CHAPTER II--THE SOUTHLAND
White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco. He was appalled.Deep in him, below any reasoning process or act of consciousness, he hadassociated power with godhead. And never had the white men seemed suchmarvellous gods as now, when he trod the slimy pavement of San Francisco.The log cabins he had known were replaced by towering buildings. Thestreets were crowded with perils--waggons, carts, automobiles; great,straining horses pulling huge trucks; and monstrous cable and electriccars hooting and clanging through the midst, screeching their insistentmenace after the manner of the lynxes he had known in the northern woods.
All this was the manifestation of power. Through it all, behind it all,was man, governing and controlling, expressing himself, as of old, by hismastery over matter. It was colossal, stunning. White Fang was awed.Fear sat upon him. As in his cubhood he had been made to feel hissmallness and puniness on the day he first came in from the Wild to thevillage of Grey Beaver, so now, in his full-grown stature and pride ofstrength, he was made to feel small and puny. And there were so manygods! He was made dizzy by the swarming of them. The thunder of thestreets smote upon his ears. He was bewildered by the tremendous andendless rush and movement of things. As never before, he felt hisdependence on the love-master, close at whose heels he followed, nomatter what happened never losing sight of him.
But White Fang was to have no more than a nightmare vision of the city--anexperience that was like a bad dream, unreal and terrible, that hauntedhim for long after in his dreams. He was put into a baggage-car by themaster, chained in a corner in the midst of heaped trunks and valises.Here a squat and brawny god held sway, with much noise, hurling trunksand boxes about, dragging them in through the door and tossing them intothe piles, or flinging them out of the door, smashing and crashing, toother gods who awaited them.
And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White Fang deserted by themaster. Or at least White Fang thought he was deserted, until he smelledout the master's canvas clothes-bags alongside of him, and proceeded tomount guard over them.
"'Bout time you come," growled the god of the car, an hour later, whenWeedon Scott appeared at the door. "That dog of yourn won't let me lay afinger on your stuff."
White Fang emerged from the car. He was astonished. The nightmare citywas gone. The car had been to him no more than a room in a house, andwhen he had entered it the city had been all around him. In the intervalthe city had disappeared. The roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears.Before him was smiling country, streaming with sunshine, lazy withquietude. But he had little time to marvel at the transformation. Heaccepted it as he accepted all the unaccountable doings andmanifestations 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--ahostile act! The next moment Weedon Scott had torn loose from theembrace and closed with White Fang, who had become a snarling, ragingdemon.
"It's all right, mother," Scott was saying as he kept tight hold of WhiteFang and placated him. "He thought you were going to injure me, and hewouldn't stand for it. It's all right. It's all right. He'll learnsoon enough."
"And in the meantime I may be permitted to love my son when his dog isnot around," she laughed, though she was pale and weak from the fright.
She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled and glaredmalevolently.
"He'll have to learn, and he shall, without postponement," Scott said.
He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted him, then his voicebecame firm.
"Down, sir! Down with you!"
This had been one of the things taught him by the master, and White Fangobeyed, though he lay down reluctantly and sullenly.
"Now, mother."
Scott opened his arms to her, but kept his eyes on White Fang.
"Down!" he warned. "Down!"
White Fang, bristling silently, half-crouching as he rose, sank back andwatched the hostile act repeated. But no harm came of it, nor of theembrace from the strange man-god that followed. Then the clothes-bagswere taken into the carriage, the strange gods and the love-masterfollowed, and White Fang pursued, now running vigilantly behind, nowbristling up to the running horses and warning them that he was there tosee that no harm befell the god they dragged so swiftly across the earth.
At the end of fifteen minutes, the carriage swung in through a stonegateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnuttrees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here andthere by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near distance, in contrastwith the young-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tanand gold; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures. Fromthe head of the lawn, on the first soft swell from the valley-level,looked down the deep-porched, many-windowed house.
Little opportunity was given White Fang to see all this. Hardly had thecarriage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep-dog, bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, righteously indignant and angry. It was between himand the master, cutting him off. White Fang snarled no warning, but hishair bristled as he made his silent and deadly rush. This rush was nevercompleted. He halted with awkward abruptness, with stiff fore-legsbracing himself against his momentum, almost sitting down on hishaunches, so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the dog he was inthe act of attacking. It was a female, and the law of his kind thrust abarrier between. For him to attack her would require nothing less than aviolation of his instinct.
But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise. Being a female, she possessedno such instinct. On the other hand, being a sheep-dog, her instinctivefear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen. WhiteFang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyed upon herflocks from the time sheep were first herded and guarded by some dimancestor of hers. And so, as he abandoned his rush at her and bracedhimself to avoid the contact, she sprang upon him. He snarledinvoluntarily as he felt her teeth in his shoulder, but beyond this madeno offer to hurt her. He backed away, stiff-legged withself-consciousness, and tried to go around her. He dodged this way andthat, and curved and turned, but to no purpose. She remained alwaysbetween him and the way he wanted to go.
"Here, Collie!" called the strange man in the carriage.
Weedon Scott laughed.
"Never mind, father. It is good discipline. White Fang will have tolearn many things, and it's just as well that he begins now. He'lladjust himself all right."
The carriage drove on, and still Collie blocked White Fang's way. Hetried to outrun her by leaving the drive and circling across the lawn butshe ran on the inner and smaller circle, and was always there, facing himwith her two rows of gleaming teeth. Back he circled, across the driveto the other lawn, and again she headed him off.
The carriage was bearing the master away. White Fang caught glimpses ofit disappearing amongst the trees. The situation was desperate. Heessayed another circle. She followed, running swiftly. And then,suddenly, he turned upon her. It was his old fighting trick. Shoulderto shoulder, he struck her squarely. Not only was she overthrown. Sofast had she been running that she rolled along, now on her back, now onher side, as she struggled to stop, clawing gravel with her feet andcrying shrilly her hurt pride and indignation.
White Fang did not wait. The way was clear, and that was all he hadwanted. She took after him, never ceasing her outcry. It was thestraightaway now, and when it came to real running, White Fang couldteach her things. She ran frantically, hysterically, straining to theutmost, advertising the effort she was making with every leap: and allthe time White Fang slid smoothly away from her silently, without effort,gliding like a ghost over the ground.
As he rounded the house to the _porte-cochere_, he came upon thecarriage. It had stopped, and the master was alighting. At this moment,still running at top speed, White Fang became suddenly aware of an attackfrom the side. It was a deer-hound rushin
g upon him. White Fang triedto face it. But he was going too fast, and the hound was too close. Itstruck him on the side; and such was his forward momentum and theunexpectedness of it, White Fang was hurled to the ground and rolledclear over. He came out of the tangle a spectacle of malignancy, earsflattened back, lips writhing, nose wrinkling, his teeth clippingtogether as the fangs barely missed the hound's soft throat.
The master was running up, but was too far away; and it was Collie thatsaved the hound's life. Before White Fang could spring in and deliverthe fatal stroke, and just as he was in the act of springing in, Colliearrived. She had been out-manoeuvred and out-run, to say nothing of herhaving been unceremoniously tumbled in the gravel, and her arrival waslike that of a tornado--made up of offended dignity, justifiable wrath,and instinctive hatred for this marauder from the Wild. She struck WhiteFang at right angles in the midst of his spring, and again he was knockedoff his feet and rolled over.
The next moment the master arrived, and with one hand held White Fang,while the father called off the dogs.
"I say, this is a pretty warm reception for a poor lone wolf from theArctic," the master said, while White Fang calmed down under hiscaressing hand. "In all his life he's only been known once to go off hisfeet, and here he's been rolled twice in thirty seconds."
The carriage had driven away, and other strange gods had appeared fromout the house. Some of these stood respectfully at a distance; but twoof them, women, perpetrated the hostile act of clutching the masteraround the neck. White Fang, however, was beginning to tolerate thisact. No harm seemed to come of it, while the noises the gods made werecertainly not threatening. These gods also made overtures to White Fang,but he warned them off with a snarl, and the master did likewise withword of mouth. At such times White Fang leaned in close against themaster's legs and received reassuring pats on the head.
The hound, under the command, "Dick! Lie down, sir!" had gone up thesteps and lain down to one side of the porch, still growling and keepinga sullen watch on the intruder. Collie had been taken in charge by oneof the woman-gods, who held arms around her neck and petted and caressedher; but Collie was very much perplexed and worried, whining andrestless, outraged by the permitted presence of this wolf and confidentthat the gods were making a mistake.
All the gods started up the steps to enter the house. White Fangfollowed closely at the master's heels. Dick, on the porch, growled, andWhite Fang, on the steps, bristled and growled back.
"Take Collie inside and leave the two of them to fight it out," suggestedScott's father. "After that they'll be friends."
"Then White Fang, to show his friendship, will have to be chief mournerat the funeral," laughed the master.
The elder Scott looked incredulously, first at White Fang, then at Dick,and finally at his son.
"You mean . . .?"
Weedon nodded his head. "I mean just that. You'd have a dead Dickinside one minute--two minutes at the farthest."
He turned to White Fang. "Come on, you wolf. It's you that'll have tocome inside."
White Fang walked stiff-legged up the steps and across the porch, withtail rigidly erect, keeping his eyes on Dick to guard against a flankattack, and at the same time prepared for whatever fierce manifestationof the unknown that might pounce out upon him from the interior of thehouse. But no thing of fear pounced out, and when he had gained theinside he scouted carefully around, looking at it and finding it not.Then he lay down with a contented grunt at the master's feet, observingall that went on, ever ready to spring to his feet and fight for lifewith the terrors he felt must lurk under the trap-roof of the dwelling.