Kazan whimpered and his bushy
tail swept the snow as Jan lifted his great wolfish head between his
two hands. No other sound came from Jan's lips now, and slowly he drew
the dog up to him until he held him in his arms as he might have held
a child, Kazan stilled the whimpering sounds in his throat. His one
eye rested on his master's face, faithful, watching for some sign--for
some language there, even as the burning fires of a strange torture
gnawed at his life, and in that eye Jan saw the deepening reddish film
which he had seen a hundred times before in the eyes of foxes and
wolves killed by poison bait.
A moan of anguish burst from Jan's lips and he held his face close
down against Kazan's head, and sobbed now like a child, while Kazan
rubbed his hot muzzle against his cheek and his muscles hardened in a
last desire to give battle to whatever was giving his master grief. It
was a long time before Jan lifted his face from the shaggy head, and
when he did he knew that the last of all love, of all companionship,
of all that bound him to flesh and blood in his lonely world, was
gone. Kazan was dead.
From the sledge he took a blanket and wrapped Kazan in it, and carried
him a hundred yards back from the trail. With bowed head he came
behind his four dogs into God's House.
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