knew what it meant to freeze. He had listened to the wailing winds of
the long Arctic night over the barrens. He had heard the thunder of the
torrent and the cataract, and had cowered under the mighty crash of the
storm. His throat and sides were scarred by battle, and his eyes were
red with the blister of the snows. He was called Kazan, the Wild Dog,
because he was a giant among his kind and as fearless, even, as the men
who drove him through the perils of a frozen world.

He had never known fear--until now. He had never felt in him before the
desire to _run_--not even on that terrible day in the forest when he had
fought and killed the big gray lynx. He did not know what it was that
frightened him, but he knew that he was in another world, and that many
things in it startled and alarmed him. It was his first glimpse of
civilization. He wished that his master would come back into the strange
room where he had left him. It was a room filled with hideous things.
There were great human faces on the wall, but they did not move or
speak, but stared at him in a way he had never seen people look before.
He remembered having looked on a master who lay very quiet and very cold
in the snow, and he had sat back on his haunches and wailed forth the
death song; but these people on the walls looked alive, and yet seemed
dead.

Suddenly Kazan lifted his ears a little. He heard steps, then low
voices. One of them was his master's voice. But the other--it sent a
little tremor through him! Once, so long ago that it must have been in
his puppyhood days, he seemed to have had a dream of a laugh that was
like the girl's laugh--a laugh that was all at once filled with a
wonderful happiness, the thrill of a wonderful love, and a sweetness
that made Kazan lift his head as they came in. He looked straight at
them, his red eyes gleaming. At once he knew that she must be dear to