White Fang(白牙)

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White Fang

Jack London

White Fang

PART I

White Fang

CHAPTER I - THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The

trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost,

and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the

fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a

desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it

was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a

laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as

the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the

grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom

of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the

Wild, the savage, frozen- hearted Northland Wild.

But there WAS life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen

waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with

frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in

spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into

crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces

attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without

runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the

snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to

force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before

it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There

were other things on the sled - blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and

frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and

narrow oblong box.

In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear

of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man

whose toil was over, - a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten

down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of

the Wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement;

and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to

prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are

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frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does

the Wild harry and crush into submission man - man who is the most

restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in

the end come to the cessation of movement.

But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who

were not yet dead. Their bodies were covered with fur and soft-tanned

leather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals

from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. This gave

them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at

the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the

land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on

colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as

remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of

their bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a

tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep

water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of

unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the

remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices

from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values

of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks

and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play

and inter-play of the great blind elements and forces.

An hour went by, and a second hour. The pale light of the short sunless

day was beginning to fade, when a faint far cry arose on the still air. It

soared upward with a swift rush, till it reached its topmost note, where it

persisted, palpitant and tense, and then slowly died away. It might have

been a lost soul wailing, had it not been invested with a certain sad

fierceness and hungry eagerness. The front man turned his head until his

eyes met the eyes of the man behind. And then, across the narrow oblong

box, each nodded to the other.

A second cry arose, piercing the silence with needle-like shrillness.

Both men located the sound. It was to the rear, somewhere in the snow

expanse they had just traversed. A third and answering cry arose, also to

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the rear and to the left of the second cry.

"They're after us, Bill," said the man at the front.

His voice sounded hoarse and unreal, and he had spoken with apparent

effort.

"Meat is scarce," answered his comrade. "I ain't seen a rabbit sign for

days."

Thereafter they spoke no more, though their ears were keen for the

hunting-cries that continued to rise behind them.

At the fall of darkness they swung the dogs into a cluster of spruce

trees on the edge of the waterway and made a camp. The coffin, at the side

of the fire, served for seat and table. The wolf-dogs, clustered on the far

side of the fire, snarled and bickered among themselves, but evinced no

inclination to stray off into the darkness.

"Seems to me, Henry, they're stayin' remarkable close to camp," Bill

commented.

Henry, squatting over the fire and settling the pot of coffee with a

piece of ice, nodded. Nor did he speak till he had taken his seat on the

coffin and begun to eat.

"They know where their hides is safe," he said. "They'd sooner eat

grub than be grub. They're pretty wise, them dogs."

Bill shook his head. "Oh, I don't know."

His comrade looked at him curiously. "First time I ever heard you say

anything about their not bein' wise."

"Henry," said the other, munching with deliberation the beans he was

eating, "did you happen to notice the way them dogs kicked up when I was

a-feedin' 'em?"

"They did cut up more'n usual," Henry acknowledged.

"How many dogs 've we got, Henry?"

"Six."

"Well, Henry . . . " Bill stopped for a moment, in order that his words

might gain greater significance. "As I was sayin', Henry, we've got six

dogs. I took six fish out of the bag. I gave one fish to each dog, an', Henry,

I was one fish short."

"You counted wrong."

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"We've got six dogs," the other reiterated dispassionately. "I took out

six fish. One Ear didn't get no fish. I came back to the bag afterward an'

got 'm his fish."

"We've only got six dogs," Henry said.

"Henry," Bill went on. "I won't say they was all dogs, but there was

seven of 'm that got fish."

Henry stopped eating to glance across the fire and count the dogs.

"There's only six now," he said.

"I saw the other one run off across the snow," Bill announced with

cool positiveness. "I saw seven."

Henry looked at him commiseratingly, and said, "I'll be almighty glad

when this trip's over."

"What d'ye mean by that?" Bill demanded.

"I mean that this load of ourn is gettin' on your nerves, an' that you're

beginnin' to see things."

"I thought of that," Bill answered gravely. "An' so, when I saw it run

off across the snow, I looked in the snow an' saw its tracks. Then I counted

the dogs an' there was still six of 'em. The tracks is there in the snow now.

D'ye want to look at 'em? I'll show 'em to you."

Henry did not reply, but munched on in silence, until, the meal

finished, he topped it with a final cup a of coffee. He wiped his mouth

with the back of his hand and said:

"Then you're thinkin' as it was - "

A long wailing cry, fiercely sad, from somewhere in the darkness, had

interrupted him. He stopped to listen to it, then he finished his sentence

with a wave of his hand toward the sound of the cry, " - one of them?"

Bill nodded. "I'd a blame sight sooner think that than anything else.

You noticed yourself the row the dogs made."

Cry after cry, and answering cries, were turning the silence into a

bedlam. From every side the cries arose, and the dogs betrayed their fear

by huddling together and so close to the fire that their hair was scorched

by the heat. Bill threw on more wood, before lighting his pipe.

"I'm thinking you're down in the mouth some," Henry said.

"Henry . . . " He sucked meditatively at his pipe for some time before

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he went on. "Henry, I was a-thinkin' what a blame sight luckier he is than

you an' me'll ever be."

He indicated the third person by a downward thrust of the thumb to the

box on which they sat.

"You an' me, Henry, when we die, we'll be lucky if we get enough

stones over our carcases to keep the dogs off of us."

"But we ain't got people an' money an' all the rest, like him," Henry

rejoined. "Long-distance funerals is somethin' you an' me can't exactly

afford."

"What gets me, Henry, is what a chap like this, that's a lord or

something in his own country, and that's never had to bother about grub

nor blankets; why he comes a-buttin' round the Godforsaken ends of the

earth - that's what I can't exactly see."

"He might have lived to a ripe old age if he'd stayed at home," Henry

agreed.

Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. Instead, he

pointed towards the wall of darkness that pressed about them from every

side. There was no suggestion of form in the utter blackness; only could be

seen a pair of eyes gleaming like live coals. Henry indicated with his head

a second pair, and a third. A circle of the gleaming eyes had drawn about

their camp. Now and again a pair of eyes moved, or disappeared to appear

again a moment later.

The unrest of the dogs had been increasing, and they stampeded, in a

surge of sudden fear, to the near side of the fire, cringing and crawling

about the legs of the men. In the scramble one of the dogs had been

overturned on the edge of the fire, and it had yelped with pain and fright as

the smell of its singed coat possessed the air. The commotion caused the

circle of eyes to shift restlessly for a moment and even to withdraw a bit,

but it settled down again as the dogs became quiet.

"Henry, it's a blame misfortune to be out of ammunition."

Bill had finished his pipe and was helping his companion to spread the

bed of fur and blanket upon the spruce boughs which he had laid over the

snow before supper. Henry grunted, and began unlacing his mocassins.

"How many cartridges did you say you had left?" he asked.

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"Three," came the answer. "An' I wisht 'twas three hundred. Then I'd

show 'em what for, damn 'em!"

He shook his fist angrily at the gleaming eyes, and began securely to

prop his moccasins before the fire.

"An' I wisht this cold snap'd break," he went on. "It's ben fifty below

for two weeks now. An' I wisht I'd never started on this trip, Henry. I don't

like the looks of it. I don't feel right, somehow. An' while I'm wishin', I

wisht the trip was over an' done with, an' you an' me a-sittin' by the fire in

Fort McGurry just about now an' playing cribbage - that's what I wisht."

Henry grunted and crawled into bed. As he dozed off he was aroused

by his comrade's voice.

"Say, Henry, that other one that come in an' got a fish - why didn't the

dogs pitch into it? That's what's botherin' me."

"You're botherin' too much, Bill," came the sleepy response. "You was

never like this before. You jes' shut up now, an' go to sleep, an' you'll be all

hunkydory in the mornin'. Your stomach's sour, that's what's botherin'

you."

The men slept, breathing heavily, side by side, under the one covering.

The fire died down, and the gleaming eyes drew closer the circle they had

flung about the camp. The dogs clustered together in fear, now and again

snarling menacingly as a pair of eyes drew close. Once their uproar

became so loud that Bill woke up. He got out of bed carefully, so as not to

disturb the sleep of his comrade, and threw more wood on the fire. As it

began to flame up, the circle of eyes drew farther back. He glanced

casually at the huddling dogs. He rubbed his eyes and looked at them more

sharply. Then he crawled back into the blankets.

"Henry," he said. "Oh, Henry."

Henry groaned as he passed from sleep to waking, and demanded,

"What's wrong now?"

"Nothin'," came the answer; "only there's seven of 'em again. I just

counted."

Henry acknowledged receipt of the information with a grunt that slid

into a snore as he drifted back into sleep.

In the morning it was Henry who awoke first and routed his

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companion out of bed. Daylight was yet three hours away, though it was

already six o'clock; and in the darkness Henry went about preparing

breakfast, while Bill rolled the blankets and made the sled ready for

lashing.

"Say, Henry," he asked suddenly, "how many dogs did you say we

had?"

"Six."

"Wrong," Bill proclaimed triumphantly.

"Seven again?" Henry queried.

"No, five; one's gone."

"The hell!" Henry cried in wrath, leaving the cooking to come and

count the dogs.

"You're right, Bill," he concluded. "Fatty's gone."

"An' he went like greased lightnin' once he got started. Couldn't 've

seen 'm for smoke."

"No chance at all," Henry concluded. "They jes' swallowed 'm alive. I

bet he was yelpin' as he went down their throats, damn 'em!"

"He always was a fool dog," said Bill.

"But no fool dog ought to be fool enough to go off an' commit suicide

that way." He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative

eye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal. "I bet none

of the others would do it."

"Couldn't drive 'em away from the fire with a club," Bill agreed. "I

always did think there was somethin' wrong with Fatty anyway."

And this was the epitaph of a dead dog on the Northland trail - less

scant than the epitaph of many another dog, of many a man.

White Fang

CHAPTER II - THE SHE-WOLF

Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men

turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the darkness. At

once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad - cries that called

through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back.

Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine o'clock. At midday the sky to

the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of the earth

intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rose-

colour swiftly faded. The grey light of day that remained lasted until three

o'clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the Arctic night descended

upon the lone and silent land.

As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drew

closer - so close that more than once they sent surges of fear through the

toiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics.

At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the

dogs back in the traces, Bill said:

"I wisht they'd strike game somewheres, an' go away an' leave us

alone."

"They do get on the nerves horrible," Henry sympathised.

They spoke no more until camp was made.

Henry was bending over and adding ice to the babbling pot of beans

when he was startled by the sound of a blow, an exclamation from Bill,

and a sharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. He straightened up

in time to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter of

the dark. Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half triumphant, half

crestfallen, in one hand a stout club, in the other the tail and part of the

body of a sun-cured salmon.

"It got half of it," he announced; "but I got a whack at it jes' the same.

D'ye hear it squeal?"

"What'd it look like?" Henry asked.

"Couldn't see. But it had four legs an' a mouth an' hair an' looked like

any dog."

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WhiteFang1WhiteFangJackLondonWhiteFang2PARTIWhiteFang3CHAPTERI-THETRAILOFTHEMEATDarkspruceforestfrownedoneithersidethefrozenwaterway.Thetreeshadbeenstrippedbyarecentwindoftheirwhitecoveringoffrost,andtheyseemedtoleantowardseachother,blackandominous,inthefadinglight.Avastsilencereignedovertheland.The...

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