called out innocently, not seeing Boris.

Jenna and Balto began to roll around the deck in a fit of laughter as Balto grabbed his beak and tried to hold what little patience he had available.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

The moon had risen to a point that signaled bed time for most of the Nome residents. Nikki was circling the edge of Nome once again, nearly board out of his mind. His owners had been so glad to see him, just like he guessed Star’s owners had been. They’d had smothered him with affection, but he needed to get away from it for awhile. He looked down the main street as he came to one end of it. He saw a lantern flicker in the distance. He gazed out into the open tundra, but a little too late to see and successfully move out of the way of a running traveler. The next second he found himself on the packed snow, the traveler in the same position just a few feet away from him.

“Hey there, watch where you’s is going,” he called.

The other dog stood up and walked over to Nikki, lending him a paw, which the chow happily took. The newcomer smiled.

“Oh dear. I’m awfully, dreadfully sorry, I didn’t mean to plow you over like that. I was in a hurry, and then the ice made me slip and slide all over, so that didn’t make things any better,” the dog suddenly sneezed mid-sentence before continuing, “anyway, my name’s Henry, just blew into town, what’s yours?”

Nikki could still make out the features of this dog very clearly even though the sky was dimming. He seemed very slim, but not at all weak. His white fur was perfectly proportioned with his black. There were no real marks that could make him very distinguishable, except for his dark brown eyes and his bright blue collar.

“Ugh, it’s Nikki,” he replied, “where’d ya come from anyways?”

Henry smiled, “Fairbanks. I used to be like the leader of the dogs there I guess you could say, but the town was so boring that I just had to leave. Been searching for a new place to call my own for awhile now.”

“Well then, let me be the first to welcome you to Nome there.”

Henry nodded to him and Nikki turned to walk away. Henry put a paw on his shoulder to stop him.

“Hey, you know where a dog could spend the night at?”

“Oh yeah, sure. You’s could probably stay in the boiler-” Nikki suddenly cut off.

No, he couldn’t go back there again, at least not for a long while. He imagined that they had already found out about what went down and were cleaning up the mess as they were speaking.

Henry looked at the chow worriedly, “Are you alright?”

Nikki shook his head and quickly thought, “Yeah, yeah. Um. You probably couldn’t stay with me, but I’m sure Kaltag could let you stay for the evenin’.”

He and Henry cut through an alley and they appeared on the other side. He glanced to his left and right and walked a few houses down. Kaltag was sitting on his porch, facing away from them and looking out through the gaps in the railing. Nikki knocked on the wood of the porch and Kaltag looked over his shoulder. 

“Hey Nikki, and, Nikki’s friend!” Kaltag smiled warmly as the stepped up towards him, “So, for what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Oh nothin’ really. Just bumped into a newcomer, and they don’t have a place to stay, so I was hopin’ that you’s could take him in?”

Kaltag scanned the husky, catching his name by a tag that hung loosely from his collar. He looked pretty decent, so Kaltag nodded his head.

“Sure thing. I don’t think my owners will mind much.”

Nikki smiled and disappeared around a corner as Kaltag led Henry inside his home. Henry saw a photo of Kaltag as a pup near a sled, his tongue lolling out with a downright excited look spread across his face.

“You run?” he asked.

Kaltag grinned, “Sure do. Best job ever. What do you do for a living?”

“Well, you know, act like a judge when dogs have problems, but there wasn’t anything going on where I lived, so, I moved.”

“Hmm, sounds interesting. You could actually call this perfect timing. Apparently there’s been a lot of trouble going on with our leader lately, and I heard that some dogs were wanting to replace him.. Actually, just a shot in the dark but, would you maybe want to talk with some of the other dogs ‘round town? If you really have experience in this field, then you could be a great back up in case something ever happened to Doc.”

Henry showed a slightly shocked expression. “Don’t you think it’s a little sudden to come up with ideas like that. I’ve only just gotten here.”

Kaltag shrugged, “You never know what’ll happen. It’s good to make plans.”

“I guess,” Henry sneezed abruptly, “but if you don’t mind, I’d like to catch a little shut eye. Quite worn out from running here. You know the deal.”

“Yeah, I got-cha. You can sleep near the fire or anywhere else that you feel comfortable. Just make yourself at home.”

“Will do,” he chuckled, “see you in the morning and all that.”

Kaltag smiled at his guest before he made his way toward his special spot in front of the crackling fire. He laid down and watched Henry out of the corner of his eye as he roved about to find a suitable resting place. Kaltag had drifted off before Henry finally laid down, being extra sure that he was lying on his stomach.

Chapter Eleven:

Kodi yawned widely as he waited. The walls around him were a very bland white color with very little variation. What could you expect from a vet’s office? He ran his claws across the bars of his cage. Even though it was quite roomy in here, he didn’t much like it. He’d rather be outside playing with his siblings or friends. The door to the recovery room opened as the vet let in Balto, Jenna, Dingo and Haida.

“Well, well, well. You weren’t the one I was expecting to find behind bars,” Dingo smirked. “I was thinking that it would be this lunkhead,” he nodded to Haida.

“Oh, ha ha Dingo. That’s a heck of a way to greet someone.”

“I know, and I’m proud of him personally,” Haida laughed.

“So Son, how ya holding up?” Balto asked.

“Doing okay I guess,” Kodi replied casually, “just bored out of my mind. I don’t care if the vet just put stitches in me yesterday, I want out of here ASAP.”

“Are you hurting Kodi? Where are the stitches?” Jenna asked in a motherly tone.

Kodi rolled to his side, showing where he had been sewn back up. He looked at his mother and smiled.

“It doesn’t really hurt Mom. I just can’t really stretch to much, so I feel pretty stiff right now.”

Kodi noticed that there were two figures missing from the picture.

“Hey, where are Saba and Denali?”

“Well,” began Haida, “Tweedledee and Tweedledum had the oh-so-wonderful task of taking over the jobs for you and that other dog. And since the trio ain’t goin’ either. They’re running with four dogs if you can believe that.”

Kodi’s ears perked up. “Wait, which other dog? Is he okay?”

Jenna frowned and turned away as Balto stepped closer to the cage. He looked upset.

“How do I put this?… Kodi, you were probably knocked out at the time, but we lost one of the team during the night, along with Steele and one of his cronies. The humans found out about that later last night before we could really do much to clean up, and, well, you can say they weren’t exactly happy about what they found.”

“That’s an understatement,” Dingo whispered.

“Dingo, please, not now,” sighed Jenna.

Balto continued, “We don’t know what they plan to do about this though. I can imagine that most of us will probably have our owners fussing over us, providing we have one that is.”

The atmosphere of the room felt more weighted than it had earlier as an awkward silence crept in. Haida began to cough obnoxiously.

“Welp, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty much done here,” he announced as he darted out of the room.

“Hey! Wait up!”

Dingo followed closely behind him, hating to always be left behind. Jenna shifted uncomfortably and nudged Balto.

“Well Son, looks like we would probably be heading back.”

Jenna nodded, “Just try and get some sleep, and stay out of trouble.”

“What trouble could I get in, in a cage?” Kodi called after them as they disappeared through the door.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

“Hey Kaltag, who’s your new friend?” Dixie asked curiously. She sauntered up to the husky and scanned him over, liking what she saw. He reminded her off a certain someone that she had used to pine for. Henry watched her nervously as her circles became tighter and tighter around him.

“Does she always do this?” he whispered to Kaltag.

“Yeah, pretty much. Let me be the first to say that I feel sorry for you.”

“Alright Flirt, you’ve had enough fun,” Sylvia cut in, dragging her friend away by the collar. She ignored Dixie’s whining as she spoke to their new arrival. “So, I’ll try to be the more polite one of the two of us.. Where’d ja come from? What’d ja do? Why’d ja come here? And so on.”

“Fairbanks. Leader