CHAPTER VIII

THE FIGHT AT DAWN


For a few moments Jan stood with his back to Melisse and his eyes upon
the carnival about the great fire. As he looked, the third caribou was
pulled down from its spit, and the multitude of dogs rushed in upon
the abandoned carcasses of the other two.

He caught his breath quickly as a loud shout and the wailing yelp of a
hurt dog rose for an instant above all other sounds. Only one thing
was wanting to complete another picture in his brain--a scene which
had burned itself into his life for ever, and which he strove to fight
back as he stood staring from the doorway. He half expected it to
come--the shrill scream of a boyish voice, an instant's sullen quiet,
then the low-throated thunder of impending vengeance--and the fight!

With marvelous quickness his excited mind reconstructed the scene
before him into the scene that had been. He heard the scream again,
which had been HIS voice; saw, as if in a dream, the frenzied rush of
men and the flash of knives; and then, from where he lay trampled and
bleeding in the snow, the long, lean team of swift huskies that had
carried in mad flight the one whose life those knives sought.

Williams had been there; he had seen the fight--his knife had flashed
with the others in its demand for life. And yet he--Jan Thoreau--had