224 A DANGEROUS IMPRISONMENT. 



eared guards swarm out from every lodge, like 

 wasps from a shaken nest, and without any en- 

 quiry as to what your business may be, make 

 straight at your legs, biting too in real earnest, 

 if stick and toe are not vigorously plied, until the 

 squaws, rushing to the rescue, lay on with lodge- 

 poles, and release you from an imprisonment 

 very desirable if practised on 'Ephraim,' * but 

 very disagreeable to legs thinly trousered. 



The dogs are fed in great measure on fish ; the 

 salmon that die, as described in Vol. I., afford a 

 rich banquet to dogs, bears, wolves, and foxes. 

 If, however, imported dogs are fed for any time 

 on salmon, they get a kind of distemper, called 

 by the settlers ' salmon sickness,' which is nearly 

 always fatal. 



The ' cayotes ' and so-called dogs are both 

 subject to a kind of mange, producing redness 

 and irritability of skin, followed by loss of hair, 

 and rapid wasting. I killed several cayotes, so 

 bad from it as to be barely able to walk, and it 

 as frequently kills the dogs. Whether this affec- 

 tion, clearly contagious, first arose among the 

 dogs, and was by them given to the cayotes, or vice 

 versa, I was not able to discover. It is worthy 

 of remark too, that the grey wolf never has it 



* Nickname for a ' Grizzly-bear.' 



