moment later a white wolf stepped out.  Taya gaped in surprise.  “I know you,” she said.  “You’re Aniu, right?”

Aniu nodded.  “You remember well.”  She turned her head to point back the way Taya had come.  “You must go back.  You are needed.”

“Are you crazy?  I’m not going back there!”

“Copper is in danger, along with your daughter and Toby.  They need your help.”

 Taya looked uncertainly in the direction Aniu was telling her to go.  Then she focused on Aniu again.  “They can handle themselves.  What about Balto?  He’s about to get killed by some maniac back in Nome- namely my dad.”

“Balto is strong, and his family is there to help him.  Right now you must save yours while there is still time.”

Taya considered.  “Alright,” she said.  “I’ll trust you.”  And he headed back to a place she had sworn she would never return to. 

For the hundredth time Copper tried to reach through the cage and use his claw to pull the nails out of the hinges.  “Darn it!” he snapped.  “My paws are too big.  They won’t fit through the wire!”

Luna was trying the same trick, but even though she was able to slip her paw through easily, she couldn’t reach the hinges.  “My legs are too short,” she said.

“Same here,” grumbled Toby.

Copper hung his head.  “I never should have let you kids get involved in this.”

“Hey, come on, dad.  It’s my mom he was messing with, right?”

Toby nodded.  “Yeah, and you guys are my friends.  So we were already involved in it.”

“A lot of good that does us,” muttered Copper.  “We’re all stuck in here, and soon we’ll be stuck in that ring or another one like it, forced to make money for Carson.”

“We really are dead meat now, aren’t we?” asked Toby.

“No, we…” Copper tried to come up with something positive to say, but what was there?  “Yeah, I guess we are.”  He let out a defeated sigh and lay down, closing his eyes.  “Well, at least Taya’s not here, so we know she got away.”

At that moment they heard a familiar voice as someone came through the door.  “Did someone mention my name?”

Copper’s eyes flew open.  “Taya?” he asked as his ears shot up.  Seeing her, he jumped to his feet so fast that his head crashed against the top of the cage.  Despite the pain, he wagged his tail.  “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

Luna jumped up and placed her paws against the cage.  “Mom?” she asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Yeah, how did you know where we were?” added Toby.

Taya shrugged.  “Let’s just say a little bird told me you might need a paw.  Speaking of which…” she added, fiddling with the hinges on Copper’s cage, “Let’s get you guys out of here.”

 After a considerable amount of effort, she managed to pry the nails out of two of the hinges.  The last hinge was too rusty to work with, but Copper was able to smash the door open.  Working quickly, they then freed Toby, Luna and Blaze.  “Now come on,” said Taya, heading outside.  “Let’s get out of here.”

 The others followed, but Toby stopped as they headed outside.  He could still hear the dogs barking inside.  “No,” he said.  “We’ve got to save the others.”

 “There’s no time,” answered Taya.  “Dad’s back in Nome, and I’ve got a little bone to pick with him, preferably before he and his cronies make dog food out of Balto.”

 “Wouldn’t Balto want us to get those guys out of here?” asked Toby, jerking his head back towards the house.

 "He's right," said Blaze, going back inside.  Toby looked at the others with a look of fierce determination in his eyes.

 “Balto’s always been my hero, you know that.  And I’m not going to turn around and leave when somebody needs my help.  That’s not what he did, and it’s not what I’m going to do either.  You guys go on ahead without me.  I’m gonna help ‘em.”

 “No,” said Copper decisively.  “We have to stay together.”

 Luna took a place next to Toby.  “I’m with him.”

 Taya considered, but continued heading toward Nome.  “Like I said, I’ve got some unfinished business with my dad.”

 “So you’re going to let revenge get in the way of saving innocent lives?” asked Toby, knowing it was the only way to get through to Taya.  “Sounds exactly like what he did.”

 Taya whirled around and charged at Toby, stopping about three inches from his face.  “Don’t you ever compare me to him,” she growled.

 “Taya, he’s right,” said Copper.  “If we don’t get them out of there, we’re no better than Steele.”  And with that he turned and headed back inside.

 Taya growled in frustration, but as Toby and Luna followed Copper back inside, so did she.

 They worked as quickly as possible to free the other captives.  Some left immediately, eager to get back home.  Others stuck around to help with the escape.  In a matter of about five minutes the cages were all empty, and one or two of the stronger dogs had set to work on demolishing them in any way possible.

 Just then they heard an enraged shout from the door.  “Uh-oh, Carson’s back,” announced Blaze, who had been appointed lookout.  “And he found the tracks the others made getting out of here.”

 “Good,” snarled a brown Akita.  “I’d like to have a little ‘talk’ with him.”

 Carson stormed into the room and stopped, staring in horror at the escaped dogs.  To be more specific, he was staring at their teeth.  The wrecked cages behind them gave him a pretty good idea what those teeth were capable of.  He whipped out a pistol and pointed it at them.  “Back!” he ordered.  “Stay back, you mutts!”

 Toby slipped away from the crowd and around to the wall, going under the other dogs so as not to be seen.  Every move was a new experience in suspense.  ‘He could see me and shoot any minute,’ he thought.  ‘Or miss and hit someone else.’  Reaching the wall, he slipped past Carson and climbed a pile of boxes outside the door.  Remembering how many times his mother had told him not to climb crates at the harbor yard, he smiled.  ‘If she could see me now, she’d kill me,’ he thought.  At the top of the pile, he turned to face Carson.  The man’s back was to him.  With a leap, he caught hold of Carson’s hair in his teeth and pulled.  Hard.

 “Yeeowww!!!” Carson screamed, pointing the gun at the ceiling and firing.  Toby responded by bracing his paws against Carson’s back and digging in his claws.  Carson screamed louder and waved his hands, sending the gun flying out the window Taya had shattered earlier.

 Taya’s eyes narrowed.  “Get him,” she commanded.

 The dogs charged at Carson, who turned and ran away screaming.  Fueled by panic, he managed to get away mostly unharmed.  A few of the dogs managed to get in their shots, though.  By the time he reached the door he was missing most of his left pants leg, the back of his shirt, and the hat he had been wearing (along with several clumps of hair, mostly courtesy of Toby).

 “He’s going to be awfully cold out there,” observed Copper as they watched their tormentor disappear, still pursued by some of the more relentless dogs.

 “Especially without these,” said Luna.  She and Toby trotted back, each of them proudly carrying a shoe.

 Taya looked at the setting sun.  “Come on,” she said.  “We’ve wasted enough time here.  It’s time to pay someone a little visit back in Nome.”

 Blaze joined them.  "I would like to join you, but I must go back to my master." He looked at Taya regretfully.  "I'm sorry," he added, "I'm guessing you want to know more about your mother."

 Taya shook her head.  "You've told me all I need to know."

 Blaze nodded.  "Courage and godspeed," he said, and left.

When they got back, their first thought was to find Balto.  They tried his boat, but a search turned up next to nothing.  Toby sniffed out Steele’s footprints and those of his helpers leading to and from the boat, but there was no sign of any violence other than a torn blanket and an impression in the snow next to the boat as if someone had been thrown from the deck.  Ordinarily that would have convinced them they were too late, but Copper pointed out there was no scent of blood.  They tried at Jenna’s house, but there was nobody there either.  At last, as they were heading back to the boat to see if there was anything they had missed, they ran into Kodi.