With frosty weather and less food they roused from their lethargy. Then it was that they became savage, snapping creatures, with no more affection for man than has the wild wolf, which was their ancestor. Long Tom Ham declared that Skipper Zeb's dogs were the most "oncivil team of dogs he ever knew."
Toby and Charley, a week after the big storm, were returning home at midday after a morning in the forest setting marten traps, when, just as they came around the corner of the cabin, and the bay below them came into view, Toby exclaimed:
"There's Skipper Tom comin' with the dogs and komatik!"[6]
For the first time in his life Charley saw dogs in harness. They were still a half mile away, the animals spread out in fan-shaped formation, and trotting leisurely. As they approached nearer the cabin they broke into a run, as though eager to reach their destination, and with short yelps swung off of the ice and came charging up to the cabin where Charley and Toby were awaiting them.
Skipper Tom Ham, his beard encrusted with ice, disembarked from the komatik, and Charley thought him the tallest man he had ever seen.
"'Ere I ham, and 'ow are you hall?" greeted Skipper Tom through his ice mask, as he extended a hand to Toby and then to Charley.
"We're all well," said Toby. "Were you gettin' your wood all hauled?"
"Aye, hall my wood is 'auled, and I'm most thankful I 'ad the dogs to 'aul un, and most thankful to be rid of un. So Hi'm twice thankful," said Skipper Tom following Toby and Charley into the house to join them at dinner, picking the ice from his beard as he talked.
"Them's the most honcivil dogs I knows," remarked Skipper Tom, as he ate. "Hi comes 'ome from my traps last hevenin' and I sees Martha sittin' hup on the scaffold where I keeps the dog meat, and the dogs hall haround lookin' at 'er. When she sees me she yells the dogs be hafter 'er, and I says to 'er that they thinks she his goin' to feed 'em, and she says she thinks they his goin' to heat 'er. Hi tells 'er to come down, and she comes, and when we gets hinto the 'ouse she says, 'Tom, you take them dogs right hover to Skipper Zeb's,' and so Hi brings the honcivil beasts hover."
Tom chuckled at the recollection of his wife's fear and her appearance on the scaffold the evening before. When he was through he said he must return at once, or Martha would think the dogs had eaten him. Toby suggested taking Skipper Tom home with dogs and komatik, but Skipper Tom declined on the ground that it was just a wee bit of a walk, and he would rather walk and look for partridges along shore as he went. The ten mile walk to Lucky Bight was no hardship to Skipper Tom.