creatures of Thoreau’s must have suffered terribly during the night.  He noticed that at the foot of each tree to which a dog was attached there was a round, smooth depression in the snow, where the animal had slept.  The next few minutes added to his conviction that the Frenchman and the Missioner were heartless masters, though open-handed hosts.  Mukoki and another Indian had come up with two gunny sacks, and from one of these a bushel of fish was emptied out upon the snow.  They were frozen stiff, so that Mukoki had to separate them with his belt-axe; David fancied they must be hard as rock.  Thoreau proceeded to toss these fish to the dogs, one at a time, and one to each dog.  The watchful and apparently famished beasts caught the fish in mid-air, and there followed a snarling and grinding of teeth and smashing of bones and frozen flesh that made David shiver.  He was half disgusted.  Thoreau might at least have boiled the fish, or thawed them out.  A fish weighing from one and a half to two pounds was each dog’s allotment, and the work—­if this feeding process could be called work—­was done.  Father Roland watched the dogs, rubbing his hands with satisfaction.  Thoreau was showing his big, white teeth, as if proud of something.

“Not a bad tooth among them, mon Pere,” he said.  “Not one!”

“Fine—­fine—­but a little too fat, Thoreau.  You’re feeding them too well for dogs out of the traces,” replied Father Roland.

David gasped.

“Too well!” he exclaimed.  “They’re half starved, and almost frozen!  Look at the poor devils swallow those fish, ice and all!  Why don’t you cook the fish?  Why don’t you give them some sort of shelter to sleep in?”

Father Roland and the Frenchman stared at him as if they did not quite catch his meaning.  Then a look of comprehension swept over the Missioner’s face.  He chuckled, the chuckle grew, it shook his body, and he laughed—­laughed until the forest flung back the echoes of his merriment, and even the leathery faces of the Indians crinkled in sympathy.  David could see no reason for his levity.  He looked at Thoreau.  His host was grinning broadly.

“God bless my soul!” said the Little Missioner at last.  “Starved?  Cold? Boil their fish?  Give ’em beds!” He stopped himself as he saw a flush rising in David’s face.  “Forgive me, David,” he begged, laying a hand on the other’s arm.  “You can’t understand how funny that was—­what you said.  If you gave those fellows the warmest kennels in New York City, lined with bear skins, they wouldn’t sleep in them, but would come outside and burrow those little round holes in the snow.  That’s their nature.  I’ve felt sorry for them, like you—­when the thermometer was down to sixty.  But it’s no use.  As for the fish—­they want ’em fresh or frozen.  I suppose you might educate them to eat cooked meat, but it would be like making over a lynx or a fox or a wolf.  They’re mighty comfortable, those dogs, David.  That bunch of