in the office. Even if he was it wouldn't
take mor'n about a minute to break him of that."

By nightfall Connie and 'Merican Joe had the outfit all ready for the
trail, and the following morning they departed at daylight, with half of
Ten Bow waving good-bye, as the great silver wolf-dog swung out onto the
long snow trail at the head of the team.

CHAPTER IV

BRASS

It was high noon, just two weeks from the day Connie Morgan and 'Merican
Joe pulled out of Ten Bow, and the two halted their dogs on the summit
of Bonnet Plume Pass and gazed out over the jumbled mass of peaks and
valleys and ridges that lay to the eastward. The first leg of the long
snow trail, from Ten Bow to Dawson, had been covered over a
well-travelled trail with road houses at convenient intervals. Over this
trail with Connie's team of seven big malamutes, headed by the great
ruffed wolf-dog, they had averaged forty miles a day.

At Dawson they outfitted for the trip to Fort Norman, a distance of
about five hundred miles. Connie was fortunate in being able to purchase
from a prospector eight Mackenzie River dogs which he presented to
'Merican Joe, much to the Indian's surprise and delight. The Alaska
sled was replaced by two toboggans, and 'Merican Joe nodded approval at
Connie's selection of supplies. For from now on there would be no road
houses and, for the most of the way, no trail. And their course would
thread the roughest country on the whole continent. Therefore, the
question of outfitting was a problem to be taken seriously. Too little
grub in the sub-arctic in winter means death--horrible, black-tongued,
sunken-eyed death by starvation and freezing. And too much outfit means
overstrain on the dogs, slower travel, and unless some of it is
discarded or _cached_, it means all kinds of trouble for the trail
mushers.

The surest test of a sourdough is his outfit. Connie figured the trip
should take thirty-five days, which should put them into Fort Norman on
the fifth of November. But Connie had been long enough in the North to
take that word "should" none too literally. He knew that under very
favourable conditions the trip might be made in twenty days, and he knew
also that it might take fifty days. Therefore although the month was
November, a very favourable month for hunting, and the country to be
traversed was good game country, he did not figure his rifle for a
single pound of meat. If meat were killed on the journey, well and