blankets, shivering mightily.  "I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!"

"Dog of the worldly mind!" Charger replied bitterly, "do you believe in me or not?!"

"I do I do," Steele groveled miserably.  "I must.  But why are you here, and why have you come to me?"

"It is required of every dog," the ghost responded, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow dogs, and among men, and travel far and wide.  And if that spirit does not do so in life, it is doomed to do so after death.  Condemned to wander through the world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared in life, and turned to happiness!"

Charger dropped down to the floor and buried his face in his spectral forelegs as the chain line rattled forward and hung over his shoulders.  He let out another terrifying cry, this of anguish and agony.

Steele observed Charger's misery with consternation, and then looked back behind the ghost at the bonds which shackled him.  He glanced again at Charger.  "How did you end up chained to that mess?  What brought this on you?"

Charger straightened up and again looked out past Steele, resuming his blank-eyed but still pained expression. "I drag the chain I forged in life", he replied forlornly.  "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I strapped myself to it of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."

For a brief moment, Steele actually felt a tinge of pity for his old friend.  "I'm sorry".

Charger turned then and actually met Steele's apprehensive gaze, and, in warning, replied "ah, you don't realize the weight and length of strong chain you bear yourself!  It was full as this, and long as this, seven years ago.  And you have labored on it since."  Charger bowed his head, and shaking it, lamented sadly "oh, it is a ponderous chain!"

Steele absent-mindedly glanced down around behind him expecting, perhaps, to find himself harnessed to some great expanse of heavy iron links of chain.  But there was none such to be seen.  He shook his head and looked up at the ghost. 

"Charger, my old buddy," he implored the ghost, "give me some hope.  Give me hope, Charger!"

"I have none to give," the ghost replied. "Listen to me, Steele!  In life my spirit never walked beyond the limits of our kennel yard, or from our various runs across the countless trail miles in the wilderness.  And now I am doomed to wander without rest or peace," he said sadly.  "Incessant torment of remorse."

Quite to his own surprise, Steele began to sob.  Stumbling over his words in a desire to speak comfort to the ghost, he offered "but it was only that you were a good, strong leader on the trail, Charger.  After all, that was our business!"

Charger's gaze became hard, and struck Steele solidly and unexpectedly as he cried "Business?!?  Mankind was my business!  Our fellow dogs were my business!  The common welfare was my business!  Mercy, charity, patience, and benevolence were all my business!  Being a leader of our team was merely as the settling of a single snowflake on the vast glacier of my business!"

Steele had shrunk again within the folds of the blankets in his bedding, shivering at Charger's harsh words to him.  When he finally peeked out again, he found the ghost staring again blankly out beyond him.

"Hear me", the ghost implored, "my time is nearly gone.  I have come to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.  A chance and hope of my procuring, Steele."

Steele breathed a sigh of relief at his words.  "Thank you, Charger.  You were always a good friend of mine."

"You will be visited by three spirits", Charger replied blankly.  And at those words, Steele's expression dampened.

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Charger?"

The ghost simply stared, offering "it is."

"I think I'll pass on that," Steele replied, shaking his head timidly.

"Without their visits," Charger replied, "you cannot hope to avoid the trail I now tread!"  The ghost paused for a moment, and then continued.  "Expect the first when the clock tolls one."

Charger straightened up again and began to tug on the great mass of chain and objects behind him, struggling towards the window at the end of the hall.  Without turning back to his old partner, he said "Don't expect to see me again, Steele."  As he reached the window, the lower pane suddenly shot upwards, and a cold breeze blew in, tossing the curtains.  "But look here," he beckoned, "so that, for your own sake, you may remember what has passed between us!" 

Steele rose sheepishly and, stumbling momentarily over his bedding, joined Charger at the window.  The ghost nodded down towards the kennel yard, at the dogs shivering in their little wooden houses, trying to get through the night on some degree of sleep.  All around them were phantoms of dogs trying desperately to comfort the living animals.  Most of them were bound in some manner similar to Charger.  Some of them attempted to lay close to them in hopes of sharing the warmth they could have offered in life.  Others dragged spectral blankets and tried to lay them over the shivering dogs.  All to no avail.  Steele became aware of a mournful lamentation...a deeply sorrowful and pitiful howling wail from the many spirits down below and, it seemed, all over all at once.  Charger, after listening at Steele's side for a moment, faded and vanished, and then reappeared below in the yard with the other spirits.  He looked up beckoningly towards the window.

This was all Steele could stand.  Jumping up and pulling the pane shut with his paws (whereupon the wailing of the spirits was shut out, and it became quiet in the hall again), he then turned and rushed to his bedding and buried himself in it, utterly awash in terror.  He remained curled up and shivering in that manner for some time before exhaustion finally came over him, and he fell into an uneasy sleep.
 

CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST SPIRIT

Steele awoke with a start.  It was dark.  Even the shaft of light pouring in from the moonlight earlier was now gone and, in spite of squinting, he could make out nothing more than the routine shapes of doors, molding, the odd piece of furniture, a painting or two hanging on the wall, and nothing else.  Just then, the grandfather clock on the first floor began to chime the top of the hour...all four quarters.  So he listened for the toll of the hour itself.

One, two, three...the chime struck in rhythmic, regular intervals onward, which came as a surprise to Steele, who thought back upon the admonisment by Charger's ghost to "...expect the first when the clock tolls one".  Nevertheless, he listened as the chimes continued, and counted right up to eleven.  And, at last, came, the last chime.

"Twelve!"  Steele mused to himself.  It was past midnight, he pondered, when he finally fell asleep earlier.  "That clock has to be wrong.  Some ice must have gotten into the works.  I can't have slept through a whole day and into another night!" 

He sat there pondering on that for some time, and then laid his head back down and started to nod off.  He was unaware of the passage of time at this point, being rather groggy.  Before he could take stock, however, there came yet another chime of the bells--just a single chime in fact.  In that same instant a brilliant white light filled the hallway.  Steele raised his head in stark surprise and abject fear, and then just as suddenly dropped down, throwing his paws over his head in hopes of somehow going unnoticed.

And yet, a strange euphoria started to overtake him.  Slowly, cautiously, he peeked out from under his paws, and looked out at the hallway.  The brilliant light had faded, and standing before him was the most beautiful white wolf he had ever seen.  It's fur was silky, snowy white, and its eyes golden yellow, bordered all around in black.  It stood tall and proudly and, befitting a wolf, was quite large.  To Steele, it seemed as though this was a female wolf, and he determined in his own mind, without any conscious thought to the fact, that this is how he would perceive it.  He also felt a nagging sense that there was something vaguely familiar about her, though he could not fathom the how or why of it.

"Are you the spirit I was told would be coming?" Steele stammered.

The spirit looked straight at him with a confident but kindly expression.  "I am."

"Who and what are you?" Steele asked in reply, hardly knowing how to address an apparition.

"I am the spirit of the past."

Confused, Steele continued to question the spirit.  "The past?  As in long-ago past?"

"No...", she replied, "...your past."

Steele felt his tension easing, and he grew just a little bold.  "And what do you want with me?"

"I have come concerning your welfare."

With a wry smirk, Steele scoffed at the sentiment.  "My welfare, huh?"

"Your reclamation then."  The spirit then strode slowly past him, stopping at the window at the near end of the hall.  As she did, the window began to open slowly on its