He was a good looker all right.  When he was in condition his muscles stood out in bunches all over him.  And he was the strongest looking brute I ever saw in Alaska, also the most intelligent looking.  To run your eyes over him, you’d think he could outpull three dogs of his own weight.  Maybe he could, but I never saw it.  His intelligence didn’t run that way.  He could steal and forage to perfection; he had an instinct that was positively grewsome for divining when work was to be done and for making a sneak accordingly; and for getting lost and not staying lost he was nothing short of inspired.  But when it came to work, the way that intelligence dribbled out of him and left him a mere clot of wobbling, stupid jelly would make your heart bleed.

There are times when I think it wasn’t stupidity.  Maybe, like some men I know, he was too wise to work.  I shouldn’t wonder if he put it all over us with that intelligence of his.  Maybe he figured it all out and decided that a licking now and again and no work was a whole lot better than work all the time and no licking.  He was intelligent enough for such a computation.  I tell you, I’ve sat and looked into that dog’s eyes till the shivers ran up and down my spine and the marrow crawled like yeast, what of the intelligence I saw shining out.  I can’t express myself about that intelligence.  It is beyond mere words.  I saw it, that’s all.  At times it was like gazing into a human soul, to look into his eyes; and what I saw there frightened me and started all sorts of ideas in my own mind of reincarnation and all the rest.  I tell you I sensed something big in that brute’s eyes; there was a message there, but I wasn’t big enough myself to catch it.  Whatever it was (I know I’m making a fool of myself)—­whatever it was, it baffled me.  I can’t give an inkling of what I saw in that brute’s eyes; it wasn’t light, it wasn’t color; it was something that moved, away back, when the eyes themselves weren’t moving.  And I guess I didn’t see it move, either; I only sensed that it moved.  It was an expression,—­that’s what it was,—­and I got an impression of it.  No; it was different from a mere expression; it was more than that.  I don’t know what it was, but it gave me a feeling of kinship just the same.  Oh, no, not sentimental kinship.  It was, rather, a kinship of equality.  Those eyes never pleaded like a deer’s eyes.  They challenged.  No, it wasn’t defiance.  It was just a calm assumption of equality.  And I don’t think it was deliberate.  My belief is that it was unconscious on his part.  It was there because it was there, and it couldn’t help shining out.  No, I don’t mean shine.  It didn’t shine; it moved.  I know I’m talking rot, but if you’d looked into that animal’s eyes the way I have, you’d understand.  Steve was affected the same way I was.  Why, I tried to kill that Spot once—­he was no good for anything; and I fell down on it.  I led him out into the brush, and he came along slow