o fear the Wild
out of which they had come, and which they had deserted and betrayed.
Generation by generation, down all the generations, had this fear of the
Wild been stamped into their natures. For centuries the Wild had stood
for terror and destruction. And during all this time free licence had
been theirs, from their masters, to kill the things of the Wild. In
doing this they had protected both themselves and the gods whose
companionship they shared.

And so, fresh from the soft southern world, these dogs, trotting down the
gang-plank and out upon the Yukon shore had but to see White Fang to
experience the irresistible impulse to rush upon him and destroy him.
They might be town-reared dogs, but the instinctive fear of the Wild was
theirs just the same. Not alone with their own eyes did they see the
wolfish creature in the clear light of day, standing before them. They
saw him with the eyes of their ancestors, and by their inherited memory
they knew White Fang for the wolf, and they remembered the ancient feud.

All of which served to make White Fang's days enjoyable. If the sight of
him drove these strange dogs upon him, so much the better for him, so
much the worse for them. They looked upon him as legitimate prey, and as
legitimate prey he looked upon them.

Not for nothing had he first seen the light of day in a lonely lair and
fought his first fights with the ptarmigan, the weasel, and the lynx. And
not for nothing had his puppyhood been made bitter by the persecution of
Lip-lip and the whole puppy pack. It might have been otherwise, and he
would then have been otherwise. Had Lip-lip not existed, he would have
passed his puppyhood with the other puppies and grown up more doglike and
with more liking for dogs. Had Grey Beaver possessed the plummet of
affection and love, he might have sounded the deeps of White Fang's
nature and brought up to the surface all manner of kindly qualities. But
these things had not been so. The clay of White Fang had been moulded
until he became what he was, morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious,
the enemy of all his kind.

CHAPTER II--THE MAD GOD

A small number of white men lived in Fort Yukon. These men had been long
in the country. They called themselves Sour-doughs, and took great pride
in so classifying themselves. For other men, new in the land, they felt
nothing but disdain. The men who came ashore from the steamers were
newcomers. They were k