He could not tolerate
them. When they came near with their ominous hands, he got up.
It was in a village at the Great Slave Lake, that, in the course of
resenting the evil of the hands of the man-animals, he came to modify the
law that he had learned from Grey Beaver: namely, that the unpardonable
crime was to bite one of the gods. In this village, after the custom of
all dogs in all villages, White Fang went foraging, for food. A boy was
chopping frozen moose-meat with an axe, and the chips were flying in the
snow. White Fang, sliding by in quest of meat, stopped and began to eat
the chips. He observed the boy lay down the axe and take up a stout
club. White Fang sprang clear, just in time to escape the descending
blow. The boy pursued him, and he, a stranger in the village, fled
between two tepees to find himself cornered against a high earth bank.
There was no escape for White Fang. The only way out was between the two
tepees, and this the boy guarded. Holding his club prepared to strike,
he drew in on his cornered quarry. White Fang was furious. He faced the
boy, bristling and snarling, his sense of justice outraged. He knew the
law of forage. All the wastage of meat, such as the frozen chips,
belonged to the dog that found it. He had done no wrong, broken no law,
yet here was this boy preparing to give him a beating.
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