The Eskimo’s narrow eyes widened.  There was murder in this white woman’s face, in the steadiness of her hand, and in her voice.  If they came up with them—­he would die!  Swiftly he gathered up his sleeping-bag and placed it on the sledge.  Then he roused the dogs, tangled in their traces.  They rose to their feet, sleepy and ill-humored.  One of them snapped at his hand.  Another snarled viciously as he untwisted a trace.  Then one of the yawning brutes caught the new smell in the air, the smell that Wapi had gathered when it was a mile farther off.  He sniffed.  He sat back on his haunches and sent forth a yelping howl to his comrades in the other team.  In ten seconds the other five were howling with him, and scarcely had the tumult burst from their throats when there came a response from the fire half a mile away.

“My God!” gasped Peter, under his breath.

Dolores sprang to the gee-bar, and Uppy lashed his long whip until it cracked like a repeating rifle over the pack.  The dogs responded and sped through the night.  Behind them the pandemonium of dog voices in the other camp had ceased.  Men had leaped into life.  Fifteen dogs were straightening in the tandem trace of a single sledge.

Dolores laughed, a sobbing, broken laugh, that in itself was a cry of despair.  “Peter, if they come up with us, what shall we do?”

“If they overtake us,” said Peter, “give me the revolver.  It is fully loaded?”

“I have cartridges—­”

For the first time she remembered that she had not filled the three empty chambers.  Crooking her arm under the gee-bar, she fumbled in her pocket.  The dogs, refreshed by their sleep and urged by Uppy’s whip, were tearing off the first mile at a great speed.  The trail ahead of them was level and hard again.  Uppy knew they were on the edge of the big barren of the Lacs Delesse, and he cracked his whip just as the off runner of the sledge struck a hidden snow-blister.  There was a sudden lurch, and in a vicious up-shoot of the gee-bar the revolver was knocked from Dolores’ hand—­and was gone.  A shriek rose to her lips, but she stifled it before it was given voice.  Until this minute she had not felt the terror of utter hopelessness upon her.  Now it made her faint.  The revolver had not only given her hope, but also a steadfast faith in herself.  From the beginning she had made up her mind how she would use it in the end, even though a few moments before she had asked Peter what they would do.

Crumpled down on the sledge, she clung to Peter, and suddenly the inspiration came to her not to let him know what had happened.  Her arms tightened about his shoulders, and she looked ahead over the backs of the wolfish pack, shivering as she thought of what Uppy would do could he guess her loss.  But he was running now for his life, driven on by his fear of her unerring marksmanship—­and Wapi.  She looked over her shoulder.  Wapi was there, a huge gray shadow twenty paces behind.  And she thought she heard a shout!