And then they came to a small wooden house with a large barn and a sod-walled stable beside it. Jan's chain was hitched round a stout center post in the barn, and there he was left. Later Jean brought him a tin dish of water and a big lump of dried fish which had had some warm fat smeared over it, Jean having rightly guessed that it was Jan's first experience of this form of dog-food. The fat was well enough, and Jan licked it rather languidly. But the fish did not appeal to him, and so he left it and went off to sleep, little thinking that he would get no other kind of food than this for many days to come. Toward the middle of the next day, Jan, feeling cramped and rather miserable as the result of his unaccustomed confinement, changed his mind about that fish and ate it; slowly, and without enjoyment, but yet with some benefit to himself. Less than an hour later Jean entered to him, carrying in his hands a contrivance of leather, with long trailing ends. For a minute or so Jean stood looking down upon Jan appraisingly. There was no better judge of a dog--from one standpoint--in that part of Canada. "By gar!" he muttered between his teeth. "That Sergeant Moore hee's a queer cuss, sure 'nuff, to give away a dog like thees for nothing; and then, by gar, to pay me ten dollar for takin' heem." Then he stooped down and rubbed Jan's ears, with a friendly, knowledgeable way he had. "Ah, you, Jan," he said, cheerily. "Here's your harness. Here, good dog, I show you." And he proceeded to buckle a set of dog-harness about Jan's massive chest and shoulders. In doing so he noticed for the first time Dick's stitches in the hound's dewlap and shoulders. "By gar!" he said, with a grin. "You bin fightin', Jan, eh? Ah, well, take care, Jan. We get no nursin' after fightin' here. Bes' leave that job to the huskies, Jan. Come on--good dog." A hundred yards away, on the far side of the shack, Jan came upon the first dog-sled he had ever seen, with a team of seven dogs attached, now lying resting on the dry snow. They were a mixed team, four of them unmistakable huskies, one with collie characteristics, one having Newfoundland blood (through many crosses), and one, the leader, having the look of something midway between a big powerful Airedale and an old English sheep-dog, including the bobtail. This leader, Bill, as he was called, had the air of a master-worker, and was the only member of the pack (except the wheeler) who did not snarl as Jan was led toward them. With the dogs was Jake, wearing a deep fur cap that came well down over the tops of his ears. In one hand Jake held a short-hafted whip with a rawhide thong, the point of which he could put through a dog's coat from ten paces distant. "Take Mixer out an' put heem in behind Bill," said Jean. "We'll try Jan in front of old Blackfoot."