When I got to my feet, Koa was stooping over Bool. She seemed frightened at what she had done, although I knew well enough that the man had mistreated her constantly, and that she could bear him no great love. She waved us away, still with that same stolid grimness. "Ask her if the dog is locked up, Azeela," I said. The woman nodded at me vehemently, and I gripped Azeela's hand and we hurried out. It was just sunset. The sky was like blood; the snowy ground was all tinted with it. We ran west, so fast that Azeela could hardly keep on her feet. I suppose we went a mile or two, then slowed up and walked a little, then went back to a run. There was nothing but that unbroken expanse of snow, with the drop that was the river ahead of us. At last I could make out the break in the plateau surface that marked the gully. We were running, and were no more than fifty feet from it, when from behind us we heard the loud baying of the dog--that eager baying of a dog following a trail and closing in on its quarry. I went cold all over. I knew what had happened. Bool had recovered, and, in spite of his daughter, had let the dog loose upon us! I caught a glimpse of Azeela's white, frightened face as I gripped her hand and jerked her forward. It was faster than carrying her. She stumbled, almost fell headlong, but I pulled her up and onward. We came upon the gully. For one agonized instant I wondered if the plane would still be there. The dog seemed almost upon us. I could hear its eager whine as it came leaping along. Then I saw the plane--snow-covered, but undisturbed. We flung ourselves down the gully side, sliding, falling to its bottom. The deep snow there broke our fall. The dog was at the top; I saw its huge head and bared fangs as it dashed along, selecting a place to descend. I jumped to the cabin platform of the plane and shoved open the door. Then I stooped, grasping Azeela under the armpits and lifting her. The dog came sliding into the gully, and gathering itself up, it leaped. But we were inside, and I slid the door closed just as the brute's great body struck the cabin with an impact that rocked the plane. The dog fell, but was up again with a snarl, standing on its hind legs, its huge paws scratching at the cabin wall. I had flung Azeela to the floor of the compartment. She shouted at me reassuringly, and I jumped to the Frazia controls. A moment later the 'copters were raising us out of the gully. The dog's baffled yelps grew fainter. As we rose into the air I saw Bool, a quarter of the way from the house, stumbling along through the snow, following the trail. I went up a thousand feet, dropped a little, and began horizontal flight. To the south, perhaps a mile away, Toroh's sled, with its two dogs, was swinging up toward the house. He saw the plane, and, as we swept over him at an altitude of some five hundred feet, he turned and followed us.