It was a bleak, dreary, wind-swept morning in February. We had broken
camp at the faint flush of dawn, after remaining helplessly caught for
two days in our tent by a raging blizzard. It had ceased snowing and the
thermometer was going down like a piece of lead. The snow, although
hardening under the intense cold, was deep.
There was no trail. An Indian was struggling ahead of the dogs.
Everywhere silence. Now and then a mass of snow would slide down
noiselessly from the overhanging branch of a spruce tree. There was no
sign of animal life. Not a track anywhere. Not even a bird on the wing
in the sullen grey sky.
We were following a coulée between two high ridges thickly covered with
trees. At a bend of the small valley the Indian, looking ahead, stopped
dead. So did the team of Huskies.
[Illustration: Tied down in a storm]
A few hundred yards away we saw a lone dog, standing erect, keeping
guard beside what looked like a mound covered with snow. The nearer we
approached, the plainer we saw what it was. It was a sleigh with its
load lashed on and, on the top, what seemed to us like a human body
stretched out, rigid under its white mantle. The dog traces were hanging
loose. The harness had been chewed and broken. The team, tired of
waiting, had escaped—going back somewhere to an unknown camp. Alone, the
leader had chosen to remain beside the sleigh. He was weak from hunger
but still faithful to his charge. He faced us squarely with his shaggy
coat bristling, swaying slightly on his legs and snarling his deep, wolf
snarl. When we heard it, we knew it was the death song of a dog who was
defending the dead body of his master.
The Indian cautiously lassoed him and tied him up. He made a good fight
for it but the snow was too deep and his strength was far gone. We
gently brushed away the snow from the top of the sleigh and looked at
the man. He was lying on his back, a smile on his white face, his light
blue eyes staring far away into the sky. A stranger, a prospector from
somewhere south, lost in the wilderness and at the end of his rations.
Caught in the blizzard, too weak to pitch camp, frozen to death while
his dogs wandered in the blinding storm.