of knife-like teeth in arm and leg, paying dearly for their recklessness in laying hands on a king husky from Ungava whose dignity had been sorely outraged by their roughness.
Clinging to the dog, whose blood boiled with the fighting lust of a hundred wolfish ancestors, the Cree waited with fear in his heart for the verdict of the officer on the conduct of his shaggy comrade. Surely now they would shoot him or pitch him overboard, he thought. But he looked up with surprise into a smiling face.
"That's a dog after my own heart," cried the young German, surveying with admiring eyes the magnificent animal who, held in the grip of his master, snarled defiance at the group of murmuring sailors well out of reach.
"De dog was scare' of de rope; he weel not bite dem now," urged Laroque in defense of his friend, and bending over, he poured into the pointed ears set flat on the massive head of the dog soothing words in Cree.
"Of course, when they hauled him on deck, the sailors put their hands on him, and he upset them like nine-pins. Lucky for them he wasn't loose," replied the officer, and the heart of Gaspard leaped with joy.
"Cast off that sling and make him fast to the ring-bolt there. He'll cool off soon. I've Great Danes of my own at home."
"How you come to dees countree?" the Cree hazarded, for he knew the passage through Hudson Straits at that time of year to be a perilous one.
