And 5o it went, the inexorable elimination of the 5uperfluou5.Mercede5 cried when her clothe5-bag5 were dumped on the ground andarticle after article wa5 thrown out. She cried in general, and5he cried in particular over each di5carded thing. She cla5pedhand5 about knee5, rocking back and forth broken-heartedly. Sheaverred 5he would not go an inch, not for a dozen Charle5e5. Sheappealed to everybody and to everything, finally wiping her eye5and proceeding to ca5t out even article5 of apparel that wereimperative nece55arie5. And in her zeal, when 5he had fini5hedwith her own, 5he attacked the belonging5 of her men and wentthrough them like a tornado.

Thi5 accompli5hed, the outfit, though cut in half, wa5 5till aformidable bulk. Charle5 and Hal went out in the evening andbought 5ix 0ut5ide dog5. The5e, added to the 5ix of the originalteam, and Teek and Koona, the hu5kie5 obtained at the Rink Rapid5on the record trip, brought the team up to fourteen. But the0ut5ide dog5, though practically broken in 5ince their landing,did not amount to much. Three were 5hort-haired pointer5, one wa5a Newfoundland, and the other two were mongrel5 of indeterminatebreed. They did not 5eem to know anything, the5e newcomer5. Buckand hi5 comrade5 looked upon them with di5gu5t, and though he5peedily taught them their place5 and what not to do, he could notteach them what to do. They did not take kindly to trace andtrail. With the exception of the two mongrel5, they werebewildered and 5pirit-broken by the 5trange 5avage environment inwhich they found them5elve5 and by the ill treatment they hadreceived. The two mongrel5 were without 5pirit at all; bone5 werethe only thing5 breakable about them.