White Fang by Jack London - Part 3, Chapter 5 - The Covenant

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part three, Chapter five of White Fang, presented by Dream
Audio Books. White Fang by Jack London, Part three, Chapter five,
The Covenant. When December was well along, Gray Beaver went
on a journey up the Mackenzie. Mitza and Klukouch went

(00:22):
with him. Once led, he drove himself, drawn by dogs
he had traded for or borrowed. A second and smaller
seed was driven by Mitsa, and this was harnessed a
team of puppies. It was more of a toy affair
than anything else. Yet it was the delight of Mitsa,
who felt that he was beginning to do a man's
work in the world. Also, he was learning to drive

(00:44):
dogs and to train dogs, while the puppies themselves were
being broken into 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
over much. The first placing of the harness upon himself.

(01:05):
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

(01:27):
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 to boggan with upturned

(01:49):
forward end to keep it from plowing 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 crisp, still powder, and very soft. Observing the
same principle of whitest distribution of weight, the dogs, at
the ends of their ropes radiated fan fashion from the

(02:10):
nose of the sled, so that no dog trod at
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

(02:31):
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 traveled, the faster could
the dog attacked run away. Thus the dog behind could

(02:53):
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 cutting in direction did man
increase his mastery over the beasts. Mitza resembled his father,
much of whose gray wisdom he possessed. In the past,

(03:17):
he had observed lip Lip's persecution of White Fang, but
at that time lip Lip was another man's dog, and
Mitzah 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 honor,

(03:40):
but in reality it took away from him all honor,
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 in fleeing hide and legs, a view far

(04:02):
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 sledge started, the team took after lip Lip in
a chase that extended throughout the day. At first, he

(04:26):
had been prone to turn upon his pursuers, jealous of
his dignity and wrathful, but at such times Mitza would
throw the stinging lash of the thirty foot caribou 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

(04:47):
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 unin in pursuit
of the leader. Mitsa favored him over the other dogs.
These favors aroused in them jealousy and hatred. In their presence,

(05:09):
Mitsa 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 Mitsah protected him. And
when there was no meat to give, Mitsao would keep
the team at a distance and make believe to give
meat to lip Lip. White Fang took kindly to the work.

(05:34):
He had traveled 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 depended on his kind for companionship. Besides,

(05:58):
Kiche was well nigh for goud gotten, and the chief
outlet of expression that remained to him was in the
allegiance he tendered the gods. He had accepted his masters.
So he worked hard, learned discipline, and was obedient. Faithfulness
and willingness characterized his toil. These are essential traits of
the wolf and the wild dog when they have become domesticated,

(06:21):
and these traits Whitefang 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
hundredfold the snaps and slashes they had given him in

(06:44):
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 Mitza or Gray Beever Klukouch. He did not
dare venture away from the gods. For now the fangs

(07:05):
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

(07:27):
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,

(07:48):
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.

(08:11):
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 in bleeding before they knew what had happened, were
whipped almost before they had begun to fight. As rigid

(08:31):
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

(08:54):
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

(09:16):
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

(09:37):
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

(09:57):
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,

(10:21):
a world in which caresses an 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 fiber

(10:45):
of White Fang's being that made his lordship a thing
to be desired. Elsie 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, word, a caressing touch of the hand
on the part of gray Beaver might have sounded these deeps.

(11:07):
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. So White Fang knew nothing

(11:29):
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 in whips, administered slaps and clouts, and

(11:52):
when they touched him, were cunning to hurt with pinch
and twist and wrench in strange villages. He had encountered
the hand of the children and learned that they were
cruel to hurt. Also, he at once nearly had an
eye poked out by a toddling papoose. From these experiences
he became suspicious of all children. He could not tolerate

(12:13):
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 Gray Beaver,
namely that the unpardonable crime was to bite one of

(12:34):
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

(12:55):
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 teepees to find himself cornered against a
high earth bank. There was no escape for Whitefang. The
only way out was between the two teepees, and this

(13:18):
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,

(13:40):
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 then at
his club hand had been ripped wide open by white

(14:02):
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 gray Beaver, behind whose protecting legs he crouched when
the bitten boy and the boy's family came demanding vengeance,

(14:24):
but they went away with vengeance unsatisfied. Gray Beaver defended
white Fang, so did Mitsa and Khlukuch. Whitefang, 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,

(14:45):
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 god. It was his privilege to resent
it with his teeth. And this also was a law
of the gods. Before the day was out, Whitefang was

(15:10):
to learn more about this law. Mitsa, 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 Mitza. It was going hard with him.
Blows were raining upon him from all sides, White Fang

(15:30):
looked on. At first, this was an affair of the
gods and no concern of his. Then he realized that
this was Mitza, 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

(15:51):
minutes later the landscape was covered with fleeing boys, many
of whom dripped blood upon the snow in token that
Whitefang's teeth had not been idle. When Mitzah told the
story in camp, gray Beaver ordered meat to be given
to Whitefang. He ordered much meat to be given, and
White Fang, gorged in sleepy by the fire, knew that

(16:12):
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 defense 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 gods was to be defended

(16:35):
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.

(16:55):
Duty rose above fear, and thieving gods learned to leave
gray 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

(17:17):
and gray Beaver coming to his aid, he came to
know that it was not fear of him that drove
the thief away, but fear of gray 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

(17:40):
other dogs, he was unusually fitted to guard his master's property,
and in this he was encouraged and trained by Gray 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.

(18:02):
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

(18:26):
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

(18:47):
what love was. He had no experience of love. Quetsche
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 Quirche again, he would not
desert his god to go with her. His allegiance to

(19:08):
mend seemed somehow a law of his being greater than
the love of liberty, of kind and kin, end of
Chapter five,