Jack London's White Fang - Part 1

"I never seen a red wolf before.

He awoke once and saw in front of him, not a dozen feet away, a big grey wolf, one of the largest of the pack.

"Of course a wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at feedin' time, 'd know all about shooting-irons.

A circle of the gleaming eyes had drawn about their camp.

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.

"Fatty's gone."

WHITE FANG PART I CHAPTER I--THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway.

"Ol' Villan had a dog once that run away with the wolves," Bill cogitates aloud.

He was the food, and the sight of him excited in her the gustatory sensations.

WHITE FANG PART I CHAPTER I--THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway.

"Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog," Bill said.

It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

As he dozed off he was aroused by his comrade's voice.

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

Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.

The wolves were now more open in their pursuit, trotting sedately behind and ranging along on either side, their red tongues lolling out, their lean sides showing the undulating ribs with every movement.

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.

There was no suggestion of form in the utter blackness; only could be seen a pair of eyes gleaming like live coals.

WHITE FANG PART I CHAPTER I--THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway.

There were still several hours of grey daylight and sombre twilight, and he utilised them in chopping an enormous supply of fire-wood.

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.

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

At such moments, when his dogs snarled, the whole circle would be agitated, the wolves coming to their feet and pressing tentatively forward, a chorus of snarls and eager yelps rising about him.

As he dozed off he was aroused by his comrade's voice.

Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs.

Gun in hand, he plunged into the underbrush that lined the side of the trail.

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.

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

Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs.

She seemed to smile at him, showing her teeth in an ingratiating rather than a menacing way.

He tried to sniff noses with her, but she retreated playfully and coyly.

They had travelled little more than a hundred yards, when Henry, who was in front, bent down and picked up something with which his snowshoe had collided.

The silence was unbroken save by the cries of their pursuers, that, unseen, hung upon their rear.

There were still several hours of grey daylight and sombre twilight, and he utilised them in chopping an enormous supply of fire-wood.

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.

Then he would cast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, and like a blow the realisation would strike him that this wonderful body of his, this living flesh, was no more than so much meat, a quest of ravenous animals, to be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to be sustenance to them as the moose and the rabbit had often been sustenance to him.

It paused, head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sight and scent studied the outfit of the watching men.

He studied the nail-formation, and prodded the finger-tips, now sharply, and again softly, gauging the while the nerve-sensations produced.

She had snarled as she sprang away, baring her white fangs to their roots, all her wistfulness vanishing, being replaced by a carnivorous malignity that made him shudder.

"Say, Henry," he chided gently, "ain't you forgot somethin'?"

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.

He slowed down to an alert and mincing walk and then stopped.

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.

They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony frames, with strings for muscles--so lean that Henry found it in his mind to marvel that they still kept their feet and did not collapse forthright in the snow.

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.

With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; and the dogs grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics that tangled the traces and further depressed the two men.

"What you need is quinine, an' I'm goin' to dose you up stiff as soon as we make McGurry."

He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being ...

Her mouth opened, the saliva drooled forth, and she licked her chops with the pleasure of anticipation.

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.

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.

This certitude was shown by the whole pack.

The circle of flame and coals was breaking into segments with openings in between.

It fascinated him, and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle flesh of his that worked so beautifully and smoothly and delicately.

The rest of the pack was now up and surging upon him, and a throwing of firebrands right and left was necessary to drive them back to a respectful distance.

Also, it seemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves.

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.

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

The fire crackled.

The night was a repetition of the night before, save that the need for sleep was becoming overpowering.

This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost.

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

Chopping down young saplings, he made them cross-bars of a scaffold by lashing them high up to the trunks of standing trees.

Their bristly fur was rimed with frost.

It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree.

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.

The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue--a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.

But whatever idea was forming in his mind, was dissipated by the she-wolf, who advanced upon him, sniffed noses with him for a fleeting instant, and then resumed her coy retreat before his renewed advances.

In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded from the mouth of Bill.

As it began to flame up, the circle of eyes drew farther back.

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.

"The stick's as clean as a whistle.

Bill seemed to have forgotten his forebodings of the previous night, and even waxed facetious with the dogs when, at midday, they overturned the sled on a bad piece of trail.

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.

Then he would cast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, and like a blow the realisation would strike him that this wonderful body of his, this living flesh, was no more than so much meat, a quest of ravenous animals, to be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to be sustenance to them as the moose and the rabbit had often been sustenance to him.

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.

It was just after the sun's futile effort to appear, that Bill slipped the rifle from under the sled-lashings and said: "You keep right on, Henry, I'm goin' to see what I can see."

And even as he looked, the brute deliberately stretched himself after the manner of a lazy dog, yawning full in his face and looking upon him with a possessive eye, as if, in truth, he were merely a delayed meal that was soon to be eaten.

This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost.

But whatever idea was forming in his mind, was dissipated by the she-wolf, who advanced upon him, sniffed noses with him for a fleeting instant, and then resumed her coy retreat before his renewed advances.

He recognised One Ear's yell of pain and terror, and he heard a wolf-cry that bespoke a stricken animal.

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.

She's the decoy for the pack.

When they halted, it halted, throwing up its head and regarding them steadily with nostrils that twitched as it caught and studied the scent of them.

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.

"I wisht they'd spring up a bunch of moose or something, an' go away an' leave us alone," Bill said.

The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue--a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.

Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for a quarter of an hour they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, and Bill at the circle of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond the firelight.

Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible.

It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.

Chopping down young saplings, he made them cross-bars of a scaffold by lashing them high up to the trunks of standing trees.

It soared upward with a swift rush, till it reached its topmost note, where it persisted, palpitant and tense, and then slowly died away.

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.

He shook his fist angrily at the gleaming eyes, and began securely to prop his moccasins before the fire.

He flung it back, so that it struck the sled and bounced along until it fetched up on Bill's snowshoes.

The wolves were now more open in their pursuit, trotting sedately behind and ranging along on either side, their red tongues lolling out, their lean sides showing the undulating ribs with every movement.

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.

One by one the wolves joined her, till the whole pack, on haunches, with noses pointed skyward, was howling its hunger cry.

Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible.

Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind.

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.

He indicated the third person by a downward thrust of the thumb to the box on which they sat.

In the morning it was Henry who awoke first and routed his companion out of bed.

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

It was warm and comfortable, and he was playing cribbage with the Factor.

He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being ...

He shook his fist angrily at the gleaming eyes, and began securely to prop his moccasins before the fire.

He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative eye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal.

Then, approaching at right angles to the trail and cutting off his retreat they saw a dozen wolves, lean and grey, bounding across the snow.

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

Both men located the sound.

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

A flush of angry blood pervaded Bill's face.

But whatever idea was forming in his mind, was dissipated by the she-wolf, who advanced upon him, sniffed noses with him for a fleeting instant, and then resumed her coy retreat before his renewed advances.

"Must be a tame wolf, I reckon."

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.

Their ribs is like wash-boards, an' their stomachs is right up against their backbones.

"I might have knowed it," Bill chided himself aloud as he replaced the gun.

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.

As he neared her, he became suddenly cautious.

"Go on," Henry pleaded, elevating the pot.

It might have been a lost soul wailing, had it not been invested with a certain sad fierceness and hungry eagerness.

But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead.

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.

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.

A spasm of fear went through him.

Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed into silence.

In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded from the mouth of Bill.

He slowed down to an alert and mincing walk and then stopped.

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

As he gave up and stumbled inside his circle, a wolf leaped for him, missed, and landed with all four feet in the coals.

The snarling of his dogs was losing its efficacy.

But this time, before he dozed again, he tied a burning pine-knot to his right hand.

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.

On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence.

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.

Besides, they were snarling all the time, and his benumbed and drowsy senses no longer took note of changing pitch and intensity.

With a snarl she sprang upon One Ear. He thrust her off with his shoulder, and, his retreat cut off and still intent on regaining the sled, he altered his course in an attempt to circle around to it.

Henry thought long over it before he went to sleep, and as his eyelids fluttered down and he dozed off, the thought in his mind was: "There's no mistakin' it, Bill's almighty blue.

Both men located the sound.

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.

Then, approaching at right angles to the trail and cutting off his retreat they saw a dozen wolves, lean and grey, bounding across the snow.

"You needn't stray off too far in doin' it," his partner admonished.

For in that instant the she-wolf leaped sidewise from the trail into the clump of spruce trees and disappeared.

One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.

It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are 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.

For several hours he adhered to this programme.

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.

Bill seemed to have forgotten his forebodings of the previous night, and even waxed facetious with the dogs when, at midday, they overturned the sled on a bad piece of trail.

"You're right, Bill," he concluded.

"They're scattered an' rangin' along wide," he said: "keeping up with us an' lookin' for game at the same time.

His face was blistering in the heat, his eyebrows and lashes were singed off, and the heat was becoming unbearable to his feet.

"Ain't thinkin' it'll hurt my digestion?"

It was to the rear, somewhere in the snow expanse they had just traversed.

It looked at them in a strangely wistful way, after the manner of a dog; but in its wistfulness there was none of the dog affection.

One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.

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.

His two dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had served as a course in the protracted meal which had begun days before with Fatty, the last course of which would likely be himself in the days to follow.

A few minutes later, Henry, who was now travelling behind the sled, emitted a low, warning whistle.

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

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.

Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious.

His stout mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he scooped live coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire took on the semblance of a volcano.

They remained in a circle about him and his fire, displaying an arrogance of possession that shook his courage born of the morning light.

Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious.

His stout mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he scooped live coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire took on the semblance of a volcano.

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

Morning found the man haggard and worn, wide-eyed from want of sleep.

One Ear strained the full length of the stick toward the intruder and whined with eagerness.

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.

Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.

A vast silence reigned over the land.

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

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

Its nose was to the trail, and it trotted with a peculiar, sliding, effortless gait.

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

It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are 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.

He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being ...

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.

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.

So near did the wolves approach, that the dogs became frantic with terror, and it was necessary to replenish the fire from time to time in order to keep the adventurous marauders at safer distance.

It was to the rear, somewhere in the snow expanse they had just traversed.

At twelve o'clock the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun; and then began the cold grey of afternoon that would merge, three hours later, into night.

The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue--a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.

In the morning Henry renewed the fire and cooked breakfast to the accompaniment of his partner's snoring.

His stout mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he scooped live coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire took on the semblance of a volcano.

It was large for a wolf, its gaunt frame advertising the lines of an animal that was among the largest of its kind.

They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony frames, with strings for muscles--so lean that Henry found it in his mind to marvel that they still kept their feet and did not collapse forthright in the snow.

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.

With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; and the dogs grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics that tangled the traces and further depressed the two men.

It was vain to think of One Ear so outdistancing his pursuers as to be able to cut across their circle in advance of them and to regain the sled.

"An' so, when I saw it run off across the snow, I looked in the snow an' saw its tracks.

Henry, squatting over the fire and settling the pot of coffee with a piece of ice, nodded.

"Shut up your wishin' and your croakin'," Henry burst out angrily.

He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being ...

The sled was upside down and jammed between a tree-trunk and a huge rock, and they were forced to unharness the dogs in order to straighten out the tangle.

Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.

Not only were the starving wolves growing bolder, but lack of sleep was telling upon Henry.

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

Henry rolled over angrily on his side, but was surprised that Bill made no similar display of temper.

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

He studied the nail-formation, and prodded the finger-tips, now sharply, and again softly, gauging the while the nerve-sensations produced.

"Well, Spanker's troubles is over anyway; I guess he's digested by this time an' cavortin' over the landscape in the bellies of twenty different wolves," was Henry's epitaph on this, the latest lost dog.

Conversation ceased.

Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed into silence.

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

They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony frames, with strings for muscles--so lean that Henry found it in his mind to marvel that they still kept their feet and did not collapse forthright in the snow.

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.

He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative eye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal.

There was no suggestion of form in the utter blackness; only could be seen a pair of eyes gleaming like live coals.

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.

To this, and so close to the neck that the dog could not get his teeth to it, he had tied a stout stick four or five feet in length.

Once, as though a warning had in vague ways flitted through his intelligence, he turned his head and looked back at the overturned sled, at his team-mates, and at the two men who were calling to him.

" Bill stopped for a moment, in order that his words might gain greater significance.

He watched his moving muscles and was interested in the cunning mechanism of his fingers.

The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue--a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.

They're pretty desperate, I can tell you.

"I hadn't the heart to rouse you."

So near did the wolves approach, that the dogs became frantic with terror, and it was necessary to replenish the fire from time to time in order to keep the adventurous marauders at safer distance.

Taking the sled as the centre of the circle that One Ear was making, Bill planned to tap that circle at a point in advance of the pursuit.

With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; and the dogs grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics that tangled the traces and further depressed the two men.

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

It paused, head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sight and scent studied the outfit of the watching men.

"Look here, Henry," Bill said, unconsciously lowering his voice to a whisper because of what he imitated.

A gloomy breakfast was eaten, and the four remaining dogs were harnessed to the sled.

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

His stout mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he scooped live coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire took on the semblance of a volcano.

On every side, wherever the live coals had fallen, the snow was sizzling, and every little while a retiring wolf, with wild leap and snort and snarl, announced that one such live coal had been stepped upon.

But Bill ignored him.

"Look at that, Bill," Henry whispered.

Her mouth opened, the saliva drooled forth, and she licked her chops with the pleasure of anticipation.

The wolves were now more open in their pursuit, trotting sedately behind and ranging along on either side, their red tongues lolling out, their lean sides showing the undulating ribs with every movement.

His shoulders, relaxed and drooping, and his head on his knees advertised that he had given up the struggle.

They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony frames, with strings for muscles--so lean that Henry found it in his mind to marvel that they still kept their feet and did not collapse forthright in the snow.

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 had travelled little more than a hundred yards, when Henry, who was in front, bent down and picked up something with which his snowshoe had collided.

She seemed to smile at him, showing her teeth in an ingratiating rather than a menacing way.

Bill threw on more wood, before lighting his pipe.

These openings grew in size, the segments diminished.

He passed a rope over his shoulder, a man-trace, and pulled with the dogs.

Henry queried.

It soared upward with a swift rush, till it reached its topmost note, where it persisted, palpitant and tense, and then slowly died away.

Using the sled-lashing for a heaving rope, and with the aid of the dogs, he hoisted the coffin to the top of the scaffold.

It moved with commingled mistrust and daring, cautiously observing the men, its attention fixed on the dogs.

He straightened up in time to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter of the dark.

"What you need is quinine, an' I'm goin' to dose you up stiff as soon as we make McGurry."

Both men located the sound.

Step by step she was luring him away from the security of his human companionship.

A log fell apart with a loud spluttering noise.

But Bill ignored him.

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.

Gun in hand, he plunged into the underbrush that lined the side of the trail.

He dozed despite himself, crouching by the fire, the blankets about his shoulders, the axe between his knees, and on either side a dog pressing close against him.

It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are 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.

Once their uproar became so loud that Bill woke up.

Every advance on his part was accompanied by a corresponding retreat on her part.

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

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.

Every advance on his part was accompanied by a corresponding retreat on her part.

Besides, they were snarling all the time, and his benumbed and drowsy senses no longer took note of changing pitch and intensity.

Then he would cast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, and like a blow the realisation would strike him that this wonderful body of his, this living flesh, was no more than so much meat, a quest of ravenous animals, to be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to be sustenance to them as the moose and the rabbit had often been sustenance to him.

I shot it out of the pack in a moose pasture over 'on Little Stick.

As he piled wood on the fire he discovered an appreciation of his own body which he had never felt before.

But this circle had a continuous tendency to draw in upon him.

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.

"They jes' know we ain't loaded to kill," Henry remarked at bed-time, indicating the gleaming circle that hemmed them in.

He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being ...

By the light of the fire he crooked his fingers slowly and repeatedly now one at a time, now all together, spreading them wide or making quick gripping movements.

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 was an awkward mix-up.

He noticed that his cup was empty and started to reach for the pot.

Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.

With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; and the dogs grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics that tangled the traces and further depressed the two men.

He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being ...

With his rifle, in the broad daylight, it might be possible for him to awe the wolves and save the dog.

"You jes' bet they will," Bill affirmed.

They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony frames, with strings for muscles--so lean that Henry found it in his mind to marvel that they still kept their feet and did not collapse forthright in the snow.

The wolves were now more open in their pursuit, trotting sedately behind and ranging along on either side, their red tongues lolling out, their lean sides showing the undulating ribs with every movement.

The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue--a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.

Here and there he could see one curled up in the snow like a dog, taking the sleep that was now denied himself.

"Then it's jes' warm an' anxious I am to be hearin' you explain yourself," he said.

Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for a quarter of an hour they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, and Bill at the circle of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond the firelight.

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

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.

His shoulders, relaxed and drooping, and his head on his knees advertised that he had given up the struggle.

"There, that'll fix you fool critters," Bill said with satisfaction that night, standing erect at completion of his task.

It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver.

Bill seemed to have forgotten his forebodings of the previous night, and even waxed facetious with the dogs when, at midday, they overturned the sled on a bad piece of trail.

With a snarl she sprang upon One Ear. He thrust her off with his shoulder, and, his retreat cut off and still intent on regaining the sled, he altered his course in an attempt to circle around to it.

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

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.

Every advance on his part was accompanied by a corresponding retreat on her part.

Henry made no reply, and plodded on alone, though often he cast anxious glances back into the grey solitude where his partner had disappeared.

It fascinated him, and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle flesh of his that worked so beautifully and smoothly and delicately.

He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative eye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal.

With a snarl she sprang upon One Ear. He thrust her off with his shoulder, and, his retreat cut off and still intent on regaining the sled, he altered his course in an attempt to circle around to it.

Hitherto they had been denied access to the fire, and they now settled down in a close-drawn circle, like so many dogs, blinking and yawning and stretching their lean bodies in the unaccustomed warmth.

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.

" Bill stopped for a moment, in order that his words might gain greater significance.

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.

He spent half the day extending his campfire to the tree, at any moment a half dozen burning faggots ready at hand to fling at his enemies.

At such moments, when his dogs snarled, the whole circle would be agitated, the wolves coming to their feet and pressing tentatively forward, a chorus of snarls and eager yelps rising about him.

On every side, wherever the live coals had fallen, the snow was sizzling, and every little while a retiring wolf, with wild leap and snort and snarl, announced that one such live coal had been stepped upon.

"They've half got you a'ready, a-talkin' like that," Henry retorted sharply.

A few minutes later, Henry, who was now travelling behind the sled, emitted a low, warning whistle.

Together they watched the strange animal that had pursued them for days and that had already accomplished the destruction of half their dog-team.

It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree.

Then he would seize brands from the fire and hurl them into the pack.

But even as he reached, and before his fingers had closed on the missile, she sprang back into safety; and he knew that she was used to having things thrown at her.

He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being ...

These openings grew in size, the segments diminished.

"Well, Spanker's troubles is over anyway; I guess he's digested by this time an' cavortin' over the landscape in the bellies of twenty different wolves," was Henry's epitaph on this, the latest lost dog.

WHITE FANG PART I CHAPTER I--THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway.

It might have been a lost soul wailing, had it not been invested with a certain sad fierceness and hungry eagerness.

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.

Then, approaching at right angles to the trail and cutting off his retreat they saw a dozen wolves, lean and grey, bounding across the snow.

"Of course a wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at feedin' time, 'd know all about shooting-irons.

"Meat is scarce," answered his comrade.

Henry cried in wrath, leaving the cooking to come and count the dogs.

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.

Every advance on his part was accompanied by a corresponding retreat on her part.