HENRIETTA S VISIT 143 



old woman, but I only saved some rags. Most of 

 the things were eaten, and now Ernestina has got 

 nothing, and cannot go out and go to church. What 

 shall I do.?" 



Looking back on it, I hardly know whether I 

 ought to have been surprised or not, but surprised 

 I was. Clothes fresh from the wash-tub seemed 

 something quite new as a diet for dogs. But there 

 is no apparent limit to the strange appetite of those 

 queer beasts, and to travel on a sledge behind a team 

 of Labrador dogs soon gives one some curious 

 glimpses of their ways. One windy day, some- 

 where in the wilds of the Kiglapeit mountains, my 

 fur cap blew off. I had hardly time to turn before it 

 was engulfed ; the dogs of the sledge following were 

 upon it with a pounce, and it would have been funny 

 enough to make me laugh if my head had not been 

 freezing to see the leading dog, the one on the 

 longest trace and therefore first on the prey, making 

 valiant efforts to swallow up my cap whole, ear-flaps, 

 strings, and all. The brute raced on, with a great 

 bulge slowly travelling along his neck as the un- 

 accustomed morsel made its way into the interior ; 

 and behind him panted the whole team, each strain- 

 ing to the utmost limit of its trace, and all snarling 

 and wheezing and whining in the extremity of their 

 desire for a taste. 



I have seen gloves go the same way, carelessly 

 laid down while I chatted with the drivers at a halt- 

 ing-place, and suddenly snatched away to be made 

 the centre of a tearing, scrambling, fighting mass of 

 dogs, all mixed up in a tangle ; and the driver has 



