as they screamed at his
blows he laughed cruelly. They were straining forward in the harness,
their bellies almost level with the ground, their muscles standing out
like whalebone. Great, gaunt brutes they were, with ribs like
barrel-staves, and hip-bones sharp as stakes. Their woolly coats were
white with frost, their sly, slit-eyed faces ice-sheathed, their feet
torn so that they left a bloody track on the snow at every step.

"Mush on there, you curs, or I'll cut you in two," stormed the big man,
and once again the heavy whip fell on the yelling pack. They were
pulling for all they were worth, their heads down, their shoulders
squared. Their breath came pantingly, their tongues gleamed redly, their
white teeth shone. They were fighting, fighting for life, fighting to
placate a cruel master in a world where all was cruelty and oppression.

For there in the Winter Wild pity was not even a name. It was the
struggle for life, desperate and never-ending. The Wild abhorred life,
abhorred most of all these atoms of heat and hurry in the midst of her
triumphant stillness. The Wild would crush those defiant pigmies that
disputed the majesty of her invincible calm.

A dog was hanging back in the harness. It whined; then as the husky
following snapped at it savagely, it gave a lurch and fell. The big man
shot forward with a sudden fury in his eyes. Swinging the heavy-thonged
whip, again and again he brought it down on the writhing brute. Then he
twisted the thong around his hand and belaboured its hollow ribs with
the butt. It screamed for a while, but soon it ceased to scream; it only
moaned a little. With glistening fangs and ears up-pricked the other
dogs looked at their fallen comrade. They longed to leap on it, to rend
its gaunt limbs apart, to tear its quivering flesh; but there was the
big man with his murderous whip, and they cowered before him.

The big man kicked the fallen dog repeatedly. The little man paused in
his painful progress to look on apathetically.

"You'll stave in its ribs," he remarked presently; "and then we'll never
make timber by nightfall."

The big man had failed in his efforts to rouse the dog. There in that
lancinating cold, in an ecstasy of rage, despairfully he poised over it.

"Who told you to put in your lip?" he snarled. "Who's running this
show, you or I? I'll stave in its ribs if I choose, and I'll hitch you
to the sled and make you pull your guts out, too."

The little man said n