Any hope of B-Pit running late was largely futile, of course; unless something broke on the older engines, and it rarely did, thanks to ongoing good maintenance, it ran on time. By the time Josh and Danny tied up on Track 2, the two GP-9s sitting next to them on Track 1 were quiet, and even the office was empty. Even though SLLT was called for 1800, it had already left. Josh knew that if John had the SLCR run ready to hand off, Bud liked to leave as soon as B-Pit had tied up; the earlier he could leave, the earlier he could get back. It was still going to be midnight, or later, before he could tie SLLT up for the day.

They shut down the SD-38s, set the brakes, and called it a day. "See you tomorrow," Josh called to Danny as he got in his pickup truck. Everything had gone pretty close to all right. They'd had to hold up a few minutes for John and Herm in SLCR, doing some switching down near Moffat, but that had been anticipated, and worked out on the radio even before leaving Spearfish Lake for the second half of the day. He couldn't complain; if you took out the few minutes of planned holdup, he'd run right on time, and the system was designed so that there was some slack for unanticipated things happening. If something major slowed things up so they'd hit the 12-hour DOT limit and have to tie up out in the boonies somewhere, then the whole system for the next day would get screwed up, and nobody would be happy. It usually happened two or three times a summer, usually due to mechanicals, and it sometimes took days to get everything back in working order.

But, neither Walt nor Sarah were home when Josh got there; there was a note: "Gone to Ed and Jill's for dinner and cards. There's leftovers you can microwave." It was a little disappointing; he'd liked to have shared the victory of the day, but he knew that his Dad knew that it would have to be minimized around the house, lest it cause problems. That would just make things worse.

Josh gave some thought to hopping back in the truck, and running out to the Spearfish Lake Inn -- the big motel out on the highway, not the Spearfish Lake Cafe, where he'd had lunch. They had some great steaks, and he really wasn't in the mood for leftovers. A steak would be appropriate for a day like today, but he realized he'd better get a shower before he headed out to the Inn; though better than in the steam days, fifty and more years before, railroading could still be a dirty job. He really wasn't that bad, but he felt dirty and sweaty after the hot afternoon, so went up and took a shower.

He was just pulling on underwear when the phone went off. He thought about letting it go; probably a sales call, at this hour. But, you never knew; he headed downstairs to answer it.

It wasn't a sales call. It was Dennis Bergen, a guy he'd helped get started with dogsleds the previous summer. He had a pretty good team; he'd finished fourth in the Warsaw Run last winter. "Jesus, God, Josh, I'm glad I caught you home," he said in a panicked voice. "I've got trouble, big time. Look, I gotta get rid of the team, right now."

"What the hell?" Josh asked.

"Amanda's on the warpath." He sounded frantic. "Says I gotta get rid of the team, the sled, the doghouses, everything, right now, or she'll leave me. She's ready to do it. Look, I don't care if I gotta give them away for nothing, they've got to be out of here tonight."

"Give me a second," Josh said, thinking furiously. Bergen had a couple of pretty good dogs, and five more that might or not be worth the effort, although the whole team had finished the Warsaw Run better than he had. And, he had a brand-new Tim White racing sled, a thousand dollars worth of plastic hotrod that had barely been used. What the hell, someone could use the dogs, even if he couldn't; he wouldn't have trouble getting rid of them. And, the sled was a deal. "A hundred bucks sound fair?" he said. "I think I've got that much cash in my wallet."

"A hundred bucks beats the living hell out of shooting them, which is what she says she's gonna do if you don't get over here," Bergen said, obviously worried but a bit relieved.

"Tell her I'm on my way," Josh said. "I gotta get some clothes on and get the dog box on the truck, so it's a half hour or so."

There was some talking in the background -- well, yelling was part of it. The words were muffled, but the emotion was clear. Bergen came back on the line. "Make it as quick as you can, Josh." The phone went dead in his ear.

It was quicker to pull on his dirty work clothes, rather than put on clean ones. In only a couple minutes, he was out in the truck, backing it up to the dog box. He'd built the dog box right after he'd gotten the truck, which was shortly after he'd gotten the team from Woody. It wasn't the sort of thing that he'd wanted to have on the back of the truck all the time; built rather crudely with reject waferboard from the plywood plant, it was rather ugly, but it had compartments for ten dogs. It had taken both this dog box and Mark's, with some dogs doubled up, to get to the various races they'd been to the past two winters. It sat on a rack alongside the garage, so he could back the truck up under the end of it, and slide it onto the sides. Four clamps held it into place. When he wanted to use the dog box, he could have it on the truck in ten minutes, and that was about what he managed. At the last instant, he decided he'd better throw in a couple of coils of rope from the garage, to tie down the sled, if nothing else.

It was several minutes drive over to Bergen's house. It was a damn shame, Josh thought. Bergen had only been into dogsleds for a year, but he'd had a pretty good year, with what Josh thought was a rather mediocre team, except for those two really good dogs. He'd been into it seriously, and it seemed like he was well on his way to having one of the better teams in the area. Now, this. Was a woman worth it?

Bergen was standing out in the dog lot, petting his leader, Magic, tears running down his eyes. Magic had never struck Josh as a particularly good leader, but the two obviously had a bond. This had to hurt. He'd try to make it as painless as possible.

"Thank God you're here," he said. "Amanda said she was going to shoot them if you didn't get here pretty quick. She was all set. I took this off of her," he said, holding a chrome-plated .22 revolver.

God knew what had set her off, but this had the potential for trouble. Josh would have been happier if he'd called one of the local cops, but there might not be time for that, now. The first thing to do was to get the dogs into the dog box, to get them out of sight, if nothing else. "Look," he told Bergen in a low voice as they loaded dogs. "Mark is going to flip when I show up. I'm not going to be able to hold onto all of them, but I'll at least keep Magic for you if Amanda will ever let you have her back."

"Not much chance of that," Bergen said, tears still rolling. "But thanks, anyway."

They worked quickly, loading the doghouses on top of the dog box. There were boxes of other things -- harnesses, good ones at that, ganglines, other gear, dog food, quite a bit of it. There was even a box of books. Laying on top was George Attla's "Everything I Know About Training And Racing Sled Dogs." Josh had wanted to even read a copy of that for a couple of years, but hadn't been able to find one. Though rushed, he pawed through the stack for a moment -- this was quite a collection. Hudson Stuck's "Ten Thousand Miles By Dog Sled," Lawrence Gould's "Cold," Admiral Byrd's "Discovery". An awesome collection of pretty rare books, just from those few titles, and more besides. "Sure you don't want to keep these?" Josh asked.

Bergen shook his head. "It'll just hurt too much to look at them."

"Look, Dennis," Josh said. "I know it doesn't seem possible now, but if you ever can get back into this, I owe you. I'll just keep these for you."

"Thanks, Josh," he replied, a little more sober, now. "It probably won't happen, but thanks, anyway."

Last to go was the little White racing sled. The only place for it was to have it balanced precariously on the open tailgate, tied on with one of the ropes he'd brought. Even so, things were loose; he'd have to drive carefully.

Josh finished tying the sled and doghouses down, while Bergen stood at the side of the truck, out of sight of the house, giving Magic one last pet. "I better get out of here," Josh said, reaching for his wallet. "Maybe things will cool down when I'm gone."

Bergen waved the money away. "Look, just be good to them, find good homes for them if you can't keep them, that's all I ask. Take this with you," he said, handing Josh the revolver. "At least it won't be around the house." He gave Magic one last pet, and the tears started rolling again.

Josh drove gingerly down the street until he was out of sight of Bergen's house, then stopped to tighten up the ropes. He'd done a hurried, half-assed job, and the last stretch into Mark's house -- well, they didn't call it "Busted Axle Road" for nothing. As he got back into the truck, he saw the revolver laying on the seat, and all of a sudden realized what had been going on. If Amanda had found another gun while they were loading up . . . it was enough to give him a major case of the shakes. It had to have been even worse than he'd thought. Why in hell would a man want to put up with a woman like that?

He took his time getting out to Mark's house, partly because of the load, and partly because he was trying to figure out how he was going to break it to Mark that there were going to be seven more dogs out by the airstrip.

There were several vehicles sitting in the yard when Josh got there. Mike's minivan, but that wasn't anything new, but a strange pickup was there, too. Josh saw the Siberian Husky head logo on the door of the pickup, and knew that it had to be Greg Mears'. That's all he needed tonight, another dogsled association hassle.

Mark, Jackie, Mike and Greg were sitting out in the lawn chairs as he pulled up, each holding beers. Greg's other hobby, in addition to Siberian Huskies and dog association politics, was beer -- not knocking back the Bud Lights, but exotic, imported beers, drunk in moderation with the taste of the conniseur. He'd never heard of anything that Greg drank.

"What the hell is this?" Mark called at the sight of Josh's truck.

"Trouble, with a capital T," Josh replied, trying to keep it light, "Which rhymes with B, which stands for Amanda Bergen."

Jackie shook her head. "I knew it was going to come to this some day."

"Worse than that," Josh said, holding up the revolver as he got out of the truck. "He took this off of her. He gave it to me, since he didn't want it around the house."

"What are you going to do?" Mark asked.

Josh shook his head. "Well, actually, I think that for a few days, I'm just going to feed `em, and see if it blows over, and he wants the dogs back."

"If it got that far, it probably won't," Mike commented.

"Well, if it doesn't," Josh said. "There are two or three good dogs here. I've got several of my own I wouldn't mind trading off. Maybe if we wind up having to go to ten dogs for the Warsaw Run, I can trade two or three for one."

"That's what we were talking about," Greg said. "We are and we aren't. Let's get those dogs off the truck, and then I'll tell you about it."

With the five of them, it didn't take long to get the dogs off the truck, and tied out on chains, although better picket posts were going to have to be put in at the first opportunity. They unloaded the White sled, and the other gear from the truck, and stored it in the corner of the shop that Mark used for dogsled gear; Josh snagged the Attla book, and threw it on the seat of the truck, wanting to read it as soon as he could find the time; if Dennis decided he wanted his dogs back, he might not get another chance. "Jesus, what a day," he said as they finished up. "First, Bud surprises me, puts me on the engineer roster, and tells me I'm going to be running K-Pit the rest of the summer, and now this."

"He's got you running K-Pit?" Jackie said, surprised. "Who's braking?"

"Danny Evachevski."

"With the 38s?" Jackie knew what that meant, if no one else did. After all, she was Josh's half-sister, and had grown up with railroads almost as much as he had.

"Sure enough," he said proudly.

"Well, congratulations," Jackie said. "I remember when Dad went to engine service full time. That was when he was back with the Dirty and Old, of course, and I was pretty little, but that was a major big deal."

With the dogs staked out, the four went back up to the lawn chairs behind Mark's back porch. Greg stopped by the cooler in the back of his truck, and brought a dark brown bottle, handing it to Josh. "I take it congratulations are in order," he said. "Here's something to celebrate with."

Josh glanced at the bottle; a nondescript brown label said, "Bell's Ale." It even had an old-fashioned crimp top; Jackie handed him an opener, and he popped the top and took a swig. It was about as far from Bud Light as you could get, sort of sweetish, tasting a little of caramel. "Ye, gods, that's rich," he told Greg.

"Imported all the way from Kalamazoo," Greg said. "They make a nice little ale, though."

"Greg, where do you find all this stuff?" Mark asked.

"Oh, it shows up here and there, and I get it when I can," Greg said mysteriously. "Josh, I take it this is a big deal for you?"

"Yeah, it is," Josh said. He spent a couple minutes explaining, though much of the explaination was lost on all but Jackie, except for the summary: "What it means is that I have a good-paying job that's not going away on me, and plenty of time in the winters. The responsibility is awesome, and I'm having a little trouble realizing just how much faith Bud has in me to give it to me."

"He put it in the right place," Greg said. "I've seen how you are with dogs. If you handle trains the same way, you won't have any trouble."

"Well, I just hope it works out," Josh said. "It's going to be a busy summer."

"You'll do fine," Mike said. He'd been ten years older before George Webb had given him a comparable level of responsibility, and it wasn't the same kind of thing.

"Jackie, could I trouble you for a sandwich or something?" Josh asked. "I hadn't had a chance to eat anything when Dennis called, and if I don't eat something, this beer of Greg's is going to knock me on my butt."

"Sure, what kind of sandwich?"

"Anything on anything."

"I think I can manage that," she said, getting up from her chair.

Josh leaned back. Though he'd managed to keep it muted all day, the excitement of being turned loose with the SD-38s had taken a chunk out of him. Then, the adreneline rush when he'd realized the danger he'd been in at Bergen's. He hadn't noticed it at the time, but the more he thought about it the harder it hit him. Wouldn't that have been a bitch, to get shot on the same day he made the engineer roster? Now, Greg's beer on an empty stomach had just about used up his reserves. Thinking about something else wouldn't hurt. "So, what's the deal on ten dogs?" he asked.

"I was just getting started, so I'll take it from the top," Greg said.

He didn't actually start at the beginning, but Josh knew what had gone before. The big problem, always the big problem, was people like Kathy Webb, who knew nothing about dogsledding, assumed they knew everything, and were unwilling to learn from what they saw in front of them. In fact, she was a relatively minor problem. Though it hadn't happened to them, there had been court cases elsewhere where people had tried to stop dogsled races, have the local humane societies impound the animals, on the grounds that the mushers had been cruel to their dogs. Anyone who had ever seen racing mushers work and train their dogs knew that they were being anything but cruel.

Mark and Mike had taken some of that sort of heat, but working almost entirely with dogs rescued from the dog pound, they had built successful teams. Four of Mike's dogs, including his smart little leader, Ringo, had been less than an hour from being gassed when he'd rescued them. George, Tiffany's great leader, probably wouldn't have lasted another two days. The dogs were well-fed, exercised, and carefully cared for, and no matter how much anyone had complained, Mark and Mike figured that beat a gas chamber, any day. The local dog pounds and humane societies generally agreed, and by now had a list of people to call if a dog with team potential showed up.

But, that was people that had seen what was happening, how teams were being treated, and people elsewhere hadn't been as lucky. There was a musher in Washington that had had his team confiscated, and by the time he was able to clear things up in court, over half of his dogs had been "accidently" destroyed, and the local Humane Society billed him for the alleged "care" they gave all the dogs. In three months, the survivors were nearly starved, and it took over a year to get the surviving dogs back in shape. His suit for damages was still being kicked around in court; he'd won at every level, but the local Humane Society, backed by the US Humane Society, kept appealing. Mushers around the country and the American Sled Dog Association were chipping in to pay his legal expenses, and enough mushers from all over the country, including Alaska, had chipped in the a dog here and a dog there to help him rebuild his team -- good dogs, too, some of the best in the country.

As a result, with the noted exception of a few local groups, like Spearfish Lake's, "Humane Society," was -- and still is -- about the dirtiest possible word to use around dogsled mushers. Even the Iditarod had had problems with the US Humane Society, in fact, their problems were worse than most. "They can say what they will," Greg had said, on more than one occasion, "But so-called `Humane' societies kill more dogs in an hour than racing mushers have killed in the ninety years there's been dogsled racing in this country. If an American Hitler came along, and was looking for people to run his death camps, he wouldn't have far to look."

As long at the Warsaw Run and the Pound Puppies and the Camden Dogsled Association sprint races had been local little things that no one had ever heard about, things had gone fine. But what had once been a small group of friends getting together to have a good time had grown to a proportion where they had to get more serious. Tiffany had been part of the problem; winning a 100-mile dogsled race at the age of 12 had drawn media attention, not all of it favorable, and drawn heat from twits like Kathy Webb and her ilk.

Mark and Mike had been aware even as they started the first Warsaw Run with two five-dog teams that they were cutting it a bit tight on dogs, and they'd kept it slow, giving the dogs a long rest stop. It had worked out fine, but when they saw how good a condition their teams were, in comparison to other teams around the state, they'd realized that future races, with more people involved, wouldn't take it as easy as they had gone. So, along with Mears, they had come up with some solutions. The first solution was to split the race into two races. The original Warsaw Run was increased to a seven dog team size, with a minimum of five dogs on line at the finish, with arrangements at Warsaw, halfway out, and at County Road 919, a quarter and three quarters of the way, to leave ill or injured dogs for later pickup. Along with that went veternarian supervision, and a few other features.

The second race was still unique -- the Pound Puppies race, partly aimed at novices or people that didn't want to keep larger teams. To keep competition reasonable -- and to prevent at least a few dogs from being gassed -- this race was limited to five dogs, all of which had to have been strays taken in, or survivors of the dog pound, and at least three dogs had to have papers from the latter. Four dogs had to be in harness at the finish, and the distance was cut to half of the Warsaw Run, taking the same course as far as West Turtle Lake, then shortcutting over to the North Country Trail; some of the other precautions from the Warsaw Run were carried over. The Pound Puppies Race was run during the day; the longer Warsaw Run was run mostly at night on pretty much the same schedule that Mark and Mike had originally cooked up.

That setup had worked pretty well the last two years, but the media attention that was drawn from Tiffany winning the Warsaw Run earlier in the year hadn't all been favorable. There had been some nasty phone calls and letters to the editor, not all of them in the Record-Herald; there had been a brutal exchange in the Camden Press.

The only real solution -- and it wasn't a solution, just a protective measure that might help if real trouble ever arose -- was to get beyond the casual setup they'd had up to this point, and have their races sanctioned by the American Sled Dog Association. With the sanctions came liability insurance, another problem they'd hardly thought about, and legal insurance, if the races were run according to the ASDA limitations. The ASDA limitations weren't odious, when you got right down to it, but there were a few guidelines there that were enough different from past practice that it caused controversy.

The biggest controversy was over team size. As the Warsaw Race was over 100 miles, ASDA guidelines called for a minimum of a ten-dog team at the start, and a maximum of at least twelve dogs. Many of the local mushers that had built the race to this point didn't even have ten dogs; in fact, the previous winters there had been some dog borrowing going on so that everybody could start with full teams of seven. It was going to be both an expense and a pain in the butt to take these teams out to a ten-dog minimum, and everyone could see that as competition increased, you were going to have to start with twelve dogs if you wanted to run well.

Both Mark and Mike, the founders of the race, were among those that bucked at the idea of running it with a minimum of ten dogs. After all, they'd run it successfully with five each, and even now, Mark only had seven dogs, and Mike six; he'd borrowed a dog from Josh to start the Warsaw Run with seven the previous winter. All their dogs were qualified for the Pound Puppies; they'd discovered that they liked saving dogs from a certian death, and turning them into useful racers. They'd both sworn that rather than going out to ten dogs, they'd just run the Pound Puppies. It took fewer dogs, less work training, and they could come up with better trained dogs.

Along with Mike and Mark, Josh didn't want to go on out to ten dogs, for the same reasons as they did, but he had only a handful of Pound Puppies. Although Crosstie, his main leader, had pound papers, he only had another couple of good dogs with them, so he was a little more tied to having to do the Warsaw Run, and didn't really have the option of just doing the shorter race.

Over the past three months, sanctioning the race had become a major issue, with Greg, the president of the Camden Dogsled Association, mostly on Mark and Mike's side as he'd wrangled with the ASDA over the dog limits, and a few other issues. None of this needed any explaining to Josh; he'd been in the middle of the discussions for the whole period they'd been discussing it. Greg knew this, of course, so started with his most recent go-round with the ASDA.

"Anyway, I got to thinking about it," Greg said. "The real point of the whole issue is that the Warsaw Run is a 100-miler. I looked through the guidelines again, and you know what? That's the breakpoint. If it's under a hundred miles, you have a seven-dog minimum to start, five to finish and you can set any maximum to start, as long as it's ten dogs or more. We can still call it a hundred-miler, even if it's say, 99.7 miles."

"Unfortunately, it's more like 101.4, give or take a little," Mark said. "That doesn't solve anything."

"Who says?" Greg said.

"I say," Mark said. "I ran a measuring wheel on the North Country Trail from Spearfish Lake to Warsaw years ago. Josh checked the survey records down at the railroad office for the railroad section."

"They're accurate to a couple inches," Josh said.

"Hell," Mears said. "I've done trail work, too. I know that if you have two different people take two different measuring wheels down a trail for forty miles, you can come up with as much as a mile, even two different. Run a map wheel across a map, and you come up with a totally different figure. On top of that, the route we've run the last two years, screwing around out on the lake, then cutting up to the road here, and coming back the same way, is at least a mile longer than if we were to get up on the railroad grade right down there by the edge of the lake."

"You might have something there," Mike smiled. "If we really wanted to split hairs, we could move the start line down on the lake a little, too. I think Ryan Clark could be persuaded about that."

"Actually, I'd really rather run down the rail grade, anyway," Josh said, taking a sip at the rich bottle of beer as Jackie handed him a fat roast beef and cheese sandwich. "I've never been too crazy about having to take teams across the state road in the dark. You could get a lot of husky road pizza that way, maybe musher road pizza, too. We're just lucky it hasn't happened to someone already. If we stay on the rail grade, we'd go over state road on the overpass. I don't know why you guys didn't do it that way the first time."

Mike shrugged. "It was the way Tiffany took the dogs to school that time, and we just did it that way. I agree, the overpass is the better route."

"OK, you convinced me," Mark said. "I could remeasure the trail, but I might come up with an even longer figure. I know we've put in a couple short cuts since we put the trail in, and that might even cut another two or three tenths."

"That simplifys things," Greg said. "I'll tell the ASDA that we've diddled the course to get it under a hundred miles, and we can work with the lower team sizes. That solves that problem."

"It doesn't really solve it," Josh said. "In effect, you're still going to ten dogs, although it's a maximum, instead of a minimum. I'd really rather start with just seven good dogs, rather than seven good dogs and three dinks. That'll do for a while, but what happens if someone shows up with ten good dogs? It's gonna happen, sooner or later."

"I agree, it's a compromise, and a finesse compromise at that," Greg said. "It's also the best compromise we're going to be able to get and have the race sanctioned. I agree, sooner or later, someone is going to show up with ten good dogs, and then people will decide they have to keep up. But, that someone could be you. I know that deal you had with Tiffany, and you've got seven good dogs that can run with anyone. You've got at least a couple more you already had in your lineup. You most likely picked up more tonight. And, in a couple years, those pups I gave you could be good dogs."

"I wish it were that simple," Josh said. "Assuming I have to fill out Tiffany's team again next year," -- that wasn't really what was happening, but with Mark and Mike there, he had to give the offical version -- "Even for seven good dogs, I'll be scratching."

"That's another problem, one I haven't mentioned," Greg said. "And, it's enough of a gut-kicker that we might just risk putting sanctioning off another year."

"Tiffany?" Mike asked.

"Yeah," Greg said sadly. "I've been spending so much time trying to finess the dog number problem that I never even thought about reading the musher qualification section. All we can let a musher under fourteen run is a Junior race. How the hell is it going to look if we tell the defending champion that she can only run a two-mile junior race, two dogs maximum? Hell, the publicity we got from her winning this year is the best thing that's happened to us."

"She is going to be one sad little girl," Jackie said.

"That is a crock of shit," Josh agreed. "She's a damn fine musher."

Mike shook his head. "Not a problem," he said. "If you can finess the dog number problem, you can finess this one."

Greg shook his head. "I don't see how," he replied.

"Easiest thing in the world," Mike said. "If you can't take Mohammed to the mountian, and all that. Ryan Clark wants to move the Winter Festival back a week. I wanted to talk to you about that, anyway. There's a conflict in the snowmobile race dates. Move the race back a week, and it'll be three days after her fourteenth birthday."

"Jeez," Greg smiled. "I worried about that all the way up here, and poured good beer in you to get you to relax, figuring you were going to explode when I brought that up. We don't have a schedule conflict that weekend, so as far as I'm concerned, it's a done deal if Clark buys off on it."

"All I've got to do is call him up and tell him you bought off on it, and it's a done deal," Mike said.

"Why don't you call him right now?" Jackie suggested. "That way, we'll have it behind us."

"Fair enough," Mike agreed. "I'd just as soon get that pinned down. I'd really rather not have to break that news to Tiffany."

"It doesn't solve the whole problem," Mark said. "We've got three sprint races before her birthday."

"Maybe four, now," Greg said. "If we're going to move the Warsaw Run back a weekend, there's another festival that wants to have sprint races the same weekend as the old dates. I'll have to talk to them again, but we could stand another race with a purse on the schedule."

"Well, I'd rather tell her that she can't run three or four sprint races than tell her she can't do the Run," Mike nodded.

"I'll figure out something," Greg said. "One way to do it is to just not get around filing papers to sanction any races before the Warsaw Run. It's a risk, but we don't get any publicity to speak of. Or, maybe we can let her run unofficially, and not count toward the standings. But, I'll go over the rules again. There may be something we can finess there."

"All right, I'll go call Ryan," Mike said, getting up.

He was back a couple minutes later. "Well, that's taken care of," he reported. "They haven't announced the dates yet, so it's no big deal. Bigger and better than ever, he said. I didn't mention the Tiffany problem to him."

"It might be best if we keep it among ourselves," Greg observed. "No point in stirring the pot any more than necessary. That gets us down to the last problem, and it turns out to not be much of a problem. That's the Pound Puppies. We know that's only about 47 miles, even less on the new route, so there's no team size problem. The ASDA rules don't allow for the pound survivor business, but they thought it's kinda cute, and sticks it to the USHS. They're sorta bending the rules, but they figure it falls in the "Novelty Race" section, like a celebrity race, although a 50-mile novelty race is some novelty. The only thing is that we can't use points from it for season trophies, but we don't, anyway."

"That's it? I thought they were going to barf on the pound rules," Mark said.

"Well, I thought so, too," Greg said. "That's why I thought it was going to be a problem. But, hey, you know, they really are on our side. The only other thing they have is that they'd like us to officially endorse keeping dogs according to the Mush With PRIDE handbook. They'd like us to encourage our people to stick to them."

Mush with PRIDE was an association of initially mostly Iditarod mushers that, stung by USHS criticism, had set up their own standards for dog care stricter than USHS guidelines, salted with good common sense and mushing experience. "I went through the PRIDE handbook," Josh said. "Picked up some good points, little stuff. In general, though, I was at or above specs, anyway, except for some stuff that applies in Alaska, but not here. I think it's a good idea."

"I do, too," Mike said. "In fact, I'd be for banning someone that doesn't keep pretty close to them, or better."

"I can buy off on that, too," Mark said.

"Well, it's a question we'd have to bring up to the membership," Greg said. "You know, the only objection I have is sort of general. We did all right when we were just a little gang out by ourselves, and I'm starting to miss those days, a little. But, we've got enough new people coming in, I think we really ought to do something like that."

"It's either us, or somebody like USHS, that doesn't give a shit," Mark said. "If you want, I'll bring it up at the summer meeting next month."

"Sounds good," Greg said. "I'll check around and see how other people handle it, and talk it up a little with the members."

They gossiped for a few minutes more while they drained their beers. Greg got around to other mushers more than they did, and it was a way to keep up on what others were doing, who was expanding teams, who was swapping dogs. Finally, Greg said, "Well, I'm glad we got all that worked out. The sprint problems really weren't that big a deal, but the Warsaw Run is the centerpiece of dogsled racing around here, and I'd really rather have people pulling in more or less the same direction. We're really not changing it that much."

"Ultimately, we are," Josh said.

"Well, you're right, but it'll take a while to take hold, now," Greg said. "A ten dog minimum would probably have killed it." He looked at his watch. "Hey, I've gotta be getting back. I've gotta go to work tomorrow."

"Yeah, I suppose I ought to toddle on home," Mike said. "Kirsten will be wondering what happened to me."

"Tell Tiffany I'm sorry I missed her tonight," Josh said as they all got up. "Tell her I'll do my best to see her tomorrow night. We've got to talk about dogs, especially the new ones."

"Isn't that about all we ever talk about?" Mike said as they walked out to the vehicles.

"See you guys next month, if not before," Greg said as he got into his truck. "Have a good one."

They said their goodbyes, and Greg drove off. "Remind me to never buy a pig in a poke from that man," Mike said. "Did you notice when we were getting set to point out that we're still going to ten dogs, how he changed the subject to Tiffany's age, and let us get all happy about solving that?"

"Yeah," Josh agreed. "And every time we tried to bring it up again, he managed to change the subject again? I gotta agree, it's about the best compromise we can come up with, and it beats hell out of a ten-dog minimum, but everyone else can do the arithmetic, too."

Mark shook his head. "Well, I don't know about the Warsaw Run, this year. I'm going to have to think about it, maybe wait to see who enters what."

"Yeah, me, too," Mike agreed, getting into his van. "I'd hoped to at least win the damn thing once on my own before I get sized out of it, but it might take a year or so to take hold. This might be my last chance. But, that's still, what? Eight months off. A lot can happen."

"Yeah," Mark nodded. "No point in making up our minds, now."

"Well, see you tomorrow, probably," Mike said. "Let's maybe get together this weekend, and fry some hamburgers, or something."

"Sounds good," Mark told him. "See ya."

As Mike drove out of the driveway, Josh turned to Mark. "I think I'll beat it on out of here myself. I'm just dead bushed, and that old 5:30 alarm goes off about 5:30 in the morning."

"I'll help you," Mark said, as they started for Josh's truck. "Look," he said. "I don't want this to sound critical, because if Dennis had called me, I'd have done the same thing. You did what you had to do. But, the number of dogs around this place is starting to get a little out of hand."

"I knew you'd say that," Josh said. "Like I said when I drove in, if it turns out Dennis doesn't want the dogs back, I'm going to try and trade the number down. What with going to a ten-dog maximum, I shouldn't have too much trouble trading things around. Like I said, I want to sit on this for a few days, and see if maybe Dennis wants the dogs back."

Mark nodded. "Yeah, you want to do right by him," he said. "It's only fair."

"It's still a lot of dogs, especially with the pups. I really appreciate you putting up with them," Josh said, and made up his mind. "Look, now that everybody else is gone, there's something that I need to talk to the two of you about."

"Well, let's head back over to the lawn chairs to talk about it," Mark suggested. "You want another beer?"

"No, I haven't even got halfway through the one I've got," Josh said. "That stuff is pretty strong."

They sat back down in the lawn chairs. The sun was getting lower now, and there were getting to be a few mosquitos out. This time of the year, they would get worse. "What's this all about?" Mark asked.

"Well, actually, it's the same old thing with Mom," Josh said. "Pretty soon, she's going to figure out how much money I'm making, and that I don't intend to go to college, and I don't really want to have to live at home and put up with that."

Jackie nodded. "I sort of went though the same thing. Of course, it was a lot different, but when Mark said `Come fly with me', I went."

"It wasn't as simple as that," Mark said. "But I know where you're coming from. What do you have in mind?"

Josh shrugged. "I'm thinking about getting a place of my own. I haven't even had a chance to look at the Record-Herald to see what's for sale, but I figure I need a small place, in the country, for the dogs, if nothing else, but I really don't want to live in town, anyway. I can afford to spend some money up front. But, I haven't got the faintest idea about what to do first, and however it gets done, it's got to get done in such a way that it's a done deal before Mom figures out what's happening."

"Does Dad know about this?" Jackie asked.

"No, I haven't had a chance to talk with him alone since this deal came down this morning. But, I doubt that he'll have a better idea. What I'm saying, I guess, is that I'm going to have to have you guys front for me again."

"Don't do anything just yet," Mark said. "You'd better talk to your Dad, before you go too far. I'll nose around a little tomorrow. There's lots of stuff out there that the real estate agents don't know about."