White Fang

by Jack London

  CHAPTER V--THE SLEEPING WOLF

  It was about this time that the newspapers were full of the daring escapeof a convict from San Quentin prison. He was a ferocious man. He hadbeen ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he had notbeen helped any by the moulding he had received at the hands of society.The hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sample of itshandiwork. He was a beast--a human beast, it is true, but neverthelessso terrible a beast that he can best be characterised as carnivorous.

  In San Quentin prison he had proved incorrigible. Punishment failed tobreak his spirit. He could die dumb-mad and fighting to the last, but hecould not live and be beaten. The more fiercely he fought, the moreharshly society handled him, and the only effect of harshness was to makehim fiercer. Strait-jackets, starvation, and beatings and clubbingswere the wrong treatment for Jim Hall; but it was the treatment hereceived. It was the treatment he had received from the time he was alittle pulpy boy in a San Francisco slum--soft clay in the hands ofsociety and ready to be formed into something.

  It was during Jim Hall's third term in prison that he encountered a guardthat was almost as great a beast as he. The guard treated him unfairly,lied about him to the warden, lost his credits, persecuted him. Thedifference between them was that the guard carried a bunch of keys and arevolver. Jim Hall had only his naked hands and his teeth. But hesprang upon the guard one day and used his teeth on the other's throatjust like any jungle animal.

  After this, Jim Hall went to live in the incorrigible cell. He livedthere three years. The cell was of iron, the floor, the walls, the roof.He never left this cell. He never saw the sky nor the sunshine. Day wasa twilight and night was a black silence. He was in an iron tomb, buriedalive. He saw no human face, spoke to no human thing. When his food wasshoved in to him, he growled like a wild animal. He hated all things.For days and nights he bellowed his rage at the universe. For weeks andmonths he never made a sound, in the black silence eating his very soul.He was a man and a monstrosity, as fearful a thing of fear as evergibbered in the visions of a maddened brain.

  And then, one night, he escaped. The warders said it was impossible, butnevertheless the cell was empty, and half in half out of it lay the bodyof a dead guard. Two other dead guards marked his trail through theprison to the outer walls, and he had killed with his hands to avoidnoise.

  He was armed with the weapons of the slain guards--a live arsenal thatfled through the hills pursued by the organised might of society. Aheavy price of gold was upon his head. Avaricious farmers hunted himwith shot-guns. His blood might pay off a mortgage or send a son tocollege. Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went outafter him. A pack of bloodhounds followed the way of his bleeding feet.And the sleuth-hounds of the law, the paid fighting animals of society,with telephone, and telegraph, and special train, clung to his trailnight and day.

  Sometimes they came upon him, and men faced him like heroes, or stampededthrough barbed-wire fences to the delight of the commonwealth reading theaccount at the breakfast table. It was after such encounters that thedead and wounded were carted back to the towns, and their places filledby men eager for the man-hunt.

  And then Jim Hall disappeared. The bloodhounds vainly quested on thelost trail. Inoffensive ranchers in remote valleys were held up by armedmen and compelled to identify themselves. While the remains of Jim Hallwere discovered on a dozen mountain-sides by greedy claimants for blood-money.

  In the meantime the newspapers were read at Sierra Vista, not so muchwith interest as with anxiety. The women were afraid. Judge Scott pooh-poohed and laughed, but not with reason, for it was in his last days onthe bench that Jim Hall had stood before him and received sentence. Andin open court-room, before all men, Jim Hall had proclaimed that the daywould come when he would wreak vengeance on the Judge that sentenced him.

  For once, Jim Hall was right. He was innocent of the crime for which hewas sentenced. It was a case, in the parlance of thieves and police, of"rail-roading." Jim Hall was being "rail-roaded" to prison for a crimehe had not committed. Because of the two prior convictions against him,Judge Scott imposed upon him a sentence of fifty years.

  Judge Scott did not know all things, and he did not know that he wasparty to a police conspiracy, that the evidence was hatched and perjured,that Jim Hall was guiltless of the crime charged. And Jim Hall, on theother hand, did not know that Judge Scott was merely ignorant. Jim Hallbelieved that the judge knew all about it and was hand in glove with thepolice in the perpetration of the monstrous injustice. So it was, whenthe doom of fifty years of living death was uttered by Judge Scott, thatJim Hall, hating all things in the society that misused him, rose up andraged in the court-room until dragged down by half a dozen of his blue-coated enemies. To him, Judge Scott was the keystone in the arch ofinjustice, and upon Judge Scott he emptied the vials of his wrath andhurled the threats of his revenge yet to come. Then Jim Hall went to hisliving death . . . and escaped.

  Of all this White Fang knew nothing. But between him and Alice, themaster's wife, there existed a secret. Each night, after Sierra Vistahad gone to bed, she rose and let in White Fang to sleep in the big hall.Now White Fang was not a house-dog, nor was he permitted to sleep in thehouse; so each morning, early, she slipped down and let him out beforethe family was awake.

  On one such night, while all the house slept, White Fang awoke and layvery quietly. And very quietly he smelled the air and read the messageit bore of a strange god's presence. And to his ears came sounds of thestrange god's movements. White Fang burst into no furious outcry. Itwas not his way. The strange god walked softly, but more softly walkedWhite Fang, for he had no clothes to rub against the flesh of his body.He followed silently. In the Wild he had hunted live meat that wasinfinitely timid, and he knew the advantage of surprise.

  The strange god paused at the foot of the great staircase and listened,and White Fang was as dead, so without movement was he as he watched andwaited. Up that staircase the way led to the love-master and to the love-master's dearest possessions. White Fang bristled, but waited. Thestrange god's foot lifted. He was beginning the ascent.

  Then it was that White Fang struck. He gave no warning, with no snarlanticipated his own action. Into the air he lifted his body in thespring that landed him on the strange god's back. White Fang clung withhis fore-paws to the man's shoulders, at the same time burying his fangsinto the back of the man's neck. He clung on for a moment, long enoughto drag the god over backward. Together they crashed to the floor. WhiteFang leaped clear, and, as the man struggled to rise, was in again withthe slashing fangs.

  Sierra Vista awoke in alarm. The noise from downstairs was as that of ascore of battling fiends. There were revolver shots. A man's voicescreamed once in horror and anguish. There was a great snarling andgrowling, and over all arose a smashing and crashing of furniture andglass.

  But almost as quickly as it had arisen, the commotion died away. Thestruggle had not lasted more than three minutes. The frightenedhousehold clustered at the top of the stairway. From below, as from outan abyss of blackness, came up a gurgling sound, as of air bubblingthrough water. Sometimes this gurgle became sibilant, almost a whistle.But this, too, quickly died down and ceased. Then naught came up out ofthe blackness save a heavy panting of some creature struggling sorely forair.

  Weedon Scott pressed a button, and the staircase and downstairs hall wereflooded with light. Then he and Judge Scott, revolvers in hand,cautiously descended. There was no need for this caution. White Fanghad done his work. In the midst of the wreckage of overthrown andsmashed furniture, partly on his side, his face hidden by an arm, lay aman. Weedon Scott bent over, removed the arm and turned the man's faceupward. A gaping throat explained the manner of his death.

  "Jim Hall," said Judge Scott, and father and son looked significantly ateach other.

  Then they turned to White Fang. He, too, was lying on his side. Hiseyes were clo
sed, but the lids slightly lifted in an effort to look atthem as they bent over him, and the tail was perceptibly agitated in avain effort to wag. Weedon Scott patted him, and his throat rumbled anacknowledging growl. But it was a weak growl at best, and it quicklyceased. His eyelids drooped and went shut, and his whole body seemed torelax and flatten out upon the floor.

  "He's all in, poor devil," muttered the master.

  "We'll see about that," asserted the Judge, as he started for thetelephone.

  "Frankly, he has one chance in a thousand," announced the surgeon, afterhe had worked an hour and a half on White Fang.

  Dawn was breaking through the windows and dimming the electric lights.With the exception of the children, the whole family was gathered aboutthe surgeon to hear his verdict.

  "One broken hind-leg," he went on. "Three broken ribs, one at least ofwhich has pierced the lungs. He has lost nearly all the blood in hisbody. There is a large likelihood of internal injuries. He must havebeen jumped upon. To say nothing of three bullet holes clear throughhim. One chance in a thousand is really optimistic. He hasn't a chancein ten thousand."

  "But he mustn't lose any chance that might be of help to him," JudgeScott exclaimed. "Never mind expense. Put him under the X-ray--anything.Weedon, telegraph at once to San Francisco for Doctor Nichols. Noreflection on you, doctor, you understand; but he must have the advantageof every chance."

  The surgeon smiled indulgently. "Of course I understand. He deservesall that can be done for him. He must be nursed as you would nurse ahuman being, a sick child. And don't forget what I told you abouttemperature. I'll be back at ten o'clock again."

  White Fang received the nursing. Judge Scott's suggestion of a trainednurse was indignantly clamoured down by the girls, who themselvesundertook the task. And White Fang won out on the one chance in tenthousand denied him by the surgeon.

  The latter was not to be censured for his misjudgment. All his life hehad tended and operated on the soft humans of civilisation, who livedsheltered lives and had descended out of many sheltered generations.Compared with White Fang, they were frail and flabby, and clutched lifewithout any strength in their grip. White Fang had come straight fromthe Wild, where the weak perish early and shelter is vouchsafed to none.In neither his father nor his mother was there any weakness, nor in thegenerations before them. A constitution of iron and the vitality of theWild were White Fang's inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole ofhim and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity thatof old belonged to all creatures.

  Bound down a prisoner, denied even movement by the plaster casts andbandages, White Fang lingered out the weeks. He slept long hours anddreamed much, and through his mind passed an unending pageant ofNorthland visions. All the ghosts of the past arose and were with him.Once again he lived in the lair with Kiche, crept trembling to the kneesof Grey Beaver to tender his allegiance, ran for his life before Lip-lipand all the howling bedlam of the puppy-pack.

  He ran again through the silence, hunting his living food through themonths of famine; and again he ran at the head of the team, the gut-whipsof Mit-sah and Grey Beaver snapping behind, their voices crying "Ra!Raa!" when they came to a narrow passage and the team closed togetherlike a fan to go through. He lived again all his days with Beauty Smithand the fights he had fought. At such times he whimpered and snarled inhis sleep, and they that looked on said that his dreams were bad.

  But there was one particular nightmare from which he suffered--theclanking, clanging monsters of electric cars that were to him colossalscreaming lynxes. He would lie in a screen of bushes, watching for asquirrel to venture far enough out on the ground from its tree-refuge.Then, when he sprang out upon it, it would transform itself into anelectric car, menacing and terrible, towering over him like a mountain,screaming and clanging and spitting fire at him. It was the same when hechallenged the hawk down out of the sky. Down out of the blue it wouldrush, as it dropped upon him changing itself into the ubiquitous electriccar. Or again, he would be in the pen of Beauty Smith. Outside the pen,men would be gathering, and he knew that a fight was on. He watched thedoor for his antagonist to enter. The door would open, and thrust inupon him would come the awful electric car. A thousand times thisoccurred, and each time the terror it inspired was as vivid and great asever.

  Then came the day when the last bandage and the last plaster cast weretaken off. It was a gala day. All Sierra Vista was gathered around. Themaster rubbed his ears, and he crooned his love-growl. The master's wifecalled him the "Blessed Wolf," which name was taken up with acclaim andall the women called him the Blessed Wolf.

  He tried to rise to his feet, and after several attempts fell down fromweakness. He had lain so long that his muscles had lost their cunning,and all the strength had gone out of them. He felt a little shamebecause of his weakness, as though, forsooth, he were failing the gods inthe service he owed them. Because of this he made heroic efforts toarise and at last he stood on his four legs, tottering and swaying backand forth.

  "The Blessed Wolf!" chorused the women.

  Judge Scott surveyed them triumphantly.

  "Out of your own mouths be it," he said. "Just as I contended rightalong. No mere dog could have done what he did. He's a wolf."

  "A Blessed Wolf," amended the Judge's wife.

  "Yes, Blessed Wolf," agreed the Judge. "And henceforth that shall be myname for him."

  "He'll have to learn to walk again," said the surgeon; "so he might aswell start in right now. It won't hurt him. Take him outside."

  And outside he went, like a king, with all Sierra Vista about him andtending on him. He was very weak, and when he reached the lawn he laydown and rested for a while.

  Then the procession started on, little spurts of strength coming intoWhite Fang's muscles as he used them and the blood began to surge throughthem. The stables were reached, and there in the doorway, lay Collie, ahalf-dozen pudgy puppies playing about her in the sun.

  White Fang looked on with a wondering eye. Collie snarled warningly athim, and he was careful to keep his distance. The master with his toehelped one sprawling puppy toward him. He bristled suspiciously, but themaster warned him that all was well. Collie, clasped in the arms of oneof the women, watched him jealously and with a snarl warned him that allwas not well.

  The puppy sprawled in front of him. He cocked his ears and watched itcuriously. Then their noses touched, and he felt the warm little tongueof the puppy on his jowl. White Fang's tongue went out, he knew not why,and he licked the puppy's face.

  Hand-clapping and pleased cries from the gods greeted the performance. Hewas surprised, and looked at them in a puzzled way. Then his weaknessasserted itself, and he lay down, his ears cocked, his head on one side,as he watched the puppy. The other puppies came sprawling toward him, toCollie's great disgust; and he gravely permitted them to clamber andtumble over him. At first, amid the applause of the gods, he betrayed atrifle of his old self-consciousness and awkwardness. This passed awayas the puppies' antics and mauling continued, and he lay with half-shutpatient eyes, drowsing in the sun.