The Magnetic North Part 77

"Yes. Yes," he said angrily, "heap good dog."

"Well, I'll give you eighty dollars for these" (the Ingalik, taking a pipe out of his parki, held out one empty hand); "but who's got the other?"

For answer, a head-shake, the outstretched hand, and the words, "Eightee dolla--tabak--tea."

"Wait," interrupted the Boy, turning to the group of children; "where's the other dog?"

n.o.body answered. The Boy pantomimed. "We want _three_ dogs." He held up as many fingers. "We got two--see?--must have one more." A lad of about thirteen turned and began pointing with animation towards a slowly approaching figure.

"Peetka--him got."

The old man began to chatter angrily, and abuse the lad for introducing a rival on the scene. The strangers hailed the new-comer.

"How much is your dog?"

Peetka stopped, considered, studied the scene immediately before him, and then the distant prospect.

"You got dog?"

He nodded.

"Well, how much?"

"Sixty dolla."

"_One_ dog, sixty?"

He nodded.

"But this man says the price is eighty for two."

"My dog--him Leader."

After some further conversation, "Where is your dog?" demanded the Colonel.

The new-comer whistled and called. After some waiting, and well-simulated anger on the part of the owner, along comes a dusky Siwash, thin, but keen-looking, and none too mild-tempered.

The children all brightened and craned, as if a friend, or at least a highly interesting member of the community, had appeared on the scene.

"The n.i.g.g.e.r's the best!" whispered the Boy.

"Him bully," said the lad, and seemed about to pat him, but the Siwash snarled softly, raising his lip and showing his Gleaming fangs. The lad stepped back respectfully, but grinned, reiterating, "Bully dog."

"Well, I'll give you fifty for him," said the Colonel.

"Sixty."

"Well, all right, since he's a leader. Sixty."

The owner watched the dog as it walked round its master smelling the snow, then turning up its pointed nose interrogatively and waving its magnificent feathery tail. The oblique eyes, acute angle of his short ears, the thick neck, broad chest, and heavy forelegs, gave an impression of mingled alertness and strength you will not see surpa.s.sed in any animal that walks the world. Jet-black, except for his grey muzzle and broad chest, he looks at you with the face of his near ancestor, the grizzled wolf. If on short acquaintance you offer any familiarity, as the Colonel ventured to do, and he shows his double row of murderous-looking fangs, the reminder of his fierce forefathers is even more insistent. Indeed, to this day your Siwash of this sort will have his moments of nostalgia, in which he turns back to his wild kinsfolk, and mates again with the wolf.

When the Leader looked at the Colonel with that indescribably horrid smile, the owner's approval of the proud beast seemed to overcome his avarice.

"Me no sell," he decided abruptly, and walked off in lordly fas.h.i.+on with his dusky companion at his side, the Leader curling his feathery tail arc-like over his back, and walking with an air princes might envy.

The Colonel stood staring. Vainly the Boy called, "Come back. Look here! Hi!" Neither Siwash nor Ingalik took the smallest notice. The Boy went after them, eliciting only airs of surly indifference and repeated "Me no sell." It was a bitter disappointment, especially to the Boy. He liked the looks of that n.i.g.g.e.r dog. When, plunged in gloom, he returned to the group about the Colonel, he found his pardner asking about "feed." No, the old man hadn't enough fish to spare even a few days'

supply. Would anybody here sell fish? No, he didn't think so. All the men who had teams were gone to the hills for caribou; there was n.o.body to send to the Summer Caches. He held out his hand again for the first instalment of the "eightee dolla," in kind, that he might put it in his pipe.

"But dogs are no good to us without something to feed 'em."

The Ingalik looked round as one seeking counsel.

"Get fish tomalla."

"No, sir. To-day's the only day in my calendar. No buy dogs till we get fish."

When the negotiations fell through the Indian took the failure far more philosophically than the white men, as was natural. The old fellow could quite well get on without "eightee dolla"--could even get on without the tobacco, tea, sugar, and matches represented by that sum, but the travellers could not without dogs get to Minook. It had been very well to feel set up because they had done the thing that everybody said was impossible. It had been a costly victory. Yes, it had come high. "And, after all, if we don't get dogs we're beaten."

"Oh, beaten be blowed! We'll toddle along somehow."

"Yes, we'll toddle along _if_ we get dogs."

And the Boy knew the Colonel was right.

They inquired about Kaltag.

"I reckon we'd better push ahead while we can," said the Colonel. So they left the camp that same evening intending to "travel with the moon." The settlement was barely out of sight when they met a squaw dragging a sled-load of salmon. Here was luck! "And now we'll go back and get those two dogs."

As it was late, and trading with the natives, even for a fish, was a matter of much time and patience, they decided not to hurry the dog deal. It was bound to take a good part of the evening, at any rate.

Well, another night's resting up was welcome enough.

While the Colonel was re-establis.h.i.+ng himself in the best cabin, the Boy cached the sled and then went prowling about. As he fully intended, he fell in with the Leader--that "bully n.i.g.g.e.r dog." His master not in sight--n.o.body but some dirty children and the stranger there to see how the Red Dog, in a moment of aberration, dared offer insolence to the Leader. It all happened through the Boy's producing a fish, and presenting it on bended knee at a respectful distance. The Leader bestowed a contemptuous stare upon the stranger and pointedly turned his back. The Red Dog came "loping" across the snow. As he made for the fish the Leader quietly headed him off, pointed his sharp ears, and just looked the other fellow out of countenance. Red said things under his breath as he turned away. The more he thought the situation over the more he felt himself outraged. He looked round over his shoulder.

There they still were, the stranger holding out the fish, the Leader turning his back on it, but telegraphing Red at the same time _not to dare!_ It was more than dog-flesh could bear; Red bounded back, exploding in snarls. No sound out of the Leader. Whether this unnatural calm misled Red, he came up closer, braced his forelegs, and thrust his tawny muzzle almost into the other dog's face, drew back his lips from all those s.h.i.+ning wicked teeth, and uttered a m.u.f.fled hiss.

Well, it was magnificently done, and it certainly looked as if the Leader was going to have a troubled evening. But he didn't seem to think so. He "fixed" the Red Dog as one knowing the power of the master's eye to quell. Red's reply, unimaginably bold, was, as the Boy described it to the Colonel, "to give the other fella the curse." The Boy was proud of Red's pluck--already looking upon him as his own--but he jumped up from his ingratiating att.i.tude, still grasping the dried fish. It would be a shame if that Leader got chewed up! And there was Red, every tooth bared, gasping for gore, and with each pa.s.sing second seeming to throw a deeper d.a.m.nation into his threat, and to brace himself more firmly for the hurling of the final doom.

At that instant, the stranger breathing quick and hard, the elder children leaning forward, some of the younger drawing back in terror--if you'll believe it, the Leader blinked in a bored way, and sat down on the snow. A question only of last moments now, poor brute!

and the bystanders held their breath. But no! Red, to be sure, broke into the most awful demonstrations, and nearly burst himself with fury; but he backed away, as though the spectacle offered by the Leader were too disgusting for a decent dog to look at. He went behind the shack and told the Spotty One. In no time they were back, approaching the Boy and the fish discreetly from behind. Such mean tactics roused the Leader's ire. He got up and flew at them. They made it hot for him, but still the Leader seemed to be doing pretty well for himself, when the old Ingalik (whom the Boy had sent a child to summon) hobbled up with a raw-hide whip, and laid it on with a practised hand, separating the combatants, kicking them impartially all round, and speaking injurious words.

"Are your two hurt?" inquired the future owner anxiously.

The old fellow shook his head.

"Fur thick," was the rea.s.suring answer; and once more the Boy realised that these canine encounters, though frequently ending in death, often look and sound much more awful than they are.

As the Leader feigned to be going home, he made a dash in pa.s.sing at the stranger's fish. It was held tight, and the pirate got off with only a fragment. Leader gave one swallow and looked back to see how the theft was being taken. That surprising stranger simply stood there laughing, and holding out the rest of a fine fat fis.h.!.+ Leader considered a moment, looked the alien up and down, came back, all on guard for sudden rushes, sly kicks, and thwackings, to pay him out. But nothing of the kind. The n.i.g.g.e.r dog said as plain as speech could make it:

"You cheechalko person, you look as if you're actually offering me that fish in good faith. But I'd be a fool to think so."