evening came.

Snapping his long whip over the dogs, he compelled them to lie down. The
big gray dog was slow to obey, and Marks laid the lash upon him two or
three times to enforce authority.

The dogs quieted, he dropped the whip in the snow at the rear of the
komatik, and within reach, and breaking some boughs arranged them to
form a comfortable couch near the fire. He then unlashed his sleeping
bag from the top of the load on his komatik, spread it upon the boughs
and crawled into it.

Marks fell asleep. When he awoke it was nearing sunset, and time to
drive on to Aaron Slade's. But he could only open his eyes to a narrow
slit, and that for a moment, when they would close. The pain was
excruciating. Marks was snowblind.

It was near feeding time, and the dogs were on their feet and restless.
If he could get them started, perhaps they would carry him unguided to
Slade's. At any rate, he determined to try, for he could not remain
where he was.

With much fumbling and groping he succeeded fairly well in securing his
load. He felt for his whip, and found it on the snow at the rear of the
komatik, where he had dropped it after compelling the dogs to lie down.

The restless dogs had swung around in their traces, and were facing him.
Through some mysterious instinct they appeared to have sensed the fact
that there was something wrong with Marks. When he ordered them forward,
and snapped the whip over them in an effort to straighten them out in
the direction in which he wished to go, they replied with snarls, and
refused to obey. Their open defiance of his authority sent Marks into a
rage. He tried to lash them, but in his blinded condition his aim was
poor and his efforts ineffectual.

His anger rose to white heat. If he could not lash them, he could at
least beat them into submission, at close quarters, with the clubbed
handle of the whip. With a volley of curses, he flew at them blindly,
beating right and left, and bringing whines of pain from the unfortunate
dogs that he chanced to strike.

Still they did not move into position. In painful peeps that he had
through narrow eye slits he saw the big gray dog facing him and snarling
at him with a show of its ugly fangs. That dog was the instigator of the
trouble he was having! He hated the creature! He would beat it into
submission!

The gray dog was in the center of the pack, and to reach it Marks was
compelled to step over the traces of some of the other dogs.