With Wild Dogs Under the Auroras 37 



them, in their anxiety to get home, they will 

 never suspect." 



I looked the fierce brutes over and then 

 so placed my heavy whip that I could in- 

 stantly seize it, if necessary, and made up 

 my mind that I was in for a wild, exciting 

 ride. 



It was a magnificent night. The sun had 

 gone down in unclouded splendour, and 

 now the stars were shining with a beauty 

 and clearness that only can be witnessed 

 where there is absolutely no fog, or mist, or 

 damp. The intense cold had cleared away 

 all such obstructions. Before me was the 

 great frozen lake stretching away and far 

 beyond the distant horizon. To my inex- 

 perienced eye, there was on that icy expanse 

 not the vestige of a road. Yet during the 

 long hours of this intensely cold night, 

 without a single human companion, I was 

 going to trust myself to the care of four 

 Eskimo animals, to run me thirty miles to 

 a lonely log house on the distant shore. 

 During those long hours, I was neither to 

 cough, nor speak a single word, for fear of 

 trouble, or perhaps a fierce battle with 

 these savage brutes and, if it should take 



