message carry? Would he respond?

After a moment had elapsed, with the gleam of eyes coming ever closer, he repeated his message. Again he pressed the receivers to his ears.

“He won’t hear,” he muttered half in despair. “Have to make a dash for it. Meat might save us—might satisfy them. But they’re mad with the smell of fresh food. They’re—”

A voice boomed in his ear. It was Curlie.

“Coming,” he roared. “Hold fast.”

“Ah!” Joe breathed as he snatched the receiver from his head and clutched at his rifle, “that’s better!”

Even as he said it, a flash from his electric torch caught a huge fellow, the leader of the pack, all but upon them. Like the other, he doubled up and leaped away, but this only made the boy understand that his position was still perilous. Curlie had not told him how far he was away.

“Must be at least five miles,” he groaned. “Take him a half hour. Major, old boy, do you think we can hold them?” The answer from the dog was a low, rumbling growl.

There was a deal of comfort to be obtained from that growl. Heretofore Joe had thought of these sled-dogs as mere beasts of burden; thought of them as he might have thought of horses or mules on the flat, sleepy, safe prairies of the Mississippi valley. Now he found himself regarding them as friends, as fellow warriors engaged in a common business, the business of protecting their lives against the onrush of the enemy.

“Some dogs you are,” he murmured gratefully. “You not only pull a fellow’s load for him, but in time of danger you turn in and fight for him.”

He knew that if he came out of this combat alive he would always cherish a feeling of loyal friendship for these five companions in combat.

It was a tense moment. They were in a tight place. A chill raced up his spine and his knees trembled as he caught the gleam of new pairs of eyes burning holes into the darkness. Others had heard the blood-curdling war song and had come to join in the battle.

The flash of the torch held the beasts at bay for a time, but at last it only maddened them as they pressed closer in.

Joe was in despair. Should he loose the dogs? He scarcely dared. They would rush out at those burning eyes and be destroyed. Then he would be alone. And yet, if worse came to worst, if the enemy rushed in, there would not be time to loose them, and chained as they were, the dogs would fight at a disadvantage.

In the meantime, Curlie Carson was bounding over the trail. Now he had covered a mile, now two, now three. There were three miles more. Panting, perspiring, staggering forward, now tripping over a snow-covered bush, and now falling over a log, he struggled on.

“He—he can’t make it!” Joe all but sobbed as he counted the moments! “Ah, here they come!”

There was time only to loose the chain of Major before three gray streaks leaped at them.

Major met one and downed him. Ginger, the hound leader, chained as he was, grappled with a second. The third leaped at the boy’s throat. Just in time he threw up the rifle barrel. Gripped in both his hands, it stopped the beast. Kicking out with his right foot, he sent him sprawling. The next instant the rifle cracked. One shot gone, but an enemy accounted for.

A fourth wolf sprang upon the gentle, inoffensive Sport and bore him to the snow.

Leaping upon the sled, Joe stood ready to sell his life as dearly as he might. Catching the ki-yi of Pete, the huskie, he reached over and unsnapped his chain, to see him leap at the throat of the nearest enemy. “They’re coming, coming!” Joe sang out.

All fear had left him now. He was in the midst of a battle. That they would win that battle he did not dream. Curlie could never reach them in time. But, like Custer’s men, they would die game.

Sport was down. Major was strangling the life from a clawing wolf. Ginger was engaged in an unfinished battle. Two wolves leaped at the sled, one from either side. The rifle cracked. A wolf leaped high and fell. The second sprang. He was instantly met and borne to the snow by Bones, the second “wheel-horse.”

But now they came in a drove, five, six, seven, gaunt gray beasts with chop-chopping jaws.

With deliberate aim the boy dropped the foremost, then the second. Then, calmly clubbing his rifle, he waited.

The foremost wolf was not two yards from the sled, when Joe was startled to hear a rifle crack and see the wolf leap high in air. He was astonished. Curlie could not possibly have reached his objective in this time. Who was this man, his deliverer? Leaning far forward, he tried to peer into the darkness, as the rifle cracked again and yet again.

CHAPTER VII
REVENGE FOR A LOST COMRADE

For a second, as he stood there on the sled, with the big Arctic moon rising above the forest, with the crack of the strange rifle, the roar of dogs and the howl of wolves dinning in his ears, Joe fancied himself acting a part in the movies. It was too strange to seem real.

This lasted but a second; then, realizing that the battle was more than half won but that some of his dogs might be in danger, he sprang from the sled. The next instant with the butt of his rifle he crushed the skull of a wolf whose fangs were tearing at the throat of a dog. The wolf, crumpling over, lay quivering in death.

As he bent over the prostrate dog he saw that it was Sport.

Frightened, bewildered, disheartened by the crack-crack of the newcomer’s rifle, the remnant of the wolf-pack took to its heels. Soon save for the growl and whine of dogs, silence reigned in meadow and forest.

The man with the rifle stepped forward. To Joe’s surprise he saw that it was Jennings.

“Why! It’s you!” he exclaimed.

“Who did you think it might be?” laughed the miner.

“Why, it might have been most anyone. Might even have been the man Curlie’s looking for, the outlaw of the air. I thought you were with Curlie. Curlie’s coming—must be most of the way here.”

“Then,” said Jennings quickly, “I’d better go back and meet him, then he and I will go back and bring the other sleds. Here,” he handed Joe two clips of cartridges, “guess they’ll not come back. Never can tell though. You’ll be safe with these.” He turned and walked quickly away.

Left with his dogs and his outfit, Joe made a thorough examination of things. Three of his dogs, Ginger, the leader, Major, the sled guard, and Bones, his team-mate, were sitting on their haunches or curled up licking their wounds.

“Sport’s done in,” he murmured with a queer catch in his throat. “Dogs get to be a fellow’s pals up here. Pete’s missing. Rushed out after the retreating enemy to avenge his team-mate, I guess. Only hope he doesn’t get the worst of it.”

Five dead wolves lay near the sled. These he dragged into a pile. “Enough pelts there for a splendid rug,” he told himself. “I’ll get some Indian woman to tan them.”

Then, realizing that it would be some time before his companions would return, and having nothing else to do, he began skinning the carcasses. He had nearly completed the task when, from the edge of the forest, there came a long-drawn howl.

“What, again?” he exclaimed seizing his rifle. “All right, come on. I’m ready for you this time.”

A pair of fiery balls shone out of the shadowy edge of the forest.

Lifting his rifle