of a stick."

"I'll carry a stick, but I'll make friends with them too. I like dogs."

"They's not like other dogs," warned Toby. "Maybe you won't be likin'
they so much after you sees un."

"I can hardly wait till the dogs come! I've read so much about Eskimo
dogs, but I never saw them pulling a sledge, and I know it's going to be
great sport traveling with them."

"Soon as Tom brings un we'll start haulin' the wood. I'll have to be
workin' wonderful hard cuttin' more, so we'll have un hauled before too
late. The wood gets so deep under, that 'tis hard to dig un out o' the
snow."

"I could look after the snares and fox traps," suggested Charley, "and
you could cut wood. I can set up some more snares, too."

"Aye, now, you could look after un, whilst I cuts more wood. You knows
from the tracks we makes where the traps are set, and you can find un.
I'll be cuttin' no more wood after the next snow comes. 'Twill be
gettin' too deep by then, and I'll not be havin' long to cut un."

"All right," and Charley was quite delighted with the prospect of
responsibility, and the fact that Toby would trust him to go alone.
"I'll start in to-morrow morning. May I carry your shotgun when I go?"

"Aye, carry un. You may be pickin' up some pa'tridges."

In accordance with this arrangement, Charley visited the rabbit snares
and the fox traps alone the next morning, and returned quite elated with
his experience, bringing with him three rabbits that he had found in
snares and four spruce grouse that he had shot. It was dinner time when
he appeared, and he reported to Toby, who had just reached the cabin
after a morning chopping wood, that there was nothing in the fox traps,
and that he had set up three new snares.

"That's fine, now," Toby praised. "I were knowin' you could 'tend the
snares and traps alone. You can do un as well as I can."

"Thank you," said Charley, much elated at Toby's praise. "It was great
fun."

For two more days Charley proudly followed the trail alone, and then
came a morning with a heavily overcast sky, and a keen northeast wind
blowing in from the bay. Toby predicted that it would snow before
midday, and as Charley slipped his feet into his snowshoe slings, and
shouldered Toby's gun preparatory to setting out to make the morning
round of the traps and snares alone, Toby warned:

"If snow starts, 'twill be best to turn about and come home as soon as
you sees un start. If she comes she'll cover the foo