Our Dogs in Summer Time 277 



the trail not a hundred yards in front, he 

 stopped for a minute on a little knoll and 

 saucily yelped out his little defiant barks at 

 the approaching dogs. This was too much 

 for them to stand, and so with a mad rush 

 they were off. Heavy as that timber was, 

 it did not seem so just now to those excited 

 dogs as away they dashed after that saucy 

 fox. Not far, however, did they go before 

 the head of the sleigh struck against a tree 

 with such violence that it was not only com- 

 pletely smashed, but the dogs were jerked 

 back with such force that I was agreeably 

 surprised when I found that no bones were 

 broken. 



In some places, where there were long 

 stretches of open beaches on the shore, dogs 

 were sometimes used with tracking lines to 

 drag the boats along. This was not always 

 much of a success. It, however, afforded 

 some amusement as well as variety to an 

 afternoon's outing in a skiff or canoe, to be 

 thus pulled along by the motive power of 

 four dogs running on the shore, attached to 

 a rope, say, two hundred feet long. 



