Philip had seen a husky snap off a man’s hand at a single lunge; he knew it was a creature of the whip and the club, with the hatred of men inborn in it from the wolf.  What he looked on now filled him with a sort of awe—­and a fear for Josephine.  He gave a warning cry and half drew his pistol when she dropped on her knees and flung her arms about the shaggy head of a huge beast that could have torn the life from her in an instant.  She looked up at him, laughing, the inch-long fangs of Captain, the lead-dog, gleaming in brute happiness close to her soft, flushed face.

“Don’t be afraid, Philip!” she cried.  “They are my pets—­all of them.  This is Captain, who leads my sledge team.  Isn’t he magnificent?”

“Good God!” breathed Philip, looking about him.  “I know something of sledge-dogs, Josephine.  These are not from mongrel breeds.  There are no hounds, no malemutes, none of the soft-footed breeds here.  They are wolf!”

She rose and stood beside him, panting, triumphant, glorious.

“Yes—­they’ve all got the strain of wolf,” she said.  “That is why I love them, Philip.  They are of the forests.  And I have made them love me!”

A yellow beast, with small, dangerous eyes, was leaping fiercely at the end of his chain close to them.  Philip pointed to him.

“And you would trust yourself there?” he exclaimed, catching her by the arm.

“That is Hero,” she said.  “Once his name was Soldier.  Three years ago a man from Thoreau’s Place offered me an insult in the woods, and Soldier almost killed him.  He would have killed him if I had not dragged him off.  From that day I called him Hero.  He is a quarter-strain wolf.”

She went to the husky, and the yellow giant leaped up against her, so that her arms were about him, with his wolfish muzzle reaching for her face.  Under the cedars Philip’s face was as white as the snow out in the open.  Josephine saw this, and came and put her arm through his fondly.

“You are afraid for me, Philip?” she asked, with a little laugh of pleasure at his anxiety.  “You mustn’t be, for you must love them—­ for my sake.  I have brought them all up from puppyhood.  And they would fight for me—­just as you would fight for me, Philip.  Once I was lost in a storm.  Father turned the dogs loose.  And they found me—­miles and miles away.  When you hear the wonderful stories I have to tell about them you will love them.  They will not harm you.  They will harm nothing that I have touched.  I have taught them that.  I am going to unleash them now.  Metoosin is coming along the trail with their frozen fish.”

Before she had moved, Philip went straight up to the yellow creature that she had told him was a quarter wolf.

“Hero,” he spoke softly.  “Hero—­”

He held out his hands.  The giant husky’s eyes burned a deeper glow; for an instant his upper lip drew back, baring his stiletto-like fangs, and the hair along his neck and back stood up like a brush.  Then, inch by inch, his muzzle drew nearer to Philip’s steady hands, and a low whine rose in his throat.  His crest drooped, his ears shot forward a little, and Philip’s hand rested on the wolfish head.