Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/127

 at their companions.

Now, she coaxes and caresses to urge them forward—they still delay. Then she turns briskly towards them with a stick—get out, dogs! — "Yierh! Warktashne ceicha," cries the squaw, accompanying her denunciation with blows, and away go the yelping troop as fast as legs can carry them.

Dogs are the necessary appendage of every Indian lodge, and generally form an equal portion of the village population. They present almost all the different varieties of the canine species, from the wolf to the spaniel, and from the spaniel to the hairless dog of Africa. The wolf, however, is predominant, and, taken together, they more assimilate a gang of wolves than anything else. Indeed, the different varieties of prairie wolves hold familiar intercourse with the village dogs, and associate with them on friendly terms.

The species used for draught, is a large, stout-built, wolfish-looking creature, of the Exquimaux breed. Trained to his duties in early life, he is generally both

submissive and tractable. The drudgery of a squaw, which is at all times onerous, without his ready aid would prove past endurance.