“Having a good match, Major?” enquired the Kid pleasantly, as he glanced at the desperate battle for life Captain Joe was putting up against a gaunt, husky wolf dog that towered way above him. Both dogs were fighting desperately and silently as became their breed, the husky darting in and out, snapping viciously, and Captain Joe whirling to meet the attack on his short, stumpy legs with surprising quickness, always trying to reach the enemy’s throat.
“Yes, it’s some match,” agreed the other, cautiously. “A good many thousands of dollars of gold dust changed hands on the first match alone.”
“You don’t mean you’ve been fighting that bull dog against more than one husky?” the Kid cried in amazement.
“He’s killed two, this is the third one,” said the Major: “By jove! there goes the third.” Captain Joe had found his goal at last. The husky, eager to kill, had bent too low and Captain Joe’s teeth were buried in his throat in a death-like grip, which, rear and plunge as he might, the husky could not shake off. In a few moments it was all over and the dead husky was dragged away by his ravenous comrades, while Captain Joe painfully limped over to Case and Clay, his sides heaving and his white body bleeding from countless wounds. Clay picked him up and wiped his poor punctured body. “He’s fought like a hero without a whine,” Case said with dim eyes. “I tried to stop the first fight when it started, but a dozen of the crowd grabbed me and tied me up. All I’ve been able to do is to sit here and see them make him fight one husky after another. He’s got four more to fight before they’ll let him go. He can’t finish those four. He is getting too weak. I doubt if he can go through another round, he has lost so much blood.” The voice of the referee interrupted: “Captain Joe still alive and on his feet. Next match, Captain Joe against Birch Bark.”
At the other end of the log the Yukon Kid was talking sweetly and cooly to the man in authority.
CHAPTER IX
THE VISITORS
“Do you think it quite fair to make one little brute fight seven big huskies, worked until they are as hard as iron, Major?”
“He’s got to do it or die,” said the Major. The Kid, however, seemed to have lost all interest in the dog fight. “Remember that murder up on the Stewart when some one did up Old Joe and made off with the whole of the gold dust that the old man had cleared up? Remember it, Major?”
“I don’t exactly remember it,” said the Major, uneasily.