepee, inside which he had placed the culprit, and refused to pereance for which his tribespeople cla this period of his develop was against hireeted with snarls by his kind, with curses and stones by his Gods He lived tensely He was always keyed up, alert for attack, wary of being attacked, with an eye for sudden and unexpected missiles, prepared to act precipitately and coolly, to leap in with a flash of teeth, or to leap aith ahe could snarlor old, in ca kne to make it and when to make it Into his snarl he incorporated all that was vicious, nant, and horrible With nose serrulated by continuous spas out like a red snake and whipping back again, ears flattened down, eyes gleas exposed and dripping, he could compel a pause on the part of aluard, gave him the vital moment in which to think and deterthened out until it evolved into a complete cessation fros White Fang's snarl enabled him to beat an honourable retreat

An outcast hiuinary methods and remarkable efficiency made the pack pay for its persecution of him Not permitted himself to run with the pack, the curious state of affairs obtained that nowould not per tactics, the young dogs were afraid to run by themselves With the exception of Lip-lip, they were coainst the terrible enemy they had made A puppy alone by the river bank meant a puppy dead or a puppy that aroused the camp with its shrill pain and terror as it fled back fro's reprisals did not cease, even when the young dogs had learned thoroughly that they ht theht of hi after him, at which times his swiftness usually carried hi that outran his fellows in such pursuit! White Fang had learned to turn suddenly upon the pursuer that was ahead of the pack and thoroughly to rip hireat frequency, for, once in full cry, the dogs were prone to forget the never forgot hilances as he ran, he was always ready to whirl around and down the overzealous pursuer that outran his fellows

Young dogs are bound to play, and out of the exigencies of the situation they realised their play in thisbecaaa the fastest-footed, was unafraid to venture anywhere During the period that he waited vainly for his h the adjacent woods But the pack invariably lost him Its noise and outcry warned him of its presence, while he ran alone, velvet- footed, silently, athe trees after the manner of his father and mother before him Further he was more directly connected with the Wild than they; and he knew e water and then lie quietly in a near-by thicket while their baffled cries arose around him

Hated by his kind and by ing perpetual war, his development was rapid and one-sided This was no soil for kindliness and affection to blosso The code he learned was to obey the strong and to oppress the weak Grey Beaver was a God, and strong Therefore White Fang obeyed hier or s to be destroyed His development was in the direction of power In order to face the constant danger of hurt and even of destruction, his predatory and protective faculties were unduly developed He becas, swifter of foot, craftier, deadlier, more lithe, , ent He had to becos, else he would not have held his own nor survive the hostile environment in which he found himself

CHAPTER IV

--THE TRAIL OF THE GodS

In the fall of the year, when the days were shortening and the bite of the frost was coot his chance for liberty For several days there had been a great hubbub in the village The sue, was preparing to go off to the fall hunting White Fang watched it all with eager eyes, and when the tepees began to co at the bank, he understood Already the canoes were departing, and some had disappeared down the river

Quite deliberately he determined to stay behind He waited his opportunity to slink out of cainning to form, he hid his trail Then he crawled into the heart of a dense thicket and waited The time passed by, and he slept intermittently for hours Then he was aroused by Grey Beaver's voice calling hi could hear Grey Beaver's squaw taking part in the search, and Mit-sah, as Grey Beaver's son

White Fang treh the i-place, he resisted it After a time the voices died away, and some time after that he crept out to enjoy the success of his undertaking Darkness was co the trees, pleasuring in his freedom Then, and quite suddenly, he beca to the silence of the forest and perturbed by it That nothing er, unseen and unguessed He was suspicious of the looht conceal all s

Then it was cold Here was no warle The frost was in his feet, and he kept lifting first one fore- foot and then the other He curved his bushy tail around to cover the strange about it Upon his inward sight was iain, the tepees, and the blaze of the fires He heard the shrill voices of the wo of the dogs He was hungry, and he remembered pieces of meat and fish that had been thrown hi and inedible silence

His bondage had softened hiotten how to shi+ft for hiht yawned about him His senses, accustomed to the huhts and sounds, were now left idle There was nothing to do, nothing to see nor hear They strained to catch some interruption of the silence and immobility of nature They were appalled by inaction and by the feel of soreat start of fright A colossal and for across the field of his vision It was a tree-shadow flung by the moon, from whose face the clouds had been brushed away Reassured, he whimpered softly; then he suppressed the whiht attract the attention of the lurking dangers

A tree, contracting in the cool of the night, made a loud noise It was directly above hiht A panic seized hie He knew an overpowering desire for the protection and companionshi+p of man In his nostrils was the smell of the ca loud He passed out of the forest and into the moonlit open where were no shadows nor darknesses But no village greeted his eyes He had forgotten The village had gone away

His wild flight ceased abruptly There was no place to which to flee He slunk forlornly through the deserted cas of the Gods He would have been glad for the rattle of stones about hilad for the hand of Grey Beaver descending upon hiht Lip-lip and the whole snarling, cowardly pack

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 id spasms, his mouth opened, and in a heart- broken cry bubbled up his loneliness and fear, his grief for Kiche, all his past sorrows and ers to co wolf-howl, full-throated andof daylight dispelled his fears but increased his loneliness The naked earth, which so shortly before had been so populous; thrust his lonelinessto ed into the forest and followed the river bank down the stream All day he ran He did not rest He seeue And even after fatigue cae of endurance braced him to endless endeavour and enabled hi body onward

Where the river swung in against precipitous bluffs, he clih mountains behind Rivers and streams that entered the main river he forded or swa to forled for life in the icy current Always he was on the lookout for the trail of the Gods where itwas intelligent beyond the average of his kind; yet his h 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 Later on, when he had travelled rown older and wiser and coht be that he could grasp and apprehend such a possibility But that mental poas yet in the future Just now he ran blindly, his own bank of the Mackenzie alone entering into his calculations

All night he ran, blundering in the darkness into mishaps and obstacles that delayed but did not daunt By thecontinuously for thirty hours, and the iron of his flesh was giving out It was the endurance of hisHe had not eaten in forty hours, and he ith hunger The repeated drenchings in the icy water had likewise had their effect on hiled The broad pads of his feet were bruised and bleeding He had begun to limp, and this liht of the sky was obscured and snow began to fall--a raw,snow, slippery under foot, that hid from him the landscape he traversed, and that covered over the inequalities of the ground so that the way of his feet was more difficult and painful

Grey Beaver had intended caht 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, adown to drink, had been espied by Kloo-kooch, as Grey Beaver's squa, had not theout of the course because of the snow, had not Kloo-kooch sighted the moose, and had not Grey Beaver killed it with a lucky shot fros would have happened differently Grey Beaver would not have ca would have passed by and gone on, either to die or to find his way to his wild brothers and becoht had fallen The snoas flyingsoftly to hi, came upon a fresh trail in the snow So fresh was it that he knew it ierness, he followed back fro the trees The camp-sounds came to his ears He saw the blaze of the fire, Kloo-kooch cooking, and Grey Beaver squatting on his ha a chunk of raw tallow There was freshHe crouched and bristled a little at the thought of it Then he went forward again He feared and disliked the beating he knew to be waiting for him But he knew, further, that the comfort of the fire would be his, the protection of the Gods, the cos--the last, a companionshi+p of en to his gregarious needs