Long Tom Ham was glad to have the care of Skipper Zeb's dogs during the
summer. There was always enough food from the sea for them during the
fishing season, and a supply of seal meat from the spring sealing to
feed them in the fall, after the fishing season was ended. And to
compensate him for caring for the dogs, he had them to haul his winter's
wood in from the forest, before returning them to Skipper Zeb, which he
always did after the bay was frozen and his fall hauling was finished.
In summer, with no work to do, and as much to eat as ever they wished,
the dogs were sleek and fat and lazy, and quite harmless. But with the
close of the fishing season they were given but one meal a day, and that
in the evening, and only enough to keep them strong and in good
condition, for fat dogs will not work well.
With frosty weather and less food they roused from their lethargy. Then
it was that they became savage, snapping creatures, with no more
affection for man than has the wild wolf, which was their ancestor. Long
Tom Ham declared that Skipper Zeb's dogs were the most "oncivil team of
dogs he ever knew."
Toby and Charley, a week after the big storm, were returning home at
midday after a morning in the forest setting marten traps, when, just as
they came around the corner of the cabin, and the bay below them came
into view, Toby exclaimed:
"There's Skipper Tom comin' with the dogs and komatik!"[6]
For the first time in his life Charley saw dogs in harness. They were
still a half mile away, the animals spread out in fan-shaped formation,
and trotting leisurely. As they approached nearer the cabin they broke
into a run, as though eager to reach their destination, and with short
yelps swung off of the ice and came charging up to the cabin where
Charley and Toby were awaiting them.
Skipper Tom Ham, his beard encrusted with ice, disembarked from the
komatik, and Charley thought him the tallest man he had ever seen.
"'Ere I ham, and 'ow are you hall?" greeted Skipper Tom through his ice
mask, as he extended a hand to Toby and then to Charley.
"We're all well," said Toby. "Were you gettin' your wood all hauled?"
"Aye, hall my wood is 'auled, and I'm most thankful I 'ad the dogs to
'aul un, and most thankful to be rid of un. So Hi'm twice thankful,"
said Skipper Tom following Toby and Charley into the house to join them
at dinner, picking the ice from his beard as he talked.
"Them's the most honcivil dogs I knows," remarked Skipper Tom, as he
ate. "Hi comes 'ome from my traps last hevenin' and I sees Martha
sittin' hup on the scaffold where I keeps the dog meat, and the dogs
hall haround lookin' at 'er. When she sees me she yells the dogs be
hafter 'er, and I says to 'er that they thinks she his goin' to feed
'em, and she says she thinks they his goin' to heat 'er. Hi tells 'er to
come down, and she comes, and when we gets hinto the 'ouse she says,
'Tom, you take them dogs right hover to Skipper Zeb's,' and so Hi brings
the honcivil beasts hover."
Tom chuckled at the recollection of his wife's fear and her appearance
on the scaffold the evening before. When he was through he said he must
return at once, or Martha would think the dogs had eaten him. Toby
suggested taking Skipper Tom home with dogs and komatik, but Skipper Tom
declined on the ground that it was just a wee bit of a walk, and he
would rather walk and look for partridges along shore as he went. The
ten mile walk to Lucky Bight was no hardship to Skipper Tom.
The coming of the dogs was an exciting incident to Charley. They were
big, handsome creatures, though with a fierce, evil look, and a sneaking
manner that made Charley feel uncomfortable when they were loosed from
harness, and had liberty to prowl about at will.
"'Tis a wonderful team," Toby declared proudly. "They comes from
Nuth'ard dogs, though we raises they all from pups. Some of un has wild
wolves for fathers. Tinker there is one, and so are Rocks and Sampson.
They comes from the same litter. That un over there is Nancy. I names
she from a schooner that calls at Pinch-In Tickle every spring. That un
next she, with the end of his tail gone, is Traps. Whilst he were a pup
he gets the end of his tail in a trap, and loses the end of un. I
remember his howlin' yet! Nancy and Traps be brother and sister. Tucker
and Skipper and Molly are the names of the others. We gets un from the
Post when they's just weaned and are wee pups. They tells us they has
wild wolf fathers too, but I'm not knowin'."
"That man that brought them told me, when I went to pat one of them on
the head, that they were bad, and not to touch them," said Charley.
"You can't trust un," admitted Toby. "I knows un all, and I plays with
un when they's pups, but if I were trippin' and fallin' down among un
now, I'm not doubtin' they's tear me abroad."
"After you raised them from pups, and always had them, and feed them and
everything?" asked Charley, horrified at the suggestion.
"Aye, they has no care for man, and whilst they'll mind me a wonderful
sight better than they'd be mindin' a stranger to un, they'd be tearin'
me abroad if they has the chance just like a band o' wolves," warned
Toby.
"They don't look so terrible, though they do look sneaky, as you told
me the other day they are," said Charley.
"Aye, sneaky, and as I tells you, 'tis never safe to go abroad among un
unless you has a stick in your hand, and if they comes close strike at
un. They're wonderful afraid of a stick. When they gets used to you,
just kick at un, and 'twill keep un off, and then you won't be needin' a
stick."
"I'll look out for them," Charley promised.
"Tinker's the leader in harness," said Toby. "He were always quick to
learn, and I trains he whilst he were a pup when I plays with he before
he's big enough to drive with the other dogs. Sampson's the boss, and
out of harness he has his will of un. He's a bad fighter."
"He's an ugly looking brute," observed Charley.
"With the dogs about you'll be wantin' to learn to use the whip,"
suggested Toby. "They fears un worse than a stick. 'Tis fine sport to
learn to crack un, and you'll soon learn to do that, whatever."
Toby brought forth the dog whip. It was a cruel looking instrument, with
a lash of braided walrus hide, thirty-five feet in length, and a heavy
wooden handle about eighteen inches long. Toby was quite expert in its
use. He could snap it with a report like a pistol shot, and at
twenty-five or thirty feet distance he could, with the tip of the whip,
strike a chip that was no bigger than a half dollar. When he had given
an exhibition of his skill, he passed the whip to Charley.
"Now you try to snap un," said he.
It was great fun learning to handle the long whip, and though in his
first awkward attempts Charley sometimes wound the lash around his own
neck, where it left a red, smarting ring, with much practice he learned,
in the course of two or three days, to snap it fairly well and without
danger to himself.
During the days that followed Toby and Charley used the dogs and sledge,
or komatik, as Toby called it, to haul wood that Toby had cut in the
near-by forest. During this time Charley was gradually becoming familiar
with the dogs, and sometimes Toby would permit him to guide the komatik,
though he himself was always present to exact obedience from the team.
The wood hauling was done in the afternoon, while the mornings were
devoted to a visit to the rabbit snares and several marten traps, which
Toby had set in the woods, and to the two fox traps on the marsh. Five
fine martens had been caught, but no fox had been lured into either
trap, when Toby suggested one morning, three weeks after the arrival of
the dogs, that they drive the team on the coast ice to a point opposite
the marsh, and by a short cut through the forest drive out upon the
marsh.
"I'm thinkin' if we moves the fox traps from the mesh to the barrens
we'd be gettin' a fox there," said he. "'Twould be a long walk out to
the barrens to tend un, but if we takes the dogs and komatik we'd have
good travelin' for un everywhere exceptin' through the short neck of
woods."
"Let's do!" Charley agreed enthusiastically. "It'll be a lot quicker,
and it will give us a fine trip with the dogs every day when we go to
look at the traps."
And so it was arranged, and so it came to pass that on that very day
Charley met with his first adventure with the dogs, and a most unusual
one it was, as Toby declared.
While it was nearly twice as far to the marsh by this roundabout route,
the bay ice was in excellent condition for the dogs, and they traveled
so briskly that they arrived at the point where they were to turn into
the woods much too soon for Charley. Here in the deep snow it was
necessary for them to tramp a trail for the dogs with their snowshoes,
but the distance was short to the marsh, and once there the dogs again
had a good hard bottom to walk upon.
Toby took up the two fox traps, and drove the team to the edge of the
barrens, where the dogs were brought to a stop, and under the threat of
the whip compelled to lie down.
"'Tis rocky and bad travelin' in here, and if we takes the komatik we'll
have to help the dogs pull un some places," said Toby. "The wind sends
the snow abroad from the rocks, and plenty of places they're bare. I'm
thinkin' now if you stays with the dogs and komatik, I'll go and set the
traps. I'll be back in half an hour, whatever."
"All right," agreed Charley. "I'll stay with them."
"If they tries to get up, take the whip and make un lie down," Toby
directed. "Keep un lyin' down."
Toby strode away upon his snowshoes, and quickly disappeared over a low
knoll. For the first time Charley was alone with the dogs, and he felt
some pride in the fact that they were under his direction.
Suddenly Sampson became restless, and he and Tinker rose to their feet.
Charley snapped the whip over them, and reluctantly they lay down.
But it was only for a moment. All of the dogs had their noses in the
air, and before Charley could quiet them they were all on their feet
restlessly sniffing the air. Charley swung the whip, and shouted at them
to lie down, but they were beyond his control, and would not lie down,
but jumped and strained at their traces, giving out short whines and
howls. He struck at Sampson with the butt end of the whip, and Sampson
snapped at him with ugly fangs, and would have sprung upon him had the
dog's trace not held him in leash.
Then the komatik broke loose. Charley threw himself upon it, still
clinging to the whip, as the dogs, at a mad gallop, turned across a neck
of the marsh and toward a low hill that rose at the edge of the barrens
and a quarter of a mile to the westward.
The komatik bounced from side to side with every hummock of ice it
struck, and several times was in imminent danger of overturning.
Charley shouted "Ah! Ah!" at the top of his voice in vain effort to stop
the mad beasts, and then "Ouk! Ouk! Ouk!" and "Rahder! Rahder! Rahder!"
in the hope that they would swing to the right or to the left and return
to the starting point.
But on they went, howling more excitedly and going faster and faster
until, suddenly, at the farther side of the neck of marsh and at the
very edge of the barrens, the komatik struck a rock and with the impact
the bridle, a line of walrus hide which connected the dogs' traces to
the komatik, snapped. The yelping, howling dogs, freed from the komatik,
ran wildly and eagerly on, and soon passed over the lower slopes of the
hill and out of sight.
Charley, dazed at what had happened, watched the dogs disappear. Then,
in sudden realization that they had escaped from him and were gone, he
ran after them calling them excitedly but vainly.
He had not run far when all at once he saw them swing down over the brow
of the hill toward the komatik, and he turned about and ran to the
komatik to intercept them with the whip, which he was still dragging.
The dogs were before him, a snarling, fighting mass. He was sure they
would tear each other to pieces. He was about to lay the whip upon them
when to his amazement he discovered that there were many more than eight
dogs fighting, and that the strangers were even more ferocious creatures
than those of the team, and wore no harness.
He brought down his whip upon the savage mass. Immediately one of the
strange animals turned upon him, showing its gleaming white fangs, and
with short, snapping yelps was about to spring at him, when Sampson,
taking advantage of the animal's diverted attention, snapped his fangs
into its neck.
Then it was that the truth dawned upon Charley. The strange beasts were
not dogs, but a pack of the terrible northern wolves of which he had
heard. It was plain, too, that the dogs were no match for them, and then
the thought came to him that he had no firearms and no means of
protecting himself against them.