ld not see what happened then, except that the bar was filled with a
shadowy horde of leaping, crowding, yelping beasts, and that Josephine
was the centre of them. He heard her voice clear and commanding, crying
out their names--Tyr, Captain, Bruno, Thor, Wamba--until their number
seemed without end; he heard the metallic snap of fangs, quick, panting
breaths, the shuffling of padded feet; and then the girl's voice grew
more clear, and the sounds less, until he heard nothing but the bated
breath of the pack and a low, smothered whine.

In that moment the wind-blown clouds above them broke in a narrow rift
across the skies, and for an instant the moon shone through. What he
saw then drew Philip's breath from him in a wondering gasp.

On the white bar stood Josephine. The wind on the lake had torn the
strands of her long braid loose and her hair swept in a damp and
clinging mass to her hips. She was looking toward him, as if about to
speak. But it was the pack that made him stare. A sea of great shaggy
heads and crouching bodies surrounded her, a fierce yellow and
green-eyed horde flattened like a single beast upon their bellies their
heads turned toward her, their throats swelling and their eyes gleaming
in the joyous excitement of her return. An instant of that strange and
thrilling picture, and the night was black again. The girl's voice
spoke softly. Bodies shuffled out of her path. And then she said, quite
near to him;

"Are you coming, Philip?"

CHAPTER EIGHT

Not without a slight twinge of trepidation did Philip step from his
canoe to her. He had not heard Croisset go ashore, and for a moment he
felt as if he were deliberately placing himself at the mercy of a
wolf-pack. Josephine may have guessed the effect of the savage
spectacle he had beheld from the canoe, for she was close to the
water's edge to meet him. She spoke, and in the pitch darkness he
reached out. Her hand was groping for him, and her fingers closed
firmly about his own.

"They are my bodyguard, and I have trained them all from puppies," she
explained. "They don't like strangers, but will fight for anything that
I touch. So I will lead you." She turned with him toward the pack, and
cried in her clear, commanding voice: "Marche, boys!--Tyr, Captain,
Thor, Marche! Hoosh, hoosh, Marche!"

It seemed as if a hundred eyes gleamed out of the blackness; then there
was a movement, a whining, snarling, snapping movement, and as they
walked up