him, the splendid eagerness with which the long, wolfish line of beasts
stretched forth in their traces and followed in the snow-shoe trail.
There was something imposing about it all, something that struck deep
within him and roused strange thoughts. This that he saw was not the
mere labour of man and beast; it was not the humdrum toil of life, not
the daily slaving of living creatures for existence--for food, and
drink, and a sleeping place. It had risen above that. He had seen ships
and castles rise up from heaps of steel and stone; achievements of
science and the handiwork of genius had interested and sometimes amazed
him, but never had he looked upon physical effort that thrilled him as
did this that he was looking upon now. There was almost the spirit of
the epic about it. They _were_ the survival of the fittest--these men
and dogs. They had gone through the great test of life in the raw, as
the pyramids and the sphinx had outlived the ordeals of the centuries;
they were different; they were proven; they were of another kind of
flesh and blood than he had known--and they fascinated him. They stood
for more than romance and adventure, for more than tragedy or possible
joy; they were making no fight for riches--no fight for power, or fame,
or great personal achievement. Their struggle in this great, white
world--terrible in its emptiness, its vastness, and its mercilessness
for the weak--was simply a struggle that they might _live_.

The thought staggered him. Could there be joy in that--in a mere
existence without the thousand pleasures and luxuries and excitements
that he had known? He drank deeply of the keen air as he asked himself
the question. His eyes rested on the shaggy, undulating backs of the big
huskies; he noted their half-open jaws, the sharp alertness of their
pointed ears, the almost joyous unction with which they entered into
their task, their eagerness to keep their load close upon the heels of
their masters. He heard Mukoki's short, sharp, and unnecessary commands,
his _hi-yi's_ and his _ki-yi's_, as though he were crying out for no
other reason than from sheer physical exuberance. He saw Father Roland's
face turned backward for a moment, and it was smiling. They were
happy--now! Men and beasts were happy. And he could see no reason for
their happiness except that their blood was pounding through their
veins, even as it was pounding through his own. That was it--the blood.
The heart. The lungs. Th