in the early
morning, he came upon a chicken that had escaped from the chicken-yard.
White Fang's natural impulse was to eat it. A couple of bounds, a flash
of teeth and a frightened squawk, and he had scooped in the adventurous
fowl. It was farm-bred and fat and tender; and White Fang licked his
chops and decided that such fare was good.

Later in the day, he chanced upon another stray chicken near the stables.
One of the grooms ran to the rescue. He did not know White Fang's breed,
so for weapon he took a light buggy-whip. At the first cut of the whip,
White Fang left the chicken for the man. A club might have stopped White
Fang, but not a whip. Silently, without flinching, he took a second cut
in his forward rush, and as he leaped for the throat the groom cried out,
"My God!" and staggered backward. He dropped the whip and shielded his
throat with his arms. In consequence, his forearm was ripped open to the
bone.

The man was badly frightened. It was not so much White Fang's ferocity
as it was his silence that unnerved the groom. Still protecting his
throat and face with his torn and bleeding arm, he tried to retreat to
the barn. And it would have gone hard with him had not Collie appeared
on the scene. As she had saved Dick's life, she now saved the groom's.
She rushed upon White Fang in frenzied wrath. She had been right. She
had known better than the blundering gods. All her suspicions were
justified. Here was the ancient marauder up to his old tricks again.

The groom escaped into the stables, and White Fang backed away before
Collie's wicked teeth, or presented his shoulder to them and circled
round and round. But Collie did not give over, as was her wont, after a
decent interval of chastisement. On the contrary, she grew more excited
and angry every moment, until, in the end, White Fang flung dignity to
the winds and frankly fled away from her across the fields.

"He'll learn to leave chickens alone," the master said. "But I can't
give him the lesson until I catch him in the act."

Two nights later came the act, but on a more generous scale than the
master had anticipated. White Fang had observed closely the
chicken-yards and the habits of the chickens. In the night-time, after
they had gone to roost, he climbed to the top of a pile of newly hauled
lumber. From there he gained the roof of a chicken-house, passed over
the ridgepole and dropped to the ground inside. A moment later he w