When the fire was burning freely, Marks discovered, upon looking into it, a painful sensation in his eyeballs. The glare of the snow had affected them. Before he finished eating, the pain had developed considerably, and he determined to remain where he was until sunset, when he would proceed to Aaron Slade's cabin, some five miles farther. Here he could spend the night, and could borrow a pair of goggles, he was sure, from Aaron. If he kept his eyes closed in the meantime, he had no doubt they would be much improved when evening came.
Snapping his long whip over the dogs, he compelled them to lie down. The big gray dog was slow to obey, and Marks laid the lash upon him two or three times to enforce authority.
The dogs quieted, he dropped the whip in the snow at the rear of the komatik, and within reach, and breaking some boughs arranged them to form a comfortable couch near the fire. He then unlashed his sleeping bag from the top of the load on his komatik, spread it upon the boughs and crawled into it.
Marks fell asleep. When he awoke it was nearing sunset, and time to drive on to Aaron Slade's. But he could only open his eyes to a narrow slit, and that for a moment, when they would close. The pain was excruciating. Marks was snowblind.
It was near feeding time, and the dogs were on their feet and restless. If he could get them started, perhaps they would carry him unguided to Slade's. At any rate, he determined to try, for he could not remain where he was.
With much fumbling and groping he succeeded fairly well in securing his load. He felt for his whip, and found it on the snow at the rear of the komatik, where he had dropped it after compelling the dogs to lie down.
The restless dogs had swung around in their traces, and were facing him. Through some mysterious instinct they appeared to have sensed the fact that there was something wrong with Marks. When he ordered them forward, and snapped the whip over them in an effort to straighten them out in the direction in which he wished to go, they replied with snarls, and refused to obey. Their open defiance of his authority sent Marks into a rage. He tried to lash them, but in his blinded condition his aim was poor and his efforts ineffectual.
His anger rose to white heat. If he could not lash them, he could at least beat them into submission, at close quarters, with the clubbed handle of the whip. With a volley of curses, he flew at them blindly, beating right and left, and bringing whines of pain from the unfortunate dogs that he chanced to strike.
Still they did not move into position. In painful peeps that he had through narrow eye slits he saw the big gray dog facing him and snarling at him with a show of its ugly fangs. That dog was the instigator of the trouble he was having! He hated the creature! He would beat it into submission!
The gray dog was in the center of the pack, and to reach it Marks was compelled to step over the traces of some of the other dogs. One of them, in fear of the whip handle, sprang away as Marks approached, and in the movement wrapped its trace around the man's foot. Marks stooped to disentangle his foot, and as he did the dog swung in another direction in an effort to escape.