skiff. And who could lie so still as Pichou when
the game was approaching? Or who could spring so quickly and joyously to
retrieve a wounded bird? But best of all were the long walks on Sunday
afternoons, on the yellow beach that stretched away toward the Moisie,
or through the fir-forest behind the Pointe des Chasseurs. Then master
and dog had fellowship together in silence. To the dumb companion it was
like walking with his God in the garden in the cool of the day.

When winter came, and snow fell, and waters froze, Pichou's serious
duties began. The long, slim COMETIQUE, with its curving prow, and its
runners of whalebone, was put in order. The harness of caribou-hide
was repaired and strengthened. The dogs, even the most vicious of them,
rejoiced at the prospect of doing the one thing that they could do best.
Each one strained at his trace as if he would drag the sledge alone.
Then the long tandem was straightened out, Dan Scott took his place
on the low seat, cracked his whip, shouted "POUITTE! POUITTE!" and the
equipage darted along the snowy track like a fifty-foot arrow.

Pichou was in the lead, and he showed his metal from the start. No need
of the terrible FOUET to lash him forward or to guide his course. A
word was enough. "Hoc! Hoc! Hoc!" and he swung to the right, avoiding an
air-hole. "Re-re! Re-re!" and he veered to the left, dodging a heap of
broken ice. Past the mouth of the Ste. Marguerite, twelve miles;
past Les Jambons, twelve miles more; past the River of Rocks and La
Pentecote, fifteen miles more; into the little hamlet of Dead Men's
Point, behind the Isle of the Wise Virgin, whither the amateur doctor
had been summoned by telegraph to attend a patient with a broken
arm--forty-three miles for the first day's run! Not bad. Then the dogs
got their food for the day, one dried fish apiece; and at noon the next
day, reckless of bleeding feet, they flew back over the same track, and
broke their fast at Seven Islands before eight o'clock. The ration was
the same, a single fish; always the same, except when it was varied by
a cube of ancient, evil-smelling, potent whale's flesh, which a dog can
swallow at a single gulp. Yet the dogs of the North Shore are never
so full of vigour, courage, and joy of life as when the sledges are
running. It is in summer, when food is plenty and work slack, that they
sicken and die.

Pichou's leadership of his team became famous. Under his discipline
the other dogs develo