nely stretches?

There is a kind of person who is steeped too much in valor. He will cross a
field although there is a dog inside the fence. Goodness knows that I would
rather keep to the highroad with such humility as shall not rouse the
creature. Or he will shout and whistle tunes that stir the dogs for miles.
He slashes his stick against the weeds as though in challenge. One might
think that he went about on unfeeling stalks instead of legs as children
walk on stilts, or that a former accident had clipped him off above the
knees and that he was now jointed out of wood to a point beyond the biting
limit. Or perhaps the clothes he wears beneath--the inner mesh and very
balbriggan of his attire--is of so hard a texture that it turns a tooth. Be
these defenses as they may, note with what bravado he mounts the wall! One
leg dangles as though it were baited and were angling for a bite.

There is a French village near Quebec whose population is chiefly dogs.
It lies along the river in a single street, not many miles from the point
where Wolfe climbed to the Plains of Abraham. There are a hundred houses
flat against the roadway and on the steps of each there sits a dog. As I
went through on foot, each of these dogs picked me up, examined me nasally
and passed me on, not generously as though I had stood the test, but rather
in deep suspicion that I was a queer fellow, not to be penetrated at first,
but one who would surely be found out and gobbled before coming to the
end of the street. As long as I would eventually furnish forth the common
banquet, it mattered not which dog took the first nip. Inasmuch as I would
at last be garnished for the general tooth, it would be better to wait
until all were gathered around the platter. "Good neighbor dog," each
seemed to say, "you too sniff upon the rogue! If he be honest, my old nose
is much at fault." Meantime I padded lightly through the village, at first
calling on the dogs by English names, but later using such wisps as I had
of French. "Aucassin, mon pauvre chien. Voici, Tintagiles, alors donc mon
cherie. Je suis votre ami," but with little effect.

But the dogs that one meets in the Canadian woods are of the fiercest
breed. They border on the wolf. They are called huskies and they are so
strong and so fleet of foot that they pull sleds for hours across the
frozen lakes at almost the speed of a running horse. It must be confessed
that they are handsome and if it happens to be yo