Skipper Ed had not kept dogs since the slaughter of his team in the year of famine. He hunted and trapped more after the manner of the Indian than the Eskimo, going long journeys inland on snowshoes, and now Jimmy accompanied him. And living quite alone, as he had during his earlier years on the coast, there was no one who could have fed or cared for dogs when Skipper Ed was absent upon these trapping expeditions. It was therefore only during the two or three years preceding the year of famine, when Jimmy was old enough to care for them, and wished them, that he had a team.