still that the “horses” might have something, too.  The next afternoon it stopped snowing and cleared, intensely cold, and that was the evening the Boy nearly cried for joy when, lifting up his eyes, he saw, a good way off, perched on the river bank, the huts and high caches of an Indian village etched black against a wintry sunset—­a fine picture in any eye, but meaning more than beauty to the driver of hungry dogs.

“Fish, Nig!” called out the Boy to his Leader.  “You hear me, you Nig? Fish, old fellow!  Now, look at that, Colonel! you tell me that Indian dog doesn’t understand English.  I tell you what:  we had a mean time with these dogs just at first, but that was only because we didn’t understand one another.”

The Colonel preserved a reticent air.

“You’ll come to my way of thinking yet.  The Indian dog—­he’s a daisy.”

“Glad you think so.”  The Colonel, with some display of temper, had given up trying to drive the team only half an hour before, and was still rather sore about it.

“When you get to understand him,” persisted the Boy, “he’s the most marvellous little horse ever hitched in harness.  He pulls, pulls, pulls all day long in any kind o’ weather—­”

“Yes, pulls you off your legs or pulls you the way you don’t want to go.”

“Oh, that’s when you rile him!  He’s just like any other American gentleman:  he’s got his feelin’s.  Ain’t you got feelin’s, Nig?  Huh! rather.  I tell you what, Colonel, many a time when I’m pretty well beat and ready to snap at anybody, I’ve looked at Nig peggin’ away like a little man, on a rotten trail, with a blizzard in his eyes, and it’s just made me sick after that to hear myself grumblin’.  Yes, sir, the Indian dog is an example to any white man on the trail.”  The Boy seemed not to relinquish the hope of stirring the tired Colonel to enthusiasm.  “Don’t you like the way, after the worst sort of day, when you stop, he just drops down in the snow and rolls about a little to rest his muscles, and then lies there as patient as anything till you are ready to unharness him and feed him?”

“—­and if you don’t hurry up, he saves you the trouble of unharnessing by eating the traces and things.”

“Humph!  So would you if that village weren’t in sight, if you were sure the harness wouldn’t stick in your gizzard.  And think of what a dog gets to reward him for his plucky day:  one dried salmon or a little meal-soup when he’s off on a holiday like this.  Works without a let-up, and keeps in good flesh on one fish a day.  Doesn’t even get anything to drink; eats a little snow after dinner, digs his bed, and sleeps in a drift till morning.”

“When he doesn’t howl all night.”

“Oh, that’s when he meets his friends, and they talk about old times before they came down in the world.”

“Hey?”

“Yes; when they were wolves and made us run instead of our making them.  Make any fellow howl.  Instead of carrying our food about we used to carry theirs, and run hard to keep from giving it up, too.”