"Because he is," was the reply. "Mere assertion," Walt said sharply. In his slow and pondering way, Skiff Miller looked at him, then asked, with a nod of his head toward Madge: "How d'you know she's your wife? You just say, 'Because she is,' and I'll say it's mere assertion. The dog's mine. I bred 'm an' raised 'm, an' I guess I ought to know. Look here. I'll prove it to you." Skiff Miller turned to the dog. "Brown!" His voice rang out sharply, and at the sound the dog's ears flattened down as to a caress. "Gee!" The dog made a swinging turn to the right. "Now mush-on!" And the dog ceased his swing abruptly and started straight ahead, halting obediently at command. "I can do it with whistles," Skiff Miller said proudly. "He was my lead dog." "But you are not going to take him away with you?" Madge asked tremulously. The man nodded. "Back into that awful Klondike world of suffering?" He nodded and added: "Oh, it ain't so bad as all that. Look at me. Pretty healthy specimen, ain't I?" "But the dogs! The terrible hardship, the heart-breaking toil, the starvation, the frost! Oh, I've read about it and I know." "I nearly ate him once, over on Little Fish River," Miller volunteered grimly. "If I hadn't got a moose that day was all that saved 'm." "I'd have died first!" Madge cried. "Things is different down here," Miller explained. "You don't have to eat dogs. You think different just about the time you're all in. You've never ben all in, so you don't know anything about it." "That's the very point," she argued warmly. "Dogs are not eaten in California. Why not leave him here? He is happy. He'll never want for food--you know that. He'll never suffer from cold and hardship. Here all is softness and gentleness. Neither the human nor nature is savage. He will never know a whip-lash again. And as for the weather--why, it never snows here." "But it's all-fired hot in summer, beggin' your pardon," Skiff Miller laughed. "But you do not answer," Madge continued passionately. "What have you to offer him in that northland life?" "Grub, when I've got it, and that's most of the time," came the answer. "And the rest of the time?" "No grub." "And the work?" "Yes, plenty of work," Miller blurted out impatiently. "Work without end, an' famine, an' frost, an all the rest of the miseries--that's what he'll get when he comes with me. But he likes it. He is used to it. He knows that life. He was born to it an' brought up to it. An' you don't know anything about it. You don't know what you're talking about. That's where the dog belongs, and that's where he'll be happiest." "The dog doesn't go," Walt announced in a determined voice. "So there is no need of further discussion." "What's that?" Skiff Miller demanded, his brows lowering and an obstinate flush of blood reddening his forehead.