บทที่ บทที่ 6 · 第6章

THE FAMINE

The spring of the year was at hand when Grey Beaver finished his long

journey. It was April, and White Fang was a year old when he pulled

into the home villages and was loosed from the harness by Mit-sah.

Though a long way from his full growth, White Fang, next to Lip-lip,

was the largest yearling in the village. Both from his father, the

wolf, and from Kiche, he had inherited stature and strength, and

already he was measuring up alongside the full-grown dogs. But he had

not yet grown compact. His body was slender and rangy, and his strength

more stringy than massive, His coat was the true wolf-grey, and to all

appearances he was true wolf himself. The quarter-strain of dog he had

inherited from Kiche had left no mark on him physically, though it had

played its part in his mental make-up.

He wandered through the village, recognising with staid satisfaction

the various gods he had known before the long journey. Then there were

the dogs, puppies growing up like himself, and grown dogs that did not

look so large and formidable as the memory pictures he retained of

them. Also, he stood less in fear of them than formerly, stalking among

them with a certain careless ease that was as new to him as it was

enjoyable.

There was Baseek, a grizzled old fellow that in his younger days had

but to uncover his fangs to send White Fang cringing and crouching to

the right about. From him White Fang had learned much of his own

insignificance; and from him he was now to learn much of the change and

development that had taken place in himself. While Baseek had been

growing weaker with age, White Fang had been growing stronger with

youth.

It was at the cutting-up of a moose, fresh-killed, that White Fang

learned of the changed relations in which he stood to the dog-world. He

had got for himself a hoof and part of the shin-bone, to which quite a

bit of meat was attached. Withdrawn from the immediate scramble of the

other dogs—in fact out of sight behind a thicket—he was devouring his

prize, when Baseek rushed in upon him. Before he knew what he was

doing, he had slashed the intruder twice and sprung clear. Baseek was

surprised by the other’s temerity and swiftness of attack. He stood,

gazing stupidly across at White Fang, the raw, red shin-bone between

them.

Baseek was old, and already he had come to know the increasing valour

of the dogs it had been his wont to bully. Bitter experiences these,

which, perforce, he swallowed, calling upon all his wisdom to cope with

them. In the old days he would have sprung upon White Fang in a fury of

righteous wrath. But now his waning powers would not permit such a

course. He bristled fiercely and looked ominously across the shin-bone

at White Fang. And White Fang, resurrecting quite a deal of the old

awe, seemed to wilt and to shrink in upon himself and grow small, as he

cast about in his mind for a way to beat a retreat not too inglorious.

And right here Baseek erred. Had he contented himself with looking

fierce and ominous, all would have been well. White Fang, on the verge

of retreat, would have retreated, leaving the meat to him. But Baseek

did not wait. He considered the victory already his and stepped forward

to the meat. As he bent his head carelessly to smell it, White Fang

bristled slightly. Even then it was not too late for Baseek to retrieve

the situation. Had he merely stood over the meat, head up and

glowering, White Fang would ultimately have slunk away. But the fresh

meat was strong in Baseek’s nostrils, and greed urged him to take a

bite of it.

This was too much for White Fang. Fresh upon his months of mastery over

his own team-mates, it was beyond his self-control to stand idly by

while another devoured the meat that belonged to him. He struck, after

his custom, without warning. With the first slash, Baseek’s right ear

was ripped into ribbons. He was astounded at the suddenness of it. But

more things, and most grievous ones, were happening with equal

suddenness. He was knocked off his feet. His throat was bitten. While

he was struggling to his feet the young dog sank teeth twice into his

shoulder. The swiftness of it was bewildering. He made a futile rush at

White Fang, clipping the empty air with an outraged snap. The next

moment his nose was laid open, and he was staggering backward away from

the meat.

The situation was now reversed. White Fang stood over the shin-bone,

bristling and menacing, while Baseek stood a little way off, preparing

to retreat. He dared not risk a fight with this young lightning-flash,

and again he knew, and more bitterly, the enfeeblement of oncoming age.

His attempt to maintain his dignity was heroic. Calmly turning his back

upon young dog and shin-bone, as though both were beneath his notice

and unworthy of his consideration, he stalked grandly away. Nor, until

well out of sight, did he stop to lick his bleeding wounds.

The effect on White Fang was to give him a greater faith in himself,

and a greater pride. He walked less softly among the grown dogs; his

attitude toward them was less compromising. Not that he went out of his

way looking for trouble. Far from it. But upon his way he demanded

consideration. He stood upon his right to go his way unmolested and to

give trail to no dog. He had to be taken into account, that was all. He

was no longer to be disregarded and ignored, as was the lot of puppies,

and as continued to be the lot of the puppies that were his team-mates.

They got out of the way, gave trail to the grown dogs, and gave up meat

to them under compulsion. But White Fang, uncompanionable, solitary,

morose, scarcely looking to right or left, redoubtable, forbidding of

aspect, remote and alien, was accepted as an equal by his puzzled

elders. They quickly learned to leave him alone, neither venturing

hostile acts nor making overtures of friendliness. If they left him

alone, he left them alone—a state of affairs that they found, after a

few encounters, to be pre-eminently desirable.

In midsummer White Fang had an experience. Trotting along in his silent

way to investigate a new tepee which had been erected on the edge of

the village while he was away with the hunters after moose, he came

full upon Kiche. He paused and looked at her. He remembered her

vaguely, but he _remembered_ her, and that was more than could be said

for her. She lifted her lip at him in the old snarl of menace, and his

memory became clear. His forgotten cubhood, all that was associated

with that familiar snarl, rushed back to him. Before he had known the

gods, she had been to him the centre-pin of the universe. The old

familiar feelings of that time came back upon him, surged up within

him. He bounded towards her joyously, and she met him with shrewd fangs

that laid his cheek open to the bone. He did not understand. He backed

away, bewildered and puzzled.

But it was not Kiche’s fault. A wolf-mother was not made to remember

her cubs of a year or so before. So she did not remember White Fang. He

was a strange animal, an intruder; and her present litter of puppies

gave her the right to resent such intrusion.

One of the puppies sprawled up to White Fang. They were half-brothers,

only they did not know it. White Fang sniffed the puppy curiously,

whereupon Kiche rushed upon him, gashing his face a second time. He

backed farther away. All the old memories and associations died down

again and passed into the grave from which they had been resurrected.

He looked at Kiche licking her puppy and stopping now and then to snarl

at him. She was without value to him. He had learned to get along

without her. Her meaning was forgotten. There was no place for her in

his scheme of things, as there was no place for him in hers.

He was still standing, stupid and bewildered, the memories forgotten,

wondering what it was all about, when Kiche attacked him a third time,

intent on driving him away altogether from the vicinity. And White Fang

allowed himself to be driven away. This was a female of his kind, and

it was a law of his kind that the males must not fight the females. He

did not know anything about this law, for it was no generalisation of

the mind, not a something acquired by experience of the world. He knew

it as a secret prompting, as an urge of instinct—of the same instinct

that made him howl at the moon and stars of nights, and that made him

fear death and the unknown.

The months went by. White Fang grew stronger, heavier, and more

compact, while his character was developing along the lines laid down

by his heredity and his environment. His heredity was a life-stuff that

may be likened to clay. It possessed many possibilities, was capable of

being moulded into many different forms. Environment served to model

the clay, to give it a particular form. Thus, had White Fang never come

in to the fires of man, the Wild would have moulded him into a true

wolf. But the gods had given him a different environment, and he was

moulded into a dog that was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not

a wolf.

And so, according to the clay of his nature and the pressure of his

surroundings, his character was being moulded into a certain particular

shape. There was no escaping it. He was becoming more morose, more

uncompanionable, more solitary, more ferocious; while the dogs were

learning more and more that it was better to be at peace with him than

at war, and Grey Beaver was coming to prize him more greatly with the

passage of each day.

White Fang, seeming to sum up strength in all his qualities,

nevertheless suffered from one besetting weakness. He could not stand

being laughed at. The laughter of men was a hateful thing. They might

laugh among themselves about anything they pleased except himself, and

he did not mind. But the moment laughter was turned upon him he would

fly into a most terrible rage. Grave, dignified, sombre, a laugh made

him frantic to ridiculousness. It so outraged him and upset him that

for hours he would behave like a demon. And woe to the dog that at such

times ran foul of him. He knew the law too well to take it out on Grey

Beaver; behind Grey Beaver were a club and godhead. But behind the dogs

there was nothing but space, and into this space they flew when White

Fang came on the scene, made mad by laughter.

In the third year of his life there came a great famine to the

Mackenzie Indians. In the summer the fish failed. In the winter the

cariboo forsook their accustomed track. Moose were scarce, the rabbits

almost disappeared, hunting and preying animals perished. Denied their

usual food-supply, weakened by hunger, they fell upon and devoured one

another. Only the strong survived. White Fang’s gods were always

hunting animals. The old and the weak of them died of hunger. There was

wailing in the village, where the women and children went without in

order that what little they had might go into the bellies of the lean

and hollow-eyed hunters who trod the forest in the vain pursuit of

meat.

To such extremity were the gods driven that they ate the soft-tanned

leather of their mocassins and mittens, while the dogs ate the

harnesses off their backs and the very whip-lashes. Also, the dogs ate

one another, and also the gods ate the dogs. The weakest and the more

worthless were eaten first. The dogs that still lived, looked on and

understood. A few of the boldest and wisest forsook the fires of the

gods, which had now become a shambles, and fled into the forest, where,

in the end, they starved to death or were eaten by wolves.

In this time of misery, White Fang, too, stole away into the woods. He

was better fitted for the life than the other dogs, for he had the

training of his cubhood to guide him. Especially adept did he become in

stalking small living things. He would lie concealed for hours,

following every movement of a cautious tree-squirrel, waiting, with a

patience as huge as the hunger he suffered from, until the squirrel

ventured out upon the ground. Even then, White Fang was not premature.

He waited until he was sure of striking before the squirrel could gain

a tree-refuge. Then, and not until then, would he flash from his

hiding-place, a grey projectile, incredibly swift, never failing its

mark—the fleeing squirrel that fled not fast enough.

Successful as he was with squirrels, there was one difficulty that

prevented him from living and growing fat on them. There were not

enough squirrels. So he was driven to hunt still smaller things. So

acute did his hunger become at times that he was not above rooting out

wood-mice from their burrows in the ground. Nor did he scorn to do

battle with a weasel as hungry as himself and many times more

ferocious.

In the worst pinches of the famine he stole back to the fires of the

gods. But he did not go into the fires. He lurked in the forest,

avoiding discovery and robbing the snares at the rare intervals when

game was caught. He even robbed Grey Beaver’s snare of a rabbit at a

time when Grey Beaver staggered and tottered through the forest,

sitting down often to rest, what of weakness and of shortness of

breath.

One day White Fang encountered a young wolf, gaunt and scrawny,

loose-jointed with famine. Had he not been hungry himself, White Fang

might have gone with him and eventually found his way into the pack

amongst his wild brethren. As it was, he ran the young wolf down and

killed and ate him.

Fortune seemed to favour him. Always, when hardest pressed for food, he

found something to kill. Again, when he was weak, it was his luck that

none of the larger preying animals chanced upon him. Thus, he was

strong from the two days’ eating a lynx had afforded him when the

hungry wolf-pack ran full tilt upon him. It was a long, cruel chase,

but he was better nourished than they, and in the end outran them. And

not only did he outrun them, but, circling widely back on his track, he

gathered in one of his exhausted pursuers.

After that he left that part of the country and journeyed over to the

valley wherein he had been born. Here, in the old lair, he encountered

Kiche. Up to her old tricks, she, too, had fled the inhospitable fires

of the gods and gone back to her old refuge to give birth to her young.

Of this litter but one remained alive when White Fang came upon the

scene, and this one was not destined to live long. Young life had

little chance in such a famine.

Kiche’s greeting of her grown son was anything but affectionate. But

White Fang did not mind. He had outgrown his mother. So he turned tail

philosophically and trotted on up the stream. At the forks he took the

turning to the left, where he found the lair of the lynx with whom his

mother and he had fought long before. Here, in the abandoned lair, he

settled down and rested for a day.

During the early summer, in the last days of the famine, he met

Lip-lip, who had likewise taken to the woods, where he had eked out a

miserable existence.

White Fang came upon him unexpectedly. Trotting in opposite directions

along the base of a high bluff, they rounded a corner of rock and found

themselves face to face. They paused with instant alarm, and looked at

each other suspiciously.

White Fang was in splendid condition. His hunting had been good, and

for a week he had eaten his fill. He was even gorged from his latest

kill. But in the moment he looked at Lip-lip his hair rose on end all

along his back. It was an involuntary bristling on his part, the

physical state that in the past had always accompanied the mental state

produced in him by Lip-lip’s bullying and persecution. As in the past

he had bristled and snarled at sight of Lip-lip, so now, and

automatically, he bristled and snarled. He did not waste any time. The

thing was done thoroughly and with despatch. Lip-lip essayed to back

away, but White Fang struck him hard, shoulder to shoulder. Lip-lip was

overthrown and rolled upon his back. White Fang’s teeth drove into the

scrawny throat. There was a death-struggle, during which White Fang

walked around, stiff-legged and observant. Then he resumed his course

and trotted on along the base of the bluff.

One day, not long after, he came to the edge of the forest, where a

narrow stretch of open land sloped down to the Mackenzie. He had been

over this ground before, when it was bare, but now a village occupied

it. Still hidden amongst the trees, he paused to study the situation.

Sights and sounds and scents were familiar to him. It was the old

village changed to a new place. But sights and sounds and smells were

different from those he had last had when he fled away from it. There

was no whimpering nor wailing. Contented sounds saluted his ear, and

when he heard the angry voice of a woman he knew it to be the anger

that proceeds from a full stomach. And there was a smell in the air of

fish. There was food. The famine was gone. He came out boldly from the

forest and trotted into camp straight to Grey Beaver’s tepee. Grey

Beaver was not there; but Kloo-kooch welcomed him with glad cries and

the whole of a fresh-caught fish, and he lay down to wait Grey Beaver’s

coming.