Джек Лондон - Белый клык / White Fang

But White Fang was not demonstrative. He was too old, too firmly moulded, to express himself in new ways. He was too self-possessed, too morose. He never ran to meet his god. He waited at a distance; but he always waited, was always there.

He tolerated all possessions of his master, including his dogs and Matt. Matt tried to put him into the harness and make him pull the sled with the other dogs. But Matt failed. It was not until Weedon Scott put the harness on White Fang, that he understood. He took it as his master’s will.

The Klondike sleds were different from the Mackenzie toboggans. The dogs worked in single file, one behind another, on double traces. And here, in the Klondike, the leader was indeed the leader. The wisest as well as strongest dog was the leader, and the team obeyed him and feared him. That White Fang should quickly gain this post was inevitable. He could not be satisfied with less. But, though he worked in the sled in the day, White Fang did not forget to guard his master’s property in the night. Thus he was on duty all the time, ever faithful, the most valuable of all the dogs.

In the late spring a great trouble came to White Fang. Without warning, the love-master disappeared. There had been warning, but White Fang did not understand the packing of bags. The days came and went, but never the master. White Fang, who had never known sickness in his life, became sick. He became very sick, so sick that Matt finally had to bring him inside the cabin. Also, in writing to his employer, Matt said about White Fang: “That damn wolf won’t work. Won’t eat. Wants to know what has happened to you, and I don’t know how to tell him. Maybe he is going to die.”

And then, one night, Matt heard a low whine from White Fang. He stood up, his ears cocked towards the door, and he was listening intently. A moment later, Matt heard a footstep. The door opened, and Weedon Scott stepped in. The two men shook hands. Then Scott looked around the room.

“Where’s the wolf?” he asked.

Then he saw him. He had not rushed forward after the manner of other dogs. He stood, watching and waiting. And – he wagged his tail.

Scott came half across the room. White Fang came to him. As he drew near, his eyes took on a strange expression. Something, an incommunicable vastness of feeling, rose up into his eyes as a light and shone there.

“He never looked at me that way all the time you was gone!” Matt commented.

Weedon Scott did not hear. He was down on his heels, face to face with White Fang and petting him – rubbing at the roots of the ears, making long caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders, tapping the spine gently with the balls of his fingers. And White Fang was growling in response, the crooning note of the growl more pronounced than ever.

But that was not all. He suddenly put his head between the master’s arm and body. And here, satisfied, hidden from view all except his ears, no longer growling, he continued to snuggle.

The two men looked at each other. Scott’s eyes were shining.

A moment later Matt said, “I always insisted that wolf was a dog. Look at him!”

With the return of the love-master, White Fang’s recovery was rapid. Two nights and a day he spent in the cabin. Then he returned to living outdoors. It took him little time to remind the sled-dogs that he was the leader. Life was flowing through him again.

Having learned to snuggle, he often did it. Now, with the love-master, his snuggling was the deliberate act of putting himself into a position of hopeless helplessness. It was an expression of perfect confidence, of absolute self-surrender, as though he said: “I put myself into your hands. Do what you will with me.”

One night, not long after the return, Scott and Matt were playing cards before going to bed. Suddenly there was a cry and sound of snarling from outside.

“The wolf’s nailed somebody,” Matt said.

“Bring a light!” Scott shouted.

Matt followed with the lamp, and by its light they saw a man lying on his back in the snow. His arms were folded, one above the other, across his face and throat. He was trying to protect himself from White Fang’s teeth. White Fang was in a rage. From shoulder to wrist of the crossed arms, the coat-sleeve, blue flannel shirt and undershirt were ripped in rags, while the arms themselves were terribly slashed.

White Fang struggled and snarled, but made no attempt to bite, and quickly quieted down at a sharp word from the master.

Matt helped the man to his feet. It was Beauty Smith. He blinked in the lamplight and looked about him. Then he saw White Fang and terror rushed into his face.

At the same moment Matt noticed two objects lying in the snow: a steel dog-chain and a stout club.

Weedon Scott saw and nodded. The dog-musher laid his hand on Beauty Smith’s shoulder and faced him to the right about. No word needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith went away.

In the meantime the love-master was patting White Fang and talking to him.

“Tried to steal you, eh? And you wouldn’t have it! Well, well, he made a mistake, didn’t he?”

White Fang, still wrought up and bristling, growled and growled, the hair slowly lying down.

It was in the air. White Fang sensed it, even before there was evidence of it. A change was coming. He waited for the oncoming event from the gods themselves.

One night, as they talked over supper, Weedon Scott looked across at his companion with almost pleading eyes.

“What 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.

“He’ll kill white men’s dogs as soon as he sees them,” Scott went on. “If he doesn’t bankrupt me, the authorities will take him away from me and kill him.”

“He’s a 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 agreed. “Why you’d have to hire a man especially to take care of him.”

In the silence that followed, White Fang’s low, half-sobbing whine was heard at the door and then the long, questing sniff. He was outside, listening.

“Yes, he thinks 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 agreeing with you, only…”

“Only what?”

“Only… Well, judging by your actions one’d think you didn’t know your own mind.”

Weedon Scott paused, 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 crazy for me to take that dog with me,” he broke out after another pause.

“I’m agreeing with you,” was Matt’s answer, and again his employer was not quite satisfied with him.

Then came the day when, through the open cabin door, White Fang saw the fatal bag on the floor and the love-master packing things into 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 would be left behind.

That night he gave the long wolf-howl. As he had howled, in his puppy days, when he came back from the Wild to the village to find it vanished, so now he pointed his muzzle to the cold stars and told them his tragedy.

Inside the cabin the two men had just gone to bed.

“He’s gone off his food again,” Matt remarked from his bed.

There was a grunt from Weedon Scott’s bed, and a stir of blankets.

“I wouldn’t wonder if this time he dies without you.”