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 Gray 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 struggle for life in the days 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 Gray 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 Gray 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 Gray 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 this 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 Gray Beaver, might have sounded these deeps; but Gray 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.
