to be loosed, took
one long, ardent sniff at the trail before him and then loped on ahead
with never a backward glance for master or team-mates.

"Here, you, Jan! Come in here! Come right in here! D'ye hear me? Jan!
Jan! You crazy? Come in here! Come--here!"

Jim Willis flung all his master's authority into the harsh
peremptoriness of his last call. And Jan checked in his stride as he
heard it. Then the hound shook his shoulders as though a whip-lash had
struck them, sniffed hard again at the trail, and went on.

Willis caused his whip to sing, and himself shouted till he was hoarse.
Jan, the perfect exemplar of sled-dog discipline, apparently defied him.
The big hound was out of sight now.

"Well!" exclaimed Willis as he turned to unharness and feed his other
dogs. And again, "Well!" And then, after a pause: "Now I know you're
plumb crazy. But all the same--Well, it's got me properly beat. Anyhow,
crazy or no, I guess you're meat just the same, an', by the great
Geewhillikins! you'll be dead meat, an' digested meat at that, before
you're an hour older, my son, if I know anything o' wolves." Later, as
he proceeded to thaw out his supper, "Well, I do reckon that's a blame
pity," growled Willis to his fire, by way of epitaph. And for Jim Willis
that was saying a good deal.

XXXV

THE END OF JAN'S LONE TRAIL

With every stride in his solitary progress along that dark trail Jan's
gait and appearance took on more of certitude and of swift concentration
upon an increasingly clear and definite objective.

Of the wolves in the neighborhood all save two remained, uneasily
ranging the neighborhood of the trail to the rear of Willis's camp. As
it seemed to them, Jim Willis's outfit was a sure and safe quarry. It
represented meat which must, in due course, become food for them. And so
they did not wish to leave it behind them, in a country bare of game.

Two venturesome speculators from the pack had, however, worked round to
the front, one on either side of the trail. And these were now loping
silent along, each sixty or seventy yards away, watching Jan. Jan was
conscious of their presence, as one is conscious of the proximity of
mosquitoes. He regarded their presence neither more nor less seriously
than this. But he did not forget them. Now and again one or other of
them would close in to, perhaps, twenty or thirty paces in a sweeping
curve. Then Jan's lip would writhe and rise on the side nearest the
encroachin