ry tired. Billee cried and
whimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe was sourer than ever,
and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.

But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gone wrong with
him. He became more morose and irritable, and when camp was pitched at
once made his nest, where his driver fed him. Once out of the harness
and down, he did not get on his feet again till harness-up time in the
morning. Sometimes, in the traces, when jerked by a sudden stoppage of
the sled, or by straining to start it, he would cry out with pain. The
driver examined him, but could find nothing. All the drivers became
interested in his case. They talked it over at meal-time, and over their
last pipes before going to bed, and one night they held a consultation.
He was brought from his nest to the fire and was pressed and prodded
till he cried out many times. Something was wrong inside, but they could
locate no broken bones, could not make it out.

By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he was falling
repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called a halt and took
him out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast to the sled.
His intention was to rest Dave, letting him run free behind the sled.
Sick as he was, Dave resented being taken out, grunting and growling
while the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken-heartedly when
he saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served so long. For the
pride of trace and trail was his, and, sick unto death, he could not
bear that another dog should do his work.

When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside the
beaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him and
trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, striving
to leap inside his traces and get between him and the sled, and all the
while whining and yelping and crying with grief and pain. The half-breed
tried to drive him away with the whip; but he paid no heed to the
stinging lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder. Dave
refused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going was
easy, but continued to flounder alongside in the soft snow, where the
going was most difficult, till exhausted. Then he fell, and lay where he
fell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by.

With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger along behind
till the train mad