Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 159: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

King the Husky were away at the quick, short trot that eats up the long miles, fifty, sixty, seventy a day. Shorty, his long whip hanging from his wrist and trailing behind him on the snow, settled down to the steady jog, be- tween a walk and a run, of the old dog runner. Though he was new in that part of the country, he had driven dogs for years in the Yukon and McKenzie basins, and he thought that what he did not know about sleigh dogs was not worth knowing. He had no doubt that, by a judicious mixture of firmness and kindness, he would soon bring King into willing subjection. And he was all the more desirous of bringing it about in that already his heart warmed to the peerless brute. It was not long before the rest of the team adored him. He treated them with justice, kindness and firmness in the right proportions. It was seldom indeed that he swung his whip, but when he did the long lash bit like a snake. He knew when a dog was tired and when he was merely shirking. He had an eagle eye for sore feet, that bane of the sleigh dog. After a thaw, when the temperature falls again, every wrinkle in the snow be- comes a knifeblade of ice, and dogs with tender feet suffer cruelly. But none of Shorty’s team ever had to limp along, leaving bloody footprints on the trail. He was prepared with little buckskin moccasins, and every cut had prompt attention. But they were never needed for King. He seemed to have feet of iron. The hard- est day’s mushing over glare ice or through heavy new-fallen snow found him still with head and tail up, pulling for every pound that was in him. Between him and Shorty there grew up a curious relationship. It was hardly that of master and servant, more that of two equals with little affection but great mutual respect between them, engaged of necessity inacommon task. It was Shorty’s place to choose the trail, decide the load, the time and place of camping, and to allot the ra- tions. It was King’s place to pull the _ hardest, set the pace, and keep order among his mates. And he did all these things superlatively well. The other dogs held him in deepest awe. They fought amongst themselves as sleigh dogs will when their master’s eye is not upon them, but they left King alone. IAI The merest wrinkling of his lip was enough to appal the boldest. He did not even condescend to associate with them, nor did he stoop to curry favor with his master. In solitary grandeur, eating by himself and sleeping by himself, he dwelt apart. The coldest night drew him no closer to his mates. And there were some terrible nights; nights when the ice on the lakes boomed and screamed in long rippling, fearsome noises in the rending grip of the frost; when the air stung and prickled in the nostrils, when nothing moved but the ever restless dancers of the north, sweeping fantastically across the vault of Heaven in waves of lambent green and purple and crimson. Through it all King held himself aloof, the rime glistening on his back, and his brooding eyes gleaming out under ice- encrusted brows. Shorty often wondered what went on in the mind behind those eyes. His own feelings were mixed. He felt he could love King as he had never loved any dog, and dogs were his passion. As some men love women, others power, others beauty, he loved dogs. But it was hard to love King. At times he felt exasperation at his inability to penetrate the brute’s iron reserve, but in the main he felt only admiration and re- spect, tinctured with some of the awe in which the team held their grim leader. it was a hard winter, a winter of intense cold but little snow. Moreover the mys- terious plague that periodically smites the snowshoe rabbits of the North, had been busy, and all the flesh eaters of the wild were hungry in consequence. In a day’s march one would hardly cross a dozen of the fan-shaped tracks, and that of course meant danger from timber wolves. Doubly so because of the light fall of snow that enabled the moose and deer to outrun them. They were reduced to hunting un- der the snow for mice, and wolves are not so well fitted for that kind of hunting as the smaller carnivora. B SHCRTY noted as the winter aay drew on that they were forming taysee~=—s into unusually large packs. They oa also took to haunting the freight trails on the lookout for scraps left at de- serted camps, and that is always a danger- ous sign. The fact caused the little man small anxiety at first, for though the In- dians hold timber wolves in deep respect, COMIGDIOOKSEEO