as eating his dinner, jumped up in
wonderment when the door of his cabin was suddenly opened by a grim and
white-faced man who carried the limp body of a dog in his arms.

For a long time after this the shadow of death hung over the
Frenchman's trapping-shack. To Boileau, with his brotherly sympathy and
regret that his poison-bait had brought calamity, Peter was "just dog."
But when at last he saw the strong shoulders of the grim-faced stranger
shaking over Peter's paralyzed body and listened to the sobbing grief
that broke in passionate protest from his white lips, he drew back a
little awed. It seemed for a time that Peter was dead; and in those
moments Jolly Roger put his arms about him and buried his despairing
face in Peter's scraggly neck, calling in a wild fit of anguish for him
to come back, to live, to open his eyes again. Boileau, crossing
himself, felt of Peter's body and McKay heard his voice over him,
saying that the dog was not dead, but that his heart was beating
steadily and that he thought the last stiffening blow of the poison was
over. To McKay it was like bringing the dead back to life. He raised
his head and drew away his arms and knelt beside the bunk stunned and
mutely hopeful while Boileau took his place and began dropping warm
condensed milk down Peter's throat. In a little while Peter's eyes
opened and he gave a great sigh.

Boileau looked up and shrugged his shoulders.

"That was a good breath, m'sieu," he said. "What is left of the poison
has done its worst. He will live."

A bit stupidly McKay rose to his feet. He swayed a little, and for the
first time sensed the hot tears that had blinded his eyes and wet his
cheeks. And then there came a sobbing laugh out of his throat and he
went to the window of the Frenchman's shack and stared out into the
white world, seeing nothing. He had stood in the presence of death many
times before but never had that presence choked up his heart as in this
hour when the soul of Peter, his comrade, had stood falteringly for a
space half-way between the living and the dead.

When he turned from the window Boileau was covering Peter's body with
blankets and a warm bear skin. And for many days thereafter Peter was
nursed through the slow sickness which followed.

An early spring came this year in the northland. South of the Reindeer
waterway country the snows were disappearing late in March and ice was
rotting the first week in April. Winds came from the so