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—

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{{FreedImg
| file = Silversheene (1924) frontispiece.png
| caption = In his sleep he would seem to be sitting on the rim of light that encircled man's campfire. {{right|—''[[Silversheene/Chapter 8#122|Page 122]]''}}
| width = 300px
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{{c|
{{uc|{{xx-larger|Silversheene King of Sled Dogs}}{{dhr|3}}By [[Author:Clarence Hawkes|Clarence Hawkes]]{{dhr}}Author of [[Pep (Hawkes)|Pep]] · [[The White Czar (Hawkes)|The White Czar]]{{dhr|2}}Illustrated by [[Author:Charles Livingston Bull|Charles Livingston Bull]]}}{{dhr|2}}
[[File:Milton Bradley Company logo (1924).png|25px|center]]
Springfield, Massachusetts
}}

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{{c|{{smaller block|{{rule|10em}}''Copyright, MCMXXIV'' By {{uc|Milton Bradley Company}} Springfield, Massachusetts ''All Rights Reserved''{{rule|10em}}{{dhr|10}}{{asc|Printed in the United States of America}}}}}}

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{{c|{{smaller block|{{sc|Dedicated to}} {{uc|Allan Alexander Allan}} "{{sc|Scottie Allan}}"{{dhr}}{{asc|The greatest living dog-musher, and king of the Alaskan trail}}}}}}

—4

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{{c|{{uc|Alaska}}{{dhr}}From [[The Spell of the Yukon]] by [[Author:Robert W. Service|Robert W. Service]].}}

{{ppoem|class=poem|
The summer—no sweeter was ever,
:The sunshiny woods all a-thrill;
The grayling a-leap in the river,
:The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
:The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness—
:O God! how I'm stuck on it all.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
:The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
:The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
:The woods where the weird shadows slant,
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
:I've bade 'em good-bye—but I can't.
}}

{{bc|{{xx-smaller|{{right|''By permission of the publishers,''}}{{right|offset=2em|''Barse and Hopkins.''}}}}}}

—6

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{{c|{{larger|{{uc|Contents}}}}}}
{{TOC begin}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|||{{asc|Page}}}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1||[[Silversheene/Introduction|Getting Together. Introductory]]|ix}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|{{asc|Chapter}}||}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|I.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 1|The Fugitive]]|1}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|II.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 2|The Son of a Wolf]]|19}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|III.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 3|A Good Shepherd]]|37}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|IV.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 4|Kidnapped]]|53}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|V.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 5|The Under Dog]]|62}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VI.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 6|The Long Long Trail]]|82}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VII.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 7|A Bad Master]]|95}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VIII.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 8|Back to the Wild]]|118}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|IX.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 9|The Den in the Hillside]]|134}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|X.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 10|The Phantom Wolf]]|150}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|XI.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 11|Henderson's Huskies]]|174}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|XII.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 12|The Great Race]]|186}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|XIII.|[[Silversheene/Chapter 13|Settling an Old Score]]|217}}
{{TOC end}}

—8

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{{ph|class=chapter title|Introduction Getting Together|level=2}}

{{di|A}} HALF dozen bent figures crouched over the bright campfire seeking to shield themselves from the late November cold. It was not so much the cold that they felt as it was the biting wind, which drove the cold through them and numbed their fingers. They were not clad in cloth garments but in skins, and their figures were not those of civilization, but those of savagery. They were stouter of build, and without those lines and curves that cultivation and breeding are supposed to give to the finer races of men. Their faces as seen in the light of the campfire were dark copper color, or light brown. The wind and cold, the frost and the storm, had all played a part in this coloring. Their faces were/begin/

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flat and stolid. They rarely smiled, for there was little to smile about.

The three women in the party worked feverishly on skin garments which they were sewing, while two of the men fashioned spears and bound stone heads to them. The third man tended the campfire and watched some fish which were broiling in the coals. The fire was close to the mouth of a cave. Inside a dozen dark children were sleeping peacefully.

On the very outskirts of the firelight, or rather on the rim of the outer darkness, skulked a gray dog-like figure watching the man creatures beside the campfire.

To the nostrils of this wild beast came the odor of the broiling fish and it made saliva drip from his hungry jaws. Yet he knew that the meat in the coals was not for him. He had no part in this campfire scene, still he watched night after night. Or if he did not watch from the perimeter of the darkness, he sat on his tail at the top of a nearby hill and howled dismally at the moon. But

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best of all he loved to watch. If one of the men creatures saw him, he would pluck a torch from the campfire and wave it at him, or perhaps throw it, and he would at once slink away into the darkness.

The gray dog-like brute had a great fear of the bright warmth which these men creatures handled so fearlessly. This was one reason why the animal admired the animallike man. He was not afraid of fire.

If the gray animal came in too close and did not mind the sign of the fire which the man creature made to him, the man would take up a curved stick with a strong piece of deer thong stretched from end to end. Then he would fit a sharp stick in it and send the sharp stick singing into the darkness at the skulker. If the aim was good the stick bit so deeply into the inquisitive one that he would lie down and sleep with his curiosity stilled forever. If it simply stuck in his side he went away wounded. This would cure him for a while, but this creature who walked on two legs instead of

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four fascinated and drew him strangely.

He had great powers over the wild creatures, which made him a god among them. The wild beast saw and understood this, so he worshipped afar.

Not only was the man creature who walked on two legs not afraid of fire, and had power to wound his wild brothers from afar off, but he had certain other very mysterious powers. He could come and go on the water like a duck in a strange contrivance made of bark. The brute knew it was bark because he had often smelled it in the night when the man creature was asleep in his hole in the side of the hill. For they all slept in a cave away from the winds and the cold. And their house was feebly lighted in the night by a stone lamp.

From the bark water duck the wild beast knew the smell of this fascinating god whom he worshipped from afar. He could detect this smell more easily than any other in the wilderness and it was the most fearful of all the scents in the woods. Yet it

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also drew him. If he discovered a trail bearing this scent, he always had an impulse to follow it and see what his god was doing. Perhaps the strange two-legged creature was making trouble for the wilderness dwellers. He often built small houses held up in some strange way which would fall down and break one's back when he went inside to investigate. He also dug deep pits and covered them over carefully. When the wilderness dwellers were walking along unsuspectingly, often they fell into these pits and then the man creature came and killed them with his sharp stick, or with a club.

Then he could bend down a tree and fasten a long strip of deer hide to the end, and the other end to the ground, so that it would spring up and catch the wilderness dwellers, either by the neck or a leg, and hold them till he came.

He could dart a long sharp stick into the water and bring out a fish flopping on its point. Or he could pull the fish from the

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water with a small something, like a long piece of grass. Some of the birds he could catch in meshes made of many strands woven closely together.

So in one way or another he made all of the wild creatures serve him. He took their warm coats from them and used them to cover his own bare body. He ate them, and made their bones into his utensils. He used them as he would. So altogether he was a most fearful and wonderful creature. And was it any wonder that this gray dog-like brute watched him from the outer rim of the firelight and trailed him in the deep woods, seeking to know what he was doing?

Thus the centuries and the æons passed, with the two-legged man creature living beside his warm campfire and the dog-like beast watching from the outer rim of the darkness. Often the man creature thought, "If I had the young of the beast they would be fine for the little two-legged creatures to play with. He might even be useful to me."
{{nop}}

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Often the gray dog-like beast thought dimly, "If I could only go nearer and know him better, I might learn to like him. He draws me strangely."

Finally it happened that the man creature one day discovered the mother gray beast playing with her five cubs at the mouth of a cave where they lived. They were so intent with their frolic that he crept up very carefully and killed the mother with his sharp stick which could fly so quickly through the air. Then he caught two of the cubs, a male and a female, and took them home to his cave and his own young.

The wild beasts were so young that they had not been taught the fear of this two-legged god who ruled over the wilderness, so they played and grew with the young of the man and knew not that they were the offspring of a wild beast.

They ate venison and fish just as the men did and became a part of the primitive life. They slept with the children in their cor-

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ners of the cave and blinked at the feeble light of the stone lamp, but were not afraid of the fire, nor of the men creatures, either the large or the small ones. Finally when they grew up they in turn had young which also grew up with the children and became a part of the life of the wilderness man.

This god in time taught his tamed beasts to watch his campfire and growl when the other wild beasts came near. He taught them to trail the wild beasts for him and to help him kill them. They lived with this man creature and worshipped him continually. They grew to love each other and to be mutually helpful.

Thus it was that the first gray wolf came into the life of the primitive man and became the ancestor of the civilized dog of to-day. Long association with man and much breeding have done the rest. The dog's first ancestor was a wolf, and a collie pup will go back to the wolf life, if he is placed in a wolf den with a litter of small wolves, in a single generation. But this

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strangely lovable animal has come nearer to man than has any other beast, and he loves and worships man as no other animal does.

To-day in many a family the dog is as much a part of the household as the people. He has won his way into our human hearts until we could not live without him.

So here is wishing good luck and happiness to all dogs, be they mighty mastiffs or tiny Pomeranians. For they are all lovable and faithful and equally deserving of our love and admiration.

—18

-1n

{{di|T}}HE gleaming rays of the morning sun were falling aslant through the boughs of the great maples in front of Forest Edge Farm. It was October, and the trees were as brilliant with autumn coloring as Jack Frost could well make them. The air was clear and crisp. It went to the blood like old wine. Jays were squalling in the deep woods and crows were calling. Flocks of song birds might be seen gathering for the autumn migration. The beauty of summer had gone, but the full symphony of autumnal color was over all the landscape. It was a morning to be up and to be glad.
{{nop}}

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One particular sunbeam, brighter than its fellows, shot through the bough of the maple and straight through a dormer window into the bedroom of Hilda Converse.

Finally it crept across her pillow and touched her face and awoke her.

She at first rubbed her eyes dazedly, then sat up with a start. She gazed about her with frightened swollen eyes and then came out of bed with a spring.

"Oh, oh," she cried. "It is morning and I haven't slept an hour all night. Even, when I did sleep I had such dreadful dreams. It has come and I am powerless to stop it. Oh! What shall I do! What shall I do!"

"Hilda!" called a woman's voice from the foot of the stairs. "You had better get up. Breakfast is nearly ready. I don't know what to do about Silversheene. He has been barking for the last half hour. Some one is sure to hear and discover him."

"Oh, what shall I do!" cried the girl under her breath. Then to her mother she

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said as cheerily as she could, "All right, mumsy, I will be down in a minute. I did not think he would bark when I told him not to. I presume he is lonesome."

She slipped hurriedly into a simple house dress, and, after washing the signs of weeping from her face as well as she could, and giving her brown hair a hurried brush, went downstairs.

"I won't stop for breakfast," she said. "I will just drink a cup of coffee and take a couple of doughnuts and a bone for Silversheene. I must hurry or they will be here."

Even as she spoke an automobile horn sounded down the road.

With a groan of despair the girl sank into an easy-chair.

"Oh, oh, Mother, Mother, I cannot bear it. It will kill me."

The woman went quickly to her and, smoothing the brown hair, printed a kiss warm with mother love on her brow.

"I don't see how we could keep him," she

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said. "If it was not this, it would be something else. He is a man's dog and needs a strong hand. Perhaps it is all for the best."

"Well," said the girl stoutly, "I am going to fight it. I won't stand by and see him murdered. You tell them I am not at home and that you don't know where Silversheene is. I will go down and stay with him and keep him quiet."

"All right. Perhaps it will all blow over. It is a mean trick and no one but Mike Fogarty would do it. You know he hated your father and now he takes it out on us."

The woman had crossed the room as she was speaking and stood peering out of the window at the approaching automobile.

"Hurry, child, hurry, or they will see you."

The girl needed no further admonition but slipped noiselessly out of the back door. When she was half-way across the yard her mother's voice called her again.
{{nop}}

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"It ain't them, Hilda. It is a large touring car with an Oregon name plate."

The girl turned back with a sudden glow of hope at her heart. But this joy was cut short by a sharp detonating report immediately in front of the house. At the sound she went suddenly pale and uttered a half suppressed scream.

"Oh, Mother, it is Silversheene. He has broken away and they have found him."

"Oh, no, child. It was only a tire blowing up. You will be sick if you don't hold on to yourself. Perhaps there will be some way out yet."

The girl passed her hand across her forehead as though to clear her brain.

"Yes," she said. "I was thinking of a plan when that dreadful bang drove it out of my head. Oh, yes, I know what it was. I will see what sort of a party itis. They will have to put on a tire."

She went into the kitchen and again applied water to her swollen eyelids and made herself more presentable.
{{nop}}

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Then she went shyly out to see whom fate had marooned almost in her yard.

She discovered a large Packard limousine drawn up beside the road in their very dooryard. A tall athletic young man of college age came quickly forward.

"I have to apologize for trespassing on your grass," he said smiling pleasantly. "But it seemed the only place to get out of the road while we put on a new tire."

"It is perfectly all right," replied the girl quickly. "It won't hurt the grass any. Besides grass is very common with us. We have a hundred acres of it."

"It is very good of you," he said. "I am glad we are detained so pleasantly. These Adirondack Mountains look good to me. We live in Northern Oregon and have some mountains there."

"Are you going straight back to Oregon?" asked the girl, remembering her trouble and her plan for its solution.

"Oh, yes," he replied nonchalantly. That is, as soon as Dad and Mother will

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let us. They like to loiter along, but we ought to be home in a month."

Her next question surprised him, as it had nothing to do with travel, or automobiles, or anything in particular.

"Do you like dogs? I mean do you love them? Are they almost like folks to you?"

The young man threw back his head and laughed and Hilda liked his laugh. It was so pleasant and genuine.

"How did you guess it?" he asked. "I am nutty about dogs. The fellers in grammar school used to call me Doggy Dick. My name is Richard Henderson."

"Mine is Hilda Converse, and I am so glad you do like dogs. It will make such a difference with my plan."

The young man looked at her inquiringly but said nothing.

"How long will it take to put on the tire?"

"Half an hour perhaps. There are one or two other things to do."

"While you are waiting would you like

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to see the finest dog in New York State? Perhaps the finest in the world."

"You couldn't show me anything that would interest me more. Is it in the barn ¢"

"Oh, no," said the girl flushing. "He is down in the woods. It is only a short walk."

Richard Henderson looked at her sharply and for the first time noticed the signs of tears. He divined at once that she was in trouble. Should he go with her to the woods?

It was rather odd!

But at that moment there arose from behind the house a dismal long-drawn howl, beginning down low and gradually ascending until it ended in a mere thread of sound, like the wailing of the wind.

"Is that him?" asked Richard. "It sounds more like a wolf. I once heard wolves howling in the mountains on a winter's night."

"Perhaps he is not so far removed from

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a wolf. But he has a heart of gold and it's all love for his friends."

"Let's hurry or they will have the tire fixed."

They found Silversheene in a thicket of spruce, chained to a small tree. Under the tree his mistress had made a fine bed, but he was straining at his leash and all impatience to get loose.

At the first sight of him the young man stopped still in his tracks as though petrified. He did not speak, but voiced his surprise in a low whistle.

"My, he is a beauty. He is a wonder. Why I never saw anything to equal him at the San Francisco bench show," he said at last. "What is he, a Husky or a Malemute?"

"I don't know," said the girl. "We call him just an Eskimo dog. When Admiral Peary came back from one of his arctic trips he brought several sledge dogs with him. He kept them on an island in Casco Bay. But within the last five years they

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have been breeding them at a kennel here in the Adirondacks. My father gave him to me for my fifteenth birthday. That was two years ago and now Dad is dead and Silversheene, he, he,—"

At this point in the narrative she broke into violent weeping and could not speak.

"I am mighty sorry," he said comfortingly. "If it is anything that I can help about command me."

"That is just the point. That was why I brought you down to see him. I want to give him to you. He is the dearest possession I have in the world. I love him best of any one next to mumsy. But I must get him away at once."

"I see," said Dick. "He has got to be railroaded out of the state immediately to escape somebody or something. What is his offense?"

"Sheep killing," sobbed the girl, "but it wasn't his fault. No one but Mike Fogarty would be so mean about it. He hated Dad and Dad is dead and, and,—"
{{nop}}

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"I see," said the young man sympathetically. "He hated Dad and now he takes it out on Dad's daughter. He must be a skunk. I would like to see him a few minutes."

"It wouldn't do any good. He is just that mean. He wants to hurt us and he has a chance. It was not Silversheene's fault either. Fogarty's old sheep got into our lot. They spoiled my flower garden. Silversheene helped me drive them out. I was rather vehement about it and did not curb him as I should. He saw that I felt badly about the garden and two hours later he went over into the pasture further to punish the sheep. Hekilled nine. We offered to pay for them, but Fogarty says that he will have blood for blood. He is sending the sheriff this forenoon to shoot Silversheene."

"I see," said the young man gravely. "But what can I do to help you?"

"I want to give him to you. It will almost break my heart to lose him, but that

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would be better than to have him shot. I want you to take him to Oregon. He is a perfect gentleman, but mumsy says he is a man's dog. He is all gentleness with us, but he is terrible if he is aroused. I suppose it is his wild nature. You see he came from that savage north where everything is so terribly brutal. But he is a gentleman. I know you will love him."

Richard Henderson stood in silence taking in all the fine points of the beautiful dog before him, for a full minute. Then he struck his palms together with a loud slap.

"Done," he said. "He will start for Oregon as soon as that tire is on."

"Oh, that is fine," cried Hilda. "Now I shall not hear that dreadful rifle shot, but I shall lose him."

"Oh, Silversheene, I shall have to give youup. Come let me introduce you to your new master."

She took a strong hold of the splendid dog's collar and laid her other hand over his muzzle while Richard Henderson advanced

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and put his hand lightly on the dog's back and finally on the back of his head.

At first Silversheene growled softly, but finally stood still and allowed himself to be fondled by the stranger.

It must not be imagined that every young man could come along and put his hand on this remarkable dog so easily, but there is a difference in men, and dogs are quick to discover it. In the first place Dick had fondled every dog that he could get his hands on since they left Oregon and his clothing smelled doggy.

This was a sort of letter of introduction, but even more important than that he loved dogs passionately and Silversheene knew it at once, merely from the tone of his voice and his mental attitude toward him.

Dogs are probably keener than any other animal on discerning the mental attitude of men and women about them toward their kind. This is probably because they have associated so long with man, and also because their intuitions are keen.
{{nop}}

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Then Richard had that masterful way with him concerning dogs which every fine dog likes. A good dog craves a good master. Not one who will coddle him, but one who will dominate him by a will stronger than his own. So Silversheene recognized at once that this man knew and loved dogs, and that he was a man to obey and worship.

So in a very few minutes there was begun an acquaintance which was to ripen into a wonderful companionship, and was to take the two on many strange adventures far from civilization, and to make a bond of friendship between them that only death could break.

While on his part Richard Henderson had never before felt his heart go out in a great bound of admiration and love as it did to Silversheene there in the woods, with the girl bending above him. And he was a dog to inspire love at the first sight. Well was he named Silversheene, for his coat was like spun silver and very long. At the shoulders it was eight or nine inches, while his

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tail, which was carried curled up over his back, was like a great silver banner, the hair upon it being a foot long. This coat was so thick near the skin that water rarely touched his hide. His head was strong, but inclined to be pointed, with a wolf-like look about it. His jaws were powerful, as they had need to be in the desperate northland from which his sires had sprung. His forehead was broad and high, but his eyes were rather small and close together, yet of great brilliancy, and they could change with his every changing mood. Ata blow or a harsh word, fire like living coals would leap into them. His ears were small, erect and very expressive.

"I can't take this wonderful dog without leaving you something in return," said Richard finally. "He is worth much more money than I have with me."

"Oh, that is all right," said the girl with a half stifled sob. "You are doing me a great favor to take him."

The young man pulled out his pocketbook,

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extracted a twenty-dollar bill, and pressed it into the hand of the reluctant girl. He then unclasped a small college pin from the lapel of his coat and gave it to her.

"That is my college pin," he said. "You keep it to remember me by. It is a University of Oregon pin. I am a senior at the finest college in the world."

"Oh, I'd love it to remember Silver sheerie's new master by," she said blushing, "but I ought not to take the money."

"Yes, you must. My father has plenty and he gives me more than I can spend. Buy yourself something to remember Silversheene and me by."

"I would love to. That will be fine. Oh, isn't it just like an exciting story?"

"Yes," said Richard, "and there is my father's chauffeur honking for me. That is like a storybook too."

"Perhaps you had better not go back to the house with Silversheene. The sheriff and Mike Fogarty might come for him. You see that bend in the road yonder by the

-17

big pine? You take Silversheene and wait in the road there, and I will go back to the house and tell them to pick you up."

"All right," said the young man. "I am mighty glad to have met you and I am awfully sorry to rob you of your dog. I will take good care of him."

"Go, Silversheene," said the girl between her sobs as the dog hung back and growled softly and whined. His mistress finally had to pick up a stick and pretend to strike him before he would go along, but even so he looked back over his shoulder all the way. The last she saw of him he was disappearing behind a thicket and still looking back.

"When you get him safe in the automobile, honk three times," she called to the young man as they disappeared.

"All right," he called back cheerily. "Good-bye and good luck. Give my regards to Mike Fogarty when he comes."

The girl hurried back to the farmhouse and gave the message to the impatient party

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and then watched with tear-filled eyes the great car as it glided noiselessly away.

A couple of minutes later she heard the horn give three mellow honks and then three more for luck, and she knew that Silversheene had begun his long journey to the Land of Sunshine.

She sat upon the piazza thinking for a long time and then went silently into the house.

In the words of Kipling she had given her heart to a dog to tear and it was now being torn.

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{{di|T}}HE Henderson car was a very large one, so there was just room enough between the seats for Silversheene.

He lay by Richard's feet and occasionally looked up into his face with his wondering brown eyes which seemed to be saying, "I don't understand at all where we are going. I suppose it is all right because my mistress gave you my leash and told me to go with you, but I don't understand."

Whenever they stopped and got out of the machine Silversheene would look sharply about as though he was looking for the girl, as indeed he was. Twice he tried to give his new master the slip and run home to her, but Richard had expected this and was on the lookout for him, so he did not escape. For the first hour or two young Henderson

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talked to him, and told him in his pleasant sympathetic voice that it was all right and that it was a good company into which he had fallen.

Henderson senior was also a dog lover and he admired Silversheene greatly, but when he was told of the sheep-killing episode he shook his head.

"I don't know, Dick, I am afraid," he said. "You didn't forget that we have ten thousand sheep more or less, did you?"

"No, father, I did not forget, but I am sure that it can be educated out of him. Perhaps I can make a sheep dog of him. You know I did of one killer we had."

"Yes, but that was a civilized dog, while this chap is the son of a wolf, if I am any judge. But he certainly is good to look upon."

As the day wore on Silversheene and Richard Henderson became better and better acquainted, and by the time they had reached the top of the world as they called it and were crossing the backbone of the

-21

continent, they were the best of pals. But as Hilda had said, "he was a man's dog." Even so it took a good dog handler and a dominant spirit always to control him and keep him in bounds.

A harsh word or a threatened blow made him see red. His eyes would change in a second from a mild wondering kindly brown, to two flaming coals. He would be transformed by some hostile incident from a gentle loving animal to a bristling quivering fury, only one degree removed from the wolf.

Twice in the middle west Richard had to literally throw himself upon Silversheene to keep him from killing some foolish dog who had attacked him. And once he had to get up in the night and rescue a venturesome hostler who had attempted to whip Silversheene for barking, when he was tied in the barn. The dog had suddenly sprung at the man, pulling out the staple which held his chain, and treed the unsuspecting hostler on a hay mow. He might have

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stayed there all night had not his cries for help brought aid.

One twilight night three weeks after the Henderson party had taken on Silversheene they found themselves marooned in the Cascade mountains in Oregon just at dusk. An important part of the automobile had broken and the chauffeur could not fix it. It was finally decided that Richard should go on foot to a small town ten miles down the mountain to get the part needed. A foot of snow had fallen and he did not expect to get back that night. The car had come to a standstill in as lonely and out-of-the-way spot as could well be imagined. White snowcapped peaks towered all about them. Between the peaks valleys stretched, deep, precipitate and silent as the tomb. Many of these deep cuts and gorges afforded a straight drop of several hundred feet.

The larger timber had disappeared as they climbed and only scrub pines survived at this altitude. It seemed to the marooned

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party as they prepared to make themselves comfortable for the night that they were the only people in all the world at the very heart of this silent, ghastly, ghostly world.

Richard said that he would take Silversheene with him, for while he was eating lunch something happened that made him fearful of his walk down the mountain side.

The party were chatting and laughing over their lunch and trying to make the best of their rather sorry plight when from the outer world there came a sound which they first mistook for the shrieking of the wind. All but Silversheene, he was not fooled. For his hackles went up and he got quickly to his feet and began growling softly.

"What is it, old scout?" asked Dick, laying his hand on the dog's head.

All listened intently and in a minute or two the sound was repeated. This time it was much nearer. At the sound Silversheene whined to be let out of the car and Dick opened the door and let him out.
{{nop}}

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"What was it, Father?" asked Richard in surprise.

"A wolf," said Mr. Henderson simply. "It is the hunting cry of the gray wolf. Let's watch and see what your son of a wolf will do. He evidently knows his kind."

Silversheene stood like a statue beside the ear listening, his ears were erect, his tail was curled a little tighter than usual if possible. His head was up, his eyes were blazing and his whole manner was tense with waiting.

Again the wild weird cry floated down to the listening humans. They could now hear it plainer and it certainly was a weird sound. It began down low with a hoarse roar, but gradually ascended, becoming more vital with sound and wild and unearthly as it ascended. Finally it ended in a weird wail which was a mere thread of sound, blood curdling and rather terrible.

For several seconds after the last cry Silversheene stood like a statue listening, then to the astonishment of every one he lifted his muzzle to heaven and answered the cry

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in as perfect a wolf howl as that which had come out of the gathering gloom.

"There," said Mr. Henderson, "I told you so. He is a veritable son of a wolf. I presume he will desert us here and go back to the wild."

"Not on your life," said Dick. "He thinks too much of me already. I believe he would fight a whole pack of wolves for me."

"Richard," said Mrs. Henderson, "you aren't going a single step to-night. If the wolves don't get you this terrible dog will. I shall not rest a minute while you are gone."

"Oh, I don't think anything of that sort will happen," said Mr. Henderson, "buf it is a rather nasty night. I wish we had not been marooned here."

"The wolves would be as afraid of me as you are of them, Mother. Of course I will go. I will take my revolver and Silversheene and they won't molest me. A wolf will run as fast from a man as he can."
{{nop}}

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"That is so," said Henderson senior, "unless he is hungry and I don't think these wolves would be at this time of the year. I presume there is but one. They are not very plenty."

Richard was all eagerness to be off, for he scented an adventure. He had spent one winter in the mountains with his father's shepherds and their stories of wolves and attacks on the sheep in the olden days thrilled him. He was young, courageous, and this threatened danger only added zest to the trip. His father took his part, so finally he set out. The moon was bright—and he had his revolver and Silversheene, so he felt perfectly secure. His mother heard him go whistling into the distance occasionally calling to the dog as he went.

"I do wish Richard was not so venturesome," she said to Mr. Henderson. "I am afraid something will happen to him sometime."

"He is a fine spirited boy," said her husband. "He has the making of a fine man.

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I am proud of him. He will be all right."

For three hours all went well and the young man and the dog trudged steadily down the mountain side. It was rather bad walking as the track had not been broken. This was especially so in places where it had drifted badly. Some of the way the road was entirely bare, but in other places the drifts were two and three feet deep. It was not very cold, but the wind was keen and it had a biting edge. Had it not been for the plight of his family Richard Henderson would rather have enjoyed this night tramp.

But when they had covered five miles of the distance to the village the unexpected happened, as it is always liable to. The road here was very steep, with a precipitous drop of several hundred feet on one side, and a dark woods on the other. Richard was just congratulating himself on how well they were getting along when he came to an icy place in the road.

The ice was covered with a coating of an

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inch of snow and this made it even more treacherous. Suddenly his feet shot out from under him, and as he fell his right ankle twisted and he went down heavily. With a groan of pain he sat up and rubbed his ankle. It was probably nothing. He had often had as bad a hurt as that in football and gone back into the game. But as he felt of the injured member he uttered a cry of pain. It certainly was no slight sprain.

He took off his shoe and began slowly massaging the ankle, and then he noted that it was swelling rapidly. He put snow upon it but that did little to stop the swelling. Soon it was so badly swollen that he could not replace the shoe.

Then the full force of his predicament came home to him. He could not even put on his shoe, much less step upon his foot. There was little chance that an automobile would pass as the track showed that none had passed since the storm.

It was cold but he did not think he would

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freeze, though it was anything but pleasant to think of lying there in the snow all night. But he would make himself as comfortable as possible, so he crawled to one side of the road, and brushed snow off from a flat boulder and sat upon it. For an hour he sat in silence, occasionally speaking to Silversheene who stuck close to his side. The wise dog seemed to divine that something was the matter. At first he had started several times down the road and then stopped to look back, thus seeking to get his master started. But he finally seemed to understand that they could not go, so he settled himself by Richard's side to wait his pleasure.

Finally the young man became impatient and bethought himself of shouting for help. This he did until his throat ached, but got only echoes in response. Then he remembered his revolver. Three shots in quick succession was the signal of distress the world over, so he slipped it out and set the echoes ringing with three quick shots.

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They waited for a long time, but there were no answering shots or shouts, but they did hear a sound. It was so faint that Richard first thought it was the wind but not so Silversheene, for his hackles and mane went up and his eyes became filled with fire. Soon the sound was repeated and Dick himself recognized it to be the hunting cry of the gray pack.

"Ye gods, Silversheene," he cried. "I have just fooled away three of my six shots. What a fool I was not to take some extra eartridges."

For a quarter of an hour both dog and man listened, but heard only the moaning of the wind and the hooting of an owl, weird sounds Richard thought them. Then the wolf howl came clearly to them. It was a score of rods up the road. With a shudder Dick recognized the fact that they were trailing him. He was in trouble and no mistake.

He called the dog to him and talked to

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him in a low voice, petting him on the head as he talked.

"I am in a tight place, old pal, and you must stick by me. The folks think you will desert me, but I know better. We must stand by each other if it comes to a fight at close range."

Five minutes later one of the wolves appeared in the road a dozen rods away, but the young man knew that he must not take any chance shots. All his cartridges must count, so he waited. Then another gray shape appeared and then another. There were three of them and God only knew how many more. Silversheene saw them also and he stood waiting with his mane still bristling and his eyes like blazing coals. An hour passed and the three gray shapes had gradually drawn in toward them within fifty feet. They skulked behind boulders and trees, and did not long stay in the open.

The man shouted at them, but it had no deterrent effect for they kept right on nar-

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rowing down the distance between them and their quarry.

Then one of the gray marauders disappeared and Richard thought perhaps he had given up, but a quarter of an hour later he was dismayed beyond words to discover the wolf watching him from behind a tree trunk, not two rods away. The reason?

Silversheene was the first to discover the nearness of their foe, and wanted to attack, but Richard held him by the collar and took a careful aim at the wolf's head.

The light was not as good as it would have been in the daytime and he thought he missed, but he did not see the eyes again for an hour. Then they appeared behind another tree still nearer. Silversheene by this time was all eagerness to get at them, but Dick still restrained him. He wanted to save the noble dog for the fight at close range if they came to grips. He was afraid that two or three wolves might overpower him in the dark woods. Finally the eyes like living coals drew so close that they were

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barely fifteen feet away and Richard who was inexperienced hazarded another shot.

This time he was successful, for the wolf sprang into the air and fell kicking in the snow not a dozen feet away.

"That's one of them, old pal," he said to Silversheene, who was fairly raging to get into the fight. "If I could get another I'd let you go."

Then the second wolf again appeared behind still another tree. He was not over twenty feet away and Richard was getting rattled by their boldness, so took deliberate aim and fired. It was a lucky shot as the second had been. And the second wolf crawled away to die.

"I guess we have done for him," said Dick. "If I knew there were only three I would let you go."

But the matter was taken from his hands by the dog himself, for with a frantic bound he broke away and with two springs disappeared into the woods. A few seconds later Richard heard the rapid motions of a

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desperate struggle. They did not snarl or bark as dogs do, but fought silently. Then to Richard's dismay Silversheene gave ground and the wolf slowly drove him into the open. This had been a ruse on Silversheene's part, but Dick did not know it.

They came into a small open place at the edge of the forest and Richard saw the desperate battle to the very end, the fight that the brave dog was waging for him.

They did not clinch, but springing, slashed and then sprang again. They were so quick in their movements that the man could hardly tell the dog from the wolf. Silversheene was punishing the wolf, and he himself was also being punished.

It made Dick wince as he heard the savage blow of the wolf's jaws upon the face of his dog friend as they fought. But Silversheene's long coat stood him in good stead that night, especially about the throat. Once the wolf almost got the death grip. For several minutes the battle swayed first this way and then that. Sometimes Dick

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thought Silversheene would be killed, but all the time he cheered him on with shouts and words of encouragement. Finally the wolf became overconfident and pressed the dog too hard and in an unguarded moment the powerful jaws of the arctic fighter reached his throat. Once they had gotten their hold, they did not let go, although the Eskimo dog usually fights like a wolf. Over and over they rolled in the snow, the wolf fighting to free himself and Silversheene holding on. Richard fairly held his breath as the desperate struggle went on. But finally the efforts of the wolf grew feebler and feebler until at last he lay still. Silversheene had won! Then he got up and sniffed his vanquished enemy's nose and limped painfully to his master.

Dick received him with joy and hugged and praised him. He had won the fight yet he was badly gashed about the face, and his silver coat was dyed red in many places. But he sat down philosophically in the snow and began licking his wounds.
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This last struggle seemed to have discouraged the wolves, if there had been others, for although the man and dog listened feverishly for an hour, yet they saw no more of them. Nor did the mournful wolf hunting cry disturb them again.

Finally just at daybreak, to his great joy, Richard discovered an automobile coming slowly up the mountain. Fifteen minutes later the machine stopped beside the helpless man and the brave dog.

After brief explanations they headed back to the village and got the wanted parts for the Henderson machine and by noon Richard and Silversheene were back on the mountain top telling of the great adventure.

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{{di|T}}HE story of Silversheene's fidelity to Richard in the battle with the wolves gained at once for him a place in the affections of the Henderson family. Even Dick's mother looked on him with favor. No further mishap befell the party and in two days they were back on the Oregon ranch, very happy to be home again.

Dick's sister Eleanor welcomed them with open arms. She had been spending her vacation with a school chum and had not seen them for several weeks. So there was a general rejoicing in the Henderson family.

Eleanor at once took Silversheene to her heart and this was a great comfort to him. To tell the truth he had been very lonesome for Hilda, although he worshipped Dick.

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And Eleanor was just about Hilda's size and her voice reminded the homesick dog of his lost mistress. So she fitted into the sore spot in his dog heart and they became the best of friends.

The only other dogs on the place were a Pomeranian named Snap, and a cocker spaniel called Jerry. The Pomeranian Silversheene would not even deign to look at. He evidently considered him a disgrace to the dog family, but he and Jerry became very good friends, and had many a good romp together.

The week after their return Richard went away to college and Silversheene missed him greatly. But Eleanor was only away for the day so they had the nights and mornings together.

Mr. Henderson finally taught Silversheene to go with him in the automobile and he always left him in the car while he was doing errands. He boasted to his friends that he did not worry much about having his car stolen, or anything taken from it

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while Silversheene was on guard. When Dick came home at Christmas time Silversheene was overjoyed and they had a blissful two weeks together.

Silversheene got on very well with every one except Pedro Garcia, one of the gardeners. This Mexican disliked dogs thoroughly, and he had undertaken to drive Silversheene off from a garden bench on which he was lying.

This incensed the dog who thought that he was doing no harm. Pedro made the mistake of attacking a gentleman with a garden rake, instead of politely asking him to get down.

Silversheene resented this and a pitched battle ensued. The dog was wounded badly in the face, but Pedro had to take refuge in a peach tree and even so narrowly escaped being eaten alive.

Mr. Henderson took the dog's part and told the Mexican that he ought not to have struck at him.

Pedro said little, but with the vengeful

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nature of his people secretly vowed that he would get even with the savage brute. He would pay him off in a coin that would make the score even with something in his favor.

The following summer Richard went into the mountains with the shepherds who tended their ten thousand sheep. He had boasted that he could make a good sheep dog of Silversheene, and this was to carry out his boast.

Day after day he labored patiently with the dog, first instifling into his head by many object lessons the fact that the sheep were property and that they belonged to him; that they were creatures who had to be guarded and tended and driven hither and thither. He perfected him in driving and penning, and in all the intricacies of a good sheep dog. Finally in September he was convinced that his work was well done. He felt that the sheep were as safe under Silversheene's protection, as under that of any of their trained collies. Richard wanted to stay until the sheep were driven

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out of the mountains into the broader valleys nearer civilization for the winter months. But his father had decided that he ought to go into his office to help him with the business and on the fruit orchards, which were also a feature of the work on the great ranch. So Richard reluctantly left Silversheene with the shepherds to help them drive in the sheep when the time should come while he went back home.

All went well with Silversheene and the sheep until early in November when they started to round the sheep up and to drive them down into the warm valleys. Then the weather played them a bad trick. Before they had any idea that it was coming the first snow was upon them with a fall of a foot. The snow had fallen in the night and when the day dawned it was still snowing hard. The shepherds knew that the more snow they had the harder time they would have in getting the sheep out, so they kept on driving them in a blinding snowstorm. It was Silversheene's task to fol-

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low on the left flank of one of the large flocks and keep the stragglers from getting away. In that section of the flock was an old black-faced buck who was the leader, and he gave Silversheene a great deal of trouble. He seemed to dislike the dog and would stamp and lower his head at him whenever he came near. Again and again this obdurate buck broke away and took a score or more of sheep with him, and the dog had to go after them. Finally towards night the old buck made another attempt and got behind Silversheene in spite of him, as he was having trouble with another bunch of sheep who were also stragglers. This time the old buck got a good start and Silversheene was unable to head him off. An evil spirit seemed to possess the old buck and he led his little band further and further away from the flock down a deep gulch beside a small stream. It was so narrow that Silversheene could not get around in front of them to head them off.

All he could do was to tag along behind,

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hoping all the time that they would get sick of it and turn back. But the old leader had no mind to turn back. He seemed to think that better feed was ahead.

So hour after hour he led them further and further from the large flock, until finally they were hopelessly separated from the rest of the sheep. Then it was that the shepherds discovered that Silversheene was missing. The following day they saw that the old buck was also gone, and they imagined some sheep as well. Well, they would have to look out for themselves, as they had their hands full with the main flock. So it happened that two days later poor Silversheene found himself hopelessly lost in the mountains. He and his little flock were marooned in a small valley between high mountains. The snow that had continued to fall had obliterated all signs of their tracks, so no one could find them.

When the shepherds finally reported the event to Mr. Henderson he whistled and looked very grave.
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"That will be a great blow to Dick," he said. "He had trained him very carefully and thought he was a safe dog with the sheep. I guess he won't go hungry himself, so long as he has plenty of mutton at hand. But it is a rather sorry plight for the sheep."

When Richard was finally told of the loss he wanted to go in search of them at once, but business was pressing and his father told him to wait. But Dick said that he would bet on old Silversheene and he knew that he would do all he could to protect the sheep. He would starve before he would kill one. "I know it."

The rest of the family were rather skeptical, but Dick's faith did not waver.

It was a happy day for Richard when the work in the warehouses and the office let up enough so that Mr. Henderson said he could go and look for Silversheene if he wanted to.

The young man set off without delay, feeling quite sure he would find that the dog

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had been faithful to his trust, although he could not understand what had become of him and the little flock of sheep.

He went as far as the foothills in an automobile. Arriving there, Richard left the car with a small farmer who corralled and fed his father's sheep in the winter months, and farmed on a small scale for the rest of the year. When Richard told him his errand, the man who was well versed in the ways of sheep shook his head.

"I am afraid you will find the flock sadly diminished, if you find it at all," he said. "You could not blame the dog. He could not be expected to starve."

"But I trained him very carefully. He understands that they are my property as well as I do," explained Dick.

"I know," said the farmer, "but even man will break all the moral laws when it comes to a case of slow starvation."

"Silversheene could hunt enough to keep himself alive," countered Dick.

"Not and watch the sheep and keep off

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bears and perhaps mountain lions. I guess he has had a sorry time guarding that flock all right."

Richard was much impressed with the farmer's logic, although his faith in Silversheene did not waver. But as the farmer said, if it was a case of slow starvation he could not blame the dog.

Most of the mountain intervals and gulches Dick knew, although it was a rather wild country. He planned to stay several days if necessary, so he took three days provision and a heavy blanket, and also: a Winchester rifle. He did not intend to get caught again as he had with the wolves, so he had his revolver as well.

His plan was to go along the sides of the valleys, high enough up so that he could see all of the country below with his field glass. In that way he could search more rapidly. There was very little snow in the deep valleys, although in the woods along the slopes there was still considerable.

Dick walked rapidly and covered large

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sweeps of the country at a time, but even so it was slow work and very much like looking for a needle in a hay mow.

The first day he followed the most likely valley for ten miles back into the mountains, and then crossed over the ridge and worked back along another valley to this starting place in the foothills. He saw plenty of deer tracks, and rabbit tracks, and several bevies of mountain quail, but not a sign of sheep. The second day was a repetition of the first.

A long twenty-mile tramp, many deer signs, but no sheep tracks. He had now covered the four most likely intervals and was getting discouraged, but he did not give up. He was not that sort.

The third day bade fair to be a repetition of the other two. Richard tramped and tramped, starting as soon as daylight and never stopping to rest. By noon he was tired and rather discouraged. His father and the farmer had been right. Looking for the sheep in these endless mountains

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was a hopeless task. He would probably have to go back and leave poor Silversheene to his fate.

In this frame of mind he sat down upon a rock to rest and to scan with his glass a little valley half a mile beneath. It looked like a very cosy and warm valley and the grass was still green in places. There was no snow in the sheltered vale.

He was just raising the glass to his eyes when a faint and far-away bark floated up to his ears. At first he thought he must be mistaken, so he listened intently and soon it was repeated. It sounded very much like Silversheene's bark. He was a rather silent dog, as are the Eskimo dogs, but he would occasionally bark when driving sheep.

Dick scanned the interval carefully with the glass and was about to put it up and go down and see what he could discover when a wonderful sight met his eyes. A small flock of sheep came out from another interval which led from the first, and

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started slowly along the valley; and close behind them was a silver gray dog. There was no mistaking him even at that distance. It was faithful old Silversheene.

Richard's first impulse was to shout at the top of his voice and so attract the dog's attention, but something cautioned him to wait and watch. So he held the glass upon them and waited. Slowly and patiently the dog drove them for fifty rods up the valley and then some of them stopped and bunched together and seemed to be feeding.

Then for the first time Richard noted that a small stream threaded its way through the valley. The sheep were drinking at a quiet little pool. The lines of that old shepherd's ong came to his lips. "He leadeth me beside the still waters." That was what Silversheene was doing. It was noon and he was watering his sheep. For half an hour the flock lingered about the pool and then the dog drove them slowly away and they disappeared in the gulch which had first hidden them from sight.
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Dick waited no longer, but as fast as his long legs could carry him he made his way down to the valley and soon discovered the interval where the flock had disappeared. There in a sheltered warm spot he discovered the flock feeding, and beside them, watching and waiting patiently, a tired disconsolate-looking dog. Dick had come upon them so quietly that Silversheene did not at first see him. His head was down, and he looked very tired and even at that distance Richard could see that he looked haggard and old.

Then he sprang forward with a glad shout and the dog sprang up with an angry snarl and was immediately on guard. But when he discovered who the intruder was he flung himself joyously on his young master, while Dick hugged the brave dog as he would have a brother. Then he noticed that Silversheene was very gaunt.

He did not look as though he had eaten for weeks. When Dick finally set him down he staggered and nearly fell, and a

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{{FreedImg
| file = Silversheene (1924) 1.png
| caption = It was noon and he was watering his sheep.
| width = 300px
}}

—

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wild look came into his eyes. "My heavens, old pal, you are starving!" cried Richard. "We will remedy that at once."

He unstrapped his knapsack and took out the remains of his lunch. The dog gulped the food down so rapidly that he choked and then whined pitifully for more. So Dick broke it up in small pieces and fed it to him gradually.

He had shot a rabbit a mile back and hung it in a tree, so he and Silversheene made all haste to the spot; and soon the famished dog was tearing the rabbit to pieces like a hungry wolf. On the way back they shot another; and Silversheene had his fill for the first time in three weeks. When Dick went over the ground where the dog and the sheep had spent the three weeks, he found that they had cropped the grass clean in many places and had come often to the only sizable pool in the stream to drink. Silversheene's thoughtfulness in caring for them was evinced by the fact that Dick found a trampled place in a sheltered

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thicket where they had slept at night. That evening at sunset he waited and watched to see what Silversheene would do.

He first drove the sheep out to the pool and watered them just as he had at noon and then drove them into the thicket for the night.

"Good enough, old pal!" cried the man, when the jubilant dog had returned to his master after seeing the sheep safe for the night. "We will stay here for the night and to-morrow you and I will drive them out."

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{{di|W}}HEN his enemy, Pedro Garcia, learned to run the automobile and became Mr. Henderson's chauffeur, a more disgusted dog than Silversheene could not well be imagined. Hitherto, when Dick was not available, Mr. Henderson had run the machine himself and now to have this objectionable Pedro take their place at the wheel, filled Silversheene with disgust.

Most dogs are very susceptible as to the character of those about them. They are especially keen to detect evil. This trait was so marked that a large business house kept a St. Bernard dog in the outer office. Whenever a stranger came into the office the dog would look him over, or perhaps sniff at him inquiringly. If the dog growled or showed other signs of disapproval, the

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stranger was turned down in the inner office.

So while Mr. Henderson knew that Pedro was rather untrustworthy as are many Mexicans, Silversheene knew his real character.

True, the dog and his master now rode on the back seat, and that was a comfort. But Silversheene had often to sit for a long time in the car with the hated greaser and this irked him exceedingly. He never slept on such occasions, but would lie watching Pedro intently. He would not let the chauffeur take anything from the back of the car when they were alone. It is probable that the dog also felt the hatred in the vengeful man's mind, and the evil that he was planning against him.

"It is strange," said Mr. Henderson to Richard one day, "how Silversheene dislikes Pedro. There seems to be something between them. I am almost afraid to leave them together."

"Silversheene is a gentleman, and Pedro

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is a skunk," said Dick. "So they don't mix well. There is more honor in a hair of that dog's tail than there is in the whole body of that greaser. I don't like him, Dad. I wish you would fire him and get a white man."

"Oh, I guess he is all right. You know he has been with us fifteen years. He has always been good help and he is a fine gardener."

Silversheene would often catch Pedro looking at him from out the corner of his eye, and he knew that the gaze was malevolent, but no one in the Henderson family ever dreamed of the dastardly plan which was brewing in the mind of the greaser.

One day Pedro and Mr. Henderson and Silversheene drove to some distant orchards where spraying was being carried on. Mr. Henderson left the dog and the driver in the car while he inspected the orchard. Silversheene wanted to go with his master, but Mr. Henderson finally left him in the machine. The last he saw of the dog

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as he glanced back was his beautiful head looking wistfully through the window. After he had passed from sight the dog lay down and pretended to sleep, but he was watching Pedro carefully as usual.

Mr. Henderson was gone a long time and he finally sent one of the men to tell Pedro to go to a small railway station a couple of miles distant for some express. He also told the man to let the dog come back with him, as he knew Silversheene hated to be left alone with the greaser. This part of the command the man failed to obey. As Pedro started up the car the dog noted that he grinned malevolently back at him and said something in Spanish. Of course the dog could not understand the words, but he knew the tone was malevolent.

Instead of driving directly to the station Pedro stepped on the accelerator and was soon flying along the road in an opposite direction. In about ten minutes he stopped before a small shack and a disreputable greaser came out.
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"Hurry, Alsandra," cried Pedro excitedly. "I have just the good chance to-day. The good God he makes me this chance. Hurry, get out your machine. I have him in behind. He can't get away."

"Did you say fifty dollars, Pedro? We get fifty at Portland and you divide even."

"Yes," cried Pedro. "Hurry, I must be back quick." Then Alsandra hurried away and soon had a disreputable Ford standing beside the Henderson car.

Silversheene in the meantime seemed to divine that their actions had to do with him, and growled softly eyeing them suspiciously.

"He looks like a fighter," said Alsandra. "I guess he will give us much trouble. Could you get a slipnoose over his head from the front seat, Pedro? If you could we would have him all right. A dog with his wind shut off is as good as dead."

When Pedro dangled the rope over the seat, Silversheene met him with a deep snarl. He was now sure that they had sinister de-

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signs on him. But when Pedro barked at him and growled in answer to his growls, he suddenly felt a great longing to get at these two devils and tear them to pieces. So without considering the consequences he reared up on his hind legs and reached over the front seat for Pedro. This was just what the cunning greaser wanted. For with a sudden motion he slipped the noose over the beautiful head of the dog and with a sharp pull drew it tight. At the same time his confederate opened the back door of the machine and caught the dog by the hind legs and in another second they had the great fighter stretched out between them helpless.

Pedro pulled so hard on the rope that Silversheene's tongue came out and his breathing was temporarily suspended. Everything became black and he almost eeased to struggle.

Alsandra in the meantime hastily bound his hind legs together and his fore paws as

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well. He then stuck a stick through the foaming jaws of the dog and tied them with a strong cord, until he was completely muzzled. Then Pedro let up on the slipnoose on the dog's neck.

Poor Silversheene raged and boiled inwardly but could do nothing. He worked his paws frantically to get them loose, but the cords with which they were bound held. With his jaws he could only growl and that helped him little.

So he lay helpless while his captors slung him into the back of the Ford and tied him to the footrest. Finally Alsandra threw an old blanket over him, covering all but the tip of his nose, and the Ford drove rapidly away.

Pedro then made all haste to the station, secured the can of spray and drove back to the orchard. When Mr. Henderson returned to the car Pedro seemed very much excited, and explained at some length that while he was at the station the dog had

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climbed over the front seat of the car and run away, and that he had probably gone home.

Mr. Henderson glanced sharply at the greaser, but he looked honest. Then he remembered how Silversheene hated to be left with the Mexican and concluded that the story was true, so thought no more of it. But when they returned home and nothing had been seen of Silversheene his suspicions were aropsed.

They summoned the greaser and had a long conversation with him but could not break down his story. So there was nothing to do but advertise for the dog and put in motion what machinery they could for his recovery.

When Dick heard of it he said at once that the Mexican had played them some trick for getting rid of the dog; and if he ever found out what it was he would skin him alive.

So a campaign was started for the recov-

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ery of Silversheene, but it was a long time before they saw him again. When he did at last come back into their lives it was like a chapter from [[the Arabian Nights]].

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{{di|E}}VER since the discovery of gold in Alaska in 1887, there has been a more or less thriving traffic in dogs for the Alaska sled teams, carried on along the Pacific Coast. This business was not legitimate, but nefarious to the last degree. It was done usually by such men as rob hen roosts and do other petty larceny. But in this case the crime seems even more contemptible because it often robbed the household of a dog who was one of the family.

Often the companion of little children was sacrificed to man's greed for gold. Thus it happened that dog-snatchers were always on the watch for dogs which would work into one of the northern dog teams. When, as in the case of Pedro Garcia, one could pay off an old score and get fifty dol-

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lars for doing it, the enterprise looked good, although it took the heart of a Judas to carry it out.

So it was into the hands of such men that poor Silversheene had fallen. As he lay bound upon the floor of the Ford car he was certainly a pitiful object, but the men who carry on such business have neither pity nor honor.

It was almost a miracle that Pedro and his confederate had managed to get the upper hands of this terrible fighter so completely, but they had taken him off his guard.

When the noose tightened on his throat, Silversheene would have pulled down Pedro and possibly killed him had not the other man caught him by the hind legs at the same time. Between them they had him utterly at their mercy. He was now absolutely helpless as he lay on his side with both hind and fore legs tied, and with the stick muzzle in his mouth. In addition to that the driver of the Ford had a noose about his

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neck and one end of the rope was passed under the footrest and the other end was slipped over the man's arm. So if the dog struggled in any way to free himself, his wind was at once shut off. It was a devilish arrangement, and all Silversheene could do was to rage inwardly. This he did with a vengeance.

He was a gentleman and had been betrayed by two blackguards. He had been tricked. He had not been given a chance to fight for his freedom. But he did not whimper. Instead he occasionally growled deep down in his throat. His eyes became bloodshot, his jaws dripped froth. His great, kind dog heart was nearly bursting with rage. His brain reeled, and he was very near to convulsions.

For hours he lay upon his side while the car rolled rapidly over the smooth roads. Occasionally the man looked over the back of the seat at him. He did not want him to die because he would then lose his part of the plunder, but he did not care how

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much he suffered. The sun touched the western horizon and passed from sight and still they sped on.

About ten o'clock the man stopped the car beside the road, and taking a pail from the automobile, he went to a brook nearby and got some water.

He then took the stick from the dog's mouth and gave him enough slack from the rope so that he could raise his head. Then he held some water under his muzzle.

Silversheene would rather have drunk blood from the man's throat, but he was famishing, and his tongue was badly swollen, so he slowly licked the water, occasionally stopping to growl. The man then ate a lunch and offered the dog a biscuit which he disdainfully refused.

In fifteen minutes they were again on the way. For two days and two nights the car hummed on its way while Silversheene lay upon his side on the floor. He was seasick from the motion and heartsick as well, but he still had plenty of fight left in him. For

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all the while he had been storing up wrath against the time when he should get at one of these devils who had bound and carried him away.

Finally on the third day the automobile entered a large city on the seacoast and the driver made his way to its most objectionable suburb. Here he drove about for a while searching for the man he had been directed to. Finally the machine drew up before a small house, and a red-faced, brutal-looking man came to the door.

"Hello, Bill," said Alsandra. "I have got a prize for you. It is that dog which Pedro Garcia was planning to send you as soon as he landed him. He is a dandy, but I guess he is hell fire all right. He will give you a go for your money as soon as I let him loose."

The man grinned. "I never see any darned dog that I was afraid of yet. You just drive around back inside the board fence and we will take a look at your roaring lion."
{{nop}}

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So the greaser drove the car inside an enclosure of, perhaps, fifty square feet which was protected from prying eyes by a high board fence.

"This is my school yard where I first takes the kinks out uv um," said Bill. "The fence keeps any prying folks from the society with the long name from interferin', You just unloose your dog devil and let's see what he will do. Wait, I will do it myself."

So without any fear the man reached inside and untied the cords on Silversheene's legs, both front and back, and he sprang up with an angry snarl.

"He ain't so stiff as I thought, seein' he has been lyin' there tied up for so long," observed Bill. "I guess he is so full of fight that it keeps him limber. Wait until I get my club, then we will let him loose. I guess he don't know a club."

When Silversheene felt the cords unloosed from his legs and again stood on all fours he knew that his hour had come. All the

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rage for all the indignity of the past two days welled up in him and he became transformed into a raging, snarling fury.

Now some one would pay the price of all his injuries.

"Ain't you afraid of him?" inquired Alsandra. "He looks to me a good deal like the devil himself."

The man with the club laughed then he stepped to the back door and flung it wide.

"All right," he said. "Now come on, my ugly pup. You can have all the rope you want."

Silversheene needed no further invitation, for he was out of the door like a flash and with a bound like lightning sprang full at the man's throat.

With an agility that surprised the dog the man sprang to one side and at the same time caught—him a sharp blow with the club on the side of the head. Silversheene was so raging that he did not even feel it, although it was a hard blow. Again he sprang, and this time the man had a closer

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call, but eluded him again and got in a stunning blow and this time it hurt. Once again the infuriated dog sprang and the man resorted to the same tactics. The fourth spring carried him almost into the man's face, but he stooped low and caught him a mighty blow under the jaw which made him see stars. For a few seconds poor Silversheene was groggy and so dazed he could scarce see his opponent, but when he finally did make him out, he was once more at him.

But no matter how fast or furious Silversheene sprang and snapped, the man with the club always eluded him and put in a stunning blow. The dog was game but the terrible blows were beginning to tell.

"For God's sakes, Bill," cried Alsandra from the fence. "Don't slip or fall. He will kill you if you do."

The strain of the fight was beginning to tell on this brutal champion of the club. His breath came in gasps and once he nearly lost his footing.
{{nop}}

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"Ef he gets too much for me I've gut a gun for him in my pocket, but I never had to use it on a dog yet. He'll give up directly, or my name ain't dog-smasher Bill."

Silversheene had been standing for a few seconds with his fore legs braced getting back his wind and his eyesight. Blood was flowing freely over his face and it blurred his sight.

Finally with a blood-curdling snarl he went at his tormentor again. This time the pace was faster and more furious than before. Finally when the man had been hard pressed for several seconds he succeeded in bringing the club down full on the top of the dog's head and as he crumpled up on the ground he followed it up with a brutal kick in the side fully to cower him.

The world went dark to Silversheene and he lay still and ceased breathing.

"Well," said the man on the fence, "I guess you have killed him. But you'll have to pay for him. I delivered him all right."

"Killed nothing," snorted Bill, contemp-

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tuously. "But I guess he has got enough of his Uncle Bill for this time."

After about five minutes Silversheene raised his head and looked bewilderedly around.

"Hello, perp. Come out of your nap. It wasn't a very long one. You will be all right."

To the surprise of the other man Bill got a basin of water and held it fearlessly under Silversheene's nose while the dog lapped the water eagerly. Then with a deep sigh he lay down utterly exhausted and offered no objections while the man washed the blood from his face and chest.

"Gosh, Bill, ain't you afraid he will bite you?"

"Him and me are all right now we have hed our fracas. Why, I ain't sure but what he would love me ef I kept him a week."

In this, however, he was mistaken. For while Silversheene had learned his lesson, that he could not fight a man with a club, yet he always ached in his heart to get at

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the man and tear his throat open, but he was too sagacious to show it.

That evening Silversheene was put in a yard with about a dozen other dogs, nearly all of whom mourned the loss of their masters and their homes. Some of them sulked, but others took it cheerfully.

At first Silversheene who had always been a gentleman and associated with aristocratic dogs held aloof, but he finally surrendered to his new conditions and adjusted himself to his new life.

Every day or two men would come to the yard where the dogs were kept and look them over. Then gold would clink between the strangers and the man called Bill and some of the dogs would go away. Silversheene wondered where they went, but he never knew. All he knew was that they never came back.

Finally in the fortunes of war his own turn came and he had become so tired of the yard that he was rather glad. His new master proved to be a Canuck called Gene

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Gordet and he took Silversheene with him when he went away.

He did not know, but this was a new chapter in his life. One that would take him thousands of miles away from Oregon which had been his home for the past year. Not only was he to go far away, but he was to take an active part in the most strenuous life that men have ever lived. Life that tires men's muscles and endurance to the breaking point. He was to be tested out with a twenty-foot rawhide whip, and a daily run that would leave a civilized dog dying beside the trail at the end of the first day.

Henceforth, Silversheene was to learn in the hard school of experience. He was to learn the law of fang and whip in a country where the under dog never was given quarter and the only fight to wage was the fight that won.

The following day Silversheene and Gene Gordet boarded a train for the north. They went into the baggage car where Gene

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played cards and talked with other coarse men like himself. Silversheene lay between the seats watching the face of his new master. He decided after a while that he was much better than the man with the club. Gene was tall, muscular, and his voice was rather pleasant, and he laughed a good deal, which Silversheene thought a good sign. Just at dusk they alighted from the train and made their way to a large partly empty warehouse beside the docks. Here Gene left the dog, after feeding him a good supper and tying him up. That same evening he came with another dog. He was a large Dane named Billy and Silversheene liked him at once. Billy was also tied in the warehouse and again Silversheene's new master went away. The following day he brought two more dogs. One was a Russian deerhound named Ginger, and the other a large collie called Whirlwind. The four dogs finally fraternized well enough with the exception that none of them liked Ginger. This was the nucleus of Gene's

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Alaskan dog team, but of course they did not know.

The third day Gene took all four dogs upon a steamer bound for Alaska and their great adventure had begun. The dogs were kept between decks and they did not see much of Gordet except when he came to feed or water them.

Silversheene had always been fed more than he could eat. So now he was very dignified about his food and did not try to steal from the rest as the others did. The first night Ginger snatched a large piece of meat that had been intended for Silversheene, but retribution was very swift.

For Gordet who had been watching them sent his whiplash singing at the offender and caught him on the middle of the ear and he dropped his stolen plunder and sulked behind Billy. The four dogs did not know that it was Gordet's boast that he could strike straighter at twenty feet with his whip than he could shoot with his revolver, and he was one of the best shots in

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the west. But they all learned that the way of this whip was swift and terrible and it called for swift obedience. But Gordet was a just man and he never punished without cause.

So the one event in the life of the four dogs as the ship ploughed her way through the Pacific was feeding time. Billy and Whirlwind often put in their time romping and tumbling, for they had to do something. Ginger was too cross to want to take part in any play. Silversheene was too heartsick to care to play. He was not cross, but indifferent. He would lie for hours with his head between his paws, and a far-away look in his brown eyes. At such times the other dogs did not disturb him. He was thinking of the girl in the Adirondacks who had been his first playmate and mistress. In his sleep he would often spring up with a glad bark, only to look about him bewilderedly and then lie down with a dejected air.
{{nop}}

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This was when he had been dreaming of Hilda. Or he would bark excitedly and wag his tail, only to awaken and find that Richard Henderson was not calling him. No one was calling him. The only sound was the endless beating of the engine which was driving the propeller that was taking him further and further from both Hilda and Dick.

So time went slowly by for three weeks. Then one foggy morning the ship came to anchor at the mouth of a great river, where there was an Alaskan city. The men and dogs and freight had to be taken ashore by lighters as the harbor was shallow.

Gene and his four dogs did not attract much attention as there were several other rough men with dogs.

When they were finally upon the city streets Silversheene saw many dogs, but they seemed rather different from most of the dogs that he had seen in his short life. Most of them were either gray or white and

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many looked quite like himself. So this made him feel more at home than he would otherwise.

Gene led his dogs through the city and out to a low building where a friend kept a rude hotel. Here he left the dogs for the summer while he went inland upon a prospecting expedition. This was just a freak trip that he went on at a minute's hotice. His real object in coming to Alaska was to run a trucking, dog team between two Yukon towns, five hundred miles apart. He expected to make good money at this work. It was hard work, but it paid well and he had come north for gold.

The thing that Silversheene had the most difficulty in adjusting himself to in that far-away Alaskan country, was the summer time of perpetual sunshine. But he finally got used to it and would sleep whenever he felt like it.

One morning when Gene had been gone about a month Silversheene witnessed something that he never forgot. It taught him

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one of the first lessons of this hard country, and that was never to lose one's feet in a dog fight, especially if a dozen savage brutes were standing by.

Silversheene and a dozen other prospective sled dogs were gathered in a solemn conclave behind the long low building where Gene's friends who boarded Silversheene lived.

It was a sort of hotel of a rude class, but most of the boarders now were dogs, as the men had gone away up the river. Among the dogs who frequented the city and hung about this street was a small white cur of no particular breed. This little dog was the target for the dislike of all the dogs in the vicinity, and he was rarely left alone.

On this particular morning the little homeless canine lost his temper and turned upon his assailant who was larger than himself and a lively dog fight ensued. At the sound of the angry snarls, dogs came running from all directions, and in a minute's time there were at least a score of onlookers.
{{nop}}

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Silversheene was half a mind to take the part of the smaller dog and help him, but he was gradually losing all of his chivalric spirit so he just stood by watching. For a short time the smaller dog held his own, being nerved by a sense of his injustice. But finally the greater weight and strength of the other dog prevailed and the small dog was borne to earth. At this sight, the crowd of watching dogs was transformed to savage brutes just one degree removed from starving wolves. Without a moment's notice of what was to happen the whole mass swept over the struggling fighters, all seeking to get at the under dog.

According to the ethics of the wolf pack this dog had gone down. He had lost his footing and he was any one's meat. They rushed upon him with blood-curdling snarls and snapped and fought to get at him.

At the sound of the melee men came running from all directions with clubs. No man would have the temerity to go into a dog fight like that unarmed. The men

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struck right and left and some of them even caught the dogs by their hind legs and dragged them back.

But they were too late, for when they had dispersed the dog riot the small cur for whom no one cared was dead. If they had been given time and it had been winter and they were hungry, the pack would have eaten him as well as killed him.

To Silversheene who was used to a civilized country and civilized ways this was rather terrible. But it taught him the needed lesson. Never lose your feet in a dog fight if there are dog spectators, unless you want to lose your life as well.

Late in September the first snow flurry came and Gordet came back from his prospecting expedition. The following day Silversheene's life as an Alaskan sledge dog began.

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{{di|T}}HE first thing that Gordet did on re turning from his prospecting expedition was to purchase two more sled dogs and a fine sled. One of these dogs was an old grizzled veteran of the Husky order, named Wolf. The other was an ordinary Husky named Snowball, as he was white as snow. Because of his experience Wolf was given the lead position and upon him fell the great responsibility for the team, so far as dog responsibility could go. Wolf assumed the position as a matter of course and straightway began ruling his teammates with ready and gleaming fangs. Silversheene who was very high spirited himself resented this, but he soon discovered that Gene backed up Wolf with his long

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cutting whip so he accepted his leadership with as good grace as he could.

When the team was finally harnessed up Wolf was in the lead with Billy next to him. Then Snowball was placed as wheel dog and Ginger, Whirlwind, and Silversheene in between them. Silversheene was very glad Gene did not place him next to Wolf, for that savage Husky well bore out his name and he punished poor Billy mercilessly whenever he transgressed any of the laws of the team.

Billy of course was green so he often transgressed and suffered accordingly. Gene trained them in an open field back of the hotel and in half a day had them partly broken.

At the crack of the whip Wolf led off and woe betide Billy if he did not follow his lead. They first learned that "mush" meant to go forward. As this was their natural impulse it was readily learned. They were taught gee and haw which came harder. But at the word and the crack of

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the whip Wolf would swing to the right or left, while Snowball would swing his end of the team in the right direction so they got along very well. If the dog ahead of Snowball got out of his traces, that old Husky was at once snapping at him and barking for him to get back, while Wolf saw that none of the dogs near him got out of the traces.

Running about with the empty sled was soon mastered and it was great fun, but when Gene piled on a heavy load and started to draw it from the wharves to a storehouse that was quite different. Then it was that the long black lash sung and cracked about their ears and each dog had to dig for all he was worth. If a dog sulked or lay down in the harness he soon had both the two indignant Huskies and Gene's whiplash to reckon with. It was strange how soon even the civilized dog began to like this work in the harness.

It was not so much work as it was a great play. A strange game in which each sought

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to outdo his fellow. Finally when they were fully trained their greatest joy was to stand ready for the harness and their greatest ambition to aspire for Wolf's position at the head of the team.

Of course there were some dogs who were without ambition, just as there are men, but if a dog had any spirit he was always looking to promotion to the lead position.

Silversheene took to the snow like a duck to water. His forbears had revelled in it for untold ages so he came back to his own with great zest. He also surprised Gordet with the quick way in which he mastered the harness, but that also was a part of his inheritance, for one of his immediate ancestors had drawn Peary to the pole, while others had drawn heavily loaded sleds over the icefloes and the snowdrifts of the frozen arctic from time immemorial.

Silversheene had some trouble with the snow which gathered between his toes as he travelled and made him fvotsore, but he soon learned to lie upon his back and gnaw

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the frozen snow from between his toes each night. This was a trick that he learned from old Wolf. To tell the truth he was always watching this grizzled veteran from out of the corner of his eye. Although he hated him because of his severity, yet he admired him and knew that he was very wise in the ways of arctic waste.

The team was fed once a day at night. The feed was always the same. One pound of dried salmon. It was Wolf's place to see that the dogs did not get to fighting over this evening meal, and he was seconded in this watchfulness by Gene's whip.

In the civilized world where Silversheene had been reared there was certain honor among dogs, but he soon learned that it was different here. The stronger dog always stole from the weaker if he could. The only right here in this cold desolate land was the right of might. Old Wolf himself, although he was supposed to set an example, often stole from Billy and the rest of the

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southland dogs if he could when Gene was not looking.

Finally the real work for the team began and they were all glad, although it was desperately hard work. Work that taxed their endurance to the utmost and often found them footsore and lame at the end of the day's run. But in the morning each dog was sure to be ready, eager and trembling to have his harness again put on.

Gene had a contract to carry the mail and some light express between two Yukon towns five hundrd miles apart. He also made out a load with tea, coffee, and tobacco, for several trading posts along the way. As the price of transportation for these articles was several times the original cost in the States, the business was good. They started each morning at about seven, and kept up the steady pace for eight or ten hours, only stopping at noon to rest while Gene ate his lunch, and the dogs looked on with hungry eyes and dripping jaws.
{{nop}}

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Nor was the team the only part of the outfit that worked, for Gene himself ran the thirty or forty miles with his hand resting lightly on the "gee" pole, or even went ahead and broke track for the team when the going was bad.

Few men in the Yukon were better drivers, or could cover more miles in a day than Gene Gordet. He was six feet two inches in his stockings and weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. His muscles were like whipcords and his nerves like steel. He had wind like a moose and could run for hours behind the sled without fatigue.

His favorite stunt was to come into some snowbound Yukon trading post after a day's run of forty or fifty miles, and after bolting his supper and hot coffee, to join himself with the revellers in some dance hall and then dance all night, and even a part of the next day.

He never pushed his dog team beyond the day's work that he himself was willing to do. He was not a hard master as drivers

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went in the Yukon, but he would not stand for any fooling in the traces. He often had to discard dogs from his team and find others of better stuff.

Gene drove his dog team just as he did himself. They must go the limit. His word was law. The slightest motion of his hand or whip called for immediate obedience. If it was not forthcoming, that black lash, which was more accurate than any bullet on the Yukon, went singing to the mark.

Gene rarely petted his dogs, as he said it spoiled them for the trail. Yet he made an exception of Silversheene, who was such a beauty that he could not keep his hands off from him. But Gene soon saw that this made the other dogs jealous, so he did his petting on the sly.

Each day on the trail was as much like the day before as routine could make it, although the conditions under which they travelled were always different. Some days the going was good, while others it was

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very hard. Sometimes it was upon the smooth ice of the Yukon, while at other times they would flounder for hours through drifts. But the mode of procedure each day was the same.

Each morning the dogs came scrambling out of their snow beds at the first sound from their master and shook the snow from their long coats, and licked their feet until they were perfectly clean. Any cuts or bruises were also attended to.

They came as close to the morning campfire as they could and not disturb Gene's effort at getting breakfast. This also gave them a chance to get thawed out after the long night in the snow and to stretch their legs. They watched with expectant faces while their master ate. But when he got out the harnesses and laid them in a long row in front of the sled, each dog was usually in his place. If any lingered old Wolf was upon him and he was punished well for his tardiness. Then Gene harnessed them with care and saw that every-

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thing was shipshape before the start. The load often had to be relashed to the sled if it had got to slipping. When everything was in readiness there came the clear call to mush and the sharp crack of the whip like the report of the rifle. The team sprang gladly into the traces and they were off for the long day's run.

It was through a lonely waste that they travelled. Usually their own last trail was the only track they saw. They heard few sounds save the howling of the wind and the creaking of the snow. If they did happen to hear the howl of the great white arctic wolf at night, the silence that followed was still more appalling. If the blue fox did puncture the silence with his sharp staccato bark, the stillness afterwards was still more pronounced. Often the arctic owl vied with the howling wind to make the night fearsome, but neither man nor dog heard the sounds, for they were sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.

Each noon Gene allowed himself half an

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hour to eat his lunch and the dogs that time to rest, but they were not unharnessed. In the middle of the afternoon the pace would slow down and some of the dogs would perhaps lag a little, but at Gene's cheery call to mush and at the crack of the whip they would spring into the harnesses again and go forward at a steady pace. But when the empty stomachs between their gaunt sides told them that the day's run was nearly over old Wolf would occasionally look over his shoulder at Gene to see if there were any signs of stopping. Then Gordet would begin looking for a likely place to camp. It must be sheltered if possible. That was about all they could expect. Finally he would select the place and the team would lie down in the snow to rest, their tongues often lolling out. Finally when the man had made up his mind he would drive the sled under the lee of the boulder or ledge, or perhaps into a deep thicket, and the dogs experienced the great luxury of having their harnesses taken off.
{{nop}}

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Soon the bright campfire would be blazing and the dogs crowding about it. But before he had even put on his coffee Gene would get out the ration of dried fish and throw each dog his piece. When the team had been fed he got out the frying pan and put bacon into it. He would also put on the coffeepot and get out some hard biscuits. In a very few minutes he would be eating his own supper while the dogs watched him at a respectful distance. Again each dog would inspect his feet and gnaw the snow from between his toes and lick the cuts and bruises before retiring. Then one by one they would disappear under the soft snow, each curling up into a round ball and putting his nose in his bushy tail to keep it from freezing during the night.

When the last dog had disappeared Gene himself would stretch his muscles, and rake down his campfire so as to keep it until morning if possible. Then he would get out his rabbit-skin sleeping-bag and himself lie down upon some pine boughs that, if

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he was lucky, he had been able to cut, but if not, he lay in the snow, for he was as hardy as the dog team. In less than a minute he would be sleeping more soundly than any of the luxury-cradled men of the States upon their beds of ease. Both team and man had earned their sleep, and nature, which often makes up in one way what she takes away in another, gave them sweet sleep and pleasant dreams, even in the frozen arctic under the blinking stars and the gorgeous aurora which painted the sky and the snow a dozen times a minute with a new hue. So they would sleep while the arctic hours slipped noiselessly by and the God of nature would watch over them.

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{{di|A}}GAIN with the coming of summer Gene Gordet left his dog team with his friend the hotel-keeper and once more went into the primitive wilderness in search of gold. This bright metal seems to be to the heart of man what the magnet is to steel filings, for it draws them with almost irresistible power. For gold men have braved such hardships as are rarely chronicled. So it was in Alaska. In this mad scramble a man's life did not weigh much in the balance with the chance to "strike it rich" as they say. In the early days the gold fields were nearer to civilization, but in the time of which I write men had to take great chances and go further away from their bases.

But Gene Gordet was lucky, and he

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struck it rich on that second summer, for he located a rich claim not far from other rich claims on the Tanana river. Every one said that he ought to stay and work it and get the full benefit of his discovery, but Gene thought differently. There were two people calling him back to the Province of Quebec. These were a widowed mother and a sweetheart. A combination very hard to resist. So Gene succumbed to a tempting offer for his claim and sold out. This necessitated his selling all of his outfit, including his dog team.

It is one of the great tragedies in the lives of the domestic animals that they are liable to change after change because of the fact that they are property.

If a dog or a horse is in his prime and his owner has no further use for him, or circumstances make it impossible to keep him longer, he is usually passed along to another master and too often to the highest bidder. But Gene tried to see that his dog team had a good master, for after some dickering he

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sold the team to an Englishman named George White who was a skillful driver and promised to take good care of the dogs. Even so Gordet wanted to keep out Silversheene and take him back with him to Canada, but White would not hear of this as he said it would spoil the team.

So Gordet said good-bye to the dogs who had served him so faithfully and sailed from Valdez for Victoria. This might have worked out all right for Silversheene and his team mates had it not been for the sad failing of George White, their new master. He was sometimes addicted to drink and the night following the purchase of the team he was in his cups. In this state he was prevailed to take a hand in a poker game and lost heavily.

Finally as a last chance to retrieve his fortunes he put up his new dog team and lost to François Dupret, a gambler and a notorious Alaska bad man.

François was just the opposite of Gene Gordet. Where Gene was tall and mus-

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cular François was short and fat. His nickname by which he was always called when he was absent was "The Pig." He was very dark, probably with an Indian strain in his blood. His face was repulsive to the last degree and Silversheene's hair upon his neck arose the first time François laid his hand upon him. Instinctively the fine dog felt the degradation of the hand of this brutal man.

His eyes were small and near together, and usually red from drink. His lips were thin and cruel and his teeth usually showed in a malicious grin. He was a great gunman and always toted a .44. Like all bullies he was something of a coward, but always ready to bully the weak and the helpless.

He was especially noted as a hard driver of dogs and a team might well mourn the day he became its master.

By this time Silversheene had been moved up in the dog team until he now stood behind Wolf, the lead dog.
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This had at once increased the hostility between them, but Gene had been able to control it and it helped to have two such aggressive dogs at the head of the team. François did not at once put the team into service but allowed the dogs to run and become demoralized.

Finally in October when the first snows had come and the police in the city had become insistent that François Dupret move on up the Yukon, he harnessed up his team and started on the long trip to Dawson. He was not so well known to the mounted police of Canada and he thought to carry on his gambling and other nefarious practices for the winter in that famous city.

In addition to a heavy consignment of dog feed François took a load of such commodities as he thought he might sell with profit in Dawson. When loaded, Gene had always run by the gee pole, but François always rode no matter how heavy the load, so trouble for the team at once began. He

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had added two new Huskies to the team and this increased the lack of harmony.

That first day under the lash of the new master was a revelation to Gordet's old dog team. François was not a good frontiersman, so everything that he did with the team went badly. He did not get his load lashed well in place and it was also topheavy, and worst of all with his own bulky form there was about a third too much weight. But for all his own shortcomings the team had to pay.

It was the only animate thing in sight so he could best vent his ill temper upon it. He did not get started until nine o'clock, so he drove mercilessly until noon to make up. A good driver of either dogs or horses occasionally gives his animals a chance to breathe and rest, but not so. The Pig. He drove the team as he would have driven an automobile. He did not get tired himself sitting upon the sled cracking his long whip and swearing at the team in Canuck, so he saw no reason why the team should.
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By noon all of the team with the exception of Wolf and Silversheene were thoroughly tired. But these two dogs were seemingly made of iron. By this desperate driving François had covered twenty miles.

At noon he stopped for half an hour to make hot coffee and eat his lunch. For the first time in the history of the Gordet team they got to fighting in the harness; this was when Wolf attempted to punish Silversheene for getting over his traces.

As leader of the team Wolf was supreme, but Silversheene thought he had been all right so fought back furiously, and a lively battle ensued. François rushed upon the two dogs and with the butt of his whip soon restored order, but this was the first of many battles.

When they finally made camp that first night François had covered forty miles which is a good day's run, but he had tired the team more than Gene would have done in a week.

It was strange, too, how soon the team felt

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the loss of the master will of Gene. The will that had dominated them and made them go straight. The will that had made them as one dog. With the coming of the new master the team seemed to disintegrate, to go to pieces; and instead of a team it was eight individual dogs. Each pulling in his own way and doing as he wished so far as he could.

Wolf at once divined this fact and sought with all his might to keep the team intact.

It was strange how much he felt his responsibility. He seemed to know that this brute of a master could not control the team and make it work, and it was up to him.

Every ambitious dog aspires for the lead position.

Silversheene was dominant in every fiber of his being. He had come of a strain of sled dogs that had battled with snow and ice and cold, and he had inherited their dominant traits.

Silversheene had long chafed under the leadership of Wolf, yet Gene had re-

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strained him. But now he felt that this restraint was gone, and he openly defied Wolf and hindered and balked him in the government of the team.

So it was a disorderly and rebellious dog team that sought their beds in the snow on that first night of the rule of. The Pig.

The following morning at harnessing up time Ginger was missing. Wolf finally routed him out of the snow where he had been trying to escape harnessing. This was an unheard—of thing in a sled dog. Usually the life in the traces is the greatest joy that the dog knows. He will run until he drops dead in his harness. Sled dogs have often died of a broken heart simply because they were unable to keep their places in the traces.

But not so Ginger, for he openly shirked and tried to evade his work.

Old Wolf fell upon him like a fury and punishing severely drove him whimpering to his place in the team.

Silversheene tried to defend Ginger, al-

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though he hated and despised him at heart, and he and Wolf got into another fight. At this François rushed upon them with the butt of his whip.

"By Gar! What you tam dogs t'ink! You t'ink I keep a dog-fight team. By Gar, I keep you to work. You tam fighters."

All the time he had been laying about with the butt of his whip and soon order was restored. But from that time forward open and relentless war existed between Wolf and Silversheene.

That day François once more covered forty miles, but he was merely taking it out of his fine team. With his whip and his curses he made the miles and not by the good will of the dogs.

In the old days under Gene the work had been their greatest joy. Each dog was as eager for the day's run when harnessed as Gene was to have his work well done. But now it was different.

This man did not love them. He was not

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just. He was not merciful but drove with his long whip and his curses.

So life went on day after day. Each morning there was the harnessing up of a team that hated the trail and wanted to shirk and get away from this {{hinc|heart-breaking}} drudgery. Each day they were driven cruelly and brutally until they often lay down in the harness and refused to move. Each night they fought like wolves over the dried fish in spite of all old Wolf could do, and after feeding time they went sullenly to their beds in the snow, or wearily to linger about the campfire. With each day the dissensions among the dogs grew and the rancor between Wolf and Silversheene increased until finally François had to put Silversheene back as the wheel dog. This almost broke Silversheene's heart and he laid it up against Wolf as another thing that he would some day punish him for.

By the end of the first week François had covered about three hundred miles. Three of the dogs had gone lame and limped pain-

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fully along in their harnesses without doing much towards pulling the load. This made the work for the rest all the harder.

Finally on the eighth day poor Billy, who was all willingness, and about the only dog who had not shirked, fell in the traces and could not rise. So after whipping him until he saw he could not get up François left him there upon the trail and proceeded without him.

For a mile they could hear his pitiful howls at being left alone. That night Billy came limping into camp after them. He had regained his wind and courage and the following morning was again back in his place.

But in the middle of the forenoon he again gave out and was once more abandoned.

This time François had the grace to shoot him and the team went forward without good-natured Billy. Billy who had stayed in the traces until his strength was spent and his ability to draw his load was gone.
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With increasing discomfort for both team and driver another week dragged by. Ginger and Whirlwind had both gone lame and were little more than figureheads in the team. It is a fact that usually southland dogs cannot stand such terrific strain as can the northland Huskies. But François did not look after their feet or seek to recuperate them. He simply whipped and cursed them in all the strange cuss words of his picturesque patois.

Just two weeks from the morning on which they started, while François was trying desperately to get this snarling, fighting, discordant team in harness, Ginger suddenly went mad. He gave no evidence of what was about to happen.

But without the slightest warning he rushed headlong at Wolf. He snapped blindly this way and that and his jaws dripped froth. Wolf at once recognized the dangerous malady and fled for his life. So Ginger turned upon Silversheene and narrowly missed biting him.
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But Silversheene with great presence of mind sprang aside, and as the dog rushed by caught him by the throat. Something, which was wiser than he, told him that his only safety was in holding on, so he held on grimly, although Ginger struggled frantically until François shot the afflicted dog. The team was very lucky to escape so easily. But this feat of Silversheene's so pleased François that he promoted him to the lead and put Wolf back as wheel dog.

The following morning witnessed open rebellion and defiance in François' dog team, such as spelled its immediate dissolution. Wolf refused to go to the position as wheel dog and allow Silversheene to take his position as lead.

While Silversheene refused to go back to wheel dog and let Wolf have the lead position François cursed them in all the curses available in his picturesque Canuck. He struck at them with his whip but they kept just out of reach. He threw clubs at them, and finally, in a fit of great anger, began

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shooting at them. This caused both dogs to run for their lives. Then François sat down on his sled and cried profusely and comforted himself with a long pull at his whiskey bottle.

This sad experience at once convinced François that he could no longer drive the team with Silversheene and Wolf in it. So he then and there laid a plan by which he could rid himself of one of the dogs and at the same time get double his price.

Finally both Wolf and Silversheene came sneaking back and after considerable coaxing they were harnessed with Wolf in the lead and Silversheene next to him. But even so they snarled and snapped at each other whenever there was opportunity.

"By Gar, you tam dogs. Pretty soon I give you all the fight you want. You growl, you fool, you bite if you want. Pretty soon, François, he feex you. You get fight enough to satisfy pretty quick."

That day François drove as far as his whip and cursing could get him and at

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night managed to make the small trading post of Copperclaim.

Here he proceeded to make himself comfortable at a cabin of another Canuck gambler like himself. After supper they discussed the François plan for giving his "tam dogs" fight enough to suit them. Finally the word was passed around among a dozen choice spirits and the party assembled.

They took both Wolf and Silversheene to a deserted cabin half a mile back from town. They did not want any interference with the show that they had in mind to stage.
{{dhr}}
Each man in the party put a twenty-dollar gold piece in François' hand before taking his seat for the performance. Such degrading things as this often take place right under the noses of the police of our civilized country, so is it any wonder that such things should go on in this far-away land where brutality rules?

François' plan was this: Each of the

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dozen coarse men had paid to see what François promised would be the tamdest dog fight that they had ever witnessed. With this in view he had brought Wolf and Silversheene to the deserted cabin to fight it out to the death, just as he knew they would if they were set upon each other by the cruel means which man's degeneracy has devised for such occasions.

Of the cold and desolate cabin feebly lit by the light of lanterns and the dozen coarse men who gathered about and of the desperate fight to the finish waged by the two fine dogs my pen refuses to write.

Such scenes are not for civilization. Suffice it to say that half an hour later they dragged Wolf forth and buried him in the snow behind the cabin, while Silversheene limped painfully back to the village behind his sorry god. Henceforth he would have Wolf's place as lead dog, but it was a question which of them was the better off. Wolf had earned his rest under the white snow where the lash of his

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master's whip and his curses could not disturb him.

François did not at first realize that he had diminished his small team by one dog, and that a very good one. His only thought was that he had settled the fight. It was just another illustration of the old proverb, that those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

When on the following morning François harnessed his team, he discovered that they, could not even start the sled with himself upon it. So he was obliged to sell half his load and proceed at a diminished pace.

Two miles above the post for a half mile the trail ran along the edge of a high cliff over-looking the Yukon. The snow was deep upon the river here, but along the top of the bluff the ground was nearly bare. Some of the way the cliffs fell sheer to the river by a hundred-foot drop. As they rounded a bend in the trail Silversheene, straining at his harness until he could scarcely breathe, noted the high cliffs over-

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hanging the river, and a mad idea flashed through his brain. As they neared the cliff the idea grew clearer and brighter. Perhaps he communicated it to his team mates. Or maybe they only caught it from him intuitively. Such ideas do travel through a herd of animals or a flock of birds with lightning-like rapidity.

A flock of sea gulls wheeling and flying over the cliffs will maneuver with such precision that the light upon their outer wings as they wheel will show the same color and flash at the same second on each bird, just as though it had been one great bird with twenty pairs of wings, instead of twenty birds each with a volition of its own.

So perhaps it was thus that Silversheene's desperate idea was communicated to his team mates. Eagerly they strained up the steep until they were immediately opposite the point where the cliff hung highest and steepest over the Yukon. Then with one impulse and with a chorus of glad yelps they suddenly wheeled and dashed precipi-

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tately towards the yawning cliff. Silversheene himself was in {{hinc|midair}} over the abyss before François even dreamed of what was up. The other three dogs sprang joyously after him. For a moment the long sled toppled on the edge of the cliff. François had a fleeting vision of his danger, of the horror of the plunge to doom, of his wicked life and his immediate punishment by the team that he had driven to death. Then the sled followed the dog team in its plunge to doom.

A cloud of snow caught by the scudding wind floated out over the Yukon and then silence again settled upon the white ghastly scene. The winds kept on moaning in the scrub pines and the snows sifting and drifting and the forest freezing just as it had before the catastrophe.

If there had been any one to look over the edge of the cliff he would have discovered the gee pole still sticking up above the snow and the back end of the runners still protruding, but the rest of the sled

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—

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and the dog team and the man were all buried in a twenty-foot drift.

An hour later the snow in a spot twenty feet away began wriggling about strangely. Then the head and the shoulders of a silver gray dog appeared, and finally the full form of Silversheene. He of all his team mates had struggled to freedom. He had gnawed his traces and tunnelled his way to the surface. But his team mates were too nearly dead with fatigue to make any such effort. They would lie there and freeze. They were too tired to move.

When he finally emerged from the snow Silversheene shook himself and looked about. Back down the river was the town. Away up the river there were probably more towns. But in the town were men, and he had seen enough of men. Across the Yukon to the north the wilderness was calling to him. The wilderness from which his ancestors had sprung. This wilderness could not be as brutal as were such men as François.
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So Silversheene finally turned his nose northward and went back to the wild, to the primitive life from which the campfire of the primitive man had allured his ancestors ages before. But now the procedure was reversed. Then the campfire had drawn the gray wolf. He had wanted to know and worship the man creature. But now the man who was even more of a beast than any member of his dog team had driven him back to the wild, back from the warmth and the glow of the campfire into the dark and the cold of primitive life. Henceforth he would shun the campfires of men and their scent upon the trail. He was fleeing civilization and all it held for him.

Nature might be cruel, but she was not so cruel as men. She might be pitiless but she was just, and he could live by his sharp fangs and his wits just as his ancestors had lived before him. So Silversheene fled the haunts of men and went back to the wild with a savage joy in his dog heart which

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really craved the love of man and a god to worship.

His last god had been so devilish a specimen that this experience had cured him for the present of man-love. The white wolves would welcome him to their ranks, and he would again hunt and prey upon the rest of the forest dwellers. So the dog went back to the wolf and nature was glad that it was so.

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{{di|I}}T must not be imagined that Silversheene went back to the wild at a single bound, or without regret. For it was a rather slow process, but when he pointed his nose north ward and crossed the Yukon he had started in that direction.

On the further side of the great river Silversheene found heavily wooded bluffs. They were covered with pines with an occasional aspen. The dog was glad to escape into their dark depths for it gave him a sense of security. After searching around for several hours he found just the spot that he wanted. A large pine had come crashing down the autumn before. Its plumy top had fallen over a deep depression in the sidehill and made a natural house under the green plumes. Silver-

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sheene ran along the trunk of the tree to the top and finally found his way down between the limbs to this sheltered spot under the friendly green. Here out of the way of the wind and the cold he made a bed and was soon sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion.

For two days he slept and then came forth. He had made up his mind as to how he would sustain life between naps. So he made his way across the Yukon to where the gee pole of his master's sled still showed above the snowdrift. Here he began digging along the side of the sled. In fifteen minutes he found what he wanted. It was a hundred-pound sack of dried salmon. He selected a five-pound fish and trotted back across the Yukon.

Close to the bag of fish he had also discovered the stiff frozen body of his master. His dead team mates were still further down in the snowbank, but he gave them no thought. The scent of François filled him with disgust. Once back in his den he ate

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the dried fish leisurely, not all at once, but I am afraid that he allowed himself much more than the usual pound a day rations. Strange dreams came to Silversheene as he slept under his pine top away from the wind and the cold. He was living on the borderland half-way between civilization and the wild, so he oscillated and vibrated between the two states.

The wind, the snow, the cold, the deep woods, the lakes and the streams to the north were all calling to him, with all their primitive sounds and smells. The pull of the pack he also felt. That coordinating passion which sways birds to flock and animals to go in herds and packs. But even more than all these the mating instinct was tugging at his heart. That natural instinct which is so strong in midwinter.

But it must not be imagined that the pull was all in one direction, for it was not. The southland with its sunny valleys and its pleasant places was also calling. Often

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he would lie with a far-away look in his sad brown eyes while he dreamed of Forest Edge farm, of the green meadows and the pleasant pasture and the deep cool woods. But still more ardently and with a longing that sometimes made him whimper he recalled Hilda Converse. It sometimes seemed to Silversheene that he could feel her light hand on his head and hear her pleasant voice talking to him. She had liked best of all to sit upon the grass under one of the tall maples near the house with his head upon her shoulder and her arms about his neck. Then she would whisper in his ear those words of endearment which he so much loved.

Nor were Oregon friends forgotten. Between naps in his long sleep under the pine top he dreamed of Dick. The one man whom he had worshipped. He remembered their long tramps in the Oregon mountains and of how Dick had found him with the lost sheep. Dick loved him and he worshipped Dick.
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But these were Silversheene's waking dreams. In sleep also he was a dog divided between two opinions. Here also two forces were tearing at his heart, almost rending it asunder. For in his sleep he often harked back to dim distant ages when his ancestors had lived in the wilderness with the man who was little more civilized than himself. In sleep he would often seem to be sitting on his tail on the outer rim of light that encircled the man's campfire. The man who was not like Dick or any other man that he had ever seen. But a man with short legs and long arms, who was partly covered with hair, who uttered strange sounds for speech and who like the wild animals was afraid of the dark. Silversheene knew in his dream that the man was afraid of the dark for he often turned and looked over his shoulder at the gray wolf who gazed fearfully back at him.

Often in his sleep Silversheene harked back to those primitive days when he and his ancestors had run in a pack. He heard

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in his sleep the hunting cry of the gray pack and knew it for a sound of menace. In his dreams he helped run down the fleet buck, pursuing him day after day and finally pulling him down in a terrible battle. With the other members of the gray pack he often trailed the man creature and even killed him and drank of his blood and picked his bones.

Then it was that a strange feeling of belonging to two worlds would seize Silversheene. He was not a wolf to kill man. He wasadog. The dog who was man's best friend. But then the thought would filter through his dreams. Man had whipped and cursed him and driven him back to the wild. He would always love Dick and Hilda and Mr. Henderson. He would fight for them just as he had fought in the good old days, but he never could forget Pedro Garcia, nor the man who had subdued him with the club, or worst of all François Dupret. These men had turned the scale in favor of the wilderness. If his dreams of men had

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all been pleasant he might have gone back to man, but half of them were very bad, and they helped swell the influences that drove him steadily back to the primitive life.

Thus it happened, as the winter months went by, that the dreams and the pictures of civilization grew fainter and fainter, and the hold of Dick and Hilda weaker and weaker upon him, while the call of the wilderness grew louder and louder.

Often he would spring up from his sleep and scramble out of his place of hiding under the old pine to see what it was that had called him, but he would find nothing. He knew that there were wolves about, for just as he had finished the last of the dry salmon a pack had descended upon the scene of the disaster to François and his team and picked their bones clean. So it happened that the gray wolf finished the retribution that the dog team had begun. When spring at last came there was nothing left

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of the outfit but the sled and the bones of the dogs and their driver.

After the fish was gone Silversheene set to hunting snowshoe rabbits and so kept himself well nourished.

One morning in early March Silversheene was awakened from his sleep by a much more insistent call from the wilderness than any he had yet heard. So with an angry snarl he rushed from hiding. He had changed in one particular in the last few weeks. Now he was always on guard. His attitude now was always belligerent.

He found fresh tracks close to his lair and followed them at his best pace. The trail led further and further into the north country. Finally it led into a deep dark gulch where the pines were very thick and here it ended in a little open space like an amphitheater in the middle of the deep gloom. Here suddenly Silversheene came face to face with a gray wolf. He stood in the middle of the opening challenging him.

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Silversheene looked hurriedly about and saw that four other large gray shapes were with him. His first thought was that they had surrounded him and were about to kill him. But none seemed belligerent but the one. The champion at the center of the open spot.

Then Silversheene remembered a score of dog fights that he had seen, and he knew that the rest of the pack were only spectators. He had been challenged. He was to fight the great gray leader. The rest would look on until one was down. Then, be it friend or foe, they would all sweep over the spot and finish the under animal. The wolf looked very formidable, but Silversheene was not afraid. He remembered the desperate fight with a wolf. Silversheene had both the cunning of the wild animal and also much cunning which he had learned from dogs and men, yet he knew it would be a terrible fight. For a second Silversheene stood uncertain whether it was up to him te start the fight or not, but the old leader soon

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settled that point, for with a movement like lightning he sprang in and slashed the dog in his face. This was enough for Silversheene. He needed no further goad, but attacked his formidable adversary with a whirlwind attack that made the circle of watching wolves draw back to give them room.

There was seemingly not much difference in the struggling animals. Silversheene was perhaps ten pounds heavier and he was much better nourished, due to the fact that he had been eating so freely of the dried fish for the past few weeks. If he had been a southland bred dog, the wolf would have killed him in short order, but he was not. He was arctic bred, just as much so as a wolf. In addition to that he had all the cunning of the civilized dogs and also much wisdom which he had picked up from men. The wolf was lean and as hard as hickory, but so was Silversheene.

For five minutes they sprang and slashed and sprang away again, and neither seemed

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to have any advantage. Each was so fully on guard that neither could get by the gleaming fangs. So it was just a long series of bare fangs meeting with little result save that they gashed and tore lips and noses, but neither could get by to the shoulder, much less get at the throat, that vulnerable spot where life is most easily destroyed.

If the wolf could spring and retreat so rapidly that he looked like two wolves, so could Silversheene. He was everywhere at once. Once he sprang over the wolf, slashing at his neck as he sprang, but the wolf narrowly missed getting him by the fore leg and this taught him a lesson. He could not take any chances with this old fighter. Finally, seeing that he could not break down his adversary's guard, Silversheene resorted to new tactics. When he sprang he would lower his head and strike the wolf at the shoulder with his own shoulder, and as his weight was greater than the wolf's, he nearly upset him at the first blow. But

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this exposed his own shoulder to the wolf's attack.

Had it not been for his long thick coat the wolf would have punished him savagely. As it was, he was wounded rather badly after three attempts to bowl over his adversary. Seeing that it was to be a test of endurance Silversheene again resorted to his whirlwind attack. He could now see that the wolf was getting tired, although they had been fighting only about ten minutes.

If he could keep up the pace he could wear him out, though a wolf is supposed to be tireless. Back and forth they sprang. Every few seconds they changed places in the arena. At first Silversheene was afraid that the other wolves would help their leader when the battle got too furious, but they did not. It was evidently to be a fair fight to the finish.

Finally after ten minutes more of whirlwind fighting with little advantage on either side, Silversheene again resorted to his tac-

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tics of trying to bowl his adversary over with the stiff shoulder. This time, due to the fact that the wolf was getting tired, he succeeded. As the old wolf went over, the dog with great luck caught his fore leg and completely turned him over so that he landed fairly upon his back with his throat exposed. Like a flash Silversheene sprang upon him and his powerful jaws closed on the wolf's throat. Another wolf would have let go. The ordinary Eskimo dog, or Husky would have slashed and then sprung back, but not so Silversheene. Not to let go when he had the death grip was a trick that he had learned from an old bull dog away back in Oregon. So instead of letting go he gripped the wolf's throat even more tightly with his powerful jaws and sunk his white fangs deeper and deeper into the grizzled fighter's throat.

The wolf struggled frantically to free himself for a few seconds. There was a gurgling sound from his throat, and he finally ceased his struggles. When Silver-

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sheene released him and backed slowly away from his vanquished enemy his brothers of the gray pack were upon him like hunger-frenzied furies. Silversheene sat upon his haunches and watched them devour their vanquished leader. He did not run away as he had a good chance to do. He knew that his place was now secure with the pack. This was a primitive wisdom. Something that had been handed down to him from the wolf days of his ancestors.

Finally when nothing was left of the old leader but bones, the wolves resumed their expectant circle and looked at Silversheene. For several minutes they sat in perfect silence, neither side making any advances. Then one of the wolves came slowly towards the waiting dog.

At first Silversheene raised his hackles and growled softly as though he would fight. But finally he thought better of it.

A dog smile seemed to overspread his countenance, and he wagged his tail and

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cocked his ears in a friendly way. Then the gray wolf trotted slowly up to him and licked his face. For several seconds they stood with their noses together and then they trotted away through the pines side by side.

One watching them as they stood together would have said that the gray wolf was whispering to the dog, that they were communing and talking in dog language, and the friendly retreat would seem to bear out this contention. I am not sure whether it was the dog language that they used or whether it was telepathic, but they certainly understood each other. If they had talked in words, this was what the listener would have heard.

"You are our brother. You belong with us. Men stole your ancestors and they have kept you and stolen away your freedom. You are a wolf and you belong with the gray pack.

"You have killed our leader. You area great wolf. We want you to lead us. He

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was my mate, but now you will be my mate and lead the gray pack."

From the confident manner in which Silversheene had trotted away with her it was evident that he had accepted not only the leadership of the gray pack, but he was henceforth also to be the mate of the gray wolf. He had indeed gone back to the wild, and civilization had lost him.

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{{di|I}}T was late May, and spring had at last come to the arctic lands of the Yukon. It was even more welcome because it had been so long in coming. But it did not come as gradually as it did in the southland, for here there were eighteen hours of sunlight to warm the heart of the old earth and again send the life-giving sap coursing on its way.

The mighty river had first felt the touch of spring at its very source. There are three rivers in the world whose courses seem contrary to all reason and to the laws of nature. Such are the Mackenzie, the Lena, and the Yukon.

In order to have the spring breaking-up go on as peacefully as possible a river should break up at the mouth, then the ice

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will go out in a happy progression. But not so these three outlaws among rivers. For, from the first moment that the Yukon begins to break up at its source, and finally pours its raging current into Lake Bennett, until it goes foaming into the Pacific, there is trouble all the way. All the way the water and the jamming ice pound along. Thundering, grinding, smashing, gnawing, breaking, almost like a mighty glacier all the way (each spring) the Yukon does battle with everything in its way. It is a mighty and majestic sight, but most destructive. But in other ways spring comes gently in Alaska. One of the first migrants to arrive from the South is the white arctic goose driving its wedge-shaped flying machine through the soft spring sky. This first spring arrival is quickly followed by others and soon the primeval woods are vocal with bird songs. The great piliated woodpecker is calling in his strident cackle, while he pounds away upon a rotten limb like a veritable woodchopper. The white{{peh}}

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throated sparrow is there and the chickadee. Squirrels chatter in the tree tops or scamper in the underbrush. The ptarmigan is searching out a place for her new nest. The beaver has come out of his winter quarters and is roaming up and down the streams. Along the great tundra, the mighty herds of barren-ground caribou are stirring restlessly, while wonderful wild flowers bloom on every hillside.

It is very strange what magic the long perpetual sunshine of the continuous summer can do. Flowers which are a rarity in the United States bloom in lavish profusion here within sight of the snowcapped peaks. Many of our favorites, such as the forget-me-not and the gentian, are found filling acres of the lowlands with solid colors, colors deeper and richer than any ever seen in the southland. Wild strawberries of delicious flavor may be had for the picking in the deep valleys with the snowcapped peaks, cool in the distance.

Silversheene and his mate, Gray Wolf,

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were both glad that spring had at last come. They rejoiced with all the other wild kindred. Silversheene himself was lying in the sunlight, sleeping on a hillside near the head waters of the Tanana, thousands of miles away from those who had loved him in the old days. The sun was warm, the sounds about him were joyous, and Silversheene himself was glad after his kind. His mate, Gray Wolf, was nursing six likely wolf-dog puppies inside their burrow, the entrance to which Silversheene was guarding. This was their second litter, for over a year had now passed since Silversheene had killed the leader of the gray pack in that desperate battle to the death, and had himself taken the leadership. Both litters had been born in this good burrow which was a natural den in the rocks on the hillside. They had discovered it together that first spring.

It was a long way back from the Yukon and where men rarely penetrated. True, occasionally an adventurous prospector

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came hither, drawn by the strange lure of gold, but he did not molest them. Sometimes they had gone back and hung for a time on the outskirts of civilization, but this had been that they might prey on men and their belongings.

It had been a strange life into which Siversheene had been driven. At first, he had often dreamed of the old life, of Dick and Hilda, but to-day as he lay sleeping by the mouth of his den, with his wolf mate and the six pups inside, civilization and all that it had held for him seemed very far away.

Two influences had brought this about. The first had been the gray wolf mate, and the second the five blind helpless pups that Ke had fed and guarded that first year of the primitive life. No wolf ever provided more lavishly for his young than had Silversheene. He had stalked the sitting ptarmigan for them and had brought her home still warm. He had caught squirrels after hours of patient waiting. He had surprised the beaver in his woodcutting and

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brought home more than one sleek-coated dam-builder for the young wolves' dinner. Water-fowl had also been to their liking. Then, when they were old enough, he had brought them forth and trained them in the ways of the wild. He had taught them each scent and explained by dog signs its meaning, which they learned intuitively. He had told them which scent to stalk and which to avoid. He had played with them and seen them grow until in the autumn they had been nearly as large as theirdam. Then he had taken them all away to the west to the great tundra, and there they had hunted caribou. Then when this sport proved tiresome they had headed back to the head waters of the Tanana just in time to meet the southern migrations of the great Alaskan moose. Silversheene had taught his little pack how to cut out the calves from the rest of the herd and how finally to pull them down. They had even killed a two-year-old cow together with her calf. Finally, when the deep snows came, they hunted snowshoe

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rabbits as a pack. This was the greatest fun of all. To run the fleet-footed white denizen of the silences and finally catch and kill him, was their keenest sport.

Silversheene, with his knowledge of men and their ways, had led his little pack with great skill. They had foraged in the very camps of prospectors and escaped with their supplies unharmed. They had robbed the traps of the half-breed and Indian trappers with impunity. They had attacked the mongrel packs of Huskies which followed the small bands of Indians and had killed many of them.

Silversheene himself knew firearms, and he taught his pack to shun a man with a gun. He knew traps of all sorts and poison. He knew men and their trails. Several times they had trailed a dog team through the wilderness for several days.

Often they were able to lure away the team of dogs, kill, and eat them. This was a strange practice for Silversheene, the king of sled dogs. But he was, for the time

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being, Silversheene the wolf. The savage instincts of his nature were in full play. He was living the life which is war continually. Kill or be killed, was the motto of this world in which he now found himself, and he saw to it that he was not the under dog, or under wolf.

Yet often in his sleep he still dreamed of Dick and Hilda and often in his waking moments he longed with all his being for a gentle hand on his head and a soft word from those voices which had been such sweet music to his ears. But all these things were thousands of miles away. Only in his dreams and his memories did Silversheene ever touch noses with the gentler things of his past life. To all intents and purposes for the time being he was a wolf, the scourge of civilization. Yet he had once been a good dog, loving, gentle and faithful, defending his friends even with his very life. A brute of a man and brutal circumstances had driven him back to the first state of his forbears.
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The great tragedy of Silversheene's wolf life came to him one warm day in August. It was about noon and he was lying at the entrance of his burrow dozing. The winter life was so strenuous and the summer life so luxuriant in comparison that Silversheene had formed the habit of sleeping much in the summer. He was not really asleep, but on the borderland between sleeping and waking.

His mate, Gray Wolf, and the six wolf dogs were somewhere in the valley below stalking muskrats along the banks of the Tanana. Suddenly Silversheene sprang up with an angry snarl and the hackles on his neck went up.

The thing that had aroused him was most unusual in this forsaken country, a sound that he had not heard in many months. Clear and unmistakable on the summer air, a rifle shot had rung out. Silversheene looked first up the valley and then down, and finally started for the river at his best pace, yet he proceeded with caution. Once

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he would not have dreaded such a sound, but now he was a wolf, an outlaw to civilization.

He had proceeded a score of rods when he met the wolf dog puppies scurrying for the burrow and they were closely followed by Gray Wolf. She was blowing blood from her nose at each breath and staggering and almost falling every few rods as she ran.

Silversheene placed himself at her side and they proceeded to the burrow, going side by side just as they had on that first winter day when he had trotted away with her to become her mate.

At the mouth of the burrow she staggered again and fell, and there she lay blowing her life away through her widely distended nostrils in a steady stream of bright blood. The wolf dog pups crowded about her in great excitement, but Silversheene drove them hurriedly into the burrow and himself stood over his dying mate. Frantically he licked the blood from her nostrils, but it was no use, it still flowed steadily. He covered her face with kisses and laid his cheek

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against hers. First he licked one side of the face, and then the other.

She wagged her tail feebly, then sighed deeply and without a struggle stretched out dead on the hillside close to the mouth of the wolf den.

Silversheene licked frantically at her face and showered her with kisses, of a dog sort, but he could not bring her back. Seeing that it was useless, he finally lay down by her side with his head between his paws in inconsolable grief. Occasionally he would arise and walk slowly around her, but would soon lie down again by her side.

Once, when one of the wolf dog pups showed his head at the mouth of the burrow, Silversheene drove him back with great ferocity. Then he lay all the afternoon and far into what would have been the night, but the sun still shone. Finally, after many hours had passed he sat up and looked miserably about him. After a while he lifted up his voice to heaven and howled dismally. One by one the pups

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came forth and joined their voices to his, although they did not know what it was all about.

Finally, when he had fully vented his grief in the only language of the dog heart, he drove the pups back into the den and told them in a language which they understood to stay where they were until he returned. Then, with head up and nostrils wide for every scent, he set out to find and destroy the slayer of his mate. He soon reached the bank of the river and almost immediately scented the trail of a man.

It was not the trail of an Indian, or of an Eskimo, but of a white man. After testing the trail first upstream and then down Silversheene decided that it led upstream and followed it eagerly. But as he followed this trail of the white man and occasionally got the scent more plainly, a strange sense stirred within him. It was faint at first but it grew stronger and stronger. For the trail of the white man brought back all the details of the white civilization.
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Things he thought he had forgotten came surging through his mind. First his puppyhood days in the Adirondacks came back to him. He remembered Hilda Converse with a strange pang. Then he recalled as though it were yesterday his meeting with Richard Henderson and their long ride over the continent in the Henderson car; the pleasant days and weeks with Dick; the lost sheep and his joy at seeing Dick again; his betrayal by Pedro Garcia; the man with the club; Gene Gordet; and, finally, François Dupret.

At the thought of this sinister figure he growled softly and quickened his pace on the man trail. Perhaps it was François who had shot his wolf mate. But no. He was dead and his bones had been picked by the pack. The thought of François swung the pendulum back to the primitive life and sent him back to the wild. Man had betrayed him. He was a wolf.

And as he ran, the wolves who had been his ancestors, the shades of the wolves he

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had been, seemed to join in the man chase and spur him on. They raced madly by his side, he heard their hunting cry, the sound of menace to man.

Also the primitive man seemed to be with him in his chase of the civilized man. He was the man with short legs and long arms and with hair upon his body, the man who made strange sounds for language and who himself was little more than an animal. He also spurred him on in the chase of the white civilized man.

So the mind of poor Silversheene shifted and changed as he pursued the trail of the slayer of his mate. He would not give up. He would find the man sleeping by his campfire. He would creep up and spring upon him and kill him.

Then a terrible thought filtered through his mind. Supposing it might be Gene Gordet, his god, who had killed Gray Wolf. Good men killed wolves. They were outlaws. The thought was not very clear in his mind, yet it arrested him. The slayer

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of Gray Wolf might be a friend. One whom he had known in the old days. There was something about the trail that reminded him of those old days. He could not shake it off. The trail was that of one he knew. He felt sure of it.

So Silversheene raced along the trail, sometimes losing it for hours, yet always finding it again. The six wolf pups were forgotten. In fact, he never saw them again. They were old enough to take care of themselves. But this trail was calling for him to follow.

There was something at the end of the trail that he must fight. But if it was a friend could he fight? He was a dog.

He had been reared by a girl away in the Adirondack mountains. Men had befriended him. He had loved men and women with all the love of his dog heart. Could he kill a man, even though he had killed his wolf mate?

Of course, Silversheene's thoughts were not so definite as this. He was simply torn

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by two conflicting emotions. The civilization was calling to him with all the voices of the past, and the wilderness was also calling, just as it had for the past year and a half. Which call should he obey? It was the old struggle of the primitive and the civilized. The fight of the barbarian against the civilized man. But now the object of the struggle was just a lonely, perplexed dog who swung like a pendulum between the two conditions, while he followed the trail of the man who had slain his wolf mate. Yet at heart he was a good dog and man was his god.

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{{di|T}}HE second spring after Silversheene's mysterious disappearance Richard Henderson had a very bad attack of the wanderlust. He had often been attacked by this strange malady before but never in such violent form. It was this adventurous spirit and a wish to see all parts of the earth that his mother had complained of to Mr. Henderson on that autumn twilight several years before, when Dick had set off down the mountain side to go for the needed part of their automobile.

Mr. Henderson had always supposed that when Dick was older this restlessness would leave him and that he would settle down, but seeing how restless and unhappy he was now, he said, "All right, Dick, my boy. If you must see Alaska, or some other god{{peh}}

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forsaken place, go, and have it over with. I guess a year in Alaska will cure you. I can spare you better now than I can when I am older. It is the way with young blood."

So everything had finally been arranged and Richard Henderson had taken the train for Seattle where nearly all of the Alaskan expeditions outfit and sail. He spent several days in this splendid Puget Sound city getting jhis simple outfit, and finally the steamer pointed her nose westward, and they were off for the long trip to Alaska.

He had seen Puget Sound several times before, but Mount Ranier and the surrounding country had never looked more beautiful. Richard did not know, but he was seeing for the first time through the eyes of romance. The spirit of adventure colored all things and made the old world seem full of beauty and wonder.

The run to Victoria was a pleasant one, but it was not until they were well upon their way towards Alaska, going by the in-

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land route, that the marvels of this wonderful trip began to dawn upon the young man.

He had seen the Yosemite valley many times. The Cascade and the coast range mountains were very familiar to him, as were the Rockies. He had visited Yellowstone Park and Glacier Park but this northern trip was even more wonderful than all of these.

The splendid ship wound its way in and out among islands which were like fairyland, yet unspeakably grand and beautiful. Great cedars and pines shot their green spires two hundred feet straight into the heavens. Mighty rivers poured over beetling cliffs into the blue ocean, so near that the mist from the spray wet the passengers on shipboard. Jagged cliffs thrust their hoary heads seaward trying to bar their progress. Seals played upon the partly submerged rocks and seaweed swam on the currents and eddies which swirled and boiled beneath their prow, and sometimes the waters at twilight were like fire because

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of the phosphorescence. Mountains as high as Mount Washington stood knee deep in the sea.

As they went further northward they saw long low buildings at the mouths of the different rivers, and small villages of Indians and whites clustering about them. These were the salmon canneries.

Finally the Queen Charlotte Islands were reached, and here the ship stopped for coal and to land freight. Still further to the north they saw great glaciers, dazzling in the sunlight, periodically slipping their mountain-like contributions of ice into the sea, It was a most amazing sight to stand upon the deck of the steamer and see these great mountains of ice and sand fall with a splash that sent up a mountain-high wave each few minutes into the troubled sea.

Such rivers, such forests, such trees, such color, such dazzling beauty Dick had never seen before, and this alone paid him for the trip, so he thought, and his adventures had not yet begun.
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At Valdez he went ashore and saw the town, once the most important entry port for Alaska. Here he reshipped on a tramp steamer for St. Michael and the far north. Then came more days of wonderful sailing. The icebergs, the seals, the walrus bellowing off shore, and the phosphorescent seas all made a fascinating and ever changing picture. Finally, the ship came to anchor at the mouth of the Yukon river, and the serious part of Dick's adventure began.

At St. Michael, Richard transferred his camping outfit to a small river steamer bound up the Yukon. For the first four hundred miles the Yukon winds its way leisurely through the great tundra. Beveral herds of government reindeer were seen feeding near St. Michael, also small herds belonging to the Eskimos. These domestic reindeer were brought to Alaska by the government about twenty-five years ago, and the numbers have now reached nearly fifty thousand head. The tundra is a vast barren waste, four hundred miles

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wide, extending all along the coast of Alaska. It is covered with reindeer moss and creeping willow, also many varieties of flowers. The wild caribou were likewise occasionally seen. But for the better part the tundra is a seemingly lifeless waste.

After the tundra had been passed they came into the mountainous country which was heavily timbered. Here the wild roses along the shores of the mighty river were much in evidence. They were small single roses, but very luxuriant.

Richard Henderson wanted no better fun than to sit upon the deck of the steamer and watch this wonderful panorama of nature unfold. It was always a guess as to just what the next bend in the river would diselose. Sometimes the river was broad and deep but often it was turbulent, with dan—gerous rapids. At the mouth of the Tanana river Dick transferred his outfit to a still smaller steamer bound for Fairbluffs. He had intended to look up a companion at Fairbluffs for the rest of his trip, but as

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none seemed forthcoming he went alone. He "went light," as they say in camping phraseology.

He carried a camping blanket, a frying pan, a coffeepot, a pan for washing out pay dirt, a compass, and, for firearms, a small hunting rifle and a .44 revolver. He did not take any provisions with the exception of coffee, sugar, salt, etc. But he depended upon hunting and fishing for his food. At this time of the year it was not a difficult task to sustain life in that way. The streams swarmed with fish and water-fowl, and game was also plentiful, so that Dick did not go hungry for long.

Midsummer found him well up to the head waters of the Tanana prospecting and washing out pay dirt. His first adventure came one bright day in August. He was bending over a little stream washing out dirt when he heard a slight noise in the underbrush nearby. He felt sure that it was made by an animal of good size and he laid down his pan and reached for his

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rifle which lay upon the bank nearby. He had barely raised it from the ground when a wolf came out of the thicket in full view. The animal had not seen him but seemed to scent him, for its hackles were up and its lips bared.

Ever since the battle which he and Silversheene had waged with the wolves, Richard had never lost a chance to shoot at a wolf, so he raised the rifle hurriedly and fired. The wolf sprang back into the thicket and disappeared and he did not see it again. Richard did not think any more of the incident until in the middle of the night, when he was awakened by the distant howling of a wolf. It was not the hunting cry, but just a long series of plaintive howls. Then he remembered the wolf that he had shot at. Perhaps he had wounded it, or maybe this was the mate. He had once read of a male wolf howling for its slain mate.

The following day Richard saw no more wolves, but that night at about nine o'clock

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he again heard the wild plaintive howling. Sometimes it was so far away as to be almost indistinguishable and then again it would be within two or three hundred yards of hiscamp. He heard it off and on for two hours but finally slept so soundly that he did not again notice it.

The following morning, when he arose and stretched himself, he was not much surprised to see a large gray wolf sitting upon a knoll about a hundred yards away, watching him. He reached for his rifle and raised it to his shoulder, but before he could get a bead on the wolf, that wary animal, by a succession of wild leaps, reached the cover and disappeared in the deep woods. The wolf's movements, as soon as he saw the gun, were frantic. He seemed to understand that his only safety was in getting to cover. His movement had been so unexpected, and so clever, that Richard laughed heartily, although he was much perplexed. "Well, I'll be blessed," he said as he laid the rifle on the ground. "That

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wolf knows a gun about as well as I do." It was strange, here was a gray wolf, scores of miles from any sort of civilization who would leap like a deer when a rifle was raised against him. He was certainly some wolf.

Richard saw nothing more of the wolf that day, but he had a strange sensation that he was being followed. Several times he turned sharply about to see if there was really any one on his trail. Towards night he stopped at the mouth of a small stream that emptied into the Tanana to wash out some likely looking dirt. He finally camped about a score of rods from the place and later went back to the spot for some water. As he stopped to fill his coffeepot he noticed on the bank a fresh wolf track. It had certainly been made since he was there half an hour before. Richard examined the tracks carefully and then turned and looked about him in the thickets on all sides. A wolf had certainly beer there within the past half hour. What did

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it mean? Was it just an accident, or was a small pack of gray marauders following him? What could be their object? They were natural prowlers. Did they contemplate creeping upon him at night and killing him? He had never heard of such a thing, but it would be well to keep his campfire burning while he slept. That would fix them.

Promptly at nine that evening he again heard the long plaintive howling of the wolf, and, in spite of all he could do, it got on his nerves. So he piled more fagots on the campfire and finally went to sleep. But his last remembrance was of a plaintive, long-drawn howl. The following day he rose early and started for the little stream for more fresh water. He had not gone far from his camp when something on the ground arrested his attention. It was the paw print of a great wolf plainly registered on a last year's dead leaf and near it were other tracks.

"By Godfrey, this is getting exciting," he

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soliloquized as he went on his way to the stream. "He has been within forty or fifty feet of my camp while I was sleeping. I wonder what he is up to. It is rather creepy. I wish he would quit it. I haven't any use for him."

That day the impression that he was being followed was much stronger than it had been the day before. Probably it was the track that had strengthened the feeling, or so Dick reasoned. He flattered himself that he was not superstitious or given to noticing signs or omens, so he would not be worried by this hobgoblin wolf. He prospected all that day, and much of the time was busy washing out pay dirt. He was thinking of looking for a camping place and was walking leisurely along down a little gulch when he happened to turn about, and, to his astonishment, discovered the gray wolf trotting leisurely after him, about a hundred yards away.

In a sudden fit of anger and disgust, and without waiting for a good aim he raised

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his rifle and fired. But witha single bound, on seeing his movement, the wolf disappeared in the thicket. Richard had the satisfaction of seeing his bullet kick up a little spirt of dust where the wolf had stood a second before. "Well, I'll be jiggered," he said, talking aloud as is the way of men when in the wilderness, "that darned wolf certainly knows a rifle. But I will get him yet. Guess I frightened him a bit that time. He had a rather close call."

Once more, promptly at nine, the evening wolf serenade began, and this time it was louder and even more plaintive than the nights previous. On the following morning, Richard made a careful examination of the ground about his camp, and was amazed and a bit disconcerted to find fresh wolf tracks within thirty feet of where he had slept. "By Godfrey!" he exclaimed, as he examined the fresh tracks. "He is getting on my nerves. I haven't lost any gray wolf."

Twice that day he surprised the gray

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wolf following at a distance. Each time he sent a bullet singing at him, but the wolf ran and jumped with such frantic bounds that he missed him. "It's the queerest thing I have ever heard of," he said after the last shot. "Usually if you shoot at a wolf once, that is all he wants of you, but this darned fool wolf seems to like to be shot at. He certainly is clever."

That night he piled the campfire still higher, but even so, once when he awoke he saw a gray shape forty feet away in the edge of the thicket, or thought he did, for everything now looked like a gray wolf. But he could see the outline and the two gleaming eyes. He reached very stealthily for his revolver, but slight as the movement was the animal seemed to detect it and sprang into the thick cover. But Richard sent three bullets singing after the marauder.

The following day the Phantom Wolf, as Richard now called the gray shape, had so gotten on his nerves that he gave up the

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whole day to hunting it. His method of attack was the ambush. He would go for a mile or two as though starting off across the country, then he would lie in a thicket watching his own trail. The first time this ruse nearly worked. But the wolf seemed to scent him when he came within riflerange and, leaving the fresh trail, followed parallel with it.

It was not until Richard heard the snapping of a dry twig in the thicket behind him that he discovered the ruse. He raised his rifle quickly and took a snapshot at the clever wolf, but missed. So they were playing at the same game. Richard was watching his own trail to shoot the wolf, while the wolf was paralleling the trail to take him unawares.

That evening after Richard had eaten his supper, the gray wolf came out on a bluff about five hundred yards away and lifted up his voice to heaven, howling steadily for an hour. This time Dick did not at first shoot at him, but preferred to watch him

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and see what he would do. Finally the howling got on his nerves and he slyly slunk behind a tree with his rifle, thinking to shoot from cover and so get a clean shot at the gray wolf; but the wolf seemed to read his thought and slunk out of sight before he could shoot.

When he awoke on the following day he discovered more wolf tracks near his campfire, and some of them within twenty feet of where he had slept. The Phantom Wolf was on the cliff where he had seen him the night before. It was a long shot, but he sent one bullet whistling at the wolf before he scurried to cover.

That day he saw him three times and gave up all thought of prospecting. He must shoot that wolf before he could think of anything else. In spite of him it was spoiling his sleep at night and taking away his appetite by day. He had never heard of such a thing. Surely this gray devil meant to tear open his throat some night while he was sleeping. He would do it, too, if he did

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not look out. He had already been within springing distance. So that night Richard slept only by fits and starts, and kept his rifle close by his side.

The following day he saw the gray wolf twice and got a shot each time, without effect. It is a question how long this game of hide-and-seek might have been kept up but for a mishap that befell Richard on the sixth day after his first seeing the Phantom Wolf.

About eight o'clock in the evening he came to a very turbulent branch of the Tanana, full of rapids and with a fine waterfall about thirty feet in height. The water was very swift above the falls and he did not want to cross there, so he followed it downstream for a quarter of a mile, but it was just one endless mass of seething rapids. Then he went back to the falls and again looked at the river above. It was getting late and he was anxious to make camp so he finally attempted a crossing about fifty feet above the falls. The

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river was very swift here but he thought he could make it, and began wading carefully across.

The water was up to his waist, and the current was much swifter than he had estimated. Yet even so he would have made it, but just at the middle of the stream his foot slipped on a stone made as smooth as ice by the rapid water, and he fell heavily, striking his head upon another stone which he had been trying to avoid. On land the accident would not have been of much importance, but in the rushing water where he had all he could do to keep his feet, it was fatal, for it stunned him so that he lost his footing completely and was rapidly carried down the stream towards the roaring falls. He had covered nearly half the distance to the fatal plunge when he recovered his senses and realized his terrible plight. Even so, he had just time and presence of mind enough left to catch at a partly covered stone which was immediately in his course. He had saved himself for a minute,

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perhaps two minutes, or just as long as he could hold on. His head was bleeding profusely from a bad gash in his forehead. This partly blinded his eyes, and also made him faint. It was certainly a hopeless case. Here he was, so far as he knew, fifty miles from any human help. God alone could save him.

He was clinging desperately to a rock as slippery as ice, and the current was pulling at him with a death pull, and his strength was each second waning. He looked about desperately, he saw every detail of the wild scene, the boiling waters, the jagged rocks, the darkling trees, and the distant sky line. He thought of home and Oregon. His chance of ever seeing any of his family again looked very small. It seemed to him that the river each moment increased its pull upon him, but it was his own rapidly waning strength. Finally he began to tremble as he realized that the moment for letting go was near at hand.

But just as he seemed about to reach the

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end of his endurance and just before he gave up all hope Dick did a very queer thing. One that he himself wondered about. Why should he have done it? Without any premeditated thought he lifted up his voice in an agonized cry for help. Just as an animal will cry out for mercy when death is about to extinguish it. So Dick cried out to the wilderness where he knew there was no human hand to help.

Then, as though in an answer to his cry, he heard a splash in the stream above and at the same instant saw a great shape spring into the river and begin swimming rapidly towards him. At first he could not make it out because of the blood in his eyes, but as it drew near he recognized with an added pang of horror that it was his enemy, the great gray wolf, the beast who had pursued him. So this was to be hisend! This bar sinister of a beast, who had dogged him for nearly a week, had some premonition of his doom and was following him to be in

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at the finish. So this gray shape was his Nemesis.

Of the two Dick thought he would rather be dashed to pieces on the rocks in the waterfall below, than be torn to pieces by this savage beast; so the heart went out of him and his head drooped until he sucked in the rushing water and his grip upon the slippery rock loosened and the dark waters sucked him down the stream. Of the next few hours and especially the next few minutes Richard never fully realized. He had a dim memory of what occurred. He was able afterwards by going over the ground carefully to piece it together, but to him personally it seemed more like a hideous dream—and then a reality.

He had a very faint impression that a strong power gripped his coat by the collar and that this grip did not let go. He had a dim memory of a great shape that battled terribly with the rushing waters. He could feel the hot breath of the beast on his neck and he felt the frantic efforts of the animal

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to breast the rushing waters. It seemed to him that this frantic battle with the current would never end. It finally did, however, and he was dragged out into shallow water. Here he had just sense enough left partly to help himself up on the low bank, and then he sank into a deep swoon caused by utter collapse.

Then he had dreams, when he was sometimes conscious, but often more dead than alive, of a great gray shape by his side, that hovered over him and licked his face. Finally Richard fell into a deep sleep of utter exhaustion and did not waken for several hours. When he at last awoke and sat up the sun was shining brightly, and the river was rushing by, just as though it had not tried with all its strength to pull him down to death. He looked about for a gray wolf which he remembered dimly or thought he remembered. At first he did not see him, but he finally discovered him standing by a thicket a hundred feet away watching him.

Instinctively Richard reached for his re-

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volver and the wolf sprang into the thicket, but he soon discovered him watching him through the brush. When he raised the revolver the head again disappeared. He snapped all five cartridges and none of them would go. The revolver had been thoroughly soaked in the river. So he got out some new cartridges from a waterproof case in his knapsack and reloaded it.

By this time the gray wolf had again come into the open, perhaps fifty yards away. Richard's eyesight was still dim from the blow on his head so he could not see as plainly as he would otherwise have done. His head ached terribly, and he was weak and discouraged. At the thought of his plight, and the loss of his rifle in the river, and all his bad luck for the past six days, a sudden anger against the wolf flamed up in him and he took careful aim at the gray wolf's head and fired. Always before when he had raised a gun against him he had run and jumped as though frantic to escape, but he now stood quite still as though wait-

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ing for the bullet. When the revolver cracked Richard had the satisfaction of seeing the wolf fall as though struck by lightning.

"There," said the young man, "I guess I have spoiled this dogging me about. Perhaps I will have some good luck again now I have gotten rid of you." Painfully Dick got to his feet and walked towards the prostrate animal. He had a great curiosity to see the gray wolf close up. He had followed him so relentlessly for six days. Perhaps he was not like other wolves. There was something strange about it anyhow.

When about ten feet from the prostrate beast Richard stood in his tracks as though petrified, and what color there had been Ieft in his face forsook it. Then another cry as agonized as that with which he had called for help the night before rent the air. He flung himself on the ground beside the wolf, crying, "Oh, Silversheene, oh, Silversheene, I have killed you!"

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{{di|B}}UT Silversheene was not dead, although for five minutes he lay as still as though in the grip of the last destroyer. Ordinarily Richard Henderson would not have given way to such grief, but the whole dramatic incident had so completely unnerved him that he gave full vent to his pent-up emotions. To have Silversheene, who had disappeared two years before as suddenly as though the earth had opened and swallowed him, turn up here in the wilderness several thousand miles away from his home, and in this marvellous manner, was enough to upset any one; but the nerveracking thing was that his faithful dog had been following him for a week trying vainly to make himself known, and his master had been shooting at him every time that he

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showed his head and repelling all of his advances, and finally had deliberately shot him, after he had saved his master's life and by a superhuman effort dragged him from the raging river.

No wonder that Silversheene had lost heart and deliberately come into the open to be shot. If it was his master's will to kill him, he would die. He had faced the wolves for him in the old days and why not face his revolver now?

It was all as plain as the nose on your face. It all fitted together like a wonderful puzzle, now Dick had the key. Pedro had sold Silversheene for the Alaskan dog team trade and he had gone back to the wild. He had been living with the wolves when he happened upon his old master's trail and the rest of the tragic story was too pathetic for words.

All this time Dick had been lying upon the ground beside his faithful dog, passing his ears between his fingers and straightening out the long silver gray ruff about the

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neck, patting the beautiful head which had been so expressive. The coat was not as sleek as it had been when he last saw Silversheene, for now it was full of burdocks and briers and matted and twisted. It had always needed a lot of brushing in the summer time. As Dick glanced back along the prostrate body he noted to his unspeakable astonishment that the bushy tail was slowly lifted and gently let fall upon the ground. He watched in breathless silence and the signal was repeated. Not only twice but several times. Then a shudder ran through the motionless dog and he gave a deep sigh.

"My God, Silversheene, Silversheene, are you still alive?"

For answer the noble dog opened his eyes and lifted his head slightly and looked at his master with those handsome brown eyes which the young man knew so well.

"Oh, chum! Oh, Silversheene! You are alive. Thank God for that!"

Then very tenderly Richard examined the

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dog's wound and cursed himself for having not done it before.

He had been so paralyzed with the tragedy that his usual good sense and coolness had forsaken him. He now found to his great joy that the revolver bullet had barely skimmed the top of the dog's head. It had cut the skin to the skull bone, and had struck that knockout spot enough of a blow entirely to stun the dog, but it had not fractured the skull, nor injured the dog in any way beyond stunning him temporarily, although his eyesight was poor for several days.

Richard brought water in his cap and washed and dressed the wound carefully and then produced some surgeons' plaster from his kit and drew the wound together.

Silversheene was still dazed and bewildered by the accident, and it was several days before he was the old self-reliant Silversheene. Even then he seemed haunted

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by a great fear that he would again lose Dick. For he followed him about like a shadow and could not seem to get close enough to him. All that afternoon they spent in just loving each other and that night Silversheene slept on half of his master's blanket. Several times in the night he awoke Dick by his low growling. But Richard could see nothing to growl about, yet Silversheene did, for once again the phantom dogs of the past, his ancestors, the gray wolves were sitting in a gray circle about the outer rim of the man's campfire calling for him to come back to them. He was a wolf, not a dog. His place was with them. But with each such suggestion, the dog would snuggle closer to his master and thrust his muzzle into the man's hand. Several times that first night Dick heard him whimpering in his sleep and reached over and stroked his head.

"Poor old Silversheene," he would say, "you have had a hard time of it, but now I have you back, nothing in the world will

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again part us. There isn't gold enough in Alaska to buy you, old pal."

The following day after much searching they recovered the lost rifle from the river and the man and dog headed back for civilization. Richard took his time though, and prospected and hunted as they travelled, but their objective was Fairbluffs on the Tanana, two hundred miles from the great Yukon, the father of waters in Alaska.

They spent a week in Fairbluffs resting and recruiting their spirits and then went by a small steamer to Copperclaim, a small trading post at the mouth of the Tanana. Here Dick heard something of Silversheene's two years in Alaska, and especially the story of the great dog fight between Silversheene and Wolf.

"The brute! I'd like to thrash the life out of him," Dick cried, when they told him of François Dupret's cruelty and brutality.

"It isn't necessary," said his informant, and then he told Richard of how they had

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found François' skeleton and those of his dog team under the cliff on the ice of the great river in the spring.

"I see," said Dick. "That was why old Silversheene went back to the wild. I could not understand it. He loves all humans who are kind to him. He is a great chum. I could not understand it."

"He is also a great sled dog. There is no finer in Alaska," said the old sourdough. "Why, Scotty Ellis even tried to buy him from Gene Gordet, but he would not sell."

At the name of Scotty Ellis, Dick's adventurous spirits again rose high.

"I met Scotty Ellis last winter," he said. "I saw him win the great Alaskan sweepstake. He is a wonderful man and a prince among dog mushers. I have always wanted to be in that race myself. I was the college champion Marathon runner in the United States."

"College Marathons and that four-hundred-and-twelve-mile struggle are two different things. As different as a gentle

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zephyr from a hurricane," said the Alaskan.

"Yes, I know," said Dick, "but still I would like to try."

But Dick had not disclosed his whole plan which he had dreamed of all the way back to civilization. It was to build up a great dog team with old Silversheene as lead dog and train them for the Alaskan sweepstake.

Thus it happened that Silversheene and his master spent the months of September and October scouring Alaska for the most likely dogs that money could buy for that Henderson dog team. Probably the most celebrated strain of sled dogs ever bred are those raised by Scotty Ellis, the king of dog mushers, and the very best of all these were the descendants of Baldy of Nome, the most celebrated of all sled dogs. Not only were Baldy's descendants great racing dogs, but they also made good in war to a surprising degree. When the World War broke out Scotty Ellis went to France with

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all the good sled dogs he could muster, for use in carrying ammunition in the rough country along the battle-line. Twentyeight of Baldy's pups returned to the United States, having distinguished themselves in war. Few men can boast of such a record for their descendants.

So Richard Henderson was at once thrown in contact with the Scotty Ellis strain and finally purchased four of these dogs and three others equally good.

All were of the typical Husky type—tall, lean, deep-chested and tough as steel. They were the wolves of the wilderness, bred and trained by men to do their bidding, combining the best qualities of both dogs and wolves.

Dick made it a part of his policy in buying, not to purchase any dog of which Silversheene did not approve. So if, after proper introductions, Silversheene would have nothing to do with the prospective purchase, Dick did not buy. Silversheene was to be the dominant spirit in the team,

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so he wanted dogs who would work well with him.

By the last of October the team was assembled and it cost Richard a good sum of gold, but he was well satisfied. With his usual ardor, he at once set to work to discipline the team.

Richard was not long in discovering that he needed more trail hardening for the race than did the team. For, as the sourdough had said, to run for four miles in a college Marathon was quite a different thing from running four hundred odd miles upon the worst trail in Alaska. It was one thing to cover the level country with speed and quite another to run forty or fifty miles a day with one's hand resting on the gee pole of the sled. Here on the trail, there were many difficulties to be overcome in every league which did not appear upon the course. A misstep, a sprained ankle, and the race was lost. Not only that but a superhuman endurance had to be engendered. The word ''fatigue'' must be elim-

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inated from one's vocabulary and the word ''tireless'' written in its place in large letters. In this connection Dick remembered hearing Scotty Ellis say that he never let his dogs know in the race that he was tired. So, at the end of a day's run, when he was nearly heartbroken with fatigue, he would sing and whistle and pretend it was just a jolly lark.

So day after day Richard worked as he never had worked before. For two months they put in the hardest sort of runs. Sometimes it was on the comparatively smooth ice of the Yukon, but more often cross country through gulches and over mountains that tried their endurance to the utmost.

Finally in November Dick accepted an offer to take Klondyke Jones, as he was called, on a record-breaking trip into a new and hard country. A strike had been made and Jones wished to be on the spot in the shortest possible time. The run that Henderson's Huskies and the two men made

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was the talk of mushers around campfires all that winter.

"Well, Henderson," said the old sourdough, "if you don't make Scotty Ellis hustle for that ten thousand next spring, then my name isn't Jones and I don't know a winning dog team when I see it."

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{{di|T}}HE great Alaska sweepstakes race is unique in the annals of racing, for there is nothing else just like it in the whole world. Neither men, animals, nor machines are raced under just these conditions anywhere else. It is the one great sporting event in far-away Alaska, and it absorbs all the attention for weeks. Alaskans rarely get together to spin yarns in the winter time at the roadhouses, but they recall sweepstake races which they have seen, or tell tales of Alaska's great dog mushers.

The king of all Alaskan dog mushers at the time of which I write was Scotty Ellis. He was a tall muscular Scotchman, with muscles like whipcords, nerves like steel and wind like a moose. He had a low,

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pleasant voice and a fascinating smile. He was not the brute type of driver, but made it a point to understand his dogs and to drive them by appealing to their good will. He was an inordinate lover of dogs. If Scotty Ellis was the most famous of dog mushers, the most famous dog at this time was Baldy of Nome, who had helped Ellis win the great sweepstake for seven consecutive years, preceding the time when Richard Henderson entered the race.

The purse for which the race was run was fifteen thousand dollars (the first prize being ten thousand), but it is safe to say that fifty times as much money changed hands each year in betting. Not only did each of the drivers usually put up considerable money, but outsiders often bet claims and mines in addition to their bags of hardearned yellow gold. Although he had won the prize for seven consecutive years, yet Scotty Ellis was still the favorite in the betting. Next to him ranked Yukon Harry. He had a fine team of Malemutes.
{{nop}}

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Scotty Ellis's team was composed of his old dog, Baldy, and several of his descendants, for he had been breeding from old Baldy a strain of racers which could not be duplicated in Alaska.

Next to Yukon Harry, who was a giant in stature and a brutal driver, Hans Johnson, a Swede, was placed. Henderson's Huskies were not ranked very high, although some said they might come in fourth. This was after Klondyke Jones had pronounced them winners.

Frenchie's big Hudson Bay dogs were good to look at, but were generally considered too heavy and likely to get footsore. Another team of Siberian Huskies driven by a half-breed named Joe were also good lookers but not seriously considered as winners. The last team in the race was composed of Russian Wolf hounds driven by an Englishman called Buck Wellington.

Not only was the team a prime factor in this great race, but also the endurance of the driver was most important, for he had

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to run much of the way behind the sled holding on to the gee pole.

The more the driver ran, the better chance there was to save the team for the finish. So it was really a race of endurance, for both man and dogs.

Weather conditions which would have killed a man from the States also had to be taken into consideration. Wind, frost, storms and snow would all conspire to retard the race and make it a stern battle with the elements all the way.

When the racing dog teams and their drivers finally assembled at Nome, Richard had never imagined there were so many people in all Alaska. There were all sorts and conditions of spectators, from every walk of life, so far as Alaska could furnish them. There were tradesmen ranging all the way from rich bankers, to bootblacks. Old grizzled miners with their weather-stained faces and "chechahcos" just arrived from the States. Indians, half-breeds and Eskimos, English, French, Swedes, Ca-

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nadians, Scotchmen, and others from nearly all parts of the civilized world.

Even women and small children swarmed the streets and packed the sidewalks as everything was made ready for the start of this, the greatest of all races.

Promptly at daybreak the teams assembled. There was little jockeying for best positions, for the start did not signify much in a race of several days. The main thing was to go off with colors flying and a stern determination to win or break in the attempt.

Promptly at the crack of the pistol the Hudson Bay dogs, the Russian Wolf hounds, and the Malemutes all dashed down the main street as though racing for a flag only five miles away. The spectators went wild and cheered themselves hoarse at the sight. But such old-timers as Scotty Ellis and Yukon Harry took it more leisurely and trailed after the racing teams just as though they were off on a pleasure trip. Richard Henderson took his cue from

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Scotty Ellis and did not push his team. Finally when the last team had disappeared the crowd went back into stores and hotels to wager more gold and to talk over the probabilities of the race. They would not see any of the racers again for days, although word of the race would be hourly received at headquarters. So it was a case of patient waiting for all the thousands of bettors.

Yukon Harry with his fine Malemutes and Buck Wellington with his Russian Wolf hounds led the race to Salman, thirty-two miles away, but it was utter folly to push the teams so hard in this early stage of the game, as they soon discovered. Yukon Harry should have known better, but Buck Wellington was a "chechahco" and had much to learn. Richard Henderson was also a "chechahco" in the eyes of the sourdoughs, but he was a very keen one and had bent his every energy to learn the dog-mushing business.

He took his cue in everything from

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Scotty Ellis and so hung upon his flank and copied his every movement.

If old Baldy was the leader and the prime spirit of Ellis's team, even more so Silversheene was the heart and soul of Dick's team, and he had the advantage of being younger than Baldy. Between him and Dick there had sprung up since the Phantom Wolf adventure an understanding which was almost marvellous. The fine dog seemed to read his master's thoughts perfectly.

And the love Silversheene felt for Dick which he expressed in a dozen ways each day often brought tears to Henderson's eyes.

Sometimes when they had been upon a long hard trail making record-breaking time upon some errand of great importance Richard would be awakened in the night by feeling the dog's nuzzle poking at his sleeping bag, trying to nuzzle it open and get at his master's face. Then Dick would open the bag and press the faithful dog's cheek against his, and often print a kiss upon the

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top of his head and tell him to go back to his snow bed. The rest of the team were all sleeping beneath their white snow blankets, but old Silversheene had dug out of the snow to see if his beloved master was all right and to express the deep love and fidelity that constantly welled up in him. He was the very life and backbone of the celebrated Henderson Huskies. He ruled them like a tyrant, that is, he saw that perfect discipline was maintained and at his master's command he drove them to the last ounce of their endurance. But Silversheene himself never seemed to be tired, or, if he was, he did not show it. His love for his master seemed to give him extra endurance. He was a super-dog. He could pull twice as much as any other dog of his weight in the Yukon and he could travel twenty-five per cent. further in a day. So it was his indomitable spirit that gave the punch to Henderson's Huskies.

As the day wore on Silversheene often looked back at his master to get a smile

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and a cheery word. Then with eager barks and a wagging of his fine plume he would urge the team to a still faster pace. Twice they pulled up to Scotty Ellis and led him a few miles just to feel their mettle. But for the better part of the way Richard let the veteran musher lead. This was his best policy. In the late afternoon Richard noted that Scotty Ellis began whistling and calling out cheery words to his team so he followed suit.

He remembered hearing an old sourdough remark that, although his own heart might be nearly bursting with fatigue, yet he never showed it to the team. So Dick followed the veteran's lead.

Friends and relatives were thinking of him and wishing him luck. He knew that full well. They would all be expecting him to do his best. They looked to him to win. Not only his family and friends, but also his college. Dear old Oregon! Tears filled his eyes as he thought of the old days. How his fellow students had spurred him

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on with their songs and cheers. He would fight for old Oregon and for the state he loved. So he struck up the well remembered college song and sang it to the very end. For the rest of the race the chorus was his battle song and he sang it again and again. He sang it when every muscle in his body ached and it seemed that his heart must burst with fatigue.

{{ppoem|class=poem|
There's a pretty little village in a valley in the west;
Past the village winds a river, fed by snows on mountain's crest.
Near its banks there stands a college, full of dignity and fame,
And the Varsity of Oregon's the institution's name.
Oregon's the varsity, the only one.
It takes you as a freshman in, and changes all except your skin,
Then takes you kindly by the fin and turns you out in life to win.
Oh, Oregon! Oh, Oregon!
}}

Five miles from Forest, Yukon Harry and Buck Wellington came to grips. These two teams which had been driven to the limit, although the race was still young,

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were leading by five miles and each put forth every effort to be first in.

With whip and voice the splendid teams were urged forward. The dogs were running with tongues out and with considerable effort, but their reckless drivers did not heed these warning signs.

Mile after mile they urged them to the limit. The sleds bumped and whined over the frosty snow. The men either ran at the gee pole or lay prone upon the sled, calling continually to the teams to increase the pace. But neither could gain upon the other, although the Huskies were in the better condition, the showy Wolf hounds of Wellington were nearly all in. Finally as a climax to this folly when about a mile from the stopping place the teams, which were running almost side by side, became infuriated and the lead dogs flew at each other's throats and the rest of the teams followed suit. Buck and Harry each thought that the other had given the word for the battle so a lively fist fight ensued.
{{nop}}

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Finally, when Hans Johnson's team rushed by, the men came to their senses and disentangled the teams and were off again. But they had lost time enough so that Hans was enabled to beat them into Forest by a sled's length. Five minutes later the half-breed, Joe, came in and Frenchie's Hudson Bays soon followed, while Scotty Ellis and Richard Henderson were last. But their teams were in much the best condition and, after all, this was what counted in an endurance race.

The dogs were fed their tallow and corn meal while their tired masters bolted bacon and eggs and drank hot coffee.

Each man allowed himself a few minutes' rest and they were off again.

Richard continued his policy of following in the lead of Scotty Ellis. Most of the drivers knew the route but he did not, yet if he clung to the tail of Scotty's sled he would be safe.

But this lap of the race was quite different from that which they had already run,

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for it was now night. The heavens were studded with stars as thick as they could stick, and seemingly very low. The moon shed a weird mysterious light, and the aurora danced in the heavens like wildfire, painting the sky a dozen different colors in as many minutes.

Scotty divined that Henderson was afraid he would lose the trail, and twice he tried to shake him by putting his team to its best pace. But each time Dick's team would let out a burst of speed and he could not get away from him.

Whenever the Scot's team started to draw ahead Dick would call to Silversheene. He in turn would look back over his shoulder and with quick excited barks call to his team mates to come on, while he would increase the pace until the gap had been closed up. Then he would grin back over his shoulder at Dick who would cry "Good Dog! That's the stuff. We'll show 'em." So perfect was the understanding between Dick and Silversheene that the slightest

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word or gesture brought immediate response.

So, with only the stars and the pale light of the moon and the aurora, the teams sped on through the darkness. Whenever the pace began to slow down the men would spring from the sled and run by the gee pole.

Dick had thought himself a great runner before he came to Alaska as he held the Marathon record for American colleges, but this cross country mile on mile was quite a different affair. It pulled upon the muscles as no Marathon ever did.

What tired him and lamed him the most was the slipping and sliding. If the footing had been uniform that would have been one thing, but to have one's feet constantly slipping and sliding was quite another. This also required more wind even than did the Marathon races, for here it was a case of running hour after hour without stopping to rest. When he was utterly exhausted he would throw himself face down

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on the sled and lie gasping for breath. At these times he relied entirely upon Silversheene to see that his team still hugged the tail of the Scotchman's sled.

Once while he was lying prone in this way after a long run Scotty tried to give the team the slip and whipped up and dashed away into the darkness. But Silversheene was not to be tricked in that way. With excited barks he called to his team mates and soon closed up the gap. Several times that night, Scotty Ellis looked back over his shoulder at the silvery gray dog with bright eyes and lolling tongue, who clung so persistently to the tail of his sled. Then and there he made up his mind that if he was beaten it would be that dog who would do it.

As a gray streak appeared along the eastern horizon the racers reached Telegraph river, another stopping place. Here the dogs were fed tallow and rice while their masters ate their breakfasts.

Some of the men allowed themselves an

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hour for sleep, but others were off as soon as they had eaten.

Yukon Harry and Buck Wellington were among those who did not stop to rest but took the trail as soon as they had eaten.

Frenchie's Big Hudson Bay dogs limped in an hour behind the leaders and were so footsore and done up that he abandoned the race. But the other teams still held on with bulldog determination.

So on they rushed across the frozen waste while the arctic sun crept up over the eastern horizon and mounted into the blue sky. This day the men ran more than they had the day before, to save the teams.

Every time Dick saw Scotty Ellis leap from his sled he followed suit and ran by the gee pole until the older man again took the sled.

Every muscle in Dick's body was now aching and he sat upon the sled and rubbed the kinks from his calves each time after the long run. But as the day wore on he found that he was getting his second wind.

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His muscles were becoming used to their terrible strain, and his wind was better. His spirits also rose high as he saw a possibility of being in at the finish.

Twilight found them at Dead Man's Hill. Yukon Harry and Buck Wellington were first in.

Hans Johnson was third, with Scotty Ellis fourth and old Silversheene hugging the back end of his sled. The half-breed, Joe, was an hour behind.

Again men and dogs rested for an hour or two. The dogs threw themselves down with deep sighs and some of them groaned as well, while their masters fell to the floor like logs, some of them being even too tired to eat.

Scotty Ellis was one of these, but Richard Henderson noted that he had a lunch slipped into a bag. So Dick followed suit and ordered a lunch to eat on the trail.

But Scotty Ellis only slept an hour and then got slyly up and stole out of the cabin to harness his team. By good fortune Dick

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awoke at the same time, having a premonition of trouble. Scotty was trying to give him the slip, for he already saw in him a dangerous rival. But as good fortune willed it, Dick was enabled to get his team ready and follow a few minutes after Scotty, so he was safe on that score for the present. The trail was now much rougher than it had been the night before.

The sled bumped and scraped over the uneven snow. Running behind the sled here was also difficult. The footing was very uneven and one had to rest his weight on the handlebars of the gee pole and be prepared to support half his weight on the pole if he stepped into a hole. It was so dark it seemed fairly sticky. Without Scotty to lead and Silversheene to follow, Dick felt that he would be hopelessly lost in a very few miles, but do what he would, the wary Scotchman could not break Silversheene's hold on the tail of his sled.

About midnight they came to Gold Gulch and here for several miles the trail led along

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under the high banks, and was one sled's width, but Dick did not know this and the Scotchman got in a little jockeying that nearly put Henderson's Huskies out of the race.

Just before they reached the narrow trail Scotty Ellis called to his team and it slowed up to Dick's great surprise. His own eager team rushed wildly by, glad to get ahead, while they at once overtook Hans Johnson who was just ahead. Side by side the two teams raced for the narrow trail and came together at its mouth in a wild medley of fighting dogs and twisted and snarled traces. Hans at once supposed that Richard had collided with him to retard him, and a lively fist fight ensued. Finally Dick was enabled to persuade the Swede that they were losing valuable time. The force of this argument was seen when Richard pointed out Scotty Ellis driving his team through the deep snow on one side. This, then, had been his ruse.

He would snarl Dick and Hans up in the

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narrow trail, and then, while they were untangling, give Silversheene the slip. He did not think they could catch him in the darkness after that.

Dick worked frantically at his team, and got untangled several minutes ahead of Hans and they were off after the wary Scot. But where the trail led or whether they were following it rightly or not he did not know. He only knew that Silversheene was leading. His nose was like that of wolf, he could see at night like an owl. He knew they were after Scotty Ellis. The night and the day were alike to him. So Dick trusted him and prayed that they might keep the trail.

Often it seemed to Richard that they were going straight back the way they had come, the trail bent so sharply. But Silversheene did not seem at a loss. He never faltered, but always strained at the lead, his head up, his eager barks urging on his team mates when the pace lagged.

Two hours went by and they saw nothing

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of Scotty Ellis, or any of the other racers. Dick was at last filled with misgivings. Surely they had lost the trail. But just as he was despairing a bright light blazed up ahead and he distinctly heard the tinkle of Scotty's bells, and it was the best music he had ever heard.

Dawn found them at Kendall, the turning point in the race. Again Yukon Harry and Buck Wellington came in ahead, but their teams had so many shoulder-sprained and footsore dogs and so many dogs riding that it was doubtful if they could make many more miles, while Scotty Ellis's team and that of Richard Henderson were surprisingly fresh. This was partly because Dick and the Scotchman had run more than the other drivers.

Again the men fell like logs on the floor while the dogs lopped down in their traces almost too tired to eat. It seemed to Dick that the brief hour which he allowed himself was only about two seconds. With a groan of weariness he aroused himself, only

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to find that Scotty Ellis had not slept at all. He had merely pretended to sleep and then dashed away again. Fearing he had lost valuable time Dick hurried away after the cunning Scotchman. But it was now broad day and he did not fear losing the trail.

Again Silversheene recognized the fact that it was their business to catch up with the Baldy team.

But now there was an added difficulty. Up to this point the trail had not been very hard, but now it became desperate, due to high wind and driving snow. A mile took more out of the team and driver than ten miles had done on the good trail, and here Scotty Ellis's long Alaskan training stood him in good stead. Richard strained his nerves almost to the breaking point and Silversheene barked and whimpered at his team mates, but in spite of them the Scotchman drew steadily ahead. By noon he was two miles ahead and by night he was four miles in the lead. He had now passed all

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the other teams and was squaring away for the home stretch.

Dick pulled into Gold Gulch just as Scotty Ellis was pulling out. The debonair Scotchman waved him a farewell.

Richard wanted to go after him immediately, but he saw it was the better part of valor to rest a bit. Perhaps his courage would come back to him. Seeing that his team was all in, he struck up the Oregon University song and sang and laughed until their tails were up again and they were all grinning their cheerful dog grins.

{{ppoem|class=poem|
{{fqm}}Oh, Oregon! Oh, Oregon! the University, the only one.
It takes you as a freshman in, and changes all except your skin,
Then takes you kindly by the fin and turns you out in life to win,
Oh, Oregon! Oh, Oregon!"
}}

The stirring old song did Dick a world of good. It gave him back the college enthusiasm. He would fight for old Oregon and would not give up. The people of his

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University and state would yet be proud of him and of old Silversheene.

The fine dog seemed to know how much depended on him and was all eagerness to be off. That rascally Scotchman was miles ahead of them.

The trail was rather better that night than it had been in the daytime, and Dick was very grateful for this. It did not seem to him that he could have floundered on all that night in the snow and the winding treacherous trail. Even as it was it seemed almost hopeless to follow it through the stygian darkness. But his only hope was again in Silversheene and that noble dog was equal to anything.

Hours passed by. Hours of terrible toil when Dick would run until he fell almost fainting on the sled, and left everything to Silversheene. Finally at about midnight they heard the soft tinkle of bells ahead, and Silversheene announced by his eager barking that they had again overtaken the Scotchman.
{{nop}}

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Until dawn the two matchless teams held on together, the Scotchman setting the pace.

At dawn they stopped at Dead Man's Hill for a bite to eat and to throw the dogs each his portion. But neither man stopped to sleep. The {{hinc|heartbreaking}} part of the race was still ahead and every minute counted.

All that day they raced over the frozen trail, the whining of the runners and the tinkle of the bells and the panting of the straining dogs making arduous music in their ears. By twilight they reached Forest. Sixty-four miles from Nome, the goal of the race. Sixty-four long, weary miles, miles that strained men's hearts almost to the breaking point. The last sixty-four miles where nerve and will and superhuman endurance all counted. Only men with souls like gods could stay in at the finish in this race, and only dogs with the brains of dogs and the endurance of wolves could win.

Here the dogs were again fed and the men took a hasty supper and a short rest,

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and they were off. But now there were only four men in the race, the half-breed, Joe, Hans Johnson, the Scotchman and Henderson. But Hans and the Indian were plainly outclassed, being an hour behind.

If Dick himself was excited Silversheene was equally so. He had drawn a sled to Nome many a time in the past and knew instinctively that the city was their destination. That was where men always went. And for some reason his master wanted to beat the team that they had trailed for the past three days and nights. Silversheene loved his master more than he did his life, and he would haul him into the city ahead of the Scotchman or die in his traces.

He would pull, pull, pull. He would run, run, run. He would make his team mates run. They must not lag. They must fly. The team ahead was flying, and they must fly.

So if the team started to lag Silversheene would lash them into a better pace by his

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eager barking. The dogs all knew he was their leader. They loved him in their brute way because he was faster and stronger than any of them. They would follow his lead or all die in the traces. So it was a perfectly working machine with no friction or discord and that is what counts.

On the teams sped, through the long, dark night and the whining runners, the tinkling bells, and panting dogs made mad music to the ears of the two fighting, straining men. There was a small fortune at the end of the race for the winner. The Scotchman had already won seventy thousand dollars in these races, and Dick vowed in his soul, and swore by old Oregon and the state he loved that the ten thousand should be his this year. So on through the inky night they raced.

Finally the great gun at Fort Davidson boomed out its warning that the racers were coming. All the spectators who wished to see the finish must be in line. But Henderson's Huskies and Scotty Ellis's Baldies

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were not racing now. They were trotting heavily along. The strained dogs' tongues were out. Their tails drooped, while the men ran as though they could hardly move one leg after the other. But there was one thing which gave Richard hope. He had run ten miles more on the home stretch than had the Scotchman. Truly his youth was telling.

At the sound of the cannon the Scotchman flung his whip into his straining team, and with voice and whip lifted them a hundred feet ahead of Henderson's Huskies. The spectators cheered themselves hoarse as they saw him take the lead, and several teams dashed back to the city to tell the waiting crowd that the Scotchman was going to win. He was running away from the "chechahco" and his Huskies, but they had counted their chickens too soon. For, while the Henderson team was being driven by a greenhorn, yet he was a wonderful "chechahco." But, best of all, he had the greatest lead dog in Alaska urging on his

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mates. Seeing the gap that the Scotchman had put between them, Dick called to Silversheene.

"Mush, Silversheene! mush!" and the splendid dog put his last ounce of strength into closing up the gap. He strained at his traces and barked at his team mates, and in another mile had closed up the gap and was running side by side with the Scotchman's team. This so infuriated the Baldies that they swerved against the Huskies to engage them in a running fight. But Dick called to Silversheene, and Scotty Ellis to Baldy, and they swung back into their respective places and the miles rushed by.

Finally they reached the last mile and Dick jumped off the sled to rest his team for the final spurt. Here his Marathon training would stand him in good stead. The lighter sled enabled his team again to take the lead which Scotty vainly tried to overcome. He called to his straining dogs and flung the whip into them, but it was useless.
{{nop}}

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Dick and Silversheene had the advantage and they meant to keep it.

Half a mile from the coveted goal Richard again flung himself on the sled. He could scarcely breathe and his eyesight was dim. He had just sense enough left to guide his team.

"Mush! Silversheene! Mush!" he gasped in a wheezy voice and Silversheene cried to his team mates and they opened up another burst of speed.

Gradually they drew away from the Baldies while the waiting crowd cheered itself hoarse.

"The Huskies," they cried, "Henderson's Huskies. They are going to win. The Scotchman is beaten. The Huskies have won."

For with a rush of eager feet and a tinkle of bells old Silversheene had carried his team by the winning flag two hundred feet ahead of the seven-times winner and won the sweepstake for his dear master.

Men shouted and laughed and threw their

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caps in the air. Women and children laughed and cried while the bands played and the flags and handkerchiefs were waved to the victors.

Finally as Scotty Ellis's Baldies neared the flag a great cheer also went up for them. Scotty was still the king of the Alaskan trail, and the fact remained that he had already won the race seven times.

As his team came to a halt he got stiffly to his feet and limped towards Richard.

"Put it there, you chechahco. You have beaten me and you did it fair. You are a good sport, and a mighty good driver, but it was not you that beat me. It was that lead dog of yours. He is the greatest sled dog in Alaska. I will give you ten thousand dollars for him, just as he stands."

"Thank you, Scotty. "You are the best loser I ever saw. But there isn't gold enough in Alaska to buy Silversheene. He is my brother and we don't sell our brothers. Shake again, Scotty."

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{{di|I}}N October following the great race, Richard Henderson, the latest champion dog musher, and Silversheene, the King of all Alaskan sled dogs, took a steamer at St. Michael, bound for the United States. It is safe to say that when they went aboard they were the happiest dog and man in all Alaska. They had spent the summer rather leisurely travelling about and enjoying themselves. Richard had disposed of the other dogs in the famous team at fancy prices, and this money, together with the ten thousand which he had won in the sweepstake, made him feel quite like a capitalist.

But, as his father had prophesied, he had had his fill of Alaska. This land of brutal ity and force where only the heavy fist

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counted. This country that stripped men's souls of all the finer qualities and left them nothing but blood and iron as a requisite for success.

Yet he and Silversheene had gloried in the life. The battle with the elements and the hard conditions had suited them both. But they were dominant spirits. A good fight was to their liking.

They had matched their strength and courage against the best that Alaska had to offer and had won, so they were well content. It was enough now to take life easy and think with a glow of pleasure of the great race and all the other hard conditions.

When Richard had come north the year before it had been springtime and the air was balmy, but now it was keen and almost cutting.

The gulls, the auks, the white geese and all the other northern birds were winging their way southward, and their numbers were amazing.

The autumn migration of the seals was

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also taking place, and they were travelling southward, not only in thousands, but in tens and even hundreds of thousands.

They saw seals everywhere in Behring Sea. They were upon the rocks, along shore, swimming in the open sea, disporting themselves upon the very crest of the waves. A mighty countless host of strange migrants. They swam without chart or compass. Many of them going more than ten thousand miles from their home in the St. Paul Islands, but when spring came again they would turn their noses unerringly northward and find the island more easily than the mariner could have done with his chart and compass.

Yes, it was a great country, this northern wilderness, with its wonderful rivers and mountains and forests, but Richard thought that old Oregon would look better to him than ever before, once he saw his native state again.

They had arrived home in time to eat Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of the

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family, and it was a thanksgiving day all remembered for the rest of their lives. They received Silversheene as one returned from the dead, and petted and praised him until his tail was fairly lame wagging appreciation. Mrs. Henderson told Eleanor that she would break the dog's neck if she hugged him so much, but both dog and girl seemed to think it was all right.

There was but one cloud on the horizon to mar the homecoming of Dick and Silversheene, and this was because of their old enemmy Pedro Garcia. He had become very insolent and untrustworthy of late, and Mr. Henderson had been compelled to discharge him. After he had left town, ten thousand dollars was found missing from the safe. While that very morning Mr. Henderson had received a letter from the greaser in which he threatened to return some night and shoot up the house.

Dick laughed when he read it.

"Let him come," he said. "I have had considerable practice with a .44 since I left

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Oregon. I would like nothing better than to take a crack at the dirty greaser's head. I guess Silversheene would like to get his teeth into his legs also. Between us we ought to hold the ranch. Don't you folks worry. We will look out for things. He probably thought he could bully you when I was away, but we are ready for him now, so let him come."

When Richard held the letter out for Silversheene to smell it, to the surprise of all but Dick the dog's hackles went up and his eyes became like living coals, while he uttered a low menacing growl. "What did I tell you?" cried Dick excitedly. "Silversheene hasn't forgotten the man who sold him into slavery. We will settle that account with him yet." So Richard scoured the room over the stable for Pedro's old clothes. He finally secured some shoes and pants which still held the man's body scent. These he displayed to Silversheene and told him to eat him up. Even Dick was amazed at the towering rage into which the old

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fighter flew when he realized that he was to trail his old enemy.

"I guess we have made it plain to him, Father," said Dick. "He knows as well as I do that Pedro is the quarry and we are all out to get him. You need not worry about his stealing a march on this place. That dog won't close an eye at night until he gets him, and when he does come upon him, if there isn't a tree nearby there will be a dead greaser."

"Aren't you afraid Pedro will kill him before you can come to his aid?" inquired Eleanor fearfully.

"No, I guess not," said Dick. "Why, I shot at him myself for nearly a week and did him no harm. He knows guns and revolvers and will look out for himself."

As Richard had prophesied, Silversheene took his responsibility in regard to Pedro Garcia very seriously. He slept by day and at night was on guard. Even his old friend Jerry, the cocker spaniel, could not get him to play much during these days of

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watching. He had seen too much serious work during his two years in Alaska to play now.

So each night he might be seen walking sedately about the place inspecting all the outbuildings. Or perhaps he would lie in some conspicuous place where he could watch all the approaches to the ranch.

Each night at eleven, when Eleanor went to bed, he would come under her window and sit upon his haunches watching until she came to the window and said good-night to him. Then he would go back to his silent vigil. His family, those he loved, were in danger and he was standing guard like a faithful sentinel.

The dastardly attempt of Pedro to harm those who had been his benefactors came much sooner than Dick had anticipated. In fact, he thought the threatening letter bluff, and hardly expected the greaser to return at all. That was why he had not worried about the Mexican's shooting Silversheene.
{{nop}}

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So he was much astonished one night about a week after his return by a terrific din in the backyard.

First there was an angry snarl from Silversheene, and then two shots fired in quick succession. At the sound of the revolver Dick's heart went sick. He had been too sure that Silversheene could take care of himself. Perhaps the greaser had gotten him at close range. But the shots were immediately followed by a series of blood-curdling yells in a high-keyed, frenzied voice that sounded very much like Pedro's. As these yells continued and they were intermingled with more furious snarls from Silversheene, Dick concluded he was giving a good account of himself. So without waiting to dress he ran downstairs, two steps at a time, and hurried into the yard. This was what had happened in the meantime in the backyard.

Silversheene had been lying on the top of a low brick wall which enclosed the garden at the back of the house. He felt quite

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sure danger would come from this unprotected quarter. He was lying perfectly motionless, seemingly asleep. But he was very much awake, although his head was between his paws. His eyes were wide open and gazing intently about while his keen nostrils, which were as sharp as the scent of a wolf, were continually testing the air, and his pointed ears were cocked. Presently he lifted his head cautiously, his nostrils extended several times rapidly, and his ears became a little more erect. After perhaps a minute his vigilance was rewarded for he saw a figure, which he thought he recognized, open the gate at the back of the garden and approach the house. A dog with less wisdom and with less hunting instinct might have sprung down from his perch at once and made for the intruder, and thus given him a chance to escape, but not so Silversheene. He had watched and waited too many times by squirrel holes and by beaver dams not to know that it was useless to strike until the quarry was within

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reach, so he lay still upon the wall and watched. The only change in him was that his eyes turned to two living coals and his whole body went rigid.

When he did spring it would be with the propulsion of steel springs.

The cunning dog waited until Pedro had passed the middle of the garden and was between him and the house, then he sprang from his hiding place like a white flash, and, with a blood-curdling snarl, came in a series of great bounds over rosebushes and across flower beds, straight towards the terrified greaser.

At the first sound Pedro had whirled and faced his adversary and then uttered a yell edged with superstitious terror and this was the frantic thought which raced through his fevered brain:

It was Silversheene—no, it could not be! He had sold him for the Alaskan dog trade two and a half years before. No southland dog who went to Alaska ever came back. They all died in the traces. No, this

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could not be Silversheene, for he was dead. Then, horror of horrors! This mad creature bounding towards him like a frenzied thing was an apparition. Silversheene was dead, and this was his spirit.

A dog without flesh or bone who was coming to avenge him.

Pedro did not know whether it would do any good to shoot at him or not, but that seemed the only thing to do, besides it was instinctive, so he had raised his revolver hurriedly and fired twice. But the apparition did not even feel his shots. It was the spirit dog of vengeance.

So when Silversheene was almost upon him the greaser had dropped his revolver and gone up the nearest tree like a monkey.

It might be useless to climb a tree to avoid a spirit dog but that also was instinctive.

Yet when he felt Silversheene's teeth in his leg and heard his pants ripped clean from his body he changed his mind about it being a spirit dog of vengeance. It was

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a sure-enough flesh and blood dog. He had barely missed pulling him out of the tree. So Pedro scrambled up higher and drew his knife, while Silversheene started to climb the tree, unmindful of the gleaming knife and the man's kicks and curses.

This was the fiend who had sold him into captivity, the devil who was going to hurt his dear friends. Well, he had treed him, and he would drag him down and throttle him just as he and his pack of gray wolves had killed a half-breed one dark night on the Alaskan trail.

It was at this point, when Pedro had climbed to fifteen feet and Silversheene was close upon him, and the greaser was slashing at him with his cruel knife, that Dick appeared under the tree with his .44. Mr. Henderson also was soon on the scene, while Eleanor who had nearly fainted at sound of the shots was watching from her window.

Silversheene was so furious that he paid no attention to Dick's calls to come down,

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but steadily climbed towards his victim.

Dick was finally obliged to climb up and draw him down by main force, while Mr. Henderson covered the greaser with his revolver.

At last the noble dog was safe on the ground, although every hair on his back stood erect and his eyes flashed so that Dick himself was almost afraid of him.

Finally Mr. Henderson went into the house and telephoned for the sheriff while Dick and the dog stood guard.

It was with great satisfaction that they at last saw Pedro handcuffed and taken away to the county jail to await his trial. Silversheene was, of course, the hero of the capture.

The following morning, the Henderson family, including Silversheene, went to the courthouse to the trial of Pedro Garcia.

Richard and Mr. Henderson each took the stand and told at length the greaser's treachery. They told of his selling Silversheene for the Alaskan dog trade, of his

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theft of the money and the threatening letter, and of his final dramatic capture by the dog. There was a great crowd in the courthouse.

Many of the spectators were as anxious to see the winner of the Alaskan sweepstake as they were to see justice done.

When Pedro finally took the stand in his own defense, which he did with much swagger, Silversheene was so furious that it was all Dick could do to quiet him.

The judge, who was a great lover of dogs and knew a gentleman when he saw one, was much impressed by Silversheene's rage. He finally invited Silversheene to sit with him upon the bench and they sat side by side, judge and dog, and tried the man. But in this case the man was more of a brute than was the dog.

The Mexican was finally bound over to the grand jury, and the Hendersons later had the satisfaction of seeing Pedro given a ten-year job with the Oregon chain gang.

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So his evil-doings, due to the cleverness of Silversheene, were at an end.

When Silversheene and Dick had first returned to Oregon and the bosom of their family, the dog had been occasionally haunted by the hardships and the horrors of the old days. Sometimes, even while lying under a giant shade tree, with the scent of roses heavy upon the balmy air, he would dream of the Alaskan trail, of the scourge of a long black lash and the killing pace.

Often, while the fragrant breezes fanned the tree tops and the song birds sang of love and beauty, Silversheene would lie on the velvet lawn dreaming of the Alaskan blizzard and his pound of frozen dry fish, or of a cold bed in the frosty snowbank.

Or, perhaps he would be lying by a cheerful open fire with the family all about him when the specters of the old days and ways would steal upon him. Instead of the frescoed room, the walls would fade away to

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the open fields under the starry sky and his friends would change to cave men and women, with long arms and short legs, with bodies partly covered with hair, and they would all be crouching about the feeble campfire looking fearfully into the darkness at the gray wolf sitting upon his haunches watching them.

Then the man would pick up a firebrand and throw it at the gray prowler and he would slink away into the darkness. Or Silversheene would dream that he again heard his wild brother, the wolf, calling to him in that thin, weird, high-keyed, wolf howl, the call of the wolf to the dog.

At such times he would stir uneasily in his sleep and his legs would twitch, and if they did not awaken him he would at last spring up with an angry bark or a pitiful whimper and look fearfully about him for the gray shape, the shade of the wolf that he had been.

Then he would see all his beloved family and the cheerful room and the bright fire{{peh}}

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light and look very foolish. At such times he usually went to Dick to be comforted, for he had also seen these things in the stern old days in Alaska, and understood.

But by degrees these bad dreams of the past, and the intuitions of his heritage of wolf ancestry, faded away, until they were almost forgotten.

Thus it was that Silversheene grew old, with the hard, relentless things in his life growing dim and distant and the bright and beautiful things each year becoming brighter and more real. He grew old with his beloved family about him. By the open fire or out on the ranch he was always one of them. There was no chair too good for him, and no seat too comfortable. They all loved him as dog was never loved before and he repayed them in kind. They were his royalty, his Kings and Queens for whom he would gladly have laid down his life. All but Richard, and Dick was his god.

Often he would steal away from the rest of the family to be alone with Dick. They

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had struggled and suffered together and there was a love between them and an understanding that did not quite attain with the others. As Richard had told Scotty Ellis when he clasped the grizzled musher's hard hand at the end of the great race, they were brothers./last/

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{{c|{{asc|The end}}}}

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User:SnowyCinema/P/Silversheene

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