Белый Клык / White Fang

The stream, the lair, and the quiet woods were calling to him, and he wanted her to come. He ran on a few steps, stopped, and looked back. She did not move. He whined pleadingly, and jumped playfully in and out of the underbrush. He ran back to her, licked her face, and ran on again. And still she did not move. She turned her head and looked back at the camp.

There was something calling to him out there in the open. His mother heard it too. But she heard also the call of the fire and of man, the call which has been given—of all animals—to the wolf and the wild-dog, who are brothers.

Kiche turned and slowly trotted back toward camp. Stronger than the physical bondage was the clutch of the camp upon her. White Fang sat down in the shadow of a tree and whimpered softly. There were wood smells reminding him of his old life of freedom. But he was still only a part-grown puppy, and stronger than the call either of man or of the Wild was the call of his mother. All his short life he had depended upon her.

The time has not yet come for independence. So he trotted back to camp, pausing once, and twice, to sit down and whimper and to listen to the call that still sounded in his ears.

In the Wild the time of a mother with her cub is short; but under the dominion of man it is sometimes even shorter. Grey Beaver was in the debt of Three Eagles. Three Eagles was going away on a trip up the Mackenzie to the Great Slave Lake. A piece of cloth, a bearskin, twenty cartridges, and Kiche, went to pay the debt.

White Fang saw his mother taken aboard Three Eagles’ canoe, and tried to follow her. A blow from Three Eagles knocked him backward to the land. The canoe sailed off. He sprang into the water and swam after it, deaf to the sharp cries of Grey Beaver to return. White Fang ignored even a man-animal, a god, such was the terror of losing his mother.

But gods are used to being obeyed, and Grey Beaver pursued him in his canoe. He lifted him from water by the nape of the neck.

Holding him with one hand, with the other hand he gave him a beating. And it was a beating. His hand was heavy. And White Fang snarled.

Grey Beaver continued to beat, White Fang continued to snarl. But this could not last forever. Finally he broke down and began to cry. For a time each blow brought a yell from him. At last Grey Beaver stopped. White Fang continued to cry. This seemed to satisfy his master, who threw him down roughly in the bottom of the canoe.