he
native winter settlements, the half-buried ighloo, or the rude log-hut,
where, for a little tea, tobacco, or sugar, you could get as much fish
as you could carry, these welcome, if malodorous, places seemed, since
they lost the trail, to have vanished off the face of the earth. No
question of the men sharing the dogs' fish, but of the dogs sharing the
men's bacon and meal. That night the meagre supper was more meagre
still that the "horses" might have something, too. The next afternoon
it stopped snowing and cleared, intensely cold, and that was the
evening the Boy nearly cried for joy when, lifting up his eyes, he saw,
a good way off, perched on the river bank, the huts and high caches of
an Indian village etched black against a wintry sunset--a fine picture
in any eye, but meaning more than beauty to the driver of hungry dogs.

"Fish, Nig!" called out the Boy to his Leader. "You hear me, you Nig?
_Fish_, old fellow! Now, look at that, Colonel! you tell me that Indian
dog doesn't understand English. I tell you what: we had a mean time
with these dogs just at first, but that was only because we didn't
understand one another."

The Colonel preserved a reticent air.

"You'll come to my way of thinking yet. The Indian dog--he's a daisy."

"Glad you think so." The Colonel, with some display of temper, had
given up trying to drive the team only half an hour before, and was
still rather sore about it.

"When you get to _understand_ him," persisted the Boy, "he's the most
marvellous little horse ever hitched in harness. He pulls, pulls, pulls
all day long in any kind o' weather--"

"Yes, pulls you off your legs or pulls you the way you don't want to
go."

"Oh, that's when you rile him! He's just like any other American
gentleman: he's got his feelin's. Ain't you got feelin's, Nig? Huh!
rather. I tell you what, Colonel, many a time when I'm pretty well beat
and ready to snap at anybody, I've looked at Nig peggin' away like a
little man, on a rotten trail, with a blizzard in his eyes, and it's
just made me sick after that to hear myself grumblin'. Yes, sir, the
Indian dog is an example to any white man on the trail." The Boy seemed
not to relinquish the hope of stirring the tired Colonel to enthusiasm.
"Don't you like the way, after the worst sort of day, when you stop, he
just drops down in the snow and rolls about a little to rest his
muscles, and then lies there as patient as anything till you are ready
to unharne