have been effectually checked.
The hunters, sparingly adding a little of their fast diminishing pile
of fuel to the fire, decided to lie down for much needed rest, but not
for sleep. How long they lay there, cramped by the calves, listening
for stealthy steps, neither could tell; it might have been moments and
it might have been hours. All at once came a rapid rush of pattering
feet, succeeded by a chorus of angry barks, then a terrible commingling
of savage snarls, growls, snaps and yelps.

"Out!" yelled Rea. "They're on the dogs!"

Jones pushed his cocked rifle ahead of him and straightened up outside
the tepee. A wolf, large as a panther and white as the gleaming snow,
sprang at him. Even as he discharged his rifle, right against the
breast of the beast, he saw its dripping jaws, its wicked green eyes,
like spurts of fire and felt its hot breath. It fell at his feet and
writhed in the death struggle. Slender bodies of black and white,
whirling and tussling together, sent out fiendish uproar. Rea threw a
blazing stick of wood among them, which sizzled as it met the furry
coats, and brandishing another he ran into the thick of the fight.
Unable to stand the proximity of fire, the wolves bolted and loped off
into the woods.

"What a huge brute!" exclaimed Jones, dragging the one he had shot into
the light. It was a superb animal, thin, supple, strong, with a coat of
frosty fur, very long and fine. Rea began at once to skin it, remarking
that he hoped to find other pelts in the morning.

Though the wolves remained in the vicinity of camp, none ventured near.
The dogs moaned and whined; their restlessness increased as dawn
approached, and when the gray light came, Jones founds that some of
them had been badly lacerated by the fangs of the wolves. Rea hunted
for dead wolves and found not so much as a piece of white fur.

Soon the hunters were speeding southward. Other than a disposition to
fight among themselves, the dogs showed no evil effects of the attack.
They were lashed to their best speed, for Rea said the white rangers of
the north would never quit their trail. All day the men listened for
the wild, lonesome, haunting mourn. But it came not.

A wonderful halo of white and gold, that Rea called a sun-dog, hung in
the sky all afternoon, and dazzlingly bright over the dazzling world of
snow circled and glowed a mocking sun, brother of the desert mirage,
beautiful illusion, smiling cold out of the polar blue.