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Updated: August 25, 2024
With delight would I hear the name of this celebrity dying gradually away in distance, for by the disappearance of some oft-heard name and the rising of some new constellation of dog-driver, one could mark a stage of many hundred miles on the long road upon which I was travelling. On the 29th January we reached the shore of Pine Island Lake, and saw in our track the birch lodge of an Indian.
We made only the simplest preparations, renting a couple of rooms in the chief trader's house and hiring my former guide as dog-driver. Not one of the many who have wintered with us in the North has failed to love our frozen season. To me it was one long delight.
After being run away with within the first ten minutes, capsized into a snow-drift, and his sledge dragged bottom upward a quarter of a mile from the road, the rash experimenter begins to suspect that the task is not quite so easy as he had supposed, and in less than one day he is generally convinced by hard experience that a dog-driver, like a poet, is born, not made.
Though my dog-driver and I, with our dog-train, passed within about a hundred paces of them, and though we were all on a sunny lake, they never ceased their play for a single moment, nor did they show in any way that they had seen us. There are several voices of the wilderness that cause some city people alarm and dread, and they are the voices of the owl, the loon, and the timber-wolf.
Shandon wanted also to engage Hans Christian, the clever dog-driver, who made one of the party of Captain McClintock's expedition; but, unfortunately, Hans was at that time in Southern Greenland. Then came the grand question, the topic of the day, was there in Uppernawik a European waiting for the passage of the Forward?
All day long he limped in agony, and camp once made, lay down like a dead dog. Hungry as he was, he would not move to receive his ration of fish, which Francois had to bring to him. Also, the dog-driver rubbed Buck's feet for half an hour each night after supper, and sacrificed the tops of his own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck.
The Factor was very proud of his train Dogs three great Huskies with curly, bushy tails, big and strong as Calves, but fierce and lawless as pirates. With these the Fiddler Paul was to drive to Fort Alexander from Fort Garry the bearer of several important packets. He was an expert Dog-driver, which usually means relentlessly cruel.
"Dat Spitz fight lak hell," said Perrault, as he surveyed the gaping rips and cuts. "An' dat Buck fight lak two hells," was Francois's answer. "An' now we make good time. No more Spitz, no more trouble, sure." While Perrault packed the camp outfit and loaded the sled, the dog-driver proceeded to harness the dogs.
Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck, with his two devils, he found, while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued. At a bound Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment was required, and quick thinking and quick acting, he showed himself the superior even of Spitz, of whom Francois had never seen an equal.
Likewise he arranged the taking over of Billy Rawlins' mail contract, and made his preparations for the start. He despatched a messenger to rout out Kama, his dog-driver a Tananaw Indian, far-wandered from his tribal home in the service of the invading whites.
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