Judge Scott nodded his head in agreement.
"All right." Weedon Scott pondered for a moment. "And if, at the end of
the afternoon White Fang hasn't harmed a chicken, for every ten minutes
of the time he has spent in the yard, you will have to say to him,
gravely and with deliberation, just as if you were sitting on the bench
and solemnly passing judgment, 'White Fang, you are smarter than I
thought.'"
From hidden points of vantage the family watched the performance. But it
was a fizzle. Locked in the yard and there deserted by the master, White
Fang lay down and went to sleep. Once he got up and walked over to the
trough for a drink of water. The chickens he calmly ignored. So far as
he was concerned they did not exist. At four o'clock he executed a
running jump, gained the roof of the chicken-house and leaped to the
ground outside, whence he sauntered gravely to the house. He had learned
the law. And on the porch, before the delighted family, Judge Scott,
face to face with White Fang, said slowly and solemnly, sixteen times,
"White Fang, you are smarter than I thought."
But it was the multiplicity of laws that befuddled White Fang and often
brought him into disgrace. He had to learn that he must not touch the
chickens that belonged to other gods. Then there were cats, and rabbits,
and turkeys; all these he must let alone.
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