The dog whimpered and shivered between Kadlu 's knees . The hair rose about his neck , and he growled as though a stranger were at the door ; then he barked joyously , and rolled on the ground , and bit at Kotuko 's boot like a puppy . `` What is it ? '' said Kotuko ; for he was beginning to be afraid . `` The sickness , '' Kadlu answered . `` It is the dog sickness . '' Kotuko the dog lifted his nose and howled and howled again . `` I have not seen this before . What will he do ? '' said Kotuko . Kadlu shrugged one shoulder a little , and crossed the hut for his short stabbing-harpoon . The big dog looked at him , howled again , and slunk away down the passage , while the other dogs drew aside right and left to give him ample room . When he was out on the snow he barked furiously , as though on the trail of a musk-ox , and , barking and leaping and frisking , passed out of sight . His trouble was not hydrophobia , but simple , plain madness . The cold and the hunger , and , above all , the dark , had turned his head ; and when the terrible dog-sickness once shows itself in a team , it spreads like wild-fire . Next hunting-day another dog sickened , and was killed then and there by Kotuko as he bit and struggled among the traces . Then the black second dog , who had been the leader in the old days , suddenly gave tongue on an imaginary reindeer-track , and when they slipped him from the pitu he flew at the throat of an ice-cliff , and ran away as his leader had done , his harness on his back . After that no one would take the dogs out again . They needed them for something else , and the dogs knew it ; and though they were tied down and fed by hand , their eyes were full of despair and fear . To make things worse , the old women began to tell ghost-tales , and to say that they had met the spirits of the dead hunters lost that autumn , who prophesied all sorts of horrible things .
XXXXX grieved more for the loss of his dog than anything else ; for though an Inuit eats enormously he also knows how to starve .
Kadlu Kotuko days dog-sickness ghost-tales ice-cliff left right stabbing-harpoon wild-fire