SLEDGE DOGS 



for the whip and ran alongside the sledge trailing the 

 lash on the snow. 



The dogs looked over their shoulders and yelped, 

 and hurried and strained to get along as fast asj 

 possible, while the prospective victim made wild 

 efforts to hide himself among the others. 



It was useless : with an indescribable sweep of] 

 the arm the driver sent the thirty feet of walrus-hide : 

 lash hissing through the air, and with a sharp flick 

 caught the right dog a sounding crack on its flank, i 

 There was a yell, and the poor dog drooped its tail 

 and cowered on the snow, crawling along with 

 shrill whistling noise in anticipation of another smacl 

 Once was enough ! But there are hard-head< 

 villains among dogs, that will not take the well- 

 meant hint of a single crack of the whip ; for thei 

 there is a special flogging in store. The driver run* 

 forward and grasps the offender's trace, and hauls i1 

 nearer to the sledge. And so the dog must run, 

 only a couple of yards or so from the man with 

 whip, and the very terror which the hauling 

 inspires is a sufficiently wholesome lesson for m< 

 dogs. Ten minutes of running on a shortened tra< 

 generally works a cure, but if this broadest of hinl 

 seems useless three or four sound strokes of the las! 

 will send the poor dog back to his senses with a jerl 

 and when, at the end of the whipping, his trace 

 unhitched and he is allowed to trot forward to 

 place, he is a marvellous worker for an hour 

 two trace always tight, shoulders always forwj 

 with none of that shambling, make-believe, sL 

 trace work that lazy dogs are apt to do. In the b< 

 of teams there are always one or two dogs runnii 



slack, and the drivers let it pass so long as the d( 



148 



