White Fang

Matt paused halfway down the gang-plank.

«He'll never stand the climate!» he shouted back. «Unless you clip 'm in warm weather!»

The gang-plank was hauled in, and the Aurora swang out from the bank. Weedon Scott waved a last good-bye. Then he turned and bent over White Fang, standing by his side.

«Now growl, damn you, growl,» he said, as he patted the responsive head and rubbed the flattening ears.

CHAPTER II-THE SOUTHLAND

White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco. He was appalled. Deep in him, below any reasoning process or act of consciousness, he had associated power with godhead. And never had the white men seemed such marvellous gods as now, when he trod the slimy pavement of San Francisco. The log cabins he had known were replaced by towering buildings. The streets were crowded with perils-waggons, carts, automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; and monstrous cable and electric ears hooting and clanging through the midst, screeching their insistent menace after the ma

All this was the manifestation of power. Through it all, behind it all, was man, governing and controlling, expressing himself, as of old, by his mastery over matter. It was colossal, stu

But White Fang was to have no more than a nightmare vision of the city-an experience that was like a bad dream, unreal and terrible, that haunted him for long after in his dreams. He was put into a baggage-car by the master, chained in a corner in the midst of heaped trunks and valises. Here a squat and brawny god held sway, with much noise, hurling trunks and boxes about, dragging them in through the door and tossing them into the piles, or flinging them out of the door, smashing and crashing, to other gods who awaited them.

And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White Fang deserted by the master. Or at least White Fang thought he was deserted, until he smelled out the master's canvas clothes-bags alongside of him, and proceeded to mount guard over them.

«'Bout time you come,» growled the god of the car, an hour later, when Weedon Scott appeared at the door. «That dog of yourn won't let me lay a finger on your stuff.»

White Fang emerged from the car. He was astonished. The nightmare city was gone. The car had been to him no more than a room in a house, and when he had entered it the city had been all around him. In the interval the city had disappeared. The roar of it no longer di

There was a carriage waiting. A man and a woman approached the master. The woman's arms went out and clutched the master around the neck-a hostile act! The next moment Weedon Scott had torn loose from the embrace and closed with White Fang, who had become a snarling, raging demon.

«It's all right, mother,» Scott was saving as he kept tight hold of White Fang and placated him. «He thought you were going to injure me, and he wouldn't stand for it. It's all right. It's all right. He'll learn soon enough.»

«And in the meantime I may be permitted to love my son when his dog is not around,» she laughed, though she was pale and weak from the fright.

She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled and glared malevolently.

«He'll have to learn, and he shall, without postponement,» Scott said.

He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted him, then his voice became firm.

«Down, sir! Down with you!»

This had been one of the things taught him by the master, and White Fang obeyed, though he lay down reluctantly and sullenly.

«Now, mother.»

Scott opened his arms to her, but kept his eyes on White Fang.

«Down!» he warned. «Down!»

White Fang, bristling silently, half-crouching as he rose, sank back and watched the hostile act repeated. But no harm came of it, nor of the embrace from the strange man-god that followed. Then the clothes-bags were taken into the carriage, the strange gods and the love-master followed, and White Fang pursued, now ru

At the end of fifteen minutes, the carriage swung in through a stone gateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnut trees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here and there by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near distance, in contrast with the young-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tan and gold; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures. From the head of the lawn, on the first soft swell from the valley-level, looked down the deep– porched, many-windowed house.

Little opportunity was given White Fang to see all this. Hardly had the carriage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep-dog, bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, righteously indignant and angry. It was between him and the master, cutting him off. White Fang snarled no warning, but his hair bristled as he made his silent and deadly rush. This rush was never completed. He halted with awkward abruptness, with stiff fore-legs bracing himself against his momentum, almost sitting down on his haunches, so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the dog he was in the act of attacking. It was a female, and the law of his kind thrust a barrier between. For him to attack her would require nothing less than a violation of his instinct.

But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise. Being a female, she possessed no such instinct. On the other hand, being a sheep-dog, her instinctive fear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen. White Fang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyed upon her flocks from the time sheep were first herded and guarded by some dim ancestor of hers. And so, as he abandoned his rush at her and braced himself to avoid the contact, she sprang upon him. He snarled involuntarily as he felt her teeth in his shoulder, but beyond this made no offer to hurt her. He backed away, stiff-legged with self-consciousness, and tried to go around her. He dodged this way and that, and curved and turned, but to no purpose. She remained always between him and the way he wanted to go.

«Here, Collie!» called the strange man in the carriage.

Weedon Scott laughed.

«Never mind, father. It is good discipline. White Fang will have to learn many things, and it's just as well that he begins now. He'll adjust himself all right.»

The carriage drove on, and still Collie blocked White Fang's way. He tried to outrun her by leaving the drive and circling across the lawn but she ran on the i

The carriage was bearing the master away. White Fang caught glimpses of it disappearing amongst the trees. The situation was desperate. He essayed another circle. She followed, ru