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    White Fang
    White Fang
    White Fang
    Ebook263 pages5 hours

    White Fang

    By Jack London

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    White Fang is a beautiful wolf-dog hybrid, born in and raised in the harsh and dangerous wilderness of the Canadian Yukon. One day, however, White Fang is discovered by a local Native American man who brings him back to live in the Indian camp. White Fang has no true place in the wild or in the camp, and in order to be happy, must find out how to balance the brutality bred into him with obedience and respect.

    White Fang is a powerful adventure novel that explores redemption, morality, and the strength of the bond between animal and man. It is considered to be a companion piece to Jack London’s best-known novel, The Call of the Wild, and has been adapted for the screen numerous times—most notably into a 1991 feature film starring Ethan Hawke.

    HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital form, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateDec 10, 2013
    ISBN9781443432818
    Author

    Jack London

    Jack London (1876-1916) was an American writer who produced two hundred short stories, more than four hundred nonfiction pieces, twenty novels, and three full-length plays in less than two decades. His best-known works include The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, and White Fang.

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    Reviews for White Fang

    4/5

    1,959 ratings46 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I've lost track of how many times I read this as a kid. Wonderful book!
    • 4/5
      White Fang is a wolf dog who lies in Alaska. He was born in a cave with 4 other pups and he was the only one who survive. He was taken to an Indian Camp with his mom. He was given the name White Fang. He was very cunning and fierce. He was hated by all the other dogs in the camp. Soon his mom was taken from him and he was bullied and also scared. He learned how to protect himself from the other puppies and how to live with humans. He was sold to a man name Beauty Smith who treated him badly and put him to fight and kill other dogs for money. He was saved by Scott after he almost died when dog fighting. Scott took him to his home in California where he was love and became a part of Scott family and also had puppies of his own. I enjoyed reading this adventurous book which shows us about animal feelings and trust. It shows how some people can be cruel to animals and some can be kind as well. White Fang went from a fierce animal who met cruelty, being bullied and abused to enjoying life and having his own puppies. I think it was very horrible the way he was beaten and put into fights. No one deserve this type of treatment.
    • 2/5
      Enjoyed the first three chapters, even if they were a bit gruesome. Cast Liam Neeson and you'd have the makings of a fine movie there. Lost interest when the narration switched to the wolves' point of view. Also, the narrator's voice was grating and seemed to emphasize the wrong things. Unfinished.
    • 5/5
      A true classic.
    • 5/5
      Excellent!!!
    • 5/5
      Amazing book with a great story that kept me on my toes. Although you need to have kind of a long attention span it's a great story once you get into it.
    • 4/5
      An emotive book depicting the imaginary life of a wolf. Through his feelings and opinions, Jack London presents us a comprehensive critic of inner and outer nature of humans by means of implicit comparisons between animals and humans.
    • 3/5
      It's never a good sign when a relatively short book feels like forever to finish. I'm not sure why this beloved classic didn't speak to me. Maybe I didn't gel with the writing which I found very plain. Or maybe it was the perspective of the animal which doesn't often work for me. Maybe it was just the wrong book at the wrong time. Either way, I was bored by it. On to other books!
    • 3/5
      I liked it alright as a dog lover but was a little bored finding descriptions repetitious. Call of the Wild was much better in my opinion.
    • 4/5
      I don't want to get too critical of this book but it is ironic that the author reversed the very thing I liked best about The Call of the Wild: the ruthless ending. I suppose that this book ended with a ruthless event but not with a wildness of mind and life. I thought that parts one and two were simply brilliant. The beginning of the book was gripping and exciting and a great way to introduce the reader to White Fang.

      All in all, I enjoy this book very much... I just thought it got too sappy and lovey-dovey in the end. Also, I did not really enjoy the deification of humans to the extent it was used. The first couple of references would have sufficed to make the point of the wolf's point of view.
    • 4/5
      I read this book in Danish when I was about 10, and it made a strong lasting impression. For that reason I'll give it at least 4 stars, although don't know how I would had rated it if I had read it as an adult.
    • 3/5
      Classic story of a wold-dog hybrid named White Fang. It's kind of the reversal of Jack London's other work "The Call of the Wild" wherein the animal starts off in human society and goes feral. White Fang is born wild and ends up with a beloved master. The point appears to be that nature is savage and brutal ("Eat or be eaten!"), and that man can be even more savage and brutal, or let the power of love and gentleness overcome.
    • 4/5
      Beautiful writing about the life of a dog/wolf in the Yukon. Life in the wild changes as White Fang is first "owned" by an Indian, later by a terrible man named Beauty Smith who makes him into a fighting dog, and last by a kind man who becomes very attached to the dog.
    • 4/5
      Pros: this is a lovely, lovely book. It follows the tale of an Alaskan wolf from birth to his meeting with a human who shows him compassion and love, forming a bond stronger than any he's formed in his life. Beautifully written, evenly paced, it's classic Jack London.Cons: I'm pretty sure this book was at least partly responsible for starting the whole "OMG I LUV WOLFZ!!!" trend among our young people in the last few years. Especially teenage girls. I'm talking about the kind who talk about how beautiful and majestic wolves are and how ugly and awful humans are and they would just love to live with the wolves forever. Urgh.Also, I guess you could interpret some mild racial stereotyping in that White Fang's first master is a native who becomes an alcoholic.For these two offenses, I deduct one star. But it's still a great little novel.
    • 3/5
      I expected to like this more than Call of the Wild because it was supposed to be London's book where he got all nitty-gritty about writing from the wolf's perspective in a real as opposed to a kind of anthropomorphic epical way, and there was some good stuff in that vein early on, with the baby wolf figuring out how the world works, and I think the "nature faker" label is somewhat unreasonable to apply to him unless you were expecting actual nature writing and not tall tale shit. (But only somewhat, since the fact that White Fang's narrative arc is basically that he is wild and magnif and then bad humans make him ornery and vicious and then good humans bring him into the light of civ gives the ecocritic-type, let-the-animals-be-animals-irretrievably-Other criticisms levelled against London by Teddy Roosevelt (!) at least three legs to stand on.)No, the problem with this book has nothing to do with nature--it's London's atittudes toward humanity that are the problem. We see how nails-tough Grey Beaver and the other native people who first semi-domesticate White Fang are, but then when he wanders into the white man's town he sees--apocalyptic revelation!--that those "gods" (humans are gods) are as nothing before the pale gods, and you're like, why exactly, given that the white people in this are mostly a bunch of drunks and fuckups. London's racial ideology is accompanied by this thing where the scion of the judge's family in California comes in and stomps the vicious lumpen goldpanners who are forcing White Fang to dogfight ("You beasts!" he shrieks, fists flying, superman curl coming unstuck. "You beasts!"). And White Fang is redeemed by being brought into the manor of the patriarch, the Judge of the Law. London himself said this book was an expression of "worship of power" and evoked Nietzsche, but it's a pretty thin Nietzscheanism--more Leibnizian all-is-for-the-best-in-this or Calvinist elect: those who rule are the strongest by virtue of ruling, not vice versa. Like, this guy's a socialist???? But then you read further that London saw this book as a fable-retelling of his own stratospheric rise from working-class kid to millionaire author, and you're like, no, he may think he's a socialist but he's actually the worst kind of fuckhead.
    • 4/5
      So infinitely better than Call of the Wild. I really enjoyed this book. White Fang had so much more personality than Buck and White Fang's perspectives of the world, his myriad interactions with everything around him, and the wonderful characterizations of the people in White Fang's life really invited the reader to truly care for him.
    • 5/5
      The aim of life was meat. Life itself was meat. Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten. The law was: EAT OR BE EATEN. He did not formulate the law in clear, set terms and moralize about it. He did not even think the law; he merely lived the law without thinking about it at all.” “I’m going to give the evolution, the civilization of a dog—development of domesticity, faithfulness, love, morality, and all the amenities and virtues.” Jack LondonThe opening scene where White Fang lures out the sledge dogs one by one and kills them - and then goes after the two men - is both frigthening and fascinating. There are several other frightening scenes - like the crucial fight with the bull dog. Oh, my. But then also delightful scenes where White Fang encounters the God’s (humans) goodness and tenderness. I had forgotton how great this classic American tale was - up there with "Watership Down"] in it’s realism and moral force.
    • 4/5
      White Fang is ¼ dog and ¾ wolf. He is born into the wild, but since his mother is ½ dog, she brings him back to live with people. Over the course of his lifetime, he has to learn to adapt to many different worlds. London does an amazing job of telling the story from the wolf/dog’s point of view. Although, I find it very, very difficult to get past some of the abuse that happens in the story, it is an amazing book about an amazing animal. The way the story is told depicts exactly how I think an animal’s mind would work.
    • 5/5
      For Christmas, I ordered an mp3 player (Library of Classics) that was pre-loaded with 100 works of classic literature in an audio format. Each work is in the public domain and is read by amateurs, so the quality of the presentation is hit or miss. White Fang is a novel written by Jack London, much on the same topic and of the same style as his classic novella Call of the Wild. In Call of the Wild, the story is told from the point of view of the kidnapped sled dog, Buck. Likewise, in White Fang, the protagonist and narrator is a wolf/dog hybrid named White Fang. Born in the wild to a wolf father and half wolf, half dog mother, White Fang soon becomes domesticated as a pup in a nearby Indian village. From there he passes through various stages of life in Canada, Alaska and finally California.London’s writing is fascinating and the imagery is first rate. White Fang’s progression from a wild animal, to domesticated sled dog, to fighting dog and finally to family pet (interestingly, exactly the opposite experience of the protagonist in Call of the Wild) is vastly entertaining and educational.
    • 5/5
      I read this book a few years ago, and have constantly gone back to it because I just enjoyed the story and London's style of writing that much. 
    • 5/5
      For some reason, though I had it when I was little, I never read White Fang. I think I was afraid of anthropomorphism. I figured it was going to be kind of cutesy, not really worth my time. Much as I liked Narnia and the like, in fiction based in the real world, I wanted more realism. I obviously never even started reading it. I think the book does a good job of portraying the wolf as a completely different creature from the human -- as well as a human can do without becoming a wolf for a while himself. The slow taming of White Fang seemed more or less realistic to me, and my heart was in my mouth in the last couple of pages. The book does make you care about the characters, particularly White Fang and his final master.

      I was especially intrigued by the idea of wolves/dogs seeing humans as their gods. White Fang's view of his gods reminded me of the ancient Greek pantheon -- all those jealous and fighting gods, some more powerful than others...

      I'm glad I finally did read this book.
    • 4/5
      A classic by Jack London, White Fang could be considered the companion to London’s Call of the Wild, except in reserve. Whereas Buck from Call of the Wild finds his wild nature—White Fang finds his human love and is able to integrate into domestic life. White Fang is born in the wild to a wolf father and a half wolf mother. When he is made captive by humans, he is outcast from the other dogs because of his wildness. He learns to fight for his life. Finally, he has an opportunity to experience a new life away from the violence and savagery—but will he learn to embrace it is the question. I loved this book despite the violence and the brutality of the life led by White Fang—and the cruelty of the humans he encounters. A 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 5/5
      I first read this book when I was a young teenager. I remember crying then. I didn’t cry this time round but the actions in this book did strike a chord with me. I really do detest cruelty to animals; the cruelty in this book is paramount.White Fang is a product of his past. He has been taught to hate. He has been taught to survive at any measure. He is vicious. He is a killer! Yet he’s these things because he has to be. His other choice is to be the weak link and die.It’s a powerful story. Well told. No holding back; aimed straight for the jugular. The biggest lesson learned by reading White Fang is that you can beat an animal (and I believe this relates to people too) into doing what you want but loving them produces a much better (long-lasting) result. A beaten animal will do as you want, but will rip your throat out if given the opportunity. A loved animal will be faithful, loyal and forever.There’s little more to be said about this book except that it’s worth reading. I highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Book ReviewBy: Evan MercadoThis is a classic story about survival (in my eyes). This starts off interesting with a pack of 6 wolfs, and ends up with, well, you have to read the book for that :). It ends up in a good home after attacking it's owner's family. No one knows for sure, but the other wolfs might still be alive. Only 1 dies that I know of) the rest (except for 1 who goes solo) and they travel in a pack of 4. That until they came across this tribe of Indians (I called them Indians because in the book they were called Indians, if that offends anyone).Thats when one wolf turns on the rest of it’s pack, and leaves. It found a home, owner , until a Dog Musher wants this dog. But the owner (Scott) keeps the dog and moves to Sierra Vista, with his family.
    • 4/5
      Though I responded with boyish enthusiasm to 'The Call of the Wild' many years ago and it re-echoes in memory, I had not read 'White Fang' or any of London's other books until now. I don't think 'White Fang' quite compares with its companion novel stylistically - the later chapters in particular are too obviously allegorical and predictable - but it is equally rugged, energetic and thrilling. London excels at seeing the world through the dog wolf's eyes, and he also manages the difficult and necessary task of shifting the narrative viewpoint occasionally to move the story along at critical points. He is least successful with his human portrayals, especially the dialogue which reads as if it has been written on cardboard with too thick a pen, but he is entirely at home in the Yukon where it stands on the cusp between traditional existence and 'civilisation' in the trail of the gold rush. His evocation of the animal and human struggles in these harsh surroundings - with very survival constantly under threat - is supremely vivid and vital, inked as it were in blood.
    • 5/5
      White Fang is a very good book which I recommend to 4th grade and higher readers. I think anybody would love to read this action-packed book!!!!!!!!
    • 4/5
      Having only a cursory knowledge of London's work, I decided to choose White Fang first when considering which public domain works to record as audio books. I've only "read" it once, but have listened to it probably a half-dozen more times in the editing process. It's very well written, accessible, and very involved. At no time did I feel as if London was writing without a clear purpose and passion. Excellent read and rather timeless. As a side note, there are some very decent young adult versions with illustrations and even one with a sidebar defining more complex words. Very useful for young readers.
    • 3/5
      Jack London imports Social Darwinist credo, used more clumsily and less divertingly by authors such as Frank Norris, into letters with fervor, conviction, and skill. We encounter White Fang, a part domestic dog and mostly wolf dog that lives with a pack in the wilderness and whose mother had once been domesticated by the Native Americans. As in the case of its companion volume, "Call of the Wild," (where the dog Buck moves from domesticity to the wild, as opposed to vice versa), White Fang has abusive owners who want White Fang to fight for money, but White Fang is rescued by a man who is called, under the regime of London's casually assumed racism, one of the "white human gods." A great tale, and a book that serves as an excellent introduction to literature for young adolescents, bit can be relished at all ages.
    • 4/5
      I bought this book at a book fair at school when I was nine. I cannot tell how many times I have read it. As a child, I mainly read it for the 'wolf' story, but as an adult, I have appreciated the deeper aspects of the writing. London was big on analyzing why people do what they do, not always correct imo. It's still a good read, forget the movie(s).
    • 5/5
      This is an amazing book, highly addictive. I just couldn’t put it down. Jack London writes with detail and emotion!The story’s about a wolf named White Fang and its life through the hands of many masters. This is one of those books that transports you to another place and time while you’re reading it - a real time machine. And since it’s always told from the wolf’s point of view, sometimes it made me remember the National Geographic TV documentaries I watched in awe when I was a child.It also focuses on the man-animal relationship, and how the environment and society shape spirits and behaviours.After reading it I learned that this book is a companion novel for Jack London’s most famous novel, “Call of the Wild”, in which a dog becomes wild again, in contrast to White Fang, a wolf that becomes domesticated.

    Book preview

    White Fang - Jack London

    Part I

    Chapter I

    The Trail of the Meat

    Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness—a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

    But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled—blankets, an axe, and a coffee pot and frying pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.

    In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over,—a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man—man who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.

    But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their bodies were covered with fur and soft-tanned leather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

    They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and interplay of the great blind elements and forces.

    An hour went by, and a second hour. The pale light of the short sunless day was beginning to fade, when a faint far cry arose on the still air. It soared upward with a swift rush, till it reached its topmost note, where it persisted, palpitant and tense, and then slowly died away. It might have been a lost soul wailing, had it not been invested with a certain sad fierceness and hungry eagerness. The front man turned his head until his eyes met the eyes of the man behind. And then, across the narrow oblong box, each nodded to the other.

    A second cry arose, piercing the silence with needle-like shrillness. Both men located the sound. It was to the rear, somewhere in the snow expanse they had just traversed. A third and answering cry arose, also to the rear and to the left of the second cry.

    They’re after us, Bill, said the man at the front.

    His voice sounded hoarse and unreal, and he had spoken with apparent effort.

    Meat is scarce, answered his comrade. I ain’t seen a rabbit sign for days.

    Thereafter they spoke no more, though their ears were keen for the hunting-cries that continued to rise behind them.

    At the fall of darkness they swung the dogs into a cluster of spruce trees on the edge of the waterway and made a camp. The coffin, at the side of the fire, served for seat and table. The wolf-dogs, clustered on the far side of the fire, snarled and bickered among themselves, but evinced no inclination to stray off into the darkness.

    Seems to me, Henry, they’re stayin’ remarkable close to camp, Bill commented.

    Henry, squatting over the fire and settling the pot of coffee with a piece of ice, nodded. Nor did he speak till he had taken his seat on the coffin and begun to eat.

    They know where their hides is safe, he said. They’d sooner eat grub than be grub. They’re pretty wise, them dogs.

    Bill shook his head. Oh, I don’t know.

    His comrade looked at him curiously. First time I ever heard you say anything about their not bein’ wise.

    Henry, said the other, munching with deliberation the beans he was eating, did you happen to notice the way them dogs kicked up when I was a-feedin’ ’em?

    They did cut up more’n usual, Henry acknowledged.

    How many dogs ’ve we got, Henry?

    Six.

    Well, Henry . . . Bill stopped for a moment, in order that his words might gain greater significance. As I was sayin’, Henry, we’ve got six dogs. I took six fish out of the bag. I gave one fish to each dog, an’, Henry, I was one fish short.

    You counted wrong.

    We’ve got six dogs, the other reiterated dispassionately. I took out six fish. One Ear didn’t get no fish. I came back to the bag afterward an’ got ’m his fish.

    We’ve only got six dogs, Henry said.

    Henry, Bill went on. I won’t say they was all dogs, but there was seven of ’m that got fish.

    Henry stopped eating to glance across the fire and count the dogs.

    There’s only six now, he said.

    I saw the other one run off across the snow, Bill announced with cool positiveness. I saw seven.

    Henry looked at him commiseratingly, and said, I’ll be almighty glad when this trip’s over.

    What d’ye mean by that? Bill demanded.

    I mean that this load of ourn is gettin’ on your nerves, an’ that you’re beginnin’ to see things.

    I thought of that, Bill answered gravely. An’ so, when I saw it run off across the snow, I looked in the snow an’ saw its tracks. Then I counted the dogs an’ there was still six of ’em. The tracks is there in the snow now. D’ye want to look at ’em? I’ll show ’em to you.

    Henry did not reply, but munched on in silence, until, the meal finished, he topped it with a final cup of coffee. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said:

    Then you’re thinkin’ as it was—

    A long wailing cry, fiercely sad, from somewhere in the darkness, had interrupted him. He stopped to listen to it, then he finished his sentence with a wave of his hand toward the sound of the cry, —one of them?

    Bill nodded. I’d a blame sight sooner think that than anything else. You noticed yourself the row the dogs made.

    Cry after cry, and answering cries, were turning the silence into a bedlam. From every side the cries arose, and the dogs betrayed their fear by huddling together and so close to the fire that their hair was scorched by the heat. Bill threw on more wood, before lighting his pipe.

    I’m thinking you’re down in the mouth some, Henry said.

    Henry . . . He sucked meditatively at his pipe for some time before he went on. Henry, I was a-thinkin’ what a blame sight luckier he is than you an’ me’ll ever be.

    He indicated the third person by a downward thrust of the thumb to the box on which they sat.

    You an’ me, Henry, when we die, we’ll be lucky if we get enough stones over our carcasses to keep the dogs off of us.

    But we ain’t got people an’ money an’ all the rest, like him, Henry rejoined. Long-distance funerals is somethin’ you an’ me can’t exactly afford.

    What gets me, Henry, is what a chap like this, that’s a lord or something in his own country, and that’s never had to bother about grub nor blankets; why he comes a-buttin’ round the Godforsaken ends of the earth—that’s what I can’t exactly see.

    He might have lived to a ripe old age if he’d stayed at home, Henry agreed.

    Bill opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. Instead, he pointed towards the wall of darkness that pressed about them from every side. There was no suggestion of form in the utter blackness; only could be seen a pair of eyes gleaming like live coals. Henry indicated with his head a second pair, and a third. A circle of the gleaming eyes had drawn about their camp. Now and again a pair of eyes moved, or disappeared to appear again a moment later.

    The unrest of the dogs had been increasing, and they stampeded, in a surge of sudden fear, to the near side of the fire, cringing and crawling about the legs of the men. In the scramble one of the dogs had been overturned on the edge of the fire, and it had yelped with pain and fright as the smell of its singed coat possessed the air. The commotion caused the circle of eyes to shift restlessly for a moment and even to withdraw a bit, but it settled down again as the dogs became quiet.

    Henry, it’s a blame misfortune to be out of ammunition.

    Bill had finished his pipe and was helping his companion to spread the bed of fur and blanket upon the spruce boughs which he had laid over the snow before supper. Henry grunted, and began unlacing his moccasins.

    How many cartridges did you say you had left? he asked.

    Three, came the answer. An’ I wisht ’twas three hundred. Then I’d show ’em what for, damn ’em!

    He shook his fist angrily at the gleaming eyes, and began securely to prop his moccasins before the fire.

    An’ I wisht this cold snap’d break, he went on. It’s ben fifty below for two weeks now. An’ I wisht I’d never started on this trip, Henry. I don’t like the looks of it. I don’t feel right, somehow. An’ while I’m wishin’, I wisht the trip was over an’ done with, an’ you an’ me a-sittin’ by the fire in Fort McGurry just about now an’ playing cribbage—that’s what I wisht.

    Henry grunted and crawled into bed. As he dozed off he was aroused by his comrade’s voice.

    Say, Henry, that other one that come in an’ got a fish—why didn’t the dogs pitch into it? That’s what’s botherin’ me.

    You’re botherin’ too much, Bill, came the sleepy response. You was never like this before. You jes’ shut up now, an’ go to sleep, an’ you’ll be all hunkydory in the mornin’. Your stomach’s sour, that’s what’s botherin’ you.

    The men slept, breathing heavily, side by side, under the one covering. The fire died down, and the gleaming eyes drew closer the circle they had flung about the camp. The dogs clustered together in fear, now and again snarling menacingly as a pair of eyes drew close. Once their uproar became so loud that Bill woke up. He got out of bed carefully, so as not to disturb the sleep of his comrade, and threw more wood on the fire. As it began to flame up, the circle of eyes drew farther back. He glanced casually at the huddling dogs. He rubbed his eyes and looked at them more sharply. Then he crawled back into the blankets.

    Henry, he said. Oh, Henry.

    Henry groaned as he passed from sleep to waking, and demanded, What’s wrong now?

    Nothin’, came the answer; only there’s seven of ’em again. I just counted.

    Henry acknowledged receipt of the information with a grunt that slid into a snore as he drifted back into sleep.

    In the morning it was Henry who awoke first and routed his companion out of bed. Daylight was yet three hours away, though it was already six o’clock; and in the darkness Henry went about preparing breakfast, while Bill rolled the blankets and made the sled ready for lashing.

    Say, Henry, he asked suddenly, how many dogs did you say we had?

    Six.

    Wrong, Bill proclaimed triumphantly.

    Seven again? Henry queried.

    No, five; one’s gone.

    The hell! Henry cried in wrath, leaving the cooking to come and count the dogs.

    You’re right, Bill, he concluded. Fatty’s gone.

    An’ he went like greased lightnin’ once he got started. Couldn’t ’ve seen ’m for smoke.

    No chance at all, Henry concluded. They jes’ swallowed ’m alive. I bet he was yelpin’ as he went down their throats, damn ’em!

    He always was a fool dog, said Bill.

    But no fool dog ought to be fool enough to go off an’ commit suicide that way. He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative eye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal. I bet none of the others would do it.

    Couldn’t drive ’em away from the fire with a club, Bill agreed. I always did think there was somethin’ wrong with Fatty anyway.

    And this was the epitaph of a dead dog on the Northland trail—less scant than the epitaph of many another dog, of many a man.

    Chapter II

    The She-Wolf

    Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the darkness. At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad—cries that called through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back. Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine o’clock. At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rose-colour swiftly faded. The grey light of day that remained lasted until three o’clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the Arctic night descended upon the lone and silent land.

    As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drew closer—so close that more than once they sent surges of fear through the toiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics.

    At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the dogs back in the traces, Bill said:

    I wisht they’d strike game somewheres, an’ go away an’ leave us alone.

    They do get on the nerves horrible, Henry sympathised.

    They spoke no more until camp was made.

    Henry was bending over and adding ice to the babbling pot of beans when he was startled by the sound of a blow, an exclamation from Bill, and a sharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. He straightened up in time to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter of the dark. Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half triumphant, half crestfallen, in one hand a stout club, in the other the tail and part of the body of a sun-cured salmon.

    It got half of it, he announced; but I got a whack at it jes’ the same. D’ye hear it squeal?

    What’d it look like? Henry asked.

    Couldn’t see. But it had four legs an’ a mouth an’ hair an’ looked like any dog.

    Must be a tame wolf, I reckon.

    It’s damned tame, whatever it is, comin’ in here at feedin’ time an’ gettin’ its whack of fish.

    That night, when supper was finished and they sat on the oblong box and pulled at their pipes, the circle of gleaming eyes drew in even closer than before.

    I wisht they’d spring up a bunch of moose or something, an’ go away an’ leave us alone, Bill said.

    Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for a quarter of an hour they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, and Bill at the circle of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond the firelight.

    I wisht we was pullin’ into McGurry right now, he began again.

    Shut up your wishin’ and your croakin’, Henry burst out angrily. Your stomach’s sour. That’s what’s ailin’ you. Swallow a spoonful of sody, an’ you’ll sweeten up wonderful an’ be more pleasant company.

    In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded from the mouth of Bill. Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.

    Hello! Henry called. What’s up now?

    Frog’s gone, came the answer.

    No.

    I tell you yes.

    Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs. He counted them with care, and then joined his partner in cursing the power of the Wild that had robbed them of another dog.

    Frog was the strongest dog of the bunch, Bill pronounced finally.

    An’ he was no fool dog neither, Henry added.

    And so was recorded the second epitaph in two days.

    A gloomy breakfast was eaten, and the four remaining dogs were harnessed to the sled. The day was a repetition of the days that had gone before. The men toiled without speech across the face of the frozen world. The silence was unbroken save by the cries of their pursuers, that, unseen, hung upon their rear. With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; and the dogs grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics that tangled the traces and further depressed the two men.

    There, that’ll fix you fool critters, Bill said with satisfaction that night, standing erect at completion of his task.

    Henry left the cooking to come and see. Not only had his partner tied the dogs up, but he had tied them, after the Indian fashion, with sticks. About the neck of each dog he had fastened a leather thong. To this, and so close to the neck that the dog could not get his teeth to it, he had tied a stout stick four or five feet in length. The other end of the stick, in turn, was made fast to a stake in the ground by means of a leather thong. The dog was unable to gnaw through the leather at his own end of the stick. The stick prevented him from getting at the leather that fastened the other end.

    Henry nodded his head approvingly.

    It’s the only contraption that’ll ever hold One Ear, he said. He can gnaw through leather as clean as a knife an’ jes’ about half as quick. They all ’ll be here in the mornin’ hunkydory.

    You jes’ bet they will, Bill affirmed. If one of em’ turns up missin’, I’ll go without my coffee.

    They jes’ know we ain’t loaded to kill, Henry remarked at bedtime, indicating the gleaming circle that hemmed them in. If we could put a couple of shots into ’em, they’d be more respectful. They come closer every night. Get the firelight out of your eyes an’ look hard—there! Did you see that one?

    For some time the two men amused themselves with watching the movement of vague forms on the edge of the firelight. By looking closely and steadily at where a pair of eyes burned in the darkness, the form of the animal would slowly take shape. They could even see these forms move at times.

    A sound among the dogs attracted the men’s attention. One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.

    Look at that, Bill, Henry whispered.

    Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong movement, glided a doglike animal. It moved with commingled mistrust and daring, cautiously observing the men, its attention fixed

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