The Call of the Wild and White Fang - Jack London [133]
“I do believe that wolf’s on to you,” the dog-musher said.
Weedon Scott looked across at his companion with eyes that almost pleaded, though this was given the lie by his words.
“What can I do with a wolf in California?” he demanded.
“That’s what I say,” Matt answered. “What can you do with a wolf in California?”
But this did not satisfy Weedon Scott. The other seemed to be judging him in a non-committal sort of way.
“White man’s dogs would have no show against him,” Scott went on. “He’d kill them on sight. If he didn’t bankrupt me with damage suits, the authorities would take him away from me and electrocute him.”
“He’s a downright murderer, I know,” was the dog-musher’s comment.
Weedon Scott looked at him suspiciously.
“It would never do,” he said decisively.
“It would never do,” Matt concurred. “Why, you’d have to hire a man ’specially to take care of ’m.”
The other’s suspicion was allayed. He nodded cheerfully. In the silence that followed, the low half-sobbing whine was heard at the door and then the long, questing sniff.
“There’s no denyin’ he thinks a lot of you,” Matt said.
The other glared at him in sudden wrath. “Shut up! I know my own mind and what’s best!”
“I’m agreein’ with you, only....”
“Only what?” Scott snapped out.
“Only ...,” the dog-musher began softly, then changed his mind and betrayed a rising anger of his own. “Well, you needn’t get so all-fired het up about it. Judgin’ by your actions one’d think you didn’t know your own mind.”
Weedon Scott debated with himself for a while, and then said more gently: “You are right, Matt. I don’t know my own mind, and that’s what’s the trouble.”
“Why, it would be rank ridiculousness for me to take that dog along,” he broke out after another pause.
“I’m agreein’ with you,” was Matt’s answer, and again his employer was not quite satisfied with him.
“But how in the name of the great Sardanapalus he knows you’re goin’ is what gets me,” the dog-musher continued innocently.1
“It’s beyond me, Matt,” Scott answered, with a mournful shake of the head.
Then came the day when, through the open cabin door, White Fang saw the fatal grip on the floor and the love-master packing things into it. Also, there were comings and goings, and the erstwhile placid atmosphere of the cabin was vexed with strange perturbations and unrest. Here was indubitable evidence. White Fang had already sensed it. He now reasoned it. His god was preparing for another flight. And since he had not taken him with him before, so, now, he could look to be left behind.
That night he lifted the long wolf-howl. As he had howled, in his puppy days, when he fled back from the Wild to the village to find it vanished and naught but a rubbish heap to mark the site of Gray Beaver’s tepee, so now he pointed his muzzle to the cold stars and told to them his woe.
Inside the cabin the two men had just gone to bed.
“He’s gone off his food again,” Matt remarked from his bunk.
There was a grunt from Weedon Scott’s bunk, and a stir of blankets.
“From the way he cut up the other time you went away, I wouldn’t wonder this time but what he died.”
The blankets in the other bunk stirred irritably.
“Oh, shut up!” Scott cried out through the darkness. “You nag worse than a woman.”
“I’m agreein’ with you,” the dog-musher answered, and Weedon Scott was not quite sure whether or not the other had snickered.
The next day White Fang’s anxiety and restlessness were even more pronounced. He dogged his master’s heels whenever he left the cabin, and haunted the front stoop when he remained inside. Through the open door he could catch glimpses of the luggage on the floor. The grip had been joined by two large canvas bags and a box. Matt was rolling the master’s blankets and fur robe inside a small tarpaulin. White Fang whined as he watched the operation.
Later on, two Indians arrived. He watched them closely as they shouldered the luggage and were led off down