Page:Toilers of the Trails.djvu/54

 from an east-coast Eskimo at the Bear Islands, the husky had been his sole companion through the lonely moons of the winter before on the white wastes of his subarctic trapping-grounds.

"Whish you, Loup! Here we go!"

Swinging the nose of the boat well off the flat shore, the half-breed dropped to his knees, placed a battered brass compass on a bag in front of him, and, following the wavering needle at his knee, started straight out through the smother of mist across the delta of the many-mouthed Albany. Two, three hours passed, and still the narrow Cree blade bit into the flat surface of the bay as though driven by an engine rather than by human thew and sinew, when suddenly the husky lifted his nose, repeatedly sucking in and expelling the baffling air. Then with a whine he suddenly sat up, throwing the canoe off its bottom.

"Wat you do, Loup? You crazee? Lie down!"

But the husky did not lie down. Instead, his black nostrils quivered in long sniffs as he faintly sensed the strange odor that the moisture in the heavy air almost obliterated. Then the hairy throat of the great dog swelled in a low rumble as he strained against the bow brace, peering into the impenetrable mist.

"Ah-hah!" chuckled the Cree, interested. "Wat you t'ink you smell, eh? No goose mak' you so cross; mus' be seal."

In answer the hair on the dog's back lifted from ears to tail, and raising his nose, he broke into a long howl, a warning which his master knew full well meant that from somewhere out of that wilderness of