as possible opponents in a fight; but the remaining
three members of the crowd, lusty huskies, full of meat and insolence,
had never seen the big hound before, and these had to be thrashed pretty
soundly before Jan won his footing in the inclosure.

Fortunately, the two bitches were disposed to be friendly from the
outset, and of the three huskies, two were intently engaged upon bones
at the time of Jan's entrance. The third husky attacked him, blindly,
without stopping to exchange so much as glances. This little incident
was soon ended. In ten seconds Jan had bowled clean over on his back the
too temerarious Gutty--to give this particular husky the name under
which Mr. Beeching had bought him--and was shaking him by the throat as
a terrier shakes a rat. But Jan was far from being really angry, or
Gutty had paid with his life for the impudence of his attack; and when
the husky chokingly whined for mercy he was allowed to spring to his
feet and slink away into a dark corner, with nothing worse than a little
skin-wound to worry over.

The case of the other two huskies was more serious, however; for in the
half-light Jan chanced to brush against one of them as he gnawed his
bone; and in the next moment they both were leaping at him with clashing
fangs, convinced that he aimed at plunder. While Jan, in warding off
their attacks, tried to explain, good-humoredly, that he meant them no
ill, Jinny and Poll made off with their bones. But of this the two
huskies knew nothing, being fully occupied by their joint attack upon
the great dog who, had they but known it, was destined for some time to
be their master, in the traces and out of them.

It was a rather troublesome fight, involving considerable bloodshed; for
Fish and Pad, the two huskies, were quite notable battlers, and Jan, for
his part, was genuinely anxious to avoid any killing. He was quite
shrewd enough to know that he had now joined a new team, and, while it
was very necessary that his prowess should be recognized and respected,
he desired peace, and perfectly understood that, if he began by killing,
the results might be serious for the team and for himself.

In the end, having made some sacrifices, he had to inflict a severe gash
on the side of Pad's face, and to come near to throttling the life out
of Fish, before he could reduce the pair of them to a state of
comparatively decent, if still snarling, submission. After that there
was peace; Fish and Pad were too