ne, your chance of avoiding
them is rather slight. However, our youth and want of experience is in
our favour, as they like to send men who have seen some service to
outposts. But I fear that, with such brilliant characters as you and I,
Hammy, youth will only be an additional recommendation, and inexperience
won't last long.--Hollo! what's going on yonder?"

Harry pointed as he spoke to an open spot in the woods about a quarter
of a mile in advance, where a dark object was seen lying on the snow,
writhing about, now coiling into a lump, and anon extending itself like
a huge snake in agony.

As the two friends looked, a prolonged howl floated towards them.

"Something wrong with the dogs, I declare!" cried Harry.

"No doubt of it," replied his friend, hurrying forward, as they saw
their Indian guide rise from the ground and flourish his whip
energetically, while the howls rapidly increased.

A few minutes brought them to the scene of action, where they found the
dogs engaged in a fight among themselves, and the driver, in a state of
vehement passion, alternately belabouring and trying to separate them.
Dogs in these regions, like the dogs of all other regions, we suppose,
are very much addicted to fighting--a propensity which becomes extremely
unpleasant if indulged while the animals are in harness, as they then
become peculiarly savage, probably from their being unable, like an
ill-assorted pair in wedlock, to cut or break the ties that bind them.
Moreover, they twist the traces into such an ingeniously complicated
mass that it renders disentanglement almost impossible, even after
exhaustion has reduced them to obedience. Besides this, they are so
absorbed in worrying each other that for the time they are utterly
regardless of their driver's lash or voice. This naturally makes the
driver angry, and sometimes irascible men practise shameful cruelties on
the poor dogs. When the two friends came up they found the Indian
glaring at the animals, as they fought and writhed in the snow, with
every lineament of his swarthy face distorted with passion, and panting
from his late exertions. Suddenly he threw himself on the dogs again,
and lashed them furiously with the whip. Finding that this had no
effect, he twined the lash round his hand, and struck them violently
over their heads and snouts with the handle; then falling down on his
knees, he caught the most savage of the animals by the throat, and
seizing its nose