 him a greater faith in himself, and a
greater pride. He walked less softly among the grown dogs; his attitude toward
them was less compromising. Not that he went out of his way looking for trouble.
Far from it. But upon his way he demanded consideration. He stood upon his right
to go his way unmolested and to give trail to no dog. He had to be taken into
account, that was all. He was no longer to be disregarded and ignored, as was
the lot of puppies and as continued to be the lot of the puppies that were his
team-mates. They got out of the way, gave trail to the grown dogs, and gave up
meat to them under compulsion. But White Fang, uncompanionable, solitary,
morose, scarcely looking to right or left, redoubtable, forbidding of aspect,
remote and alien, was accepted as an equal by his puzzled elders. They quickly
learned to leave him alone, neither venturing hostile acts nor making overtures
of friendliness. If they left him alone, he left them alone - a state of affairs
that they found, after a few encounters, to be preëminently desirable.
    In midsummer White Fang had an experience. Trotting along in his silent way
to investigate a new tepee which had been erected on the edge of the village
while he was away with the hunters after moose, he came full upon Kiche. He
paused and looked at her. He remembered her vaguely, but he remembered her, and
that was more than could be said for her. She lifted her lip at him in the old
snarl of menace, and his memory became clear. His forgotten cubhood, all that
was associated with that familiar snarl, rushed back to him. Before he had known
the gods, she had been to him the centre-pin of the universe. The old familiar
feelings of that time came back upon him, surged up within him. He bounded
toward her joyously, and she met him with shrewd fangs that laid his cheek open
to the bone. He did not understand. He backed away, bewildered and puzzled.
    But it was not Kiche's fault. A wolf-mother was not made to remember her
cubs of a year or so before. So she did not remember White Fang. He was a
strange animal, an intruder; and her present litter of puppies gave her the
right to resent such intrusion.
    One of the puppies sprawled up to White Fang. They were half-brothers, only
they did not know it. White Fang sniffed the puppy curiously, whereupon Kiche
rushed upon him,
