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Updated: May 29, 2025
The Road House there was the turning point, where the teams would pass round a pole at which was stationed a guard; and the collection of buildings which marked the end of half of the course looked distant indeed to the five young mushers who with their teams had now become, to the watchers in Nome, merely small moving black specks against the whiteness of the snow.
All "mushers" now travel at night when the trail is frozen, as it is too soft in the daytime, and the glare of the sun often causes snow-blindness. Then, too, there is water on the ice in places, which we are glad to see, and pools of the same are standing around the Mission and schoolhouse. I can no longer go out in my muckluks, but must wear my long rubber boots and short skirts.
This colloquy had been short, but, brief as the delay had been, it had afforded time for newcomers to arrive. Amazed at the sight of a raging woman holding an army of red men at bay, several "mushers" dropped their burdens and came running forward to learn the meaning of it. The Countess explained rapidly, whereupon one exclaimed: "Go to it, sister!" Another agreed heartily.
There's nothing like a warm shack, with a cache full of grub, when the peaks smoke and the black snow-clouds roar down the gulch. Other "mushers" were ahead of us at the road-house, freighters from Kougarok, an outfit from Teller going after booze, the mail-carrier, and, who do you reckon? Annie Black. First time I had seen her since she was run out of Dawson for claim jumping.
Say a hundred pounds of grub on each sled. The driver's outfit and dog-grub will fetch it up fifty more. But they can make time. Say we start five of these sleds pronto best running teams, best mushers and trail-eaters. On the soft trail the sleds can take the lead turn about. They've got to start at once.
It had been built by a homesick foreigner of unknown nationality whom the army of "mushers" who paid for his clean and orderly hospitality had dubbed duly and as a matter of course a "Swede."
Jennie is put to bed again on her return, and the weight a sand bag attached to her foot, according to the doctor's orders. The weather is very springlike, and we have wind "emeliktuk," as little Charlie says when he has a plenty of anything. Snow storms are sandwiched nicely in between, but many "mushers" are on the trails.
She stood blinking at us, coming from the bright light outside, as cute as a new faro box then: "Can you tell me where Mrs. Bradshaw lives? She's somewhere in this district. I'm her daughter come all the way from the States to see her." When she smiled I could hear the heart-strings of those ragged, whiskered, frost-bit "mushers" bustin' like banjo strings.
I know after that every one called Brown's 'The House of a Thousand Bow Wows. How many were there?" "Let me see; there were fifty-four racing dogs, thirty-five freighters, twenty-six belonging to the mail carriers, ten or twelve to casual mushers, and I think about the same number to Eskimo trappers. And all men and dogs in the one room, which, fortunately, was of pretty good size."
It was a record run. Each day for fourteen days they had averaged forty miles. For three days Perrault and Francois threw chests up and down the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations to drink, while the team was the constant centre of a worshipful crowd of dog-busters and mushers.
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