"
"Wrong," Bill proclaimed triumphantly.
"Seven again?" Henry queried.
"No, five; one's gone."
"The hell!" Henry cried in wrath, leaving the cooking to come and count
the dogs.
"You're right, Bill," he concluded. "Fatty's gone."
"An' he went like greased lightnin' once he got started. Couldn't 've
seen 'm for smoke."
"No chance at all," Henry concluded. "They jes' swallowed 'm alive. I
bet he was yelpin' as he went down their throats, damn 'em!"
"He always was a fool dog," said Bill.
"But no fool dog ought to be fool enough to go off an' commit suicide
that way." He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative
eye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal. "I bet
none of the others would do it."
"Couldn't drive 'em away from the fire with a club," Bill agreed. "I
always did think there was somethin' wrong with Fatty anyway."
And this was the epitaph of a dead dog on the Northland trail--less scant
than the epitaph of many another dog, of many a man.
CHAPTER II--THE SHE-WOLF
Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men
turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the darkness.
At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad--cries that called
through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back.
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