faster and steadier, her body bent forward, her head turned back. Before
her now lay a great stretch of undulating, unbroken white. At its farther
edge the line of blue-black pines began again. She strained her steps to
reach this shelter. The baying had been very faint and far away--it might
have been sounded for some other hunting. She would make the woods, take
off her webs, climb up into a tree and, perhaps, attracted by those four
shots--no, three, she must save one--some trapper, some unimaginable
wanderer in the winter forest, would come to her and rescue her before
the end. So her mind twisted itself with hope. But, an hour later, with
the pines not very far away, the baying rose so close behind that it
stopped her heart. Twenty minutes had passed when above a rise of ground
she saw the shaggy, trotting black-gray body of Brenda, the leader of the
pack. She was running slowly, her nose close to the snow, casting a
little right and left over the tracks. Sheila counted eight--Berg, then,
had joined them. She thought that she could distinguish him in the rear.
It was now late afternoon, and the sun slanted driving back the shadows
of the nearing trees, of Sheila, of the dogs. It all seemed
fantastic--the weird beauty of the scene, the weird horror of it. Sheila
reckoned the distance before her, reckoned the speed of the dogs. She
knew now that there was no hope. Ahead of her rose a sharp, sudden
slope--she could never make it. There came to her quite suddenly, like a
gift, a complete release from fear. She stopped and wheeled. It seemed
that the brutes had not yet seen her. They were nose down at the scent.
One by one they vanished in a little dip of ground, one by one they
reappeared, two yards away. Sheila pulled out her gun, deliberately aimed
and fired.

A spurt of snow showed that she had aimed short. But the loud, sudden
report made Brenda swerve. All the dogs stopped and slunk together
circling, their haunches lowered. Wreck squatted, threw up his head, and
howled. Sheila spoke to them, clear and loud, her young voice ringing out
into that loneliness.

"You Berg! Good dog! Come here."

One of the shaggy animals moved toward her timidly, looking back,
pausing. Brenda snarled.

"Berg, come here, boy!"

Sheila patted her knee. At this the big dog whined, cringed, and began
to swarm up the slope toward her on his belly. His eyes shifted, the
struggle of his mind was pitifully visible--pack-law, pack-power,