CHAPTER V
"WE GENERALLY DON'T"
"I guess that'll take him goin' some to figure it out," said Poley in a pious content.
Kennedy straightened from pulling up the last sled-strap; breathed heavily on his hands to make them bend sufficiently to go back into the fur gloves; beat them together, and said:
"Well, I guess Dick'll be handin' out trouble to you in a minit, all right, all right."
Poley peered sulkily over the collar of his mangy bearskin coat at the snarling knot of giddes in the traces.
"Teach him ter make picters o' me," he said. "Wait till he starts bossin' that hound a bit. That'll larn him."
The dog-teams at Grey Wolf were drawn from "any kind o' dog as'll work," and the barrack-teams were Poley's the full summer through, descending to Tempest and Dick when work began. Poley knew them intimately; mysteriously. He communicated his opinion on the universe and his fellows to them, and last night he had told them—so far as words would go—exactly what he thought of Dick for a certain sketch of himself which was just now circulating Grey Wolf. This morning he had improved the lesson by harnessing one team in wrong order when Dick left the work half-done to go in at Tempest's call; and now he stood with Kennedy, who was over-young for skilled labour, and waited results. Dick came out briskly, pulling on his gloves. He glanced from the tangle of yelping dogs to Poley, and his smile was soft.
"Who treated you at Grange's last night, Poley?" he asked. "For I'll swear you never got as bad as this out of your own pocket."
Because Poley was known to be over-careful of his private purse Kennedy choked with laughter as Dick sprang in among the dogs; cuffing and kicking in a good-humoured
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