Indian.
"So it would seem, Three Eagles," Grey 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
down submissively, while the hand, returning, rubbed behind his ears, and
up and down his back.
"This be the sign of it," Grey Beaver went on. "It is plain that his
mother is Kiche. 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. 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 man-animals continued to make their mouth-noises. Then Grey
Beaver took a knife from a sheath that hung around his neck, and 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 raw-hide.
One string he tied around the throat of Kiche. Then he led her to a
small pine, around which he tied the other string.
White Fang followed and lay down beside her. Salmon Tongue's hand
reached out to him and rolled him over on his back. Kiche 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. 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 with his four 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 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 a
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