472 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



his mouth, at a rate of speed far surpassing that of hunters 

 upon snow-shoes. They frequently, also, attack and cany 

 off the sleigh-dogs of the Indians. 



The Northern Indians improve the breed of their sleigh- 

 dogs by crossing them with the Wolf. This process adds 

 to their size, s])eed, and strength. The voice of the AVolf 

 and that of the Indian dog, to my own personal knowledge, 

 in volume and sound are strikingly similar. I remember 

 having hunted Deer, many years ago, with a large-sized 

 Indian dog. He was one of the best dogs that I ever 

 turned loose upon a Deer-track. As he unfiaggingly pur- 

 sued his quarry, his tongue was distinctly and unmistak- 

 ably the howl of a Wolf — loud, clear, and prolonged, with- 

 out a single sharp bark like that of a dog. This dog, true 

 to the blood of his ancestry, never failed to find a Deer, if 

 there was one within reach; and when once the game was 

 found, he stuck to the trail, like his wild progenitors, until 

 he tasted blood. 



When I speak of Indian dogs, I do not mean the miser- 

 able, diminutive race of curs generally found in starving 

 annoyance around an Indian camp to-day. Such attenu- 

 ated whelps, in my opinion, can trace their origin to the 

 Fox; certainly not to the W^olf. I allude to the strong and 

 hardy Wolf-dogs as the traveler finds them, drawing the 

 sleighs of the Indians in the Northwest, and speeding the 

 Eskimos over the snow, beneath the crackling flame of 

 the Aurora Borealis, in the Arctic Circle. 



The late Sheriff Dickson, of Pakenham, who during 

 many years of his life was a most successful Deer-hunter, 

 and an enthusiastic student of geology, in an article on 

 the Gray Wolf, published many years ago in "Billing's 

 Canadian Naturalist and Geologist,*' gives us many inter- 

 esting particulars respecting the W^olf. From personal 

 experience, he bears testimony to the proverbial cowardice 

 of Wolves. He states that when caught in a trap, wounded 

 by a gunshot, or cornered up so that they could not escape, 

 he invariably killed them with a club or a tomahawk with- 

 out meeting any resistance. When in numbers, he had seen 



