Our Dogs in Summer Time 275 



were not strong enough. They seemed to 

 consider the whole thing a big joke. They 

 were full of fun, and when started in the 

 furrow considered that it was their duty to 

 get across that field as quickly as possible. 



Woe to the man between the handles of 

 the plough if, when the dogs were strain- 

 ing at their work, he let the point come out 

 of the ground and thus lost his grip on the 

 land. In an instant the dogs were off, and 

 he was indeed a clever ploughman if he was 

 quick and skillful enough to get that plough 

 point in the ground again before the active 

 dogs had jerked him and the plough to the 

 end of the furrow. 



I had a great deal of amusement in try- 

 ing to make ploughmen out of some of the 

 big Indians. Great stalwart hunters that 

 would face a big bear without flinching, 

 with only their knife as a weapon, simply 

 quailed before, or rather behind, that 

 plough. Active and alert as they generally 

 were, its control with eight lively dogs as 

 the motive power was something more than 

 they had been accustomed to, and at first 

 was a puzzle to them. 



They soon, however, mastered it, but it 

 was noticed that new hands at first insisted 



