“Looks like a Sweepstakes team through the wrong end of the opry glasses, don’t it?” exclaimed Matt with justifiable pride to Black Mart Barclay, who happened to be next him.

Mart scrutinized the entry closely.  “Not so bad.  Them Mego pups is allers fair lookers an’ fair go-ers, so fur’s I ever heered t’ the contrary,” he admitted grudgingly.

There was an air of repressed but pleasurable expectation about the little “houn’ dogs,” as they patiently waited for their signal to go.  Their racing manners were absolutely above reproach.  Unlike Nero, they quite properly ignored the merely social side of the event, and were evidently intent upon the serious struggle before them; and equally unlike Queen and Baldy, they showed neither the peevishness of the one, nor the apathy of the other.

By most people the race was practically conceded to Dan before the start.

It seemed an endless time to George before it was his turn; but when he finally stepped into place, the nervousness that had made the wait almost unbearable disappeared completely.  The hood of his fur parka had dropped back, and his yellow hair, closely cropped that it should not curl and “make a sissy” of him, gleamed golden in the sunlight above a face that, usually rosy and smiling, was now pale and determined.

In that far world “outside,” George Allan would have been at an age when ringlets and a nurse-maid are just beginning to chafe a proud man’s spirit; but here in the North he was already “Some Musher,"[1] and was eager to win the honors that would prove him a worthy son of the Greatest Dog Man in Alaska.

[Footnote 1:  “Musher”—­driver, trailsman.]

True to their several characteristics, Spot manifested an amiable and wide-awake interest in all about him, Queen repelled all advances with snaps and snarls, and Baldy quivered with a dread of the unknown, and was only reassured when he felt Ben Edwards’ hand on his collar, and listened to the low, encouraging tones of the boy’s voice.

[Illustration:  The start of an Alaskan dog team race]

“Too bad, Matt,” drawled Black Mart, “that the little Allan kid’s usin’ Baldy.  He was allers an ornery beast, an’ combin’ his hair an’ puttin’ tassels an’ fancy harness on him ain’t goin’ t’ make a racer outen a cur.”

Ben’s face flushed hotly.  “It ain’t just beauty that counts, Baldy; it’s what you got clear down in your heart that folks can’t see,” he thought, and clung the more lovingly to the trembling dog.

Matt carefully shook the ashes from his pipe.  “It’s a mighty good thing, Mart, that people an’ dogs ain’t judged entirely by looks.  If they was, there’s some dogs that’s racin’ that would be in the pound, an’ some men that’s criticizin’ that would be in jail.”

“Ready.”

George, poised lightly on the runners at the back of the trim sled, firmly grasped the curved top, and repeated the word to Spot, who held himself motionless but in perfect readiness for the final signal.