It was about this time that the newspapers were full of the daringescape of a convict from San Quentin prison. He was a ferocious man. Hehad been ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he hadnot been helped any by the moulding he had received at the hands ofsociety. The hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sampleof its handiwork. He was a beast - a human beast, it is true, butnevertheless so terrible a beast that he can best be characterised as carnivorous.
In San Quentin prison he had proved incorrigible. Punishment failed tobreak his spirit. He could die dumb-mad and fighting to the last, but hecould not live and be beaten. The more fiercely he fought, the moreharshly society handled him, and the only effect of harshness was to makehim fiercer. Straight-jackets, starvation, and beatings and clubbings werethe wrong treatment for Jim Hall; but it was the treatment he received. Itwas the treatment he had received from the time he was a little pulpy boyin a San Francisco slum - soft clay in the hands of society and ready to beformed into something.
It was during Jim Hall's third term in prison that he encountered aguard that was almost as great a beast as he. The guard treated himunfairly, lied about him to the warden, lost his credits, persecuted him. Thedifference between them was that the guard carried a bunch of keys and arevolver. Jim Hall had only his naked hands and his teeth. But he sprangupon the guard one day and used his teeth on the other's throat just likeany jungle animal.
After this, Jim Hall went to live in the incorrigible cell. He lived therethree years. The cell was of iron, the floor, the walls, the roof. He neverleft this cell. He never saw the sky nor the sunshine. Day was a twilightand night was a black silence. He was in an iron tomb, buried alive. Hesaw no human face, spoke to no human thing. When his food was shovedin to him, he growled like a wild animal. He hated all things. For days andnights he bellowed his rage at the universe. For weeks and months henever made a sound, in the black silence eating his very soul. He was aman and a monstrosity, as fearful a thing of fear as ever gibbered in thevisions of a maddened brain.
And then, one night, he escaped. The warders said it was impossible,but nevertheless the cell was empty, and half in half out of it lay the bodyof a dead guard. Two other dead guards marked his trail through the prisonto the outer walls, and he had killed with his hands to avoid noise.
He was armed with the weapons of the slain guards - a live arsenal thatfled through the hills pursued by the organised might of society. A heavyprice of gold was upon his head. Avaricious farmers hunted him with shot-guns. His blood might pay off a mortgage or send a son to college. Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went out after him. A pack ofbloodhounds followed the way of his bleeding feet. And the sleuth-houndsof the law, the paid fighting animals of society, with telephone, andtelegraph, and special train, clung to his trail night and day.
Sometimes they came upon him, and men faced him like heroes, orstampeded through barbed-wire fences to the delight of thecommonwealth reading the account at the breakfast table. It was after suchencounters that the dead and wounded were carted back to the towns, andtheir places filled by men eager for the man-hunt.
And then Jim Hall disappeared. The bloodhounds vainly quested onthe lost trail. Inoffensive ranchers in remote valleys were held up byarmed men and compelled to identify themselves. While the remains ofJim Hall were discovered on a dozen mountain-sides by greedy claimantsfor blood-money.
In the meantime the newspapers were read at Sierra Vista, not so muchwith interest as with anxiety. The women were afraid. Judge Scott pooh-poohed and laughed, but not with reason, for it was in his last days on thebench that Jim Hall had stood before him and received sentence. And inopen court-room, before all men, Jim Hall had proclaimed that the daywould come when he would wreak vengeance on the Judge that sentenced him.
For once, Jim Hall was right. He was innocent of the crime for whichhe was sentenced. It was a case, in the parlance of thieves and police, of"rail-roading." Jim Hall was being "rail-roaded" to prison for a crime hehad not committed. Because of the two prior convictions against him,Judge Scott imposed upon him a sentence of fifty years.
Judge Scott did not know all things, and he did not know that he wasparty to a police conspiracy, that the evidence was hatched and perjured,that Jim Hall was guiltless of the crime charged. And Jim Hall, on theother hand, did not know that Judge Scott was merely ignorant. Jim Hallbelieved that the judge knew all about it and was hand in glove with thepolice in the perpetration of the monstrous injustice. So it was, when thedoom of fifty years of living death was uttered by Judge Scott, that JimHall, hating all things in the society that misused him, rose up and raged inthe court-room until dragged down by half a dozen of his blue-coatedenemies. To him, Judge Scott was the keystone in the arch of injustice, andupon Judge Scott he emptied the vials of his wrath and hurled the threatsof his revenge yet to come. Then Jim Hall went to his living death . . . andescaped.
Of all this White Fang knew nothing. But between him and Alice, themaster's wife, there existed a secret. Each night, after Sierra Vista hadgone to bed, she rose and let in White Fang to sleep in the big hall. NowWhite Fang was not a house-dog, nor was he permitted to sleep in thehouse; so each morning, early, she slipped down and let him out before thefamily was awake.
On one such night, while all the house slept, White Fang awoke andlay very quietly. And very quietly he smelled the air and read the messageit bore of a strange god's presence. And to his ears came sounds of thestrange god's movements. White Fang burst into no furious outcry. It wasnot his way. The strange god walked softly, but more softly walked WhiteFang, for he had no clothes to rub against the flesh of his body. He followed silently. In the Wild he had hunted live meat that was infinitelytimid, and he knew the advantage of surprise.
The strange god paused at the foot of the great staircase and listened,and White Fang was as dead, so without movement was he as he watchedand waited. Up that staircase the way led to the love- master and to thelove-master's dearest possessions. White Fang bristled, but waited. Thestrange god's foot lifted. He was beginning the ascent.
Then it was that White Fang struck. He gave no warning, with no snarlanticipated his own action. Into the air he lifted his body in the spring thatlanded him on the strange god's back. White Fang clung with his fore-paws to the man's shoulders, at the same time burying his fangs into theback of the man's neck. He clung on for a moment, long enough to dragthe god over backward. Together they crashed to the floor. White Fangleaped clear, and, as the man struggled to rise, was in again with theslashing fangs.
Sierra Vista awoke in alarm. The noise from downstairs was as that ofa score of battling fiends. There were revolver shots. A man's voicescreamed once in horror and anguish. There was a great snarling andgrowling, and over all arose a smashing and crashing of furniture and glass.
But almost as quickly as it had arisen, the commotion died away. Thestruggle had not lasted more than three minutes. The frightened householdclustered at the top of the stairway. From below, as from out an abyss ofblackness, came up a gurgling sound, as of air bubbling through water.
Sometimes this gurgle became sibilant, almost a whistle. But this, too,quickly died down and ceased. Then naught came up out of the blacknesssave a heavy panting of some creature struggling sorely for air.
Weedon Scott pressed a button, and the staircase and downstairs hallwere flooded with light. Then he and Judge Scott, revolvers in hand,cautiously descended. There was no need for this caution. White Fang haddone his w............