It was always hard getting up before dawn in the dead of winter to feed the dogs, but it had to be done. Josh had known this was going to happen, and had accepted it, but was still young enough to enjoy sleeping in -- so it took some doing to get heavy clothes on and head out to the barn in the cold, starry, half-lit predawn of what promised to be a pretty good day.

He'd done this often enough that his mind was only partly on what he was doing, while trying to pick away at a couple of other problems that had been nagging him for weeks, and now it was getting to be time to be solving them. While he went through the motions of getting warm water running from the trailer, shoveling dog food and meat scraps into the old cement mixer, and other routine chores, he chewed away at it. Even the dogs were happy to see him, awake and barking in the snowy air as he hauled buckets of food and warm water out to feed them. With 32 racing sled dogs to feed -- some of them Tiffany's -- plus more pups and old dogs past racing, taking time to interact with each one, it was not a quick chore, but his mind turned over possibilities.

Dog numbers were actually on the low side right now; Josh and Tiffany had sold some dogs and traded a few to fill out some other racing teams. However, it had reduced the number of raceable dogs to the point where some dogs were going to have to do both the Warsaw Run next weekend and the Beargrease the weekend after that. That still left Josh with a leader problem, so this morning Josh was struggling with the problems of which dogs to run in which race, which leaders to run, and so on. It was a complicated problem, one that he'd chipped away on all winter and wouldn't be finally settled until he started the Beargrease.

For example, had a good command leader in Crosstie, but Crosstie was lazy, and getting old. While she could be urged to a good pace, she wouldn't keep it unless urged, and she slowed down the other dogs. Worse, she slowed them down when she was running in team, as well. Crosstie was a pound puppy, not raised as a racing dog, and was good for team training, but she really wasn't a racing dog any more. The thought saddened Josh a little; Crosstie had taught him more about racing sled dogs than he'd learned anywhere else.

Josh also had a pretty good command leader in Switchstand -- but Switchstand, plain and simple, was a sprint leader, and could go like the wind on a well-groomed trail but pooped out after ten miles or so, and wasn't very good at following rough trails. They'd learned that the hard way, and rarely pushed him much beyond that, until this year. Having to do faster training at longer distances, and with Crosstie fading, this winter they'd run him with the endurance team more, but a little gingerly.

Josh did have a great trail leader in Alco. Alco, out of the first George and Nimbus litter, had won the Warsaw Run for him as a yearling the year before, when he'd become pissed off with Crosstie's lethargic pace on the first half of the race, and dropped her at Warsaw, well off the lead pace, determining to try every dog on the way back to at least come up with enough leader to make it back. It had been Alco's turn when the big storm blew up; teams without good storm leaders scratched, holed up, lost the trail, or struggled, while Alco kept chuffing away, never losing the trail. They were well in the lead by the time they'd made it back to Spearfish Lake, but Josh had to take Alco by a neckline to lead him through the last three hundred yards, since he couldn't take commands worth beans.

In spite of a lot of work over the summer, Alco wasn't what you'd call a command leader even yet, although he now would take gee-haw commands a little. At least there wouldn't be this problem with the Beargrease, where Josh would be able to have Tiffany's great command leader, George, in double lead with Alco, but Tiffany would have George in the lead in the Warsaw Run.

Josh was just finishing up the feeding when Tiffany showed up, from her home a quarter mile down the road, bringing George with her; the six-year-old leader slept on her bed every night. Now with just enough light to see, she broke out a sled, and laid out a gangline, and began harnessing dogs to take to school, the regular morning practice for years. It bought her a little more time for training. "Same ones as yesterday?" Josh asked.

"No," she said. "I'll take Garfield in place of Comet, and Snoopy in place of Donner."

With over a hundred dogs passing through their hands in the past five years, even finding names for them had been a struggle. In the past several years, Tiffany had brought Santa Claus into town in the Christmas parade, and two years ago, when Shack had her first litter of nine pups, she'd named them after Santa's reindeer, in hopes of being able to run the training sled down Main Street yelling, "On Dasher! On Dancer!," and so forth. It hadn't worked out; Cupid had gotten loose and been hit by a car, and Rudolph and Blitzen hadn't acted like runners, so had been sold with a recreation team.

"George in the lead, of course?"

"Yeah, but let's put Dancer alongside in a double lead again."

It took a while, but it was something they practiced every morning. Working under the name of Run-8 Kennels -- the name derived not from the team sizes, but from the wide-open throttle setting on a diesel railroad engine -- Josh and Tiffany had just about the fastest speed and endurance dogs in the region, even though it was still a little on the small-potatoes side in a small-potatoes sport.

By the time he'd got Tiffany off to school, Josh was getting cold. He knew he ought to dress warmer for the morning chores, but somehow never did. The coffee he'd put on before he came out to feed the dogs would taste good, he knew.

He was no more than inside the mobile home when the phone went off -- a little strange, since he hardly ever got phone calls, except from Tiffany, and she had to be halfway to school by now. It proved to be from Jackie. "You doing anything this morning?" she asked.

"Just training runs," he admitted. Occasionally, he was called on to help Jackie move or set up a sign.

"Would you mind taking a run out to Norm Niven's camp?" Jackie asked. "I've got someone here that needs to go out there, and I was going to take her, but now I've got to get this sign done for Jerusalem Paper."

Josh was leery. Norm Niven was the next thing to a hermit; over a period of several years, they'd gradually become aware of him living in an old hunting cabin on the far side of Turtle Hill when they'd made training runs out that way. Josh and Tiffany had helped him get started with a small team of castoff dogs, just so he could get into town once in a while. "He's not real crazy about people just dropping in on him," Josh reminded his sister.

"Shouldn't matter," Jackie said. "We had this set up last week, then the weather put us off."

"Are they going to mind a long ride?" Josh asked. "It's going to take about the same time going from here as it would to load up the dog box, run the truck out there, then set up on 919 somewhere."

Josh could hear Jackie explain the problem to someone in the background, then come back a few minutes later. "Shouldn't be a problem," she said. "Look, I've got to get over to Warsaw to see about this sign. I'll drop her off at your place, and you can leave her here on the way back."

"Give me a few minutes to get my act together," Josh asked.

He hung up the phone and poured himself a cup of coffee. He set it out to cool, while he went to the bedroom to layer up. It was cold out, and would probably stay cold; it would be a couple of hours, minimum, to get to Norm's cabin from here. He drained the cup once he'd gotten dressed more warmly, then put the rest of the pot into a thermos; it would taste good out on the trail, and maybe the rider would like some.

He was just heading out the door when Jackie drove in the driveway, a passenger with her. Josh went out to meet them as they got out of the pickup; he was a little surprised to see the passenger using aluminum crutches, a little uncertianly on the rough-packed snow of the driveway. Josh could see that she was a woman; a wisp of blonde hair stuck out from under her heavy hat; she was shorter than Jackie, which wasn't suprising, as Jackie stood over six feet tall. There wasn't much else Josh could tell about her, except that she looked to be dressed warm enough, in a snowmobile suit and shoepacs.

Jackie made the introductions. "This is Judy Sorensen," she explained. "She's a neighbor of some old friends of ours."

"How long do you want to be out at Norm's?" Josh asked.

"Not long," she said. "A couple of hours, maybe."

"I'll help you get set up," Jackie offered. "Sorry to have to drop this on you."

"Oh, no problem," Josh said. "A run to Norm's is about the right length for a training trip today, anyway."

"Which dogs do you want to use?"

"I hadn't thought about it," Josh said, glancing at Judy's crutches. She probably wouldn't want to have to deal with the bouncing and jouncing of racing speeds, so this was a good chance to do some command training, and give an easy workout to some of the older dogs. "Let's go with Crosstie in the lead," Josh said. "Let's put Geep in double lead with her. A couple times here lately, he's acted like he's wanted to lead a little." He reeled off a list of eight more dogs. He was tempted to throw Alco in there, but decided against it; when he got back, he could put Alco in double lead with Switchstand, and do some faster training with the dogs left behind now.

Josh got out a sled, laid out the gangline, and he and Jackie started hooking up dogs. Hooking up the team went quickly; in spite of her crutches, Judy soon got the idea, and helped them out where she could. Soon, they were ready to go; there were ten excited dogs out there that wanted to run, jumping in their lines, sometimes even doing a "four-off-the-floor"; only a tieline to a light pole was keeping them from running. Josh got a foam pad and a heavy blanket from the barn, the first for Judy to sit on, the second to wrap around her if she got cold, and set a bag of emergency gear up near the front of the sled. "I'm going to just have you sit in here," Josh said. "You'll want to hang on pretty good, especially the first couple of miles."

"Sounds good," Judy said.

"You need help getting in there?" Jackie asked.

"I can manage," the woman said. She leaned her crutches on the sled, got her arms set, then picked herself up, swiveled around in midair on the sled rails, then set herself gently on the sled floor, then set her crutches down beside her. Josh was impressed; a move like that took some serious upper body strength. He took the thermos, wrapped it in another blanket, and set it down in the basket beside her.

"You ready?" he asked.

"Whenever you are," she replied, a big smile on her face.

"All right, then." Josh turned to Jackie. "See you later, sis," he said, then, to the dogs, "Are you ready to rumble?" He reached down, popped the quick-release knot on the tieline that held the team, and yelled, "TEAM! UP! HIKE! HIKE! HIKE!"

In an instant, there were forty dog paws grabbing for the snow, accellerating hard. "You'll have to hang on," Josh reminded his passenger. "Until they get worn down a little, they've only got one speed -- wide open."

"This is great!" Judy replied.

Even Crosstie was running hard. "GEE, Crosstie, GEE! GEE!" Josh yelled, to get the team to turn onto the training trail. Josh noticed that Geep made the turn even better than Crosstie did. He made a mental note to direct commands at both his leaders, not just Crosstie.

It only took a couple minutes to follow the training trail through Mark and Jackie's back yard, then down the airstrip to the spur trail to the North Country Trail. It was a familiar trail to all the dogs, still one of the trails done in their regular training for the next few miles, but it would also be part of the Warsaw Run. Josh made another mental note, to run by the spur and come into the house from the road, just to let the dogs know that they'd have to run by the spur later.

In mile or so, the speed slowed markedly; the dogs were settling down to a trail pace. Crosstie wanted to go even slower, but the rest of the dogs were still of a mind to run, and they kept pushing her, Geep urging her onward. "Geep is sure acting like he wants to lead," Josh thought.

"This is neat," his passenger said. "Do you get to do this every day?"

"Every day in the winter," Josh told her. "Even the lousy ones. You never know when you're going to have to race in a storm, or something."

"I always thought you used reins or something to steer them with."

"Strictly voice command," Josh explained. "There's enough lines and legs up there that reins would get tangled in an instant. Back in the bicentennial, a guy up in Alaska decided that he wanted to pull a bus with 200 dogs, as a stunt. He must have had a team a good couple hundred yards long, farther than he could yell, so he strapped a walkie-talkie to the leader's harness and gave him commands over that." It was a trick Josh would never have attempted, even with Crosstie, but then, Joe Reddington's Feets had been one of the best lead dogs ever.

"Does it take a while to train a dog to do that?" She seemed to be in a mood for conversation.

"It's a continual process," Josh said. "The leader on the left is a good one, but she's old and doesn't run fast enough for most racing. The one on the right is a young dog, but one that acts like he wants to be a leader, so this is sort of a tryout. It doesn't take a lot of command on the trail. Probably half the dogs there will lead on the trail, when they've got a trail to follow. Finding one that will take steering commands off a trail is a lot more difficult."

"You act like you've done this all your life."

"Seems like it sometimes, but only six years," Josh said. He briefly told the story of how Mark and Mike -- and he and Tiffany, too -- had revived dogsledding in Spearfish Lake six years before, and the story of the first Warsaw run. The woman in the sled basket seemed interested, so Josh told more of the story, of how they'd been embarrassed to walk into the state championships a week later with their pack of pound survivors, and were embarrassed again to walk off with all the trophies. He told quite a bit about how he and Tiffany had built up their operation in the five years since. Mark and Mike had decided to keep things on a low key; after all, they liked trail running and winter camping as much as they liked racing; Josh and Tiffany, however, had gotten serious, and the results were starting to show.

The trail looped north a long way out of the way to stay on state land, but it was fairly easy trail, and Josh didn't have to give all of his attention to guiding the sled. It was pretty countryside, even prettier with all the snow, and the dogs were running quietly, hardly disturbing a thing. How different, how peaceful it was, compared to a roaring, grunting snowmobile! It was a wonder to be out on a bright, clear day like today; all too many days around Spearfish Lake in the winter were cloudy and gungy.

The wind was in their faces, making their noses run a little, but the slight breeze allowed the team to sneak up on a big deer. They were almost on top of the deer before he noticed them. Its head came up with a start, and he bounced off down the trail, which here was located on an abandoned two-rut. The dogs noticed, and started to chase after him like they'd just been dropped into passing gear.

Josh yelled "Whoa!" and stomped down on the sled brakes, but fortunately, the deer bounded off into the brush and got downwind, and the dogs lost the scent. It seemed like only minutes before the trail crossed County Road 919 and bent upward on a sidehill, snaking back and forth, and Josh knew that they were climbing Turtle Hill, a high old glacial esker that overlooked much of the Spearfish Lake Country. A narrow dirt road wound to the top elsewhere on the hill, but the best overlook of all was where the trail came out into the open at the top of the ridge. It was here that Josh finally called a halt, and by now, the dogs were ready for a break.

He took the snow hook out of the sled basket, where it had laid since he'd left his yard, and set it in the deep snow. He took another tieline, and hooked it to the front of the gangline, tying it to a small sapling, then tied Crosstie and Geep out on it, so the team would be stretched out and there would be no arguements when it came time for snacks. He went down the line of dogs, giving them a trail snack that would keep them for a while; with each went a pet, a few words of affection and a quick check of their paws. Only when all the dogs were fed did Josh pull the thermos out. There was a spare cup in the gear bag; he poured a cup for Judy, then sat down on his sled near the brush bow, and poured himself a cup.

The coffee tasted good going down. They sat there looking at the broad expanse of forest and field that they had crossed, and at the icebound emptiness of Spearfish Lake laying in the distance beyond, the town barely visible on the horizon.

"It's really beautiful," Judy said finally. "Not like down home at all."

"Where's home, anyway?" Josh asked.

"You ever hear of Arvada Center? Willow Lake?"

"That's down near Geneva, isn't it?" Josh asked.

"That's it. My husband and I have a farm near Arvada Center."

"Big farm?"

"About 1600 acres," Judy said. "Not a big farm, as things go today."

"Big enough," Josh said. "Dairy farm?"

"No, beef, and mixed grains. There's just Ken and his mother and myself, and that's not enough hands for a dairy farm. It's about all we can do to take care of what we have. It's really stretching it, for me to get free even for a day at the slow time of the year. That's why I have to get back tonight."

"You left Arvada Center this morning?"

"Yeah, real early. That's a long drive. And then, I got here, and Jackie had this job. I'm just glad you could help out."

"Not a big deal," Josh said. "This is what I was going to be doing today, anyway. How'd you get to know Jackie?"

"She and Mark are good friends of some neighbors of ours. They've known each other for years."

"He wouldn't happen to be tall, going bald, and she's a short, chubby blonde with a dutch boy haircut? Both of them in their 40s? I don't remember the names."

"That's them. Roger and Kathy Griswold."

Josh nodded. "I guess I've met them once or twice."

"Actually, they tell me I'd met Jackie before, when they were on their honeymoon, but I don't remember it. I remember when I was real little, a little white airplane landing at Roger and Kathy's while they were babysitting me. I remember being scared to get in it."

"They still have the plane. I've heard a lot about that trip, all my life." Josh took a moment to reflect. Judy had to be several years older than he was; he hadn't been born until about the time the honeymoon ended.

Josh drained his coffee and stood up. "I suppose we'd better get going," he said. "I don't want the dogs to cool off too much."

"I'm just glad you could bring me out here."

"Look, I don't know if anybody told you, but Norm doesn't usually take too well to visitors just dropping in," Josh said. "Tiffany or I, or sometimes Mark or Mike stop by once in a while, just to make sure he's all right, but usually he likes to be let alone. I hope he knows you're coming."

"I think so," she said. "I wrote and told him I was coming."

"Might not have been enough," Josh observed. "Sometimes, it's a month or more between times he gets into town to get his mail, especially in the winter. I hope he's not going to mind."

"I don't think he will," Judy replied. "After all, I'm his daughter."