Boy Bounce smiled and took all the credit, and Paddy at once set about taking Bruin out of his jacket, singing to himself some wild Irish lilt as he did so.
There was one other individual who attached himself to these sleighing expeditions, who had really no business there, namely, the noble deerhound Fingal.
I have no idea what induced him to do so, unless it was to constitute himself captain over the two teams of dogs, and to enjoy good sport among the Arctic foxes, to say nothing of the grand galloping he had.
Fingal used to fly along at the head of the foremost team, keeping well beyond reach, however, of the leader’s fangs and of the driver’s cracking thong. He used to hunt the foxes on his own account all day, and spent his whole night in keeping them off the camp.
There is no end to the impudence these little animals possess, especially when snow is on the ground. They are then mostly white. I have an idea that, like Scotch hares, they change their colour with the season of the year; at all events, in summer they are of many different hues, and they then keep farther away from the habitations of men.
At night, in snow time, they are singularly annoying. They yelp and yap, and howl and fight, and unless you are very tired indeed, sleep is all but impossible. If you fire at one and wound it, the chances are he will not run off if he could. You march up to club him, and he grins and whines and fawns at you in the most ridiculous manner; in fact, he argues with you. Well, what can you do with a wounded animal who argues with you? You cannot brain him. No, you simply retire, feeling mightily ashamed of yourself for having fired at him.
Wounded monkeys have this same trick, and several other animals I could name.
Camping out by the River Thames in the sweet summer-time, and camping in the shelter of a rock on the snowfields of the far north, are two very different things. The members of Dr Barrett’s sledging parties and the doctor himself slept in the sledges; slept with their bodies in warm flannel-lined bags, with rags over this, and rags right over their heads. Even then it was bitterly, oppressively cold.
The men of the Icebear used to envy Jack and Joe, the Eskimo Indians, who slept on the snow near their dogs with no other covering except the clothes they had worn during the day.
Fingal, poor fellow, never rested by night—if night I dare call it, with the sun ablaze in the sky—he was constantly roaming round the camp doing sentry duty, and keeping off the gangs of foxes. Often a horrid yelling would awaken all hands, and, on looking up, Fingal would be seen shaking a fox as Sarah Jane shakes a mat or a carpet skin.