1906 white fang jack london - pinkmonke - Pink Monkey

CHAPTER FIVE.
The Covenant.
85
WHEN DECEMBER WAS well along, Gray Beaver went on a
journey up the Mackenzie River. Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch went
with him. One sled he drove himself, drawn by dogs he had traded
for or borrowed. A second and smaller sled was driven by Mit-sah,
and to this was harnessed a team of puppies. It was more of a toy
affair than anything else, yet it was the delight of Mit-sah, who felt
that he was beginning to do a man’s work in the world. Also, he
was learning to drive dogs and to train dogs; while the puppies
themselves were being broken in to the harness. Furthermore, the
sled was of some service, for it carried nearly two hundred pounds
of outfit and food.
White Fang had seen the camp-dogs toiling in the harness, so that
he did not resent overmuch the first placing of the harness upon
himself. About his neck was put a moss-stuffed collar, which was
connected by two pulling-traces to a strap that passed around his
chest and over his back. It was to this that was fastened the long
rope by which he pulled at the sled.
There were seven puppies in the team. The others had been born
earlier in the year and were nine and ten months old, while White
Fang was only eight months old. Each dog was fastened to the sled
by a single rope. No two ropes were of the same length, while the
difference in length between any two ropes was at least
that of a dog’s body. Every rope was brought to a ring at the front
end of the sled.
The sled itself was without runners, being a birch-bark toboggan,
with upturned forward end to keep it from ploughing under the
snow. This construction enabled the weight of the sled and load to
be distributed over the largest snow-surface; for the snow as
crystal-powder and very soft. Observing the same principle of
widest distribution of weight, the dogs at the ends of their ropes
radiated fan-fashion from the nose of the sled, so that no dog trod
in another’s footsteps.
There was, furthermore, another virtue in the fan-formation. The
ropes of varying length prevented the dogs’ attacking from the rear
those that ran in front of them. For a dog to attack another, it
would have to turn upon one at a shorter rope. In which case it
would find itself facing the whip of the driver. But the most
peculiar virtue of all lay in the fact that the dog that strove to attack
one in front of him must pull the sled faster, and that the faster the