All day as I trudged or trotted now on snow-shoes and now off, as the trail varied in badness, that dog was in my mind and his loss upon my heart, the feel of his tongue upon my cheek. It takes the close companionship between a man and his dogs in this country, travelling all the winter long, winter after winter, through the bitter cold and the storm and darkness, through the long, pleasant days of the warm sunshine of approaching spring, sharing labour and sharing ease, sharing privation and sharing plenty; it takes this close companionship to make a man appreciate a dog. As I reckoned it up, Nanook had fallen just short of pulling my sled ten thousand miles. If he had finished this season with me he would have done fully that, and I had intended to pension him after this winter, to provide that so long as he lived he should have his fish and rice every day. Some doubt I had had of old Lingo lasting through the winter, but none of Nanook, and they were the only survivors of my original team. [Sidenote: THE TALKING DOG] Nanook was in as good spirits as ever I knew him that last night, coming to me and plumping his huge fore paws down on my moccasins, challenging me to play the game of toe treading that he loved; and whenever he beat me at it he would seize my ankle in his jaws and make me hop around on one foot, to his great delight. He was my talking dog. He had more different tones in his bark than any other dog I ever knew. He never came to the collar in the morning, he never was released from it at night, without a cheery "bow-wow-wow." And we never stopped finally to make camp but he lifted up his voice. There was something curious about that. Only two nights before, when we had been unable to reach the health resort owing to wind-hardened drifts right across the trail that overturned the heavy sled again and again, swing the gee pole as one would, and had stopped several times in the growing dusk to inspect a spot that seemed to promise a camping place, Arthur had remarked that Nanook never spoke until the spot was reached on which we decided to pitch the tent. What faculty he had of recognising a good place, of seeing that both green spruce and dry spruce were there in sufficient quantity, I do not know--or whether he got his cue from the tones of our voice--but he never failed to give tongue when the stop was final and never opened his mouth when it was but tentative.