“With these harnesses the hunter trained White Feet and Blackie to work together. He was well pleased with them and sent his five dogs to his brother, who lived a day’s journey down the beach. The hunter knew that it would require much of the dried meat he had put up through the summer to feed his team dogs through the winter. His new sled deer didn’t eat meat. That meant less work for the hunter and his wife.
“Of course the hunter was anxious to try out these sled deer with a heavy load. Luckily for White Feet and Blackie, their muscles were hard and strong by the time the first new snow came. They had plenty of back-fat too. All their work had been but play, but now they were to be of real service to man. The hunter’s supplies, gathered during the summer, must be moved from the spit to a small grove of alders a day’s journey inland. This was the hunter’s winter home.”
The first load hauled by White Feet and Blackie.
X
The Hunter Becomes a Herder
“The first load hauled by White Feet and Blackie,” continued Mother Reindeer, “consisted of the tent skins and poles, sleeping skins, clothing, cooking pots, and part of the stock of dried fish. It was a big load, but it looked bigger than it really was. The other native people were very much surprised to see such a load drawn by two pastured caribou fawns.
“On the following day White Feet and Blackie were so tired and stiff that Dainten tethered them out in a good moss patch near the winter camp. His brother and sister kept watch over them. The five doe fawns stayed near White Feet and Blackie. The hunter made them a small corral of alders, so that his little herd would be well protected from wolves in the nighttime.
“This hunter was a wise man. He knew that when wild caribou had been chased for several days they became very thin and poor. He now found that moss was not so strengthening to the fawns as meat was to the dogs. He wished to keep the little herd until they were grown up; so he took good care of them and allowed them to rest well before he took them back to the summer camp for another big load. You see, my son, the fierce hunter was becoming a good herder. The taming of the fawns had also tamed him and his family. The pastured caribou fawns were now called reindeer.”
“Did they never see any of the wild caribou again?” White Sox asked.