CHAPTER VI--THE LOVE-MASTER
As White Fang watched Weedon Scott approach, he bristled and snarled toadvertise that he would not submit to punishment. Twenty-four hours hadpassed since he had slashed open the hand that was now bandaged and heldup by a sling to keep the blood out of it. In the past White Fang hadexperienced delayed punishments, and he apprehended that such a one wasabout to befall him. How could it be otherwise? He had committed whatwas to him sacrilege, sunk his fangs into the holy flesh of a god, and ofa white-skinned superior god at that. In the nature of things, and ofintercourse with gods, something terrible awaited him.
The god sat down several feet away. White Fang could see nothingdangerous in that. When the gods administered punishment they stood ontheir legs. Besides, this god had no club, no whip, no firearm. Andfurthermore, he himself was free. No chain nor stick bound him. Hecould escape into safety while the god was scrambling to his feet. Inthe meantime he would wait and see.
The god remained quiet, made no movement; and White Fang's snarl slowlydwindled to a growl that ebbed down in his throat and ceased. Then thegod spoke, and at the first sound of his voice, the hair rose on WhiteFang's neck and the growl rushed up in his throat. But the god made nohostile movement, and went on calmly talking. For a time White Fanggrowled in unison with him, a correspondence of rhythm being establishedbetween growl and voice. But the god talked on interminably. He talkedto White Fang as White Fang had never been talked to before. He talkedsoftly and soothingly, with a gentleness that somehow, somewhere, touchedWhite Fang. In spite of himself and all the pricking warnings of hisinstinct, White Fang began to have confidence in this god. He had afeeling of security that was belied by all his experience with men.
After a long time, the god got up and went into the cabin. White Fangscanned him apprehensively when he came out. He had neither whip norclub nor weapon. Nor was his uninjured hand behind his back hidingsomething. He sat down as before, in the same spot, several feet away.He held out a small piece of meat. White Fang pricked his ears andinvestigated it suspiciously, managing to look at the same time both atthe meat and the god, alert for any overt act, his body tense and readyto spring away at the first sign of hostility.
Still the punishment delayed. The god merely held near to his nose apiece of meat. And about the meat there seemed nothing wrong. StillWhite Fang suspected; and though the meat was proffered to him with shortinviting thrusts of the hand, he refused to touch it. The gods were all-wise, and there was no telling what masterful treachery lurked behindthat apparently harmless piece of meat. In past experience, especiallyin dealing with squaws, meat and punishment had often been disastrouslyrelated.
In the end, the god tossed the meat on the snow at White Fang's feet. Hesmelled the meat carefully; but he did not look at it. While he smelledit he kept his eyes on the god. Nothing happened. He took the meat intohis mouth and swallowed it. Still nothing happened. The god wasactually offering him another piece of meat. Again he refused to take itfrom the hand, and again it was tossed to him. This was repeated anumber of times. But there came a time when the god refused to toss it.He kept it in his hand and steadfastly proffered it.
The meat was good meat, and White Fang was hungry. Bit by bit,infinitely cautious, he approached the hand. At last the time came thathe decided to eat the meat from the hand. He never took his eyes fromthe god, thrusting his head forward with ears flattened back and hairinvoluntarily rising and cresting on his neck. Also a low growl rumbledin his throat as warning that he was not to be trifled with. He ate themeat, and nothing happened. Piece by piece, he ate all the meat, andnothing happened. Still the punishment delayed.
He licked his chops and waited. The god went on talking. In his voicewas kindness--something of which White Fang had no experience whatever.And within him it aroused feelings which he had likewise neverexperienced before. He was aware of a certain strange satisfaction, asthough some need were being gratified, as though some void in his beingwere being filled. Then again came the prod of his instinct and thewarning of past experience. The gods were ever crafty, and they hadunguessed ways of attaining their ends.
Ah, he had thought so! There it came now, the god's hand, cunning tohurt, thrusting out at him, descending upon his head. But the god wenton talking. His voice was soft and soothing. In spite of the menacinghand, the voice inspired confidence. And in spite of the assuring voice,the hand inspired distrust. White Fang was torn by conflicting feelings,impulses. It seemed he would fly to pieces, so terrible was the controlhe was exerting, holding together by an unwonted indecision the counter-forces that struggled within him for mastery.
He compromised. He snarled and bristled and flattened his ears. But heneither snapped nor sprang away. The hand descended. Nearer and nearerit came. It touched the ends of his upstanding hair. He shrank downunder it. It followed down after him, pressing more closely against him.Shrinking, almost shivering, he still managed to hold himself together.It was a torment, this hand that touched him and violated his instinct.He could not forget in a day all the evil that had been wrought him atthe hands of men. But it was the will of the god, and he strove tosubmit.
The hand lifted and descended again in a patting, caressing movement.This continued, but every time the hand lifted, the hair lifted under it.And every time the hand descended, the ears flattened down and acavernous growl surged in his throat. White Fang growled and growledwith insistent warning. By this means he announced that he was preparedto retaliate for any hurt he might receive. There was no telling whenthe god's ulterior motive might be disclosed. At any moment that soft,confidence-inspiring voice might break forth in a roar of wrath, thatgentle and caressing hand transform itself into a vice-like grip to holdhim helpless and administer punishment.
But the god talked on softly, and ever the hand rose and fell with non-hostile pats. White Fang experienced dual feelings. It was distastefulto his instinct. It restrained him, opposed the will of him towardpersonal liberty. And yet it was not physically painful. On thecontrary, it was even pleasant, in a physical way. The patting movementslowly and carefully changed to a rubbing of the ears about their bases,and the physical pleasure even increased a little. Yet he continued tofear, and he stood on guard, expectant of unguessed evil, alternatelysuffering and enjoying as one feeling or the other came uppermost andswayed him.
"Well, I'll be gosh-swoggled!"
So spoke Matt, coming out of the cabin, his sleeves rolled up, a pan ofdirty dish-water in his hands, arrested in the act of emptying the pan bythe sight of Weedon Scott patting White Fang.
At the instant his voice broke the silence, White Fang leaped back,snarling savagely at him.
Matt regarded his employer with grieved disapproval.
"If you don't mind my expressin' my feelin's, Mr. Scott, I'll make freeto say you're seventeen kinds of a damn fool an' all of 'em different,an' then some."
Weedon Scott smiled with a superior air, gained his feet, and walked overto White Fang. He talked soothingly to him, but not for long, thenslowly put out his hand, rested it on White Fang's head, and resumed theinterrupted patting. White Fang endured it, keeping his eyes fixedsuspiciously, not upon the man that patted him, but upon the man thatstood in the doorway.
"You may be a number one, tip-top minin' expert, all right all right,"the dog-musher delivered himself oracularly, "but you missed the chanceof your life when you was a boy an' didn't run off an' join a circus."
White Fang snarled at the sound of his voice, but this time did not leapaway from under the hand that was caressing his head and the back of hisneck with long, soothing strokes.
It was the beginning of the end for White Fang--the ending of the oldlife and the reign of hate. A new and incomprehensibly fairer life wasdawning. It required much thinking and endless patience on the part ofWeedon Scott to accomplish this. And on the part of White Fang itrequired nothing less than a revolution. He had to ignore the urges and
promptings of instinct and reason, defy experience, give the lie to lifeitself.
Life, as he had known it, not only had had no place in it for much thathe now did; but all the currents had gone counter to those to which henow abandoned himself. In short, when all things were considered, he hadto achieve an orientation far vaster than the one he had achieved at thetime he came voluntarily in from the Wild and accepted Grey Beaver as hislord. At that time he was a mere puppy, soft from the making, withoutform, ready for the thumb of circumstance to begin its work upon him. Butnow it was different. The thumb of circumstance had done its work onlytoo well. By it he had been formed and hardened into the Fighting Wolf,fierce and implacable, unloving and unlovable. To accomplish the changewas like a reflux of being, and this when the plasticity of youth was nolonger his; when the fibre of him had become tough and knotty; when thewarp and the woof of him had made of him an adamantine texture, harsh andunyielding; when the face of his spirit had become iron and all hisinstincts and axioms had crystallised into set rules, cautions, dislikes,and desires.
Yet again, in this new orientation, it was the thumb of circumstance thatpressed and prodded him, softening that which had become hard andremoulding it into fairer form. Weedon Scott was in truth this thumb. Hehad gone to the roots of White Fang's nature, and with kindness touchedto life potencies that had languished and well-nigh perished. One suchpotency was _love_. It took the place of _like_, which latter had beenthe highest feeling that thrilled him in his intercourse with the gods.
But this love did not come in a day. It began with _like_ and out of itslowly developed. White Fang did not run away, though he was allowed toremain loose, because he liked this new god. This was certainly betterthan the life he had lived in the cage of Beauty Smith, and it wasnecessary that he should have some god. The lordship of man was a needof his nature. The seal of his dependence on man had been set upon himin that early day when he turned his back on the Wild and crawled to GreyBeaver's feet to receive the expected beating. This seal had beenstamped upon him again, and ineradicably, on his second return from theWild, when the long famine was over and there was fish once more in thevillage of Grey Beaver.
And so, because he needed a god and because he preferred Weedon Scott toBeauty Smith, White Fang remained. In acknowledgment of fealty, heproceeded to take upon himself the guardianship of his master's property.He prowled about the cabin while the sled-dogs slept, and the first night-visitor to the cabin fought him off with a club until Weedon Scott cameto the rescue. But White Fang soon learned to differentiate betweenthieves and honest men, to appraise the true value of step and carriage.The man who travelled, loud-stepping, the direct line to the cabin door,he let alone--though he watched him vigilantly until the door opened andhe received the endorsement of the master. But the man who went softly,by circuitous ways, peering with caution, seeking after secrecy--that wasthe man who received no suspension of judgment from White Fang, and whowent away abruptly, hurriedly, and without dignity.
Weedon Scott had set himself the task of redeeming White Fang--or rather,of redeeming mankind from the wrong it had done White Fang. It was amatter of principle and conscience. He felt that the ill done White Fangwas a debt incurred by man and that it must be paid. So he went out ofhis way to be especially kind to the Fighting Wolf. Each day he made ita point to caress and pet White Fang, and to do it at length.
At first suspicious and hostile, White Fang grew to like this petting.But there was one thing that he never outgrew--his growling. Growl hewould, from the moment the petting began till it ended. But it was agrowl with a new note in it. A stranger could not hear this note, and tosuch a stranger the growling of White Fang was an exhibition ofprimordial savagery, nerve-racking and blood-curdling. But White Fang'sthroat had become harsh-fibred from the making of ferocious soundsthrough the many years since his first little rasp of anger in the lairof his cubhood, and he could not soften the sounds of that throat now toexpress the gentleness he felt. Nevertheless, Weedon Scott's ear andsympathy were fine enough to catch the new note all but drowned in thefierceness--the note that was the faintest hint of a croon of content andthat none but he could hear.
As the days went by, the evolution of _like_ into _love_ was accelerated.White Fang himself began to grow aware of it, though in his consciousnesshe knew not what love was. It manifested itself to him as a void in hisbeing--a hungry, aching, yearning void that clamoured to be filled. Itwas a pain and an unrest; and it received easement only by the touch ofthe new god's presence. At such times love was joy to him, a wild, keen-thrilling satisfaction. But when away from his god, the pain and theunrest returned; the void in him sprang up and pressed against him withits emptiness, and the hunger gnawed and gnawed unceasingly.
White Fang was in the process of finding himself. In spite of thematurity of his years and of the savage rigidity of the mould that hadformed him, his nature was undergoing an expansion. There was aburgeoning within him of strange feelings and unwonted impulses. His oldcode of conduct was changing. In the past he had liked comfort andsurcease from pain, disliked discomfort and pain, and he had adjusted hisactions accordingly. But now it was different. Because of this newfeeling within him, he ofttimes elected discomfort and pain for the sakeof his god. Thus, in the early morning, instead of roaming and foraging,or lying in a sheltered nook, he would wait for hours on the cheerlesscabin-stoop for a sight of the god's face. At night, when the godreturned home, White Fang would leave the warm sleeping-place he hadburrowed in the snow in order to receive the friendly snap of fingers andthe word of greeting. Meat, even meat itself, he would forego to be withhis god, to receive a caress from him or to accompany him down into thetown.
_Like_ had been replaced by _love_. And love was the plummet droppeddown into the deeps of him where like had never gone. And responsive outof his deeps had come the new thing--love. That which was given unto himdid he return. This was a god indeed, a love-god, a warm and radiantgod, in whose light White Fang's nature expanded as a flower expandsunder the sun.
But White Fang was not demonstrative. He was too old, too firmlymoulded, to become adept at expressing himself in new ways. He was tooself-possessed, too strongly poised in his own isolation. Too long hadhe cultivated reticence, aloofness, and moroseness. He had never barkedin his life, and he could not now learn to bark a welcome when his godapproached. He was never in the way, never extravagant nor foolish inthe expression of his love. He never ran to meet his god. He waited ata distance; but he always waited, was always there. His love partook ofthe nature of worship, dumb, inarticulate, a silent adoration. Only bythe steady regard of his eyes did he express his love, and by theunceasing following with his eyes of his god's every movement. Also, attimes, when his god looked at him and spoke to him, he betrayed anawkward self-consciousness, caused by the struggle of his love to expressitself and his physical inability to express it.
He learned to adjust himself in many ways to his new mode of life. Itwas borne in upon him that he must let his master's dogs alone. Yet hisdominant nature asserted itself, and he had first to thrash them into anacknowledgment of his superiority and leadership. This accomplished, hehad little trouble with them. They gave trail to him when he came andwent or walked among them, and when he asserted his will they obeyed.
In the same way, he came to tolerate Matt--as a possession of his master.His master rarely fed him. Matt did that, it was his business; yet WhiteFang divined that it was his master's food he ate and that it was hismaster who thus fed him vicariously. Matt it was who tried to put himinto the harness and make him haul sled with the other dogs. But Mattfailed. It was not until Weedon Scott put the harness on White Fang andworked him, that he understood. He took it as his master's will thatMatt should drive him and work him just as he drove and worked hismaster's other dogs.
Different from the Mackenzie toboggans were the Klondike sleds withrunners under them. And different was the method of driving the dogs.There
was no fan-formation of the team. The dogs worked in single file,one behind another, hauling on double traces. And here, in the Klondike,the leader was indeed the leader. The wisest as well as strongest dogwas the leader, and the team obeyed him and feared him. That White Fangshould quickly gain this post was inevitable. He could not be satisfiedwith less, as Matt learned after much inconvenience and trouble. WhiteFang picked out the post for himself, and Matt backed his judgment withstrong language after the experiment had been tried. But, though heworked in the sled in the day, White Fang did not forego the guarding ofhis master's property in the night. Thus he was on duty all the time,ever vigilant and faithful, the most valuable of all the dogs.
"Makin' free to spit out what's in me," Matt said one day, "I beg tostate that you was a wise guy all right when you paid the price you didfor that dog. You clean swindled Beauty Smith on top of pushin' his facein with your fist."
A recrudescence of anger glinted in Weedon Scott's grey eyes, and hemuttered savagely, "The beast!"
In the late spring a great trouble came to White Fang. Without warning,the love-master disappeared. There had been warning, but White Fang wasunversed in such things and did not understand the packing of a grip. Heremembered afterwards that his packing had preceded the master'sdisappearance; but at the time he suspected nothing. That night hewaited for the master to return. At midnight the chill wind that blewdrove him to shelter at the rear of the cabin. There he drowsed, onlyhalf asleep, his ears keyed for the first sound of the familiar step.But, at two in the morning, his anxiety drove him out to the cold frontstoop, where he crouched, and waited.
But no master came. In the morning the door opened and Matt steppedoutside. White Fang gazed at him wistfully. There was no common speechby which he might learn what he wanted to know. The days came and went,but never the master. White Fang, who had never known sickness in hislife, became sick. He became very sick, so sick that Matt was finallycompelled to bring him inside the cabin. Also, in writing to hisemployer, Matt devoted a postscript to White Fang.
Weedon Scott reading the letter down in Circle City, came upon thefollowing:
"That dam wolf won't work. Won't eat. Aint got no spunk left. All thedogs is licking him. Wants to know what has become of you, and I don'tknow how to tell him. Mebbe he is going to die."
It was as Matt had said. White Fang had ceased eating, lost heart, andallowed every dog of the team to thrash him. In the cabin he lay on thefloor near the stove, without interest in food, in Matt, nor in life.Matt might talk gently to him or swear at him, it was all the same; henever did more than turn his dull eyes upon the man, then drop his headback to its customary position on his fore-paws.
And then, one night, Matt, reading to himself with moving lips andmumbled sounds, was startled by a low whine from White Fang. He had gotupon his feet, his ears cocked towards the door, and he was listeningintently. A moment later, Matt heard a footstep. The door opened, andWeedon Scott stepped in. The two men shook hands. Then Scott lookedaround the room.
"Where's the wolf?" he asked.
Then he discovered him, standing where he had been lying, near to thestove. He had not rushed forward after the manner of other dogs. Hestood, watching and waiting.
"Holy smoke!" Matt exclaimed. "Look at 'm wag his tail!"
Weedon Scott strode half across the room toward him, at the same timecalling him. White Fang came to him, not with a great bound, yetquickly. He was awakened from self-consciousness, but as he drew near,his eyes took on a strange expression. Something, an incommunicablevastness of feeling, rose up into his eyes as a light and shone forth.
"He never looked at me that way all the time you was gone!" Mattcommented.
Weedon Scott did not hear. He was squatting down on his heels, face toface with White Fang and petting him--rubbing at the roots of the ears,making long caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders, tapping thespine gently with the balls of his fingers. And White Fang was growlingresponsively, the crooning note of the growl more pronounced than ever.
But that was not all. What of his joy, the great love in him, eversurging and struggling to express itself, succeeded in finding a newmode of expression. He suddenly thrust his head forward and nudged hisway in between the master's arm and body. And here, confined, hiddenfrom view all except his ears, no longer growling, he continued to nudgeand snuggle.
The two men looked at each other. Scott's eyes were shining.
"Gosh!" said Matt in an awe-stricken voice.
A moment later, when he had recovered himself, he said, "I alwaysinsisted that wolf was a dog. Look at 'm!"
With the return of the love-master, White Fang's recovery was rapid. Twonights and a day he spent in the cabin. Then he sallied forth. The sled-dogs had forgotten his prowess. They remembered only the latest, whichwas his weakness and sickness. At the sight of him as he came out of thecabin, they sprang upon him.
"Talk about your rough-houses," Matt murmured gleefully, standing in thedoorway and looking on.
"Give 'm hell, you wolf! Give 'm hell!--an' then some!"
White Fang did not need the encouragement. The return of the love-masterwas enough. Life was flowing through him again, splendid andindomitable. He fought from sheer joy, finding in it an expression ofmuch that he felt and that otherwise was without speech. There could bebut one ending. The team dispersed in ignominious defeat, and it was notuntil after dark that the dogs came sneaking back, one by one, bymeekness and humility signifying their fealty to White Fang.
Having learned to snuggle, White Fang was guilty of it often. It was thefinal word. He could not go beyond it. The one thing of which he hadalways been particularly jealous was his head. He had always disliked tohave it touched. It was the Wild in him, the fear of hurt and of thetrap, that had given rise to the panicky impulses to avoid contacts. Itwas the mandate of his instinct that that head must be free. And now,with the love-master, his snuggling was the deliberate act of puttinghimself into a position of hopeless helplessness. It was an expressionof perfect confidence, of absolute self-surrender, as though he said: "Iput myself into thy hands. Work thou thy will with me."
One night, not long after the return, Scott and Matt sat at a game ofcribbage preliminary to going to bed. "Fifteen-two, fifteen-four an' apair makes six," Matt was pegging up, when there was an outcry and soundof snarling without. They looked at each other as they started to riseto their feet.
"The wolf's nailed somebody," Matt said.
A wild scream of fear and anguish hastened them.
"Bring a light!" Scott shouted, as he sprang outside.
Matt followed with the lamp, and by its light they saw a man lying on hisback in the snow. His arms were folded, one above the other, across hisface and throat. Thus he was trying to shield himself from White Fang'steeth. And there was need for it. White Fang was in a rage, wickedlymaking his attack on the most vulnerable spot. From shoulder to wrist ofthe crossed arms, the coat-sleeve, blue flannel shirt and undershirt wereripped in rags, while the arms themselves were terribly slashed andstreaming blood.
All this the two men saw in the first instant. The next instant WeedonScott had White Fang by the throat and was dragging him clear. WhiteFang struggled and snarled, but made no attempt to bite, while he quicklyquieted down at a sharp word from the master.
Matt helped the man to his feet. As he arose he lowered his crossedarms, exposing the bestial face of Beauty Smith. The dog-musher let goof him precipitately, with action similar to that of a man who has pickedup live fire. Beauty Smith blinked in the lamplight and looked abouthim. He caught sight of White Fang and terror rushed into his face.
At the same moment Matt noticed two objects lying in the snow. He heldthe lamp close to them, indicating them with his toe for his employer'sbenefit--a steel dog-chain and a stout club.
Weedon Scott saw and nodded. Not a word was spoken. The dog-musher laidhis hand on Beauty Smith's shoulder and fa
ced him to the right about. Noword needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith started.
In the meantime the love-master was patting White Fang and talking tohim.
"Tried to steal you, eh? And you wouldn't have it! Well, well, he madea mistake, didn't he?"
"Must 'a' thought he had hold of seventeen devils," the dog-mushersniggered.
White Fang, still wrought up and bristling, growled and growled, the hairslowly lying down, the crooning note remote and dim, but growing in histhroat.