o sleds
in the Southland, nor did dogs pack burdens on their backs. So he
rendered fealty in the new way, by running with the master's horse. The
longest day never played White Fang out. His was the gait of the wolf,
smooth, tireless and effortless, and at the end of fifty miles he would
come in jauntily ahead of the horse.

It was in connection with the riding, that White Fang achieved one other
mode of expression--remarkable in that he did it but twice in all his
life. The first time occurred when the master was trying to teach a
spirited thoroughbred the method of opening and closing gates without the
rider's dismounting. Time and again and many times he ranged the horse
up to the gate in the effort to close it and each time the horse became
frightened and backed and plunged away. It grew more nervous and excited
every moment. When it reared, the master put the spurs to it and made it
drop its fore-legs back to earth, whereupon it would begin kicking with
its hind-legs. White Fang watched the performance with increasing
anxiety until he could contain himself no longer, when he sprang in front
of the horse and barked savagely and warningly.

Though he often tried to bark thereafter, and the master encouraged him,
he succeeded only once, and then it was not in the master's presence. A
scamper across the pasture, a jackrabbit rising suddenly under the
horse's feet, a violent sheer, a stumble, a fall to earth, and a broken
leg for the master, was the cause of it. White Fang sprang in a rage at
the throat of the offending horse, but was checked by the master's voice.

"Home! Go home!" the master commanded when he had ascertained his
injury.

White Fang was disinclined to desert him. The master thought of writing
a note, but searched his pockets vainly for pencil and paper. Again he
commanded White Fang to go home.

The latter regarded him wistfully, started away, then returned and whined
softly. The master talked to him gently but seriously, and he cocked his
ears, and listened with painful intentness.

"That's all right, old fellow, you just run along home," ran the talk.
"Go on home and tell them what's happened to me. Home with you, you
wolf. Get along home!"

White Fang knew the meaning of "home," and though he did not understand
the remainder of the master's language, he knew it was his will that he
should go home. He turned and trotted reluctantly away. Then he
stopped, undecided, and looke