THE QUEEN OF THE KENNEL. 121 



than any one of his male subjects. In return for this 

 devotion he allows her to do pretty much as she 

 pleases. She may steal the bone out of his mouth, 

 and he gives it up to her with a sentimental grimace 

 that is quite instructive. But it happens sometimes 

 that he is himself hungry, and he trots after her, and 

 when he thinks that she has got her share he growls 

 significantly ; whereupon she drops the bone without 

 even a murmur. If the old fellow happens to be par- 

 ticularly cross when a reindeer is thrown to the pack, 

 he gets upon it with his forefeet, begins to gnaw 

 away at the flank, growling a wolfish growl all the 

 while, and no dog dare come near until he has had 

 his fill except Queen Arkadik, (for by that name is 

 she known,) nor can she approach except in one direc- 

 tion. She must come alongside of him, and crawl 

 between his fore-legs and eat lovingly from the spot 

 where he is eating. 



So much for my dogs. I shall doubtless have more 

 to say about them hereafter, but there is only a small 

 scrap of the evening left, and I must go back to 

 "My Brother John's Glacier." 



Halting our teams near the glacier front, we pro- 

 ceeded to prepare ourselves for ascending to its sur- 

 face. Its face, looking down the valley, exhibits a 

 somewhat convex lateral line, and is about a mile in 

 extent, and a hundred feet high. It presents the 

 same fractured surfaces of the iceberg, the same lines 

 of vertical decay caused by the waters trickling from 

 it in the summer, — the same occasional horizontal 

 lines, which, though not well marked, seemed to con- 

 form to the curve of the valley in which the glacier 

 rests. The slope backward from this mural face is 

 quite abrupt for several hundred feet, after which the 



