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.