In the morning it was Henry who awoke first and routed his companion out of bed.Daylight was yet three hours away, though it was already six o'clock; and in the darkness Henry went about preparing breakfast, while Bill rolled the blankets and made the sled ready for lashing.
"Say, Henry," he asked suddenly, "how many dogs did you say we had?""Six."
"Wrong," Bill proclaimed triumphantly.
"Seven again?" Henry queried.
"No, five; one's gone."
"The hell!" Henry cried in wrath, leaving the cooking to come and count the dogs.
"You're right, Bill," he concluded."Fatty's gone.""An' he went like greased lightnin' once he got started.Couldn't 've seen 'm for smoke.""No chance at all," Henry concluded."They jes' swallowed 'm alive.
I bet he was yelpin' as he went down their throats, damn 'em!""He always was a fool dog," said Bill.
"But no fool dog ought to be fool enough to go off an' commit suicide that way." He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative eye that summed up instantly the salient traits of each animal."I bet none of the others would do it.""Couldn't drive 'em away from the fire with a club," Bill agreed."Ialways did think there was somethin' wrong with Fatty, anyway."And this was the epitaph of a dead dog on the Northland trail -- less scant than the epitaph of many another dog, of many a man.