[Illustration: "Squigg slunk into the star-lit night."]
Late the men of Ten Bow talked about the little stove. At last, when they arose to go, Big McDougall stepped close to Connie's side.
"Laddie," he said, "wad ye do a favour f'r an auld mon--jest the ain time?"
"What!" exclaimed the boy, and his eyes shone, "do a favour for _you_! For the man that lent me the best dog-team in all Alaska! Why, if it hadn't been for your dogs, Mac, I could never have found Waseche. Just name it, and you'll see!"
"Weel spoken, lad! Spoken like a mon!" The Scot's eyes twinkled. "An' I'll hold ye to yer word. The favour is this: that ye'll accept the ten-team o' _malamutes_ that's carried ye so far acrost unmapped miles, as a present fr' an auld mon whose heart thinks more o' ye than his rough auld tongue c'n tell." The boy stared speechless at the big, smiling man. And when, at length, he found his voice, the words choked in his throat:
"But--you said--it was a favour, Mac--I----"
"Wheest, laddie, an' a favour it is. For McDougall's growin' auld f'r the trails. Theer's gude years ahead o' yon dogs, but I've na mind to gi' 'em the wark they need to keep 'em in fettle. An' dogs is oncommon like men--'gin they loaf aboot the streets o' town a spell they get lazy an' no 'count. But, wi' yersel' to put 'em ower the trail noo an' again, they'll be a team o' pleasure an' profit to ye. F'r they're braw dogs altogether an' t'would be shamefu' they should dwindle to the common herd o' scavage dogs."
And so, Connie, gracefully as he could in his confusion, granted McDougall's favour. But in doing so the small boy could not foresee--nor could any man in the cabin foresee--the chain of adventures into which the possession of the ten-team would lead him. For, had he not owned the ten-team, he would not have happened, just at the right moment, upon Big Dan McKeever, sergeant of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, at a time when the sergeant, with white, set face, battled against odds of a thousand to one, while fifty men looked helplessly out across the mile-wide field of heaving, crashing river ice when the spring break-up hit the mighty Yukon. And, if Sergeant McKeever--but all that has no part in this story.