Those that died were chiefly the south-bred curs--mixtures of mastiff, Great Dane, and sheep-dog--and the fatally slow Mackenzie hounds.

About the post rose the smoke of a hundred camp-fires, and about these fires gathered the women and the children of the hunters.

When the snow was no longer fit for sledging, Williams, the factor, noted that there were many who had not come, and the accounts of these he later scratched out of his ledgers knowing that they were victims of the plague.
At last came the night of the Big Carnival, For weeks and months women and children and men had been looking forward to this.

In scores of forest cabins, in smoke-blackened tepees, and even in the frozen homes of the little Eskimos, anticipation of this wild night of pleasure had given an added zest to life.

It was the Big Circus--the good time given twice each year by the company to its people.
This year, to offset the memory of plague and death, the factor had put forth unusual exertions.