And while
she clapped on the harness, he, with his axe, held the passage between
the trees, till a shaggy flood of white teeth and glistening eyes surged
and crested just beyond reach. Sipsu worked rapidly. When she had
finished, he leaped forward, seized and stunned a second, and flung it to
her. This he repeated thrice again, and when the sled team stood
snarling in a string of ten, he called, "Enough!"
But at this instant a young buck, the forerunner of the tribe, and swift
of limb, wading through the dogs and cuffing right and left, attempted
the passage. The butt of Hitchcock's rifle drove him to his knees,
whence he toppled over sideways. The witch doctor, running lustily, saw
the blow fall.
Hitchcock called to Sipsu to pull out. At her shrill "Chook!" the
maddened brutes shot straight ahead, and the sled, bounding mightily,
just missed unseating her. The powers were evidently angry with the
witch doctor, for at this moment they plunged him upon the trail. The
lead-dog fouled his snowshoes and tripped him up, and the nine succeeding
dogs trod him under foot and the sled bumped over him.
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