something has to be done.” Mr. Conner reached under his blanket and grabbed a pocket watch from his suit coat. He flipped it open, looked at the time, then closed it and replaced it in his coat. He returned to writing on papers. “Do you have your time papers from White Mountain?”

“Yeah.” Mr. Simpson stepped towards the counter while reaching into his coat for a secret pocket in his shirt that held a piece of paper with the time that Mr. Simpson had arrived in White Mountain, and the time he left. He pulled it out and set it on the counter next to Mr. Conner.

Mr. Conner grabbed the paper and pulled it closer to him. He wrote the two times in spots on a piece of paper with green lines across it with hundreds of other numbers around it. “You’re only slightly late today.” Mr. Conner’s voice was full of praise. His hands moved swiftly to a thin long book and scratched numbers and words across it quickly. “So, I’m going to give you a check for twenty five dollars this week.”

As the ’k’ in week rolled off his tongue, Mr. Conner ripped the check out of the book and handed it with a grin to Mr. Simpson.

“Thanks!” Mr. Simpson said over-satisfied with the money he had in his hand.

“So, are you going to go to that meeting tonight? Tell them how to pull us out of this crisis.” Mr. Conner asked, still writing things down on paper.

“No. The only idea I have to get us out of this is global warming, and I don’t quite see how to warm the Arctic from Nome”

Mr. Conner grinned his toothy grin as he finished writing. He threw some scattered papers into a book, then closed the book and set it under the counter. “So how are your dogs doing? I can see they need some new harnesses and you could possibly use a new sled.”

Mr. Simpson walked to the glass by the stove. He raised his hand to the glass and scrubbed some frost away. His dogs still stood there like they were waiting to go somewhere at any moment. “Yeah, but after getting food for my wife and kids and meat from the butchers for my dogs there isn’t anything left. I don’t have enough money for a sled, let alone a single harness after all that.” Mr. Simpson stopped and smiled at Mr. Conner. “That is unless I get a raise.”

Mr. Conner grinned and Mr. Simpson pulled his hood loosely back over his head and placed the check into his pocket. “Well, I guess I better get my Boy’s and Girl settled in.” Mr. Simpson replaced his beaver skin mittens that hung by cords on his coat and opened the door with a jingle. Steam filled the room as the door closed behind the large bear looking creature, followed by another chime of the bells as the door closed.

Mr. Simpson stood on the porch above all his dogs. None of the dogs looked really interested in their master. “So what do you say we get them nasty harnesses off of you so you can go rest?”

Mr. Simpson’s words were like a godsend to Ralph. “Finally, I can get off my feet and let this rotten toe rest.” He held up his foot to look at the toe with the nail that bent sideways into another toe. A trace of blood covered the bent one.

“Ralph, where did you actually acquire that, and in what comportments were you engaged in?” Fell said with his scientist predicting the comets impact origin voice.

“Um … could you repeat that slower?”

Fell sighed, “How did you get it?”

“Oh.” Ralph said fully able to understand. “It was when me and my look-alike bro, Kirby -”

“- For the last time Ralph. We only look slightly alike, we’re not brothers.” Kirby said

Ralph lowered his head “I only said we looked like brothers.”

Kirby sighed and rolled his eyes, “Okay, now why don’t you go on and tell Fell how you bent your nail.”

“Well, as I was saying, Kirby and me were young and playing tag in one of the back alleys of Nome. He tagged me. I tagged him. Then he tagged me. So I tagged him back. I then went running and he tagged me. So I just went and tagged him back -” All the while Ralph told the story of who tagged who, he showed it by throwing one front paw on the other when he said ‘tagged.’

“- Okay, enough with the tagged, just tell him what happened after that.” Kirby growled

“Alright, alright. So Kirby tagged me and he went running under these boxes that were held up by other boxes. I went running after him. But Kirby must have kicked one of the side boxes, because the one up in the air fell down just in front of my nose and I ran right into it. When I woke up Kirby stood over me asking if I was alright. When I looked at my hurt paw, the toe was all bent. And ever since then it’s always been bent and hurting me.” Ralph raised his paw up and showed the bent toe to Fell.

“I ponder if you mislaid some intellectual dominance in that accident to.” Fell grinned.

Ralph grinned and chuckled. “Me too.”

Fell laughed even harder. Kirby began laughing and so did Dusty. Kodi had tried to hold his laughter in, but the stupid look on Ralph’s face was just too much to pass up. Kip grinned at Ralph, then began his moronic staccato laughter that was louder than any other member of the team. For a moment Ralph felt very alone, and very stupid. Kodi could see that his teammate didn’t like being laughed at by everyone when he didn’t know why they were laughing. So Kodi spoke. “Okay, I think we’ve all had our laugh at Ralph for today.”

“Yeah we shouldn’t be so mean to Ralph. He’s the second best looking dog on this team.” Dusty’s eyes brushed across the side of Kodi’s face with a certain sheen in them that could only mean one thing.

Kirby caught the look and his eyes momentarily flashed as he realized what Dusty was thinking.

“Of course I’m the first.” Dusty threw in suddenly.

Kodi continued on with what he had been trying to say “What Fell was saying, is that he thinks you might have got a little bit, slower, when you hit your head as a pup.”

Ralph gave Fell an angry glare that said he would eventually get Fell back. Fell just grinned.

Mr. Simpson finished readjusting the supplies in his sled so they sat just right, when he heard his dogs all begin growling together. All of them except Ralph, who looked lost and confused. Mr. Simpson watched his dogs continue growling, especially his wheel dog Kip. Then Kodi’s head swung slightly and they all stopped growling at the same time. Ralph then turned and glared at Fell like he had just done something wrong. Wonders will never cease. Mr. Simpson thought.

With his task of adjusting gear in the sled done, Mr. Simpson moved up to his lead dogs, Kodi and Kirby, and dropped down to one knee in front of them. “You know you boys almost got us hear on time this time. Maybe next time we’ll get it.” Mr. Simpson said hopefully

Kodi felt good at getting the best time so far this week, yet he couldn’t let it out of his mind quite yet that they were still late. Being late had the same twinge in Kodi’s stomach as failing completely.

Mr. Simpson reached up to Kodi’s collar and clumsily undid the strap that held him to the gang line. With his collar free, Mr. Simpson grasped the harness that rested around Kodi’s neck and pulled it up over Kodi’s ears and gently down his ice covered muzzle.

Kodi stretched his muscles and rounded his shoulders in their sockets as Mr. Simpson moved on to do Kirby. With the same ease as Kodi, Mr. Simpson removed the line that held Kirby to the gang line, and pulled his harness up over his shoulders.

Kirby reached his legs out in front of him and stretched his belly towards the snow. Mr. Simpson gave Kirby a quick rub across his shoulders before moving on to Ralph. In the same motion he removed Ralph’s harness and tug-line. He gave Ralph a quick scratch along the side of his face and down under his jaw. “How’s the foot doing Ralph?” Mr. Simpson grabbed Ralph’s foot and held it up; he could see the blood, but there was nothing he could do to an open wound unless it started to get infected. Never mind the fact that Ralph had had the wound since a puppy, and never once had it been infected. Mr. Simpson set Ralph’s paw down before moving on to Dusty.

He saw it without his eyes focusing on it. Dusty moved her right paw slightly to the left and kept the weight of her shoulders fully on her left foot. To Mr. Simpson it was like someone had dropped a brick in front of him. His eyes followed Dusty’s slender legs down to her right paw. Before he even touched her paw, he knew exactly what was wrong. An ice ball had formed in between Dusty’s second and third toe. Sure enough when Mr. Simpson picked up Dusty’s foot and spread her toes, an ice ball about the size of a pea greeted him. Red sore spots, near bleeding, rested on either side of ball.

“We’ll have to get some cream on this before it gets much worse.” With a smooth move that Dusty hardly expected, Mr. Simpson stuck Dusty‘s paw into his mouth and began to chew at the ice. Usually when an ice ball got in between any of their toes Mr. Simpson would remove his gloves and remove it manually. This just felt weird.

Kirby and Ralph both began laughing uncontrollably. Kirby held his right paw to his stomach and let his nose hang just above the snow, while Ralph lay on his back kicking his back legs at the air.

“Oh come on.” Dusty growled. “Like you guys don’t get ice balls between your toes.”

Kirby managed to let his laughter die down enough to speak. “Yeah, but we were never, treated like a queen for them.” Kirby threw himself into another fit of hysteria. Ralph continued crying in the snow. Kodi just grinned and watched Kirby and Ralph with mild enthusiasm.

Dusty let a grin grace her face. It was the kind of grin that went along with the eyes she had given Kodi earlier, and for a moment she seemed lost in her gaze of Kodi.

Kirby slapped Ralph across the shoulder and pointed with his paw towards Dusty. Ralph instantly stopped laughing and looked straight at Dusty. In a split second he could tell exactly what Dusty was thinking by her eyes and her grin. Both Kirby and Ralph followed her gaze to Kodi, who looked straight back at them stupidly, before looking over at