White Fang Read Free Page A

darkness, the form of the animal would slowly take shape. They could even see these forms move at times.
    A sound among the dogs attracted the men's attention. One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.
    "Look at that, Bill," Henry whispered.
    Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong movement, glided a doglike animal. It moved with commingled mistrust and daring, cautiously observing the men, its attention fixed on the dogs. One Ear strained the full length of the stick toward the intruder and whined with eagerness.
    "That fool One Ear don't seem scairt much," Bill said in a low tone.
    "It's a she-wolf," Henry whispered back, "an' that accounts for Fatty an' Frog. She's the decoy for the pack. She draws out the dog an' then all the rest pitches in an' eats 'm up."
    The fire crackled. A log fell apart with a loud spluttering noise. At the sound of it the strange animal leaped back into the darkness.
    "Henry, I'm a-thinkin'," Bill announced.
    "Thinkin' what?"
    "I'm a-thinkin' that was the one I lambasted with the club."
    "Ain't the slightest doubt in the world," was Henry's response.
    "An' right here I want to remark," Bill went on, "that that animal's familyarity with campfires is suspicious an' immoral."
    "It knows for certain more'n a self-respectin' wolf ought to know," Henry agreed. "A wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at feedin' time has had experiences."
    "Ol' Villan had a dog once that run away with the wolves," Bill cogitates aloud. "I ought to know. I shot it out of the pack in a moose pasture over 'on Little Stick. An' Ol' Villan cried like a baby. Hadn't seen it for three years, he said. Ben with the wolves all that time."
    "I reckon you've called the turn, Bill. That wolf's a dog, an' it's eaten fish many's the time from the hand of man."
    "An if I get a chance at it, that wolf that's a dog'll be jes' meat," Bill declared. "We can't afford to lose no more animals."
    "But you've only got three cartridges," Henry objected.
    "I'll wait for a dead sure shot," was the reply.
    In the morning Henry renewed the fire and cooked breakfast to the accompaniment of his partner's snoring.
    "You was sleepin' jes' too comfortable for anything," Henry told him, as he routed him out for breakfast. "I hadn't the heart to rouse you."
    Bill began to eat sleepily. He noticed that his cup was empty and started to reach for the pot. But the pot was beyond arm's length and beside Henry.
    "Say, Henry," he chided gently, "ain't you forgot somethin'?"
    Henry looked about with great carefulness and shook his head. Bill held up the empty cup.
    "You don't get no coffee," Henry announced.
    "Ain't run out?" Bill asked anxiously.
    "Nope."
    "Ain't thinkin' it'll hurt my digestion?"
    "Nope."
    A flush of angry blood pervaded Bill's face.
    "Then it's jes' warm an' anxious I am to be hearin' you explain yourself," he said.
    "Spanker's gone," Henry answered.
    Without haste, with the air of one resigned to misfortune Bill turned his head, and from where he sat counted the dogs.
    "How'd it happen?" he asked apathetically.
    Henry shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. Unless One Ear gnawed 'm loose. He couldn't a-done it himself, that's sure."
    "The darned cuss." Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of the anger that was raging within. "Jes' because he couldn't chew himself loose, he chews Spanker loose."
    "Well, Spanker's troubles is over anyway; I guess he's digested by this time an' cavortin' over the landscape in the bellies of twenty different wolves," was Henry's epitaph on this, the latest lost dog. "Have some coffee, Bill."
    But Bill shook his head.
    "Go on," Henry pleaded, elevating the pot.
    Bill shoved his cup aside. "I'll be ding-dong-danged if I do. I said I wouldn't if ary dog turned up missin', an' I won't."
    "It's darn good coffee," Henry said enticingly.
    But Bill was