With Wild Dogs Under the Auroras 39 



we thus sped on. The dogs would some- 

 times drop into a swift trot and then again 

 resume their rapid gallop. They were on 

 the home stretch, and so required no fur- 

 ther incentive to urge them along. 



It was a unique ride and exhilarating in 

 the extreme. To add to the splendour of 

 the starry heavens the wondrous aurora 

 came dancing and flashing and blazing up 

 before me in the northern sky. It formed 

 into great armies which fought out the 

 ghostly battles with no rude sounds to dis- 

 turb the northern solitudes. Then when 

 apparently satisfied with this performance 

 they rolled across the heavens in great rib- 

 bons of light, from which they flung out 

 long flags of purest white, which seemed as 

 flags of truce from heaven to earth. Then 

 suddenly, with all the rapidity of electrical 

 phenomena, they changed to pink and yel- 

 low and then to blood-red crimson until the 

 whole heavens seemed aglow with vivid 

 colours so intense that the snowy particles 

 on the ice caught the reflection, and when 

 we dashed through them it seemed as 

 though they were pools of the blood of thou- 

 sands slain. Then again there was another 

 transformation; and now as from the re- 



