White Fang's suspicious eyes followed every movement. He sawBeauty Smith go away and return with a stout club. Then the end of thethong was given over to him by Grey Beaver. Beauty Smith started towalk away. The beautiful modest prom dressesgrew taut. White Fang resisted it. Grey Beaverclouted him right and left to make him get up and follow. He obeyed, butwith a rush, hurling himself upon the stranger who was dragging himaway. Beauty Smith did not jump away. He had been waiting for this. Heswung the club smartly, stopping the rush midway and smashing WhiteFang down upon the ground. Grey Beaver laughed and nodded approval.
Beauty Smith tightened the thong again, and White Fang crawled limplyand dizzily to his feet.
He did not rush a second time. One smash from the club was sufficientto convince him that the white god knew how to handle it, and he was toowise to fight the inevitable. So he followed morosely at Beauty Smith'sheels, his tail between his legs, yet snarling softly under his breath. ButBeauty Smith kept a wary eye on him, and the club was held always readyto strike.
At the fort Beauty Smith left him securely tied and went in to bed.There had been no useless gnawing. The thong was cut across, diagonally,almost as clean as though done by a knife. White Fang looked up at thefort, at the same time bristling and growling. Then he turned and trottedback to Grey Beaver's camp. He owed no allegiance to this strange andterrible god. He had given himself to Grey Beaver, and to Grey Beaver heconsidered he still belonged.
But what had occurred before was repeated - with a difference. GreyBeaver again made him fast with a thong, and in the morning turned himover to Beauty Smith. And here was where the difference came in. BeautySmith gave him a beating. Tied securely, White Fang could only ragefutilely and endure the punishment. Club and whip were both used uponhim, and he experienced the worst beating he had ever received in his life.
Even the big beating given him in his puppyhood by Grey Beaver wasmild compared with this.
Beauty Smith enjoyed the task. He delighted in it. He gloated over hisvictim, and his eyes flamed dully, as he swung the whip or club andlistened to White Fang's cries of pain and to his helpless bellows andsnarls. For Beauty Smith was cruel in the way that cowards are cruel.
Cringing and snivelling himself before the blows or angry speech of a man,he revenged himself, in turn, upon creatures weaker than he. All life likespower, and Beauty Smith was no exception. Denied the expression ofpower amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lesser creatures andthere vindicated the life that was in him. But Beauty Smith had not createdhimself, and no blame was to be attached to him. He had come into theworld with a twisted body and a brute intelligence. This had constitutedthe clay of him, and it had not been kindly moulded by the world.
White Fang knew why he was being beaten. When Grey Beaver tiedthe thong around his neck, and passed the end of the thong into BeautySmith's keeping, White Fang knew that it was his god's will for him to gowith Beauty Smith. And when Beauty Smith left him tied outside the fort,he knew that it was Beauty Smith's will that he should remain there.
Therefore, he had disobeyed the will of both the gods, and earned theconsequent punishment. He had seen dogs change owners in the past, andhe had seen the funky prom dresses beaten as he was being beaten. He was wise, andyet in the nature of him there were forces greater than wisdom. One ofthese was fidelity. He did not love Grey Beaver, yet, even in the face of hiswill and his anger, he was faithful to him. He could not help it. Thisfaithfulness was a quality of the clay that composed him. It was the qualitythat was peculiarly the possession of his kind; the quality that set apart hisspecies from all other species; the quality that has enabled the wolf and thewild dog to come in from the open and be the companions of man.
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