nners. But they were not Jan.

The essential Jan was an immensely powerful hound of mixed blood reared
carefully, trained intelligently and well, and endowed from birth with a
tremendously keen appetite for life--a keener appetite for life than
falls to the lot of any champion-bred wolfhound or bloodhound. Jan was a
gentleman rather than a fine gentleman; before either he was a hound, a
dog; and before all else he was a master and lover of his life. And
since, by the arrangements of Sergeant Moore, "Tom Smith," Jean, and
Jake, he had to take his place between Snip and Blackfoot in a
sled-team, it was well, exceedingly well, for Jan that these things were
thus and not otherwise.

Jan's supper on the evening of his first day in the traces was a meal he
never forgot. The slab of dried fish Jean tossed to him was half as big
again as the pieces given to the other dogs. For Jean--a just and not
unkindly man in all such matters--well recognized that Jan was very much
bigger and heavier than the average husky. (Jan was three and a half
inches higher at the shoulder, and forty to fifty pounds heavier and
more massive than any of his team-mates.) His previous night's supper
Jan had eaten that morning. Still, the afternoon's work, in some thirty
or forty degrees of frost, had put an edge on his appetite, and he
tackled the fish--which two days before he would have scorned--with
avidity.

He had swallowed one mouthful and was about to tear off another, when
Snip intervened with a terrifying snarl between Jan and his food. Jan,
who was learning fast, turned also with a snarling growl to ward off
Snip's fangs. And in that moment--it was no more than a moment--Bill,
the leader, stole and swallowed the whole remainder of Jan's supper.

Jean was watching this, and did not try to prevent it. But leaving Jan
to settle with Snip, he descended upon Bill with his whip,
double-thonged, and administered as sound a trouncing to that hardy
warrior as any member of the team had ever received. That ended, Jean
swung on his heel and gave Snip the butt of the whip-handle across the
top of his nose, and this so shrewdly that Snip's muzzle ached for
twenty-four hours, reminding him, every minute of the time, that he must
not harry Jan--while his master was in sight.

It would have been easy for Jean to have spared another ration of fish
for Jan, since in a few more days they would reach a Hudson Bay post at
which fresh supplies were to be taken