ped speed and steadiness. One day they made the
distance to the Godbout in a single journey, a wonderful run of over
eighty miles. But they loved their leader no better, though they
followed him faster. And as for the other teams, especially Carcajou's,
they were still firm in their deadly hatred for the dog with the black
patch.

III

It was in the second winter after Pichou's coming to Seven Islands
that the great trial of his courage arrived. Late in February an Indian
runner on snowshoes staggered into the village. He brought news from the
hunting-parties that were wintering far up on the Ste. Marguerite--good
news and bad. First, they had already made a good hunting: for the
pelletrie, that is to say. They had killed many otter, some fisher and
beaver, and four silver foxes--a marvel of fortune. But then, for the
food, the chase was bad, very bad--no caribou, no hare, no ptarmigan,
nothing for many days. Provisions were very low. There were six families
together. Then la grippe had taken hold of them. They were sick,
starving. They would probably die, at least most of the women and
children. It was a bad job.

Dan Scott had peculiar ideas of his duty toward the savages. He was
not romantic, but he liked to do the square thing. Besides, he had been
reading up on la grippe, and he had some new medicine for it, capsules
from Montreal, very powerful--quinine, phenacetine, and morphine. He was
as eager to try this new medicine as a boy is to fire off a new gun.
He loaded the Cometique with provisions and the medicine-chest with
capsules, harnessed his team, and started up the river. Thermometer
thirty degrees below zero; air like crystal; snow six feet deep on the
level.

The first day's journey was slow, for the going was soft, and the track,
at places, had to be broken out with snow-shoes. Camp was made at the
foot of the big fall--a hole in snow, a bed of boughs, a hot fire and a
blanket stretched on a couple of sticks to reflect the heat, the dogs on
the other side of the fire, and Pichou close to his master.

In the morning there was the steep hill beside the fall to climb,
alternately soft and slippery, now a slope of glass and now a
treacherous drift of yielding feathers; it was a road set on end. But
Pichou flattened his back and strained his loins and dug his toes into
the snow and would not give back an inch. When the rest of the team
balked the long whip slashed across their backs and recalled the