CHAPTER IV

THE CLINGING DEATH



Beauty Smith slipped the chain from his neck and stepped back.



For once White Fang did not make an immediate attack. He stood

still, ears pricked forward, alert and curious, surveying the

strange animal that faced him. He had never seen such a dog

before. Tim Keenan shoved the bull-dog forward with a muttered "Go

to it." The animal waddled toward the centre of the circle, short

and squat and ungainly. He came to a stop and blinked across at

White Fang.



There were cries from the crowd of, "Go to him, Cherokee! Sick 'm,

Cherokee! Eat 'm up!"



But Cherokee did not seem anxious to fight. He turned his head and

blinked at the men who shouted, at the same time wagging his stump

of a tail good-naturedly. He was not afraid, but merely lazy.

Besides, it did not seem to him that it was intended he should

fight with the dog he saw before him. He was not used to fighting

with that kind of dog, and he was waiting for them to bring on the

real dog.



Tim Keenan stepped in and bent over Cherokee, fondling him on both

sides of the shoulders with hands that rubbed against the grain of

the hair and that made slight, pushing-forward movements. These

were so many suggestions. Also, their effect was irritating, for

Cherokee began to growl, very softly, deep down in his throat.

There was a correspondence in rhythm between the growls and the

movements of the man's hands. The growl rose in the throat with

the culmination of each forward-pushing movement, and ebbed down to

start up afresh with the beginning of the next movement. The end

of each movement was the accent of the rhythm, the movement ending

abruptly and the growling rising with a jerk.



This was not without its effect on White Fang. The hair began to

rise on his neck and across the shoulders. Tim Keenan gave a final

shove forward and stepped back again. As the impetus that carried

Cherokee forward died down, he continued to go forward of his own

volition, in a swift, bow-legged run. Then White Fang struck. A

cry of startled admiration went up. He had covered the distance

and gone in more like a cat than a dog; and with the same cat-like

swiftness he had slashed with his fangs and leaped clear.



The bull-dog was bleeding back of one ear from a rip in his thick

neck. He gave no sign, did not even snarl, but turned and followed

after White Fang. The display on both sides, the quickness of the

one and the steadiness of the other, had excited the partisan

spirit of the crowd, and the men were making new bets and

increasing original bets. Again, and yet again, White Fang sprang

in, slashed, and got away untouched, and still his strange foe

followed after him, without too great haste, not slowly, but

deliberately and determinedly, in a businesslike sort of way.

There was purpose in his method - something for him to do that he

was intent upon doing and from which nothing could distract him.



His whole demeanour, every action, was stamped with this purpose.

It puzzled White Fang. Never had he seen such a dog. It had no

hair protection. It was soft, and bled easily. There was no thick

mat of fur to baffle White Fang's teeth as they were often baffled

by dogs of his own breed. Each time that his teeth struck they

sank easily into the yielding flesh, while the animal did not seem

able to defend itself. Another disconcerting thing was that it

made no outcry, such as he had been accustomed to with the other

dogs he had fought. Beyond a growl or a grunt, the dog took its

punishment silently. And never did it flag in its pursuit of him.



Not that Cherokee was slow. He could turn and whirl swiftly

enough, but White Fang was never there. Cherokee was puzzled, too.

He had never fought before with a dog with which he could not

close. The desire to close had always been mutual. But here was a

dog that kept at a distance, dancing and dodging here and there and

all about. And when it did get its teeth into him, it did not hold

on but let go instantly and darted away again.



But White Fang could not get at the soft underside of the throat.

The bull-dog stood too short, while its massive jaws were an added

protection. White Fang darted in and out unscathed, while

Cherokee's wounds increased. Both sides of his neck and head were

ripped and slashed. He bled freely, but showed no signs of being

disconcerted. He continued his plodding pursuit, though once, for

the moment baffled, he came to a full stop and blinked at the men

who looked on, at the same time wagging his stump of a tail as an

expression of his willingness to fight.



In that moment White Fang was in upon him and out, in passing

ripping his trimmed remnant of an ear. With a slight manifestation

of anger, Cherokee took up the pursuit again, running on the inside

of the circle White Fang was making, and striving to fasten his

deadly grip on White Fang's throat. The bull-dog missed by a

hair's-breadth, and cries of praise went up as White Fang doubled

suddenly out of danger in the opposite direction.



The time went by. White Fang still danced on, dodging and

doubling, leaping in and out, and ever inflicting damage. And

still the bull-dog, with grim certitude, toiled after him. Sooner

or later he would accomplish his purpose, get the grip that would

win the battle. In the meantime, he accepted all the punishment

the other could deal him. His tufts of ears had become tassels,

his neck and shoulders were slashed in a score of places, and his

very lips were cut and bleeding - all from these lightning snaps

that were beyond his foreseeing and guarding.



Time and again White Fang had attempted to knock Cherokee off his

feet; but the difference in their height was too great. Cherokee

was too squat, too close to the ground. White Fang tried the trick

once too often. The chance came in one of his quick doublings and

counter-circlings. He caught Cherokee with head turned away as he

whirled more slowly. His shoulder was exposed. White Fang drove

in upon it: but his own shoulder was high above, while he struck

with such force that his momentum carried him on across over the

other's body. For the first time in his fighting history, men saw

White Fang lose his footing. His body turned a half-somersault in

the air, and he would have landed on his back had he not twisted,

catlike, still in the air, in the effort to bring his feet to the

earth. As it was, he struck heavily on his side. The next instant

he was on his feet, but in that instant Cherokee's teeth closed on

his throat.



It was not a good grip, being too low down toward the chest; but

Cherokee held on. White Fang sprang to his feet and tore wildly

around, trying to shake off the bull-dog's body. It made him

frantic, this clinging, dragging weight. It bound his movements,

restricted his freedom. It was like the trap, and all his instinct

resented it and revolted against it. It was a mad revolt. For

several minutes he was to all intents insane. The basic life that

was in him took charge of him. The will to exist of his body

surged over him. He was dominated by this mere flesh-love of life.

All intelligence was gone. It was as though he had no brain. His

reason was unseated by the blind yearning of the flesh to exist and

move, at all hazards to move, to continue to move, for movement was

the expression of its existence.



Round and round he went, whirling and turning and reversing, trying

to shake off the fifty-pound weight that dragged at his throat.

The bull-dog did little but keep his grip. Sometimes, and rarely,

he managed to get his feet to the earth and for a moment to brace

himself against White Fang. But the next moment his footing would

be lost and he would be dragging around in the whirl of one of

White Fang's mad gyrations. Cherokee identified himself with his

instinct. He knew that he was doing the right thing by holding on,

and there came to him certain blissful thrills of satisfaction. At

such moments he even closed his eyes and allowed his body to be

hurled hither and thither, willy-nilly, careless of any hurt that

might thereby come to it. That did not count. The grip was the

thing, and the grip he kept.



White Fang ceased only when he had tired himself out. He could do

nothing, and he could not understand. Never, in all his fighting,

had this thing happened. The dogs he had fought with did not fight

that way. With them it was snap and slash and get away, snap and

slash and get away. He lay partly on his side, panting for breath.

Cherokee still holding his grip, urged against him, trying to get

him over entirely on his side. White Fang resisted, and he could

feel the jaws shifting their grip, slightly relaxing and coming

together again in a chewing movement. Each shift brought the grip

closer to his throat. The bull-dog's method was to hold what he

had, and when opportunity favoured to work in for more.

Opportunity favoured when White Fang remained quiet. When White

Fang struggled, Cherokee was content merely to hold on.



The bulging back of Cherokee's neck was the only portion of his

body that White Fang's teeth could reach. He got hold toward the

base where the neck comes out from the shoulders; but he did not

know the chewing method of fighting, nor were his jaws adapted to

it. He spasmodically ripped and tore with his fangs for a space.

Then a change in their position diverted him. The bull-dog had

managed to roll him over on his back, and still hanging on to his

throat, was on top of him. Like a cat, White Fang bowed his hind-

quarters in, and, with the feet digging into his enemy's abdomen

above him, he began to claw with long tearing-strokes. Cherokee

might well have been disembowelled had he not quickly pivoted on

his grip and got his body off of White Fang's and at right angles

to it.



There was no escaping that grip. It was like Fate itself, and as

inexorable. Slowly it shifted up along the jugular. All that

saved White Fang from death was the loose skin of his neck and the

thick fur that covered it. This served to form a large roll in

Cherokee's mouth, the fur of which well-nigh defied his teeth. But

bit by bit, whenever the chance offered, he was getting more of the

loose skin and fur in his mouth. The result was that he was slowly

throttling White Fang. The latter's breath was drawn with greater

and greater difficulty as the moments went by.



It began to look as though the battle were over. The backers of

Cherokee waxed jubilant and offered ridiculous odds. White Fang's

backers were correspondingly depressed, and refused bets of ten to

one and twenty to one, though one man was rash enough to close a

wager of fifty to one. This man was Beauty Smith. He took a step

into the ring and pointed his finger at White Fang. Then he began

to laugh derisively and scornfully. This produced the desired

effect. White Fang went wild with rage. He called up his reserves

of strength, and gained his feet. As he struggled around the ring,

the fifty pounds of his foe ever dragging on his throat, his anger

passed on into panic. The basic life of him dominated him again,

and his intelligence fled before the will of his flesh to live.

Round and round and back again, stumbling and falling and rising,

even uprearing at times on his hind-legs and lifting his foe clear

of the earth, he struggled vainly to shake off the clinging death.



At last he fell, toppling backward, exhausted; and the bull-dog

promptly shifted his grip, getting in closer, mangling more and

more of the fur-folded flesh, throttling White Fang more severely

than ever. Shouts of applause went up for the victor, and there

were many cries of "Cherokee!" "Cherokee!" To this Cherokee

responded by vigorous wagging of the stump of his tail. But the

clamour of approval did not distract him. There was no sympathetic

relation between his tail and his massive jaws. The one might wag,

but the others held their terrible grip on White Fang's throat.



It was at this time that a diversion came to the spectators. There

was a jingle of bells. Dog-mushers' cries were heard. Everybody,

save Beauty Smith, looked apprehensively, the fear of the police

strong upon them. But they saw, up the trail, and not down, two

men running with sled and dogs. They were evidently coming down

the creek from some prospecting trip. At sight of the crowd they

stopped their dogs and came over and joined it, curious to see the

cause of the excitement. The dog-musher wore a moustache, but the

other, a taller and younger man, was smooth-shaven, his skin rosy

from the pounding of his blood and the running in the frosty air.



White Fang had practically ceased struggling. Now and again he

resisted spasmodically and to no purpose. He could get little air,

and that little grew less and less under the merciless grip that

ever tightened. In spite of his armour of fur, the great vein of

his throat would have long since been torn open, had not the first

grip of the bull-dog been so low down as to be practically on the

chest. It had taken Cherokee a long time to shift that grip

upward, and this had also tended further to clog his jaws with fur

and skin-fold.



In the meantime, the abysmal brute in Beauty Smith had been rising

into his brain and mastering the small bit of sanity that he

possessed at best. When he saw White Fang's eyes beginning to

glaze, he knew beyond doubt that the fight was lost. Then he broke

loose. He sprang upon White Fang and began savagely to kick him.

There were hisses from the crowd and cries of protest, but that was

all. While this went on, and Beauty Smith continued to kick White

Fang, there was a commotion in the crowd. The tall young newcomer

was forcing his way through, shouldering men right and left without

ceremony or gentleness. When he broke through into the ring,

Beauty Smith was just in the act of delivering another kick. All

his weight was on one loot, and he was in a state of unstable

equilibrium. At that moment the newcomer's fist landed a smashing

blow full in his face. Beauty Smith's remaining leg left the

ground, and his whole body seemed to lift into the air as he turned

over backward and struck the snow. The newcomer turned upon the

crowd.



"You cowards!" he cried. "You beasts!"



He was in a rage himself - a sane rage. His grey eyes seemed

metallic and steel-like as they flashed upon the crowd. Beauty

Smith regained his feet and came toward him, sniffling and

cowardly. The new-comer did not understand. He did not know how

abject a coward the other was, and thought he was coming back

intent on fighting. So, with a "You beast!" he smashed Beauty

Smith over backward with a second blow in the face. Beauty Smith

decided that the snow was the safest place for him, and lay where

he had fallen, making no effort to get up.



"Come on, Matt, lend a hand," the newcomer called the dog-musher,

who had followed him into the ring.



Both men bent over the dogs. Matt took hold of White Fang, ready

to pull when Cherokee's jaws should be loosened. This the younger

man endeavoured to accomplish by clutching the bulldog's jaws in

his hands and trying to spread them. It was a vain undertaking.

As he pulled and tugged and wrenched, he kept exclaiming with every

expulsion of breath, "Beasts!"



The crowd began to grow unruly, and some of the men were protesting

against the spoiling of the sport; but they were silenced when the

newcomer lifted his head from his work for a moment and glared at

them.



"You damn beasts!" he finally exploded, and went back to his task.



"It's no use, Mr. Scott, you can't break 'm apart that way," Matt

said at last.



The pair paused and surveyed the locked dogs.



"Ain't bleedin' much," Matt announced. "Ain't got all the way in

yet."



"But he's liable to any moment," Scott answered. "There, did you

see that! He shifted his grip in a bit."



The younger man's excitement and apprehension for White Fang was

growing. He struck Cherokee about the head savagely again and

again. But that did not loosen the jaws. Cherokee wagged the

stump of his tail in advertisement that he understood the meaning

of the blows, but that he knew he was himself in the right and only

doing his duty by keeping his grip.



"Won't some of you help?" Scott cried desperately at the crowd.



But no help was offered. Instead, the crowd began sarcastically to

cheer him on and showered him with facetious advice.



"You'll have to get a pry," Matt counselled.



The other reached into the holster at his hip, drew his revolver,

and tried to thrust its muzzle between the bull-dog's jaws. He

shoved, and shoved hard, till the grating of the steel against the

locked teeth could be distinctly heard. Both men were on their

knees, bending over the dogs. Tim Keenan strode into the ring. He

paused beside Scott and touched him on the shoulder, saying

ominously:



"Don't break them teeth, stranger."



"Then I'll break his neck," Scott retorted, continuing his shoving

and wedging with the revolver muzzle.



"I said don't break them teeth," the faro-dealer repeated more

ominously than before.



But if it was a bluff he intended, it did not work. Scott never

desisted from his efforts, though he looked up coolly and asked:



"Your dog?"



The faro-dealer grunted.



"Then get in here and break this grip."



"Well, stranger," the other drawled irritatingly, "I don't mind

telling you that's something I ain't worked out for myself. I

don't know how to turn the trick."



"Then get out of the way," was the reply, "and don't bother me.

I'm busy."



Tim Keenan continued standing over him, but Scott took no further

notice of his presence. He had managed to get the muzzle in

between the jaws on one side, and was trying to get it out between

the jaws on the other side. This accomplished, he pried gently and

carefully, loosening the jaws a bit at a time, while Matt, a bit at

a time, extricated White Fang's mangled neck.



"Stand by to receive your dog," was Scott's peremptory order to

Cherokee's owner.



The faro-dealer stooped down obediently and got a firm hold on

Cherokee.



"Now!" Scott warned, giving the final pry.



The dogs were drawn apart, the bull-dog struggling vigorously.



"Take him away," Scott commanded, and Tim Keenan dragged Cherokee

back into the crowd.



White Fang made several ineffectual efforts to get up. Once he

gained his feet, but his legs were too weak to sustain him, and he

slowly wilted and sank back into the snow. His eyes were half

closed, and the surface of them was glassy. His jaws were apart,

and through them the tongue protruded, draggled and limp. To all

appearances he looked like a dog that had been strangled to death.

Matt examined him.



"Just about all in," he announced; "but he's breathin' all right."



Beauty Smith had regained his feet and come over to look at White

Fang.



"Matt, how much is a good sled-dog worth?" Scott asked.



The dog-musher, still on his knees and stooped over White Fang,

calculated for a moment.



"Three hundred dollars," he answered.



"And how much for one that's all chewed up like this one?" Scott

asked, nudging White Fang with his foot.



"Half of that," was the dog-musher's judgment. Scott turned upon

Beauty Smith.



"Did you hear, Mr. Beast? I'm going to take your dog from you, and

I'm going to give you a hundred and fifty for him."



He opened his pocket-book and counted out the bills.



Beauty Smith put his hands behind his back, refusing to touch the

proffered money.



"I ain't a-sellin'," he said.



"Oh, yes you are," the other assured him. "Because I'm buying.

Here's your money. The dog's mine."



Beauty Smith, his hands still behind him, began to back away.



Scott sprang toward him, drawing his fist back to strike. Beauty

Smith cowered down in anticipation of the blow.



"I've got my rights," he whimpered.



"You've forfeited your rights to own that dog," was the rejoinder.

"Are you going to take the money? or do I have to hit you again?"



"All right," Beauty Smith spoke up with the alacrity of fear. "But

I take the money under protest," he added. "The dog's a mint. I

ain't a-goin' to be robbed. A man's got his rights."



"Correct," Scott answered, passing the money over to him. "A man's

got his rights. But you're not a man. You're a beast."



"Wait till I get back to Dawson," Beauty Smith threatened. "I'll

have the law on you."



"If you open your mouth when you get back to Dawson, I'll have you

run out of town. Understand?"



Beauty Smith replied with a grunt.



"Understand?" the other thundered with abrupt fierceness.



"Yes," Beauty Smith grunted, shrinking away.



"Yes what?"



"Yes, sir," Beauty Smith snarled.



"Look out! He'll bite!" some one shouted, and a guffaw of laughter

went up.



Scott turned his back on him, and returned to help the dog-musher,

who was working over White Fang.



Some of the men were already departing; others stood in groups,

looking on and talking. Tim Keenan joined one of the groups.



"Who's that mug?" he asked.



"Weedon Scott," some one answered.



"And who in hell is Weedon Scott?" the faro-dealer demanded.



"Oh, one of them crackerjack minin' experts. He's in with all the

big bugs. If you want to keep out of trouble, you'll steer clear

of him, that's my talk. He's all hunky with the officials. The

Gold Commissioner's a special pal of his."



"I thought he must be somebody," was the faro-dealer's comment.

"That's why I kept my hands offen him at the start."

****

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