The last growl could never
be extracted from him. No matter how terribly he was beaten, he had
always another growl; and when Beauty Smith gave up and withdrew, the
defiant growl followed after him, or White Fang sprang at the bars of the
cage bellowing his hatred.
When the steamboat arrived at Dawson, White Fang went ashore. But he
still lived a public life, in a cage, surrounded by curious men. He was
exhibited as "the Fighting Wolf," and men paid fifty cents in gold dust
to see him. He was given no rest. Did he lie down to sleep, he was
stirred up by a sharp stick--so that the audience might get its money's
worth. In order to make the exhibition interesting, he was kept in a
rage most of the time. But worse than all this, was the atmosphere in
which he lived. He was regarded as the most fearful of wild beasts, and
this was borne in to him through the bars of the cage. Every word, every
cautious action, on the part of the men, impressed upon him his own
terrible ferocity. It was so much added fuel to the flame of his
fierceness. There could be but one result, and that was that his
ferocity fed upon itself and increased. It was another instance of the
plasticity of his clay, of his capacity for being moulded by the pressure
of environment.
In addition to being exhibited he was a professional fighting animal.
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