About five miles out, we met a team of dogs going up-country. We stopped simultaneously to exchange news, and inside of ten seconds one of our dogs made a jump at one of the other team. This was the signal, and in an instant all the twenty-eight dogs were at it tooth and nail in one grand scrimmage. After beating them unmercifully, the drivers were able to separate the two teams, and we found that three of our dogs were limping. I then learned that in a fight the Siberian dog does not make for his antagonist's throat, but for his feet, for he seems to know that injury to that member is the most serious that can happen to a sledge-dog. It was amusing to see with what deftness they would draw their feet back from the snap of the enemy. The neck is generally covered with a thick growth of hair which is impervious to teeth, while from the ankle to the foot the hair is cut away by the driver to prevent the snow from balling upon it. Our troubles proved not to be serious, and at the end of the third hour we approached Ghijiga. As soon as the dogs scented the town they gave a simultaneous yelp and broke into a swift run, as is always their custom in approaching any settlement. At the same time all the dogs of the village, apparently, came rushing out to meet us, and ran alongside yelping and snapping in a friendly way at our dogs. Old Chrisoffsky drew up with a flourish before my cabin, where I received a hearty welcome from the townsfolk. This day's trip from Chrisoffsky's house by dog-sledge cost me the enormous sum of one rouble, or fifty cents in United States gold.
Mr. Vanderlip's Dog-sled loaded.
It was now late in October, and it was necessary for me to stop in Ghijiga while my winter outfit of clothes was being prepared. The snow was already deep and the river frozen solid, excepting at the rapids. But cold as it was, my work was but just beginning, for it is only in winter that long distance travel is possible. In summer you may struggle across six or eight miles of spongy tundra a day, but in winter you can easily cover from sixty to ninety miles, depending upon the quality of your teams and the number of your relays.
By this time the natives were beginning to bring in their furs and other valuables to exchange with the merchants of the trading company. It may be of interest to give the prevailing prices.
The native, ordinarily, does not take money for his skins, but various kinds of necessaries. Reducing it all, however, to a monetary basis, we find that he receives for sable skin ten to thirteen roubles; red-fox skin, two to three roubles; white-fox skin, one and a half roubles; black-fox skin, fifty to one hundred and fifty roubles; blue-squirrel skin, thirty-five cents; unborn-deer skin, twelve cents; turbogan (kind of coon), fifteen cents; yearling-deer skin, seventy-five cents; sea-dog skin, one rouble; black-bear skin, seven roubles; brown-bear skin, five roubles; white-bear skin, twenty-five roubles; walrus rope, two cents a yard; walrus ivory, from five cents to one and a half roubles a tusk; mammoth tusk, five to six roubles; fur coats, one and a half to five roubles; boots, twenty-five cents to seventy-five cents a pair. For an ermine skin he is wont to receive two needles or a piece of sugar as large as a thimble.
In exchange for these commodities the traders give tea, sugar, powder, lead, cartridges, tobacco, bar iron one inch wide by a quarter of an inch thick, needles, beads, and various other trinkets.
When the goods are marketed it is found that the company makes anywhere from one hundred to one thousand per cent. profit. Tea, the article most called for, allows only one hundred per cent. profit. On sugar some three hundred per cent. is made, and on the trinkets and other miscellaneous goods anywhere from five hundred to one thousand per cent. is made.