ng toward the dogs. He could barely see them there,
far, far behind him--making a black spot where they slept, exactly as
though they were another seal.

So he put two fingers to his lips and blew a long, shrill blast.

It was the signal for which they had been waiting. On they came like
two wild young race-horses, each eager to be first to greet their
master.

They must have known well enough that he had killed the seal. They had
hunted with him so often that if they had been human the man and the
dogs could hardly have spoken to each other and understood better.

"Good old Jim! Good old Jack!" The dogs bounced round him like india
rubber, mad with delight.

"Look what we gotta take back! Ain't that somethin' to make the old
lady's eyes pop outa her head? First big seal's been caught off here
for months! Enough to save the whole village from starvation. An' you
dogs is to have some of it too, all o' you. Here's to begin with!"

He drew his clasp-knife and snicker-snacked two good-sized bits from
the tail of the fallen monarch. He threw the meat to the dogs, who had
it down in a gulp and a swallow and then stood with their ears up,
like the Jack-in-the-pulpit, to know if there would be more.

"No, boys, that's enough to start back on!" He produced straps and
ropes from the bread-bag and rigged up a harness so that the dogs
might haul the seal, giving himself the end of a rope, to pull more
than his share of the heavy carcass.

"Wisht we could git a coupla polar bears too!" he laughed. "But I
don't know how we could pull to the shore any more'n what we got
here. Well, when we've got this et we'll be comin' back fer more,
won't we, boys?"

And the dogs, tugging and wagging as they plodded shoreward, seemed to
agree.

In spite of the weight of the seal, the trip back did not seem nearly
so long. For you know how it is--when your heart is light any burden
you carry doesn't count for nearly so much.

Tom Bradley in spite of pulling so hard was singing to himself like a
kettle on a stove. And the dogs, too, would have spared breath to bark
joyously, if huskies ever barked. But no well-bred husky makes remarks
of that sort.

Tom stopped to rest, and sat on an ice-hummock, the dogs with their
heads against his knee, their tongues lolling out.

"'Member that time we chased the ole bear?" he laughed. "That was the
time I couldn't do nothing with you! You was young dogs then, an' you
got so excited you wouldn't li