CHAPTER V

THE COVENANT



When December was well along, Grey Beaver went on a journey up the

Mackenzie. Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch went with him. One sled he

drove himself, drawn by dogs he had traded for or borrowed. A

second and smaller sled was driven by Mit-sah, and to this was

harnessed a team of puppies. It was more of a toy affair than

anything else, yet it was the delight of Mit-sah, who felt that he

was beginning to do a man's work in the world. Also, he was

learning to drive dogs and to train dogs; while the puppies

themselves were being broken in to the harness. Furthermore, the

sled was of some service, for it carried nearly two hundred pounds

of outfit and food.



White Fang had seen the camp-dogs toiling in the harness, so that

he did not resent overmuch the first placing of the harness upon

himself. About his neck was put a moss-stuffed collar, which was

connected by two pulling-traces to a strap that passed around his

chest and over his back. It was to this that was fastened the long

rope by which he pulled at the sled.



There were seven puppies in the team. The others had been born

earlier in the year and were nine and ten months old, while White

Fang was only eight months old. Each dog was fastened to the sled

by a single rope. No two ropes were of the same length, while the

difference in length between any two ropes was at least that of a

dog's body. Every rope was brought to a ring at the front end of

the sled. The sled itself was without runners, being a birch-bark

toboggan, with upturned forward end to keep it from ploughing under

the snow. This construction enabled the weight of the sled and

load to be distributed over the largest snow-surface; for the snow

was crystal-powder and very soft. Observing the same principle of

widest distribution of weight, the dogs at the ends of their ropes

radiated fan-fashion from the nose of the sled, so that no dog trod

in another's footsteps.



There was, furthermore, another virtue in the fan-formation. The

ropes of varying length prevented the dogs attacking from the rear

those that ran in front of them. For a dog to attack another, it

would have to turn upon one at a shorter rope. In which case it

would find itself face to face with the dog attacked, and also it

would find itself facing the whip of the driver. But the most

peculiar virtue of all lay in the fact that the dog that strove to

attack one in front of him must pull the sled faster, and that the

faster the sled travelled, the faster could the dog attacked run

away. Thus, the dog behind could never catch up with the one in

front. The faster he ran, the faster ran the one he was after, and

the faster ran all the dogs. Incidentally, the sled went faster,

and thus, by cunning indirection, did man increase his mastery over

the beasts.



Mit-sah resembled his father, much of whose grey wisdom he

possessed. In the past he had observed Lip-lip's persecution of

White Fang; but at that time Lip-lip was another man's dog, and

Mit-sah had never dared more than to shy an occasional stone at

him. But now Lip-lip was his dog, and he proceeded to wreak his

vengeance on him by putting him at the end of the longest rope.

This made Lip-lip the leader, and was apparently an honour! but in

reality it took away from him all honour, and instead of being

bully and master of the pack, he now found himself hated and

persecuted by the pack.



Because he ran at the end of the longest rope, the dogs had always

the view of him running away before them. All that they saw of him

was his bushy tail and fleeing hind legs - a view far less

ferocious and intimidating than his bristling mane and gleaming

fangs. Also, dogs being so constituted in their mental ways, the

sight of him running away gave desire to run after him and a

feeling that he ran away from them.



The moment the sled started, the team took after Lip-lip in a chase

that extended throughout the day. At first he had been prone to

turn upon his pursuers, jealous of his dignity and wrathful; but at

such times Mit-sah would throw the stinging lash of the thirty-foot

cariboo-gut whip into his face and compel him to turn tail and run

on. Lip-lip might face the pack, but he could not face that whip,

and all that was left him to do was to keep his long rope taut and

his flanks ahead of the teeth of his mates.



But a still greater cunning lurked in the recesses of the Indian

mind. To give point to unending pursuit of the leader, Mit-sah

favoured him over the other dogs. These favours aroused in them

jealousy and hatred. In their presence Mit-sah would give him meat

and would give it to him only. This was maddening to them. They

would rage around just outside the throwing-distance of the whip,

while Lip-lip devoured the meat and Mit-sah protected him. And

when there was no meat to give, Mit-sah would keep the team at a

distance and make believe to give meat to Lip-lip.



White Fang took kindly to the work. He had travelled a greater

distance than the other dogs in the yielding of himself to the rule

of the gods, and he had learned more thoroughly the futility of

opposing their will. In addition, the persecution he had suffered

from the pack had made the pack less to him in the scheme of

things, and man more. He had not learned to be dependent on his

kind for companionship. Besides, Kiche was well-nigh forgotten;

and the chief outlet of expression that remained to him was in the

allegiance he tendered the gods he had accepted as masters. So he

worked hard, learned discipline, and was obedient. Faithfulness

and willingness characterised his toil. These are essential traits

of the wolf and the wild-dog when they have become domesticated,

and these traits White Fang possessed in unusual measure.



A companionship did exist between White Fang and the other dogs,

but it was one of warfare and enmity. He had never learned to play

with them. He knew only how to fight, and fight with them he did,

returning to them a hundred-fold the snaps and slashes they had

given him in the days when Lip-lip was leader of the pack. But

Lip-lip was no longer leader - except when he fled away before his

mates at the end of his rope, the sled bounding along behind. In

camp he kept close to Mit-sah or Grey Beaver or Kloo-kooch. He did

not dare venture away from the gods, for now the fangs of all dogs

were against him, and he tasted to the dregs the persecution that

had been White Fang's.



With the overthrow of Lip-lip, White Fang could have become leader

of the pack. But he was too morose and solitary for that. He

merely thrashed his team-mates. Otherwise he ignored them. They

got out of his way when he came along; nor did the boldest of them

ever dare to rob him of his meat. On the contrary, they devoured

their own meat hurriedly, for fear that he would take it away from

them. White Fang knew the law well: TO OPPRESS THE WEAK AND OBEY

THE STRONG. He ate his share of meat as rapidly as he could. And

then woe the dog that had not yet finished! A snarl and a flash of

fangs, and that dog would wail his indignation to the uncomforting

stars while White Fang finished his portion for him.



Every little while, however, one dog or another would flame up in

revolt and be promptly subdued. Thus White Fang was kept in

training. He was jealous of the isolation in which he kept himself

in the midst of the pack, and he fought often to maintain it. But

such fights were of brief duration. He was too quick for the

others. They were slashed open and bleeding before they knew what

had happened, were whipped almost before they had begun to fight.



As rigid as the sled-discipline of the gods, was the discipline

maintained by White Fang amongst his fellows. He never allowed

them any latitude. He compelled them to an unremitting respect for

him. They might do as they pleased amongst themselves. That was

no concern of his. But it WAS his concern that they leave him

alone in his isolation, get out of his way when he elected to walk

among them, and at all times acknowledge his mastery over them. A

hint of stiff-leggedness on their part, a lifted lip or a bristle

of hair, and he would be upon them, merciless and cruel, swiftly

convincing them of the error of their way.



He was a monstrous tyrant. His mastery was rigid as steel. He

oppressed the weak with a vengeance. Not for nothing had he been

exposed to the pitiless struggles for life in the day of his

cubhood, when his mother and he, alone and unaided, held their own

and survived in the ferocious environment of the Wild. And not for

nothing had he learned to walk softly when superior strength went

by. He oppressed the weak, but he respected the strong. And in

the course of the long journey with Grey Beaver he walked softly

indeed amongst the full-grown dogs in the camps of the strange man-

animals they encountered.



The months passed by. Still continued the journey of Grey Beaver.

White Fang's strength was developed by the long hours on trail and

the steady toil at the sled; and it would have seemed that his

mental development was well-nigh complete. He had come to know

quite thoroughly the world in which he lived. His outlook was

bleak and materialistic. The world as he saw it was a fierce and

brutal world, a world without warmth, a world in which caresses and

affection and the bright sweetnesses of the spirit did not exist.



He had no affection for Grey Beaver. True, he was a god, but a

most savage god. White Fang was glad to acknowledge his lordship,

but it was a lordship based upon superior intelligence and brute

strength. There was something in the fibre of White Fang's being

that made his lordship a thing to be desired, else he would not

have come back from the Wild when he did to tender his allegiance.

There were deeps in his nature which had never been sounded. A

kind word, a caressing touch of the hand, on the part of Grey

Beaver, might have sounded these deeps; but Grey Beaver did not

caress, nor speak kind words. It was not his way. His primacy was

savage, and savagely he ruled, administering justice with a club,

punishing transgression with the pain of a blow, and rewarding

merit, not by kindness, but by withholding a blow.



So White Fang knew nothing of the heaven a man's hand might contain

for him. Besides, he did not like the hands of the man-animals.

He was suspicious of them. It was true that they sometimes gave

meat, but more often they gave hurt. Hands were things to keep

away from. They hurled stones, wielded sticks and clubs and whips,

administered slaps and clouts, and, when they touched him, were

cunning to hurt with pinch and twist and wrench. In strange

villages he had encountered the hands of the children and learned

that they were cruel to hurt. Also, he had once nearly had an eye

poked out by a toddling papoose. From these experiences he became

suspicious of all children. He could not tolerate them. When they

came near with their ominous hands, he got up.



It was in a village at the Great Slave Lake, that, in the course of

resenting the evil of the hands of the man-animals, he came to

modify the law that he had learned from Grey Beaver: namely, that

the unpardonable crime was to bite one of the gods. In this

village, after the custom of all dogs in all villages, White Fang

went foraging, for food. A boy was chopping frozen moose-meat with

an axe, and the chips were flying in the snow. White Fang, sliding

by in quest of meat, stopped and began to eat the chips. He

observed the boy lay down the axe and take up a stout club. White

Fang sprang clear, just in time to escape the descending blow. The

boy pursued him, and he, a stranger in the village, fled between

two tepees to find himself cornered against a high earth bank.



There was no escape for White Fang. The only way out was between

the two tepees, and this the boy guarded. Holding his club

prepared to strike, he drew in on his cornered quarry. White Fang

was furious. He faced the boy, bristling and snarling, his sense

of justice outraged. He knew the law of forage. All the wastage

of meat, such as the frozen chips, belonged to the dog that found

it. He had done no wrong, broken no law, yet here was this boy

preparing to give him a beating. White Fang scarcely knew what

happened. He did it in a surge of rage. And he did it so quickly

that the boy did not know either. All the boy knew was that he had

in some unaccountable way been overturned into the snow, and that

his club-hand had been ripped wide open by White Fang's teeth.



But White Fang knew that he had broken the law of the gods. He had

driven his teeth into the sacred flesh of one of them, and could

expect nothing but a most terrible punishment. He fled away to

Grey Beaver, behind whose protecting legs he crouched when the

bitten boy and the boy's family came, demanding vengeance. But

they went away with vengeance unsatisfied. Grey Beaver defended

White Fang. So did Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch. White Fang, listening

to the wordy war and watching the angry gestures, knew that his act

was justified. And so it came that he learned there were gods and

gods. There were his gods, and there were other gods, and between

them there was a difference. Justice or injustice, it was all the

same, he must take all things from the hands of his own gods. But

he was not compelled to take injustice from the other gods. It was

his privilege to resent it with his teeth. And this also was a law

of the gods.



Before the day was out, White Fang was to learn more about this

law. Mit-sah, alone, gathering firewood in the forest, encountered

the boy that had been bitten. With him were other boys. Hot words

passed. Then all the boys attacked Mit-sah. It was going hard

with him. Blows were raining upon him from all sides. White Fang

looked on at first. This was an affair of the gods, and no concern

of his. Then he realised that this was Mit-sah, one of his own

particular gods, who was being maltreated. It was no reasoned

impulse that made White Fang do what he then did. A mad rush of

anger sent him leaping in amongst the combatants. Five minutes

later the landscape was covered with fleeing boys, many of whom

dripped blood upon the snow in token that White Fang's teeth had

not been idle. When Mit-sah told the story in camp, Grey Beaver

ordered meat to be given to White Fang. He ordered much meat to be

given, and White Fang, gorged and sleepy by the fire, knew that the

law had received its verification.



It was in line with these experiences that White Fang came to learn

the law of property and the duty of the defence of property. From

the protection of his god's body to the protection of his god's

possessions was a step, and this step he made. What was his god's

was to be defended against all the world - even to the extent of

biting other gods. Not only was such an act sacrilegious in its

nature, but it was fraught with peril. The gods were all-powerful,

and a dog was no match against them; yet White Fang learned to face

them, fiercely belligerent and unafraid. Duty rose above fear, and

thieving gods learned to leave Grey Beaver's property alone.



One thing, in this connection, White Fang quickly learnt, and that

was that a thieving god was usually a cowardly god and prone to run

away at the sounding of the alarm. Also, he learned that but brief

time elapsed between his sounding of the alarm and Grey Beaver

coming to his aid. He came to know that it was not fear of him

that drove the thief away, but fear of Grey Beaver. White Fang did

not give the alarm by barking. He never barked. His method was to

drive straight at the intruder, and to sink his teeth in if he

could. Because he was morose and solitary, having nothing to do

with the other dogs, he was unusually fitted to guard his master's

property; and in this he was encouraged and trained by Grey Beaver.

One result of this was to make White Fang more ferocious and

indomitable, and more solitary.



The months went by, binding stronger and stronger the covenant

between dog and man. This was the ancient covenant that the first

wolf that came in from the Wild entered into with man. And, like

all succeeding wolves and wild dogs that had done likewise, White

Fang worked the covenant out for himself. The terms were simple.

For the possession of a flesh-and-blood god, he exchanged his own

liberty. Food and fire, protection and companionship, were some of

the things he received from the god. In return, he guarded the

god's property, defended his body, worked for him, and obeyed him.



The possession of a god implies service. White Fang's was a

service of duty and awe, but not of love. He did not know what

love was. He had no experience of love. Kiche was a remote

memory. Besides, not only had he abandoned the Wild and his kind

when he gave himself up to man, but the terms of the covenant were

such that if ever he met Kiche again he would not desert his god to

go with her. His allegiance to man seemed somehow a law of his

being greater than the love of liberty, of kind and kin.

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