White Fang by Jack London - Part 3, Chapter 6 - The Famine

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Part three, Chapter six of White Fang, presented by Dream
Audio Books. White Fang by Jack London, Part three, Chapter six.
The famine, the spring of the year was at hand
when Gray Beaver finished his long journey. It was April,
and White Fang was a year old when he pulled

(00:23):
into the home villages and was loosened from the harness
by Mitsah. Though a long way from his full growth,
White Fang, next to lip Lip, was the largest yearling
in the village, both from his father, the Wolf and
from Keetchey. He had inherited stature and strength, and already
he was measuring up alongside the full grown dogs. But

(00:44):
he had not yet grown compact. His body was slender
and rangy, and his strength more stringy than massive. His
coat was the true wolf gray, and to all appearances
he was true wolf himself. The quarter strain of dog
he had inherited from Keeche had left no mark on
him physically, though it had played its part in his

(01:05):
mental make up. He wandered through the village, recognizing with
staid satisfaction the various gods he had known before the
long journey. Then there were the dogs, puppies growing up
like himself, and grown dogs that did not look so
large and formidable as the memory pictures he retained of them. Also,

(01:25):
he stood less in fear of them than formerly, stalking
among them with a certain careless ease that was as
new to him as it was enjoyable. There was Basik,
a grizzled old fellow that, in his younger days, had
but to uncover his fangs to send White Fang cringing
and crouching to the right about. From him, White Fang

(01:45):
had learned much of his own insignificance, and from him
he was now to learn much of the change in
development that had taken place in himself. While Bassie had
been growing weaker with age, white Fang had been growing
stronger with youth. It was at the cutting up of
a moose, fresh killed that White Fang learned of the

(02:06):
changed relations in which he stood to the dog world.
He had got for himself a hoof and part of
the shin bone, to which quite a bit of meat
was attached, withdrawn from the immediate scramble of the other dogs,
in fact, out of sight behind a thicket, he was
devouring his prize when Basik rushed in upon him. Before

(02:26):
he knew what he was doing. He had slashed the
intruder twice and sprung clear. Basique was surprised by the
other's temerity and swiftness of attack. He stood gazing stupidly
across at White Fang, the raw red shim bone between them.
Basik was old, and already he had come to know
the increasing valor of the dogs. It had been his

(02:48):
wont to bully bitter experiences, these which perforce he swallowed,
calling upon all his wisdom to cope with them. In
the old days he would have sprung upon white Fang
in a fury of righteous wrath. But now his waning
powers would not permit such a chorus. He bristled fiercely
and looked ominously across the shin bone at white fang,

(03:11):
and White Fang, resurrecting quite a deal of the old
awe seemed to wilt and to shrink in upon himself
and grow small, as he cast about in his mind
for a way to beat a retreat not too inglorious
and right here Basik aired. Had he contented himself with
looking fierce an ominous, all would have been well. White Fang,

(03:34):
on the verge of retreat, would have retreated, leaving the
meat to him, but Basik did not wait. He considered
the victory already his, and stepped forward to the meat.
As he bent his head carelessly to smell it, White
Fang bristled slightly. Even then, It was not too late
for Basik to retrieve the situation. Had he merely stood

(03:57):
over the meat, head up and glowering, White Fang would
ultimately have slunk away. But the fresh meat was strong
in Bassique's nostrils, and greed urged him to take a
bite of it. This was too much for White Fang.
Fresh upon his months of mastery over his own team mates,
it was beyond his self control to stand idly by

(04:18):
while another devoured the meat that belonged to him. He
struck after his custom without warning. With the first slash,
Basik's right ear was ripped into ribbons. He was astounded
at the suddenness of it. But more things, and most
grievous ones, were happening with equal suddenness. He was knocked

(04:38):
off his feet, his throat was bitten. While he was
struggling to his feet, the young dog sank teeth twice
into his shoulder. The swiftness of it was bewildering, he
made a futile rush at White Fang, clipping the empty
air with an outraged snap. The next moment, his nose
was laid open, and he was staggering backward away from

(04:59):
the meat. The situation was now reversed. White Fang stood
over the shin bone, bristling and menacing, while Basik stood
a little way off, preparing to retreat. He dared not
risk a fight with this young lightning flash. And again
he knew, and more bitterly, the enfeeblement of oncoming age.

(05:20):
His attempt to maintain his dignity was heroic, calmly, turning
his back upon young dog and shin bone, as though
both were beneath his notice and unworthy of his consideration.
He stalked grandly away, Nor until well out of sight
did he stop to lick his bleeding wounds. The effect
on White Fang was to give him a greater faith

(05:41):
in himself and a greater pride. He walked less softly
among the grown dogs. His attitude toward them was less compromising.
Not that he went out of his way looking for trouble,
far from it, but upon his way he demanded consideration.
He stood upon his right to go his way unmolested,

(06:01):
and to give trail to no dog he had to
be taken into account. That was all. He was no
longer to be disregarded and ignored, as was the lot
of puppies, and as continued to be the lot of
the puppies that were his teammates. They got out of
the way, gave trail to the grown dogs, and gave
up meat to them under compulsion. But White Fang, uncompanionable, solitary, morose,

(06:27):
scarcely looking to right or left, redoubtable forbidding of aspect
remote and alien, was accepted as an equal by his
puzzled elders. They quickly learned to leave him alone, neither
venturing hostile acts nor making overtures of friendliness. If they
left him alone, he left them alone, a state of

(06:48):
affairs that they found, after a few encounters, to be
pre eminently desirable. In midsummer, White Fang had an experience
trotting along an silent way to investigate a new teepee
which had been erected on the edge of the village
while he was away with the hunters after moose. He
came full upon kiche. He paused and looked at her.

(07:13):
He remembered her vaguely, but he remembered her, and that
was more than could be said for her. She lifted
her lip at him, and the old snarl of menace,
and his memory became clear, his forgotten cub hood. All
that was associated with that familiar snarl rushed back to him.
Before he had known the gods, she had been to him,

(07:36):
the center pin of the universe. The old familiar feelings
of that time came back upon him, surged up within him.
He bounded towards her joyously, and she met him with
shrewd fangs that laid his cheek open to the bone.
He did not understand. He backed away, bewildered and puzzled.

(07:57):
But it was not Kichey's fault. A wolf mother was
not made to remember her cubs of a year or
so before, so she did not remember White Fang. He
was a strange animal, an intruder, and her present litter
of puppies gave her the right to resent such intrusion.
One of the puppies sprawled up to White Fang. They

(08:18):
were half brothers, only they did not know it. White
Fang sniffed the puppy curiously, whereupon Keechay rushed upon him,
gashing his face a second time. He backed farther away.
All the old memories and associations died down again and
passed into the grave from which they had been resurrected.

(08:39):
He looked at Kiechay, licking her puppy and stopping now
and then to snarl at him. She was without value
to him. He had learned to get along without her.
Her meaning was forgotten. There was no place for her
in his scheme of things, as there was no place
for him in hers. He was still standing, stupid and bewildered,

(09:03):
the memories forgotten, wondering what it was all about. When
Kirche attacked him a third time, intent on driving him
away altogether from the vicinity, and White Fang allowed himself
to be driven away. This was a female of his kind,
and it was a law of his kind that the
males must not fight the females. He did not know

(09:25):
anything about this law, for it was no generalization of
the mind, not as something acquired by experience of the world.
He knew it as a secret prompting, as an urge
of instinct, of the same instinct that made him howl
at the moon and stars of nights, and it made
him fear death and the unknown. The months went by,

(09:47):
White Fang grew stronger, heavier, and more compact, while his
character was developing along the lines laid down by his
heredity and his environment. His heredity was a life stuff
that may be likened to clay. It possessed many possibilities,
was capable of being molded into many different forms. Environments

(10:08):
served to model the clay, to give it a particular form. Thus,
had White Fang never come into the fires of man,
the wild would have molded him into a true wolf.
But the gods had given him a different environment, and
he was molded into a dog that was rather wolfish.
But that was a dog and not a wolf. And so,

(10:31):
according to the clay of his nature and the pressure
of his surroundings, his character was being molded into a
certain particular shape. There was no escaping it. He was
becoming more morose, more uncompanionable, more solitary, more ferocious, while
the dogs were learning more and more that it was
better to be at peace with him than at war,

(10:52):
and Gray Beaver was coming to prize him more greatly.
With the passage of each day, White Fang, seeing to
sum up strength in all his qualities, nevertheless suffered from
one besetting weakness. He could not stand being laughed at.
The Laughter of men was a hateful thing. They might
laugh among themselves about anything they please, except himself, and

(11:16):
he did not mind. But the moment laughter was turned
upon him, he would fly into a most terrible rage, grave, dignified, somber.
A laugh made him frantic to ridiculousness. It so outraged
him and upset him that for hours he would behave
like a demon. And woe to the dog that at
such times ran foul of him. He knew the law

(11:39):
too well to take it out of gray Beaver. Behind
gray Beaver were a club and godhead. But behind the
dogs there was nothing but space, And into this space
they flew when White Fang came on the scene, made
mad by laughter. In the third year of his life,
there came a great famine to the Mackenzie Indians. In

(12:00):
the summer, the fish failed. In the winter, the caribou
forsook their accustomed track. Moose were scarce, the rabbits almost disappeared.
Hunting and praying animals perished, denied their usual food supply,
weakened by hunger, they fell upon and devoured one another.
Only the strong survived. White Fang's gods were always hunting animals.

(12:25):
The old and the weak of them died of hunger.
There was wailing in the village, where the women and
children went without, in order that what little they had
might go into the bellies of the lean and hollow
eyed hunters, who trod the forest in the vain pursuit
of meat. To such extremity were the gods driven that
they ate the soft tanned leather of their moccasins and mittens,

(12:48):
while the dogs ate the harnesses off their backs and
the very whiplashes. Also the dogs ate one another, and
also the gods ate the dogs. The weakest and the
more worthless were eaten first. The dogs that still lived
looked on and understood. A few of the boldest and
wisest forsook the fires of the gods, which had now

(13:09):
become a shambles, and fled into the forest, where in
the end they starved to death or were eaten by wolves.
In this time of misery, White Fang too stole away
into the woods. He was better fitted for the life
than the other dogs, for he had the training of
his cub hood to guide him. Especially adept did he

(13:31):
become in stalking small living things. He would lie concealed
for hours following every movement of a cautious tree squirrel,
waiting with the patience as huge as the hunger he
suffered from until the squirrel ventured out upon the ground.
Even then, white fang was not premature. He waited until

(13:51):
he was sure of striking, before the squirrel could gain
a tree refuge. Then, and not until then, would he
flash from his hiding place, a gray projectile, incredibly swift,
never failing its mark the fleeing squirrel that fled not
fast enough. Successful as he was with squirrels, there was

(14:11):
one difficulty that prevented him from living and growing fat
on them. There were not enough squirrels, so he was
driven to hunt still smaller things. So acute did his
hunger become at times that he was not above rooting
out wood mice from their burrows in the ground, Nor
did he scorn to do battle with a weasel as
hungry as himself and many times more ferocious. In the

(14:36):
worst pinches of the famine, he stole back to the
fires of the gods, But he did not go into
the fires. He lurked in the forest, avoiding discovery, and
robbing the snares at the rare intervals when game was caught.
He even robbed gray beaver's snare of a rabbit at
a time when gray beavers staggered and tottered through the forest,

(14:58):
sitting down often to rest, what of weakness and shortness
of breath. One day, White Fang encountered a young wolf,
gaunt and scrawny, loose jointed with famine. Had he not
been hungry himself, White Fang might have gone with him
and eventually found his way into the pack amongst his
wild brethren. As it was, he ran the young wolf

(15:20):
down and killed and aid him. Fortune seemed to favor
him always, when hardest pressed for food, he found something
to kill again. When he was weak. It was his
luck that none of the larger preying animals chanced upon him.
Thus he was strong from the two days eating a
lynx had afforded him. When the hungry wolf pack ran

(15:41):
full tilt upon him, it was a long cruel chase,
but he was better nourished than they, and in the
end out ran them. And not only did he outrun them,
but circling widely back on his track, he gathered in
one of his exhausted pursuers. After that, he left that
part of the country and journeyed over to the valley

(16:02):
wherein he had been born. Here in the old lair,
he encountered Kee Chey up to her old tricks. She
too had fled the inhospitable fires of the gods and
gone back to her old refuge to give birth to
her young. Of this litter, but one remained alive when
White Fang came upon the scene, and this one was

(16:23):
not destined to live long. Young life had little chance
in such a famine. Kee Chey's greeting of her grown
sun was anything but affectionate, but White Fang did not mind.
He had outgrown his mother, so he turned tale philosophically
and trotted on up the stream. At the forks, he

(16:43):
took the turning to the left, where he found the
lair of the Lynx, with whom his mother and he
had fought long before. Here in the abandoned lair, he
settled down and rested for a day. During the early summer,
in the last days of the famine, het at lip Lip,
who had likewise taken to the woods where he had
eked out a miserable existence. White Fang came upon him unexpectedly,

(17:09):
Trotting in opposite directions along the base of a high bluff.
They rounded a corner of rock and found themselves face
to face. They paused with instant alarm, and looked at
each other suspiciously. White Fang was in splendid condition. His
hunting had been good, and for a week he had
eaten his fill. He was even gorged from his latest kill.

(17:33):
But in the moment he looked at lip Lip, his
hair rose on end all along his back. It was
an involuntary bristling on his part, the physical state that
in the past had always accompanied the mental state produced
in him by lip Lip's bullying and persecution. As in
the past he had bristled and snarled at sight of
lip Lip, so now and automatically he bristled and snarled.

(17:57):
He did not waste any time. The thing was done
thoroughly and with dispatch. Lip Lip essayed to back away,
but White Fang struck him hard, shoulder to shoulder. Lip
Lip was overthrown and rolled upon his back. White Fang's
teeth drove into the scrawny throat. There was a death struggle,
during which White Fang walked around, stiff legged and observant.

(18:21):
Then he resumed his course and trotted on along the
base of the bluff. One day, not long after, he
came to the edge of the forest, where a narrow
stretch of open land sloped down to the Mackenzie. He
had been over this ground before when it was bare,
but now a village occupied it. Still hidden amongst the trees,

(18:42):
he paused to study the situation. Sights and sounds and
scents were familiar to him. It was the old village
changed to a new place, but sights and sounds and
smells were different from those he had last had when
he fled away from it. There was no whimpering nor wailing.
Contented sounds saluted his ear, and when he heard the

(19:04):
angry voice of a woman, he knew it to be
the anger that proceeds from a full stomach. And there
was a smell in the air of fish. There was food.
The famine was gone. He came out boldly from the
forest and trotted into camp, straight to gray Beaver's teepee.
Gray Beaver was not there, but Klukuch welcomed him with

(19:24):
glad cries and the whole of a fresh caught fish,
and he lay down to wait Gray Beaver's coming. End
of chapter six