North of 53, during the winter, I have seen sleighs drawn by horses,
mules, dogs of every breed and description and even men.
But once I saw the strangest outfit of all. We were sitting beside a
fire on the bank of a river only a few miles from the railway line when
we heard a yell and a strange noise which appeared to be a combination
of a bellow and a howl.
We got up and, to our astonishment, we saw, racing up the river on the
ice in a smother of snow, a small sleigh drawn by a large yellow dog and
a very small red bull. The dog was in the lead, tied to the sleigh by at
least twelve yards of rope. The bull, harnessed to the sleigh by two
leather traces, with his head down and his tail in the air was charging
full tilt at the dog who was scampering down the trail as fast as he
could lay his four paws on the snow.
On the sleigh was a load of pressed hay and, on the top of it, clung a
fat man with a bushy beard and a very white face. Before we could say a
word, man, bull and dog vanished round a bend of the river.
[Illustration: A strange team]
Later on we found out that the man was a Russian squatter, living three
hundred miles north of the line, who wanted to try to raise cattle on
the Churchill River. The bull was the first animal of the prospective
herd.
As it was impossible for him to freight any cattle by canoe in summer,
he had hit on the idea of taking the little bull up there in winter, on
foot. The hay on the sleigh was to feed the poor animal on the trip.
The most remarkable part of this story is that, eventually, man, bull
and dog reached their destination safely.
Throughout the first day, the bull made wild rushes at the dog who took
great care to keep a distance between himself and his enemy. But after
covering twenty miles or so, the little bull gave it up as a bad job and
settled down. Very soon he became friendly with his new harness
companion; both animals finally drawing the sleigh slowly and peacefully
to the end of their journey.