274 LABRADOR 



They suddenly turned a point and ran right into him, so 

 that the traces tangled round the bear before the astonished 

 driver had time to unlash his gun. As soon as he could, 

 he cut the traces, but even in harness the dogs kept Bruin 

 at bay. Though the bear stood up to fight on his hind legs, 

 the dogs managed to get in some good bites without being 

 hurt. On another occasion a man brought me a specially 

 valued dog that a bear had squeezed. The bear had been 

 sighted some distance off on the ice-floe, and the dogs were 

 slipped to hold him up for the hunter. By the time he 

 arrived on the spot, they had the bear practically killed. 

 But two had been damaged by him, one clawed and one 

 squeezed. 



The Labrador wolf has never been known to kill a man. 

 Yet on several occasions single men have fallen in with them. 

 One man told me that a pack followed him almost to his 

 own door, that they stopped when he stopped, and came 

 as close as ten yards. He had no gun and no means of 

 defence, yet they never touched him. The Labrador dog 

 has much the same respect for man. He is, moreover, 

 affectionate and playful. You can easily make a pet of 

 him, if you treat him well. He is generally harmless to 

 children when he is decently looked after, but a team 

 of dogs together, however quiet, are never safe to strangers. 

 Even a single dog, if kicked about, badly fed, and left to 

 be worried by the neighbouring dogs every day of his life, 

 cannot be trusted. 



The wolf will track a deer day after day till he captures 

 it. Again and again our trappers have seen evidence of the 

 indefatigable zeal and indomitable resolution of a single 

 wolf in following a caribou herd; and observers all agree 



