The sledge-dogs had been freed from their traces, and before he could
reach the man, whom he saw with his rifle held like a club in his hands,
Kazan was met by the fighting mass of them. He fought like a fiend, and
there was the strength and the fierceness of two mates in the mad
gnashing of Gray Wolf's fangs. Two of the wolves rushed in, and Kazan
heard the terrific, back-breaking thud of the rifle. To him it was the
_club_. He wanted to reach it. He wanted to reach the man who held it,
and he freed himself from the fighting mass of the dogs and sprang to
the sledge. For the first time he saw that there was something human on
the sledge, and in an instant he was upon it. He buried his jaws deep.
They sank in something soft and hairy, and he opened them for another
lunge. And then he heard the voice! It was _her voice_! Every muscle in
his body stood still. He became suddenly like flesh turned to lifeless
stone.

_Her voice_! The bear rug was thrown back and what had been hidden under
it he saw clearly now in the light of the moon and the stars. In him
instinct worked more swiftly than human brain could have given birth to
reason. It was not _she_. But the voice was the same, and the white
girlish face so close to his own blood-reddened eyes held in it that
same mystery that he had learned to love. And he saw now that which she
was clutching to her breast, and there came from it a strange thrilling
cry--and he knew that here on the sledge he had found not enmity and
death, but that from which he had been driven away in the other world
beyond the ridge.

In a flash he turned. He snapped at Gray Wolf's flank, and she dropped
away with a startled yelp. It had all happened in a moment, but the man
was almost down. Kazan leaped under his clubbed rifle and drove into the
face of what was left of the pack. His fangs cut like knives. If he had