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There were three dog-teams and as many heavy sleds, packed tightly with all manner of necessary equipments fur sleeping bags, tents, clothing of skins, and food supplies in the smallest possible compass, besides frozen tomcod for the malamutes.
Gingerly he stepped out, and found that the snow underfoot gave off only the faintest whisper. Like a shadow he stole closer to the hut, keeping the imperceptible night breeze in his face. So noiseless was his approach that the tired dogs, snugly curled each in its own deep bed of snow, did not hear him your malamutes that are broken to harness are bad watch-dogs at best.
Burdened thus lightly, the sleds rode high and the malamutes romped along with them. When the late dawn finally came it found them far on their way. That wind, following the snowfall of the day before, had been a happy circumstance, for in many places it had blown the trail clean, so that daylight showed it winding away into the distance like a thread laid down at random.
The weary malamutes and their masters had eaten, and lay stretched upon the ground, the men in sleeping bags, thrown upon boughs from the thicket; the dogs upon the snow near the fire. The latter was to be replenished during the night from the pile of sticks just gathered, and the animals would act as sentinels in case a wolf or bear happened to stray that way.
Wee Johnnie Tamarack was counted one of the best dog-mushers in the North, and as the girl had succeeded in implanting in the old man's mind an urgent need of haste, he exerted his talent to the utmost. Mile after mile, behind the flying feet of the tireless malamutes, the sled-runners slipped smoothly over the crust of the ice-hard snow.
Those who had slept late dressed as they hurried towards the landing-place, joining in the plaint, till men and malamutes united in the shrill, slow cry. Down-stream came the faint-sighing whoof-whoof of a steamer, and then out from behind the bend she burst, running on the swift spring current with the speed of a deer.
Be that as it may, a small trail of smoke one day made its way aloft from a log cabin half buried in the snow; while a pack of a dozen malamutes played about the door. A pile of logs and sticks of firewood, an axe, a tin bucket, and dog-sleds near, gave undisputed evidence of the presence here of someone besides natives. Entering the door, a visitor would have been welcomed by two occupants.
Flinging themselves upon the snow in their harness the patient brutes looked appealingly into their masters' faces. Then, as if by instinct they understood that here they would stop for some days, tense and tired muscles relaxed, each pointed furry head was laid between two weary little feet, and the malamutes rested. They had well earned the rest.
He had always hated Eskimo dogs; choosing either to ignore his own huskie blood, or feeling that it was superior to the native strain in the malamutes of the coast just as some people boast of being descended from Pocahontas, but would shudder at the mere idea of a Siwash Squaw ancestress.
Now these malamutes are as much a part of the northland as the winter snows, and they are a common sight in every community; but the man's patent embarrassment challenged Murray's attention: he acted as if he had been detected in a theft or a breach of duty. "Hello, Walsh. Been buying some live stock?" O'Neil inquired. "Yes, sir. I picked up this dog cheap." "Harness too, eh?"
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