She had forgotten Wapi.  Now she found him again close at her side, and she dropped a hand to his big head as she hurried back through the pallid gloom.  She spoke to him, crying out with sobbing breath what she had not dared to reveal to Blake.  For Wapi the long night had ceased to be a hell of ghastly emptiness, and to her voice and the touch of her hand he responded with a whine that was the whine of a white man’s dog.  They had traveled two-thirds of the distance to the ship when he stopped in his tracks and sniffed the wind that was coming from shore.  A second time he did this, and a third, and the third time Dolores turned with him and faced the direction from which they had come.  A low growl rose in Wapi’s throat, a snarl of menace with a note of warning in it.

“What is it, Wapi?” whispered Dolores.  She heard his long fangs click, and under her hand she felt his body grow tense.  “What is it?” she repeated.

A thrill, a suspicion, shot into her heart as they went on.  A fourth time Wapi faced the shore and growled before they reached the ship.  Like shadows they went up over the ice bridge.  Dolores did not enter the cabin but drew Wapi behind it so they could not be seen.  Ten minutes, fifteen, and suddenly she caught her breath and fell down on her knees beside Wapi, putting her arms about his gaunt shoulders.  “Be quiet,” she whispered.  “Be quiet.”

Up out of the night came a dark and grotesque shadow.  It paused below the bridge, then it came on silently and passed almost without sound toward the captain’s quarters.  It was Blake.  Dolores’ heart was choking her.  Her arms clutched Wapi, whispering for him to be quiet, to be quiet.  Blake disappeared, and she rose to her feet.  She had come of fighting stock.  Peter was proud of that.  “You slim wonderful little thing!” he had said to her more than once.  “You’ve a heart in that pretty body of yours like the general’s!” The general was her father, and a fighter.  She thought of Peter’s words now, and the fighting blood leaped through her veins.  It was for Peter more than herself that she was going to fight now.

She made Wapi understand that he must remain where he was.  Then she followed after Blake, followed until her ears were close to the door behind which she could already hear Blake and Rydal talking.

Ten minutes later she returned to Wapi.  Under her hood her face was as white as the whitest star in the sky.  She stood for many minutes close to the dog, gathering her courage, marshaling her strength, preparing herself to face Peter.  He must not suspect until the last moment.  She thanked God that Wapi had caught the taint of Blake in the air, and she was conscious of offering a prayer that God might help her and Peter.

Peter gave a cry of pleasure when the door opened and Dolores entered.  He saw Wapi crowding in, and laughed.  “Pals already!  I guess I needn’t have been afraid for you.  What a giant of a dog!”