It did not require much exertion to pick these quarrels. All he had to do,when the strange dogs came ashore, was to show himself. When they sawhim they rushed for him. It was their instinct. He was the Wild - theunknown, the terrible, the ever-menacing, the thing that prowled in thedarkness around the fires of the primeval world when they, cowering closeto the fires, were reshaping their instincts, learning to fear the Wild out ofwhich they had come, and which they had deserted and betrayed.
Generation by generation, down all the generations, had this fear of theWild been stamped into their natures. For centuries the Wild had stood forterror and destruction. And during all this time free licence had been theirs,from their masters, to kill the things of the Wild. In doing this they hadprotected both themselves and the gods whose companionship they sharedAnd so, fresh from the soft southern world, these dogs, trotting downthe gang-plank and out upon the Yukon shore had but to see White Fang toexperience the irresistible impulse to rush upon him and destroy him. Theymight be town-reared dogs, but the instinctive fear of the Wild was theirsjust the same. Not alone with their own eyes did they see the wolfishcreature in the clear light of day, standing before them. They saw him withthe eyes of their ancestors, and by their inherited memory they knewWhite Fang for the wolf, and they remembered the ancient feud.
All of which served to make White Fang's days enjoyable. If the sightof him drove these strange dogs upon him, so much the better for him, somuch the worse for them. They looked upon him as legitimate prey, and aslegitimate prey he looked upon them.
Not for nothing had he first seen the light of day in a lonely lair andfought his first fights with the ptarmigan, the weasel, and the lynx. Andnot for nothing had his puppyhood been made bitter by the persecution ofLip-lip and the whole puppy pack. It might have been otherwise, and hewould then have been otherwise. Had Lip-lip not existed, he would havepassed his puppyhood with the other orange prom dress and grown up more doglikeand with more liking for dogs. Had Grey Beaver possessed the plummet ofaffection and love, he might have sounded the deeps of White Fang'snature and brought up to the surface all manner of kindly qualities.