Under the tutelage of the mad god, White Fang became a fiend. Hewas kept chained in a pen at the rear of the fort, and here Beauty Smithteased and irritated and drove him wild with petty torments. The man earlydiscovered White Fang's susceptibility to laughter, and made it a pointafter painfully tricking him, to laugh at him. This laughter was uproariousand scornful, and at the same time the god pointed his finger derisively atWhite Fang. At such times reason fled from White Fang, and in histransports of rage he was even more mad than Beauty Smith.

　　Formerly, White Fang had been merely the enemy of his kind, withal aferocious enemy. He now became the enemy of all things, and moreferocious than ever. To such an extent was he tormented, that he hatedblindly and without the faintest spark of reason. He hated the chain thatbound him, the men who peered in at him through the slats of the pen, thedogs that accompanied the men and that snarled malignantly at him in hishelplessness. He hated the very wood of the pen that confined him. And,first, last, and most of all, he hated Beauty Smith.

　　But Beauty Smith had a purpose in all that he did to White Fang. Oneday a number of men gathered about the pen. Beauty Smith entered, clubin hand, and took the chain off from White Fang's neck. When his masterhad gone out, White Fang turned loose and tore around the pen, trying toget at the men outside. He was magnificently terrible. Fully five feet inlength, and standing two and one-half feet at the shoulder, he faroutweighed a wolf of corresponding size. From his mother he hadinherited the heavier proportions of the dog, so that he weighed, withoutany fat and without an ounce of superfluous flesh, over ninety pounds. Itwas all muscle, bone, and sinew-fighting flesh in the finest condition.

　　The door of the pen was being opened again. White Fang paused.

　　Something unusual was happening. He waited. The door was openedwider. Then a huge dog was thrust inside, and the door was slammed shutbehind him. White Fang had never seen such a dog (it was a mastiff); butthe size and fierce aspect of the intruder did not deter him. Here was something, not wood nor iron, upon which to wreak his hate. He leaped in witha flash of fangs that ripped down the side of the mastiff's neck. The mastiffshook his head, growled hoarsely, and plunged at White Fang. But WhiteFang was here, there, and everywhere, always evading and eluding, andalways leaping in and slashing with his fangs and leaping out again in timeto escape punishment.

　　The men outside shouted and applauded, while Beauty Smith, in anecstasy of delight, gloated over the rippling and manging performed byWhite Fang. There was no hope for the mastiff from the first. He was tooponderous and slow. In the end, while Beauty Smith beat White Fang backwith a club, the mastiff was dragged out by its owner. Then there was apayment of bets, and money clinked in Beauty Smith's hand.

　　White Fang came to look forward eagerly to the gathering of the menaround his pen. It meant a fight; and this was the only way that was nowvouchsafed him of expressing the life that was in him. Tormented, incitedto hate, he was kept a prisoner so that there was no way of satisfying thathate except at the times his master saw fit to put another dog against him.

　　Beauty Smith had estimated his powers well, for he was invariably thevictor. One day, three dogs were turned in upon him in succession.

　　Another day a full- grown wolf, fresh-caught from the Wild, was shovedin through the door of the pen. And on still another day two dogs were setagainst him at the same time. This was his severest fight, and though in theend he killed them both he was himself half killed in doing it.

　　In the fall of the year, when the first snows were falling and mush-icewas running in the river, Beauty Smith took passage for himself and WhiteFang on a steamboat bound up the Yukon to Dawson. White Fang had nowachieved a reputation in the land. As "the Fighting Wolf" he was knownfar and wide, and the cage in which he was kept on the steam-boat's deckwas usually surrounded by curious men. He raged and snarled at them, orlay quietly and studied them with cold hatred. Why should he not hatethem? He never asked himself the question. He knew only hate and losthimself in the passion of it. Life had become a hell to him. He had notbeen made for the close confinement wild beasts endure at the hands ofmen. And yet it was in precisely this way that he was treated. Men staredat him, poked sticks between the bars to make him snarl, and then laughed at him.

　　They were his environment, these men, and they were moulding theclay of him into a more ferocious thing than had been intended by Nature.

　　Nevertheless, Nature had given him plasticity. Where many anotheranimal would have died or had its spirit broken, he adjusted himself andlived, and at no expense of the spirit. Possibly Beauty Smith, arch-fiendand tormentor, was capable of breaking White Fang's spirit, but as ye............