WHITE FANG

by Jack London

Contents

PART I

• Chapter I: The Trail of the Meat
• Chapter II: The She-Wolf
• Chapter III: The Hunger Cry

PART II

• Chapter I: The Battle of the Fangs
• Chapter II: The Lair
• Chapter III: The Grey Cub
• Chapter IV: The Wall of the World
• Chapter V: The Law of Meat

PART III

• Chapter I: The Makers of Fire
• Chapter II: The Bondage
• Chapter III: The Outcast
• Chapter IV: The Trail of the Gods
• Chapter V: The Covenant
• Chapter VI: The Famine

PART IV

• Chapter I: The Enemy of His Kind
• Chapter II: The Mad God
• Chapter III: The Reign of Hate
• Chapter IV: The Clinging Death
• Chapter V: The Indomitable
• Chapter VI: The Love-Master

PART V

• Chapter I: The Long Trail
• Chapter II: The Southland
• Chapter III: The God's Domain
• Chapter IV: The Call of Kind
• Chapter V: The Sleeping Wolf

PART I

CHAPTER I: THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT

Dark spruce trees stood on both sides of the frozen river. A recent wind had blown the white frost off their branches. Now the trees looked dark and scary, leaning toward each other in the fading light. Everything was silent. The land seemed empty and lifeless—so cold and lonely that it didn't even feel sad. Instead, it felt like something was laughing at how small and pointless life was. This wasn't a friendly laugh. It was cold, like the ancient wisdom of time itself mocking every living thing. This was the Wild—the fierce, frozen heart of the North.

But there was life here, and it refused to give up. A team of wolf-like dogs struggled down the frozen river path. Frost covered their rough fur. Every breath they took turned to icy mist that froze onto their coats. Leather straps connected the dogs to a sled dragging behind them. The sled had no runners—it was just a flat piece of sturdy birch bark that slid right on top of the snow. The front curled upward like a scroll, helping it push through the soft snow piled ahead. Tied securely to the sled was a long, narrow box. Other supplies were there too—blankets, an axe, a coffee pot, and a frying pan—but the long box took up most of the space.

Ahead of the dogs, a man walked on wide snowshoes. Behind the sled walked a second man. Inside the box on the sled lay a third man. His journey was over—the Wild had beaten him until he could never move or fight again. The Wild hates movement. To the Wild, life itself is an insult, because life means movement, and the Wild always tries to stop movement. It freezes rivers so they can't flow to the sea. It freezes the sap inside trees until even their strongest parts turn solid. And most fiercely of all, the Wild crushes people—people who fight against ever giving up, even though all movement must someday stop.

But the two men walking at the front and back were not dead yet, and they refused to be scared. Fur and leather covered their bodies. Frost from their frozen breath coated their eyelashes, cheeks, and lips so thickly that you couldn't see their faces clearly. They looked like ghostly figures, as if they were undertakers at a funeral in some spooky, empty world. But underneath all that frost, they were still just men. They were tiny adventurers walking through a land of loneliness and silence, daring to take on something as vast and cold as outer space.

They traveled without talking, saving their breath for the hard work of walking. Silence pressed down on them from every side, like they could almost feel it touching their skin. It weighed on their minds the way deep ocean water presses on a diver's body. It crushed them with the feeling that time goes on forever and rules never change. It squeezed all the pride and self-importance out of their minds, the way you might squeeze juice from grapes. They began to feel very small—like tiny specks moving weakly and clumsily through the middle of huge, uncaring forces of nature.

An hour passed. Then a second hour. The pale light of the short winter day began to fade when a distant, eerie cry rose up in the still air. The sound climbed higher and higher until it reached its highest note. It held there, trembling, before slowly fading away. It could have been a ghost crying out, except it also sounded fierce and hungry. The man in front turned his head to look back at the man behind him. Both men nodded to each other across the narrow box between them.

A second cry rang out, sharp and piercing. Both men figured out where it came from—somewhere behind them, in the snowy area they had just crossed. Then a third cry answered, also from behind, but a bit to the left of the second cry.

"They're after us, Bill," said the man in front.

His voice sounded rough, as if speaking took great effort.

"Meat's scarce," his friend answered. "I haven't seen a single rabbit track in days."

After that, they stopped talking, but they kept listening carefully to the hunting cries that continued to rise up behind them.

When darkness fell, they steered the dogs into a group of spruce trees at the edge of the frozen river and set up camp. They used the coffin as both a seat and a table, sitting beside the fire. The wolf-like dogs gathered on the other side of the fire, growling and snapping at each other, but they didn't wander off into the darkness.

"Seems to me, Henry, they're stayin' awful close to camp," Bill said.

Henry, crouching by the fire and melting ice for coffee, nodded. He didn't speak again until he sat down on the coffin and started eating.

"They know where it's safe," he said. "They'd rather eat food than become food themselves. Dogs are pretty smart that way."

Bill shook his head. "I don't know about that."

His friend looked at him, surprised. "That's the first time I've ever heard you say they aren't smart."

"Henry," said Bill, slowly chewing his beans, "did you notice how the dogs acted up when I was feedin' 'em?"

"They did seem more upset than usual," Henry admitted.

"How many dogs do we have, Henry?"

"Six."

"Well, Henry..." Bill paused to make his next words sound more important. "Like I was sayin', we've got six dogs. I took six fish out of the bag—one for each dog. But Henry, I ended up one fish short."

"You must've counted wrong."

"We've got six dogs," Bill repeated calmly. "I took out six fish. One Ear didn't get a fish at first. So I went back to the bag and got him one."

"We only have six dogs," Henry said.

"Henry," Bill continued, "I won't say they were all dogs, but seven of them got fish."

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

"There's only six now," he said.

"I saw the seventh one run off into the snow," Bill said firmly. "I definitely saw seven."

Henry looked at him with pity. "I'll be mighty glad when this trip is over."

"What do you mean by that?" Bill asked.

"I mean carrying this body is gettin' to your nerves. You're startin' to imagine things."

"I thought you might say that," Bill answered seriously. "That's why, after I saw it run off, I checked the snow and found its tracks. Then I counted the dogs again—still only six. The tracks are still there in the snow right now. Want me to show you?"

Henry didn't answer. He kept eating quietly until he finished his meal and drank one last cup of coffee. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said:

"So you're thinkin' it was—"

A long, sad, wild cry rang out from somewhere in the darkness, cutting him off. He paused to listen, then finished his sentence, waving his hand toward the sound. "—one of them?"

Bill nodded. "I'd much rather believe that than the alternative. You saw how the dogs reacted yourself."

More cries rose up, answering each other, turning the silence into chaos. The cries came from every direction. The dogs huddled together in fear, pressing so close to the fire that their fur nearly got scorched by the heat. Bill added more wood to the fire before lighting his pipe.

"Seems like somethin's got you worried," Henry said.

"Henry..." Bill thought quietly while puffing his pipe before continuing. "Henry, I was just thinkin' how much luckier he is than you or me will ever be."

He pointed with his thumb toward the box they were sitting on.

"When you and I die, Henry, we'll be lucky if we get enough rocks piled on us to keep the dogs from diggin' us up."

"But we don't have family and money like he did," Henry replied. "Fancy funerals like his aren't somethin' folks like us can afford."

"What gets me, Henry, is why a rich man like this—someone who probably never had to worry about food or blankets back home—would come way out here to this godforsaken place. That's what I don't understand."

"He might have lived a long, comfortable life if he'd just stayed home," Henry agreed.

Bill opened his mouth to say something else, then changed his mind. Instead, he pointed toward the wall of darkness surrounding their camp. You couldn't make out any shapes in the blackness—only pairs of eyes glowing like hot coals. Henry nodded toward a second pair of eyes, then a third. A ring of glowing eyes had formed around their campsite. Every so often, a pair of eyes would shift or vanish, only to reappear moments later.

The dogs grew more and more nervous, and suddenly they all rushed to the side of the fire closest to the men, whimpering and crowding around their legs. In the scramble, one dog got knocked into the edge of the fire and yelped in pain as the smell of singed fur filled the air. The commotion made the ring of eyes shift back for a moment, but it settled back into place once the dogs calmed down.

"Henry, it's a real shame to be low on bullets."

Bill had finished smoking his pipe and was helping his friend spread out their furs and blankets on the pine branches they'd laid over the snow before dinner. Henry grunted and began untying his moccasins.

"How many bullets did you say we have left?"

"Three," came the answer. "I wish it was three hundred. Then I'd show 'em somethin', darn it!"

He shook his fist angrily at the glowing eyes before carefully setting his moccasins to dry near the fire.

"And I wish this cold spell would end," he continued. "It's been fifty below for two weeks straight. I wish I'd never come on this trip, Henry. Somethin' about it doesn't feel right to me. And while I'm wishin', I wish this trip was over already, and you and me were sittin' by a fire back at Fort McGurry, playin' cards—that's what I wish."

Henry grunted and climbed into his bed. Just as he began to doze off, his friend's voice woke him up again.

"Say, Henry—that other dog, the one that snuck in and grabbed a fish—why didn't the other dogs attack it? That's what's bothering me..."