“When this happens it’s tough luck for the driver. It means that he has to wade miles through the snow, tracking the runaways. He usually finds them at the next post-house, unless the sledge has become entangled in brush or trees. When this latter occurs the dogs scoop out snug-holes for themselves in the snow and go to sleep!
“The class of dog most used by the ordinary traveler is different from the giant huskies. These are the mamelukes or the native Indian dog. They are supposed to have wolf blood in them, and they certainly act up to the supposition!
“The mamelukes are usually harnessed all in a line, one before the other. They are shorter-haired, more active, faster and ten times meaner than the husky—and that’s going some, let me tell you.
“Their chief delight is to get into a regular Donnybrook fight. When this happens there is only one way to stop them, and that is to club them till they are knocked insensible. Sounds brutal, doesn’t it? but it is the only way to quell one of these disturbances.
“If they get a chance to they’ll bite through their harness with one nip of their long teeth. Then, having gained their liberty, off they will gallop and sometimes not be caught again for days.
“The mameluke is an habitual thief, too. His idea of a nice little midnight repast is to pull the boots off your feet while you are asleep and indulge in a hasty lunch. His seal-hide harness, also, appeals to his epicurean tastes; in fact, he will eat anything, including his best friend, if he gets a chance!
“Besides the mameluke, the husky is an aristocrat and a highly-bred gentleman, although his manners are nothing to brag about. Another accomplishment of the mameluke is opening provision boxes and getting out the tin cans they contain.
“He carries his own can-opener in the form of his powerful teeth. His taste is not particular. Canned tomatoes, fruit, vegetables, sardines—in fact, anything a man can put into a can, a mameluke can get out of it! Any leather covered goods are also appetizing to the mameluke. Trunk covers, saddles, and so on. He’ll eat any of them without sauce, and not leave any bones either!
“It seems strange that these dogs—which are the mainstay of the traveler in the northern wilds—live through their whole lives without ever getting a kind word. They have performed wonderful feats of endurance and, with all their wolfish greed and viciousness, they have time and time again saved human lives by their wonderful stamina.
“‘A mameluke knows only one law, and that is contained in the end of a club or whip,’ an old driver told me once; and yet some, like Joe Picquet, have succeeded in getting them to do much of their work through kindness. But such cases are so very rare as to prove the rule.