The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1911-12-14

makes a stay over nlSnC at LHe Top pTdcLlCHlly
necessary. With old-fashioned courtesy the
tourists are conducted to their rooms by an
able, and after meals are shown round the
church, the kennels and museum, quite as
guests in a country house. Never hint OF
pay. Every tourist knows-it is universal con-
versation and all guide books tell it-that each
tourist ought to put into the aims box at least
what he Cor she) would have to pay at hotel
All tourists similarly know in advance that
the Hospice has grown poor In modern times
by continuing to feed, warm and lodge $4,000
mingled rich and poor annually--the grants.
rents and annuities that once made it rich
having shrunk and dwindled This being SO,
what do you imagine the 5000 gay and AFRO
CANT tourists last summer put into the aims
box? Less than 1000 would have paid at a
hotel! That is to say. an average of one tour
list In six paid up honestly. The rest sneaked
it.
This is not why the dogs have faraway,
almost dsdainful look. They do not know why
they are almost hard up for their soup and
biscuits Once they wore gold collars; now
they go about contentedly in leather dotted
with brass nail-heads. They do not even know
that rich tourists have tried to buy them for
large sums-which the good canons gently re-
fused; they would never send their dog friends
down to pant and pine in the thick, hot air of
do not like our smell-the smell of overheated,
overfed gross tourist bodies burning oxygen
and letting off poisonous gases like furnace
Their friends the abbes, brothers and clean.
smelling wood choppers of the heights are
plain livers, trained down, all muscle, their
very clothes free from the grease and microbes
of the fes tering plain. How, then, If they
avoid us. are they willing to bound Off through
snow and night and hunt out-wdat they
smell SO easily, SO far away--tha strong
scented denizen of low attitudes in distress?
In men it would be called professional ardor.
In these dogs we call it atavism Since ST.
Bernard de Mention collected the pack in the
year A. d. 962, almost thousand years have
elapsed Generation after generatipn, back
through the centuries. the same patient train
ing exclusive companionship of wise men, alb
sence of outside fooishness and distractions,
have made 1t race Of dogs apart. There are
plenty Of st. Bernards up and down the valley;
but they are degenerates from the overflow.
The dogs of the Hospice, for example, take
their orders only from the abbes. or canons.
not the brown brothers ("marronniers) who
live with them, feed them, and for whom they
have the greatest affection. Yet before start
ing on an expedition. an able has the chief
dogs up before him, one by one 1t passes in
absolute silence, very queer. When the pure
minded. strong-souled, trained-down, unworldly
man looks into his eyes, what passes into the
subconscious being of the cleanliving, high
bred human-companioned animal Of the thin
air and lonely heights?
Two Hospice dogs have crouched beside ar
exhausted wayfarer, smuggling close to him
on each side to keep him warm while the third
dog ran back to lead the caravan" Of rescue
to the spot
Such trio of scouts have barked contiD
uously in the ears Of weakening stumbling
traveller to keep him awake. Two trudged
SO close to him on each side as to warm and
hold him uprght-while the third butted him
along from behind good five minutes before
dashing back to bring the caravan.
Any visitor in snow time is given the
privilege to wander off and hide behind a drift
AS far as he pleases, covering his tracks
at pleasure. Then an able will take a new
bunch of six dogs from the kennels, merely
show them your handkerchief in his upifted
hand-of course they get the scent-and off
they co. circling, barking, as at game. After
two circles of the Hospice, at the most, rim.
ming with their noses in the air like French
deer hound, they have your trail and follow
it straight to where you are waiting to be
rescued Then you get your second surprise
Instead of digging you out and offering you
a drink of brandy and water from the canteens
round their necks, they stand in circle, laugh
ing at you. You know how dog laughs
Technically the pass Is "open to circula-
ton" between the melting and temperance of
the SHOWS in July August and September
During this period, when the road is alive with
traffic over good dry earth, and rock the
rescue work is limited to hunting up adventur
Gus tourists or tipsy "work-seeking" laborers
who have strayed or fallen. In bad weather
and as soon as there is snow, the telephone
makes rescue work routine. From st. Rhemy
on the Swiss slope, telephone message in
variably notifies tie Hospice of the passage
up of each vehicle band of pedestrians or soil
tary adventurer.