Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/99

Rh slavering, motionless, with savage eyes drawn to pin-points that never left their master. Dick reached for the white-fish, and in a flash the welter of dogs was about him, hunger-mad. Kennedy saw the gleam of white teeth and the red of many eyes against the tall man's shoulder, and he sat still, with a sudden thrill in him that he did not care to name. But Dick beat and kicked and swore unemotionally; doling out the fish to each, and hammering the brutes apart that they might slink aside, each with his own, to bolt it with growling throat and back-looking, suspicious eyes. Then he cast away the whip, and poured the tea.

"That boar-hound is a sure enough devil," he said. "What does Poley call him?"

"Okimow," said Kennedy, continuing to rub liniment into his tendon Achilles.

"Um-m," said Dick. "‘Chief,'" is he?" He looked at the hound where it snuffed round the edge of things with long ears flapping. "My lad," he told it, "there isn't going to be but one chief in this outfit, and I guess that is yours truly." And then he looked at Kennedy. "I've shown you how to wrap your feet before," he said. "But I'll swear you've got your instep chafed right now. Let up and have supper. I'll fix you after."

He did, with scrupulous exactness and plain words. For a man's feet on the long trail are of infinitely more value to him than his soul or anything else. Besides, in Kennedy's case, they did not belong to him at all, but to that great organisation of which he was such a very minor part, and all this Dick made clear to him without pity or evasion. Then the fire was rebuilt, huge and glowing, with the night rounding it like a black basin full of blood; and the dogs slunk from dark to light and from light to dark again, restless as a weaver's shuttle, and unsatisfied still.

The men hung their outer clothes around the fire. Then, in their dry rough furs they lay down and slept, forgetful of the frost that was at its stealthy work about them; splitting sappy trees where their trail would pass; making brittle the steel knives at their belts; stiffening the cover-lacings and the harness, and creeping near to snatch with icy grip at the fire itself.