In that moment, even before the laughter had gone from Bram's face, he thought again of Pelletier.

Pelletier must have been like this--in those terrible days when he scribbled the random thoughts of a half-mad man on his cabin door.
Bram was not yet mad.

And yet he was fighting the thing that had killed Pelletier.Loneliness.The fate forced upon him by the law because he had killed a man.
His face was again heavy and unemotional when with a gesture he made Philip understand that he was to ride on the sledge.

Bram himself went to the head of the pack.

At the sharp clack of his Eskimo the wolves strained in their traces.