WHITE FANG
Part
II: Born of the Wild
Chapter
1
THE BATTLE
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 gray 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 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
vigor 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 manœuvre every little
while, though it never succeeded in gaining anything
for him but discomfiture. [Stop
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min.]
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 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 quarreling
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.
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
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 vigor 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. [Stop reading here
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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
crueler 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.
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
realization 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 gray
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 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. [Stop reading here (record your time): 713words =
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They
did not remain in one place, but travelled across country until they regained
the
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 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, 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. [Stop
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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 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 t grow. Then,
between them, the she-wolf and One Eye devoured the game which the mysterious
sapling had caught for them.
There
were other runways and alleys where rabbits were hanging in the air, and the wolf-pair porspected 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. [Stop reading here (record your time): 573words = 34,380/tot.
seconds = words per min.]