After that, there were no more adventures for the day. At night, they camped as before, and again Dusty Star dreamed of the great hunting that swept between the stars.
It was in the afternoon of the nineteenth day's travel that they came at last within sight of the camp. When Dusty Star saw the great number of tepees crowded together, his eyes grew big with amazement. He had not thought there could have been so many lodges in all the world. To him it was a huge prairie city, whose houses were built of buffalo, with doors of buckskin at which no one ever knocked.
If Dusty Star's eyes were filled with wonder at the sight of so many tepees, Kiopo's nose was tickled with amazement at the quantity of smells. Every bush, every stone, every clump of grass he came to, told him of a dog. It might have been expected that fresh scents would greet him in a land of many trails. But so much smell (in, other words, so much dog) at once, was overpowering, and disturbed his peace of mind.
Nothing could have been quieter or more orderly than the manner in which the travellers approached the camp. It is true that Kiopo was a little in advance, and that his hair was bristling uneasily between his shoulders, but that was only to be expected with so much smell in the air. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, a large hairy body sprang with a snarl from a clump of bunch-grass, and rushed savagely upon him. Now for all his dog training with his Indian friends, Kiopo was, in the mind of him, as well as in the muscle, a genuine wolf. So, when the husky rushed, Kiopo leaped aside, as the wolves leap. Before his enemy charged again, the long wolf fangs glittered; there was a lighting plunge of the whole body, and down the husky's haunch went a long clean rip. The husky turned in fury, and his teeth shut like a trap. They closed—but not on the little wolf. They clashed on an inch of clear atmosphere which lay to the west of Kiopo's hairy neck. And in almost the same moment, the husky got a second slash.
But alas for Kiopo! Wolf-like though his tactics were, he was not yet old or powerful enough to fight with more than one foe at once. His enemy's attack was a signal to all the huskies on that side of the camp. The moment before, hardly another husky was to be seen. Now they seemed to spring from every tepee and clump of grass. At least a dozen bore down on the combatants in a yelping, snarling pack. In an instant, and before Dusty Star could do anything to save him, Kiopo had disappeared from sight under a mass of writhing bodies, legs, and tails. Dusty Star was desperate, and cried wildly to his father and mother to save his little wolf. Fortunately it was not the first time that Running Wolf and Nikana had had to disperse a mob of Indian dogs. With loud yells and violent kicks they charged the rolling heap. Several Indians, hearing the commotion, came running to their aid. Dusty Star himself was foremost in the attack, yelling, kicking, pulling, pounding with all his might, utterly regardless as to whether he might be bitten or not. Wild with fury against the huskies, and his deadly fear lest Kiopo should be killed, he hurled himself on the pack like a little demon.
Mercifully for Kiopo, the very number of his enemies saved him from serious harm, for he was so completely covered by them that only a few could reach him with their teeth, and many of the bites that should have been for him fell to the share of a husky; so that, while half the pack appeared to be worrying Kiopo, they were in reality falling foul of each other to his decided advantage. Kiopo, on the other hand, never ceased for an instant to use his powerful teeth. No need for him to watch for a chance to bite. He had simply to work his jaws like a piece of perfect machinery. He fought with all the desperation of an animal caught in a trap. What roused him to fury was not so much the combined attack, as the being pinned down by numbers so that he was powerless to escape. Every muscle in his strong young body was contracted to the utmost. Not even a fully-grown wolf could have fought with more determination and pluck.
At last the huskies, beaten and kicked on all sides lost heart and were driven off. What was left on the ground was an extremely mauled and tumbled specimen of what less than five minutes before had been a very trim little wolf.
Instantly Dusty Star was on his knees beside his pet. Kiopo was bleeding in various places, and panting hard. Dusty Star put his arms round him, and besought him not to die. To die, however, was one of the last things Kiopo intended to do. Exhausted he might be, and wanting to get his breath, but his body was sound and his spirit unbroken. In the eyes that looked up gratefully into those of his big brother, there shone a clear, unconquerable light. Very soon he was able to get up and shake himself. Then, keeping a wary eye on all sides, he walked forward with his party, and so entered the camp.
Although his reappearance alive, when, according to all husky calculations, he ought to have been dead, was the occasion for many growls, and a threatening show of teeth, his enemies did not venture to attack him again. Unwelcome though he was, it was plain that he had come among them under the protection of powerful friends. An unprotected stranger would have indeed led "a dog's life," and sooner or later, died a dog's death, unpitied to the last. But into their hard husky intelligence, this fact had embedded itself like a stone: What the lord-humans protect, it is dangerous to attack.