White Fang

C
HAPTER 
4.
 
T
HE 
C
LINGING 
D
EATH
 
Beauty Smith slipped the chain from his neck and stepped back. 
For once White Fang did not make an immediate attack. He stood still, ears 
pricked forward, alert and curious, surveying the strange animal that faced 
him. He had never seen such a dog before. Tim Keenan shoved the bull-dog 
forward with a muttered “Go to it.” The animal waddled toward the centre 
of the circle, short and squat and ungainly. He came to a stop and blinked 
across at White Fang. 
There were cries from the crowd of, “Go to him, Cherokee! Sick ’m, 
Cherokee! Eat ’m up!” 
But Cherokee did not seem anxious to fight. He turned his head and blinked 
at the men who shouted, at the same time wagging his stump of a tail good-
naturedly. He was not afraid, but merely lazy. Besides, it did not seem to 
him that it was intended he should fight with the dog he saw before him. He 
was not used to fighting with that kind of dog, and he was waiting for them 
to bring on the real dog. 
Tim Keenan stepped in and bent over Cherokee, fondling him on both sides 
of the shoulders with hands that rubbed against the grain of the hair and 
that made slight, pushing-forward movements. These were so many 
suggestions. Also, their effect was irritating, for Cherokee began to growl, 
very softly, deep down in his throat. There was a correspondence in rhythm 
between the growls and the movements of the man’s hands. The growl 
rose in the throat with the culmination of each forward-pushing movement, 
and ebbed down to start up afresh with the beginning of the next 
movement. The end of each movement was the accent of the rhythm, the 
movement ending abruptly and the growling rising with a jerk. 
This was not without its effect on White Fang. The hair began to rise on his 
neck and across the shoulders. Tim Keenan gave a final shove forward and 
stepped back again. As the impetus that carried Cherokee forward died 
down, he continued to go forward of his own volition, in a swift, bow-legged 
run. Then White Fang struck. A cry of startled admiration went up. He had 
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covered the distance and gone in more like a cat than a dog; and with the 
same cat-like swiftness he had slashed with his fangs and leaped clear. 
The bull-dog was bleeding back of one ear from a rip in his thick neck. He 
gave no sign, did not even snarl, but turned and followed after White 
Fang. The display on both sides, the quickness of the one and the 
steadiness of the other, had excited the partisan spirit of the crowd, and the 
men were making new bets and increasing original bets. Again, and yet 
again, White Fang sprang in, slashed, and got away untouched, and still his 
strange foe followed after him, without too great haste, not slowly, but 
deliberately and determinedly, in a businesslike sort of way. There was 
purpose in his method—something for him to do that he was intent upon 
doing and from which nothing could distract him. 
His whole demeanour, every action, was stamped with this purpose. It 
puzzled White Fang. Never had he seen such a dog. It had no hair 
protection. It was soft, and bled easily. There was no thick mat of fur to 
baffle White Fang’s teeth as they were often baffled by dogs of his own 
breed. Each time that his teeth struck they sank easily into the yielding 
flesh, while the animal did not seem able to defend itself. Another 
disconcerting thing was that it made no outcry, such as he had been 
accustomed to with the other dogs he had fought. Beyond a growl or a 
grunt, the dog took its punishment silently. And never did it flag in its 
pursuit of him. 
Not that Cherokee was slow. He could turn and whirl swiftly enough, but 
White Fang was never there. Cherokee was puzzled, too. He had never 
fought before with a dog with which he could not close. The desire to close 
had always been mutual. But here was a dog that kept at a distance, 
dancing and dodging here and there and all about. And when it did get its 
teeth into him, it did not hold on but let go instantly and darted away again. 
But White Fang could not get at the soft underside of the throat. The bull-
dog stood too short, while its massive jaws were an added 
protection. White Fang darted in and out unscathed, while Cherokee’s 
wounds increased. Both sides of his neck and head were ripped and 
slashed. He bled freely, but showed no signs of being disconcerted. He 
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continued his plodding pursuit, though once, for the moment baffled, he 
came to a full stop and blinked at the men who looked on, at the same time 
wagging his stump of a tail as an expression of his willingness to fight. 
In that moment White Fang was in upon him and out, in passing ripping his 
trimmed remnant of an ear. With a slight manifestation of anger, Cherokee 
took up the pursuit again, running on the inside of the circle White Fang was 
making, and striving to fasten his deadly grip on White Fang’s throat. The 
bull-dog missed by a hair’s-breadth, and cries of praise went up as White 
Fang doubled suddenly out of danger in the opposite direction. 
The time went by. White Fang still danced on, dodging and doubling, 
leaping in and out, and ever inflicting damage. And still the bull-dog, with 
grim certitude, toiled after him. Sooner or later he would accomplish his 
purpose, get the grip that would win the battle. In the meantime, he 
accepted all the punishment the other could deal him. His tufts of ears had 
become tassels, his neck and shoulders were slashed in a score of places, 
and his very lips were cut and bleeding—all from these lightning snaps that 
were beyond his foreseeing and guarding. 
Time and again White Fang had attempted to knock Cherokee off his feet; 
but the difference in their height was too great. Cherokee was too squat, 
too close to the ground. White Fang tried the trick once too often. The 
chance came in one of his quick doublings and counter-circlings. He caught 
Cherokee with head turned away as he whirled more slowly. His shoulder 
was exposed. White Fang drove in upon it: but his own shoulder was high 
above, while he struck with such force that his momentum carried him on 
across over the other’s body. For the first time in his fighting history, men 
saw White Fang lose his footing. His body turned a half-somersault in the 
air, and he would have landed on his back had he not twisted, catlike, still in 
the air, in the effort to bring his feet to the earth. As it was, he struck 
heavily on his side. The next instant he was on his feet, but in that instant 
Cherokee’s teeth closed on his throat. 
It was not a good grip, being too low down toward the chest; but Cherokee 
held on. White Fang sprang to his feet and tore wildly around, trying to 
shake off the bull-dog’s body. It made him frantic, this clinging, dragging 
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weight. It bound his movements, restricted his freedom. It was like the 
trap, and all his instinct resented it and revolted against it. It was a mad 
revolt. For several minutes he was to all intents insane. The basic life that 
was in him took charge of him. The will to exist of his body surged over 
him. He was dominated by this mere flesh-love of life. All intelligence was 
gone. It was as though he had no brain. His reason was unseated by the 
blind yearning of the flesh to exist and move, at all hazards to move, to 
continue to move, for movement was the expression of its existence. 
Round and round he went, whirling and turning and reversing, trying to 
shake off the fifty-pound weight that dragged at his throat. The bull-dog did 
little but keep his grip. Sometimes, and rarely, he managed to get his feet to 
the earth and for a moment to brace himself against White Fang. But the 
next moment his footing would be lost and he would be dragging around in 
the whirl of one of White Fang’s mad gyrations. Cherokee identified himself 
with his instinct. He knew that he was doing the right thing by holding on, 
and there came to him certain blissful thrills of satisfaction. At such 
moments he even closed his eyes and allowed his body to be hurled hither 
and thither, willy-nilly, careless of any hurt that might thereby come to 
it. That did not count. The grip was the thing, and the grip he kept. 
White Fang ceased only when he had tired himself out. He could do 
nothing, and he could not understand. Never, in all his fighting, had this 
thing happened. The dogs he had fought with did not fight that way. With 
them it was snap and slash and get away, snap and slash and get away. He 
lay partly on his side, panting for breath. Cherokee still holding his grip, 
urged against him, trying to get him over entirely on his side. White Fang 
resisted, and he could feel the jaws shifting their grip, slightly relaxing and 
coming together again in a chewing movement. Each shift brought the grip 
closer to his throat. The bull-dog’s method was to hold what he had, and 
when opportunity favoured to work in for more. Opportunity favoured 
when White Fang remained quiet. When White Fang struggled, Cherokee 
was content merely to hold on. 
The bulging back of Cherokee’s neck was the only portion of his body that 
White Fang’s teeth could reach. He got hold toward the base where the 
neck comes out from the shoulders; but he did not know the chewing 
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method of fighting, nor were his jaws adapted to it. He spasmodically 
ripped and tore with his fangs for a space. Then a change in their position 
diverted him. The bull-dog had managed to roll him over on his back, and 
still hanging on to his throat, was on top of him. Like a cat, White Fang 
bowed his hind-quarters in, and, with the feet digging into his enemy’s 
abdomen above him, he began to claw with long tearing-strokes. Cherokee 
might well have been disembowelled had he not quickly pivoted on his grip 
and got his body off of White Fang’s and at right angles to it. 
There was no escaping that grip. It was like Fate itself, and as 
inexorable. Slowly it shifted up along the jugular. All that saved White Fang 
from death was the loose skin of his neck and the thick fur that covered 
it. This served to form a large roll in Cherokee’s mouth, the fur of which 
well-nigh defied his teeth. But bit by bit, whenever the chance offered, he 
was getting more of the loose skin and fur in his mouth. The result was that 
he was slowly throttling White Fang. The latter’s breath was drawn with 
greater and greater difficulty as the moments went by. 
It began to look as though the battle were over. The backers of Cherokee 
waxed jubilant and offered ridiculous odds. White Fang’s backers were 
correspondingly depressed, and refused bets of ten to one and twenty to 
one, though one man was rash enough to close a wager of fifty to one. This 
man was Beauty Smith. He took a step into the ring and pointed his finger 
at White Fang. Then he began to laugh derisively and scornfully. This 
produced the desired effect. White Fang went wild with rage. He called up 
his reserves of strength, and gained his feet. As he struggled around the 
ring, the fifty pounds of his foe ever dragging on his throat, his anger passed 
on into panic. The basic life of him dominated him again, and his intelligence 
fled before the will of his flesh to live. Round and round and back again, 
stumbling and falling and rising, even uprearing at times on his hind-legs and 
lifting his foe clear of the earth, he struggled vainly to shake off the clinging 
death. 
At last he fell, toppling backward, exhausted; and the bull-dog promptly 
shifted his grip, getting in closer, mangling more and more of the fur-folded 
flesh, throttling White Fang more severely than ever. Shouts of applause 
went up for the victor, and there were many cries of “Cherokee!” 
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“Cherokee!” To this Cherokee responded by vigorous wagging of the stump 
of his tail. But the clamour of approval did not distract him. There was no 
sympathetic relation between his tail and his massive jaws. The one might 
wag, but the others held their terrible grip on White Fang’s throat. 
It was at this time that a diversion came to the spectators. There was a 
jingle of bells. Dog-mushers’ cries were heard. Everybody, save Beauty 
Smith, looked apprehensively, the fear of the police strong upon them. But 
they saw, up the trail, and not down, two men running with sled and 
dogs. They were evidently coming down the creek from some prospecting 
trip. At sight of the crowd they stopped their dogs and came over and 
joined it, curious to see the cause of the excitement. The dog-musher wore 
a moustache, but the other, a taller and younger man, was smooth-shaven, 
his skin rosy from the pounding of his blood and the running in the frosty air. 
White Fang had practically ceased struggling. Now and again he resisted 
spasmodically and to no purpose. He could get little air, and that little grew 
less and less under the merciless grip that ever tightened. In spite of his 
armour of fur, the great vein of his throat would have long since been torn 
open, had not the first grip of the bull-dog been so low down as to be 
practically on the chest. It had taken Cherokee a long time to shift that grip 
upward, and this had also tended further to clog his jaws with fur and skin-
fold. 
In the meantime, the abysmal brute in Beauty Smith had been rising into his 
brain and mastering the small bit of sanity that he possessed at best. When 
he saw White Fang’s eyes beginning to glaze, he knew beyond doubt that 
the fight was lost. Then he broke loose. He sprang upon White Fang and 
began savagely to kick him. There were hisses from the crowd and cries of 
protest, but that was all. While this went on, and Beauty Smith continued to 
kick White Fang, there was a commotion in the crowd. The tall young 
newcomer was forcing his way through, shouldering men right and left 
without ceremony or gentleness. When he broke through into the ring, 
Beauty Smith was just in the act of delivering another kick. All his weight 
was on one foot, and he was in a state of unstable equilibrium. At that 
moment the newcomer’s fist landed a smashing blow full in his face. Beauty 
Smith’s remaining leg left the ground, and his whole body seemed to lift into 
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the air as he turned over backward and struck the snow. The newcomer 
turned upon the crowd. 
“You cowards!” he cried. “You beasts!” 
He was in a rage himself—a sane rage. His grey eyes seemed metallic and 
steel-like as they flashed upon the crowd. Beauty Smith regained his feet 
and came toward him, sniffling and cowardly. The new-comer did not 
understand. He did not know how abject a coward the other was, and 
thought he was coming back intent on fighting. So, with a “You beast!” he 
smashed Beauty Smith over backward with a second blow in the 
face. Beauty Smith decided that the snow was the safest place for him, and 
lay where he had fallen, making no effort to get up. 
“Come on, Matt, lend a hand,” the newcomer called the dog-musher, who 
had followed him into the ring. 
Both men bent over the dogs. Matt took hold of White Fang, ready to pull 
when Cherokee’s jaws should be loosened. This the younger man 
endeavoured to accomplish by clutching the bulldog’s jaws in his hands and 
trying to spread them. It was a vain undertaking. As he pulled and tugged 
and wrenched, he kept exclaiming with every expulsion of breath, “Beasts!” 
The crowd began to grow unruly, and some of the men were protesting 
against the spoiling of the sport; but they were silenced when the 
newcomer lifted his head from his work for a moment and glared at them. 
“You damn beasts!” he finally exploded, and went back to his task. 
“It’s no use, Mr. Scott, you can’t break ’m apart that way,” Matt said at last. 
The pair paused and surveyed the locked dogs. 
“Ain’t bleedin’ much,” Matt announced. “Ain’t got all the way in yet.” 
“But he’s liable to any moment,” Scott answered. “There, did you see 
that! He shifted his grip in a bit.” 
The younger man’s excitement and apprehension for White Fang was 
growing. He struck Cherokee about the head savagely again and again. But 
that did not loosen the jaws. Cherokee wagged the stump of his tail in 
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advertisement that he understood the meaning of the blows, but that he 
knew he was himself in the right and only doing his duty by keeping his grip. 
“Won’t some of you help?” Scott cried desperately at the crowd. 
But no help was offered. Instead, the crowd began sarcastically to cheer 
him on and showered him with facetious advice. 
“You’ll have to get a pry,” Matt counselled. 
The other reached into the holster at his hip, drew his revolver, and tried to 
thrust its muzzle between the bull-dog’s jaws. He shoved, and shoved hard, 
till the grating of the steel against the locked teeth could be distinctly 
heard. Both men were on their knees, bending over the dogs. Tim Keenan 
strode into the ring. He paused beside Scott and touched him on the 
shoulder, saying ominously: 
“Don’t break them teeth, stranger.” 
“Then I’ll break his neck,” Scott retorted, continuing his shoving and 
wedging with the revolver muzzle. 
“I said don’t break them teeth,” the faro-dealer repeated more ominously 
than before. 
But if it was a bluff he intended, it did not work. Scott never desisted from 
his efforts, though he looked up coolly and asked: 
“Your dog?” 
The faro-dealer grunted. 
“Then get in here and break this grip.” 
“Well, stranger,” the other drawled irritatingly, “I don’t mind telling you 
that’s something I ain’t worked out for myself. I don’t know how to turn the 
trick.” 
“Then get out of the way,” was the reply, “and don’t bother me. I’m busy.” 
Tim Keenan continued standing over him, but Scott took no further notice 
of his presence. He had managed to get the muzzle in between the jaws on 
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one side, and was trying to get it out between the jaws on the other 
side. This accomplished, he pried gently and carefully, loosening the jaws a 
bit at a time, while Matt, a bit at a time, extricated White Fang’s mangled 
neck. 
“Stand by to receive your dog,” was Scott’s peremptory order to Cherokee’s 
owner. 
The faro-dealer stooped down obediently and got a firm hold on Cherokee. 
“Now!” Scott warned, giving the final pry. 
The dogs were drawn apart, the bull-dog struggling vigorously. 
“Take him away,” Scott commanded, and Tim Keenan dragged Cherokee 
back into the crowd. 
White Fang made several ineffectual efforts to get up. Once he gained his 
feet, but his legs were too weak to sustain him, and he slowly wilted and 
sank back into the snow. His eyes were half closed, and the surface of them 
was glassy. His jaws were apart, and through them the tongue protruded, 
draggled and limp. To all appearances he looked like a dog that had been 
strangled to death. Matt examined him. 
“Just about all in,” he announced; “but he’s breathin’ all right.” 
Beauty Smith had regained his feet and come over to look at White Fang. 
“Matt, how much is a good sled-dog worth?” Scott asked. 
The dog-musher, still on his knees and stooped over White Fang, calculated 
for a moment. 
“Three hundred dollars,” he answered. 
“And how much for one that’s all chewed up like this one?” Scott asked, 
nudging White Fang with his foot. 
“Half of that,” was the dog-musher’s judgment. Scott turned upon Beauty 
Smith. 
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“Did you hear, Mr. Beast? I’m going to take your dog from you, and I’m 
going to give you a hundred and fifty for him.” 
He opened his pocket-book and counted out the bills. 
Beauty Smith put his hands behind his back, refusing to touch the proffered 
money. 
“I ain’t a-sellin’,” he said. 
“Oh, yes you are,” the other assured him. “Because I’m buying. Here’s your 
money. The dog’s mine.” 
Beauty Smith, his hands still behind him, began to back away. 
Scott sprang toward him, drawing his fist back to strike. Beauty Smith 
cowered down in anticipation of the blow. 
“I’ve got my rights,” he whimpered. 
“You’ve forfeited your rights to own that dog,” was the rejoinder. “Are you 
going to take the money? or do I have to hit you again?” 
“All right,” Beauty Smith spoke up with the alacrity of fear. “But I take the 
money under protest,” he added. “The dog’s a mint. I ain’t a-goin’ to be 
robbed. A man’s got his rights.” 
“Correct,” Scott answered, passing the money over to him. “A man’s got 
his rights. But you’re not a man. You’re a beast.” 
“Wait till I get back to Dawson,” Beauty Smith threatened. “I’ll have the law 
on you.” 
“If you open your mouth when you get back to Dawson, I’ll have you run out 
of town. Understand?” 
Beauty Smith replied with a grunt. 
“Understand?” the other thundered with abrupt fierceness. 
“Yes,” Beauty Smith grunted, shrinking away. 
“Yes what?” 
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“Yes, sir,” Beauty Smith snarled. 
“Look out! He’ll bite!” some one shouted, and a guffaw of laughter went 
up. 
Scott turned his back on him, and returned to help the dog-musher, who 
was working over White Fang. 
Some of the men were already departing; others stood in groups, looking on 
and talking. Tim Keenan joined one of the groups. 
“Who’s that mug?” he asked. 
“Weedon Scott,” some one answered. 
“And who in hell is Weedon Scott?” the faro-dealer demanded. 
“Oh, one of them crackerjack minin’ experts. He’s in with all the big bugs. If 
you want to keep out of trouble, you’ll steer clear of him, that’s my 
talk. He’s all hunky with the officials. The Gold Commissioner’s a special pal 
of his.” 
“I thought he must be somebody,” was the faro-dealer’s comment. “That’s 
why I kept my hands offen him at the start.” 
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