The dogs, one and all, are up to every sort of trick. Moreover, their stomachs are for ever empty and always keen for any sort of food. They are fed at night whilst on the trail, in order that the meal should have time to digest and strengthen them. Incidentally, they sleep soundly buried in the snow, and neither attempt to stray nor to break into the hunter’s sleeping place. In the morning they are nowhere to be seen. The white expanse remains unbroken. They are all under the snow, and in no way inclined to rouse up and be harnessed. Nobody wastes time looking for them. Someone takes a lamp outside the shelter and empties the oil on the ground. Immediately black noses emerge from here and there, tempted by the smell, and the rest is easy. Once upon a time Nannook (the bear) the Bad Hat of the team, had a brilliant idea. He had often considered the weighty problem of the driving lash it seemed so impossible for his master ever to forget. The point was, how to get rid of it. So long as that whip cracked forever about them there was no chance of making the other dogs do his share of the work, no opportunity to slack off or snatch a rest. The only scheme seemed to be to eat it. Nothing loth, Nannook waited for the usual midday halt. The hunter chopped off some frozen pieces of meat, sat down in the lee of the sled and ate and smoked. The whip lay unheeded on the snow behind his shoulder. Nannook sneaked up, caught hold of the end of the lash, and steadily began to chew. He chewed yard after yard, his stomach feeling better with every foot of the way. He chewed up to the very stock, undetected; and having packed away at least eighteen feet of seasoned whalehide, crept back to the team. Presently the hunter bestirred himself for a start. Picking up his whip—he just gazed round. It was a dog, without a doubt; but which one? Who on earth could tell! All were innocently dozing, every one in his place, the picture of virtuous decorum. No one could tell. No one, therefore, could be punished. The rest of the journey was accomplished perforce of shouting only. For once in a way the dogs had the best of the joke.