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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.

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 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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 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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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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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

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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.

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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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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

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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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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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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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