PART III

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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, lying 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 this 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-hp 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.

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