But the clamor of approval did not distract him.There was no sympathetic relation between his tail and his massive jaws.The one might wag, but the others held their terrible grip on White Fang's throat.
It was at this time that a diversion came to the spectators.There was a jingle of bells.Dog-mushers' cries were heard.Everybody, save Beauty Smith, looked apprehensively, the fear of the police strong upon them.
But they saw, up the trail, and not down, two men running with sled and dogs.They were evidently coming down the creek from some prospecting trip.
At sight of the crowd they stopped their dogs and came over and joined it, curious to see the cause of the excitement.The dog-musher wore a mustache, but the other, a taller and younger man, was smooth-shaven, his skin rosy from the pounding of his blood and the running in the frosty air.
White Fang had practically ceased struggling.Now and again he resisted spasmodically and to no purpose.He could get little air, and that little grew less and less under the merciless grip that ever tightened.In spite of his armor of fur, the great vein of his throat would have long since been torn open, had not the first grip of the bulldog been so low down as to be practically on the chest.It had taken Cherokee a long time to shift that grip upward, and this had also tended further to clog his jaws with fur and skin-fold.
In the meantime, the abysmal brute in Beauty Smith had been rising up into his brain and mastering the small bit of sanity that he possessed at best.When he saw White Fang's eyes beginning to glaze, he knew beyond doubt that the fight was lost.Then he broke loose.He sprang upon White Fang and began savagely to kick him.There were hisses from the crowd and cries of protest, but that was all.While this went on, and Beauty Smith continued to kick White Fang, there was a commotion in the crowd.The tall young newcomer was forcing his way through, shouldering men right and left without ceremony or gentleness.When he broke through into the ring, Beauty Smith was just in the act of delivering another kick.All his weight was on one foot, and he was in a state of unstable equilibrium.At that moment the newcomer's fist landed a smashing blow full in his face.Beauty Smith's remaining leg left the ground, and his whole body seemed to lift into the air as he turned over backward and struck the snow.The newcomer turned upon the crowd.
"You cowards!" he cried."You beasts!"
He was in a rage himself -- a sane rage.His gray eyes seemed metallic and steel-like as they flashed upon the crowd.Beauty Smith regained his feet and came toward him, sniffling and cowardly.The newcomer did not understand.He did not know how abject a coward the other was, and thought he was coming back intent on fighting.So, with a "You beast!" he smashed Beauty Smith over backward with a second blow in the face.Beauty Smith decided that the snow was the safest place for him, and lay where he had fallen, making no effort to get up.
"Come on, Matt, lend a hand," the newcomer called to the dog-musher, who had followed him into the ring.
Both men bent over the dogs.Matt took hold of White Fang, ready to pull when Cherokee's jaws should be loosened.This the younger man endeavored to accomplish by clutching the bulldog's jaws in his hands and trying to spread them.It was a vain undertaking.As he pulled and tugged and wrenched, he kept exclaiming with every expulsion of breath, "Beasts!"The crowd began to grow unruly, and some of the men were protesting against the spoiling of the sport; but they were silenced when the newcomer lifted his head from his work for a moment and glared at them.
"You damn beasts!" he finally exploded, and went back to his task.
"It's no use, Mr.Scott, you can't break 'm apart that way," Matt said at last.
The pair paused and surveyed the locked dogs.
"Ain't bleedin' much," Matt announced."Ain't got all the way in yet.""But he's liable to any moment," Scott answered."There, did you see that! He shifted his grip in a bit."The younger man's excitement and apprehension for White Fang was growing.
He struck Cherokee about the head savagely again and again.But that did not loosen the jaws.Cherokee wagged the stump of his tail in advertisement that he understood the meaning of the blows, but that he knew he was himself in the right and only doing his duty by keeping his grip.
"Won't some of you help?" Scott cried desperately at the crowd.
But no help was offered.Instead, the crowd began sarcastically to cheer him on and showered him with facetious advice.
"You'll have to get a pry," Matt counselled.
