side this
sledge, too, a driver was running with desperate speed.

The leader now leaped upon his sledge, his voice rising in sharp cries
of exhortation, his whip whirling and cracking over the backs of his
dogs. The second driver still ran, and thus gained upon the team
ahead, so that when they came to the opposite side of the lake, where
the wolf had sent out the warning cry to his people, the twelve dogs
of the two teams were almost abreast.

Quickly there came a slackening in the pace set by the leading dog of
each team, and half a minute later the sledges stopped. The dogs flung
themselves down in their harness, panting, with gaping jaws, the snow
reddening under their bleeding feet. The men, too, showed signs of
terrible strain. The elder of these, as we have said, was an Indian,
pure breed of the great Northern wilderness. His companion was a youth
who had not yet reached his twenties, slender, but with the strength
and agility of an animal in his limbs, his handsome face bronzed by
the free life of the forest, and in his veins a plentiful strain of
that blood which made his comrade kin.

In those two we have again met our old friends Mukoki and Wabigoon:
Mukoki, the faithful old warrior and pathfinder, and Wabigoon, the
adventurous half-Indian son of the factor of Wabinosh House. Both
were at the height of some great excitement. For a few moments, while
gaining breath, they gazed silently into each other's face.

"I'm afraid--we can't--catch them, Muky," panted the younger. "What do
you think--"

He stopped, for Mukoki had thrown himself on his knees in the snow a
dozen feet in front of the teams. From that point there ran straight
ahead of them the trail of the dog mail. For perhaps a full minute he
examined the imprints of the dogs' feet and the smooth path made
by the sledge. Then he looked up, and with one of those inimitable
chuckles which meant so much when coming from him, he said:

"We catch heem--sure! See--sledge heem go _deep_. Both ride. Big load
for dogs. We catch heem--sure!"

"But our dogs!" persisted Wabigoon, his face still filled with doubt.
"They're completely bushed, and my leader has gone lame. See how
they're bleeding!"

The huskies, as the big wolfish sledge-dogs of the far North are
called, were indeed in a pitiable condition. The warm sun had weakened
the hard crust of the snow until at every leap the feet of the animals
had broken through, tearing and wounding themselves on it