THE DOMINANT PRIMORDIAL BEAST
The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and uhe fierce ditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth. His newborn ing gave him poise and trol. He was too busy adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease, and not only did he not pick fights, but he avoided them whenever possible. A certain deliberateness characterized his attitude. He was not proo rashness and precipitate a; and iter hatred between him and Spitz he betrayed no impatience, shunned all offes.
Oher hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous rival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He eve out of his way to bully Buck, striving stantly to start the fight which could end only in the death of one or the other.
Early irip this might have taken place had it not been for an unwonted act. At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a white-hot knife, and darkness, had forced them to grope for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse. At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were pelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself. The tent they had discarded at Yea in order to travel light. A few sticks of driftwood furhem with a fire that thawed down through the id left them to eat supper in the dark.
Close in uhe sheltering rock Buck made his . So snug and warm was it, that he was loath to leave it when Francois distributed the fish which he had first thawed over the fire. But when Buck finished his ration aurned, he found his occupied. A warning snarl told him that the trespasser itz. Till now Buck had avoided trouble with his enemy, but this was too much. The beast in him roared. He sprang upon Spitz with a fury which surprised them both, and Spitz particularly, for his whole experieh Buck had goo teach him that his rival was an unusually timid dog, who mao hold his own only because of his great weight and size.
Francois was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle from the disrupted and he divihe cause of the trouble. "A-a-ah!" he cried to Buck. "Give it to him by Gar! Give it to him, the dirty thief!"
Spitz was equally willing. He was g with sheer rage and eagerness as he circled bad forth for a ce t in. Buck was no less eager, and no less cautious, as he likewise circled bad forth for the advantage. But it was then that the ued happehe thing which projected their struggle for supremacy far into the future, past many a weary mile of trail and toil.
An oath from Perrault, the resounding impact of a club upon a bony frame, and a shrill yelp of pain, heralded the breaking forth of pandemonium. the camp was suddenly discovered to be alive with skulking furry forms--starving huskies, four or five score of them, who had sted the camp from some Indian village. They had crept in while Bud Spitz were fighting, and whewo men sprang among them with stout clubs they showed their teeth and fought back. They were crazed by the smell of the food. Perrault found oh head buried in the grub-box. His club landed heavily on the gaunt ribs, and the grub-box was capsized on the ground. On the instant a score of the famished brutes were scrambling for the bread and ba. The clubs fell upon them unheeded. They yelped and howled uhe rain of blows, but struggled he less madly till the last cr