“With whip and gun-stock I threw myself upon the mad brutes, who presently, as if satisfied with their dreadful revenge, followed me back in submission to their places.
“As for the second scoundrel, he had taken swift warning, and vanished.
“The dogs themselves seemed cowed by what they had done; and for my own part, I was filled with horror.
“But no such weak sentimentality found the slightest favor with Mike. Rebuking me for having beaten them, he lavished praise and endearments upon the dogs.
“He reminded me, moreover, that they had saved the lives of both of us, or had, at the very least, saved myself from the necessity of taking blood upon my hands.
“Realizing this, I made hasty amends to the poor, shivering brutes, comforting them with a liberal feast of dried dogfish.
“My present feeling toward them, as I look back upon the episode, is one of unmitigated gratitude.
“The rest of our journey was accomplished without more than ordinary trouble.
“A good deal of my spare energy I wasted in the effort to overturn Mike’s faith, which stands still unshaken in the supernatural character of the Dogs of the Drift.
“With such terrible testimony in his favor I could hardly have expected much success for my arguments; for, as he concluded triumphantly, ‘if the spectral team came down that channel, as it plainly did, then the scoundrel lying in wait for us must have seen it, as well as we—and did not he meet his doom before nightfall?’”