lf will take them by
two and three till none are left. No? Good! Thling-Tinneh, I now give
thee this rifle a second time. If, in the days to come, thou shouldst
journey to the Country of the Yukon, know thou that there shall always
be a place and much food by the fire of the Wolf. The night is now
passing into the day. I go, but I may come again. And for the last
time, remember the Law of the Wolf!' He was supernatural in their sight
as he rejoined Zarinska. She took her place at the head of the team,
and the dogs swung into motion. A few moments later they were swallowed
up by the ghostly forest. Till now Mackenzie had waited; he slipped
into his snow-shoes to follow.

'Has the Wolf forgotten the five long plugs?' Mackenzie turned upon the
Fox angrily; then the humor of it struck him.

'I will give thee one short plug.' 'As the Wolf sees fit,' meekly
responded the Fox, stretching out his hand.

The Men of Forty Mile

When Big Jim Belden ventured the apparently innocuous proposition that
mush-ice was 'rather pecooliar,' he little dreamed of what it would
lead to.

Neither did Lon McFane, when he affirmed that anchor-ice was even more
so; nor did Bettles, as he instantly disagreed, declaring the very
existence of such a form to be a bugaboo.

'An' ye'd be tellin' me this,' cried Lon, 'after the years ye've spint
in the land! An' we atin' out the same pot this many's the day!' 'But
the thing's agin reasin,' insisted Bettles.

'Look you, water's warmer than ice--' 'An' little the difference, once
ye break through.'

'Still it's warmer, because it ain't froze. An' you say it freezes on
the bottom?' 'Only the anchor-ice, David, only the anchor-ice. An' have
ye niver drifted along, the water clear as glass, whin suddin, belike a
cloud over the sun, the mushy-ice comes bubblin' up an' up till from
bank to bank an' bind to bind it's drapin' the river like a first
snowfall?' 'Unh, hunh! more'n once when I took a doze at the
steering-oar. But it allus come out the nighest side-channel, an' not
bubblin' up an' up.' 'But with niver a wink at the helm?'

'No; nor you. It's agin reason. I'll leave it to any man!' Bettles
appealed to the circle about the stove, but the fight was on between
himself and Lon McFane.

'Reason or no reason, it's the truth I'm tellin' ye. Last fall, a year
gone, 'twas Sitka Charley and meself saw the sight, droppin' down the
riffle ye'll remember below Fort Reliance. An' regular fall weathe