Short Stories
fight back. And he was unconquerable. Yelping shrilly from the
pain of lash and club, he none the less contrived always to throw
in the defiant snarl, the bitter vindictive menace of his soul
which fetched without fail more blows and beatings. But his was
his mother's tenacious grip on life. Nothing could kill him. He
flourished under misfortune, grew fat with famine, and out of
his terrible struggle for life developed a preternatural intelli-
gence. His were the stealth and cunning of the husky, his moth-
er, and the fierceness and valour of the wolf, his father.
Possibly it was because of his father that he never wailed. His
puppy yelps passed with his lanky legs, so that he became grim
and taciturn, quick to strike, slow to warn. He answered curse
with snarl, and blow with snap, grinning the while his implaca-
ble hatred; but never again, under the extremest agony, did
Leclere bring from him the cry of fear nor of pain. This uncon-
querableness but fanned Leclere's wrath and stirred him to
greater deviltries.
Did Leclere give Batard half a fish and to his mates whole
ones, Batard went forth to rob other dogs of their fish. Also he
robbed caches and expressed himself in a thousand rogueries,
till he became a terror to all dogs and masters of dogs. Did
Leclere beat Batard and fondle Babette—Babette who was not
half the worker he was—why, Batard threw her down in the
snow and broke her hind leg in his heavy jaws, so that Leclere
was forced to shoot her. Likewise, in bloody battles, Batard mas-
tered all his team-mates, set them the law of trail and forage, and
made them live to the law he set.
In five years he heard but one kind word, received but one
soft stroke of a hand, and then he did not know what manner of
things they were. He leaped like the untamed thing he was, and
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