at he had at least
twelve hours before any one of the three men were likely to awaken from
their drunken stupor. And yet he feared. Nor did he know what he feared.
And his nerves made him savage as he handled the dogs. They were living
creatures and could feel, so he wantonly belted them with a club lest
they should hesitate to obey their new master. The great wolfish
creatures had more courage than he had; they took the unjust treatment
without open complaint, as is the way of the husky, tacitly resenting it
and eying with fierce, contemptuous eyes the cowardly wretch who so
treated them. They slunk slowly and with down-drooped tails and
bristling manes into their places in the traces, and stood ready for the
word to pull. Victor surveyed them with little satisfaction, for now
that all was ready to march he was beset with moral apprehensions.

He could not throw off his dread. It may have been that he feared that
bleak four hundred mile journey. It may have been the loneliness which
he contemplated. It may have been that he recollected the time when
those whom he had robbed had saved him from the storm, away back there
in the heart of the mountains. He shivered, and started at every
night-sound that broke the stillness.

The lead dog lay down in the sloppy snow. Victor flew into a passion,
and, running forward, dealt the poor brute a kick that would have been
sufficient to break an ordinary dog's ribs. With a wicked snarl the
beast rose solemnly to its feet. Suddenly its wolf-ears pricked and it
stared out keenly ahead. The man looked too. It seemed to him that he
had heard the sound of some one walking. He gazed long and earnestly out
into the darkness, but all seemed quite still. He looked at the dog
again. Its ears were still pricked, but they were twitching uncertainly,
as though not sure of the direction whence the sound had come.

Victor cursed the brute and moved back to the sled. The word "Mush" was
hovering on his lips. Suddenly his eyes chanced upon the slumbering form
of old Pierre lying in a heap where he had fallen in the doorway. It is
impossible to say what made him pause to give a second thought to those
he was leaving behind. He had known Pierre for years, and had always
been as friendly as his selfish, cruel nature would permit. Perhaps some
such feeling now made him hesitate. It might even have been his
knowledge of the wild that made him view the helpless figure with some
concern. The vagaries of