White Fang

One day, while exploring the forest around his cave, the cub comes across five Indigenous men (London refers to the Indigenous men as “Indians”). This is the cub’s first experience with humankind. He is in awe of these humans, which he calls “man-animals” (117) and feels small and weak in their presence. Something instinctual in the cub tells him he should run, but a paralysis overtakes him as he and the men stare at one another. One of the men approaches him to grab ahold of him. The gray cub bites at the man, so the man knocks him to the ground. Just when the gray cub is ready to lose hope, he hears his mother coming. At first, the she-wolf is ferocious, but she quickly becomes submissive to the men. The men remember the she-wolf as a once-domesticated wolfdog of theirs named Kiche. One of the men, Grey Beaver, names the cub White Fang. They discuss the differences in wildness between him and his mother: “It is plain that his mother is Kiche. But his father is a wolf. Wherefore is there in him little dog and much wolf” (118). The men tie the she-wolf to a tree and play with White Fang.