nt, was a picture of himself on his back in the
trampled snow. Bill's jaws were at his throat in this picture, and his
blood ebbed out, an awful tide, flooding the snow with its crimson for
as far as he could see. And then the picture moved and showed him the
satisfied, triumphant Bill, walking proudly away to the camp to his
regained leadership; and himself, Jan, stark, helpless, dead, in that
forsaken clear patch in the woods with only the cold gleam of the aurora
borealis to bear him company.

Another picture showed him the stripped framework of the moose and his
own reckless feasting there with the rest of the pack, while Bill,
pitilessly far-seeing Bill, watched them and abstained. Jan saw it all
now and gulped upon his bitterness as he realized how cunningly it had
all been planned, and just why it was that, while his enemy seemed made
of steel springs actuated by electricity, he, Jan, was heavy and clumsy
as an English house-dog.

So that was the way of this bloody business thought Jan as, swifter than
a bullet, Bill registered another visit to his streaming right shoulder.
There was no trace left now of that queer stubborn sort of bulldog glory
in the endurance of punishment which Jan had shown during the first
half-dozen attacks. His stern was still erect, bladelike, his hackles
almost as stiff as before. But the flame of his deep-hawed and now
glazing eyes had died down to a dim red smolder; his hard breathing
spared nothing for a snarl now, and his head and body movements were, if
anything, a little slower than before.

And in and out among the vivid pictures in his mind of immediate local
happenings came swiftly passing little silhouettes of people and
happenings farther away in point of time and distance. He saw Dick
Vaughan, in scarlet tunic and yellow-striped breeches, sitting on a box
with his, Jan's, head between his knees, his hands fondling the long
ears that now were so terribly torn and bloody. He saw the great, gray,
lordly Finn pacing gravely beside the Master and Betty Murdoch on the
Downs at Nuthill; himself trotting to and fro between Betty and the
noble hound that sired him. He heard Dick Vaughan's long, throbbing
whistle, and then the old familiar call:

"Jan, boy! Ja--an!"

And as he heard this call he had never once failed to answer, some
subtle force at work in Jan loosed the cord that had seemed to hold him
fettered to the heavy aftermath of his greed that night. His heart
swelled w