rubbing his hams and doing something with sticks and dry moss spread before him on the ground. White Fang came near to him and watched.
Women and children were carrying more sticks and branches to Grey Beaver. White Fang came in until he touched Grey Beaver’s knee, so curious was he. Suddenly he saw a strange thing like mist beginning to arise from the sticks and moss. Then there appeared a live moving thing, of 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. 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 holding him by the nose. He jumped backward, with an astonished explosion of ki-yi’s. At the sound, Kiche leaped snarling to the end of her stick, but could not come to his aid. But Grey Beaver laughed loudly, and then everybody was laughing. But White Fang sat on his haunches and ki-yi’d and ki-yi’d, a forgotten little figure among the man-animals.
It was the worst hurt he had ever known. Both nose and tongue had been hurt by the live thing, sun-coloured, that had grown up under Grey Beaver’s hands. He cried and cried, and every new squeal was met by bursts of laughter. He tried to soothe his nose with his tongue, but the tongue was burnt too, and the two hurts coming together produced greater hurt; so he cried more hopelessly and helplessly than ever.
And he felt shame that the man-animals were 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, the one creature in the world who was not laughing at him.
Night came on, and White Fang lay by his mother’s side. His nose and tongue still hurt, but there was a greater trouble. He was homesick. He felt a need for the stream and their cave. Life had become too populous. There were so many of the man-animals, men, women, and children. And there were the dogs. The calm loneliness of the only life he had known was gone.
He watched the man-animals coming and going and moving about the camp.
They were fire-makers! They were gods.
Chapter II. THE BONDAGE
During the time that Kiche was tied by the stick, White Fang ran about over all the camp. He quickly came to know much about the man- animals. It was easy to believe they were gods. As his mother, Kiche, had showed her loyalty to them at the first cry of her name, so he was beginning to render his loyalty. When they walked, he got out of their way. When they called, he came. When they commanded him to go, he went away. For behind any wish of theirs was power to enforce that wish, power that hurt, power that expressed itself hits and clubs, in flying stones and whips.
He belonged to them as all dogs belonged to them. Such was the lesson that he learnt in the camp. It came hard. It was a placing of his destiny in another’s hands.
But it did not all happen in a day, this giving over of himself, body and soul, to the man- animals. There were days when he went to the edge of the forest and stood and listened to something calling him far and away. And always he returned, restless and uncomfortable, to whimper softly and wistfully at Kiche’s side and to lick her face with eager, questioning tongue.
White Fang learned rapidly the ways of the camp. He knew the injustice and greediness of the older dogs when meat or fish was thrown out to be eaten. He knew that men were fairer, children crueller, and women kinder.
But the problem of his life was Lip-lip. Larger, older, and stronger, Lip-lip had selected White Fang for his special object of persecution. White Fang fought willingly enough, but his enemy was too big. Lip-lip became a nightmare to him.
But, though he was always defeated, his spirit remained unbroken. Yet a bad effect was produced. He became angry and morose. His temper had been savage by birth, but it became more savage under this persecution. The playful, puppyish side of him found little expression. He never played with the other puppies of the camp. Lip-lip did not let him to.
White Fang was robbed of much of his puppyhood and made older than his age. Having no outlet of his energies through play, he developed his mental processes. He became cunning. As he could not get his share of meat and fish when a general feed was given to the camp-dogs, he became a clever thief.
And, as Kiche, when she was with the wolves, had brought out to destruction the dogs from the camps of men, so White Fang brought Lip-lip into Kiche’s jaws. Lip-lip, excited by the chase, forgot caution and ran into Kiche lying at the end of her stick. She was tied, but he could not get away from her easily.
When at last he succeeded in rolling clear of her, he crawled to his feet, badly hurt both in body and in spirit. White Fang sank his teeth into his hind leg. He ran away shamelessly.
There came the day when Grey Beaver released Kiche. White Fang was delighted with his mother’s freedom. He accompanied her joyfully about the camp; and, as he remained close by her side, Lip-lip kept a respectful distance.
Later on that day, Kiche and White Fang strayed into the edge of the woods next to the camp. He had led his mother there, step by step, and now, when she stopped, he tried to call her farther. The stream, the lair, and the quiet woods were calling to him, and he wanted her to come. He ran on a few steps, stopped, and looked back. She did not move. He whined pleadingly, and jumped playfully in and out of the underbrush. He ran back to her, licked her face, and ran on again. And still she did not move. She turned her head and looked back at the camp.
There was something calling to him out there in the open. His mother heard it too. But she heard also the call of the fire and of man, the call which has been given—of all animals—to the wolf and the wild-dog, who are brothers.
Kiche turned and slowly trotted back toward camp. Stronger than the physical bondage was the clutch of the camp upon her. White Fang sat down in the shadow of a tree and whimpered softly. There were wood smells reminding him of his old life of freedom. But he was still only a part-grown puppy, and stronger than the call either of man or of the Wild was the call of his mother. All his short life he had depended upon her. The time has not yet come for independence. So he trotted back to camp, pausing once, and twice, to sit down and whimper and to listen to the call that still sounded in his ears.
In the Wild the time of a mother with her cub is short; but under the dominion of man it is sometimes even shorter. Grey Beaver was in the debt of Three Eagles. Three Eagles was going away on a trip up the Mackenzie to the Great Slave Lake. A piece of cloth, a bearskin, twenty cartridges, and Kiche, went to pay the debt. White Fang saw his mother taken aboard Three Eagles’ canoe, and tried to follow her. A blow from Three Eagles knocked him backward to the land. The canoe sailed off. He sprang into the water and swam after it, deaf to the sharp cries of Grey Beaver to return. White Fang ignored even a man-animal, a god, such was the terror of losing his mother.
But gods are used to being obeyed, and Grey Beaver pursued him in his canoe. He lifted him from water by the nape of the neck. Holding him with one hand, with the other hand he gave him a beating. And it was a beating. His hand was heavy. And White Fang snarled.
Grey Beaver continued to beat, White Fang continued to snarl. But this could not last forever. Finally he broke down and began to cry. For a time each blow brought a yell from him. At last Grey Beaver stopped. White Fang continued to cry. This seemed to satisfy his master, who threw him down roughly in the bottom of the canoe. When Grey Beaver took the paddle and hit the cub savagely with his foot, White Fang’s free nature protested again, and he sank his teeth into the moccasined foot.
The beating that had gone before was nothing compared with the beating he now received. Grey Beaver’s wrath was terrible; likewise was White Fang’s fright. Not only the hand, but the hard
