io6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



them the fullest use of all our energies and all the intelligence, 

 be it more or less, that was possessed by man or beast — I had the 

 privilege of seeing in my dogs actions that were, at least to me, 

 convincing that they possessed the rudiments of reasoning powers, 

 and, in the more intelligent, that which will be utterly inexplicable 

 if it is not the product of reasoning faculties. 



For a number of years I was a resident missionary in the Hud- 

 son Bay Territories, where, in the prosecution of my work, I kept 

 a large number of dogs of various breeds. With these dogs I trav- 

 eled several thousands of miles every winter over an area larger 

 than the State of JSTew York. In summer I used them to plow 

 my garden and fields. They dragged home our fish from the dis- 

 tant fisheries, and the wood from the forests for our numerous 

 fires. They cuddled around me on the edges of my heavy fur 

 robes in wintry camps, where we often slept out in a hole dug in 

 the snow, the temperature ranging from 30° to 60° below zero. 

 AVhen blizzard storms raged so terribly that even the most expe- 

 rienced Indian guides were bewildered, and knew not north from 

 south or east from w'est, our sole reliance was on our dogs, and 

 with an intelligence and an endurance that ever won our admira- 

 tion they succeeded in bringing us to our desired destination. 



It is conceded at the outset that these dogs of whom I write 

 were the result of careful selection. There are dogs and dogs, as 

 there are men and men. They were not picked up in the street 

 at random. I would no more keep in my personal service a mere 

 average mongrel dog than I would the second time hire for one 

 of my long trips a sulky Indian. As there are some people, good 

 in many ways, who can not master a foreign tongue, so there are 

 many dogs that never rise above the one gift of animal instinct. 

 With such I too have struggled, and long and patiently labored, 

 and if of them only I were writing I would unhesitatingly say that 

 of them I never saw any act which ever seemed to show reasoning 

 powers. But there are other dogs than these, and of them I here 

 would write and give my reason why I firmly believe that in a 

 marked degree some of them possessed the powers of reasoning. 



Two of my favorite dogs I called Jack and Cuffy. Jack was 

 a great black St. Bernard, weighing nearly tw^o hundred pounds. 

 Cuffy was a pure Newfoundland, with very black curly hair. 

 These two dogs were the gift of the late Senator Sanford. With 

 other fine dogs of the same breeds, they soon supplanted the 

 l^skimo and mongrels that had been previously used for years 

 about the place. 



I had so much work to do in my very extensive field that I re- 

 quired to have at least four trains always fit for service. This 



