White Fang by Jack London - Part 3, Chapter 1 - The Makers of Fire

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Part three, Chapter one of White Fang, presented by Dream
Audio Books. White Fang by Jack London, Part three, Chapter one,
The Makers of Fire. The Cub came upon it suddenly.
It was his own fault. He had been careless. He

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had left the cave and run down to the stream
to drink. It might have been that he took no
notice because he was heavy with sleep. He had been
out all night on the meat trail and had but
just then awakened, And his carelessness might have been due
to the familiarity of the trail to the pool. He
had traveled it often, and nothing had ever happened on it.

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He went down past the blasted pine, crossed the open space,
and trotted in amongst the trees. Then, at the same
instant he saw and smelt before him, sitting silently on
their haunches, were five live things, the like of which
he had never seen before. It was his first glimpse
of mankind. But at the sight of him, the five

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men did not spring to their feet, nor show their teeth,
nor snarl. They did not move, but sat there, silent
and ominous. Nor did the cub move. Every instinct of
his nature would have impelled him to dash wildly away,
had there not suddenly, and for the first time, arisen
in him another and counter instinct. A great awe descended

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upon him. He was beaten down to movelessness by an
overwhelming sense of his own weakness and littleness. Here was
mastery and power, something far and away beyond him. The
cub had never seen man, yet the instinct concerning man
was his. In dim ways, he recognized in man the
animal that had fought itself to primacy over the other

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animals of the wild, not alone out of his own eyes,
but out of the eyes of all his ancestors. Was
the cub now looking upon man, out of eyes that
had circled in the darkness around countless winter campfires, that
had peered from safe distances, and from the hearts of
thickets at the strange two legged animal that was lowered

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over living things. The spell of the cub's heritage was
upon him, the fear and the respect born of the
sentries of struggle and the accumulated experience of the generations.
The heritage was too compelling for a wolf that was
only a cub. Had he been full grown, he would
have run away. As it was, he cowered down in

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a paralysis of fear, already half proffering the submission that
his kind had proffered from the first time a wolf
came in to sit by man's fire and be made warm.
One of the Indians arose and walked over to him
and stooped above him. The cub cowered closer to the ground.
It was the unknown objectified at last in concrete flesh

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and blood, bending over him, and reached down to seize
hold of him. His hair bristled involuntarily, his lips writhed back,
and his little fangs were bared. The hand poised like
doom above him, hesitated, and the man spoke, laughing, Wabambiski, hippatah,

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Look the white fangs. The other Indians laughed loudly and
urged the men on to pick up the cub. As
the hand descended closer and closer, there raged within the
cub a battle of the instincts. He experienced two great
impulsions to yield and to fight. The resulting action was

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a compromise. He did both. He yielded till the hand
almost touched him. Then he fought, his teeth, flashing in
a snap that sank them into the hand. The next moment,
he received a cloud alongside the head that knocked him
over on his side. Then all fight fled out of him.
His puppy hood and the instinct of submission took charge

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of him. He sat up on his haunches and kay eyed,
but the man whose hand he had bitten was angry.
The cub received a clout on the other side of
his head, whereupon he sat up and kay eyed louder
than ever. The four Indians laughed more loudly, while even
the man who had been bitten began to laugh. They

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surrounded the cub and laughed at him while he wailed
out his terror and his hurt. In the midst of it,
he heard something. The Indians heard it too, but the
cub knew what it was, and with a last, long
wail that had in it more of triumph than grief,
he ceased his noise and waited for the coming of
his mother, Of his ferocious and indomitable mother, who fought

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and killed all things and was never afraid. She was
snarling as she ran. She had heard the cry of
her cub and was dashing to save him. She bounded
in amongst them, her anxious and militant motherhood, making her
anything but a pretty sight. But to the cub, the
spectacle of her protective rage was pleasing. He uttered a

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glad little cry and bounded to meet her, while the
man animals went back hastily several steps. The she wolf
stood over against her cub, facing the men, with bristling hair,
a snarl rumbling deep in her throat. Her face was
distorted and malignant with menace, even the bridge of the
nose wrinkling from tip to eyes, so prodigious was her snarl.

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Then it was that a cry went up from one
of the men. Kee chey was what he uttered. It
was an exclamation of surprise. The cub felt his mother
wilting at the sound. Kee chay. The man cried again,
and this time with sharpness and authority. And then the
cub saw his mother, the she wolf, the fearless one,

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crouching down till her belly touched the ground, whimpering, wagging
her tail, making peace signs. Cub could not understand. He
was appalled. The awe of man rushed over him again.
His instinct had been true. His mother verified it. She too,
rendered submission to the man animals. The man who had spoken,

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came over to her. He put his hand upon her head,
and she only crouched closer. She did not snap, nor
threaten to snap. The other men came up and surrounded
her and felt her and pawed her, which actions she
made no attempt to resent. They were greatly excited and
made many noises with their mouths. These noises were not

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indication of danger, the cub decided, as he crouched near
his mother, still bristling from time to time, but doing
his best to submit. It is not strange. An Indian
was saying her father was a wolf. It is true
her mother was a dog, But did not my brother
tie her out in the woods all of three nights

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in the mating sea. Reason, therefore, was the father of
Kiche a wolf. It is a year, gray beaver, since
she ran away, spoke a second Indian. It is not strange,
salmon tungue. Gray Beaver answered. It was the time of
the famine, and there was no meat for the dogs.

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She has lived with the wolves, said a third Indian.
So it would seem three eagles, gray Beaver answered, laying
his hand on the cub, And this be the sign
of it. The cub snarled a little at the touch
of the hand, and the hand flew back to administer
a clout, whereupon the cub covered its fangs and sank

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down submissively, while the hand returning rubbed behind his ears
and up and down his back. This be the sign
of it, gray Beaver went on. It is plain that
his mother is kee che But this father was a wolf.
Wherefore is there in him little dog and much wolf?
His fangs be white, and white fang shall be his name.

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I have spoken, he is my dog, for was not
kiche my brother's dog, and is not my brother dead.
The cub, who had thus received a name in the world,
lay and watched for a time. The men animals continued
to make their mouth noises. Then Gray Beaver took a
knife from a sheath that hung around his neck and

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went into the thicket and cut a stick. White Fang
watched him. He notched the stick at each end, and
in the notches fastened strings of rawhide. One string he
tied around the throat of Kichey. Then he led her
to a small pine, around which he tied the other string.
White Fang followed and lay down beside her. Samon Tung's

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hand reached out to him and rolled him over on
his back. Kit Chey looked on anxiously. White Fang felt
fear mounting in him. Again. He could not quite suppress
a snarl, but he made no offer to snap. The hand,
with fingers crooked and spread apart, rubbed his stomach in
a playful way and rolled him from side to side.

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It was ridiculous and ungainly, lying there on his back
with legs sprawling in the air. Besides, it was a
position of such utter helplessness that White Fang's whole nature
revolted against it. He could do nothing to defend himself.
If this man animal intended harm, White Fang knew that
he could not escape it. How could he spring away

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with his fore legs in the air above him. Yet
submission made him master his fear, and he only growled softly.
This growl he could not suppress, nor did the man
animal resent it by giving him a blow on the head.
And furthermore, such was the strangeness of it, White Fang
experienced an unaccountable sensation of pleasure as the hand rubbed

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back and forth. When he was rolled on his side,
he ceased to growl. When the fingers pressed and prodded
at the base of his ears, the pleasurable sensation increased,
And when with a final rub and scratch, the man
left him alone and went away, all fear had died
out of White Fang. He was to no fear many

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times in his dealing with man. Yet it was a
token of the fearless companionship with man that was ultimately
to be his. After a time, White Fang heard strange
noises approaching. He was quick in his classification, for he
knew them at once, for man animal noises. A few
minutes later, the remainder of the tribe strung out as

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it was on the march trailed in. There were more men,
and many women and children, forty souls of them, and
all heavily burdened with camp equipage and outfit. Also there
were many dogs, and these, with the exception of the
part grown puppies, were likewise burdened with camp outfit on
their backs in bags that fastened tightly around underneath. The

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dogs carried from twenty to thirty pounds of weight. White
Fang had never seen dogs before, but at sight of
them he felt that they were his own kind. Only
somehow different, but they displayed little difference from the wolf.
When they discovered the cub and his mother, there was
a rush. White fang bristled and snarled and snapped in

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the face of the open mouthed oncoming wave of dogs,
and went down and under them, feeling the sharp slash
of teeth in his body, himself biting and tearing at
the legs and bellies. Above him, there was a great uproar.
He could hear the snarl of Keeche as she fought
for him, and he could hear the cries of the
man animals, the sound of clubs striking upon bodies, and

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the yelps of pain from the dogs. So struck, only
a few seconds elapsed before he was on his feet again.
He could now see the man animals driving back the
dogs with clubs and stones, defend him, saving him from
the savage teeth of his kind that somehow was not
his kind. And though there was no reason in his

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brain for a clear conception of so abstract a thing
as justice, nevertheless, in his own way, he felt the
justice of the man animals, and he knew them for
what they were, makers of law and executors of law. Also,
he appreciated the power with which they administered the law.

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Unlike any animals he had ever encountered, they did not
bite nor claw. They enforced their live strength with the
power of dead things. Dead things did their bidding. Thus,
sticks and stones, directed by these strange creatures, leaped through
the air like living things, inflicting grievous hurts upon the dogs.

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To his mind, this was power, unusual, power, inconceivable and
beyond the natural power that was godlike. White Fang, in
the very nature of him, could never know anything about gods.
At the best, he could know only things that were
beyond knowing. But the wonder in awe that he had

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of these man animals in ways resembled what would be
the wonder and awe of man at sight of some
celestial creature on a mountaintop, hurling thunderbolts from either hand
at an astonished world. The last dog had been driven back,
the hubbub died down, and White Fang licked his hurts

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and meditated upon this his first taste of pack cruelty
and his introduction to the pack. He had never dreamed
that his own kind consisted of more than one eye.
His mother and himself. They had constituted a kind of part.
And here, abruptly he had discovered many more creatures, apparently

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of his own kind. And there was a subconscious resentment
that these his kind, at first sight, had pitched upon
him and tried to destroy him. In the same way
he resented his mother being tied with a stick, even
though it was done by the superior man animals. It
savored of the trap of bondage. Yet of the trap

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and of bondage he knew nothing. Freedom to roam and
run and lie down at will had been his heritage,
and here it was being infringed upon. His Mother's movements
were restricted to the length of a stick, And by
the length of that same stick was he restricted, for
he had not yet got beyond the need of his
mother's side. He did not like it, nor did he

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like it when the man animals arose and went on
with their march, for a tiny man animal took the
other end of the stick and led Kiche captive behind him.
And behind Keetchey followed White Fang, greatly perturbed and worried
by this new adventure he had entered upon, they went
down the valley of the stream far beyond White Fang's

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whitest r raging until they came to the end of
the valley, where the stream ran into the Mackenzie River.
Here where canoes were cached on poles high in the air,
and where stood fish racks for the drying of fish,
camp was made, and White Fang looked on with wondering eyes.
The superiority of these man animals increased with every moment.

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There was their mastery over all, these sharp fanged dogs.
It breathed of power. But greater than that to the
wolf cub was their mastery over things not alive, their
capacity to communicate motion to unmoving things, their capacity to
change the very face of the world. It was this

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last that especially affected him. The elevation of frames of
poles caught his eye. Yet this in itself was not
so remarkable, being done by the same creatures that flung
sticks and stones to great distances. But when the frames
of poles were made ate into teepees by being covered
with cloth and skins, White Fang was astounded. It was

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the colossal bulk of them that impressed him. They arose
around him on every side like some monstrous, quick growing
form of life. They occupied nearly the whole circumference of
his field of vision. He was afraid of them. They
loomed ominously above him, and when the breeze stirred them
into huge movements, he cowered down in fear, keeping his

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eyes warily upon them, and prepared to spring away if
they attempted to precipitate themselves upon him. But in a
short while his fear of the teepees passed away. He
saw the women and children passing in and out of
them without harm, and he saw the dogs trying often
to get into them, at being driven away with sharp
words and flying stones. After a time, he left kit

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Chey's side and crawled cautiously toward the wall of the
nearest teepee. It was the curiosity of growth that urged
him on the necessity of learning and living, and doing
that brings experience. The last few inches to the wall
of the teepee were crawled with painful slowness and precaution.
The day's events had prepared him for the unknown to

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manifest itself in most stupendous and unthinkable ways. At last
his nose touched the canvas. He waited, nothing happened. Then
he smelled the strange fabric saturated with the man's smell.
He closed on the canvas with his teeth and gave
a gentle tug. Nothing happened, though the adjacent portions of

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the teep he moved. He tugged harder. There was a
greater movement. It was delightful. He tugged still harder and
repeatedly until the whole teepe was in motion. Then the
sharp cry of a squaw inside sent him scampering back
to Keeche, And after that he was afraid no more
of the looming bulks of the teepees. A moment later

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he was straying away again from his mother. Her stick
was tied to a peg in the ground, and she
could not follow him. A part grown puppy somewhat larger
and older than he came toward him, slowly, with ostentatious
and belligerent importance. The puppy's name, as White Fang was
afterward to hear him called, was lip Lip. He had

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had experience in puppy fights and was already something of
a bully. Lip Lip was Whitefang's own kind, and being
only a puppy, did not seem dangerous. So White Fang
prepared to meet him in a friendly spirit, but when
the stranger's walk became stiff legged and his lips lifted
clear of his teeth, White Fang stiffened too and answered

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with lifted lips. They half circled about each other, tentatively
snarling and bristling. This lasted several minutes, and White Fang
was beginning to enjoy it as a sort of game.
But suddenly, with remarkable swiftness, lip Lip leaped in, delivering
a slashing snap, and leaped away again. The snap had

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taken effect on the shoulder that had been hurt by
the lynx, and that was still sore deep down near
the bone. The surprise and hurd of it brought a
yelp out of White Fang, but the next moment, in
a rush of anger, he was upon lip Lip and
snapping viciously. But lip Lip had lived his life in
camp and had fought many puppy fights. Three times, four times,

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and half a dozen times. His sharp little teeth scored
on the newcomer until White Fang, yelping, shamelessly fled to
the protection of his mother. It was the first of
the many fights he was to have with Lip lip,
for they were enemies from the start, born so with
nature's destined perpetually to clash. Kee Chey licked White Fang

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soothingly with her tongue and tried to veil upon him
to remain with her. But his curiosity was rampant, and
several minutes later he was venturing forth on a new quest.
He came upon one of the man animals, gray Beaver,
who was squatting on his hands and doing something with
sticks and dry moss spread before him on the ground.

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White Fang came near to him and watched. Gray Beaver
made mouth noises, which White Fang interpreted as not hostile,
so he came still nearer. Women and children were carrying
more sticks and branches to gray Beaver. It was evidently
an affair of moment. White Fang came in until he
touched gray Beaver's knee. So curious was he, and already

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forgetful that this was a terrible man animal. Suddenly he
saw a strange thing like mist beginning to arise from
the sticks and moss beneath gray Beaver's hands. Then amongst
the sticks themselves appeared a live thing, twisting and turning
of a color like the color of the sun in
the sky. White Fang knew nothing about fire. It drew

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him as the light in the mouth of the cave
had drawn him in his early puppyhood. He crawled the
several steps toward the flame. He heard Gray Beaver chuckle
above him, and he knew the sound was not hostile.
Then his nose touched the flame, and at the same
instant his little tongue went out to it. For a

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moment he was paralyzed. The unknown lurking in the midst
of the sticks and moss was savagely clutching him by
the nose. He scrambled backward, bursting out in an astonished
explosion of kayas at the sound. Kee Chey leaped snarling
to the end of her stick, and there raged terribly
because she could not come to his aid. But Gray

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Beaver laughed loudly and slapped his thighs, and told the
happening to all the rest of the camp, till everybody
was laughing uproariously. But White Fang sat on his haunches,
and kaiyed and cut a forlorn, impitiable little figure in
the midst of the man animals. It was the worst

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hurt he had ever known. Both nose and tongue had
been scorched by the live thing sun colored that had
grown up under Gray Beaver's hands. He cried and cried interminably,
and every fresh whale was greeted by bursts of laughter
on the part of the man animals. He tried to
soothe his nose with his tongue, but the tongue was

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burnt too, and the two herts, coming together, produced greater hurt,
whereupon he cried more hopelessly and helplessly than ever, And
then shame came to him. He knew laughter and the
meaning of it. It has not given us to know
how some animals know laughter and know when they are
being laughed at, But it was this way that White

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Fang knew it, and he felt shame that the man
animals should be laughing at him. He turned and fled away,
not from the hurt of the fire, but from the
laughter that sank even deeper and hurt in the spirit
of him. And he fled to Kiche, raging at the
end of her stick, like an animal gone mad. To Kiche,

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the one creature in the world who was not laughing
at him. Twilight drew down, and night came on, and
White Fang lay by his mother's side, his nose and
tongue still hurt, but he was perplexed by a greater trouble.
He was homesick. He felt a vacancy in him, a
need for the hush and quietude of the stream and

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the cave in the cliff. Life had become too populous.
There were so many of the man animals, men, women
and children, all making noises and irritations. And there were
the dogs, ever, squabbling in bickering, bursting into uproars, and
creating confusions. The RESTful loneliness of the only life he

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had known was gone. Here. The very air was palpitant
with life. It hummed him, uzzed unceasingly, continually changing its
intensity and abruptly variant in pitch. It impinged on his
nerves and senses, made him nervous and restless, and worried
him with a perpetual imminence of happening. He watched the

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man animals coming and going and moving about the camp
in fashion distantly resembling the way men look upon the
gods they create. So looked White Fang upon the man
animals before him, They were superior creatures of a verity,
gods to his dim comprehension. They were as much wonder
workers as gods are to men. They were creatures of mastery,

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possessing all manner of unknown and impossible potencies overlords of
the alive and the not alive, making obey that which moved,
imparting movement to that which did not move, and making
life sun colored, and biting life to grow out of
dead moss and wood. They were fire makers. They were gods.

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End of Chapter one