s your dog?"

Peetka stopped, considered, studied the scene immediately before him,
and then the distant prospect.

"You got dog?"

He nodded.

"Well, how much?"

"Sixty dolla."

"_One_ dog, sixty?"

He nodded.

"But this man says the price is eighty for two."

"My dog--him Leader."

After some further conversation, "Where is your dog?" demanded the
Colonel.

The new-comer whistled and called. After some waiting, and
well-simulated anger on the part of the owner, along comes a dusky
Siwash, thin, but keen-looking, and none too mild-tempered.

The children all brightened and craned, as if a friend, or at least a
highly interesting member of the community, had appeared on the scene.

"The Nigger's the best!" whispered the Boy.

"Him bully," said the lad, and seemed about to pat him, but the Siwash
snarled softly, raising his lip and showing his Gleaming fangs. The lad
stepped back respectfully, but grinned, reiterating, "Bully dog."

"Well, I'll give you fifty for him," said the Colonel.

"Sixty."

"Well, all right, since he's a leader. Sixty."

The owner watched the dog as it walked round its master smelling the
snow, then turning up its pointed nose interrogatively and waving its
magnificent feathery tail. The oblique eyes, acute angle of his short
ears, the thick neck, broad chest, and heavy forelegs, gave an
impression of mingled alertness and strength you will not see surpassed
in any animal that walks the world. Jet-black, except for his grey
muzzle and broad chest, he looks at you with the face of his near
ancestor, the grizzled wolf. If on short acquaintance you offer any
familiarity, as the Colonel ventured to do, and he shows his double row
of murderous-looking fangs, the reminder of his fierce forefathers is
even more insistent. Indeed, to this day your Siwash of this sort will
have his moments of nostalgia, in which he turns back to his wild
kinsfolk, and mates again with the wolf.

When the Leader looked at the Colonel with that indescribably horrid
smile, the owner's approval of the proud beast seemed to overcome his
avarice.

"Me no sell," he decided abruptly, and walked off in lordly fashion
with his dusky companion at his side, the Leader curling his feathery
tail arc-like over his back, and walking with an air princes might
envy.

The Colonel stood staring. Vainly the Boy called, "Come back. Look
here! Hi!" Neither Siwash nor Ingalik took the smallest notice. The Boy
went a