CHAPTER I

THE MAKERS OF FIRE

The cub came upon it suddenly. It was his own fault. He had been

careless. He had left the cave and run down to the stream to drink. It

might have been that he took no notice because he was heavy with sleep.

(He had been out all night on the meat-trail, and had but just then

awakened.) And his carelessness might have been due to the familiarity

of the trail to the pool. He had travelled it often, and nothing had

ever happened on it.

He went down past the blasted pine, crossed the open space, and trotted

in amongst the trees. Then, at the same instant, he saw and smelt.

Before him, sitting silently on their haunches, were five live things,

the like of which he had never seen before. It was his first glimpse of

mankind. But at the sight of him the five men did not spring to their

feet, nor show their teeth, nor snarl. They did not move, but sat

there, silent and ominous.

Nor did the cub move. Every instinct of his nature would have impelled

him to dash wildly away, had there not suddenly and for the first time

arisen in him another and counter instinct. A great awe descended upon

him. He was beaten down to movelessness by an overwhelming sense of his

own weakness and littleness. Here was mastery and power, something far

and away beyond him.

The cub had never seen man, yet the instinct concerning man was his. In

dim ways he recognised in man the animal that had fought itself to

primacy over the other animals of the Wild. Not alone out of his own

eyes, but out of the eyes of all his ancestors was the cub now looking

upon man—out of eyes that had circled in the darkness around countless

winter camp-fires, that had peered from safe distances and from the

hearts of thickets at the strange, two-legged animal that was lord over

living things. The spell of the cub’s heritage was upon him, the fear

and the respect born of the centuries of struggle and the accumulated

experience of the generations. The heritage was too compelling for a

wolf that was only a cub. Had he been full-grown, he would have run

away. As it was, he cowered down in a paralysis of fear, already half

proffering the submission that his kind had proffered from the first

time a wolf came in to sit by man’s fire and be made warm.

One of the Indians arose and walked over to him and stooped above him.

The cub cowered closer to the ground. It was the unknown, objectified

at last, in concrete flesh and blood, bending over him and reaching

down to seize hold of him. His hair bristled involuntarily; his lips

writhed back and his little fangs were bared. The hand, poised like

doom above him, hesitated, and the man spoke laughing, “_Wabam wabisca

ip pit tah_.” (“Look! The white fangs!”)

The other Indians laughed loudly, and urged the man on to pick up the

cub. As the hand descended closer and closer, there raged within the

cub a battle of the instincts. He experienced two great impulsions—to

yield and to fight. The resulting action was a compromise. He did both.

He yielded till the hand almost touched him. Then he fought, his teeth

flashing in a snap that sank them into the hand. The next moment he

received a clout alongside the head that knocked him over on his side.

Then all fight fled out of him. His puppyhood and the instinct of

submission took charge of him. He sat up on his haunches and ki-yi’d.

But the man whose hand he had bitten was angry. The cub received a

clout on the other side of his head. Whereupon he sat up and ki-yi’d

louder than ever.

The four Indians laughed more loudly, while even the man who had been

bitten began to laugh. They surrounded the cub and laughed at him,

while he wailed out his terror and his hurt. In the midst of it, he

heard something. The Indians heard it too. But the cub knew what it

was, and with a last, long wail that had in it more of triumph than

grief, he ceased his noise and waited for the coming of his mother, of

his ferocious and indomitable mother who fought and killed all things

and was never afraid. She was snarling as she ran. She had heard the

cry of her cub and was dashing to save him.

She bounded in amongst them, her anxious and militant motherhood making

her anything but a pretty sight. But to the cub the spectacle of her

protective rage was pleasing. He uttered a glad little cry and bounded

to meet her, while the man-animals went back hastily several steps. The

she-wolf stood over against her cub, facing the men, with bristling

hair, a snarl rumbling deep in her throat. Her face was distorted and

malignant with menace, even the bridge of the nose wrinkling from tip

to eyes so prodigious was her snarl.

Then it was that a cry went up from one of the men. “Kiche!” was what

he uttered. It was an exclamation of surprise. The cub felt his mother

wilting at the sound.

“Kiche!” the man cried again, this time with sharpness and authority.

And then the cub saw his mother, the she-wolf, the fearless one,

crouching down till her belly touched the ground, whimpering, wagging

her tail, making peace signs. The cub could not understand. He was

appalled. The awe of man rushed over him again. His instinct had been

true. His mother verified it. She, too, rendered submission to the

man-animals.

The man who had spoken came over to her. He put his hand upon her head,

and she only crouched closer. She did not snap, nor threaten to snap.

The other men came up, and surrounded her, and felt her, and pawed her,

which actions she made no attempt to resent. They were greatly excited,

and made many noises with their mouths. These noises were not

indication of danger, the cub decided, as he crouched near his mother

still bristling from time to time but doing his best to submit.

“It is not strange,” an Indian was saying. “Her father was a wolf. It

is true, her mother was a dog; but did not my brother tie her out in

the woods all of three nights in the mating season? Therefore was the

father of Kiche a wolf.”

“It is a year, Grey Beaver, since she ran away,” spoke a second Indian.

“It is not strange, Salmon Tongue,” Grey Beaver answered. “It was the

time of the famine, and there was no meat for the dogs.”

“She has lived with the wolves,” said a third Indian.

“So it would seem, Three Eagles,” Grey Beaver answered, laying his hand

on the cub; “and this be the sign of it.”

The cub snarled a little at the touch of the hand, and the hand flew

back to administer a clout. Whereupon the cub covered its fangs, and

sank down submissively, while the hand, returning, rubbed behind his

ears, and up and down his back.

“This be the sign of it,” Grey Beaver went on. “It is plain that his

mother is Kiche. But his father was a wolf. Wherefore is there in him

little dog and much wolf. His fangs be white, and White Fang shall be

his name. I have spoken. He is my dog. For was not Kiche my brother’s

dog? And is not my brother dead?”

The cub, who had thus received a name in the world, lay and watched.

For a time the man-animals continued to make their mouth-noises. Then

Grey Beaver took a knife from a sheath that hung around his neck, and

went into the thicket and cut a stick. White Fang watched him. He

notched the stick at each end and in the notches fastened strings of

raw-hide. One string he tied around the throat of Kiche. Then he led

her to a small pine, around which he tied the other string.

White Fang followed and lay down beside her. Salmon Tongue’s hand

reached out to him and rolled him over on his back. Kiche looked on

anxiously. White Fang felt fear mounting in him again. He could not

quite suppress a snarl, but he made no offer to snap. The hand, with

fingers crooked and spread apart, rubbed his stomach in a playful way

and rolled him from side to side. It was ridiculous and ungainly, lying

there on his back with legs sprawling in the air. Besides, it was a

position of such utter helplessness that White Fang’s whole nature

revolted against it. He could do nothing to defend himself. If this

man-animal intended harm, White Fang knew that he could not escape it.

How could he spring away with his four legs in the air above him? Yet

submission made him master his fear, and he only growled softly. This

growl he could not suppress; nor did the man-animal resent it by giving

him a blow on the head. And furthermore, such was the strangeness of

it, White Fang experienced an unaccountable sensation of pleasure as

the hand rubbed back and forth. When he was rolled on his side he

ceased to growl, when the fingers pressed and prodded at the base of

his ears the pleasurable sensation increased; and when, with a final

rub and scratch, the man left him alone and went away, all fear had

died out of White Fang. He was to know fear many times in his dealing

with man; yet it was a token of the fearless companionship with man

that was ultimately to be his.

After a time, White Fang heard strange noises approaching. He was quick

in his classification, for he knew them at once for man-animal noises.

A few minutes later the remainder of the tribe, strung out as it was on

the march, trailed in. There were more men and many women and children,

forty souls of them, and all heavily burdened with camp equipage and

outfit. Also there were many dogs; and these, with the exception of the

part-grown puppies, were likewise burdened with camp outfit. On their

backs, in bags that fastened tightly around underneath, the dogs

carried from twenty to thirty pounds of weight.

White Fang had never seen dogs before, but at sight of them he felt

that they were his own kind, only somehow different. But they displayed

little difference from the wolf when they discovered the cub and his

mother. There was a rush. White Fang bristled and snarled and snapped

in the face of the open-mouthed oncoming wave of dogs, and went down

and under them, feeling the sharp slash of teeth in his body, himself

biting and tearing at the legs and bellies above him. There was a great

uproar. He could hear the snarl of Kiche as she fought for him; and he

could hear the cries of the man-animals, the sound of clubs striking

upon bodies, and the yelps of pain from the dogs so struck.

Only a few seconds elapsed before he was on his feet again. He could

now see the man-animals driving back the dogs with clubs and stones,

defending him, saving him from the savage teeth of his kind that

somehow was not his kind. And though there was no reason in his brain

for a clear conception of so abstract a thing as justice, nevertheless,

in his own way, he felt the justice of the man-animals, and he knew

them for what they were—makers of law and executors of law. Also, he

appreciated the power with which they administered the law. Unlike any

animals he had ever encountered, they did not bite nor claw. They

enforced their live strength with the power of dead things. Dead things

did their bidding. Thus, sticks and stones, directed by these strange

creatures, leaped through the air like living things, inflicting

grievous hurts upon the dogs.

To his mind this was power unusual, power inconceivable and beyond the

natural, power that was godlike. White Fang, in the very nature of him,

could never know anything about gods; at the best he could know only

things that were beyond knowing—but the wonder and awe that he had of

these man-animals in ways resembled what would be the wonder and awe of

man at sight of some celestial creature, on a mountain top, hurling

thunderbolts from either hand at an astonished world.

The last dog had been driven back. The hubbub died down. And White Fang

licked his hurts and meditated upon this, his first taste of

pack-cruelty and his introduction to the pack. He had never dreamed

that his own kind consisted of more than One Eye, his mother, and

himself. They had constituted a kind apart, and here, abruptly, he had

discovered many more creatures apparently of his own kind. And there

was a subconscious resentment that these, his kind, at first sight had

pitched upon him and tried to destroy him. In the same way he resented

his mother being tied with a stick, even though it was done by the

superior man-animals. It savoured of the trap, of bondage. Yet of the

trap and of bondage he knew nothing. Freedom to roam and run and lie

down at will, had been his heritage; and here it was being infringed

upon. His mother’s movements were restricted to the length of a stick,

and by the length of that same stick was he restricted, for he had not

yet got beyond the need of his mother’s side.

He did not like it. Nor did he like it when the man-animals arose and

went on with their march; for a tiny man-animal took the other end of

the stick and led Kiche captive behind him, and behind Kiche followed

White Fang, greatly perturbed and worried by this new adventure he had

entered upon.

They went down the valley of the stream, far beyond White Fang’s widest

ranging, until they came to the end of the valley, where the stream ran

into the Mackenzie River. Here, where canoes were cached on poles high

in the air and where stood fish-racks for the drying of fish, camp was

made; and White Fang looked on with wondering eyes. The superiority of

these man-animals increased with every moment. There was their mastery

over all these sharp-fanged dogs. It breathed of power. But greater

than that, to the wolf-cub, was their mastery over things not alive;

their capacity to communicate motion to unmoving things; their capacity

to change the very face of the world.

It was this last that especially affected him. The elevation of frames

of poles caught his eye; yet this in itself was not so remarkable,

being done by the same creatures that flung sticks and stones to great

distances. But when the frames of poles were made into tepees by being

covered with cloth and skins, White Fang was astounded. It was the

colossal bulk of them that impressed him. They arose around him, on

every side, like some monstrous quick-growing form of life. They

occupied nearly the whole circumference of his field of vision. He was

afraid of them. They loomed ominously above him; and when the breeze

stirred them into huge movements, he cowered down in fear, keeping his

eyes warily upon them, and prepared to spring away if they attempted to

precipitate themselves upon him.

But in a short while his fear of the tepees passed away. He saw the

women and children passing in and out of them without harm, and he saw

the dogs trying often to get into them, and being driven away with

sharp words and flying stones. After a time, he left Kiche’s side and

crawled cautiously toward the wall of the nearest tepee. It was the

curiosity of growth that urged him on—the necessity of learning and

living and doing that brings experience. The last few inches to the

wall of the tepee were crawled with painful slowness and precaution.

The day’s events had prepared him for the unknown to manifest itself in

most stupendous and unthinkable ways. At last his nose touched the

canvas. He waited. Nothing happened. Then he smelled the strange

fabric, saturated with the man-smell. He closed on the canvas with his

teeth and gave a gentle tug. Nothing happened, though the adjacent

portions of the tepee moved. He tugged harder. There was a greater

movement. It was delightful. He tugged still harder, and repeatedly,

until the whole tepee was in motion. Then the sharp cry of a squaw

inside sent him scampering back to Kiche. But after that he was afraid

no more of the looming bulks of the tepees.

A moment later he was straying away again from his mother. Her stick

was tied to a peg in the ground and she could not follow him. A

part-grown puppy, somewhat larger and older than he, came toward him

slowly, with ostentatious and belligerent importance. The puppy’s name,

as White Fang was afterward to hear him called, was Lip-lip. He had had

experience in puppy fights and was already something of a bully.

Lip-lip was White Fang’s own kind, and, being only a puppy, did not

seem dangerous; so White Fang prepared to meet him in a friendly

spirit. But when the strangers walk became stiff-legged and his lips

lifted clear of his teeth, White Fang stiffened too, and answered with

lifted lips. They half circled about each other, tentatively, snarling

and bristling. This lasted several minutes, and White Fang was

beginning to enjoy it, as a sort of game. But suddenly, with remarkable

swiftness, Lip-lip leaped in, delivering a slashing snap, and leaped

away again. The snap had taken effect on the shoulder that had been

hurt by the lynx and that was still sore deep down near the bone. The

surprise and hurt of it brought a yelp out of White Fang; but the next

moment, in a rush of anger, he was upon Lip-lip and snapping viciously.

But Lip-lip had lived his life in camp and had fought many puppy

fights. Three times, four times, and half a dozen times, his sharp

little teeth scored on the newcomer, until White Fang, yelping

shamelessly, fled to the protection of his mother. It was the first of

the many fights he was to have with Lip-lip, for they were enemies from

the start, born so, with natures destined perpetually to clash.

Kiche licked White Fang soothingly with her tongue, and tried to

prevail upon him to remain with her. But his curiosity was rampant, and

several minutes later he was venturing forth on a new quest. He came

upon one of the man-animals, Grey Beaver, who was squatting on his hams

and doing something with sticks and dry moss spread before him on the

ground. White Fang came near to him and watched. Grey Beaver made

mouth-noises which White Fang interpreted as not hostile, so he came

still nearer.

Women and children were carrying more sticks and branches to Grey

Beaver. It was evidently an affair of moment. White Fang came in until

he touched Grey Beaver’s knee, so curious was he, and already forgetful

that this was a terrible man-animal. Suddenly he saw a strange thing

like mist beginning to arise from the sticks and moss beneath Grey

Beaver’s hands. Then, amongst the sticks themselves, appeared a live

thing, twisting and turning, of a colour like the colour of the sun in

the sky. White Fang knew nothing about fire. It drew him as the light,

in the mouth of the cave had drawn him in his early puppyhood. He

crawled the several steps toward the flame. He heard Grey Beaver

chuckle above him, and he knew the sound was not hostile. Then his nose

touched the flame, and at the same instant his little tongue went out

to it.

For a moment he was paralysed. The unknown, lurking in the midst of the

sticks and moss, was savagely clutching him by the nose. He scrambled

backward, bursting out in an astonished explosion of ki-yi’s. At the

sound, Kiche leaped snarling to the end of her stick, and there raged

terribly because she could not come to his aid. But Grey Beaver laughed

loudly, and slapped his thighs, and told the happening to all the rest

of the camp, till everybody was laughing uproariously. But White Fang

sat on his haunches and ki-yi’d and ki-yi’d, a forlorn and pitiable

little figure in the midst of the man-animals.

It was the worst hurt he had ever known. Both nose and tongue had been

scorched by the live thing, sun-coloured, that had grown up under Grey

Beaver’s hands. He cried and cried interminably, and every fresh wail

was greeted by bursts of laughter on the part of the man-animals. He

tried to soothe his nose with his tongue, but the tongue was burnt too,

and the two hurts coming together produced greater hurt; whereupon he

cried more hopelessly and helplessly than ever.

And then shame came to him. He knew laughter and the meaning of it. It

is not given us to know how some animals know laughter, and know when

they are being laughed at; but it was this same way that White Fang

knew it. And he felt shame that the man-animals should be laughing at

him. He turned and fled away, not from the hurt of the fire, but from

the laughter that sank even deeper, and hurt in the spirit of him. And

he fled to Kiche, raging at the end of her stick like an animal gone

mad—to Kiche, the one creature in the world who was not laughing at

him.

Twilight drew down and night came on, and White Fang lay by his

mother’s side. His nose and tongue still hurt, but he was perplexed by

a greater trouble. He was homesick. He felt a vacancy in him, a need

for the hush and quietude of the stream and the cave in the cliff. Life

had become too populous. There were so many of the man-animals, men,

women, and children, all making noises and irritations. And there were

the dogs, ever squabbling and bickering, bursting into uproars and

creating confusions. The restful loneliness of the only life he had

known was gone. Here the very air was palpitant with life. It hummed

and buzzed unceasingly. Continually changing its intensity and abruptly

variant in pitch, it impinged on his nerves and senses, made him

nervous and restless and worried him with a perpetual imminence of

happening.

He watched the man-animals coming and going and moving about the camp.

In fashion distantly resembling the way men look upon the gods they

create, so looked White Fang upon the man-animals before him. They were

superior creatures, of a verity, gods. To his dim comprehension they

were as much wonder-workers as gods are to men. They were creatures of

mastery, possessing all manner of unknown and impossible potencies,

overlords of the alive and the not alive—making obey that which moved,

imparting movement to that which did not move, and making life,

sun-coloured and biting life, to grow out of dead moss and wood. They

were fire-makers! They were gods.