“A husky looks a good deal like a malamute, for his ears are pointed too, but instead of being fixed in an upright position he can move them, so every once in a while you’ll notice he will let them drop. He doesn’t stand one, two, three though with the malamute for beauty.”
“McGargle over there says that dog drivers up here will take a husky anytime before they’d take a malamute. How do you make that out?”
“I make it out because McGargle has a couple of huskies he wants to sell. We’ll ask McQuesten anyway,” said Jack.
“I’ve just had a argument with my pard,” Bill said to the storekeeper as big as though he had all the inside information that is known about dogs, “and he says that the malamutes are the best and I says that the huskies are the best. Now what do you say?”
“Yes, huskies are supposed to be a little better workers for the kind of sledding we do in this part of the country, but speaking for myself I prefer the malamute because the snow doesn’t stick between his toes as easily and his feet are harder. After all it’s only a matter of choice and usually what you can get. Both kinds of dogs were made by Almighty God for the work they have to do and they do it well.
“This is true too of the outside dogs; some of them are just as good workers and just as good in every respect as either the malamutes or the huskies. It isn’t a question of which dogs are the best any more now than in the days back there when a good dog brought two hundred and fifty, five hundred, yes, even a thousand dollars.” McQuesten shook his head sadly. “But those good old days will never come back again.”
Nearly all the time the boys were looking over the dogs and bartering with their owners for them they made a bedlam of the peace and quiet of Circle with their ear-splitting barking and howling, and Jack asked Bill to observe that it was the malamutes and huskies that did the howling, while the Siwashes and outside dogs did the barking.
“Whenever you find a dog barking, though he may look like a malamute or a husky you will know to a certainty that he is not full blooded but has some other strain in him,” explained Jack.
An Indian had half-a-dozen Siwashes for sale and Bill made it his business to get a line on them. Not knowing, or let us say, forgetting, that the Indian dog has the meanest disposition in the world, Bill held out his hand and snapped his fingers at one of them. As a reward for his kindy notice the dog returned the compliment by snapping savagely at his hand and had he not been tied to a stake and Bill somewhat of an acrobat, the brute would have made a partial meal from the extremity.
“No Siwashes for mine,” Bill bellowed; “I wouldn’t have a team o’ them Indian savages on a bet.”