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