from a man who claimed to have enemies that moved faster than him. For that much money, he could have hired hundreds for protection. Why waste such money on someone like me?” Balto asked himself.

*******

It was cold after the sun went down; the streets were mostly bare apart from the odd traveler going anywhere. It was at this time that the gambling dens started to flourish, be they miners, dock workers, sailors, or any person looking for fun and a chance to make some extra bucks would be getting off from their shifts in search for an open gambling den. By this time, the hustle of such men to these dens had long since ended and were well into whatever the games had to offer. Every den, usually a house but sometimes a warehouse, was converted for gambling purposes during the waning hours of the day. Each usually had a guard or two outside and inside, the latter was for keeping the gamblers from getting out of line. Whilst the men outside were for protection from police raids, this was however currently unnecessary due to local payouts too the police officer(s) who were on duty in whichever precincts the dens were in at the time. They changed regularly from one place to another, changing which place was open on which night at random and only known between the gamblers of the previous games and the runners of the gambling dens. And even then, a raid usually never occurred, they were usually pointless due too the early warnings of informants also on the payroll of the local mobsters.

In front of one such gambling den in the middle of the residential part of the city, there was guard at the door, a human, was trying too keep warm with nothing but a cigarette. The den itself was under the control of Kirby and Ralph; they controlled a few such dens in the nearby blocks. These two huskies were themselves backed by Don Frost, a German Sheppard, one of the few this far north.  There was the usual noise from the inside of the converted house; the usual noises found in a gambling environment, complaints were never filed about the noise because everyone knew what went on there, who controlled it, and that they would not take kindly too complaints.

Whilst in his never ending battle for warmth, he noticed from the lights that shone from the nearby buildings, a single figure walking down the street, towards him and the building under his current protection. He watched as the figure got closer, human’s inability to see very well in the dark is a problem for such a kind of job as guard duty, this also especially difficult if there is too much glare from nearby lights. He kept watching this traveling figure until he had gotten close enough for him to make out more describable details. He saw a light brown husky, a male, about 5ft 9’ tall, wearing a grey overcoat and grey hat to match, despite some canine’s ability to live in cold weather, they still wore clothing like their human counter parts, except for shoes, they don’t last long with their claws.

The guard had already taken this husky as a late arriver for the games, this was common of some gamblers to wait till the bulk of their fellow men had blown all if not most their cash on their gambles and had left. As the husky got within ten feet he spoke as if he were a regular attendant “Cold night tonight” he had quickly walked to within arms distance of the guard. The guard however had failed to take notice of either the husky’s path towards him or that his right hand was starting to draw back, ready to spring forward. “Yeah, but-” the guard was cut off by the right hand coming up and stabbing him in the stomach, the husky pulled the knife out whilst holding the guard by the shoulder with his left paw, to keep the man still and have more leverage to push the man onto the knife. The man dropped to his knees, his hands trying too keep the precious blood from flowing out of him, but this was in vain, the husky pulled the knife out and made several more such stabs, up higher into his chest area, eventually puncturing his heart, killing the man. This was all done surprisingly quickly and was quiet enough that the noise from inside drowned out any noise the guard had made.

The husky dropped the bloody knife next to the corpse, finger prints aren’t any concern to canines, and he then licked the blood from his paw as best as possible. Satisfied for now, he felt around the underarm/breast area of the guard, finding his gun, a .38 revolver; he removed it and put it in the waist of his pants, leaving his hands free to work. He pulled out a bottle from his left coat pocket with a rag coming out of the top; this bottle is filled with one of many different flammable liquids, possibly even a mixture, the rag itself has been dipped in kerosene and is formally called a Molotov cocktail. He switched the bottle between paws so that the bottle was in his right paw, his throwing paw. Digging through his pockets a found a match and struck it against the building, thus starting the flame, and he lit the rag on fire. Throwing the match away, he pulled the  revolver back out with his free left hand and cocked the hammer into place, ready to fire. He knocked on the door with the butt of the gun; he moved his right arm out of the view of the door. The door opened inwards and the husky saw a human standing there, he also saw a group of men, of both species, sitting around a table in the far corner with a canine standing next to the wall nearby.

“Hey” the husky said the man in the door, quickly pulling his left paw up towards the man, at the last second the man noticed the gun but didn’t react fast enough, the gunshot rang out as a mixture of his blood and brain matter was spattered over the rug behind him. Taking quick action the husky stepped into the door way and, like a baseball pitcher, threw the Molotov cocktail towards the group in the corner. The bottle arched through the air till it hit the ground in between the men at the table and the canine nearby. The resulting flames shot off in all directions, especially towards the corner, catching on fire both the lone canine and the gamblers nearby the explosion of flame.  

The husky made a run away as far from the gambling den as possible. If the gunshot wasn’t loud enough, the screams from the men on fire definitely were loud enough to awaken the dead. The fire department eventually put out the flames; the injured were taken to the hospital. The final death count was four, two from burns that they had sustained and the two dead just before the fire and with seven more men with burn injuries. Four of which were serious, one of which was that lone husky near that corner group, he was a canine who worked for Ralph and this incident would not end well for anyone. No one would have imagined what this event would eventually cause.

Chapter 2

Nome, Alaska, November 1928

Special Agent William Patterson and Agent Paul Smiths were arriving into Nome like everyone else, by boat. Both were in their mid-twenties, average height of six foot, Smiths had dirty blond hair while Patterson had light brown hair, there hair was mostly concealed by the black fedora’s they wore. Smiths was married while Patterson wasn’t; Patterson was relatively new to the United States Bureau of Investigation, whilst Smiths was an agent of the Department of Treasury.

They were arriving before the depths of winter completely set in up this far North or at least so they thought, what was still a few weeks away back in the States was: snow. Nome was lightly covered in the white stuff that was the trademark of the north, it was still lightly snowing and the forecast called for heavier snow in a few days. Adding to this was the fact that there was now only 6.5 hours of light each day and that number was diminishing by the days.

They departed from the boat in the chilly air of mid November; the citizens in sight were waiting for supplies from the boat, relatives coming home or were just walking by, like any ordinary day, oblivious too any new arrivals. Any new person arriving was as exciting as Herbert Hoover having been elected the 31st President of the United States of America only a few days earlier, in short, not very exciting. They were more interested in the local affairs of the city. Thus the new comers were ignored.

This was his first real assignment, so Patterson was a little annoyed with the reception they were getting, while Smiths took no notice, since he was helping his wife with the luggage and he on the other had experience in combating bootleggers in Buffalo, New York. He was used too being left out in the cold, it came with the job. They themselves were supposed to be just ordinary citizens until the formal announcement of their presence in Nome; this was to keep them both alive.

“I would have expected a warmer arrival from a cemetery” said an annoyed Patterson

 “We’re just newcomers to them, they don’t know who we are or what we do, they just know we’re crazy enough to come this far north” was Smiths’s reply.

“You’re quite right but then you are quite wrong” was the reply of a nearby voice. Patterson looked around and found the owner of that voice. He saw a dog whose breed he couldn’t distinguish. He saw he was wearing a seemingly light grey coat, along with dark brown pants. He had a muzzle which was mostly grey, that grey flowed down half of the front of his neck and down the front of his body (concealed by his clothes), except for the top of his muzzle which is brown; much of the rest of his fur is brown except for his dark brown eyebrows and slightly lighter, triangular, ears. There was a small ring of grey around his eyes as well. The canines’ eyes were yellow and his irises were maroon. He looked a bit shabby and wild; he looked a bit