CHAPTER III--THE OUTCAST
Lip-lip continued so to darken his days that White Fang became wickederand more ferocious than it was his natural right to be. Savageness was apart of his make-up, but the savageness thus developed exceeded his make-up. He acquired a reputation for wickedness amongst the man-animalsthemselves. Wherever there was trouble and uproar in camp, fighting andsquabbling or the outcry of a squaw over a bit of stolen meat, they weresure to find White Fang mixed up in it and usually at the bottom of it.They did not bother to look after the causes of his conduct. They sawonly the effects, and the effects were bad. He was a sneak and a thief,a mischief-maker, a fomenter of trouble; and irate squaws told him to hisface, the while he eyed them alert and ready to dodge any quick-flungmissile, that he was a wolf and worthless and bound to come to an evilend.
He found himself an outcast in the midst of the populous camp. All theyoung dogs followed Lip-lip's lead. There was a difference between WhiteFang and them. Perhaps they sensed his wild-wood breed, andinstinctively felt for him the enmity that the domestic dog feels for thewolf. But be that as it may, they joined with Lip-lip in thepersecution. And, once declared against him, they found good reason tocontinue declared against him. One and all, from time to time, they felthis teeth; and to his credit, he gave more than he received. Many ofthem he could whip in single fight; but single fight was denied him. Thebeginning of such a fight was a signal for all the young dogs in camp tocome running and pitch upon him.
Out of this pack-persecution he learned two important things: how to takecare of himself in a mass-fight against him--and how, on a single dog, toinflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of time. Tokeep one's feet in the midst of the hostile mass meant life, and this helearnt well. He became cat-like in his ability to stay on his feet. Evengrown dogs might hurtle him backward or sideways with the impact of theirheavy bodies; and backward or sideways he would go, in the air or slidingon the ground, but always with his legs under him and his feet downwardto the mother earth.
When dogs fight, there are usually preliminaries to the actualcombat--snarlings and bristlings and stiff-legged struttings. But WhiteFang learned to omit these preliminaries. Delay meant the coming againsthim of all the young dogs. He must do his work quickly and get away. Sohe learnt to give no warning of his intention. He rushed in and snappedand slashed on the instant, without notice, before his foe could prepareto meet him. Thus he learned how to inflict quick and severe damage.Also he learned the value of surprise. A dog, taken off its guard, itsshoulder slashed open or its ear ripped in ribbons before it knew whatwas happening, was a dog half whipped.
Furthermore, it was remarkably easy to overthrow a dog taken by surprise;while a dog, thus overthrown, invariably exposed for a moment the softunderside of its neck--the vulnerable point at which to strike for itslife. White Fang knew this point. It was a knowledge bequeathed to himdirectly from the hunting generation of wolves. So it was that WhiteFang's method when he took the offensive, was: first to find a young dogalone; second, to surprise it and knock it off its feet; and third, todrive in with his teeth at the soft throat.
Being but partly grown his jaws had not yet become large enough norstrong enough to make his throat-attack deadly; but many a young dog wentaround camp with a lacerated throat in token of White Fang's intention.And one day, catching one of his enemies alone on the edge of the woods,he managed, by repeatedly overthrowing him and attacking the throat, tocut the great vein and let out the life. There was a great row thatnight. He had been observed, the news had been carried to the dead dog'smaster, the squaws remembered all the instances of stolen meat, and GreyBeaver was beset by many angry voices. But he resolutely held the doorof his tepee, inside which he had placed the culprit, and refused topermit the vengeance for which his tribespeople clamoured.
White Fang became hated by man and dog. During this period of hisdevelopment he never knew a moment's security. The tooth of every dogwas against him, the hand of every man. He was greeted with snarls byhis kind, with curses and stones by his gods. He lived tensely. He wasalways keyed up, alert for attack, wary of being attacked, with an eyefor sudden and unexpected missiles, prepared to act precipitately andcoolly, to leap in with a flash of teeth, or to leap away with a menacingsnarl.
As for snarling he could snarl more terribly than any dog, young or old,in camp. The intent of the snarl is to warn or frighten, and judgment isrequired to know when it should be used. White Fang knew how to make itand when to make it. Into his snarl he incorporated all that wasvicious, malignant, and horrible. With nose serrulated by continuousspasms, hair bristling in recurrent waves, tongue whipping out like a redsnake and whipping back again, ears flattened down, eyes gleaming hatred,lips wrinkled back, and fangs exposed and dripping, he could compel apause on the part of almost any assailant. A temporary pause, when takenoff his guard, gave him the vital moment in which to think and determinehis action. But often a pause so gained lengthened out until it evolvedinto a complete cessation from the attack. And before more than one ofthe grown dogs White Fang's snarl enabled him to beat an honourableretreat.
An outcast himself from the pack of the part-grown dogs, his sanguinarymethods and remarkable efficiency made the pack pay for its persecutionof him. Not permitted himself to run with the pack, the curious state ofaffairs obtained that no member of the pack could run outside the pack.White Fang would not permit it. What of his bushwhacking and waylayingtactics, the young dogs were afraid to run by themselves. With theexception of Lip-lip, they were compelled to hunch together for mutualprotection against the terrible enemy they had made. A puppy alone bythe river bank meant a puppy dead or a puppy that aroused the camp withits shrill pain and terror as it fled back from the wolf-cub that hadwaylaid it.
But White Fang's reprisals did not cease, even when the young dogs hadlearned thoroughly that they must stay together. He attacked them whenhe caught them alone, and they attacked him when they were bunched. Thesight of him was sufficient to start them rushing after him, at whichtimes his swiftness usually carried him into safety. But woe the dogthat outran his fellows in such pursuit! White Fang had learned to turnsuddenly upon the pursuer that was ahead of the pack and thoroughly torip him up before the pack could arrive. This occurred with greatfrequency, for, once in full cry, the dogs were prone to forgetthemselves in the excitement of the chase, while White Fang never forgothimself. Stealing backward glances as he ran, he was always ready towhirl around and down the overzealous pursuer that outran his fellows.
Young dogs are bound to play, and out of the exigencies of the situationthey realised their play in this mimic warfare. Thus it was that thehunt of White Fang became their chief game--a deadly game, withal, and atall times a serious game. He, on the other hand, being thefastest-footed, was unafraid to venture anywhere. During the period thathe waited vainly for his mother to come back, he led the pack many a wildchase through the adjacent woods. But the pack invariably lost him. Itsnoise and outcry warned him of its presence, while he ran alone, velvet-footed, silently, a moving shadow among the trees after the manner of hisfather and mother before him. Further he was more directly connectedwith the Wild than they; and he knew more of its secrets and stratagems.A favourite trick of his was to lose his trail in running water and thenlie quietly in a near-by thicket while their baffled cries arose aroundhim.
Hated by his kind and by mankind, indomitable, perpetually warred uponand himself waging perpetual war, his development was rapid andone-sided. This was no soil for kindliness and affection to blossom in.Of such things he had not the faintest glimmering. The code he learnedwas to obey the strong and to oppress the weak. Grey Beaver was a god,and strong. Therefore White Fang obeyed him. But the dog younger orsmaller than himself was weak, a thing to be destroyed. His developmentwas in the direction of power. In order to face the constant danger ofhurt and even of destruction, his predatory and protective faculties wereunduly developed. He be
came quicker of movement than the other dogs,swifter of foot, craftier, deadlier, more lithe, more lean with ironlikemuscle and sinew, more enduring, more cruel, more ferocious, and moreintelligent. He had to become all these things, else he would not haveheld his own nor survive the hostile environment in which he foundhimself.