“Nig’s at it again,” said the Colonel.  “Give us your whip.”

“No,” said the Boy; “I begin to see now why he stops and goes for Red like that.  Hah!  Spot’s gettin it, too, this time.  They haven’t been pullin’ properly.  You just notice:  if they aren’t doin’ their share Nig’ll turn to every time and give ’em ‘Hail, Columbia!’ You’ll see, when he’s freshened ’em up a bit we’ll have ’em on a dead run.”  The Boy laughed and cracked his whip.

“They’ve got keen noses. I don’t smell the village this time.  Come on, Nig, Spot’s had enough; he’s sorry, good and plenty.  Cheer up, Spot!  Fish, old man!  You hear me talkin’ to you, Red? Fish! Caches full of it.  Whoop!” and down they rushed, pell-mell, men and dogs tearing along like mad across the frozen river, and never slowing till it came to the stiff pull up the opposite bank.

“Funny I don’t hear any dogs,” panted the Boy.

They came out upon a place silent as the dead—­a big deserted village, emptied by the plague, or, maybe, only by the winter; caches emptied, too; not a salmon, not a pike, not a lusk, not even a whitefish left behind.

It was a bitter blow.  They didn’t say anything; it was too bad to talk about.  The Colonel made the fire, and fried a little bacon and made some mush:  that was their dinner.  The bacon-rinds were boiled in the mush-pot with a great deal of snow and a little meal, and the “soup” so concocted was set out to cool for the dogs.  They were afraid to sleep in one of the cabins; it might be plague-infected.  The Indians had cut all the spruce for a wide radius round about—­no boughs to make a bed.  They hoisted some tent-poles up into one of the empty caches, laid them side by side, and on this bed, dry, if hard, they found oblivion.

The next morning a thin, powdery snow was driving about.  Had they lost their way in the calendar as well as on the trail, and was it December instead of the 29th of March?  The Colonel sat on the packed sled, undoing with stiff fingers the twisted, frozen rope.  He knew the axe that he used the night before on the little end of bacon was lying, pressed into the snow, under one runner.  But that was the last thing to go on the pack before the lashing, and it wouldn’t get lost pinned down under the sled.  Nig caught sight of it, and came over with a cheerful air of interest, sniffed bacon on the steel, and it occurred to him it would be a good plan to lick it.

A bitter howling broke the stillness.  The Boy came tearing up with a look that lifted the Colonel off the sled, and there was Nig trying to get away from the axe-head, his tongue frozen fast to the steel, and pulled horribly long out of his mouth like a little pink rope.  The Boy had fallen upon the agonized beast, and forced him down close to the steel.  Holding him there between his knees, he pulled off his outer mits and with hands and breath warmed the surface of the axe, speaking now and then to the dog, who howled wretchedly, but seemed to understand something was being done for him, since he gave up struggling.  When at last the Boy got him free, the little horse pressed against his friend’s legs with a strange new shuddering noise very pitiful to hear.