ement of that night on Mono Creek had sent every dog fighting
mad. The Klondike dogs, driven without reins, cannot be stopped except
by voice, so that there was no stopping this glut of struggle that
heaped itself between the narrow rims of the creek. From behind, sled
after sled hurled into the turmoil. Men who had their teams nearly
extricated were overwhelmed by fresh avalanches of dogs--each animal
well fed, well rested, and ripe for battle.

"It's knock down an' drag out an' plow through!" Shorty yelled in his
partner's ear. "An' watch out for your knuckles! You drag dogs out an'
let me do the punchin'!"

What happened in the next half hour Smoke never distinctly remembered.
At the end he emerged exhausted, sobbing for breath, his jaw sore from
a fist-blow, his shoulder aching from the bruise of a club, the blood
running warmly down one leg from the rip of a dog's fangs, and both
sleeves of his parka torn to shreds. As in a dream, while the battle
still raged behind, he helped Shorty reharness the dogs. One, dying,
they cut from the traces, and in the darkness they felt their way to the
repair of the disrupted harness.

"Now you lie down an' get your wind back," Shorty commanded.

And through the darkness the dogs sped, with unabated strength, down
Mono Creek, across the long cut-off, and to the Yukon. Here, at the
junction with the main river-trail, somebody had lighted a fire, and
here Shorty said good-bye. By the light of the fire, as the sled leaped
behind the flying dogs, Smoke caught another of the unforgettable
pictures of the Northland. It was of Shorty, swaying and sinking down
limply in the snow, yelling his parting encouragement, one eye blackened
and closed, knuckles bruised and broken, and one arm, ripped and
fang-torn, gushing forth a steady stream of blood.

"How many ahead?" Smoke asked, as he dropped his tired Hudson Bays and
sprang on the waiting sled at the first relay station.

"I counted eleven," the man called after him, for he was already away,
behind the leaping dogs.

Fifteen miles they were to carry him on the next stage, which would
fetch him to the mouth of White River. There were nine of them, but they
composed his weakest team. The twenty-five miles between White River and
Sixty Mile he had broken into two stages because of ice-jams, and here
two of his heaviest, toughest teams were stationed.

He lay on the sled at full length, face-down, holding on with both
hands. Wheneve