There was no trail. An Indian was struggling ahead of the dogs. Everywhere silence. Now and then a mass of snow would slide down noiselessly from the overhanging branch of a spruce tree. There was no sign of animal life. Not a track anywhere. Not even a bird on the wing in the sullen grey sky.
We were following a coulée between two high ridges thickly covered with trees. At a bend of the small valley the Indian, looking ahead, stopped dead. So did the team of Huskies.
A few hundred yards away we saw a lone dog, standing erect, keeping guard beside what looked like a mound covered with snow. The nearer we approached, the plainer we saw what it was. It was a sleigh with its load lashed on and, on the top, what seemed to us like a human body stretched out, rigid under its white mantle. The dog traces were hanging loose. The harness had been chewed and broken. The team, tired of waiting, had escaped—going back somewhere to an unknown camp. Alone, the leader had chosen to remain beside the sleigh. He was weak from hunger but still faithful to his charge. He faced us squarely with his shaggy coat bristling, swaying slightly on his legs and snarling his deep, wolf snarl. When we heard it, we knew it was the death song of a dog who was defending the dead body of his master.
The Indian cautiously lassoed him and tied him up. He made a good fight for it but the snow was too deep and his strength was far gone. We gently brushed away the snow from the top of the sleigh and looked at the man. He was lying on his back, a smile on his white face, his light blue eyes staring far away into the sky. A stranger, a prospector from somewhere south, lost in the wilderness and at the end of his rations. Caught in the blizzard, too weak to pitch camp, frozen to death while his dogs wandered in the blinding storm.
Tale XI: A Strange Team
North of 53, during the winter, I have seen sleighs drawn by horses, mules, dogs of every breed and description and even men.
But once I saw the strangest outfit of all. We were sitting beside a fire on the bank of a river only a few miles from the railway line when we heard a yell and a strange noise which appeared to be a combination of a bellow and a howl.
We got up and, to our astonishment, we saw, racing up the river on the ice in a smother of snow, a small sleigh drawn by a large yellow dog and a very small red bull. The dog was in the lead, tied to the sleigh by at least twelve yards of rope. The bull, harnessed to the sleigh by two leather traces, with his head down and his tail in the air was charging full tilt at the dog who was scampering down the trail as fast as he could lay his four paws on the snow.