There was nothing of the brutal in Lou Gordon’s training of her dogs. When occasion demanded she used the whip, and used it unsparingly, but always in the correction of an acquired fault, that if persisted in would detract from the value of the dog, or of the team as a unit. She never punished a dog for fighting, nor did she ever punish a hungry dog for stealing. Many hungry dogs came her way--dogs that she was able to buy cheap because through abuse and inadequate feeding they had become of little value to their owners. These dogs she took home, and by judicious handling and feeding developed them into able-bodied trail dogs that commanded top prices. The care and management of from fifteen to thirty dogs was no small task. She owned and operated with the help of an Indian boy her own fish nets, and dried her own fish. She hunted caribou, and tried out her own tallow. For she early learned that on the trail her dogs could not be kept in condition on a straight fish or meat diet. She bought corn meal and rice by the hundred-weight, and when working, her dogs always got one feed a day of cooked ration, boiled rice or cornmeal, mixed with tallow. The result was that her own team was by all odds the best team on the Koyukuk, and the dogs she offered for sale on her semi-annual trip to Nolan and Wiseman, were eagerly snapped up at top prices. And so it was, at the approach of Christmas, on the fourth year of their residence on the Koyukuk, father and daughter were living alone on Myrtle, for the last of the others had long since gravitated to the new camps, the old man burning, digging, and dreaming of his “b’iler,” and the girl busy with her dogs and her books. CHAPTER X ENRIGHT PAYS A VISIT Skookum raised his head, pricked his ears, and pointing his muzzle up the creek, gave voice to a low throaty growl. Lou Gordon glanced down at the dog, and continued to throw dried fish over the fence of the pole-and-stake dog corral. When she had tossed the last fish, she smiled: “Who is it, Skookum? We don’t have many visitors nowadays, do we?” The dog stood silent, immovable save for a scarcely perceptible quiver of the nostrils, staring into the twilight. The girl laughed: “Only one man, eh? And no dogs. And he’s someone you know, and approve of. Oh, you see I can understand you as well as you can understand me! See, here he comes! Why, it’s Pete Enright!” The girl stepped forward, a smile of welcome upon her face: “_Klahowya six!_” she greeted. “_Kahta mika?_” He smilingly returned her greeting in the jargon, and switched into English. “Well, well, Miss Lou, an’ how’s yer Pa? Still figgerin’ on his b’iler, I s’pose. Lord, what a passel of dogs! How many you goin’ to have to sell this trip?”