. Here, in the abandoned lair, he
settled down and rested for a day.

During the early summer, in the last days of the famine, he met Lip-lip,
who had likewise taken to the woods, where he had eked out a miserable
existence.

White Fang came upon him unexpectedly. Trotting in opposite directions
along the base of a high bluff, they rounded a corner of rock and found
themselves face to face. They paused with instant alarm, and looked at
each other suspiciously.

White Fang was in splendid condition. His hunting had been good, and for
a week he had eaten his fill. He was even gorged from his latest kill.
But in the moment he looked at Lip-lip his hair rose on end all along his
back. It was an involuntary bristling on his part, the physical state
that in the past had always accompanied the mental state produced in him
by Lip-lip's bullying and persecution. As in the past he had bristled
and snarled at sight of Lip-lip, so now, and automatically, he bristled
and snarled. He did not waste any time. The thing was done thoroughly
and with despatch. Lip-lip essayed to back away, but White Fang struck
him hard, shoulder to shoulder. Lip-lip was overthrown and rolled upon
his back. White Fang's teeth drove into the scrawny throat. There was a
death-struggle, during which White Fang walked around, stiff-legged and
observant. Then he resumed his course and trotted on along the base of
the bluff.

One day, not long after, he came to the edge of the forest, where a
narrow stretch of open land sloped down to the Mackenzie. He had been
over this ground before, when it was bare, but now a village occupied it.
Still hidden amongst the trees, he paused to study the situation. Sights
and sounds and scents were familiar to him. It was the old village
changed to a new place. But sights and sounds and smells were different
from those he had last had when he fled away from it. There was no
whimpering nor wailing. Contented sounds saluted his ear, and when he
heard the angry voice of a woman he knew it to be the anger that proceeds
from a full stomach. And there was a smell in the air of fish. There
was food. The famine was gone. He came out boldly from the forest and
trotted into camp straight to Grey Beaver's tepee. Grey Beaver was not
there; but Kloo-kooch welcomed him with glad cries and the whole of a
fresh-caught fish, and he lay down to wait Grey Beaver's coming.

PART IV

CHAPTER I--THE ENEMY OF H