re me, glimmering all around in those eyes of his. And
then it was too late. I got scared. I was trembly all over, and my
stomach generated a nervous palpitation that made me seasick. I just sat
down and looked at the dog, and he looked at me, till I thought I was
going crazy. Do you want to know what I did? I threw down the gun and
ran back to camp with the fear of God in my heart. Steve laughed at me.
But I notice that Steve led Spot into the woods, a week later, for the
same purpose, and that Steve came back alone, and a little later Spot
drifted back, too.

At any rate, Spot wouldn't work. We paid a hundred and ten dollars for
him from the bottom of our sack, and he wouldn't work. He wouldn't even
tighten the traces. Steve spoke to him the first time we put him in
harness, and he sort of shivered, that was all. Not an ounce on the
traces. He just stood still and wobbled, like so much jelly. Steve
touched him with the whip. He yelped, but not an ounce. Steve touched
him again, a bit harder, and he howled--the regular long wolf howl. Then
Steve got mad and gave him half a dozen, and I came on the run from the
tent.

I told Steve he was brutal with the animal, and we had some words--the
first we'd ever had. He threw the whip down in the snow and walked away
mad. I picked it up and went to it. That Spot trembled and wobbled and
cowered before ever I swung the lash, and with the first bite of it he
howled like a lost soul. Next he lay down in the snow. I started the
rest of the dogs, and they dragged him along while I threw the whip into
him. He rolled over on his back and bumped along, his four legs waving
in the air, himself howling as though he was going through a sausage
machine. Steve came back and laughed at me, and I apologized for what
I'd said.

There was no getting any work out of that Spot; and to make up for it, he
was the biggest pig-glutton of a dog I ever saw. On top of that, he was
the cleverest thief. There was no circumventing him. Many a breakfast
we went without our bacon because Spot had been there first. And it was
because of him that we nearly starved to death up the Stewart. He
figured out the way to break into our meat-cache, and what he didn't eat,
the rest of the team did. But he was impartial. He stole from
everybody. He was a restless dog, always very busy snooping around or
going somewhere. And there was never a camp within five miles that he
didn't raid.