White Fang/Recap

Two men and their dog sled team are pursued by a wolf pack in the Northland Wild. Desperate for food during a famine, the wolves eventually kill all of the dogs and one of the men before the other is rescued. The starving pack eventually splits up, the She-Wolf who lured the sled dogs to their doom going off with her mate, whom the narrator refers to as One Eye. The two raise a litter of pups, only for One Eye and all the litter except one to die. The She-Wolf and her surviving pup eventually meet up with a group of Inuits; one of them, Grey Beaver, recognizes the She-Wolf as Kiche, his brother's runaway half-wolf-half-dog, and takes possession of her and her pup, whom he names White Fang.

So begin White Fang's lessons in cruelty and mastery. The puppy pack he now belongs to see him as a wolf and treat him as an enemy. The abuse he endures from them, particularly the leader Lip-lip, makes him both stronger and more vicious, gradually turning him into a brutal, savage fighter. Nevertheless, he adapts to the laws of his new surroundings and develops a loyalty and respect for Grey Beaver, who eventually sells Kiche and takes White Fang to his trading post at Fort Yukon.

At the Fort, the young wolf catches the attention of "Beauty Smith," who introduces Grey Beaver to whiskey in order to get him to sell White Fang. The book now takes the reader into the horrible world of dog fighting, where drunken men put two starved, violent dogs in the ring, but only one comes out alive. Thanks to his sadistic new tormentor of an owner, White Fang becomes an unbeatable monster, forced to fight wild wolves, several dogs at once, and even a lynx for entertainment. It is during a fight where a bulldog all but kills him that White Fang is finally rescued by Weedon Scott.

Like John Thornton in The Call of the Wild, Scott introduces White Fang to The Power of Love for the first time, and his love slowly heals the wounds of abuse and torture and transforms the monster into a tame friend and protective ally. Scott eventually takes White Fang back to his father's estate in the Santa Clara Valley, where he must adjust to living as a tame pet and learn which animals are fair game (jack rabbits, squirrels, and quails) and which he must leave alone (chickens, cats, other dogs). He ultimately repays Scott for his love and protection by saving his family from a murderous intruder one night (an escaped convict whom Judge Scott unknowingly sent to prison for a crime he was framed for). The reader leaves White Fang surrounded by the puppies he fathered with the sheepdog Collie.