CHAPTER IV--THE CALL OF KIND
The months came and went. There was plenty of food and no work in theSouthland, and White Fang lived fat and prosperous and happy. Not alonewas he in the geographical Southland, for he was in the Southland oflife. Human kindness was like a sun shining upon him, and he flourishedlike a flower planted in good soil.
And yet he remained somehow different from other dogs. He knew the laweven better than did the dogs that had known no other life, and heobserved the law more punctiliously; but still there was about him asuggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the Wild still lingered in himand the wolf in him merely slept.
He never chummed with other dogs. Lonely he had lived, so far as hiskind was concerned, and lonely he would continue to live. In hispuppyhood, under the persecution of Lip-lip and the puppy-pack, and inhis fighting days with Beauty Smith, he had acquired a fixed aversion fordogs. The natural course of his life had been diverted, and, recoilingfrom his kind, he had clung to the human.
Besides, all Southland dogs looked upon him with suspicion. He arousedin them their instinctive fear of the Wild, and they greeted him alwayswith snarl and growl and belligerent hatred. He, on the other hand,learned that it was not necessary to use his teeth upon them. His nakedfangs and writhing lips were uniformly efficacious, rarely failing tosend a bellowing on-rushing dog back on its haunches.
But there was one trial in White Fang's life--Collie. She never gave hima moment's peace. She was not so amenable to the law as he. She defiedall efforts of the master to make her become friends with White Fang.Ever in his ears was sounding her sharp and nervous snarl. She had neverforgiven him the chicken-killing episode, and persistently held to thebelief that his intentions were bad. She found him guilty before theact, and treated him accordingly. She became a pest to him, like apoliceman following him around the stable and the hounds, and, if he evenso much as glanced curiously at a pigeon or chicken, bursting into anoutcry of indignation and wrath. His favourite way of ignoring her wasto lie down, with his head on his fore-paws, and pretend sleep. Thisalways dumfounded and silenced her.
With the exception of Collie, all things went well with White Fang. Hehad learned control and poise, and he knew the law. He achieved astaidness, and calmness, and philosophic tolerance. He no longer livedin a hostile environment. Danger and hurt and death did not lurkeverywhere about him. In time, the unknown, as a thing of terror andmenace ever impending, faded away. Life was soft and easy. It flowedalong smoothly, and neither fear nor foe lurked by the way.
He missed the snow without being aware of it. "An unduly long summer,"would have been his thought had he thought about it; as it was, he merelymissed the snow in a vague, subconscious way. In the same fashion,especially in the heat of summer when he suffered from the sun, heexperienced faint longings for the Northland. Their only effect uponhim, however, was to make him uneasy and restless without his knowingwhat was the matter.
White Fang had never been very demonstrative. Beyond his snuggling andthe throwing of a crooning note into his love-growl, he had no way ofexpressing his love. Yet it was given him to discover a third way. Hehad always been susceptible to the laughter of the gods. Laughter hadaffected him with madness, made him frantic with rage. But he did nothave it in him to be angry with the love-master, and when that godelected to laugh at him in a good-natured, bantering way, he wasnonplussed. He could feel the pricking and stinging of the old anger asit strove to rise up in him, but it strove against love. He could not beangry; yet he had to do something. At first he was dignified, and themaster laughed the harder. Then he tried to be more dignified, and themaster laughed harder than before. In the end, the master laughed himout of his dignity. His jaws slightly parted, his lips lifted a little,and a quizzical expression that was more love than humour came into hiseyes. He had learned to laugh.
Likewise he learned to romp with the master, to be tumbled down androlled over, and be the victim of innumerable rough tricks. In return hefeigned anger, bristling and growling ferociously, and clipping his teethtogether in snaps that had all the seeming of deadly intention. But henever forgot himself. Those snaps were always delivered on the emptyair. At the end of such a romp, when blow and cuff and snap and snarlwere fast and furious, they would break off suddenly and stand severalfeet apart, glaring at each other. And then, just as suddenly, like thesun rising on a stormy sea, they would begin to laugh. This would alwaysculminate with the master's arms going around White Fang's neck andshoulders while the latter crooned and growled his love-song.
But nobody else ever romped with White Fang. He did not permit it. Hestood on his dignity, and when they attempted it, his warning snarl andbristling mane were anything but playful. That he allowed the masterthese liberties was no reason that he should be a common dog, loving hereand loving there, everybody's property for a romp and good time. Heloved with single heart and refused to cheapen himself or his love.
The master went out on horseback a great deal, and to accompany him wasone of White Fang's chief duties in life. In the Northland he hadevidenced his fealty by toiling in the harness; but there were no sledsin the Southland, nor did dogs pack burdens on their backs. So herendered fealty in the new way, by running with the master's horse. Thelongest day never played White Fang out. His was the gait of the wolf,smooth, tireless and effortless, and at the end of fifty miles he wouldcome in jauntily ahead of the horse.
It was in connection with the riding, that White Fang achieved one othermode of expression--remarkable in that he did it but twice in all hislife. The first time occurred when the master was trying to teach aspirited thoroughbred the method of opening and closing gates without therider's dismounting. Time and again and many times he ranged the horseup to the gate in the effort to close it and each time the horse becamefrightened and backed and plunged away. It grew more nervous and excitedevery moment. When it reared, the master put the spurs to it and made itdrop its fore-legs back to earth, whereupon it would begin kicking withits hind-legs. White Fang watched the performance with increasinganxiety until he could contain himself no longer, when he sprang in frontof the horse and barked savagely and warningly.
Though he often tried to bark thereafter, and the master encouraged him,he succeeded only once, and then it was not in the master's presence. Ascamper across the pasture, a jackrabbit rising suddenly under thehorse's feet, a violent sheer, a stumble, a fall to earth, and a brokenleg for the master, was the cause of it. White Fang sprang in a rage atthe throat of the offending horse, but was checked by the master's voice.
"Home! Go home!" the master commanded when he had ascertained hisinjury.
White Fang was disinclined to desert him. The master thought of writinga note, but searched his pockets vainly for pencil and paper. Again hecommanded White Fang to go home.
The latter regarded him wistfully, started away, then returned and whinedsoftly. The master talked to him gently but seriously, and he cocked hisears, and listened with painful intentness.
"That's all right, old fellow, you just run along home," ran the talk."Go on home and tell them what's happened to me. Home with you, youwolf. Get along home!"
White Fang knew the meaning of "home," and though he did not understandthe remainder of the master's language, he knew it was his will that heshould go home. He turned and trotted reluctantly away. Then hestopped, undecided, and looked back over his shoulder.
"Go home!" came the sharp command, and this time he obeyed.
The family was on the porch, taking the cool of the afternoon, when WhiteFang arrived. He came in among them, panting, covered with dust.
"Weedon's back," Weedon's mother announced.
The children welcomed White Fang with glad cries and ran to meet him. Heavoided them and passed down the porch, but they cornered him against arocking-chair and the railing. He growled and tried to push by them.Their mother looked apprehensively in their direction.
"I confess, he ma
kes me nervous around the children," she said. "I havea dread that he will turn upon them unexpectedly some day."
Growling savagely, White Fang sprang out of the corner, overturning theboy and the girl. The mother called them to her and comforted them,telling them not to bother White Fang.
"A wolf is a wolf!" commented Judge Scott. "There is no trusting one."
"But he is not all wolf," interposed Beth, standing for her brother inhis absence.
"You have only Weedon's opinion for that," rejoined the judge. "Hemerely surmises that there is some strain of dog in White Fang; but as hewill tell you himself, he knows nothing about it. As for hisappearance--"
He did not finish his sentence. White Fang stood before him, growlingfiercely.
"Go away! Lie down, sir!" Judge Scott commanded.
White Fang turned to the love-master's wife. She screamed with fright ashe seized her dress in his teeth and dragged on it till the frail fabrictore away. By this time he had become the centre of interest.
He had ceased from his growling and stood, head up, looking into theirfaces. His throat worked spasmodically, but made no sound, while hestruggled with all his body, convulsed with the effort to rid himself ofthe incommunicable something that strained for utterance.
"I hope he is not going mad," said Weedon's mother. "I told Weedon thatI was afraid the warm climate would not agree with an Arctic animal."
"He's trying to speak, I do believe," Beth announced.
At this moment speech came to White Fang, rushing up in a great burst ofbarking.
"Something has happened to Weedon," his wife said decisively.
They were all on their feet now, and White Fang ran down the steps,looking back for them to follow. For the second and last time in hislife he had barked and made himself understood.
After this event he found a warmer place in the hearts of the SierraVista people, and even the groom whose arm he had slashed admitted thathe was a wise dog even if he was a wolf. Judge Scott still held to thesame opinion, and proved it to everybody's dissatisfaction bymeasurements and descriptions taken from the encyclopaedia and variousworks on natural history.
The days came and went, streaming their unbroken sunshine over the SantaClara Valley. But as they grew shorter and White Fang's second winter inthe Southland came on, he made a strange discovery. Collie's teeth wereno longer sharp. There was a playfulness about her nips and a gentlenessthat prevented them from really hurting him. He forgot that she had madelife a burden to him, and when she disported herself around him heresponded solemnly, striving to be playful and becoming no more thanridiculous.
One day she led him off on a long chase through the back-pasture landinto the woods. It was the afternoon that the master was to ride, andWhite Fang knew it. The horse stood saddled and waiting at the door.White Fang hesitated. But there was that in him deeper than all the lawhe had learned, than the customs that had moulded him, than his love forthe master, than the very will to live of himself; and when, in themoment of his indecision, Collie nipped him and scampered off, he turnedand followed after. The master rode alone that day; and in the woods,side by side, White Fang ran with Collie, as his mother, Kiche, and oldOne Eye had run long years before in the silent Northland forest.