Белый Клык / White Fang

One by one the wolves joined her, till the whole pack was howling.

Dawn came, and daylight. The fire was burning low. The fuel had run out, and there was need to get more. The man could not step out of the circle of fire or drive the wolves back. As he gave up and sat inside his circle, a wolf leaped for him, missed, and landed with all four feet in the coals. It cried out with terror, at the same time snarling, and jumped back to cool its paws in the snow.

The man sat down on his blankets. His shoulders relaxed and drooped, his head was on his knees: he had given up the struggle.

Now and again he raised his head and watched the fire dying. The circle of flame and coals was breaking into segments with openings in between.

“I guess you can come and get me any time,” he said. “Anyway, I’m going to sleep.”

Once he awakened, and in an opening in the circle, he saw the she-wolf gazing at him.

Again he awakened, a little later, though it seemed hours to him. A mysterious change had taken place.

He could not understand at first. Then he discovered it. The wolves were gone. Only the traces on the snow showed how closely they had come.

There were cries of men and sounds of sleds and harnesses, and the whimpering of dogs. Four sleds with half a dozen men approached the man who crouched in the centre of the dying fire. They were shaking him into consciousness. He looked at them like a drunken man and said sleepily:

“Red she-wolf… Come in with the dogs at feeding time… First she ate the dog-food… Then she ate the dogs… And after that she ate Bill…”

“Where’s Lord Alfred?” one of the men shouted in his ear, shaking him roughly.

He shook his head slowly. “No, she didn’t eat him… He’s in a tree at the last camp.”

“Dead?”

“And in a box,” Henry jerked his shoulder away from the grip of his questioner. “Leave alone… Good night, everybody.”

His eyes closed. And even as they put him down upon the blankets his snores sounded in the frosty air.

But there was another sound: a far and faint cry of the hungry wolf-pack as it took the trail of other meat.

Part II

Chapter I. THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS

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 man in his circle of dying fire. The pack followed her.