IS KIND

Had there been in White Fang's nature any possibility, no matter how
remote, of his ever coming to fraternise with his kind, such possibility
was irretrievably destroyed when he was made leader of the sled-team. For
now the dogs hated him--hated him for the extra meat bestowed upon him by
Mit-sah; hated him for all the real and fancied favours he received;
hated him for that he fled always at the head of the team, his waving
brush of a tail and his perpetually retreating hind-quarters for ever
maddening their eyes.

And White Fang just as bitterly hated them back. Being sled-leader was
anything but gratifying to him. To be compelled to run away before the
yelling pack, every dog of which, for three years, he had thrashed and
mastered, was almost more than he could endure. But endure it he must,
or perish, and the life that was in him had no desire to perish out. The
moment Mit-sah gave his order for the start, that moment the whole team,
with eager, savage cries, sprang forward at White Fang.

There was no defence for him. If he turned upon them, Mit-sah would
throw the stinging lash of the whip into his face. Only remained to him
to run away. He could not encounter that howling horde with his tail and
hind-quarters. These were scarcely fit weapons with which to meet the
many merciless fangs. So run away he did, violating his own nature and
pride with every leap he made, and leaping all day long.

One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that
nature recoil upon itself. Such a recoil is like that of a hair, made to
grow out from the body, turning unnaturally upon the direction of its
growth and growing into the body--a rankling, festering thing of hurt.
And so with White Fang. Every urge of his being impelled him to spring
upon the pack that cried at his heels, but it was the will of the gods
that this should not be; and behind the will, to enforce it, was the whip
of cariboo-gut with its biting thirty-foot lash. So White Fang could
only eat his heart in bitterness and develop a hatred and malice
commensurate with the ferocity and indomitability of his nature.

If ever a creature was the enemy of its kind, White Fang was that
creature. He asked no quarter, gave none. He was continually marred and
scarred by the teeth of the pack, and as continually he left his own
marks upon the pack. Unlike most leaders, who, when camp was made and
the dogs were unhitched, huddled n