He flung his snowshoes into a corner, stamped the snow off his feet, and got himself a fresh plug of black tobacco from a shelf over the stove.

Then he went out again, leaving the woman with a cold tremble in her heart and the wan desolation of hopelessness in her face as she set about getting him food.
From the cabin Le Beau went to his dog-pit, a corral of saplings with a shelter-shack in the centre of it.

It was The Brute's boast that he had the fiercest pack of sledge-dogs between Hudson Bay and the Athabasca.
It was his chief quarrel with Durant, his rival farther north; and his ambition was to breed a pup that would kill the fighting husky which Durant brought down to the Post with him each winter at New Year.

This season he had chosen Netah ("The Killer") for the big fight at God's Lake.

On the day he would gamble his money and his reputation against Durant's, his dog would be just one month under two years of age.