1906 white fang jack london - pinkmonke - Pink Monkey

64
White Fang felt fear mounting in him again. He could not quite
suppress a snarl, but he made no offer to snap. The hand, with
fingers crooked and spread apart, rubbed his stomach in a playful
way and rolled him from side to side. It was ridiculous and
ungainly, lying there on his back with legs sprawling in the air.
Besides, it was a position of such utter helplessness that White
Fang’s whole nature revolted against it. He could do nothing to
defend himself. If this man-animal intended harm, White Fang
knew that he could not escape it. How could he spring away with
his four legs in the air above him? Yet submission made him
master of his fear, and he only growled softly. This growl he could
not suppress; nor did the man-animal resent it by giving him a
blow on the head. And furthermore, such was the strangeness of it,
White Fang experienced an unaccountable sensation of pleasure as
the hand rubbed back and forth. When he was rolled on his side he
ceased the growl; when the fingers pressed and prodded at the
base of his ears the pleasurable sensation increased; and when,
with a final rub and scratch, the man left him alone and went
away, all fear had died out of White Fang. He was to know fear
many times in his dealings with man; yet it was a token of the
fearless companionship with man that was ultimately to be his.
After a time, White Fang heard strange noises approaching. He
was quick in his classification, for he knew them at once for mananimal
noises. A few minutes later the remainder of the tribe,
strung out as it was on the march, trailed in.
There were more men and many women and children, forty souls
of them, and all heavily burdened with camp equipage and outfit.
Also there were many dogs; and these, with the exception of the
part-grown puppies, were likewise burdened with camp outfit. On
their backs, in bags that fastened tightly around underneath, the
dogs carried from twenty to thirty pounds of weight.
White Fang had never seen dogs before, but at sight of them he felt
that they were his own kind, only somehow different. But they
displayed little difference from the wolf when they discovered the
cub and his mother. There was a rush.
White Fang bristled and snarled and snapped in the face of the
open-mouthed oncoming wave of dogs, and went down and under
them, feeling the sharp slash of teeth in his body, himself biting
and tearing at the legs and bellies above him.
There was a great uproar. He could hear the snarl of Kiche as she
fought for him; and he could hear the cries of the man-animals, the
sound of clubs striking upon bodies, and the yelps of pain from the
dogs so struck.