hat has not
been tied down the night before is a job. You take a piece of meat,
frozen as stiff as a piece of sheet-iron, in one hand, and the harness
in the other, you single out the cur you are after, make proper
advances, and when he comes sniffling and snuffling and all the time
keeping at a safe distance, you drop the sheet-iron on the snow, the
brute makes a dive, and you make a flop, you grab the nearest thing
grabable--ear, leg, or bunch of hair--and do your best to catch his
throat, after which, everything is easy. Slip the harness over the head,
push the fore-paws through, and there you are, one dog hooked up and
harnessed. After licking the bites and sucking the blood, you tie said
dog to a rock and start for the next one. It is only a question of time
before you have your team. When you have them, leave them alone; they
must now decide who is fit to be the king of the team, and so they
fight, they fight and fight; and once they have decided, the king is
king. A growl from him, or only a look, is enough, all obey, except the
females, and the females have their way, for, true to type, the males
never harm the females, and it is always the females who start the
trouble.

The dogs when not hitched to the sledges were kept together in teams and
tied up, both at the ship and while we were hunting. They were not
allowed to roam at large, for past experience with these customers had
taught us that nothing in the way of food was safe from the attack of
Esquimo dogs. I have seen tin boxes that had been chewed open by dogs in
order to get at the contents, tin cans of condensed milk being gnawed
like a bone, and skin clothing being chewed up like so much gravy. Dog
fights were hourly occurrences, and we lost a great many by the ravages
of the mysterious Arctic disease, piblokto, which affects all dog life
and frequently human life. Indeed, it looked for a time as if we should
lose the whole pack, so rapidly did they die, but constant care and
attention permitted us to save most of them, and the fittest survived.

Next to the Esquimos, the dogs are the most interesting subjects in the
Arctic regions, and I could tell lots of tales to prove their
intelligence and sagacity. These animals, more wolf than dog, have
associated themselves with the human beings of this country as have
their kin in more congenial places of the earth. Wide head, sharp nose,
and pointed ears, thick wiry hair, and, in some of the males, a heavy
m