PART FIVE. CHAPTER ONE. The Long Trail.
IT WAS IN THE AIR. White Fang sensed the coming calamity, even
before there was tangible evidence of it. In vague ways it was borne
in upon him that a change was impending. He knew not how nor why,
yet he got his feel of the oncoming event from the gods themselves. In
ways subtler than they knew, they betrayed their intentions to the
wolf-dog that haunted the cabin-stoop, and that, though he never
came inside the cabin, knew what went on inside their brains.
'Listen to that, will you!' the dog-musher exclaimed at supper one
night.
Weedon Scott listened. Through the door came a low, anxious whine,
like a sobbing under the breath that has just grown audible. Then came
the long sniff, as White Fang reassured himself that his god was still
inside and had not yet taken himself off in mysterious and solitary
flight.
'I do believe that wolf's on to you,' the dog-musher said.
Weedon Scott looked across at his companion with eyes that almost
pleaded, though this was given the lie by his words.
'What the devil can I do with a wolf in California?' he demanded.
'That's what I say,' Matt answered. 'What the devil can you do
with a wolf in California?'
But this did not satisfy Weedon Scott. The other seemed to be
judging him in a non-committal sort of way.
'White-man's dogs would have no show against him,' Scott went on.
'He'd kill them on sight. If he didn't bankrupt me with damage
suits, the authorities would take him away from me and electrocute
him.'
'He's a downright murderer, I know,' was the dog-musher's comment.
Weedon Scott looked at him suspiciously.
'It would never do,' he said decisively.
'It would never do,' Matt concurred. 'Why, you'd have to hire a
man specially to take care of 'm.'
The other's suspicion was allayed. He nodded cheerfully. In the
silence that followed, the low, half-sobbing whine was heard at the
door and then the long, questing sniff.
'There's no denyin' he thinks a hell of a lot of you,' Matt said.
The other glared at him in sudden wrath. 'Damn it all, man! I know
my own mind and what's best!'
'I'm agreein' with you, only...'
'Only what?' Scott snapped out.
'Only...' the dog-musher began softly, then changed his mind and
betrayed a rising anger of his own, 'Well, you needn't get so
all-fired het up about it. Judgin' by your actions one'd think you
didn't know your own mind.'
Weedon Scott debated with himself for a while, and then said more
gently: 'You are right, Matt. I don't know my own mind, and that's
what's the trouble.'
Why, it would be rank ridiculousness for me to take that dog along,'
he broke out after another pause.
'I'm agreein' with you,' was Matt's answer, and again his employer
was not quite satisfied with him.
'But how in the name of the great Sardanapalus he knows you're goin'
is what gets me,' the dog-musher continued innocently.
'It's beyond me, Matt,' Scott answered, with a mournful shake of the
head.
Then came the day when, through the open cabin door, White Fang
saw the fatal grip on the floor and the love-master packing things
into it. Also, there were comings and goings, and the erstwhile placid
atmosphere of the cabin was vexed with strange perturbations and
unrest. Here was indubitable evidence. White Fang had already sensed
it. He now reasoned it. His god was preparing for another flight.
And since he had not taken him with him before, so, now, he could look
to be left behind.
That night he lifted the long wolf-howl. As he had howled, in his
puppy days, when he fled back from the Wild to the village to find
it vanished and naught but a rubbish-heap to mark the site of Gray
Beaver's tepee, so now he pointed his muzzle to the cold stars and
told to them his woe.
Inside the cabin the two men had just gone to bed.
'He's gone off his food again,' Matt remarked from his bunk.
There was a grunt from Weedon Scott's bunk, and a stir of blankets.
'From the way he cut up the other time you went away, I wouldn't
wonder this time but what he died.'
The blankets in the other bunk stirred irritably.
'Oh, shut up!' Scott cried out through the darkness. 'You nag
worse than a woman.'
'I'm agreein' with you,' the dog-musher answered, and Weedon Scott
was not quite sure whether or not the other had snickered.
The next day White Fang's anxiety and restlessness were even more
pronounced. He dogged his master's heels whenever he left the cabin,
and haunted the front stoop when he remained inside. Through the
open door he could catch glimpses of the luggage on the floor. The
grip had been joined by two large canvas bags and a box. Matt was
rolling the master's blankets and fur robe inside a small tarpaulin.
White Fang whined as he watched the operation.
Later on, two Indians arrived. He watched them closely as they
shouldered the luggage and were led off down the hill by Matt, who
carried the bedding and the grip. But White Fang did not follow
them. The master was still in the cabin. After a time, Matt
returned. The master came to the door and called White Fang inside.
'You poor devil,' he said gently, rubbing White Fang's ears and
tapping his spine. 'I'm hitting the long trail, old man, where you
cannot follow. Now give me a growl- the last, good, good-by growl.'
But White Fang refused to growl. Instead, and after a wistful,
searching look, he snuggled in, burrowing his head out of sight
between the master's arm and body.
'There she blows!' Matt cried. From the Yukon arose the hoarse
bellowing of a river steamboat. 'You've got to cut it short. Be sure
and lock the front door. I'll go out the back. Get a move on!'
The two doors slammed at the same moment, and Weedon Scott waited
for Matt to come around to the front. From inside the door came a
low whining and sobbing. Then there were long, deep-drawn sniffs.
'You must take good care of him, Matt,' Scott said, as they
started down the hill. 'Write and let me know how he gets along.'
'Sure,' the dog-musher answered. 'But listen to that, will you!'
Both men stopped. White Fang was howling as dogs howl when their
masters lie dead. He was voicing an utter woe, his cry bursting upward
in great, heartbreaking rushes, dying down into quavering misery,
and bursting upward again with rush upon rush of grief.
The Aurora was the first steamboat of the year for the Outside,
and her decks were jammed with prosperous adventurers and broken
gold seekers, all equally as mad to get to the Outside as they had
been originally to get to the Inside. Near the gangplank, Scott was
shaking hands with Matt, who was preparing to go ashore. But Matt's
hand went limp in the other's grasp as his gaze shot past and remained
fixed on something behind him. Scott turned to see. Sitting on the
deck several feet away and watching wistfully was White Fang.
The dog-musher swore softly, in awe-stricken accents. Scott could
only look in wonder.
'Did you lock the front door?' Matt demanded.
The other nodded, and asked, 'How about the back?'
'You just bet I did,' was the fervent reply.
White Fang flattened his ears ingratiatingly, but remained where
he was, making no attempt to approach.
'I'll have to take 'm ashore with me.'
Matt made a couple of steps toward White Fang, but the latter slid
away from him. The dog-musher made a rush of it, and White Fang dodged
between the legs of a group of men. Ducking, turning, doubling, he
slid about the deck, eluding the other's efforts to capture him.
But when the love-master spoke, White Fang came to him with prompt
obedience.
'Won't come to the hand that's fed 'm all these months,' the
dog-musher muttered resentfully. 'And you- you ain't never fed after
them first days of gettin' acquainted. I'm blamed if I can see how
he works it out that you're the boss.'
Scott, who had been patting White Fang, suddenly bent closer and
pointed out fresh-made cuts on his muzzle, and a gash between the
eyes.
Matt bent over and passed his hand along White Fang's belly.
'We plumb forgot the windows. He's all cut an' gouged underneath.
Must butted clean through it, b'gosh!'
But Weedon Scott was not listening. He was thinking rapidly. The
Aurora's whistle hooted a final announcement of departure. Men were
scurrying down the gangplank to the shore. Matt loosened the bandana
from his own neck and started to put it around White Fang's. Scott
grasped the dog-musher's hand.
'Good-by, Matt, old man. About the wolf- you needn't write. You see,
I've...'
'What!' the dog-musher exploded. 'You don't mean to say...'
'The very thing I mean. Here's your bandana. I'll write to you about
him.'
Matt paused halfway down the gangplank.
'He'll never stand the climate!' he shouted back. 'Unless you clip
'm in warm weather!'
The gangplank was hauled in, and the Aurora swung out from the bank.
Weedon Scott waved a last good-by. Then he turned and bent over
White Fang, standing by his side.
'Now growl, damn you, growl,' he said, as he patted the responsive
head and rubbed the flattening ears.Previous chapter:Next chapter WHITE FANG, by Jack London. CHAPTER TWO. The She-wolf. CHAPTER THREE. The Hunger Cry. PART TWO. CHAPTER ONE. The Battle of the Fangs. CHAPTER TWO. The Lair. CHAPTER THREE. The Gray Cub. CHAPTER FOUR. The Wall of the World. CHAPTER FIVE. The Law of Meat. PART THREE. CHAPTER ONE. The Makers of Fire. CHAPTER TWO. The Bondage. CHAPTER THREE. The Outcast. CHAPTER FOUR. The Trail of the Gods. CHAPTER FIVE. The Covenant. CHAPTER SIX. The Famine. PART FOUR. CHAPTER ONE. The Enemy of his Kind. CHAPTER TWO. The Mad God. CHAPTER THREE. The Reign of Hate. CHAPTER FOUR. The Clinging Death. CHAPTER FIVE. The Indomitable. CHAPTER SIX. The Love-master. PART FIVE. CHAPTER ONE. The Long Trail. CHAPTER TWO. The Southland. CHAPTER THREE. The God's Domain. CHAPTER FOUR. The Call of Kind. CHAPTER FIVE. The Sleeping Wolf. Book list. |
(Thursday, 18 April, 2024.)