of the club was the greater, and he held back, hour after hour, until
now it was silent again in the tent, and he could no longer see their
shadows, and the fire was dying down.

Cautiously he crept out from the thick gloom, working his way on his
belly toward the packed sledge, and what remained of the burned logs.
Beyond that sledge, hidden in the darkness of the trees, was the body of
the man he had killed, covered with a blanket. Thorpe, his master, had
dragged it there.

He lay down, with his nose to the warm coals and his eyes leveled
between his forepaws, straight at the closed tent-flap. He meant to
keep awake, to watch, to be ready to slink off into the forest at the
first movement there. But a warmth was rising from out of the gray ash
of the fire-bed, and his eyes closed. Twice--three times--he fought
himself back into watchfulness; but the last time his eyes came only
half open, and closed heavily again.

And now, in his sleep, he whined softly, and the splendid muscles of his
legs and shoulders twitched, and sudden shuddering ripples ran along his
tawny spine. Thorpe, who was in the tent, if he had seen him, would have
known that he was dreaming. And Thorpe's wife, whose golden head lay
close against his breast, and who shuddered and trembled now and then
even as Kazan was doing, would have known what he was dreaming about.

In his sleep he was leaping again at the end of his chain. His jaws
snapped like castanets of steel,--and the sound awakened him, and he
sprang to his feet, his spine as stiff as a brush, and his snarling
fangs bared like ivory knives. He had awakened just in time. There was
movement in the tent. His master was awake, and if he did not escape--