‘No?  Good!’

Mackenzie turned contemptuously and drew his knife from the priest’s throat.

’Are any of the young men so minded?  If so, the Wolf will take them by two and three till none are left.  No?  Good!  Thling-Tinneh, I now give thee this rifle a second time.  If, in the days to come, thou shouldst journey to the Country of the Yukon, know thou that there shall always be a place and much food by the fire of the Wolf.  The night is now passing into the day.  I go, but I may come again.  And for the last time, remember the Law of the Wolf!’ He was supernatural in their sight as he rejoined Zarinska.  She took her place at the head of the team, and the dogs swung into motion.  A few moments later they were swallowed up by the ghostly forest.  Till now Mackenzie had waited; he slipped into his snow-shoes to follow.

‘Has the Wolf forgotten the five long plugs?’ Mackenzie turned upon the Fox angrily; then the humor of it struck him.

‘I will give thee one short plug.’  ‘As the Wolf sees fit,’ meekly responded the Fox, stretching out his hand.

The Men of Forty Mile

When Big Jim Belden ventured the apparently innocuous proposition that mush-ice was ‘rather pecooliar,’ he little dreamed of what it would lead to.

Neither did Lon McFane, when he affirmed that anchor-ice was even more so; nor did Bettles, as he instantly disagreed, declaring the very existence of such a form to be a bugaboo.

‘An’ ye’d be tellin’ me this,’ cried Lon, ’after the years ye’ve spint in the land!  An’ we atin’ out the same pot this many’s the day!’ ‘But the thing’s agin reasin,’ insisted Bettles.

‘Look you, water’s warmer than ice—­’ ‘An’ little the difference, once ye break through.’

‘Still it’s warmer, because it ain’t froze.  An’ you say it freezes on the bottom?’ ’Only the anchor-ice, David, only the anchor-ice.  An’ have ye niver drifted along, the water clear as glass, whin suddin, belike a cloud over the sun, the mushy-ice comes bubblin’ up an’ up till from bank to bank an’ bind to bind it’s drapin’ the river like a first snowfall?’ ’Unh, hunh! more’n once when I took a doze at the steering-oar.  But it allus come out the nighest side-channel, an’ not bubblin’ up an’ up.’  ’But with niver a wink at the helm?’

‘No; nor you.  It’s agin reason.  I’ll leave it to any man!’ Bettles appealed to the circle about the stove, but the fight was on between himself and Lon McFane.

‘Reason or no reason, it’s the truth I’m tellin’ ye.  Last fall, a year gone, ‘twas Sitka Charley and meself saw the sight, droppin’ down the riffle ye’ll remember below Fort Reliance.  An’ regular fall weather it was—­the glint o’ the sun on the golden larch an’ the quakin’ aspens; an’ the glister of light on ivery ripple; an’ beyand, the winter an’ the blue haze of the North comin’ down hand in hand.  It’s well ye know the same, with a fringe to the river an’ the ice formin’ thick in the eddies—­an’ a snap an’ sparkle to the air, an’ ye a-feelin’ it through all yer blood, a-takin’ new lease of life with ivery suck of it.  ’Tis then, me boy, the world grows small an’ the wandtherlust lays ye by the heels.