I take the handle-bars and call "Mush." For the rest of the day "Sheep" pulls for all he is worth; but the next day he forgets and has to be trounced again. I am conscious that this story may have a "fishy" flavor for some of my readers, but I can assure them it is true. But mine are all fine little dogs, not as large as the malamute, but with more courage, spirit and intelligence. The long hair protects them from the cold and they will cuddle down in the snow contentedly, curled up like little shrimps, and let it cover them. We must take along enough feed for the dogs, to last them from salmon stream to salmon stream. The staple of their feed is dried salmon; it goes a long way for its weight. We start with a hundred pounds of it, and fifty pounds of rice and tallow. This, boiled into a savory mess and served once a day (when they stop for the night), keeps the dogs fat and hearty. We shall replenish the supply at intervals, for five dogs will eat an immense amount of food, and must have all that they can eat at their daily meal. The sled is a basket-sleigh with handle-bars and brake at the back and a "gee-pole" in front, with an extra rope when we have to "neck it" to help the dogs. My wolf-robe is spread on the floor of the sleigh for my accommodation in the brief intervals of riding. For dog mushing in Alaska does not mean luxuriously riding in your sleigh wrapped up in your fur robe while the dogs haul you along the trail. When Dr. Egbert Koonce sledded twelve hundred miles from Rampart to Valdez in 1902 on his way to the General Assembly, I told the Assembly of the feat. A good friend from Philadelphia said: "It must after all be a really luxurious way of traveling, wrapped up in your furs and reclining in a comfortable sleigh behind your dogs." I turned to Koonce and asked him how much of that twelve hundred miles he rode. "About two miles," he replied. I shall ride more than this on my way to Seward, but there will not be many places where I can ride half a mile at a stretch without getting out and running behind the dogs. The beauty of "dog mushing" is that you are compelled to work as hard as the dogs. You are not on a well-beaten boulevard; you are wending your way around trees and stumps, over hummocks, up and down hills, along the sides of the mountains, and must keep your hands on the handle-bars, lifting the sled on the trail when it runs off and often breaking the trail ahead with your snow-shoes. When the dogs are on fairly good roads they swing along uninterruptedly and you run your best behind. If there are two of you, one holds the handle-bars and the other sprints along, either in front or behind the sleigh. You will get pretty tired the first two or three days, but after your muscles become hardened and you get your second wind, you can run at your keenest gait two or three miles at a time.