118 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



The midnight howl of three or four hundred dogs is 

 an awful and appalling sound. It rises suddenly from a 

 low prolonged whine to a deep melancholy howl, caught 

 up again and again to the distraction of tired travelers 

 anxious to take rest in sleep. When any great event 

 takes place, a clog feast is proclaimed, and it is sufficiently 

 disgusting to see the men handle and feel the unfortunate 

 animals as if they were sheep, with a view to select the 

 fattest, so powerful are early habits and associations in 

 directing our feelings and tastes. Although some of the 

 Indian dogs we saw among the Crees of the Sandy Hills 

 are large and ferocious looking animals, we never found 

 them vicious or inclined to attack us ; they were always 

 deterred from approaching by the sight of a stick or a 

 feint at picking up a stone. 



Although I made many inquiries, the Indians could 

 give no information respecting the occurrence of hydro- 

 phobia among their dogs, and the same observation, as 

 far as I could discover, applies to the dogs so numerous 

 at Eed Eiver, and at the different Posts of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company. Large numbers of dogs are kept at the 

 Company's Posts to haul sledges during wdnter ; in summer 

 time they are fed on fish at fishing stations ; in the 

 prairie they feed upon the offal of buffalo. Dogs will go 

 for a week without food, and yet get into condition for 

 traveling, if well fed, in a fortnight or eighteen clays. 

 At Manitobah House I saw them devour large pike alive, 

 which were thrown to them as they were taken from the 

 nets. Indian dogs are terrible thieves, especially those 

 originating from a cross with the wolf. It was necessary 

 to place out of reach or under cover every article bearing 

 the least resemblance to leather when we were among 

 the Crees. A careless half-breed would wake in the 

 morning and find his harness eaten, or his whip devoured ; 

 and it sometimes happened that the long tether of buffalo 



