A team of huskies and a man were disappearing in the spruce forest.

The four other huskies ran in quickly and stood waiting a dozen paces from the combatants.

Not only Gray Wolf followed at his flank now, but the four huskies trailed behind him.

Instinct impelled the four huskies to move in that direction.

Close after them came the hunters from the western barren lands, bringing with them loads of white fox and caribou skins, and an army of big-footed, long-legged Mackenzie hounds that pulled like horses and wailed like whipped puppies when the huskies and Eskimo dogs set upon them.

The huskies were far in advance of him now and for a few moments he raced madly to overtake them.

He could get a dog-team, Alaskan huskies, to be had in Truckee; he could load sledges with provisions; he could put the right man in charge and then lead the way.

Instantly the huskies answered, every clog breaking out into indescribable frenzied wailings, as a collie responds in agony to certain chords of music that stir all the old wolf nature sleeping within him.

For five minutes the uproar was appalling; then it ceased abruptly and the huskies ran wildly here and there among the rocks.

Then the shadow vanished from the big rock on the mountain, the huskies fled away wildly from the shore, and only the sob of the breakers broke the stillness.

For hours the uncanny comedy would drag itself on into the tense midnight silence, the wailing cry growing more demented and heartrending as the spell of ancient days fell again upon the degenerate huskies.

For to their untrained eyes even the tracks of the wolves were covered up by those of the numerous big huskies.

Next morning a queer thing happened, but not uncommon under the circumstances among wolves and huskies.

There the wolf stopped; and though Noel whistled and Mooka called cheerily, as they would to one of their own huskies that they had learned to love, Malsunsis would go no farther.

His dogs and sledge were a hundred yards from the building, and Howland's first move was to take possession of the Frenchman's rifle and eject the cartridges while Jean tossed chunks of caribou flesh to the huskies.

"Come, Jean, hit up the dogs!" "Mon Dieu, I say you are a fooland a brave man," said Croisset, and his whip twisted sinuously in mid-air and cracked in sharp command over the yellow backs of the huskies.

It was an automatic, and Croisset, glancing back over the loping backs of the huskies, caught him smiling.

Even the big bald-face grew clumsy and blind and quarrelsome, in the end to be dragged down by a handful of yelping huskies.

"I am to go with 'Scotty' and nine or ten of the racing dogs, and Pete Bernard, with twelve big huskies, is to take my husband.

Just behind was Pete Bernard, a sturdy French Canadian, trying to hold his uncontrollable, half-wild huskies, who were jumping and making sudden lunges toward any strangerman or dogthat wandered near; and especially toward the Yellow Peril, who was a free lance in the expedition, and as such was particularly irritating to those in harness.

Shortly afterward the other team cameand then followed the excitement and confusion that was the inevitable accompaniment of the arrival of Pete Bernard and his howling huskies.

The Big Man with Pete Bernard and his huskies were to take the long route through the Lowlands; while "Scotty" decided upon the short cut by the Golden Gate Pass, because the Woman wanted to go the most picturesque way.

Thus exonerated, the Peril passed by the line of chained dogs, bumping into them in a perfectly unnecessary manner, and emitting supercilious growls that in themselves would have been sufficient grounds for instant death if Pete Bernard's huskies could have acted upon their unanimous opinion.

"And Ben and I will follow with as many of Pete's huskies as we think we can manage without being slated for the hospital.

The huskiest babies were given the best of attention in order that they might grow into sturdy youths, for it was those who brought the highest prices at the slave markets.