or this
is jollier than trudging along all day on snowshoes."

With a laugh he threw himself on his dog-sled, and then with a cheer he
was first off on the trail of the guide. Quickly the rest followed, and
the journey was resumed.

When the journey was ended, and in after days as various incidents of
this eventful trip were being discussed, the boys were loth to have to
believe that it was running a big risk to allow sleigh dogs to attack
wolves.

"What about bears?" said Sam.

"There is not one quarter the risk run by dogs in attacking bears, that
there is when they venture to assail wolves," said Mr Ross. "These big
wolves of the North are generally in a half-starved condition. When
attacked they seem to know that it is for their very life they are
fighting, and so they use their long, sharp teeth and powerful jaws with
the greatest ferocity imaginable. Bears, on the contrary, fight in an
entirely different way. When they are assailed by dogs they very
seldom, if ever, fasten on them with their teeth as do the more vicious
wolves. Their one great effort in the conflict is to seize hold of the
dogs. If they can once get them in the grip of their long, strong,
muscular forearms--well, one hug is all the most powerful dog requires
to use him up for that day. Fortunate is he if he is not killed by the
fearful squeezing he has received. Dogs seem, by some sort of instinct,
to very quickly find out where their danger is, and so, unless they are
young and inexperienced, they will fight shy of getting within the reach
of those strong forearms that can give such an unlovely hug."

"How do the clever, experienced dogs attack bears?" asked Alec.

"I am in hopes," said Mr Ross, "that before many more months you will
be able to see for yourselves, but as there is much uncertainty about
all these things, I will try and describe a battle we had not a mile
away from Sagasta-weekee a couple of years ago. We had brought some
young pigs out from the Selkirk country, and had them well housed in a
warm pen, around which was erected a high, strong stockade. We knew
that bears were fond of pork, and were also aware of the fact that they
were good climbers, but with all our experience of them we never
imagined that they would attempt to scale that high stockade and try to
steal our pigs. But they did, and with a certain measure of success.
Without alarming the dogs, or even any of the several Indians about the
place, they