Year by year, both day and night, Snyder tried to cure that bite, But he didn't have the heft! So one day he while tug- Ging at the plug Caught the jim-jams and got left!
Frozen saurians are safer! And it's bitterer than borax To be gnawed about the thorax One's humanity to pay for!"
No story of Alaska would be complete unless it included reference to that most vital element of all the Northland, the Alaskan dog. I once heard a story of an old Southern planter who said:
"Whenevah Ah meet up with a man who says he don' like a niggah, Ah always set it down that he nevah _owned_ one!"
I can truthfully say the same about a dog. Ever since the days when Ulysses roamed the seas man has loved his dog. Dearest (and most valuable) to the heart of an Alaskan is his "Malamut" or "Husky," as the Alaskan dog is usually designated. So intelligent that he is almost human, strong as a young ox, oblivious (apparently) to the cold,--he is a part of the land itself! His importance to the life of the North can not be over-estimated. He carries the mail into far regions which but for him would be closed to the outside world for many months of the year.
"An I should live a thousand years," as Shakespeare puts it, I could never forget a leader I once had. I called him "Paddie." During one long, cold winter we went to Andreafsky, distant a hundred and twenty miles from St. Michael, to take the mail. I can see him yet, at the head of the thirty-three dog team, pulling us swiftly over the hard, white snow. At night when I would wrap myself in my sleeping-bag and lie down to sleep, Paddie never failed to come and lie beside me, snuggling as closely as possible to keep me warm. I _could_ not forget, if I tried, his faithfulness and affection, and I do not wish to. I think of him many times, often have dreamed of him and sometimes have talked to him in my sleep.
But laying aside all sentiment in regard to his dogs, a man would indeed be helpless in the north country without them. Into far and almost inaccessible regions which no other beast could penetrate and where neither man nor vehicle could enter unaided, the dogs run nimbly, pulling a sled behind them. Many and dramatic (and true!) are the stories of the arrival of a dog team in the nick of time with food and supplies for a distant, snowed-in camp the members of which would have starved but for their coming.