moment his footing would be lost and he would be
dragging around in the whirl of one of White Fang's mad gyrations.
Cherokee identified himself with his instinct. He knew that he was doing
the right thing by holding on, and there came to him certain blissful
thrills of satisfaction. At such moments he even closed his eyes and
allowed his body to be hurled hither and thither, willy-nilly, careless
of any hurt that might thereby come to it. That did not count. The grip
was the thing, and the grip he kept.

White Fang ceased only when he had tired himself out. He could do
nothing, and he could not understand. Never, in all his fighting, had
this thing happened. The dogs he had fought with did not fight that way.
With them it was snap and slash and get away, snap and slash and get
away. He lay partly on his side, panting for breath. Cherokee still
holding his grip, urged against him, trying to get him over entirely on
his side. White Fang resisted, and he could feel the jaws shifting their
grip, slightly relaxing and coming together again in a chewing movement.
Each shift brought the grip closer to his throat. The bull-dog's method
was to hold what he had, and when opportunity favoured to work in for
more. Opportunity favoured when White Fang remained quiet. When White
Fang struggled, Cherokee was content merely to hold on.

The bulging back of Cherokee's neck was the only portion of his body that
White Fang's teeth could reach. He got hold toward the base where the
neck comes out from the shoulders; but he did not know the chewing method
of fighting, nor were his jaws adapted to it. He spasmodically ripped
and tore with his fangs for a space. Then a change in their position
diverted him. The bull-dog had managed to roll him over on his back, and
still hanging on to his throat, was on top of him. Like a cat, White
Fang bowed his hind-quarters in, and, with the feet digging into his
enemy's abdomen above him, he began to claw with long tearing-strokes.
Cherokee might well have been disembowelled had he not quickly pivoted on
his grip and got his body off of White Fang's and at right angles to it.

There was no escaping that grip. It was like Fate itself, and as
inexorable. Slowly it shifted up along the jugular. All that saved
White Fang from death was the loose skin of his neck and the thick fur
that covered it. This served to form a large roll in Cherokee's mouth,
the fur of which well-nigh defied hi