White Fang

C
HAPTER 
5.
 
T
HE 
C
OVENANT
 
When December was well along, Grey Beaver went on a journey up the 
Mackenzie. Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch went with him. One sled he drove 
himself, drawn by dogs he had traded for or borrowed. A second and 
smaller sled was driven by Mit-sah, and to this was harnessed a team of 
puppies. It was more of a toy affair than anything else, yet it was the delight 
of Mit-sah, who felt that he was beginning to do a man’s work in the 
world. Also, he was learning to drive dogs and to train dogs; while the 
puppies themselves were being broken in to the harness. Furthermore, the 
sled was of some service, for it carried nearly two hundred pounds of outfit 
and food. 
White Fang had seen the camp-dogs toiling in the harness, so that he did not 
resent overmuch the first placing of the harness upon himself. About his 
neck was put a moss-stuffed collar, which was connected by two pulling-
traces to a strap that passed around his chest and over his back. It was to 
this that was fastened the long rope by which he pulled at the sled. 
There were seven puppies in the team. The others had been born earlier in 
the year and were nine and ten months old, while White Fang was only eight 
months old. Each dog was fastened to the sled by a single rope. No two 
ropes were of the same length, while the difference in length between any 
two ropes was at least that of a dog’s body. Every rope was brought to a 
ring at the front end of the sled. The sled itself was without runners, being a 
birch-bark toboggan, with upturned forward end to keep it from ploughing 
under the snow. This construction enabled the weight of the sled and load 
to be distributed over the largest snow-surface; for the snow was crystal-
powder and very soft. Observing the same principle of widest distribution 
of weight, the dogs at the ends of their ropes radiated fan-fashion from the 
nose of the sled, so that no dog trod in another’s footsteps. 
There was, furthermore, another virtue in the fan-formation. The ropes of 
varying length prevented the dogs attacking from the rear those that ran in 
front of them. For a dog to attack another, it would have to turn upon one 
at a shorter rope. In which case it would find itself face to face with the dog 
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attacked, and also it would find itself facing the whip of the driver. But the 
most peculiar virtue of all lay in the fact that the dog that strove to attack 
one in front of him must pull the sled faster, and that the faster the sled 
travelled, the faster could the dog attacked run away. Thus, the dog behind 
could never catch up with the one in front. The faster he ran, the faster ran 
the one he was after, and the faster ran all the dogs. Incidentally, the sled 
went faster, and thus, by cunning indirection, did man increase his mastery 
over the beasts. 
Mit-sah resembled his father, much of whose grey wisdom he possessed. In 
the past he had observed Lip-lip’s persecution of White Fang; but at that 
time Lip-lip was another man’s dog, and Mit-sah had never dared more than 
to shy an occasional stone at him. But now Lip-lip was his dog, and he 
proceeded to wreak his vengeance on him by putting him at the end of the 
longest rope. This made Lip-lip the leader, and was apparently an honour! 
but in reality it took away from him all honour, and instead of being bully 
and master of the pack, he now found himself hated and persecuted by the 
pack. 
Because he ran at the end of the longest rope, the dogs had always the view 
of him running away before them. All that they saw of him was his bushy 
tail and fleeing hind legs—a view far less ferocious and intimidating than his 
bristling mane and gleaming fangs. Also, dogs being so constituted in their 
mental ways, the sight of him running away gave desire to run after him and 
a feeling that he ran away from them. 
The moment the sled started, the team took after Lip-lip in a chase that 
extended throughout the day. At first he had been prone to turn upon his 
pursuers, jealous of his dignity and wrathful; but at such times Mit-sah 
would throw the stinging lash of the thirty-foot cariboo-gut whip into his 
face and compel him to turn tail and run on. Lip-lip might face the pack, but 
he could not face that whip, and all that was left him to do was to keep his 
long rope taut and his flanks ahead of the teeth of his mates. 
But a still greater cunning lurked in the recesses of the Indian mind. To give 
point to unending pursuit of the leader, Mit-sah favoured him over the other 
dogs. These favours aroused in them jealousy and hatred. In their presence 
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Mit-sah would give him meat and would give it to him only. This was 
maddening to them. They would rage around just outside the throwing-
distance of the whip, while Lip-lip devoured the meat and Mit-sah protected 
him. And when there was no meat to give, Mit-sah would keep the team at 
a distance and make believe to give meat to Lip-lip. 
White Fang took kindly to the work. He had travelled a greater distance 
than the other dogs in the yielding of himself to the rule of the gods, and he 
had learned more thoroughly the futility of opposing their will. In addition, 
the persecution he had suffered from the pack had made the pack less to 
him in the scheme of things, and man more. He had not learned to be 
dependent on his kind for companionship. Besides, Kiche was well-nigh 
forgotten; and the chief outlet of expression that remained to him was in 
the allegiance he tendered the gods he had accepted as masters. So he 
worked hard, learned discipline, and was obedient. Faithfulness and 
willingness characterised his toil. These are essential traits of the wolf and 
the wild-dog when they have become domesticated, and these traits White 
Fang possessed in unusual measure. 
A companionship did exist between White Fang and the other dogs, but it 
was one of warfare and enmity. He had never learned to play with 
them. He knew only how to fight, and fight with them he did, returning to 
them a hundred-fold the snaps and slashes they had given him in the days 
when Lip-lip was leader of the pack. But Lip-lip was no longer leader—
except when he fled away before his mates at the end of his rope, the sled 
bounding along behind. In camp he kept close to Mit-sah or Grey Beaver or 
Kloo-kooch. He did not dare venture away from the gods, for now the fangs 
of all dogs were against him, and he tasted to the dregs the persecution that 
had been White Fang’s. 
With the overthrow of Lip-lip, White Fang could have become leader of the 
pack. But he was too morose and solitary for that. He merely thrashed his 
team-mates. Otherwise he ignored them. They got out of his way when he 
came along; nor did the boldest of them ever dare to rob him of his 
meat. On the contrary, they devoured their own meat hurriedly, for fear 
that he would take it away from them. White Fang knew the law well: