Page:London - White Fang, 1906.djvu/225

Rh mittens and moccasins. He would not have ventured so long a trip had he not expected generous profits. But what he had expected was nothing to What he realized. His wildest dream had not exceeded a hundred per cent profit; he. made a thousand per cent. And like a true Indian, he settled down to trade carefully and slowly,even if it took all summer and the rest of the winter to dispose of his goods.

It was at Fort Yukon that White Fang saw his first white men. As compared with the Indians he had known, they were to him another race of beings, a race of superior gods. They impressed him as possessing superior power, and it is on power that god-head rests. White Fang did not reason it out, did not in his mind make the sharp generalization that the white gods were more powerful. It was a feeling, nothing more, and yet none the less potent. As, in his puppyhood, the looming bulks of the tepees, man-reared, had aﬁected him as manifestations of power, so was he aﬁected now by the houses and the huge fort all of massive logs. Here was power. Those white gods were strong. They possessed greater mastery over matter than the gods he had known, most powerful among which was Gray Beaver. And yet Gray Beaver was as a Child-god among these white-skinned ones.

To be sure, White Fang only felt these things. He was not conscious of them. Yet it is upon feeling,