White Fang

Jack London

White Fang

PART I

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 ru

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 ru

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-ta

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 cu

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

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 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.»

«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 a

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 begi

«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,