North

“Havin’ a hell of a time to find a driver for those Gordon dogs,” grinned the entry man, as MacShane reported the change of drivers. “First it was Stewart Gordon, then Lou Gordon, an’ now they’re changin’ it again. What name?”

“Make it Huloimee Tilakum,” answered MacShane.

“Huloimee Tilakum! Jargon for Stranger, eh? All right, down she goes: Huloimee Tilakum. But, if John Johnson should break his neck, an’ Scotty an’ Eskimo John should founder themselves on strawberries, an’ you should happen to win the race, folks will be wantin’ to know a hell of a lot more about you than just The Stranger. They’ll be askin’ ‘Who is The Stranger’?”

“Well, if they ask you,” grinned MacShane, “Just tell them all you know,” and turning on his heel, he pushed his way with difficulty through the dense throngs that crowded about the teams of Johnson, and Allen, and Eskimo John to the point where his own team waited, surrounded by a straggling group that eyed them indifferently. “There’ll be a different story to tell when this race is over,” he muttered savagely to himself, “They’ll be crowdin’ around these dogs fit to smother ’em—an’ they won’t know those other teams are alive.”

It still lacked fifteen or twenty minutes of starting time; and MacShane’s eyes traveled up and down the street, resplendent in flags and bunting, and literally swarming with massed humanity. Never in his life had he seen so many people at one time. Indeed, he wondered whether all the people he had ever seen would equal in numbers the crowds that had collected to witness the start of the Alaska Sweepstakes, the great classic of the North. “Where do they all come from?” he speculated, “An’ where do they get the grub to feed ’em all?”

The officers were clearing the street. Men, women and children surged back onto the sidewalks and lined the thoroughfare in two solid masses. In the street remained only the race teams and their drivers. Seven teams beside his own, MacShane counted, two of twelve dogs, three of fourteen, one of sixteen, and Johnson’s team of eighteen. A few moments later they lined up for the start, each driver standing beside his leader. Whips were in evidence, and realizing the possibility of Skookum’s running amuck amid the cracking of whips, MacShane contrived to be fumbling at the great leader’s collar when the shot sounded that started the racers over the long snow-trail. As the dog teams shot away a mighty roar of applause burst from thousands of throats. For a full minute, MacShane continued to work with the collar, and then, amid a vast chorus of jeers and cat-calls he gave the word, and Skookum led his team in the wake of the vanishing racers.

At Soloman, the first reporting station, MacShane learned that Allen was leading, having made the thirty-two miles in three hours and thirteen minutes. Fred Ayer was one minute behind him, and Johnson had pulled in six minutes behind Ayer. Sapala, and Eskimo John, who drove the Council Kennel Club’s entry, came in together sixteen minutes later, while Fay Delezene and Paul Kjegsted were right on their heels. MacShane’s own time was three hours and forty-two minutes, twenty-nine minutes behind the leading team.

At Timber, sixty-four miles from the starting point, the order remained unchanged, Allen making the distance in six hours and fifty-eight minutes. MacShane pulled in at 4:23, and noted with a grin that he had gained four minutes on Allen. Just beyond Timber, Kjegsted came to grief with a broken sled runner and withdrew from the race. Twenty miles farther on MacShane passed Sapala, and overtook Eskimo John, and Ayer at Telephone Creek where they were resting, one hundred and twenty-two miles from the starting point. This left only Allen, Johnson, and Delezene ahead of him. Allen had reported in at 10:03, rested for ten minutes, fed his dogs, and pulled out. Johnson had pulled in twelve minutes behind Allen, and had gained five minutes by pausing only long enough to feed his dogs a handful of meal. Delezene had reported in two minutes after Johnson had left, and had pulled out without stopping. MacShane decided to do likewise as his dogs were still fresh. Eskimo John followed him out, and Ayer fell in behind him.

At the summit of Death Valley Hill, MacShane passed Delezene, whose dogs seemed to be weakening, and at Haven, one hundred and forty-six miles from Nome, he overtook Allen and Johnson who were resting. Allen had made the run in twenty-nine hours and three minutes, Johnson in twenty-nine hours and twenty minutes, and MacShane in twenty-nine hours and twenty-seven minutes. Johnson was the first to leave, resting for only fifteen minutes. MacShane fed his dogs and pulled out five minutes later, leaving Allen mending a harness.

At Gold Run, one hundred and eighty-two miles from the starting point, MacShane again overtook Johnson, pulling in five minutes after the leader. They had been thirty-three hours and thirty minutes on the trail, and each rested for ten minutes.

As MacShane pulled out of Gold Run, Allen overtook him, and without stopping, pulled out right at his heels. With hands glued to the handle bars, MacShane studied his dogs as he ran. Skookum, the superb leader, was apparently as fresh as when he started. One by one, he watched critically each dog’s work, but could detect no hint of lameness or lagging. Iron man that he was, MacShane was beginning to tire. His muscles did not lag, but it was requiring a conscious effort of mind to hold them to the work. Johnson was nowhere in sight, and behind him he could hear Allen urging on his dogs. The temperature was rising, and MacShane, bathed in sweat, and conscious of a terrible thirst, sucked the first of the dozen lemons he had provided for the purpose.

He reached Candle Creek, the turning point of the race five minutes behind Johnson. Allen was nowhere in sight. MacShane fed and watered his dogs, and rolling up in his rabbit robe was asleep in two minutes. When he awoke, an hour and a half later, both Johnson and Allen had left. Johnson had rested an hour, and Allen a half-hour.

There was no hint of snow in the air as MacShane headed his dogs over the back trail. Apparently as fresh as when he started he urged his dogs to a faster pace, and at Gold Run, twenty-four miles away, he overtook Allen. He had made the two hundred and thirty miles in forty-four hours flat. Here he learned that Johnson was an hour ahead of him and going strong when he pulled out of Gold Run. He left five minutes after his arrival, and once again Allen was right at his heels. MacShane noted that Allen had taken a dog on his sled. He made Haven, two hundred and sixty-six miles from the starting point, in fifty-eight hours and thirty-five minutes. The air was full of snow, and he learned that Johnson was only forty minutes ahead of him and that he, too, had taken a dog on his sled.

As MacShane approached Death Valley Hill, the wind rose to almost hurricane violence, and the character of the snow changed from definite flakes to a fine powdery snow-fog that bit and stung the flesh of his face like a thousand needle-points. With the snow-fog came a drop in temperature. MacShane’s mittens froze to the handle bars. The dogs slowed to three miles an hour. There was no trail, and try as he would MacShane could not see his leader. The wind swung the sled dangerously, and time after time MacShane nearly lost his handle bars.

Suddenly Skookum stopped dead still. In vain MacShane yelled to urge him on. One of the new dogs laid down, and MacShane took him to the sled. He hurried to Skookum and with a hand on the great dog’s collar tried to start him. But the dog was immovable. MacShane walked ahead, and not ten yards away he plunged over a cliff. The fall of twenty or thirty feet did no more than give him a shaking up, as he alighted in a huge drift of the new-fallen snow, but it was a good half-hour before he managed to regain the upper level. The dogs had made good use of the interval and all were lying down in the harness. MacShane was lost! He had been lost a hundred times, but never before had it mattered. Always he had camped until the conditions that had caused his predicament had righted themselves, but now to camp meant to lose the race. Over and over, as he had frantically tried to scale the cliff, he had kept repeating to himself, “I’ve got to win! I’ve got to win!”

He reasoned that the trail lay to the westward, as the terrific wind had gradually forced them off the course. “Gee! Skookum! Gee!” he cried, “Mush-a! Mush! Hi! Mush-a! Mush-a!” This time the leader threw himself into the collar, and the whole team responded with a will. The air was an impenetrable wall of whirling, stinging fog, and gripping the handle bars, MacShane urged the dogs on, he knew not whither. On, and on, they bored through the seething smother. An hour passed—two hours, and suddenly MacShane felt the sled accelerate. He quickened his pace to keep up, and in a few minutes more he was running! There was only one explanation—Skookum had found the trail! “Go it, Skookum! Mush-a! Mush-a!” the wind tore the words from his lips and buried them in the fog—but the dogs ran on.

Suddenly, after hours of blind running, something black loomed up close beside him. Boston Roadhouse! Somehow he had missed Telephone Creek altogether, in the storm. Here he learned that neither Johnson nor Allen had been heard from since pulling out of Haven. Neither Telephone Creek nor Boston Roadhouse had seen either of them! MacShane fed his dogs and pulled out. Only one hundred and seven miles to go—and he was leading! Of course, there was a bare possibility that Johnson was still ahead, but if so, he was off the trail, and would be laboring under a severe handicap. “It was her taking the dogs over the trail that did it!” muttered MacShane, as he bored on through the storm. “Without that Skookum would never have found it. She didn’t drive the race—but if we come in first, By God, she won it!” Two hours later the snow-fog lightened. MacShane could see all the dogs, now. It was growing colder. Again his muscles were tiring. The sweat was pouring from his body into his mukluks. He sucked lemons continually. Hour after hour he held the dogs to their work, and when he judged he had made twenty-five miles from Boston Roadhouse, he halted the team, and fed them meal and tallow. Here, also he pulled the other young dog out of the harness and replaced him with the one which had rested. “Only about eighty miles to go, boys!” he cried, after fifteen minutes of rest, “Mush-a! Mush-a! We’ve got to win that money!”

When MacShane staggered into Timber on the tail end of the blizzard, he had made three hundred and forty-eight miles in seventy-four hours and thirty minutes, with sixty-four miles to go.

At Timber he learned that Johnson had reported into Boston Roadhouse an hour and ten minutes after he had pulled out, and had rested two full hours. Allen had withdrawn from the race after injuring three of his dogs when his team went over a cliff in the storm. He had returned to Haven.

With a good three hours’ lead, MacShane slept for two hours and pulled out with the sun shining brightly. The thirty-four miles to Topkok was made without incident, MacShane urging his tired dogs, and his tired muscles to their utmost. At Topkok he learned that Johnson, with three dogs on his sled was barely holding his own, an hour and a quarter behind. Just out of Topkok, with thirty miles to go—MacShane took another dog onto the sled. One of the big malamutes had gone lame. From that time on, he drove a terrific trail, forcing the dogs to their limit. For he knew that Johnson would gain, as with three dogs on the sled, he still had fifteen dogs in harness, while he himself, had but ten.

From Topkok on, he was forced to face the wind which tore at his exposed face and whipped the sled about so that it was with the utmost difficulty he managed to keep it from being smashed into kindling wood against the telephone poles that flanked the trail. MacShane was running mechanically, taking no thought of miles. He had used the last of his lemons and was consumed by torturing thirst. The sweat squashed audibly in his mukluks, and he ran as in a dream. A crashing explosion brought him to his senses. It was the gun at Fort Davis that announces to the waiting thousands in Nome that the first racer is in sight.

“Only four miles to go! Four miles! Four miles!” MacShane found himself babbling the words aloud. The report of the gun had put new life in his veins and he ran on encouraging his dogs to a faster pace.

Nome! From the roofs of the buildings, from the cross-arms of poles men and boys cheered him on. As he ran down the seemingly endless street the crowds thickened. Black masses of howling, yelling people lined the sidewalks. And as he crossed the line the Queen of the Alaska Carnival, running at his side, hung a huge wreath of flowers about his neck.

The great race was over. The Gordon dogs had won!

“How is she?” asked MacShane, as Bill Ames, swearing great round, bragging oaths of pure joy, took over the dogs.

“She’s comin’ along. They tuk her to the horspital.”

“Don’t tell ’em my name—any of ’em,” whispered MacShane, and the next moment he was gone.