"How perfectly ridiculous," said the Woman indignantly. "You might know he was not an Alaskan. He was as bad as that squaw who wouldn't give you her mukluks."
"What was that, Mr. Allan?" questioned the boy, eagerly.
"I'm afraid, Ben, that some of these incidents look a little high-handed, as though everything was allowable in a race, regardless of other people's rights; but they really don't happen often. This time I tore one of my water boots on a stump going through the trees by Council. At a near-by cabin I tried to buy a pair of mukluks a native woman had on, as I saw they were about the size I needed. She refused to sell, though I offered her three times their value. There was no time to argue, nor persuade, so finally in desperation her Eskimo husband and I took them off her feet, though she kicked vigorously. It saved the day for me, but it seemed a bit ungallant."
"It served her right for not being as good a sport as most of the Eskimos. And anyway, every one on Seward Peninsula, of any nationality, is supposed to know that whatever a driver or his dogs need, in the All Alaska Sweepstakes, should be his without a dissenting voice or a rebellious foot."
"Moose Jones used to say," quoted Ben rather timidly, "that most Malamutes are stubborn. Was the leader you spoke of, Mukluk, stubborn too, in the race you won with him?"
"Yes, he was stubborn, all right. Do you recall," turning to the Woman, "the night I made him go 'round one corner for half an hour because he refused to take the order the first time, and I was afraid of that trait in him. It did not take long, however, to show him that I could spend just as much time making him obey as he could spend defying me. There's no use in whipping a dog like that. And with all his obstinacy, he was, next to old Dubby, more capable of keeping a trail in a storm than any dog I've ever handled. He had pads [2] of leather, and sinews of steel. He was surely shy on beauty, though."
"Of course," her voice dropping to almost a whisper, "I would not admit this anywhere but right here, in the privacy of the Kennel, and I wouldn't say it here if the dogs could understand; but when it comes to actual good looks, 'Scotty,'" the Woman confessed, "we are really not in it with Bobby Brown's big, imposing Loping Malamutes, or Captain Crimin's cunning little Siberians, with their pointed noses, prick ears, and fluffy tails curled up over their backs like plumes."
"Yes, they do make a most attractive team," admitted Allan justly; "and they're mighty good dogs too. But somehow they seem to lack the pride and responsiveness that I find in those with bird-dog ancestry. Of course each man prefers his own type, the one he has deliberately chosen; and Fox Ramsay, and John or Charlie Johnson are convinced that the tireless gait of their 'Russian Rats' in racing more than offsets the sudden bursts of great speed of our 'Daddy Long Legs.'"
