The end was in sight, now. There were fresh sled tracks in front of him, and coming up the coastline of the Bering Sea since dawn, he had occasionally been able to make out another dog team a mile or more ahead of him. Finally, the lines of sled runner tracks bent to the right, and followed an occasional bit of orange surveyor's tape up to a small cluster of tattered buildings. He thought about stopping briefly to put Geep, his best gee-haw command leader back in the lead, but Alco, his best trail leader was on point now and could do gee-haw if not too much was required. The little hamlet didn't look that complicated, and changing dogs would take a few minutes, so he decided to go with Alco.

Twenty-two miles from the finish line, Josh Archer and his team roared into the Port Safety roadhouse, the last checkpoint of the race, and he wasn't about to slow down now. It wasn't as if he was winning; it was his first try at the Iditarod, the 1049 mile dog sled race across Alaska. The inexperience with the trail, and his dogs that weren't quite used to the Alaskan conditions had held him in the middle of the field, a good day behind the leaders.

A quick check of the sign-in showed that he was only five minutes behind the next team, and if he hurried, he could pick up a spot, even though it would still be out of the money. Quickly, he threw all the excess gear out of the sled, except for the required minimum; he could pick it up later. Eager hands helped him pull on the identification bib he hadn't worn since Anchorage, and after only a five minute stop, he was out on the trail again.

The dogs were working fine. He was proud of them, proud indeed. He'd started with sixteen dogs, but four had to be dropped along the way, to be flown back to Anchorage, where inmates of the state penitentiary for many years had cared for the dogs until the owners could pick them up.

It had been a long, tough battle to even get into the race, and now he had a good chance of finishing respectably. The local mushers around Spearfish Lake had helped a lot, every way they could, and his job with the railroad still left him time to train the dogs while he was off in the winter, but by the time he made it back to Spearfish Lake, it would be time to be running rock trains again.

He'd blown his savings to make this race, and people around Spearfish Lake had chipped in to pay the awesome expense, but it had been a touch and go thing right down to the last minute, when he'd gotten a call from Jenny Easton, the country music singer and film star who made her home in Spearfish Lake. She'd offered him a bigger check than he'd needed. "You'll go over budget," she'd said. "You can use it. All I ask is that you have Jackie make a banner, oh, maybe twelve by eighteen inches, with `Jenny Easton Productions' on it, and carry that on your basket. That way, I can write it off."

That banner was there now, flapping in the cold wind off of Norton Sound. It had been there since Anchorage, eleven days before. It had been a long, long trail; Josh stifled a yawn. He'd gone without sleep since leaving White Mountain, and the dogs hadn't had much of a break, but they were holding up pretty well.

As it turned out, Jenny's extra money had been needed; if he used up the end of the credit line on his credit card, he figured he'd just have enough money to make it back to Spearfish Lake on a dry gas tank in his pickup.

An hour out on the trail, Josh came across another dog team, obviously the team that had been in front of him. From the sign-in sheet, Josh knew that it was the youngest girl musher to ever run the race. The team was stopped, and the girl was zipping a dog into a dog bag in the sled basket. "Trouble?" he shouted, without slowing down.

"He just pooped out and fell over," the girl musher called. "Not hurt, just fell asleep on his feet."

Josh had barely gotten past her when she was back on her runners, hiking her team to one final effort. They ran nose to tail for the next hour an a half, until they finally came to the Fort Davis Roadhouse, the end of the Nome road system. They followed the shoreline for another couple of miles, until the trail markers led them up onto Nome's fabled Front Street.

Ever since he'd caught up with the other team, the first Pound Puppies race back in Spearfish Lake many years before had been going through Josh's tired mind, back when he and Tiffany had raced side-by-side across the smooth lake ice to the finish line. A videocamera had been needed to show that he'd losr the first race that he had run by the length of a dog's nose. This was going to have to be different. This wasn't going to be a case of pulling alongside, then counting down to the start of a sprint finish; this was the Iditarod, not a race for a twelve-pack of pop.

It was clear that sooner or later, they were going to have to pick up from a trail pace to a sprint, to settle the matter, but just when that would be would depend a lot on how much each musher thought they could get out of their tired dogs. Start too soon, and they could poop out and fall back to a trail pace before the finish line. Start too late, and it would be too late. Blowing a decision like that had cost him third place in the Michigan 200 the winter before last.

He wished that he had Switchstand with him. Agonizing over whether to bring Switchstand had been one of the most difficult decisions to make in preparation. Great leader though he was, especially in dashes to the finish line, Switchstand didn't run well on unprepared trails, thanks to small feet for a husky, and only ran well in single lead, not in team. He was beginning to show his age as well, and it had seemed unlikely that he could be on point for 1100 miles, so he'd been left behind. Now, Josh was missing him immensely.

In the eight years since the first Pound Puppies race in Spearfish Lake, Mark and Jackie had stood by a good many finish lines for dog sled races, and each of them had crossed a few, too. But this one was special. Beyond them, beyond the line of snow fencing that marked the finish chute, there was a wooden arch cut lengthwise out of a burled pine log, marking the finish line. The snowcovered expanse of ice beyond the main street of the town wasn't Spearfish Lake, and the town, though newer and no larger, was a little run down and tattered -- but it's name had a magical ring, for the ice-covered expanse was the Bering Sea, and on the wooden arch, someone had lettered on the wood with a chain saw long before, END OF IDITAROD DOG RACE -- 1049 MILES, ANCHORAGE-NOME.

Mike found himself worrying a little about George. He was the only one of the original Pound Puppies in the race, and he'd thought that maybe he was getting a little old for the grueling two-week race. However, he was a very reliable leader, and he'd still been going good back at Unalakleet, the last time that the four of them had been in contact with the race, which they'd followed in a rented ski-equipped Cessna 185, with Mark and Jackie flying. A ground blizzard had held them at Unalakleet for more than a day, but they'd managed to make it to Nome on time.

It was the siren going off at the edge of town to announced their arrival that set them off. Josh could hear the girl yelling, "HIKE! HIKE! HIKE! HIKE! COME ON, GO!" to her team, and he responded with a "HIKE! HIKE! HIKE! HIKE!" of his own.

"TRAIL!" the girl yelled, announcing that she was trying to pass, but Josh's dogs found a little extra effort as they raced down Front Street, and this was the one place in the race where he didn't have to give way to a call for trail. The smaller, lighter girl was gaining on him, little by little. First, he saw the leader running parallel with him, then the swing dogs. Still, the finish line wasn't far away; perhaps his tired team could hold them off in the last two hundred yards.

Even though the race winner had been settled thirty-six hours before, there was a crowd lining the snow fence chute that ran down to the wooden arch of the finish line, drawn there by the roaring of the siren. It wasn't often that there was a sprint finish to the end of the Iditarod, even for twenty-second place or whatever it was that they were racing for, and the sight set them to cheering.

Maybe . . . Maybe . . . Josh thought, seeing a pair of team dogs running even with him now. Only a hundred yards to go, now, and he felt his team weakening a little, carried only by the cheers of the crowd. Damn it, to have Switchstand now! He could have made it, too; Josh was certian of it, now.

Fifty yards . . . he glanced to his side, seeing another set of team dogs coming up on him. Alco still had a dog length or more lead, but as the chute squeezed tighter together, the two teams were running side by side, almost fouling each other. Almost there. "COME ON MUTTS! HIKE! HIKE! RUN EIGHT!" he roared at the top of his lungs.

This time, it didn't take a videocamera to settle the race; his leader had a good half a dog lead as they flashed under the wooden arch, almost side by side.

The chute widened a little. Josh yelled, "Whoa!" and the team came to a stop, with the other one alongside. Dog handlers rushed out to grab the teams; Leo Rasmussen, the mayor of Nome, hurried over with a sign-in sheet and Josh could see Mark and Jackie and Mike and Kirsten hurrying their way, too.

The girl threw back the hood of her parka, rushed over to him, threw her arms around him, and gave him a kiss like he hadn't had since he'd gone with Amy, years ago -- and on live TV, too.

Finally, she came up for air. "There," Tiffany said with a smile, "Does that make us even?"