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The four dogs comprising each of the fur-trains hauled three hundred pounds of fur besides the camp outfit and grub for both driver and dogs in all, about five hundred pounds to the sled. When the sleighing grew heavy, the drivers used long pushing-poles against the ends of the sleds to help the dogs.
In going up stream, the sweeps served as oars, and in the shallows long pushing-poles were used. As for the boatmen who professionally propelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they were a class unto themselves "half horse, half alligator," a contemporary styled them. Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for coarse drollery and stinging repartee.
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