Baldy of Nome | Page 7

were many and brilliant, but he maintained a reputation for ever-ready power which is apt to give immunity from attack.
Dubby's attitude toward the Racers generally was galling in the extreme. Usually he ignored them completely, turning his back upon them when they were being harnessed, and apparently oblivious of their very existence; except as such times when he felt that they needed suggestions as to their behavior.
There was, in a way, a certain injustice in Dubby's contempt for what might be called the sporting element of the stable; for, like college athletes, they were only sports incidentally, and for the greater part of the year they were as ready and willing to do a hard day's work in carrying goods to the creeks as were the more commonplace dogs who had never won distinction on the Trail.
But Dubby was ultra-conservative; and while "Scotty" must have had some strange human reason for all of these silly dashes with an absolutely empty sled, in his opinion hauling a boiler up to Hobson Creek would be a far more efficacious means of exercise, and would be a practical accomplishment besides. Dubby was of a generation that knew not racing. Of noted McKenzie River parentage, he came from Dawson, where he was born, down the Yukon to Nome with "Scotty" Allan. He had led a team of his brothers and sisters, six in all, the entire distance of twelve hundred miles, early manifesting that definite acknowledged mastery over the others that is indispensable in a good leader. He had realized what it meant to be a Pioneer, had penetrated with daring men the waste places in search of fame, fortune and adventure; and had carried the heavy burdens of gold wrested from rock-ribbed mountain, and bouldered river bed. He had helped to take the United States Mail to remote and inaccessible districts, and had sped with the Doctor and Priest to the bedside of the sick or dying in distant, lonely cabins.
He and his kind have ever shared the toil of the development of that desolate country that stretches from the ice-bound Arctic to where the gray and sullen waters of Bering Sea break on a bleak and wind-swept shore. They figure but little in the forest-crowned Alaska of the South, with its enchanted isles, emerald green, in the sunlit, silver waves; but they are an indispensable factor in the very struggle for mere existence up beyond the chain of rugged Aleutians whose towering volcanoes are ever enveloped in a sinister shroud of smoke. Up in the eternal snows of the Alaska of the North, the unknown Alaska--the Alaska of Men and Dogs.
[Illustration: THE ALASKA OF MEN AND DOGS June 1--The steamer Corwin at the edge of the ice, five miles from shore]
And so it is not strange that in such a land where the dog has ever played well his r?le of support to those who have faced its dangers and conquered its terrors, that his importance should be at last freely acknowledged, and the fact admitted that only the best possible dogs should be used for all arduous tasks.
Toward this end the Nome Kennel Club was organized. The object was not alone the improvement of the breeds used so extensively, but also, since the first President was a Kentuckian, of equal importance was the furnishing of a wholesome and characteristic sport for the community.
And Nome, once famed for her eager, reckless treasure-seekers in that great rush of 1900; famed once for being the "widest open" camp in all Alaska, now in her days of peace and quiet still claims recognition. Not only because of the millions taken out annually by her huge dredgers and hydraulics; not only because she is an important trading station that supplies whalers and explorers with all necessary equipment for their voyages in the Arctic; not only because of her picturesque history; but because she possesses the best sled dogs to be found, and originated and maintains the most thrilling and most difficult sport the world has ever known--Long Distance Dog Racing.
Previous to the advent of these races any dog that could stand on four legs, and had strength enough to pull, was apt to be pressed into service; but since they have become a recognized feature of the life there, a certain pride has manifested itself in the dog-drivers, and dog-owners, who aim now to use only the dogs really fitted for the work. Even the Eskimos, who were notorious for their indifferent handling of their ill-fed, overburdened beasts, have joined in the "better dog" movement, which is a popular and growing one.
According to Dubby's stern law, however, most of the Racers--the long-legged, supple-bodied Tolmans, the delicately built Irish Setters, Irish and Rover, and numberless others of the same type, would have been condemned to the ignominy