White Fang by Jack London - Part 2, Chapter 1 - The Battle of the Fangs

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part two, Chapter one of White Fang, presented by Dream
Audio Books. White Fang by Jack London, Part two, Chapter one,
The Battle of the Fangs. It was the she wolf
who had first caught the sound of men's voices and
the whining of the sledge dogs, and it was the

(00:22):
she wolf who was first to spring away from the
cornered man in his circle of dying flame. The pack
had been loath to forego the kill it had hunted down,
and it lingered for several minutes, making sure of the sounds,
and then it too, sprang away on the trail made
by the she wolf. Running at the forefront of the
pack was a large gray wolf, one of its several leaders.

(00:45):
It was he who directed the pack's course on the
heels of the she wolf. It was he who snarled
warningly at the younger members of the pack, or slashed
at them with his fangs when they ambitiously tried to
pass him, And it was he who increased the pace.
When he sighted the she wolf, now trotting slowly across
the snow, she dropped in alongside by him, as though

(01:08):
it were her appointed position, and took the pace of
the pack. He did not snarl at her, nor show
his teeth when any leap of hers chanced to put
her in advance of him. On the contrary, he seemed
kindly disposed toward her, too kindly to suit her, for
he was prone to run near to her, and when
he ran too near, it was she who snarled and

(01:30):
showed her teeth. Nor was she above slashing his shoulder
sharply on occasion. At such times he betrayed no anger.
He merely sprang to the side and ran stiffly ahead
for several awkward leaps in carriage and conduct resembling in
a bashed country swain. This was his one trouble in

(01:50):
the running of the pack. But she had other troubles
on her other side. Ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled
and marked with the scars of many battles. He always
ran on her right side. The fact that he had
but one eye, and that the left eye might account
for this. He also was addicted to crowding her, to

(02:11):
veering toward her till his scarred muzzle touched her body
or shoulder or neck, as with the running mate on
the left. She repelled these attentions with her teeth, but
when both bestowed their attentions at the same time, she
was roughly jostled, being compelled with quick snaps to either
side to drive both lovers away, and at the same

(02:32):
time to maintain her forward leap with the pack and
see the way of her feet before her. At such times,
her running mates flashed their teeth and growled threateningly across
at each other. They might have fought, but even wooing
and its rivalry waited upon the more pressing hunger need
of the pack. After each repulse, when the old wolf

(02:55):
sheered abruptly away from the sharp toothed object of his desire,
he shouldered against a young three year old that ran
on his blind right side. This young wolf had attained
his full size, and, considering the weak and famished condition
of the pack, he possessed more than the average vigor
in the spirit. Nevertheless, he ran with his head even

(03:16):
with the shoulder of his one eyed elder. When he
ventured to run abreast of the older wolf, which was seldom,
a snarl and a snap sent him back even with
the shoulder again. Sometimes, however, he dropped cautiously and slowly
behind and edged in between the old leader and the
she wolf. This was doubly resented, even triply resented. When

(03:39):
she snarled her displeasure, the old leader would whirl on
the three year old. Sometimes she whirled with him, and
sometimes the young leader on the left whorled too. At
such times, confronted by three sets of savage teeth, the
young wolf stopped precipitately, throwing himself back on his haunches
with four legs, stiff, mouth menacing, and main bristling. This

(04:03):
confusion in the front of the moving pack always caused
confusion in the rear. The wolves behind collided with the
young wolf and expressed their displeasure by administering sharp nips
on his hind, legs and flanks. He was laying up
trouble for himself, for lack of food and short tempers
went together, but with the boundless faith of youth, he

(04:24):
persisted in repeating the maneuver every little while, though it
never succeeded in gaining anything for him but discomfiture. Had
there been food, love making and fighting would have gone
on apace, and the pack formation would have been broken up.
But the situation of the pack was desperate. It was
lean with long standing hunger. It ran below its ordinary speed.

(04:48):
At the rear limp the weak members, the very young,
and the very old. At the front were the strongest,
Yet all were more like skeletons than full bodied wolves. Nevertheless,
with the exception of the ones that limped, the movements
of the animals were effortless and tireless. Their stringy muscles
seemed founts of inexhaustible energy. Behind every steel like contraction

(05:12):
of a muscle lay another steel like contraction, and another
and another, apparently without end. They ran many miles that day.
They ran through the night, and the next day found
them still running. They were running over the surface of
a world frozen and dead, no life stirred. They alone

(05:34):
moved through the vast inertness. They alone were alive, and
they sought for other things that were alive, in order
that they might devour them and continue to live. They
crossed low divides and ranged a dozen small streams in
a low lying country before their quest was rewarded. Then
they came upon moose. It was a big bull they

(05:56):
first found. Here was meat and life, and it was
guard by no mysterious fires, nor flying missiles of flame
splay hoofs and palmated antlers they knew, and they flung
their customary patience and caution to the wind. It was
a brief fight, and fierce. The big bull was beset
on every side. He ripped them open or split their

(06:18):
skulls with shrewdly driven blows of his great hoofs. He
crushed them and broke them on his large horns. He
stamped them into the snow under him in the wallowing struggle.
But he was four doomed, and he went down with
the she wolf tearing savagely at his throat and with
other teeth fixed everywhere upon him, devouring him alive. Before

(06:40):
ever his last struggle ceased or his last damage had
been wrought, there was food in plenty. The bull weighed
over eight hundred pounds, fully twenty pounds of meat per
mouth for the forty odd wolves of the pack. But
if they could fast prodigiously, they could feed prodigiously, and
soon a few scattered bones were all that remained of

(07:02):
the splendid live brute that faced the pack a few
hours before. There was now much resting and sleeping with
full stomachs. Bickering and quarreling began among the younger males,
and this continued through the few days that followed before
the breaking up of the pack. The famine was over.
The wolves were now in the country of game, and

(07:24):
though they still hutted in pack, they hunted more cautiously,
cutting out heavy cows or crippled old bulls from the
small moose herds they ran across. There came a day
in this land of plenty when the wolf pack split
in half and went in different directions. The she wolf,
the young leader on her left, and the one eyed

(07:44):
elder on her right, led their half of the pack
down to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake
country to the east. Each day, this remnant of the
pack dwindled two by two, male and female. The wolves
were deserting. Occasionally a solitary male was driven out by
the sharp teeth of his rivals. In the end, there

(08:06):
remained only four, the she wolf, the young leader, the
one eyed one, and the ambitious three year old. The
she wolf had by now developed a ferocious temper. Her
three suitors all bore the marks of her teeth. Yet
they never replied in kind, never defended themselves against her.

(08:26):
They turned their shoulders to her. Most savage slashes, and
with wagging tails and mincing steps, strove to placate her wrath.
But if they were all mildness toward her, they were
all fierceness toward one another. The three year old grew
too ambitious In his fierceness. He caught the one eyed
elder on his blind side and ripped his ear into ribbons.

(08:48):
Though the grizzled old fellow could see only on one
side against the youth and vigor of the other, he
brought into play the wisdom of long years of experience.
His lost eye and his scarred muzzle bore evidence to
the nature of his experience. He had survived too many
battles to be in doubt for a moment about what
to do. The battle began fairly, but it did not

(09:11):
end fairly. There was no telling what the outcome would
have been, for the third wolf joined the elder, and
together old Leader and young Leader, they attacked the ambitious
three year old and proceeded to destroy him. He was
beset on either side by the merciless fangs of his
erstwhile comrades forgotten were the days they had hunted together,

(09:32):
the game they had pulled down, the famine they had
suffered that business was a thing of the past. The
business of love was at hand, ever, a sterner and
crueler business than that of food getting. And in the meanwhile,
the she wolf, the cause of it all, sat down
contentedly on her haunches and watched. She was even pleased.

(09:55):
This was her day, and it came not often when
mains bristles and fang smote, fang or ripped and tore
the yielding flesh, all for the possession of her. And
in the business of love. The three year old, who
had made this his first adventure upon it yielded up
his life. On either side of his body stood his

(10:16):
two rivals. They were gazing at the she wolf, who
sat smiling in the snow. But the elder leader was wise,
very wise in love. Even as in battle. The younger
leader turned his head to lick a wound on his shoulder.
The curve of his neck was turned toward his rival.
With his one eye. The elder saw the opportunity. He

(10:39):
darted in low and closed with his fangs. It was
a long, ripping slash and deep as well. His teeth
in passing burst the wall of the great vein of
the throat. Then he leaped clear. The young Leader snarled terribly,
but his snarl broke midmost into a tickling cough, bleeding

(11:00):
and coughing. Already stricken, he sprang at the elder and
fought while life faded from him, his legs going weak
beneath him, the light of day dulling on his eyes,
his blows and springs falling shorter and shorter, and all
the while the she wolf sat on her haunches and smiled.

(11:20):
She was made glad in vague ways by the battle,
for this was the love making of the wild, the
sex tragedy of the natural world. That was tragedy only
to those that died. To those that survived, it was
not tragedy but realization and achievement. When the Young Leader
lay in the snow and moved no more, one eye

(11:42):
stalked over to the she wolf, His carriage was one
of mingled triumph and caution. He was plainly expectant of
her rebuff, and he was just as plainly surprised when
her teeth did not flash out at him in anger.
For the first time. She met him with a kindly manner.
She sniffed noses with him, and even condescended to leap

(12:02):
about and frisk and play with him in quite puppyish fashion,
and he, for all his gray years and sage experience,
behaved quite as puppishly and even a little more foolishly.
Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the love tail
red written on the snow, forgotten, save once, when Old

(12:23):
one Eye stopped for a moment to lick his stiffening wounds.
Then it was that his lips half writhed into a snarl,
and the hair of his neck and shoulders involuntarily bristled
while he half crouched for a spring, his claws spasmodically
clutching into the snow surface for firmer footing. But it
was all forgotten the next moment as he sprang after

(12:45):
the she wolf, who was coyly leading him a chase
through the woods. After that they ran side by side,
like good friends who have come to an understanding. The
days passed by, and they kept together, hunting their meat
and killing and eating it in common. After a time,
the she wolf began to grow restless. She seemed to

(13:06):
be searching for something that she could not find. The
hollows under fallen trees seemed to attract her, and she
spent much time nosing about among the larger snow piled crevices,
in the rocks and in the caves of overhanging banks.
Old one Eye was not interested at all, but he
followed her good naturedly in her quest, and when her

(13:27):
investigations in particular places were unusually protracted, he would lie
down and wait until she was ready to go on.
They did not remain in one place, but traveled across
country until they regained the Mackenzie River, down which they
slowly went, leaving it often to hunt game along the
small streams that entered it, but always returning to it again.

(13:52):
Sometimes they chanced upon other wolves, usually in pairs, but
there was no friendliness of intercourse displayed on either side,
no gladness at meeting, no desire to return to the
pack formation. Several times they encountered solitary wolves. These were
always males, and they were pressingly insistent on joining with

(14:12):
One Eye and his mate. This he resented, and when
she stood shoulder to shoulder with him, bristling and showing
her teeth, the aspiring solitary ones would back off, turn tail,
and continue on their lonely way one moonlight night, running
through the quiet forest, one eye suddenly halted, His muzzle

(14:34):
went up, his tail stiffened, and his nostrils dilated as
he scented the air. One foot also he held up
after the manner of a dog. He was not satisfied,
and he continued to smell the air, striving to understand
the message borne upon it to him. One careless sniff
had satisfied his mate, and she trotted on to reassure him.

(14:58):
Though he followed her, he was still dubious, and he
could not forbear an occasional halt in order more carefully
to study the warning. She crept out cautiously on the
edge of a large open space in the midst of
the trees. For some time she stood alone. Then one
eye creeping and crawling, every sense on the alert, every

(15:20):
hair radiating infinite suspicion, joined her. They stood side by side,
watching and listening and smelling. To their ears came the
sounds of dogs, wrangling and scuffling, the guttural cries of men,
the sharper voices of scolding women, and once the shrill
and plaintive cry of a child. With the exception of

(15:42):
the huge bulks of the skin lodges. Little could be
seen save the flames of the fire, broken by the
movements of intervening bodies, and the smoke rising slowly on
the quiet air. But to their nostrils came the myriad
smells of an Indian camp, carrying a story that was
largely incomprehensible to one eye, but every detail of which

(16:05):
the she wolf knew. She was strangely stirred and sniffed,
and sniffed with an increasing delight. But old one eye
was doubtful. He betrayed his apprehension and started tentatively to go.
She turned and touched his neck with her muzzle in
a reassuring way, then regarded the camp again. A new

(16:25):
wistfulness was in her face, but it was not the
wistfulness of hunger. She was thrilling to a desire that
urged her to go forward, to being closer to that fire,
to be squabbling with the dogs, and to be avoiding
and dodging the stumbling feet of men. One eye moved
impatiently beside her. Her unrest came back upon her, and

(16:46):
she knew again her pressing need to find the thing
for which she searched, She turned and trotted back into
the forest, to the great relief of one eye, who
trotted the little to the fore until they were well
within the shelter of the tree. As they slid along,
noiseless as shadows in the moonlight, they came upon a runway.

(17:08):
Both noses went down to the footprints in the snow.
These footprints were very fresh. One eye ran ahead cautiously,
his mate at his heels. The broad pads of their
feet were spread wide, and in contact with the snow,
were like velvet. One eye caught sight of a dim
movement of white in the midst of the white. His

(17:28):
sliding gait had been deceptively swift, but it was as
nothing to the speed at which he now ran. Before
him was bounding the faint patch of white. He had discovered.
They were running along a narrow alley, flanked on either
side by a growth of young spruce. Through the trees.
The mouth of the alley could be seen opening out
on a moonlit glade. Old One eye was rapidly overhauling

(17:52):
the fleeing shape of white. Bound by bound he gained.
Now he was upon it. One leap more, and his
teeth would be sinking into it. But that leap was
never made high in the air, and straight up soared
the shape of white now a struggling snowshoe rabbit that
leaped and bounded, executing a fantastic dance there above him

(18:14):
in the air, and never once returning to earth. One
eye sprang back with a snort of sudden fright, then
shrank down to the snow and crouched, snarling threats at
this thing of fear he did not understand, but the
she wolf coolly thrust past him. She poised for a moment,
then sprang for the dancing rabbit. She too soared high,

(18:37):
but not so high as the quarry, and her teeth
clipped emptily together with a metallic snap. She made another leap,
and another. Her mate had slowly relaxed from his crouch
and was watching her. He now evinced displeasure at her
repeated failures, and himself made a mighty spring upward. His

(18:57):
teeth closed upon the rabbit, and he bore it back
to earth with him. But at the same time there
was a suspicious crackling movement beside him, and his astonished
eye saw a young spruce sapling bending down above him.
To strike him, his jaws let go their grip, and
he leaped backward to escape this strange danger, his lips
drawn back from his fangs, his throat snarling, every hair

(19:21):
bristling with rage and fright. And in that moment, the
sapling reared its slender length upright, and the rabbit's sword
dancing in the air again. The she wolf was angry.
She sank her fangs into her mate's shoulder in reproof,
and he frightened, unaware of what constituted this new onslaught,
struck back ferociously and in still greater fright, ripping down

(19:45):
the side of the she wolf's muzzle. For him to
resent such reproof was equally unexpected to her. She sprang
upon him in snarling indignation. Then he discovered his mistake
and tried to placate her, but she proceeded to roundly
until he gave over all attempts at placation and whirled
in a circle, his head away from her, his shoulders

(20:08):
receiving the punishment of her teeth. In the meantime, the
rabbit danced above them in the air. The she wolf
sat down in the snow, an old one eye now
more in fear of his mate than of the mysterious sapling,
again sprang for the rabbit. As he sank back with
it between his teeth, He kept his eye on the sapling,

(20:30):
as before it followed him back to earth. He crouched
down under the impending blow, his hair bristling, but his
teeth still keeping tight hold of the rabbit. But the
blow did not fall. The sapling remained bent above him.
When he moved, it moved, and he growled at it
to his clenched jaws. When he remained still, it remained still,

(20:53):
and he concluded it was safer to continue remaining still.
Yet the warm blood of the rabbit tasted good in
his mouth. It was his mate who relieved him from
the quandary in which he found himself. She took the
rabbit from him, and while the sapling swayed and teetered
threateningly above her, she calmly gnawed off the rabbit's head.

(21:15):
At once the sapling shot up, and after that gave
no more trouble, remaining in the decorous and perpendicular position
in which nature had intended it to grow. Then between them,
the she wolf and one eye devoured the game which
the mysterious sapling had caught for them. There were other
runways and alleys where rabbits were hanging in the air,

(21:37):
and the wolf pair prospected them all, the she wolf
leading the way, old one eye following, and observant, learning
the method of robbing snares, a knowledge destined to stand
him in good stead in the days to come. End
of Chapter one