<h3>CHAPTER II—THE SOUTHLAND</h3>
<p>White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco. He was
appalled. Deep in him, below any reasoning process or act of consciousness,
he had associated power with godhead. And never had the white
men seemed such marvellous gods as now, when he trod the slimy pavement
of San Francisco. The log cabins he had known were replaced by
towering buildings. The streets were crowded with perils—waggons,
carts, automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; and
monstrous cable and electric cars hooting and clanging through the midst,
screeching their insistent menace after the manner of the lynxes he
had known in the northern woods.</p>
<p>All this was the manifestation of power. Through it all, behind
it all, was man, governing and controlling, expressing himself, as of
old, by his mastery over matter. It was colossal, stunning.
White Fang was awed. Fear sat upon him. As in his cubhood
he had been made to feel his smallness and puniness on the day he first
came in from the Wild to the village of Grey Beaver, so now, in his
full-grown stature and pride of strength, he was made to feel small
and puny. And there were so many gods! He was made dizzy
by the swarming of them. The thunder of the streets smote upon
his ears. He was bewildered by the tremendous and endless rush
and movement of things. As never before, he felt his dependence
on the love-master, close at whose heels he followed, no matter what
happened never losing sight of him.</p>
<p>But White Fang was to have no more than a nightmare vision of the
city—an experience that was like a bad dream, unreal and terrible,
that haunted him for long after in his dreams. He was put into
a baggage-car by the master, chained in a corner in the midst of heaped
trunks and valises. Here a squat and brawny god held sway, with
much noise, hurling trunks and boxes about, dragging them in through
the door and tossing them into the piles, or flinging them out of the
door, smashing and crashing, to other gods who awaited them.</p>
<p>And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White Fang deserted by
the master. Or at least White Fang thought he was deserted, until
he smelled out the master’s canvas clothes-bags alongside of him,
and proceeded to mount guard over them.</p>
<p>“’Bout time you come,” growled the god of the car,
an hour later, when Weedon Scott appeared at the door. “That
dog of yourn won’t let me lay a finger on your stuff.”</p>
<p>White Fang emerged from the car. He was astonished. The
nightmare city was gone. The car had been to him no more than
a room in a house, and when he had entered it the city had been all
around him. In the interval the city had disappeared. The
roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears. Before him was smiling
country, streaming with sunshine, lazy with quietude. But he had
little time to marvel at the transformation. He accepted it as
he accepted all the unaccountable doings and manifestations of the gods.
It was their way.</p>
<p>There was a carriage waiting. A man and a woman approached
the master. The woman’s arms went out and clutched the master
around the neck—a hostile act! The next moment Weedon Scott
had torn loose from the embrace and closed with White Fang, who had
become a snarling, raging demon.</p>
<p>“It’s all right, mother,” Scott was saying as he
kept tight hold of White Fang and placated him. “He thought
you were going to injure me, and he wouldn’t stand for it.
It’s all right. It’s all right. He’ll
learn soon enough.”</p>
<p>“And in the meantime I may be permitted to love my son when
his dog is not around,” she laughed, though she was pale and weak
from the fright.</p>
<p>She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled and glared malevolently.</p>
<p>“He’ll have to learn, and he shall, without postponement,”
Scott said.</p>
<p>He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted him, then his
voice became firm.</p>
<p>“Down, sir! Down with you!”</p>
<p>This had been one of the things taught him by the master, and White
Fang obeyed, though he lay down reluctantly and sullenly.</p>
<p>“Now, mother.”</p>
<p>Scott opened his arms to her, but kept his eyes on White Fang.</p>
<p>“Down!” he warned. “Down!”</p>
<p>White Fang, bristling silently, half-crouching as he rose, sank back
and watched the hostile act repeated. But no harm came of it,
nor of the embrace from the strange man-god that followed. Then
the clothes-bags were taken into the carriage, the strange gods and
the love-master followed, and White Fang pursued, now running vigilantly
behind, now bristling up to the running horses and warning them that
he was there to see that no harm befell the god they dragged so swiftly
across the earth.</p>
<p>At the end of fifteen minutes, the carriage swung in through a stone
gateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnut
trees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken
here and there by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near distance,
in contrast with the young-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields
showed tan and gold; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures.
From the head of the lawn, on the first soft swell from the valley-level,
looked down the deep-porched, many-windowed house.</p>
<p>Little opportunity was given White Fang to see all this. Hardly
had the carriage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep-dog,
bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, righteously indignant and angry. It
was between him and the master, cutting him off. White Fang snarled
no warning, but his hair bristled as he made his silent and deadly rush.
This rush was never completed. He halted with awkward abruptness,
with stiff fore-legs bracing himself against his momentum, almost sitting
down on his haunches, so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the
dog he was in the act of attacking. It was a female, and the law
of his kind thrust a barrier between. For him to attack her would
require nothing less than a violation of his instinct.</p>
<p>But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise. Being a female, she
possessed no such instinct. On the other hand, being a sheep-dog,
her instinctive fear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually
keen. White Fang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who
had preyed upon her flocks from the time sheep were first herded and
guarded by some dim ancestor of hers. And so, as he abandoned
his rush at her and braced himself to avoid the contact, she sprang
upon him. He snarled involuntarily as he felt her teeth in his
shoulder, but beyond this made no offer to hurt her. He backed
away, stiff-legged with self-consciousness, and tried to go around her.
He dodged this way and that, and curved and turned, but to no purpose.
She remained always between him and the way he wanted to go.</p>
<p>“Here, Collie!” called the strange man in the carriage.</p>
<p>Weedon Scott laughed.</p>
<p>“Never mind, father. It is good discipline. White
Fang will have to learn many things, and it’s just as well that
he begins now. He’ll adjust himself all right.”</p>
<p>The carriage drove on, and still Collie blocked White Fang’s
way. He tried to outrun her by leaving the drive and circling
across the lawn but she ran on the inner and smaller circle, and was
always there, facing him with her two rows of gleaming teeth.
Back he circled, across the drive to the other lawn, and again she headed
him off.</p>
<p>The carriage was bearing the master away. White Fang caught
glimpses of it disappearing amongst the trees. The situation was
desperate. He essayed another circle. She followed, running
swiftly. And then, suddenly, he turned upon her. It was
his old fighting trick. Shoulder to shoulder, he struck her squarely.
Not only was she overthrown. So fast had she been running that
she rolled along, now on her back, now on her side, as she struggled
to stop, clawing gravel with her feet and crying shrilly her hurt pride
and indignation.</p>
<p>White Fang did not wait. The way was clear, and that was all
he had wanted. She took after him, never ceasing her outcry.
It was the straightaway now, and when it came to real running, White
Fang could teach her things. She ran frantically, hysterically,
straining to the utmost, advertising the effort she was making with
every leap: and all the time White Fang slid smoothly away from her
silently, without effort, gliding like a ghost over the ground.</p>
<p>As he rounded the house to the <i>porte-cochère</i>, he came
upon the carriage. It had stopped, and the master was alighting.
At this moment, still running at top speed, White Fang became suddenly
aware of an attack from the side. It was a deer-hound rushing
upon him. White Fang tried to face it. But he was going
too fast, and the hound was too close. It struck him on the side;
and such was his forward momentum and the unexpectedness of it, White
Fang was hurled to the ground and rolled clear over. He came out
of the tangle a spectacle of malignancy, ears flattened back, lips writhing,
nose wrinkling, his teeth clipping together as the fangs barely missed
the hound’s soft throat.</p>
<p>The master was running up, but was too far away; and it was Collie
that saved the hound’s life. Before White Fang could spring
in and deliver the fatal stroke, and just as he was in the act of springing
in, Collie arrived. She had been out-manoeuvred and out-run, to
say nothing of her having been unceremoniously tumbled in the gravel,
and her arrival was like that of a tornado—made up of offended
dignity, justifiable wrath, and instinctive hatred for this marauder
from the Wild. She struck White Fang at right angles in the midst
of his spring, and again he was knocked off his feet and rolled over.</p>
<p>The next moment the master arrived, and with one hand held White
Fang, while the father called off the dogs.</p>
<p>“I say, this is a pretty warm reception for a poor lone wolf
from the Arctic,” the master said, while White Fang calmed down
under his caressing hand. “In all his life he’s only
been known once to go off his feet, and here he’s been rolled
twice in thirty seconds.”</p>
<p>The carriage had driven away, and other strange gods had appeared
from out the house. Some of these stood respectfully at a distance;
but two of them, women, perpetrated the hostile act of clutching the
master around the neck. White Fang, however, was beginning to
tolerate this act. No harm seemed to come of it, while the noises
the gods made were certainly not threatening. These gods also
made overtures to White Fang, but he warned them off with a snarl, and
the master did likewise with word of mouth. At such times White
Fang leaned in close against the master’s legs and received reassuring
pats on the head.</p>
<p>The hound, under the command, “Dick! Lie down, sir!”
had gone up the steps and lain down to one side of the porch, still
growling and keeping a sullen watch on the intruder. Collie had
been taken in charge by one of the woman-gods, who held arms around
her neck and petted and caressed her; but Collie was very much perplexed
and worried, whining and restless, outraged by the permitted presence
of this wolf and confident that the gods were making a mistake.</p>
<p>All the gods started up the steps to enter the house. White
Fang followed closely at the master’s heels. Dick, on the
porch, growled, and White Fang, on the steps, bristled and growled back.</p>
<p>“Take Collie inside and leave the two of them to fight it out,”
suggested Scott’s father. “After that they’ll
be friends.”</p>
<p>“Then White Fang, to show his friendship, will have to be chief
mourner at the funeral,” laughed the master.</p>
<p>The elder Scott looked incredulously, first at White Fang, then at
Dick, and finally at his son.</p>
<p>“You mean . . .?”</p>
<p>Weedon nodded his head. “I mean just that. You’d
have a dead Dick inside one minute—two minutes at the farthest.”</p>
<p>He turned to White Fang. “Come on, you wolf. It’s
you that’ll have to come inside.”</p>
<p>White Fang walked stiff-legged up the steps and across the porch,
with tail rigidly erect, keeping his eyes on Dick to guard against a
flank attack, and at the same time prepared for whatever fierce manifestation
of the unknown that might pounce out upon him from the interior of the
house. But no thing of fear pounced out, and when he had gained
the inside he scouted carefully around, looking at it and finding it
not. Then he lay down with a contented grunt at the master’s
feet, observing all that went on, ever ready to spring to his feet and
fight for life with the terrors he felt must lurk under the trap-roof
of the dwelling.</p>
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