“And he’s starved him, too. See how thin he is. But he’s all right! He’s the same old Skookum, and it won’t take long to get him into shape again. And, oh, dad, now we can go to Nome!” Early in February, Lou Gordon made a flying trip to Nolan. There she found Rim Rock and Johnny Atline who were waiting for Enright to return, and break the news to the girl that the search had been fruitless. All Nolan crowded about her as she halted her dogs before the roadhouse, and all Nolan listened to the story of Skookum’s return, and rejoiced in the girl’s good fortune. “And, now, we are going to Nome,” she concluded, “and try for the Alaska Sweepstakes. We’ll start on the eighteenth, and that will give us plenty of time to get there by the first of April.” “An’ I want five hundred dollars’ worth of the best odds you kin git me, that you’ll win!” cried Atline, “I’ll give you the dust soon as Clem weighs it out.” “Me, too,” said Rim Rock, “But, say, Miss Lou, ain’t they no way you kin figger to drive them dogs yerself?” The girl laughed: “Yes, Rim Rock,” she answered, “I will drive them myself. I don’t know how I’ll work it, but I’ll manage it, somehow. Poor dad! He nearly lost us the other race, and I don’t intend to take any chances with this one.” “Do you know how come Dalzene to pass him, Chris’mus?” asked Bill Britton. “No, dad never said much about the race. I’ve asked him, and all he would say was that Dalzene passed him at the turn, and that he couldn’t get Skookum to take the lead again.” “Well, you know, I was up to the turn to see that all teams went the hull route, an’ yer dad came in and pulled up to rest his dogs. Said you made him promise to rest ’em fer ten minutes. Well, the ten minutes was up, an’ the old man, he jumps onto the sled and yells at the dogs, an’ cracks his whip right between the lead dog’s ears, an’ the next minute the team was all fightin’ an’ in the doggondest mixup you ever seen. It tuk us an hour to git ’em strung out and started agin, an’ meanwhile Dalzene had passed an’ gone.” “I knew it!” laughed the girl, “I knew that whip would get him into trouble. I tried to make him leave it behind, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I broke those dogs, and I rarely use the whip.” “If you’re goin’ to drive the dogs, I’ll take a thousand dollars’ worth of what ever you kin git,” broke in Wilcox. Other sacks were produced, and until nearly every man in the camp had expressed his eagerness to bet anywhere from three hundred to a thousand dollars on Lou Gordon’s dogs. “Guess they’ll know us Koyukukers is willin’ to back Koyukuk dogs!” exclaimed Wilcox, as he accompanied the men to the saloon to weigh out the dust. “Too bad Enright ain’t here,” opined Atline, “He’d sure like to be in on this.”