It was as Matt had said. White Fang had ceased eating,lost heart, and allowed every dog of the team to thrash him.In the cabin he lay on the floor 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;he never did more than turn his dull eyes upon the man,then drop his head back to its customary position on his fore-paws.
And then, one night, Matt,reading to himself with moving lips and mumbled sounds,was startled by a low whine from White Fang.He had got upon his feet,his ears cocked towards the door,and he was listening intently. A moment later,Matt heard a footstep. The door opened,and Weedon Scott stepped in. The two men shook hands.Then Scott looked around the room.
“Where’s the wolf?” he asked.
Then he discovered him,standing where he had been lying, near to the stove.He had not rushed forward after the manner of other dogs.He stood, 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 time calling him. White Fang came to him,not with a great bound, yet quickly.He was awakened from self-consciousness,but as he drew near,his eyes took on a strange expression. Something,an incommunicable vastness 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!” Matt commented.
Weedon Scott did not hear.He was squatting down on his heels,face to face with White Fang and petting him—rubbing at the roots of the ears,making long caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders,tapping the spine gently with the balls of his fingers.And White Fang was growling responsively,the crooning note of the growl more pronounced than ever.
But that was not all. What of his joy,the great love in him,ever surging and struggling to express itself,succeeded in finding a new mode of expression.He suddenly thrust his head forward and nudged his way in between the master’s arm and body. And here, confined, hidden from view all except his ears, no longer growling, he continued to nudge and 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 always insisted that wolf was a dog. Look at ’m!”
With the return of the love-master,White Fang’s recovery was rapid.Two nights and a day he spent in the cabin.Then he sallied forth.The sled-dogs had forgotten his prowess.They remembered only the latest,which was his weakness and sickness.At the sight of him as he came out of the cabin,they sprang upon him.
“Talk about your rough-houses,” Matt murmured gleefully,standing in the doorway 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-master was enough.Life was flowing through him again,splendid and indomitable. He fought from sheer joy,finding in it an expression of much that he felt and that otherwise was without speech. There could be but one ending. The team dispersed in ignominious defeat, and it was not until after dark that the dogs came sneaking back, one by one, by meekness and humility signifying their fealty to White Fang.
Having learned to snuggle,White Fang was guilty of it often.It was the final word. He could not go beyond it.The one thing of which he had always been particularly jealous was his head.He had always disliked to have it touched.It was the Wild in him,the fear of hurt and of the trap,that had given rise to the panicky impulses to avoid contacts.It was the mandate of his instinct that that head must be free.And now, with the love-master,his snuggling was the deliberate act of putting himself into a position of hopeless helplessness. It was an expression of perfect confidence, of absolute self-surrender, as though he said: “I put myself into thy hands. Work thou thy will with me.”
One night, not long after the return,Scott and Matt sat at a game of cribbage preliminary to going to bed.“Fifteen-two, fifteen-four an’ a pair makes six,” Mat was pegging up,when there was an outcry and sound of snarling without.They looked at each other as they started to rise to 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 his back in the snow.His arms were folded, one above the other,across his face and throat.Thus he was trying to shield himself from White Fang’s teeth.And there was need for it. White Fang was in a rage,wickedly making his attack on the most vulnerable spot.From shoulder to wrist of the crossed arms,the coat-sleeve, blue flannel shirt and undershirt were ripped in rags,while the arms themselves were terribly slashed and streaming blood.
All this the two men saw in the first instant.The next instant Weedon Scott had White Fang by the throat and was dragging him clear. White Fang struggled and snarled, but made no attempt to bite, while he quickly quieted down at a sharp word from the master.
Matt helped the man to his feet.As he arose he lowered his crossed arms,exposing the bestial face of Beauty Smith.The dog-musher let go of him precipitately,with action similar to that of a man who has picked up live fire.Beauty Smith blinked in the lamplight and looked about him.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 held the lamp close to them,indicating them with his toe for his employer’s benefit—a steel dog-chain and a stout club.
Weedon Scott saw and nodded. Not a word was spoken.The dog-musher laid his hand on Beauty Smith’s shoulder and faced him to the right about. No word needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith started.
In the meantime the love-master was patting White Fang and talking to him.
“Tried to steal you, eh?And you wouldn’t have it!Well, well, he made a mistake, didn’t he?”
“Must ‘a’ thought he had hold of seventeen devils,” the dog-musher sniggered.
White Fang, still wrought up and bristling,growled and growled, the hair slowly lying down,the crooning note remote and dim,but growing in his throat.
PART V