CHAPTER III--THE OUTCAST

CHAPTER III--THE OUTCAST


Lip-lip continued so to darken his days that White Fang became wickeder
and more ferocious than it was his natural right to be. Savageness was a
part of his make-up, but the savageness thus developed exceeded his make-
up. He acquired a reputation for wickedness amongst the man-animals
themselves. Wherever there was trouble and uproar in camp, fighting and
squabbling or the outcry of a squaw over a bit of stolen meat, they were
sure to find White Fang mixed up in it and usually at the bottom of it.
They did not bother to look after the causes of his conduct. They saw
only the effects, and the effects were bad. He was a sneak and a thief,
a mischief-maker, a fomenter of trouble; and irate squaws told him to his
face, the while he eyed them alert and ready to dodge any quick-flung
missile, that he was a wolf and worthless and bound to come to an evil
end.

He found himself an outcast in the midst of the populous camp. All the
young dogs followed Lip-lip's lead. There was a difference between White
Fang and them. Perhaps they sensed his wild-wood breed, and
instinctively felt for him the enmity that the domestic dog feels for the
wolf. But be that as it may, they joined with Lip-lip in the
persecution. And, once declared against him, they found good reason to
continue declared against him. One and all, from time to time, they felt
his teeth; and to his credit, he gave more than he received. Many of
them he could whip in single fight; but single fight was denied him. The
beginning of such a fight was a signal for all the young dogs in camp to
come running and pitch upon him.

Out of this pack-persecution he learned two important things: how to take
care of himself in a mass-fight against him--and how, on a single dog, to
inflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of time. To
keep one's feet in the midst of the hostile mass meant life, and this he
learnt well. He became cat-like in his ability to stay on his feet. Even
grown dogs might hurtle him backward or sideways with the impact of their
heavy bodies; and backward or sideways he would go, in the air or sliding
on the ground, but always with his legs under him and his feet downward
to the mother earth.

When dogs fight, there are usually preliminaries to the actual
combat--snarlings and bristlings and stiff-legged struttings. But White
Fang learned to omit these preliminaries. Delay meant the coming against
him of all the young dogs. He must do his work quickly and get away. So
he learnt to give no warning of his intention. He rushed in and snapped
and slashed on the instant, without notice, before his foe could prepare
to meet him. Thus he learned how to inflict quick and severe damage.
Also he learned the value of surprise. A dog, taken off its guard, its
shoulder slashed open or its ear ripped in ribbons before it knew what
was happening, was a dog half whipped.

Furthermore, it was remarkably easy to overthrow a dog taken by surprise;
while a dog, thus overthrown, invariably exposed for a moment the soft
underside of its neck--the vulnerable point at which to strike for its
life. White Fang knew this point. It was a knowledge bequeathed to him
directly from the hunting generation of wolves. So it was that White
Fang's method when he took the offensive, was: first to find a young dog
alone; second, to surprise it and knock it off its feet; and third, to
drive in with his teeth at the soft throat.

Being but partly grown his jaws had not yet become large enough nor
strong enough to make his throat-attack deadly; but many a young dog went
around camp with a lacerated throat in token of White Fang's intention.
And one day, catching one of his enemies alone on the edge of the woods,
he managed, by repeatedly overthrowing him and attacking the throat, to
cut the great vein and let out the life. There was a great row that
night. He had been observed, the news had been carried to the dead dog's
master, the squaws remembered all the instances of stolen meat, and Grey
Beaver was beset by many angry voices. But he resolutely held the door
of his tepee, inside which he had placed the culprit, and refused to
permit the vengeance for which his tribespeople clamoured.

White Fang became hated by man and dog. During this period of his
development he never knew a moment's security. The tooth of every dog
was against him, the hand of every man. He was greeted with snarls by
his kind, with curses and stones by his gods. He lived tensely. He was
always keyed up, alert for attack, wary of being attacked, with an eye
for sudden and unexpected missiles, prepared to act precipitately and
coolly, to leap in with a flash of teeth, or to leap away with a menacing
snarl.

As for snarling he could snarl more terribly than any dog, young or old,
in camp. The intent of the snarl is to warn or frighten, and judgment is
required to know when it should be used. White Fang knew how to make it
and when to make it. Into his snarl he incorporated all that was
vicious, malignant, and horrible. With nose serrulated by continuous
spasms, hair bristling in recurrent waves, tongue whipping out like a red
snake and whipping back again, ears flattened down, eyes gleaming hatred,
lips wrinkled back, and fangs exposed and dripping, he could compel a
pause on the part of almost any assailant. A temporary pause, when taken
off his guard, gave him the vital moment in which to think and determine
his action. But often a pause so gained lengthened out until it evolved
into a complete cessation from the attack. And before more than one of
the grown dogs White Fang's snarl enabled him to beat an honourable
retreat.

An outcast himself from the pack of the part-grown dogs, his sanguinary
methods and remarkable efficiency made the pack pay for its persecution
of him. Not permitted himself to run with the pack, the curious state of
affairs obtained that no member of the pack could run outside the pack.
White Fang would not permit it. What of his bushwhacking and waylaying
tactics, the young dogs were afraid to run by themselves. With the
exception of Lip-lip, they were compelled to hunch together for mutual
protection against the terrible enemy they had made. A puppy alone by
the river bank meant a puppy dead or a puppy that aroused the camp with
its shrill pain and terror as it fled back from the wolf-cub that had
waylaid it.

But White Fang's reprisals did not cease, even when the young dogs had
learned thoroughly that they must stay together. He attacked them when
he caught them alone, and they attacked him when they were bunched. The
sight of him was sufficient to start them rushing after him, at which
times his swiftness usually carried him into safety. But woe the dog
that outran his fellows in such pursuit! White Fang had learned to turn
suddenly upon the pursuer that was ahead of the pack and thoroughly to
rip him up before the pack could arrive. This occurred with great
frequency, for, once in full cry, the dogs were prone to forget
themselves in the excitement of the chase, while White Fang never forgot
himself. Stealing backward glances as he ran, he was always ready to
whirl around and down the overzealous pursuer that outran his fellows.

Young dogs are bound to play, and out of the exigencies of the situation
they realised their play in this mimic warfare. Thus it was that the
hunt of White Fang became their chief game--a deadly game, withal, and at
all times a serious game. He, on the other hand, being the
fastest-footed, was unafraid to venture anywhere. During the period that
he waited vainly for his mother to come back, he led the pack many a wild
chase through the adjacent woods. But the pack invariably lost him. Its
noise and outcry warned him of its presence, while he ran alone, velvet-
footed, silently, a moving shadow among the trees after the manner of his
father and mother before him. Further he was more directly connected
with the Wild than they; and he knew more of its secrets and stratagems.
A favourite trick of his was to lose his trail in running water and then
lie quietly in a near-by thicket while their baffled cries arose around
him.

Hated by his kind and by mankind, indomitable, perpetually warred upon
and himself waging perpetual war, his development was rapid and
one-sided. This was no soil for kindliness and affection to blossom in.
Of such things he had not the faintest glimmering. The code he learned
was to obey the strong and to oppress the weak. Grey Beaver was a god,
and strong. Therefore White Fang obeyed him. But the dog younger or
smaller than himself was weak, a thing to be destroyed. His development
was in the direction of power. In order to face the constant danger of
hurt and even of destruction, his predatory and protective faculties were
unduly developed. He became quicker of movement than the other dogs,
swifter of foot, craftier, deadlier, more lithe, more lean with ironlike
muscle and sinew, more enduring, more cruel, more ferocious, and more
intelligent. He had to become all these things, else he would not have
held his own nor survive the hostile environment in which he found
himself.