d offer insolence to the
Leader. It all happened through the Boy's producing a fish, and
presenting it on bended knee at a respectful distance. The Leader
bestowed a contemptuous stare upon the stranger and pointedly turned
his back. The Red Dog came "loping" across the snow. As he made for the
fish the Leader quietly headed him off, pointed his sharp ears, and
just looked the other fellow out of countenance. Red said things under
his breath as he turned away. The more he thought the situation over
the more he felt himself outraged. He looked round over his shoulder.
There they still were, the stranger holding out the fish, the Leader
turning his back on it, but telegraphing Red at the same time _not to
dare!_ It was more than dog-flesh could bear; Red bounded back,
exploding in snarls. No sound out of the Leader. Whether this unnatural
calm misled Red, he came up closer, braced his forelegs, and thrust his
tawny muzzle almost into the other dog's face, drew back his lips from
all those shining wicked teeth, and uttered a muffled hiss.

Well, it was magnificently done, and it certainly looked as if the
Leader was going to have a troubled evening. But he didn't seem to
think so. He "fixed" the Red Dog as one knowing the power of the
master's eye to quell. Red's reply, unimaginably bold, was, as the Boy
described it to the Colonel, "to give the other fella the curse." The
Boy was proud of Red's pluck--already looking upon him as his own--but
he jumped up from his ingratiating attitude, still grasping the dried
fish. It would be a shame if that Leader got chewed up! And there was
Red, every tooth bared, gasping for gore, and with each passing second
seeming to throw a deeper damnation into his threat, and to brace
himself more firmly for the hurling of the final doom.

At that instant, the stranger breathing quick and hard, the elder
children leaning forward, some of the younger drawing back in
terror--if you'll believe it, the Leader blinked in a bored way, and
sat down on the snow. A question only of last moments now, poor brute!
and the bystanders held their breath. But no! Red, to be sure, broke
into the most awful demonstrations, and nearly burst himself with fury;
but he backed away, as though the spectacle offered by the Leader were
too disgusting for a decent dog to look at. He went behind the shack
and told the Spotty One. In no time they were back, approaching the Boy
and the fish discreetly from behind. Such me