but he does No one could have foreseen what happened."

Kaltag looked down at Junior, and smiled.

"Hey dog, my name's Kaltag, what's yours?"

"Balto," Junior said, "but everyone calls me Junior"

"Well Junior," Kaltag said, "you want to take the guided tour?"

"Boy would I!" Junior exclaimed".

"Well follow me," Kaltag said, as he made his way deeper into the shed full of dogs.

"It's been almost a month since the accident," Balto thought. He thought back to that horrible night. It was snowing and snowing hard.

"I was going too fast, pushing her too hard for the first time out, that's what it was. She was tired and didn't have much time to react anyway

He sighed.

Gosh, I miss you."

Slowly, his thoughts floated back, into the past....

Chapter IX

The dogs were all tired, but they had to push on.

It was snowing, and snowing hard.

Balto could barely see the ground beneath his paws, much less where they were going.

"But the musher wants to continue, so we continue." He thought.

At least the cold wasn't so bad.

Balto was able to keep warm by running, so it wasn't that he was uncomfortable, that he wanted to stop, it was the dogs behind him, that made him want to stop.

Balto glanced behind him, to check on them.

They were doing fine, panting pretty hard, but this, pulling a sled was hard work.

Jadze ran along behind him, her brother, Blaize completed the second string.

Balto was so proud.

"Both my kids, on my team." he thought.

"He'd never been able to teach any of his kids his passion before. They'd all either gone away, or moved away, before they were old enough, but Jadze and Blaize had showed an interest in their father's hobby as soon as they'd been able to go out into town.

They were always hanging out at the sled barn, talking to all the old dog's, that hung around there and told stories.

The stories had infected his kids, both of them with a spark that their mother tried very hard to put out.

"She was afraid they'd get hurt, so I convinced her to let them run on my team."

Eventually Jenna had relented, and Balto had started training them.

Roger had noticed that the Balto was running them through the paces of being a sled dog, and took over.

Roger had taught them well.

"It hadn't taken very long, Jadze was a natural, and while Blaize had to work at it, a little bit more than his sister, he too picked up the trade in no time.

Now Roger had thought they were ready to go out and do what they had been taught.

They'd been gone for two days now, and not a problem, then on the last day, a storm blew in, a bad one.

The team spent the first night of it in a shed in Applegate, it was too dangerous to try for home.

But the second night, the storm had calmed down enough that Roger thought he could make it home.

If they didn't go now, they might be stuck for weeks, so they went, racing for home.

About half way there, the storm opened up again, worse than before.

The team had no choice but to go through it.

That's what had gotten Balto here, running through the wall of snow.

Suddenly, there was a tree, a big one, right in front of Balto, in a second, he would smash into it.

Balto jumped to the side, as did all of the other dog's, the sled however, couldn't jump.

The big sled smashed into the tree, and Balto heard wood crack, whether the wood was the sled or the tree, he didn't know.

What he did know was that the sled was flipping , rolling on it's side straight at him.

He also knew that the sled weighed somewhere around three hundred pounds!

Balto couldn't think of anything else to do, so he jumped.

The sled caught the guideline, and snapped it in two.

Balto came down on the side of a slope, and fell, feeling something give way in his leg, as he tumbled down the hill.

At the base was a rock.

He hit it.

The musher had just finished flipping over the sled, and hooking up the dogs, but he was missing two.

He called out their names; but they didn't answer.

Roger finally decided, he had to get going, the storm was getting worse, and he had to get home.

He was extremely sad about losing Balto, and thought the wolfdog must be alive out there somewhere, but he couldn't take the time to find him.

"Sorry Balto buddy," Roger said to himself. "you'll have to find your own way home this time.":

Then he got on his team, putting Max at lead, and took off, headed for Nome.

The first thing Balto felt as he opened his eyes was cold.

He didn't know how long he'd been lying there, against the rock, but it had been long enough for ice to form all over him.

He shook it off as best he could, and started walking up the hill.

"They left me." Balto thought.

He was standing atop the hill, right in the middle of the lane the sled had knocked out of the ice when it rolled.

"Better start for home," Balto thought, "Jenna's gonna be kill me, and the kids have got to be worried sick about me."

He started walking through the track.

"At least the snow's not so deep here anymore," Balto thought with a smile.

The n he saw something through the snow ahead.

"No!" He thought. "It can't be!

But it was.

Laying in the middle of the track crushed into the layer of ice, under the snow, was Jadze.

Balto felt as if he would pass out.

He ran over to his daughter.

As he approached, he could tell that she was breathing, but only just.

Balto could imagine what had happened. When the sled had flipped, she didn't know what to do.

He could see over and over again, in his minds eye, as the sled rolled over his daughter.

He knelt down beside her, and she opened her eyes.

Balto was surprised to see that there were no tears in her eyes, not one.

"H..Hey dad." she said, her speech sounding kind of slurred.

"Ah Jadze..honey," Balto said, not knowing what to say.

Jadze winced, and Balto could tell she was in pain.

He looked over her, trying to see if he could help her at all.

Two of her leg's were certainly broken, one of them in at least three places, the other.. Balto couldn't tell, but he thought it might be.

He knew that the weight of the sled.... it wouldn't mess up just her leg's, she had to be hurt bad.

There was blood around her mouth and nose, but the sled had busted her up pretty bad, and he couldn't tell if it was because she was injured, or that she'd coughed it up, that the blood was there.

Her face was messed up too. Balto thought it looked like her jaw might be broken.

"That would explain the difficulty she seems to have talking." Balto thought.

Balto looked up at the sky, his own leg started to throb, and within a minute or so, it hurt, bad. Balto could barely put any weight on it.

"I've go to get her home," Balto thought, ignoring what years of experience, of seeing injured dog's, told him was going to happen.

"If I can get her home, Doc can patch her up, and she'll be just fine."

He tried to help her stand, but she couldn't stand, just fell back to the snow.

Balto got her up on his shoulders, ignoring the pain that standing on his leg caused, and took off into the storm.

Balto collapsed, and Jadze fell to the ground. Balto was so cold, and he knew that if he was cold, and he had been running, that Jadze had to be freezing.

He couldn’t go anymore,; he knew that he should… but he couldn’t.

“I have to keep going, gotta get going.”

He tried to stand up, and stumbled forward, falling on his face.

Jadze crawled up beside him.

“D..Dad, y..you’ve… g…got,. to… to go… go on without me.”

“No,” Balto said, “I’m not leaving you out here, I’m going to save you, I’ve got to save you. If I leave you out here….”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

Jadze smiled at her father.

“D…dad, I.. I’m not …g…going to.. to make it…anyway.”

“No,” Balto said, knowing that as she said it, it was true.

“No you’ve got to quit talking like that.”

Jadze smiled at him again, she was trying not to let him know that she was hurting, and hurting bad. Then her smile vanished, and she had to stop to catch her breath, which got very short.

“D..Dad… listen…to,,,to me, I..I’m not st,,stupid.

She stopped again.

“Shh,” Balto said, “you’ve got to be quiet,” a tear came to his eye, as he realized what was happening.

“N..no…Dad, I’v..Ive got.. to..to say this…

It’s….it’s…okay.I…I got…got to ..to have…the.. the ad.. adve.. ture.. I.. always… wan..wanted.”

“D…daddy…I … I don’…don’t wa..want..to.. die. I…I’m…scar..scared…I…”

Jadze’s words slurred, and Balto couldn’t understand the rest. She started choking, and her breathing became very quick

Balto heard a sound and looked up.

He saw a sled, and a team of dogs.

“Roger.” Balto thought.

“Jadze hang on,” Balto said, :”Handgon, I see, I see a sled.”

He watched as the sled turned and started to go right at them.

“Jadze it won’t be long now honey, just hold on…. Jadze?”

There was no