His hunters had killed four fat caribou.

In the clearing there were great piles of dry logs, and in the center of all there rose eight ten-foot tree-butts crotched at the top; and from crotch to crotch there rested a stout sapling stripped of bark, and on each sapling was spitted the carcass of a caribou, to be roasted whole by the heat of the fire beneath.

The fires were lighted at dusk, and Williams himself started the first of those wild songs of the Northland--the song of the caribou, as the flames leaped up into the dark night.
"Oh, ze cariboo-oo-oo, ze cariboo-oo-oo, He roas' on high, Jes' under ze sky.
air-holes beeg white cariboo-oo-oo!" "Now!" he yelled.

"Now--all together!" And carried away by his enthusiasm, the forest people awakened from their silence of months, and the song burst forth in a savage frenzy that reached to the skies.
* * * * * Two miles to the south and west that first thunder of human voice reached the ears of Kazan and Gray Wolf and the masterless huskies.

And with the voices of men they heard now the excited howlings of dogs.