And so
they spent many an hour in reminiscences and prophecies; and were
thrilled over and over again with the excitement of the great contests
they had witnessed--lost and won; basing predictions for the future on
the achievements of the past.
Then the dogs would be roused by the entrance of the Eskimo hunters, who
stopped in the dusk of the evening on the way back to their settlement
at Mary's Igloo, to barter for their day's bag. And later they sniffed
with keen pleasure the wonderful smells from the adjoining kitchen;
smells of broiled trout, reindeer steaks, and Arctic grouse--and
fainter, but more delicious still, the odor of their own meal being
cooked in the tent beside the cabin door.
They remained at the Springs a couple of weeks; and delightful weeks
they were, too, but for one unfortunate incident, which was precipitated
because of Tom's aristocratic race prejudice.
He had always hated Eskimo dogs; choosing either to ignore his own
huskie blood, or feeling that it was superior to the native strain in
the malamutes of the coast--just as some people boast of being
descended from Pocahontas, but would shudder at the mere idea of a
Siwash Squaw ancestress.
At all events, Tom had resented the entrance of the Eskimo, Wolf, into
the Kennel; and never failed, when "Scotty" was not about, to manifest
an enmity that would have told a civilized dog not to attempt any
liberties with him. But Wolf was only an ignorant puppy, taken from a
native igloo, where all of the dogs and all of the family lived in happy
harmony; and so, one day when he was particularly joyous, he nipped, in
a spirit of mischief, the end of Tom's wagging stump of a tail.
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