made a fat stake. Also,
we made money out of Spot. If we sold him once, we sold him twenty
times. He always came back, and no one asked for their money. We didn't
want the money. We'd have paid handsomely for any one to take him off
our hands for keeps. We had to get rid of him, and we couldn't give him
away, for that would have been suspicious. But he was such a fine looker
that we never had any difficulty in selling him. "Unbroke," we'd say,
and they'd pay any old price for him. We sold him as low as twenty-five
dollars, and once we got a hundred and fifty for him. That particular
party returned him in person, refused to take his money back, and the
way he abused us was something awful. He said it was cheap at the price
to tell us what he thought of us; and we felt he was so justified that
we never talked back. But to this day I've never quite regained all the
old self-respect that was mine before that man talked to me.

When the ice cleared out of the lakes and river, we put our outfit in a
Lake Bennett boat and started for Dawson. We had a good team of dogs,
and of course we piled them on top the outfit. That Spot was
along--there was no losing him; and a dozen times, the first day, he
knocked one or another of the dogs overboard in the course of fighting
with them. It was close quarters, and he didn't like being crowded.

"What that dog needs is space," Steve said the second day. "Let's
maroon him."

We did, running the boat in at Caribou Crossing for him to jump ashore.
Two of the other dogs, good dogs, followed him; and we lost two whole
days trying to find them. We never saw those two dogs again; but the
quietness and relief we enjoyed made us decide, like the man who refused
his hundred and fifty, that it was cheap at the price. For the first
time in months Steve and I laughed and whistled and sang. We were as
happy as clams. The dark days were over. The nightmare had been lifted.
That Spot was gone.

Three weeks later, one morning, Steve and I were standing on the
river-bank at Dawson. A small boat was just arriving from Lake Bennett.
I saw Steve give a start, and heard him say something that was not nice
and that was not under his breath. Then I looked; and there, in the bow
of the boat, with ears pricked up, sat Spot. Steve and I sneaked
immediately, like beaten curs, like cowards, like absconders from
justice. It was this last that the lieutenant of police thought when he
saw us sneaking. He surmised t