Understanding the command, they would at once wheel about and, without
a driver, return on the full gallop to get their master. When coming
upon him they would rush around and bark at him, showing all the while
the greatest glee over the trick they had played him. He never used a
whip upon them. No snowshoer could be found who was swift enough to
break a trail for those dogs and no horse ever overtook them. Once,
while going from Oak Point to Winnipeg, Factor Clark's train ran down
six wolves, allowing him to shoot the brutes as he rode in his
carriole. Another time they overhauled and threw a wolf which Mr.
Clark afterward stunned, and then bound its jaws together. When the
brute came to, it found itself harnessed in the train in place of one
of the dogs, and thus Chief Factor Clark drove a wild timber-wolf into
the city of Winnipeg."

"They must have been wonderful dogs," remarked Father Jois, "but it's
too bad they don't breed such dogs nowadays."

"That's so," returned the Chief Factor. "Twenty or thirty years ago at
each of the big posts--the district depots--they used to keep from
forty to fifty dogs, and at the outposts, from twenty to thirty were
always on hand. At each of the district depots a man was engaged as
keeper of the dogs and it was his duty to attend to their breeding,
training, and feeding."

"Speaking of feeding, what do you consider the best food for dogs?" I
asked.

"By all means pemmican," replied the Chief Factor, "and give each dog a
pound a day. The next best rations for dogs come in the following
order: two pounds of dried fish, four pounds of fresh deer meat, two
rabbits or two ptarmigan, one pound of flour or meal mixed with two
ounces of tallow. That reminds me of the way the old half-breed
dog-drivers used to do. In such districts as Pelly and Swan River,
where fish and other food for dogs was scarce, we had frequently to
feed both men and dogs on rations of flour. Some of the half-breeds
would leave their ration of flour with their family, and count on
eating the dog's ration while on the trip and letting the poor brutes
go hungry, just because the dogs belonged to the Company. So we put a
stop to that by mixing coal oil with the dog's rations and having them
bated into cakes before the trip was begun. Such a mixture made the
men sick when they tried to eat it, but the dogs didn't seem to mind it
at all."

"Then kerosene is not included in the regular rations the Comp