176 My Dogs in the Northland 



rate preparations for his night's lodgings. 

 Shortly after he was unharnessed and the 

 location of the camp decided upon, Rover 

 would deliberately make a tour round the 

 whole place. He would carefully inspect the 

 different hollows and dense balsam trees 

 that were near at hand. Then he would, if 

 there was to us seemingly little or no wind, 

 get up on some snow-covered rock or fallen 

 tree and there sniff until he had exactly 

 found the direction from which the air was 

 coming. In this I never knew him to be at 

 fault. So calm at times was the air that the 

 smoke and sparks from our camp fire as- 

 cended so perpendicularly that apparently 

 there was not the slightest movement in the 

 atmosphere. Yet Rover selected his camp- 

 ing place on the lee side so accurately that 

 when, as it often happened some hours after, 

 the wind rose, it never caught him sleeping 

 in an exposed place. How he was able to 

 thus be prepared against being caught ex- 

 posed to a biting wind, was among the mys- 

 teries of animal instinct. 



When the cosy sheltered spot was after 

 much deliberation thus decided upon, Rover 

 set to work to make it habitable according 

 to his ability. First he carefully pawed 



