"Wapi!" she cried. "Wapi!"

His jaws dropped agape. She could hear his panting response to her voice.

A third shot--over their heads sped a strange droning sound.

"Wapi," she almost screamed, "go back! Sick 'em, Wapi--sick 'em--sick
'em--sick 'em!" She flung out her arms, driving him back, repeating the
words over and over again. She leaned over the edge of the sledge,
clinging to the gee-bar. "Go back, Wapi! Sick 'em--sick 'em--sick 'em!"

As if in response to her wild exhortation, there came a sudden yelping
outcry from the team behind. It was close upon them now. Another ten
minutes.

And then she saw that Wapi was dropping behind. Quickly he was swallowed
up in the starlit chaos of the night.

"Peter," she cried, sobbingly. "Peter!"

Listening to the retreating sound of the sledge, Wapi stood a silent
shadow in the trail. Then he turned and faced the north. He heard the
other sound now, and ahead of it the wind brought him a smell, the smell
of things he hated. For many years something had been fighting itself
toward understanding within him, and the yelping of dogs and the taint in
the air of creatures who had been his slave-masters narrowed his instinct
to the one vital point. Again it was not a process of reason but the
cumulative effect of things that had happened, and were happening. He had
scented menace when first he had given warning of the nearness of
pursuers, and this menace was no longer an elusive and unseizable thing