espect for the house at all. When first
I had him he would dig and scratch out of a dog-house on the coldest
night, if he could, and lay himself down comfortably on the snow. Cold
meant little to him. Fifty, sixty, seventy below zero, all night long at
such temperatures he would sleep quite contentedly. The only difference
I could see that these low temperatures made to him was an increasing
dislike to be disturbed. When he had carefully tucked his nose between
his paws and adjusted his tail over all, he had gone to bed, and to make
him take his nose out of its nest and uncurl himself was like throwing
the clothes off a sleeping man. He never dug a hole for himself in the
snow. I never saw a dog do that yet. In my opinion that is one of the
nature-faker's stories. A dog lies in snow just as he lies in sand, with
the same preliminary turn-round-three-times that has been so much
speculated about. We always make a bed for them, when it is very cold,
by cutting and stripping a few spruce boughs, and they highly appreciate
such a couch and will growl and fight if another dog try to take it.
They need more food and particularly they need more fat when they lie
out at extreme low temperatures, and we seek to increase that element in
their rations by adding tallow or bacon or bear's-grease--or seal
oil--or whatever oleaginous substance we can come by.

[Sidenote: CANINE CHARACTER]

He was a most independent dog was Nanook, a thoroughly bad dog, as one
would say in some use of that term--a thief who had no shame in his
thievery but rather gloried in it. If you left anything edible within
his ingenious and comprehensive reach he regarded it as a challenge.
There comes to me a ludicrous incident that concerned a companion of one
winter journey. He had carefully prepared a lunch and had wrapped it
neatly in paper, and he placed it for a moment on the sled while he
turned to put his scarf about him. But in that moment Nanook saw it and
it was gone. Through the snow, over the brush, in and out amongst the
stumps the chase proceeded, until Nanook was finally caught and my
companion recovered most of the paper, for the dog had wolfed the grub
as he ran. He would stand and take any licking you offered and never
utter a sound but give a bark of defiance when you were done, and he
would bear you no ill will in the world and repeat his offence at the
next opportunity. Yet so absurdly sensitive was he in other matters of
his person that th