White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco. He wasappalled. Deep in him, below any reasoning process or act ofconsciousness, he had associated power with godhead. And never had thewhite men seemed such marvellous gods as now, when he trod the slimypavement of San Francisco. The log cabins he had known were replacedby towering buildings. The streets were crowded with perils - waggons,carts, automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; andmonstrous cable and electric ears hooting and clanging through the midst,screeching their insistent menace after the manner of the lynxes he hadknown in the northern woods.

　　All this was the manifestation of power. Through it all, behind it all,was man, governing and controlling, expressing himself, as of old, by hismastery over matter. It was colossal, stunning. White Fang was awed. Fearsat upon him. As in his cubhood he had been made to feel his smallnessand puniness on the day he first came in from the Wild to the village ofGrey Beaver, so now, in his full- grown stature and pride of strength, hewas made to feel small and puny. And there were so many gods! He wasmade dizzy by the swarming of them. The thunder of the streets smoteupon his ears. He was bewildered by the tremendous and endless rush andmovement of things. As never before, he felt his dependence on the love-master, close at whose heels he followed, no matter what happened neverlosing sight of him.

　　But White Fang was to have no more than a nightmare vision of thecity - an experience that was like a bad dream, unreal and terrible, thathaunted him for long after in his dreams. He was put into a baggage-car bythe master, chained in a corner in the midst of heaped trunks and valises.

　　Here a squat and brawny god held sway, with much noise, hurling trunksand boxes about, dragging them in through the door and tossing them intothe piles, or flinging them out of the door, smashing and crashing, to othergods who awaited them.

　　And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White Fang deserted by themaster. Or at least White Fang thought he was deserted, until he smelledout the master's canvas clothes-bags alongside of him, and proceeded tomount guard over them.

　　"'Bout time you come," growled the god of the car, an hour later, whenWeedon Scott appeared at the door. "That dog of yourn won't let me lay afinger on your stuff."White Fang emerged from the car. He was astonished. The nightmarecity was gone. The car had been to him no more than a room in a house,and when he had entered it the city had been all around him. In the intervalthe city had disappeared. The roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears.

　　Before him was smiling country, streaming with sunshine, lazy withquietude. But he had little time to marvel at the transformation. Heaccepted it as he accepted all the unaccountable doings and manifestationsof the gods. It was their way.

　　There was a carriage waiting. A man and a woman approached themaster. The woman's arms went out and clutched the master around theneck - a hostile act! The next moment Weedon Scott had torn loose fromthe embrace and closed with White Fang, who had become a snarling,raging demon.

　　"It's all right, mother," Scott was saving as he kept tight hold of WhiteFang and placated him. "He thought you were going to injure me, and hewouldn't stand for it. It's all right. It's all right. He'll learn soon enough.""And in the meantime I may be permitted to love my son when his dogis not around," she laughed, though she was pale and weak from the fright.

　　She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled and glaredmalevolently.

　　"He'll have to learn, and he shall, without postponement," Scott said.

　　He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted him, then his voicebecame firm.

　　"Down, sir! Down with you!"This had been one of the things taught him by the master, and WhiteFang obeyed, though he lay down reluctantly and sullenly.

　　"Now, mother."Scott opened his arms to her, but kept his eyes on White Fang.

　　"Down!" he warned. "Down!"White Fang, bristling silently, half-crouching as he rose, sank back andwatched the hostile act repeated. But no harm came of it, nor of theembrace from the strange man-god that followed. Then the clothes-bagswere taken into the carriage, the strange gods and the love-masterfollowed, and White Fang pursued, now running vigilantly behind, nowbristling up to the running horses and warning them that he was there tosee that no harm befell the god they dragged so swiftly across the earth.

　　At the end of fifteen minutes, the carriage swung in through a stonegateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnuttrees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here andthere by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near distance, in contrast with theyoung-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tan and gold;while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures. From the head ofthe lawn, on the first soft swell from the valley-level, looked down thedeep- porched, many-windowed house.

　　Little opportunity was given White Fang to see all this. Hardly had thecarriage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep-dog,bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, righteously indignant and angry. It wasbetween him and the master, cutting him off. White Fang snarled nowarning, but his hair bristled as he made his silent and deadly rush. Thisrush was never completed. He halted with awkward abruptness, with stifffore-legs bracing himself against his momentum, almost sitting down onhis haunches, so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the dog he wasin the act of attacking. It was a female, and the law of his kind thrust abarrier between. For him to attack her would require nothing less than aviolation of his instinct.

　　But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise. Being a female, shepossessed no such instinct. On the other hand, being a sheep-dog, herinstinctive fear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen.

　　White Fang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyedupon her flocks from the time sheep............