endence on man had been set upon him
in that early day when he turned his back on the Wild and crawled to Grey
Beaver's feet to receive the expected beating. This seal had been
stamped upon him again, and ineradicably, on his second return from the
Wild, when the long famine was over and there was fish once more in the
village of Grey Beaver.

And so, because he needed a god and because he preferred Weedon Scott to
Beauty Smith, White Fang remained. In acknowledgment of fealty, he
proceeded to take upon himself the guardianship of his master's property.
He prowled about the cabin while the sled-dogs slept, and the first night-
visitor to the cabin fought him off with a club until Weedon Scott came
to the rescue. But White Fang soon learned to differentiate between
thieves and honest men, to appraise the true value of step and carriage.
The man who travelled, loud-stepping, the direct line to the cabin door,
he let alone--though he watched him vigilantly until the door opened and
he received the endorsement of the master. But the man who went softly,
by circuitous ways, peering with caution, seeking after secrecy--that was
the man who received no suspension of judgment from White Fang, and who
went away abruptly, hurriedly, and without dignity.

Weedon Scott had set himself the task of redeeming White Fang--or rather,
of redeeming mankind from the wrong it had done White Fang. It was a
matter of principle and conscience. He felt that the ill done White Fang
was a debt incurred by man and that it must be paid. So he went out of
his way to be especially kind to the Fighting Wolf. Each day he made it
a point to caress and pet White Fang, and to do it at length.

At first suspicious and hostile, White Fang grew to like this petting.
But there was one thing that he never outgrew--his growling. Growl he
would, from the moment the petting began till it ended. But it was a
growl with a new note in it. A stranger could not hear this note, and to
such a stranger the growling of White Fang was an exhibition of
primordial savagery, nerve-racking and blood-curdling. But White Fang's
throat had become harsh-fibred from the making of ferocious sounds
through the many years since his first little rasp of anger in the lair
of his cubhood, and he could not soften the sounds of that throat now to
express the gentleness he felt. Nevertheless, Weedon Scott's ear and
sympathy were fine enough to catch the new note all but drowne