Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1908-08-14
THE STRATEGY OF
A CANINE FRIEND
DR.. VIM. Grenfell, Noted Lab
rador Explorer, Narrates
an Interesting Case.
From the Boston Transcript.

From the Boston Transcript.
1t happened that none of Us knew the
right direction to follow to the village we
were heading for, and there were 20 miles
Of rivers. thickets, marshes, and lakes.
Ny .ea227s dog vas 6i& od2t rsSdioSE OF
the party who had ever been there be-
fore, and he had been once, a year be-
fore, in bad weather, with DIR. ewa
and a pilot. He seemed SO confident, how
ever, that j decided to trust him,
There was no cut path through some OF
the drogues of woods, not q single mark
on the ponds, not a pole on the marshes.
Tn dog was a large, rather s~hort-haired
animal, striped gray and brown, IKE a
tiger, with an intelligent face, that always
appeared to wear a grin. We called him
'Brin." l have once before owned a roof
over my head at night TO the sagactty
and endurance Of this dog. He was then
a pup. but already leading my team. Ny
doctor colleague from Boston, Mass, was
driving the team behind mine The third
team was seldom less than a mile behind.
As We covered the first few miles we
were delighted to find hat my dog was
following a path that we could drive
along, while here and there we found a
stray blaze, showing we were in the
track. The dog would sometimes cross a
pond at right angles to the track through
the trees, and as il grew late we some
times feared that he would not find the
track again. The fascination of watching
the dog would, however, have amply COM
pensated for a night in the woods on the
snow. Indeed, ii became quite weird to
sit on the sledge and watch the confident
dog go on through the trackless country.
as II 1t were on a high road.
At last we brought up short. We had
crossed a large double pond, turned sharp
round an island. and come to an impene-
trable hedge of virgin forest on the steep
side of a range of hills which faced the
lakes. Still the leader ven confidently
on. right into the trees, It'll all were tam
gled up. But 1t seemed as If he had no
doubt. We halted to get the dogs back
on the open, and we felt we had better
camp there than go farther and fare
worse. Our implicit confidence in the dog
at hat moment looked like sheer folly.
and | confess to getting off and comforting
with DR.. Little as to what should be done
next. 1t ended in my DOMINIC my snow
racquets and starting for a tour round the
lake, TO see IL the dog was even on a lake
with any outlet at all.
Tying up the team / started, but on
passing the very first big tree, 1 found
the path, narrow, clean-cut. and taking
the hillside at a sharp angle backward,
so that actually the dog had only gone
ltiS WIOHS sue OF one tree anu indue d
short cut, which hid the narrow path
from us. Naturally we let him have his
own way after that. and once we took
the bay ice, he brought us to the houses
at a full stretch gallop.
One reads many stories Of animal In
tenigence, but none of us could name the
sense that brought our brindle dog across
that country. Ii on not be smell. Not
a soul had crossed the year to leave a
foot scent. 1t could scarcely be sight,
for the snow and weather had been so
bad the only other time the dog had lone
the journey that IL had taken three days
TO cover what we did in less than II hours.
1t couldn't be hearing. The silence of
the woods is absolute. The dog does not
suggest the idea OF much matter
anyhow. No mans memory, at any rate,
would carry all the details OF those twists
and turns for IL months, especially when
so many other similar tracts of country
were being travelled daily.
The dog seemed TO show a little par
donable pride as he stood up and put his
~forepaws on my chest. But as / looked
dow into his intelligent face, still wear
ing the everlasting grin, l hardly knew
whether TO laugh oyei the new experi-
ence he had afforded us, so finally settled
the conundrum by giving him a double
portion of whale for supper.