deeps in his nature which
had never been sounded. A kind word, a caressing touch of the hand, on
the part of Grey Beaver, might have sounded these deeps; but Grey Beaver
did not caress, nor speak kind words. It was not his way. His primacy
was savage, and savagely he ruled, administering justice with a club,
punishing transgression with the pain of a blow, and rewarding merit, not
by kindness, but by withholding a blow.

So White Fang knew nothing of the heaven a man's hand might contain for
him. Besides, he did not like the hands of the man-animals. He was
suspicious of them. It was true that they sometimes gave meat, but more
often they gave hurt. Hands were things to keep away from. They hurled
stones, wielded sticks and clubs and whips, administered slaps and
clouts, and, when they touched him, were cunning to hurt with pinch and
twist and wrench. In strange villages he had encountered the hands of
the children and learned that they were cruel to hurt. Also, he had once
nearly had an eye poked out by a toddling papoose. From these
experiences he became suspicious of all children. He could not tolerate
them. When they came near with their ominous hands, he got up.

It was in a village at the Great Slave Lake, that, in the course of
resenting the evil of the hands of the man-animals, he came to modify the
law that he had learned from Grey Beaver: namely, that the unpardonable
crime was to bite one of the gods. In this village, after the custom of
all dogs in all villages, White Fang went foraging, for food. A boy was
chopping frozen moose-meat with an axe, and the chips were flying in the
snow. White Fang, sliding by in quest of meat, stopped and began to eat
the chips. He observed the boy lay down the axe and take up a stout
club. White Fang sprang clear, just in time to escape the descending
blow. The boy pursued him, and he, a stranger in the village, fled
between two tepees to find himself cornered against a high earth bank.

There was no escape for White Fang. The only way out was between the two
tepees, and this the boy guarded. Holding his club prepared to strike,
he drew in on his cornered quarry. White Fang was furious. He faced the
boy, bristling and snarling, his sense of justice outraged. He knew the
law of forage. All the wastage of meat, such as the frozen chips,
belonged to the dog that found it. He had done no wrong, broken no law,
yet here was this boy preparing to give him