“That is proof,” he laughed, turning to Josephine.  “If he had snapped off my hand I would say that you were wrong.”

She passed quickly from one dog to another now, with Philip close at her side, and from the collar of each dog she snapped the chain.  After she had freed a dozen, Philip began to help her.  A few of the huskies snarled at him.  Others accepted him already as a part of her.  Yet in their eyes he saw the smouldering menace, the fire that wanted only a word from her to turn them into a horde of tearing demons.

At first he was startled by Josephine’s confidence in them.  Then he was only amazed.  She was not only unafraid herself; she was unafraid for him.  She knew that they would not touch him.  When they were all free the pack gathered in close about them, and then Josephine came and stood at Philip’s side, and put her hands to his shoulders.  Thus she stood for a few moments, half facing the dogs, calling their names again; and they crowded up still closer about them, until Philip fancied he could feel their warm breath.

“They have all seen me with you now,” she cried after that.  “They have seen me touch you.  Not one of them will snap at you after this.”

The dogs swept on ahead of them in a great wave as they left the spruce shelter.  Out in the clear light Philip drew a deep breath.  He had never seen anything like this pack.  They crowded shoulder to shoulder, body to body, in the open trail.  Most of them were the tawny dun and gray and yellow of the wolf.  There were a few blacks, and a few pure whites, but none that wore the mongrel spots of the soft-footed and softer-throated dogs from the south.

He shivered as he measured the pent-up power, the destructive possibilites of the whining, snapping, living sea of sinew and fang ahead of them.  And they were Josephine’s!  They were her slaves!  What need had she of his protection?  What account would be the insignificant automatic at his side in the face of this wild horde that awaited only a word from her?  What could there be in these forests that she feared, with them at her command?  Ten men with rifles could not have stood in the face of their first mad rush—­and yet she had told him that everything depended upon his protection.  He had thought that meant physical protection.  But it could not be.  He spoke his thoughts aloud, pointing to the dogs: 

“What danger can there be in this world that you need fear—­with them?” he asked.  “I don’t understand.  I can’t guess.”

She knew what he meant.  The hand on his arm pressed a little closer to him.

“Please don’t try to understand,” she answered in a low voice.  “They would fight for me.  I have seen them tear a wolf-pack into shreds.  And I have called them back from the throat of a wind-run deer, so that not a hair of her was harmed.  But, Philip, I guess that sometimes mistakes were made in the creation of things.  They have a brain.  But it isn’t reason!”