He heard Grey Beaver chuckle above him,
and he knew the sound was not hostile. Then his nose touched the flame,
and at the same instant his little tongue went out to it.
For a moment he was paralysed. The unknown, lurking in the midst of the
sticks and moss, was savagely clutching him by the nose. He scrambled
backward, bursting out in an astonished explosion of ki-yi's. At the
sound, Kiche leaped snarling to the end of her stick, and there raged
terribly because she could not come to his aid. But Grey Beaver laughed
loudly, and slapped his thighs, and told the happening to all the rest of
the camp, till everybody was laughing uproariously. But White Fang sat
on his haunches and ki-yi'd and ki-yi'd, a forlorn and pitiable little
figure in the midst of the man-animals.
It was the worst hurt he had ever known. Both nose and tongue had been
scorched by the live thing, sun-coloured, that had grown up under Grey
Beaver's hands. He cried and cried interminably, and every fresh wail
was greeted by bursts of laughter on the part of the man-animals. He
tried to soothe his nose with his tongue, but the tongue was burnt too,
and the two hurts coming together produced greater hurt; whereupon he
cried more hopelessly and helplessly than ever.
And then shame came to him. He knew laughter and the meaning of it.
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