e another stop, when he floundered past the sleds to
his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered a moment
to get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then he returned and
started his dogs. They swung out on the trail with remarkable lack of
exertion, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped in surprise. The
driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. He called his
comrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten through both of
Sol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in his
proper place.

He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed. His
comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being denied
the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, where
dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut
out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die
anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So
he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more
than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt.
Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once the
sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind legs.

But he held out till camp was reached, when his driver made a place for
him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. At harness-up
time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts he got on
his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way forward slowly
toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates. He would advance
his fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitching movement,
when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead again for a few more
inches. His strength left him, and the last his mates saw of him he lay
gasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But they could hear him
mournfully howling till they passed out of sight behind a belt of river
timber.

Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced his
steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A revolver-shot
rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips snapped, the bells
tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail; but Buck knew, and
every dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt of river trees.

Chapter V. The Toil of Trace and Trail

Thirty days from the time it left Dawson, the Salt Water Mail, with Buck
and his