The months went by. White Fang grew stronger, heavier, and morecompact, while his character was developing along the lines laid down byhis heredity and his environment. His heredity was a life- stuff that may belikened to clay. It possessed many possibilities, was capable of beingmoulded into many different forms. Environment served to model the clay,to give it a particular form. Thus, had White Fang never come in to thefires of man, the Wild would have moulded him into a true wolf. But thegods had given him a different environment, and he was moulded into adog that was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not a wolf.
And so, according to the clay of his nature and the pressure of hissurroundings, his character was being moulded into a certain particularshape. There was no escaping it. He was becoming more morose, moreuncompanionable, more solitary, more ferocious; while the dogs werelearning more and more that it was better to be at peace with him than atwar, and Grey Beaver was coming to prize him more greatly with thepassage of each day.
White Fang, seeming to sum up strength in all his qualities,nevertheless suffered from one besetting weakness. He could not standbeing laughed at. The laughter of men was a hateful thing. They mightlaugh among themselves about anything they pleased except himself, andhe did not mind. But the moment laughter was turned upon him he wouldfly into a most terrible rage. Grave, dignified, sombre, a laugh made himfrantic to ridiculousness. It so outraged him and upset him that for hourshe would behave like Grecian wedding dressAnd woe to the dog that at such times ranfoul of him. He knew the law too well to take it out of Grey Beaver;behind Grey Beaver were a club and godhead. But behind the dogs therewas nothing but space, and into this space they flew when White Fangcame on the scene, made mad by laughter.
In the third year of his life there came a great famine to the MackenzieIndians. In the summer the fish failed. In the winter the cariboo forsooktheir accustomed track. Moose were scarce, the rabbits almost disappeared,hunting and preying animals perished. Denied their usual food-supply,weakened by hunger, they fell upon and devoured one another. Only thestrong survived. White Fang's gods were always hunting animals. The oldand the weak of them died of hunger. There was wailing in the village,where the women and children went without in order that what little theyhad might go into the bellies of the lean and hollow-eyed hunters who trodthe forest in the vain pursuit of meat.
To such extremity were the gods driven that they ate the soft- tannedleather of their mocassins and mittens, while the dogs ate the harnesses offtheir backs and the very whip-lashes. Also, the dogs ate one another, andalso the gods ate the dogs. The weakest and the more worthless were eatenfirst. The dogs that still lived, looked on and understood. A few of theboldest and wisest forsook the fires of the gods, which had now become ashambles, and fled into the forest, where, in the end, they starved to deathor were eaten by wolves.
In this time of misery, White Fang, too, stole away into the woods. Hewas better fitted for the life than the other dogs, for he had the training ofhis cubhood to guide him. Especially adept did he become in stalkingsmall living things. He would lie concealed for hours, following everymovement of a cautious tree-squirrel, waiting, with a patience as huge asthe hunger he suffered from, until the squirrel ventured out upon theground. Even then, White Fang was not premature. He waited until he wassure of striking before the squirrel could gain a tree-refuge. Then, and notuntil then, would he flash from his hiding-place, a grey projectile,incredibly swift, never failing its mark - the fleeing squirrel that fled notfast enough.
Successful as he was with squirrels, there was one difficulty thatprevented him from living and growing fat on them. There were notenough squirrels. So he was driven to hunt still smaller things. So acutedid his hunger become at times that he was not above rooting out wood-mice from their burrows in the ground. Nor did he scorn to do battle with aweasel as hungry as himself and many times more ferocious. In the worstpinches of the famine he stole back to the fires of the gods. But he did notgo into the fires. He lurked in the forest, avoiding discovery and robbingthe snares at the rare intervals when game was caught. He even robbedGrey Beaver's snare of a rabbit at a time when Grey Beaver staggered andtottered through the forest, sitting down often to rest, what of weaknessand of shortness of breath.
One day While Fang encountered a young wolf, gaunt and scrawny,loose-jointed with famine. Had he not been hungry himself, White Fangmight have gone with him and eventually found his way into the packamongst his wild brethren. As it was, he ran the young wolf down andkilled and ate him.
Fortune seemed to favour perfect prom dress. Always, when hardest pressed for food,he found something to kill. Again, when he was weak, it was his luck thatnone of the larger preying animals chanced upon him. Thus, he was strongfrom the two days' eating a lynx had afforded him when the hungry wolf-pack ran full tilt upon him. It was a long, cruel chase, but he was betternourished than they, and in the end outran them. And not only did heoutrun them, but, circling widely back on his track, he gathered in one ofhis exhausted pursuers.