danger,
broke from the dogs and ran, with bullets from Toby's rifle raising
little spurts of snow around them until they disappeared over a spur of
the hill.

"I hears the fightin'," said Toby, "and I runs as fast as I can. I sees
you knock that un over with the ax. 'Twere wonderful plucky, Charley, to
fight un with an ax."

Charley sank, weak and trembling, upon the komatik.

"I--thought--they'd--kill--me," he said.

"'Twere lucky I hears un." Toby stooped and felt of the fur of one of
those he had shot. "They's prime, and we gets three of un, whatever.
They pays six dollars for wolf skins at the post, and we'll be gettin'
eighteen dollars for un. The dogs gets cut up some, but not so bad, and
they'll get over un."

Charley made no response. He was not interested in the character or
value of the fur. He was too close to the peril from which he had
escaped. He had been face to face with what he had believed to be
certain death. How could Toby treat the incident with so little concern,
and apparently with so little appreciation of the grave danger just
ended? He was giving first thought to the value of the pelts, as though
that mattered in the least.

Toby, on his part, did not in any degree deprecate the peril in which
Charley had been placed, but now that it was ended, why should he talk
about it or even think about it? This was a habit of his life, a life of
unremitting endeavour in a stern land with its own dangers and
adventures which Toby accepted as a matter of course and to be expected.
In his city streets Charley might dodge an automobile at a crossing and
escape with his life by a hair's breadth, but Charley would scarcely
give such an adventure a second thought. But to Toby such would have
been an adventure to think and talk about and to remember with a thrill.

To Toby now, the matter of chief importance was the fact that he and
Charley had earned the trade value of three wolf pelts, which was
eighteen dollars, and that was a good day's wages. The danger was at an
end and behind them, and no longer worth a thought; the reward was
before them, and Toby began immediately, as a habit of life, to enjoy it
in anticipation.

While life warmth was still in the carcasses, the boys turned their
attention to the removal of the pelts, after first securing the dogs and
repairing the broken bridle. As Charley worked his interest in his
trophy grew, and he was as proud of it as he had ever been of anything
in hi