s of sound. He
still kept his teeth together, but severe muscular contractions attacked
his body, strange twitchings and jerkings, till he was all a-quiver and
writhing in silent torment. As he lost control, his jaws spasmodically
wrenched apart, and deep throaty vibrations issued forth, too low in the
register of sound for human ear to catch. And then, nostrils distended,
eyes dilated, hair bristling in helpless rage, arose the long wolf howl.
It came with a slurring rush upwards, swelling to a great heart-breaking
burst of sound, and dying away in sadly cadenced woe--then the next rush
upward, octave upon octave; the bursting heart; and the infinite sorrow
and misery, fainting, fading, falling, and dying slowly away.

It was fit for hell. And Leclere, with fiendish ken, seemed to divine
each particular nerve and heartstring, and with long wails and tremblings
and sobbing minors to make it yield up its last shred of grief. It was
frightful, and for twenty-four hours after, Batard was nervous and
unstrung, starting at common sounds, tripping over his own shadow, but,
withal, vicious and masterful with his team-mates. Nor did he show signs
of a breaking spirit. Rather did he grow more grim and taciturn, biding
his time with an inscrutable patience that began to puzzle and weigh upon
Leclere. The dog would lie in the firelight, motionless, for hours,
gazing straight before him at Leclere, and hating him with his bitter
eyes.

Often the man felt that he had bucked against the very essence of
life--the unconquerable essence that swept the hawk down out of the sky
like a feathered thunderbolt, that drove the great grey goose across the
zones, that hurled the spawning salmon through two thousand miles of
boiling Yukon flood. At such times he felt impelled to--express his own
unconquerable essence; and with strong drink, wild music, and Batard, he
indulged in vast orgies, wherein he pitted his puny strength in the face
of things, and challenged all that was, and had been, and was yet to be.

"Dere is somet'ing dere," he affirmed, when the rhythmed vagaries of his
mind touched the secret chords of Batard's being and brought forth the
long lugubrious howl. "Ah pool eet out wid bot' my han's, so, an' so.
Ha! ha! Eet is fonee! Eet is ver' fonee! De priest chant, de womans
pray, de mans swear, de leetle bird go _peep-peep_, Batard, heem go
_yow-yow_--an' eet is all de ver' same t'ing. Ha! ha!"

Father Gautier, a wo