The dogs have a wonderful instinct for finding their way under almost insurmountable difficulties, and they have oftentimes been the means of saving the lives of their masters. Once I was driving a distance of seventy miles across country. The path was untravelled for the winter, and was only a direction, not being cut or blazed. The leading dog had been once across the previous year with the doctor. The "going" had then been very bad; with snow and fog the journey had taken three days. A large part of the way lay across wide frozen lakes, and then through woods. As I had never been that way before I had to leave it to the dog. Without a single fault, as far as we knew, he took us across, and we accomplished the whole journey in twelve hours, including one and a half hours for rest and lunch. [Illustration: THREE OF THE DOCTOR'S DOGS] The distance travelled and the average speed attained depends largely on other factors than the dog power. We have covered seventy-five miles in a day with comfort; we have done five with difficulty. Ordinary speed would be six miles an hour, but I once did twenty-one miles in two hours and a quarter over level ice. Sails can sometimes be used with advantage on the komatik as an adjunct. The whole charm of dog-team driving lies in its infinite variety of experiences, the personal study of each dog, and the need for one's strength, courage, and resourcefulness. South and north of the little village of St. Anthony where we had settled were other similar villages; and we decided that we could make a round tour every second month at least. We soon found, however, a great difficulty in getting started, because we always had some patients in houses near about, whom we felt that we could not leave. So we selected a motherly woman, whom we had learned that we could trust to obey orders and not act on her own initiative and judgment, and trained her as best we could to deal with some of these sick people. Then, having borrowed and outfitted a couple of rooms in a friend's house, we left our serious cases under her care, and started for a month's travel with all the optimism of youth.