26 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



the tent door open and by his side he had two or three 

 hatchets. When he saw a strange and starving dog ap- 

 proaching his property outside he would watch till the 

 animal was about to take a bite, and then throw a hatchet 

 at him. I never knew him actually to kill a dog, but I 

 saw one case of a broken shoulder and heard of other 

 serious injuries. Some of the Indians made claims upon 

 this man for maiming their dogs and even charged him 

 with cruelty. Judging by how they themselves behaved, 

 I should say that this was pretended sympathy for the 

 dogs and was put on merely in an attempt to recover 

 damages from the well-to-do white man. 



Some of the Indians who were our boatmen owned one 

 or several of these starving dogs. It is difficult to see how 

 dogs could have affection for such owners, but still that 

 appeared to be the case, in some instances at least. Or 

 it may have been merely that the wretched things knew 

 no other hope than to follow their masters around. Twenty 

 06 thirty of them kept abreast of us on the river bank as 

 we proceeded down stream. The current is now along 

 one bank and now along the other, and a boat keeps to 

 the current. When we shifted with the current to the far 

 side of the stream the poor dogs knew no better than to 

 jump in and swim the quarter or half mile of turbulent 

 water to climb up on the bank nearest us. The fo-est 

 was thick along the river and heaps of drift logs w?re 

 piled in certain places. This made difficult traveling for 

 dogs already weak with hunger, and one by one they 

 dropped behind. I did not know whether their destiny 

 was to die of starvation or whether they would return to 

 some village and perhaps live through the summer. I 

 asked the Indians about it but they did not seem either 

 to know or care. 



