“But how in the name of the great Sardanapolis he knows you’re goin’ is
what gets me,” the dog-musher continued innocently.
“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 scented
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 Grey
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 the hill by Matt, who
carried the bedding and the grip. But White Fang did not follow them.
The master was still in the cabin. After a time, Matt returned. The
master came to the door and called White Fang inside.
“You poor devil,” he said gently, rubbing White Fang’s ears and tapping
his spine. “I’m hitting the long trail, old man, where you cannot
follow. Now give me a growl—the last, good, good-bye growl.”
But White Fang refused to growl. Instead, and after a wistful,
searching look, he snuggled in, burrowing his head out of sight between
the master’s arm and body.
“There she blows!” Matt cried. From the Yukon arose the hoarse
bellowing of a river steamboat. “You’ve got to cut it short. Be sure
and lock the front door. I’ll go out the back. Get a move on!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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