Killing Deer for Dog Food.
As we were speeding along the beaten track the Koraks would break out in a wild strain of music; then Snevaydoff would sing one of the Russian peasant-songs, and occasionally, not to be outdone, I would give them a few bars of some such touching lyric as "A Hot Time," or "After the Ball." Thus we whiled away the long hours on the road.
Every few hours we changed places, letting each team lead in turn, for only the driver of the head team had any work to do. The others could even lie down and go to sleep if they wished, for the dogs drew as steadily and as patiently as mules. It seemed second nature to them. I used to sit and wonder how they could be trained to undergo such severe labor. I found out that, when only four months old, they are put into the hands of the small boys to train. They make up little teams of pups, with the mother dog, perhaps, as leader, and bring in water from the neighboring stream or drag in the firewood. By the time they are a year old they are ready to be turned over to a grown-up, who hitches up one or two of the young dogs with some steady old fellows, and it is not long before the training is complete. This method not only trains the dogs, but it teaches the boys how to handle them, so that by the time they are young men they are expert drivers.
After several days of fine going we arrived at Kaminaw, where I found the Ghijiga magistrate, who had come on his annual collecting tour. Each of the Koraks pays an annual poll-tax of four and a half dollars' worth of skins. These are taken to Ghijiga, and there auctioned off to the highest bidder. All these northern natives pay this tax, except the Tchuktches, who refuse to pay a cent. I found the magistrate in one of the huts, reclining on several bearskins, and kindly and affable as ever. Over him was arranged a sort of canopy to protect him from particles of dust or dirt that might fall from between the rafters of the building. He was dressed in his full regimentals of green and gold, with a sword at his side. He gave me a fine cup of coffee, and made me take a pound of the fragrant berry to cheer me on my way in to Ghijiga. I jealously guarded it, and made the grounds do duty three or four times over till every particle of the caffein had been extracted.
CHAPTER XV
A PERILOUS SUMMER TRIP
The tundra in summer—Crossing the swift Paran River—Literally billions of mosquitos—Unique measures of protection against these pests—Mad race down the Uchingay River on a raft—Lighting a fire with a pistol—Narrow escape from drowning—Fronyo proves to be a man of mettle—Pak is caught stealing from slim supply of provisions and receives chastisement—Subsisting on wild onions and half-ripe berries—Help at last.
After a rest of two days we started out on the home stretch toward Ghijiga, which lay three hundred miles to the southwest. As the snow was now very soft the wooden runners of our sledges were useless. The wet snow stuck to them, and made progress almost impossible. We therefore purchased sets of whalebone runners, cut from the ribs of the whale, and pared down to a quarter of an inch in thickness. These strips are pinned to the sledge runners, one piece overlapping another, and the joints worked down smooth. These are as good on wet snow as the iced wooden runners are on dry snow. We made the three hundred miles in four days, which was doing fairly well, considering the fact that we came back with only half the number of dogs that we started out with. It is true, however, that we had made one or two valuable acquisitions in the dog line, especially Konikly, with whom I became more and more pleased. We fed the dogs on the best the land could provide, and kept them on the road from twelve to fourteen hours a day. Our provisions were, of course, almost gone, and we were coming back practically as "empties."