ear to the gods for protection, White
Fang disdained such protection. He walked boldly about the camp,
inflicting punishment in the night for what he had suffered in the day.
In the time before he was made leader of the team, the pack had learned
to get out of his way. But now it was different. Excited by the day-
long pursuit of him, swayed subconsciously by the insistent iteration on
their brains of the sight of him fleeing away, mastered by the feeling of
mastery enjoyed all day, the dogs could not bring themselves to give way
to him. When he appeared amongst them, there was always a squabble. His
progress was marked by snarl and snap and growl. The very atmosphere he
breathed was surcharged with hatred and malice, and this but served to
increase the hatred and malice within him.

When Mit-sah cried out his command for the team to stop, White Fang
obeyed. At first this caused trouble for the other dogs. All of them
would spring upon the hated leader only to find the tables turned. Behind
him would be Mit-sah, the great whip singing in his hand. So the dogs
came to understand that when the team stopped by order, White Fang was to
be let alone. But when White Fang stopped without orders, then it was
allowed them to spring upon him and destroy him if they could. After
several experiences, White Fang never stopped without orders. He learned
quickly. It was in the nature of things, that he must learn quickly if
he were to survive the unusually severe conditions under which life was
vouchsafed him.

But the dogs could never learn the lesson to leave him alone in camp.
Each day, pursuing him and crying defiance at him, the lesson of the
previous night was erased, and that night would have to be learned over
again, to be as immediately forgotten. Besides, there was a greater
consistence in their dislike of him. They sensed between themselves and
him a difference of kind--cause sufficient in itself for hostility. Like
him, they were domesticated wolves. But they had been domesticated for
generations. Much of the Wild had been lost, so that to them the Wild
was the unknown, the terrible, the ever-menacing and ever warring. But
to him, in appearance and action and impulse, still clung the Wild. He
symbolised it, was its personification: so that when they showed their
teeth to him they were defending themselves against the powers of
destruction that lurked in the shadows of the forest and in the dark
beyond