White Fang

PART
 
2 
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C
HAPTER 
1.
 
T
HE 
B
ATTLE 
O
F 
T
HE 
F
ANGS
 
It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men’s voices and the 
whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first to spring 
away from the cornered man in his circle of dying flame. The pack had been 
loath to forego the kill it had hunted down, and it lingered for several 
minutes, making sure of the sounds, and then it, too, sprang away on the 
trail made by the she-wolf. 
Running at the forefront of the pack was a large grey wolf—one of its 
several leaders. It was he who directed the pack’s course on the heels of 
the she-wolf. It was he who snarled warningly at the younger members of 
the pack or slashed at them with his fangs when they ambitiously tried to 
pass him. And it was he who increased the pace when he sighted the she-
wolf, now trotting slowly across the snow. 
She dropped in alongside by him, as though it were her appointed position, 
and took the pace of the pack. He did not snarl at her, nor show his teeth, 
when any leap of hers chanced to put her in advance of him. On the 
contrary, he seemed kindly disposed toward her—too kindly to suit her, for 
he was prone to run near to her, and when he ran too near it was she who 
snarled and showed her teeth. Nor was she above slashing his shoulder 
sharply on occasion. At such times he betrayed no anger. He merely sprang 
to the side and ran stiffly ahead for several awkward leaps, in carriage and 
conduct resembling an abashed country swain. 
This was his one trouble in the running of the pack; but she had other 
troubles. On her other side ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled and marked with 
the scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side. The fact that he 
had but one eye, and that the left eye, might account for this. He, also, was 
addicted to crowding her, to veering toward her till his scarred muzzle 
touched her body, or shoulder, or neck. As with the running mate on the 
left, she repelled these attentions with her teeth; but when both bestowed 
their attentions at the same time she was roughly jostled, being compelled, 
with quick snaps to either side, to drive both lovers away and at the same 
time to maintain her forward leap with the pack and see the way of her feet 
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before her. At such times her running mates flashed their teeth and 
growled threateningly across at each other. They might have fought, but 
even wooing and its rivalry waited upon the more pressing hunger-need of 
the pack. 
After each repulse, when the old wolf sheered abruptly away from the 
sharp-toothed object of his desire, he shouldered against a young three-
year-old that ran on his blind right side. This young wolf had attained his full 
size; and, considering the weak and famished condition of the pack, he 
possessed more than the average vigour and spirit. Nevertheless, he ran 
with his head even with the shoulder of his one-eyed elder. When he 
ventured to run abreast of the older wolf (which was seldom), a snarl and a 
snap sent him back even with the shoulder again. Sometimes, however, he 
dropped cautiously and slowly behind and edged in between the old leader 
and the she-wolf. This was doubly resented, even triply resented. When she 
snarled her displeasure, the old leader would whirl on the three-year-
old. Sometimes she whirled with him. And sometimes the young leader on 
the left whirled, too. 
At such times, confronted by three sets of savage teeth, the young wolf 
stopped precipitately, throwing himself back on his haunches, with fore-legs 
stiff, mouth menacing, and mane bristling. This confusion in the front of the 
moving pack always caused confusion in the rear. The wolves behind 
collided with the young wolf and expressed their displeasure by 
administering sharp nips on his hind-legs and flanks. He was laying up 
trouble for himself, for lack of food and short tempers went together; but 
with the boundless faith of youth he persisted in repeating the manoeuvre 
every little while, though it never succeeded in gaining anything for him but 
discomfiture. 
Had there been food, love-making and fighting would have gone on apace, 
and the pack-formation would have been broken up. But the situation of 
the pack was desperate. It was lean with long-standing hunger. It ran 
below its ordinary speed. At the rear limped the weak members, the very 
young and the very old. At the front were the strongest. Yet all were more 
like skeletons than full-bodied wolves. Nevertheless, with the exception of 
the ones that limped, the movements of the animals were effortless and 
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tireless. Their stringy muscles seemed founts of inexhaustible 
energy. Behind every steel-like contraction of a muscle, lay another steel-
like contraction, and another, and another, apparently without end. 
They ran many miles that day. They ran through the night. And the next day 
found them still running. They were running over the surface of a world 
frozen and dead. No life stirred. They alone moved through the vast 
inertness. They alone were alive, and they sought for other things that were 
alive in order that they might devour them and continue to live. 
They crossed low divides and ranged a dozen small streams in a lower-lying 
country before their quest was rewarded. Then they came upon moose. It 
was a big bull they first found. Here was meat and life, and it was guarded 
by no mysterious fires nor flying missiles of flame. Splay hoofs and 
palmated antlers they knew, and they flung their customary patience and 
caution to the wind. It was a brief fight and fierce. The big bull was beset 
on every side. He ripped them open or split their skulls with shrewdly driven 
blows of his great hoofs. He crushed them and broke them on his large 
horns. He stamped them into the snow under him in the wallowing 
struggle. But he was foredoomed, and he went down with the she-wolf 
tearing savagely at his throat, and with other teeth fixed everywhere upon 
him, devouring him alive, before ever his last struggles ceased or his last 
damage had been wrought. 
There was food in plenty. The bull weighed over eight hundred pounds—
fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for the forty-odd wolves of the 
pack. But if they could fast prodigiously, they could feed prodigiously, and 
soon a few scattered bones were all that remained of the splendid live brute 
that had faced the pack a few hours before. 
There was now much resting and sleeping. With full stomachs, bickering 
and quarrelling began among the younger males, and this continued 
through the few days that followed before the breaking-up of the pack. The 
famine was over. The wolves were now in the country of game, and though 
they still hunted in pack, they hunted more cautiously, cutting out heavy 
cows or crippled old bulls from the small moose-herds they ran across. 
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There came a day, in this land of plenty, when the wolf-pack split in half and 
went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader on her left, and 
the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the pack down to the 
Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east. Each day this 
remnant of the pack dwindled. Two by two, male and female, the wolves 
were deserting. Occasionally a solitary male was driven out by the sharp 
teeth of his rivals. In the end there remained only four: the she-wolf, the 
young leader, the one-eyed one, and the ambitious three-year-old. 
The she-wolf had by now developed a ferocious temper. Her three suitors 
all bore the marks of her teeth. Yet they never replied in kind, never 
defended themselves against her. They turned their shoulders to her most 
savage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove to placate 
her wrath. But if they were all mildness toward her, they were all fierceness 
toward one another. The three-year-old grew too ambitious in his 
fierceness. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side and ripped his ear 
into ribbons. Though the grizzled old fellow could see only on one side, 
against the youth and vigour of the other he brought into play the wisdom 
of long years of experience. His lost eye and his scarred muzzle bore 
evidence to the nature of his experience. He had survived too many battles 
to be in doubt for a moment about what to do. 
The battle began fairly, but it did not end fairly. There was no telling what 
the outcome would have been, for the third wolf joined the elder, and 
together, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitious three-
year-old and proceeded to destroy him. He was beset on either side by the 
merciless fangs of his erstwhile comrades. Forgotten were the days they 
had hunted together, the game they had pulled down, the famine they had 
suffered. That business was a thing of the past. The business of love was at 
hand—ever a sterner and crueller business than that of food-getting. 
And in the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat down contentedly 
on her haunches and watched. She was even pleased. This was her day—
and it came not often—when manes bristled, and fang smote fang or ripped 
and tore the yielding flesh, all for the possession of her. 
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And in the business of love the three-year-old, who had made this his first 
adventure upon it, yielded up his life. On either side of his body stood his 
two rivals. They were gazing at the she-wolf, who sat smiling in the 
snow. But the elder leader was wise, very wise, in love even as in 
battle. The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his 
shoulder. The curve of his neck was turned toward his rival. With his one 
eye the elder saw the opportunity. He darted in low and closed with his 
fangs. It was a long, ripping slash, and deep as well. His teeth, in passing, 
burst the wall of the great vein of the throat. Then he leaped clear. 
The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl broke midmost into a tickling 
cough. Bleeding and coughing, already stricken, he sprang at the elder and 
fought while life faded from him, his legs going weak beneath him, the light 
of day dulling on his eyes, his blows and springs falling shorter and shorter. 
And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled. She was 
made glad in vague ways by the battle, for this was the love-making of the 
Wild, the sex-tragedy of the natural world that was tragedy only to those 
that died. To those that survived it was not tragedy, but realisation and 
achievement. 
When the young leader lay in the snow and moved no more, One Eye 
stalked over to the she-wolf. His carriage was one of mingled triumph and 
caution. He was plainly expectant of a rebuff, and he was just as plainly 
surprised when her teeth did not flash out at him in anger. For the first time 
she met him with a kindly manner. She sniffed noses with him, and even 
condescended to leap about and frisk and play with him in quite puppyish 
fashion. And he, for all his grey years and sage experience, behaved quite as 
puppyishly and even a little more foolishly. 
Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the love-tale red-written 
on the snow. Forgotten, save once, when old One Eye stopped for a 
moment to lick his stiffening wounds. Then it was that his lips half writhed 
into a snarl, and the hair of his neck and shoulders involuntarily bristled, 
while he half crouched for a spring, his claws spasmodically clutching into 
the snow-surface for firmer footing. But it was all forgotten the next 
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moment, as he sprang after the she-wolf, who was coyly leading him a chase 
through the woods. 
After that they ran side by side, like good friends who have come to an 
understanding. The days passed by, and they kept together, hunting their 
meat and killing and eating it in common. After a time the she-wolf began to 
grow restless. She seemed to be searching for something that she could not 
find. The hollows under fallen trees seemed to attract her, and she spent 
much time nosing about among the larger snow-piled crevices in the rocks 
and in the caves of overhanging banks. Old One Eye was not interested at 
all, but he followed her good-naturedly in her quest, and when her 
investigations in particular places were unusually protracted, he would lie 
down and wait until she was ready to go on. 
They did not remain in one place, but travelled across country until they 
regained the Mackenzie River, down which they slowly went, leaving it 
often to hunt game along the small streams that entered it, but always 
returning to it again. Sometimes they chanced upon other wolves, usually in 
pairs; but there was no friendliness of intercourse displayed on either side, 
no gladness at meeting, no desire to return to the pack-formation. Several 
times they encountered solitary wolves. These were always males, and they 
were pressingly insistent on joining with One Eye and his mate. This he 
resented, and when she stood shoulder to shoulder with him, bristling and 
showing her teeth, the aspiring solitary ones would back off, turn-tail, and 
continue on their lonely way. 
One moonlight night, running through the quiet forest, One Eye suddenly 
halted. His muzzle went up, his tail stiffened, and his nostrils dilated as he 
scented the air. One foot also he held up, after the manner of a dog. He 
was not satisfied, and he continued to smell the air, striving to understand 
the message borne upon it to him. One careless sniff had satisfied his mate, 
and she trotted on to reassure him. Though he followed her, he was still 
dubious, and he could not forbear an occasional halt in order more carefully 
to study the warning. 
She crept out cautiously on the edge of a large open space in the midst of 
the trees. For some time she stood alone. Then One Eye, creeping and 
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crawling, every sense on the alert, every hair radiating infinite suspicion, 
joined her. They stood side by side, watching and listening and smelling. 
To their ears came the sounds of dogs wrangling and scuffling, the guttural 
cries of men, the sharper voices of scolding women, and once the shrill and 
plaintive cry of a child. With the exception of the huge bulks of the skin-
lodges, little could be seen save the flames of the fire, broken by the 
movements of intervening bodies, and the smoke rising slowly on the quiet 
air. But to their nostrils came the myriad smells of an Indian camp, carrying 
a story that was largely incomprehensible to One Eye, but every detail of 
which the she-wolf knew. 
She was strangely stirred, and sniffed and sniffed with an increasing 
delight. But old One Eye was doubtful. He betrayed his apprehension, and 
started tentatively to go. She turned and touched his neck with her muzzle 
in a reassuring way, then regarded the camp again. A new wistfulness was 
in her face, but it was not the wistfulness of hunger. She was thrilling to a 
desire that urged her to go forward, to be in closer to that fire, to be 
squabbling with the dogs, and to be avoiding and dodging the stumbling 
feet of men. 
One Eye moved impatiently beside her; her unrest came back upon her, and 
she knew again her pressing need to find the thing for which she 
searched. She turned and trotted back into the forest, to the great relief of 
One Eye, who trotted a little to the fore until they were well within the 
shelter of the trees. 
As they slid along, noiseless as shadows, in the moonlight, they came upon a 
run-way. Both noses went down to the footprints in the snow. These 
footprints were very fresh. One Eye ran ahead cautiously, his mate at his 
heels. The broad pads of their feet were spread wide and in contact with 
the snow were like velvet. One Eye caught sight of a dim movement of 
white in the midst of the white. His sliding gait had been deceptively swift, 
but it was as nothing to the speed at which he now ran. Before him was 
bounding the faint patch of white he had discovered. 
They were running along a narrow alley flanked on either side by a growth 
of young spruce. Through the trees the mouth of the alley could be seen, 
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opening out on a moonlit glade. Old One Eye was rapidly overhauling the 
fleeing shape of white. Bound by bound he gained. Now he was upon 
it. One leap more and his teeth would be sinking into it. But that leap was 
never made. High in the air, and straight up, soared the shape of white, now 
a struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded, executing a 
fantastic dance there above him in the air and never once returning to earth. 
One Eye sprang back with a snort of sudden fright, then shrank down to the 
snow and crouched, snarling threats at this thing of fear he did not 
understand. But the she-wolf coolly thrust past him. She poised for a 
moment, then sprang for the dancing rabbit. She, too, soared high, but not 
so high as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily together with a metallic 
snap. She made another leap, and another. 
Her mate had slowly relaxed from his crouch and was watching her. He now 
evinced displeasure at her repeated failures, and himself made a mighty 
spring upward. His teeth closed upon the rabbit, and he bore it back to 
earth with him. But at the same time there was a suspicious crackling 
movement beside him, and his astonished eye saw a young spruce sapling 
bending down above him to strike him. His jaws let go their grip, and he 
leaped backward to escape this strange danger, his lips drawn back from his 
fangs, his throat snarling, every hair bristling with rage and fright. And in 
that moment the sapling reared its slender length upright and the rabbit 
soared dancing in the air again. 
The she-wolf was angry. She sank her fangs into her mate’s shoulder in 
reproof; and he, frightened, unaware of what constituted this new 
onslaught, struck back ferociously and in still greater fright, ripping down 
the side of the she-wolf’s muzzle. For him to resent such reproof was 
equally unexpected to her, and she sprang upon him in snarling 
indignation. Then he discovered his mistake and tried to placate her. But 
she proceeded to punish him roundly, until he gave over all attempts at 
placation, and whirled in a circle, his head away from her, his shoulders 
receiving the punishment of her teeth. 
In the meantime the rabbit danced above them in the air. The she-wolf sat 
down in the snow, and old One Eye, now more in fear of his mate than of 
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the mysterious sapling, again sprang for the rabbit. As he sank back with it 
between his teeth, he kept his eye on the sapling. As before, it followed him 
back to earth. He crouched down under the impending blow, his hair 
bristling, but his teeth still keeping tight hold of the rabbit. But the blow did 
not fall. The sapling remained bent above him. When he moved it moved, 
and he growled at it through his clenched jaws; when he remained still, it 
remained still, and he concluded it was safer to continue remaining still. Yet 
the warm blood of the rabbit tasted good in his mouth. 
It was his mate who relieved him from the quandary in which he found 
himself. She took the rabbit from him, and while the sapling swayed and 
teetered threateningly above her she calmly gnawed off the rabbit’s 
head. At once the sapling shot up, and after that gave no more trouble, 
remaining in the decorous and perpendicular position in which nature had 
intended it to grow. Then, between them, the she-wolf and One Eye 
devoured the game which the mysterious sapling had caught for them. 
There were other run-ways and alleys where rabbits were hanging in the air, 
and the wolf-pair prospected them all, the she-wolf leading the way, old One 
Eye following and observant, learning the method of robbing snares—a 
knowledge destined to stand him in good stead in the days to come. 
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