CHAPTER SEVEN

The Big Race

They rolled into Whitehorse late that night. The boys were surprised to find a fairly modern city with paved streets, rows of stores and shops and street lamps. As they drove down the main street, festively decorated with wreaths, colored lights and holly, Jerry shook his head.

“Why, it looks pretty much like Valley View.”

“They even have bowling alleys,” Sandy pointed out. “And neon signs.”

Later, as they ate supper in the hotel dining room, Dr. Steele told them about the origin of the city: “Whitehorse was born in the gold rush, when thousands of sourdoughs trekked over the mountains from Alaska and the Pacific ports to seek their fortunes. Whitehorse was sort of a jumping-off place. They ran the rapids to Lake Laberge in anything that would float—barges, rafts, scows—and on down the Yukon River to Dawson. A few of them struck bonanzas, but most of them found only poverty and disillusionment. There’s just no way to get rich quick.”

“I know you’re right, Dr. Steele,” Jerry remarked. “Though I was kind of hoping that Sandy and I could strike out north with Professor Crowell’s dog team and stake ourselves a claim. That French cook back at the road station even gave me a jar of that sourdough of his to get us started.”

Professor Crowell laughed. “Before you boys do anything like that, you had better see how you stand up to the rigors of the trail during the big race to Skagway.”

“When do we start?” Jerry asked.

“The day after tomorrow.”

Charley gulped down a small roll with one bite. “Tomorrow we give huskies plenty exercise. Not much to eat.”

Sandy frowned. “You’re going to starve them before the race? Won’t it weaken them?”

Charley grunted. “No starve. Huskies can go week without food. They little hungry, they run faster and fight harder.”

“What are you, Lou and Professor Crowell going to be doing the rest of this week?” Sandy asked his father as they left the table.

His father thought about it a minute before answering. “Well, tomorrow we thought we’d fly up to Fairbanks and visit the University of Alaska. The president’s an old friend of mine. We hope to inspect some of the fossils they’ve dug up lately. I understand they have some fine specimens on display.”

“Gee, I wish we could come with you,” Sandy said. “That sounds like interesting stuff.”

“Yeah,” Jerry agreed. “We kids in the States never get to see things like that.”

“Why, that’s not so, Jerry,” Professor Crowell objected. “Your American museums and universities contain some of the most fascinating specimens of prehistoric beasts that I’ve ever seen. The last time I visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York I saw the leg of a baby mammoth that was completely intact. It had been preserved for centuries in a glacier, and the museum kept it in a deep freeze.”

“The professor’s right, Jerry,” Sandy admitted. “The trouble with so many of the kids we know is that they’re too lazy to use their eyes and their ears—and their legs.”

Dr. Steele interrupted. “As a matter of fact, did either of you boys know that Black Bart, the notorious stagecoach bandit, is reputed to have buried a strongbox with $40,000 in gold in the hills back of Stockton?”

“Gosh, no!” Jerry exclaimed. “What do you say, Sandy? Let’s go on a treasure hunt next summer. That’s practically in our back yard.”

Professor Crowell smiled. “That beats digging for gold in the Yukon, I’d say.”

“How long will you be in Fairbanks?” Sandy wanted to know.

“Oh, no more than a day,” Dr. Steele said. “We want to get back to Skagway to see you fellows come across the finish line in the big race.”

“In first place, of course,” Jerry added smugly.

“That would be a treat,” Professor Crowell said.

“Now I think we should all go up to our rooms and get a good night’s sleep,” Dr. Steele suggested. “We’ve had a long, trying day.”

“That sounds good to me,” Lou Mayer seconded. “It will be a real pleasure to rest my weary bones on an honest-to-goodness bed with a soft mattress.”

“You chaps go ahead,” said Professor Crowell. “I’m going down the street to the police barracks and report that incident with the plane today.”

“Do you really think that’s wise?” Dr. Steele asked gravely.

“The chief constable is a reliable man,” the professor told him. “He can be depended upon to be discreet. He may have received a report from one of these local airstrips about a small plane making an emergency landing. I don’t think those fellows could have traveled too far with their engine smoking like that. If they did land near here, we can put our people on their track.”

Dr. Steele nodded. “Good idea. Do you want me to come with you?”

“That won’t be necessary,” the older man assured him. “I’ll take Charley along.”

Upstairs, when the boys had bathed and changed into their pajamas, they lay in the dark in the small hotel room they shared and discussed the events of the day.

“What do you think it’s all about, anyway?” Jerry wondered. “We know enemy agents are after the professor. But why? It’s not like he was an atomic scientist or something. What could they want with a plain old geology professor?”

“I don’t know,” Sandy said worriedly. “But it must have something to do with our reason for coming up to Alaska. You can bet my dad and the professor didn’t make the trip _just_ to look at fossils and take soil samples. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Br-r-r,” Jerry said, “it’s like walking through a haunted house on Halloween Eve. You don’t know what to expect. But whatever it is, you know it won’t be good.” He threw back the covers and got out of bed.

“Hey, where are you going?” Sandy demanded.

Jerry padded across the room barefoot. “I just want to make sure that door is locked.”

The day of the big race was bitter cold and the sky was leaden with snow clouds scudding across the mountain peaks around Whitehorse. A huge crowd had gathered at the starting line on the outskirts of the city, and the air rang with merry voices and the yelping of dogs. Sandy and Jerry huddled close to a big bonfire outside the officials’ tent while Tagish Charley made a last-minute check of the sled and the dogs’ harnesses.

One of the judges came up and spoke to Sandy. “I understand you boys are from the States. What do you think of our big country?”

“It’s very exciting, sir,” Sandy said.

“And very cold,” Jerry added.

The judge laughed. “Wait until you’re out on the trail a few hours. Then you’ll know how cold it is. You’re riding with Professor Crowell’s team, right?”

“Yes, sir. And we’re really looking forward to it. This is some big event, isn’t it?”

The air was charged with a holiday atmosphere. Men and women were laughing and singing as they sipped from steaming mugs of coffee and tea; and a few were drinking from mugs that Sandy suspected contained even stronger brew.

“The race from Whitehorse is a time-honored ritual,” the judge told them. “Back in the old days, the course was even longer. From Dawson to Skagway, almost six hundred miles.”

“Good night!” Jerry said. “Those poor dogs must have worn their legs down to the shoulder.”

“As a matter of fact,” the judge went on, “Klondike Mike Mahoney used to operate a mail and freight route from Skagway to Dawson.”

“Who was Klondike Mike Mahoney?” Sandy asked.

“A rather fantastic young man who came to the Yukon during the gold rush and became a living legend.” He smiled. “You might say he was our counterpart of your Davy Crockett.”

“Hey! What are they doing?” Jerry pointed to a group of Eskimos who were laughing and whooping as they catapulted an Eskimo girl high into the air from a large animal hide stretched taut like a fireman’s net.

“That’s one of their favorite games,” the judge said. “You’ve probably played something like it at the beach—tossing a boy up in a blanket.”

“Yeah,” Jerry said. “But not like _that_. She’s better than some acrobats I’ve seen on the stage.”

Time after time, the slender Eskimo girl shot into the air, as high as twenty-five feet, like an arrow, never losing her balance. While they were watching her, Tagish Charley joined them by the fire. In his one hand he held a sheet of oiled paper on which were spread a half-dozen cubes that looked like the slabs of chocolate and vanilla ice cream served in ice-cream parlors.

“Eat,” Charley said, offering them to the boys.

Sandy took one gingerly. “Looks good. But what is it?”

“_Muk-tuk_,” the Indian grunted.

“A Northern delicacy,” the judge said with a straight face.

Jerry stuffed one of the cubes into his mouth with gusto. “Say, that’s good. Tastes like coconut.”

Sandy nibbled at his with more reserve. “It does a little. Maybe a little oilier. What’s it made of?”

“Whale skin and blubber,” the judge informed him. “The white part is blubber, and the dark is hide.”

Jerry gagged momentarily, swallowed his last mouthful, then smiled manfully. “I wish you hadn’t said that, sir,” he declared. “But it still tastes good.”

“You ready now?” Charley asked the boys. “Time for race soon.”

They shook hands with the official and followed Charley over to the starting line, where the teams were lining up.

There were eight entries altogether. The dogs were prancing about restlessly in their harnesses like proud race horses, their curved tails waving over their backs. They were charged with excitement and seemed eager to get started. The huskies on opposing teams eyed each other sullenly, baring their long fangs and growling deep in their throats. Occasionally, one would dart out of line and snap at another dog, but there were no fights. Black Titan, like the good lead dog he was, watched his team closely, and whenever one of them became too frisky and pugnacious, he would bark a sharp command. Immediately, the offender would drop his ears and quiet down.

“They act almost human,” Sandy said.

“I’ll say,” Jerry agreed. “That Titan reminds me of Mr. Hall, my math teacher. No horseplay when he’s around.”

Charley helped the boys arrange themselves in the sled, Sandy in back, with Jerry in front of him, sitting between his legs. “Just like on a toboggan,” Sandy observed. They tucked the big robe that covered them around their sides as Charley took his place behind the sled and gripped the handles.

The sharp crack of the starter’s pistol split the crisp air and Charley’s bellowing “Mush! Yea, huskies, mush!” almost split Sandy’s eardrums. The figures lined up on both sides of them blurred rapidly as the sled picked up speed, and wind and snow whipped into their faces. Gripping the handles tightly, Charley matched the pace of the team effortlessly with his long strides.

“He’s not going to run all the way, is he?” Jerry yelled to Sandy.

“I guess he wants to give the team the best of it this early in the race. He’ll hop on when he gets winded.”

But a half hour went by and still the driver’s boots pounded behind them in unbroken rhythm. At first the seven teams were bunched pretty close together on the hard-packed trail, then gradually the distance between them widened. Sandy kept glancing back as Charley urged their sled into the lead and finally lost sight of the nearest team as they rounded a hummock and entered a stretch of forest.

“If we keep this pace up, we’ll be in Skagway in time for lunch,” Jerry said.

The big Indian reined in the dogs when they reached a spot where three separate narrower paths forked off the main trail.

“Which way do we go?” Sandy called to him.

Still breathing as easily as if he had taken a short walk around the block, Charley answered, “All go to Skagway. We take middle trail. More snow, but less up and down.” Having made up his mind, Charley shouted to the dogs: “Mush! Mush! Mush, huskies!” And they were off again.

A short time later they left the trail and went skimming down a windswept slope that stretched away into a barren icy plain. Now Charley hopped onto the back of the sled and rode like a Roman charioteer, shouting encouragement to the dogs in Indian. Although there was no broken trail, the sled rode solidly on the surface of the old snow crusted over thickly by the 50-below-zero cold.

“This is really living!” Jerry exulted, his voice trailing off eerily in the slipstream behind the sled. At noon they stopped to rest the dogs in the lee of a rock overhang. Sandy broke out a thermos of steaming coffee and sandwiches, and Charley threw the huskies some chunks of lean dry meat.

“How far do you think we’ve come so far?” Jerry asked.

Charley shrugged. “Twenty, maybe twenty-five mile.”

“Say, that’s pretty good.” He looked back in the direction they had come from. “Where do you suppose those other guys are?”

Charley finished his sandwich, rumpled up the wax-paper wrapping and set a match to it, warming his hands over the brief torch it created. He motioned to the west. “Some follow other trail. Maybe a few stay just in back of us. Let us break new trail for them. Then when our dogs tired, they fresh and catch us.” He cupped one hand to his ear. “Listen!”

The boys held their breaths for a minute, straining to hear. They could just make out the sound of barking dogs floating on the wind in the distance.

“He’s right,” Jerry said indignantly. “That’s a sneaky thing to do.”

“No, it’s not,” Sandy disagreed. “No more than a track man letting another runner set the pace.”

“No worry,” Charley assured them. “We win anyway.”

“What a man you are, Charley.” Jerry regarded the big Indian with admiration. “We could use you in the fullback spot on the Valley View football team.” He grinned at Sandy. “I bet he could walk down the field with both teams on his back.”

Charley squinted up at the sky abruptly. The ceiling seemed even lower and grayer than before. “It snow soon. We better go.”

Sandy looked up too. “How can you tell?”

“I know,” Charley said somberly. “Bad storm on the way.”

“Oh, great!” Jerry said. “What happens if we get caught out in this deep freeze in a blizzard?”

“There are check points every twenty-five miles,” Sandy recalled what the professor had told him. “We must be pretty close to one now, Charley. Think we should stop and get a weather report?”

Charley nodded toward the east. “Two, three miles over that way. On main trail. We go there, we lose race. We stop at next post, at halfway mark. Three hours away maybe.”

“I guess that’s the only thing to do,” Sandy agreed. “Well, let’s get moving.”

Ten minutes later, the snow began to come down, fine granular pellets that stung like sand as the rising wind blasted it into their faces. Visibility was reduced to no more than fifty feet. Even the dogs were slowed down. The snow, mixed with the loose surface fluff of previous falls, piled up quickly in drifts. As it dragged at his boots more and more, Charley began to mutter angrily to himself in Indian.

“I don’t like it, Sandy,” Jerry said uneasily. “We’re never going to make that check point before dark.”

“At this rate we’ll never make it at all,” Sandy retorted. “Listen, Jerry, what do you say we get out and trot along with Charley? It’s bad enough pulling the sled by itself without our weight too.”

“Good idea,” Jerry admitted. “Let’s give the dogs a break.”

Sandy signaled Charley to stop and told him of their plan.

“All right,” Charley agreed. “I go up front and break trail.”