Part 10 (1/2)
”You ood care of him, Matt,” Scott said, as they started down the hill ”Write and let -musher answered ”But listen to that, will you!”
Both s hohen theiran utter woe, his cry bursting upward in great heart-breaking rushes, dying down into quavering rief
The Aurora was the first steamboat of the year for the Outside, and her decks were jaold seekers, all equally as et to the Inside Near the gang-plank, Scott was shaking hands with Matt, as preparing to go ashore But Matt's hand went liaze shot past and re behind hi on the deck several feet away and watching wistfully was White Fang
The dog-musher swore softly, in awe-stricken accents Scott could only look in wonder
”Did you lock the front door?” Matt demanded The other nodded, and asked, ”How about the back?”
”You just bet I did,” was the fervent reply
White Fang flattened his ears ingratiatingly, but re no attempt to approach
”I'll have to take 'm ashore with , but the latter slid away froed between the legs of a group of , he slid about the deck, eluding the other's efforts to capture hi came to him with prompt obedience
”Won't co-musher muttered resentfully ”And you--you ain't never fed 'ettin' acquainted I'm blamed if I can see hoorks it out that you're the boss”
Scott, who had been patting White Fang, suddenly bent closer and pointed out fresh-ash between the eyes
Matt bent over and passed his hand along White Fang's belly
”We plued underneath Must 'a' butted clean through it, b'gosh!+”
But Weedon Scott was not listening He was thinking rapidly The Aurora's whistle hooted a final announce-plank to the shore Matt loosened the bandana fro's Scott grasped the dog-musher's hand
”Good-bye, Matt, old man About the wolf--you needn't write You see, I've!”
”What!” the dog-musher exploded ”You don'tI mean Here's your bandana I'll write to you about hi-plank
”He'll never stand the climate!” he shouted back ”Unless you clip '-plank was hauled in, and the Aurora swung out froood-bye Then he turned and bent over White Fang, standing by his side
”Nol, darowl,” he said, as he patted the responsive head and rubbed the flattening ears
CHAPTER II
--THE SOUTHLAND
White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco He was appalled Deep in hi process or act of consciousness, he had associated poith Godhead And never had the white men seemed such marvellous Gods as nohen he trod the sli cabins he had knoere replaced by towering buildings The streets were croith perils--waggons, carts, autoe trucks; and h thetheir insistent menace after the manner of the lynxes he had known in the northern woods
All this was the h it all, behind it all, washimself, as of old, by hised Fear sat upon him As in his cubhood he had been made to feel his smallness and puniness on the day he first cae of Grey Beaver, so now, in his full-grown stature and pride of strength, he was made to feel small and puny And there were soof them The thunder of the streets smote upon his ears He was bewildered by the tres As never before, he felt his dependence on the love-master, close at whose heels he followed, no ht of hihtmare vision of the city--an experience that was like a bad drea after in his dreae-car by the master, chained in a corner in the midst of heaped trunks and valises Here a squat and brawny God held siththe the the, to other Gods aited the deserted by the ht he was deserted, until he sside of hiuard over therowled the God of the car, an hour later, when Weedon Scott appeared at the door ”That dog of yourn won't let ed froone The car had been to him no more than a room in a house, and when he had entered it the city had been all around him In the interval the city had disappeared The roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears Before hi with sunshi+ne, lazy with quietude But he had little time to marvel at the transformation He accepted it as he accepted all the unaccountable doings and manifestations of the Gods It was their way
There was a carriage waiting A man and a woman approached the master The woman's arms went out and clutched the master around the neck--a hostile act! The next moment Weedon Scott had torn loose fro, who had becoht,and placated hi to injure ht He'll learn soon enough”
”And in theis not around,” she laughed, though she was pale and weak fro, who snarled and bristled and glared malevolently
”He'll have to learn, and he shall, without postpone until he had quieted him, then his voice became firm
”Down, sir! Doith you!”
This had been one of the things taught hih he lay down reluctantly and sullenly
”Now, mother”
Scott opened his ar
”Down!” he warned ”Down!”
White Fang, bristling silently, half-crouching as he rose, sank back and watched the hostile act repeated But no hare s were taken into the carriage, the strange Gods and the love-ilantly behind, now bristling up to the running horses and warning them that he was there to see that no hared so swiftly across the earth
At the end of fifteen ateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnut trees On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here and there by great sturdy-lireen of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tan and gold; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures From the head of the lawn, on the first soft swell from the valley-level, looked down the deep-porched, iven White Fang to see all this Hardly had the carriage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep-dog, bright- eyed, sharp-ry It was between hi snarled no warning, but his hair bristled as he made his silent and deadly rush This rush was never completed He halted with aard abruptness, with stiff fore-legs bracing hi down on his haunches, so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the dog he was in the act of attacking It was a female, and the law of his kind thrust a barrier between For hi less than a violation of his instinct
But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise Being a fe a sheep-dog, her instinctive fear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen White Fang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyed upon her flocks frouarded by some dim ancestor of hers And so, as he abandoned his rush at her and braced hi upon him He snarled involuntarily as he felt her teeth in his shoulder, but beyond this ed with self-consciousness, and tried to go around her He dodged this way and that, and curved and turned, but to no purpose She reo
”Here, Collie!” called the strange hed