1906 white fang jack london - pinkmonke - Pink Monkey

CHAPTER TWO.
The Mad God.
107
A SMALL NUMBER OF white men lived in Fort Yukon. These
men had been long in the country. They called themselves Sourdoughs,
and took great pride in so classifying themselves. For
other men, new in the land, they felt nothing but disdain. The men
who came ashore from the steamers were newcomers.
They were known as chechaquos, and they always wilted at the
application of the name. They made their bread with bakingpowder.
This was the invidious distinction between them and the
Sour-doughs, who, forsooth, made their bread from sour-dough
because they had no baking-powder.
All of which is neither here nor there. The men in the fort
disdained the newcomers and enjoyed seeing them come to grief.
Especially did they enjoy the havoc worked amongst the
newcomers’ dogs by White Fang and his disreputable gang. When
a steamer arrived, the men at the fort made it a point always to
come down to the bank and see the fun. They looked forward to it
with as much anticipation as did the Indian dogs, while they were
not slow to appreciate the savage and crafty part played by White
Fang.
But there was one man amongst them who particularly enjoyed the
sport. He would come running at the first sound of a steamboat’s
whistle; and when the last fight was over and White Fang and the
pack had scattered, he would return slowly to the fort, his face
heavy with regret. Sometimes, when a soft Southland dog went
down, shrieking its death-cry under the fangs of the pack, this man
would be unable to contain himself, and would leap into the air
and cry out with delight. And always he had a sharp and covetous
eye for White Fang.
This man was called ‘Beauty’ by the other men of the fort. No one
knew his first name, and in general he was known in the country
as Beauty Smith. But he was anything save a beauty. To antithesis
was due his naming. He was preeminently unbeautiful. Nature
had been niggardly with him. He was a small man to begin with;
and upon his meager frame was deposited an even more strikingly
meager head. Its apex might be likened to a point. In fact, in his
boyhood, before he had been named Beauty by his fellows, he had
been called ‘Pinhead.’ Backward, from the apex, his head slanted
down to his neck; and forward, it slanted uncompromisingly to
meet a low and remarkably wide forehead. Beginning here, as