about what he was saying, he blurted, "I'm Juneau."

"I'm Brite."  The collie-mix stated.  Once again catching Juneau unprepared, she softened and giggled.  "What kind of dog are you, anyway?  You don't look like any that I've ever seen."

"I'm part...well, part...something.  I don't really know.  Neither does uncle Balto."  The wolfdog about which Juneau was talking smiled slightly as he quietly paced away.  Juneau needed a friend, and this unlikely girl looked like just the type he needed.  She was outgoing, stubborn, and just a little bit blunt-the complete opposite of Balto's young charge.  All except the stubbornness part, he thought amusedly.  Neither pup realized that Balto was leaving.

"Really?"  Brite jumped to her feet.  "That's really cool...almost like a mystery.  I'm part husky, part Border collie.  But I kinda wish I was a purebred," she added, looking mildly annoyed.

"You...you think that's cool?"  Juneau gawked at her.

"Well, why not?" Brite replied in that blunt way of hers that Juneau was just beginning to recognize. 

"I dunno..." Juneau trailed off lamely.  She'd caught him completely off-guard again.

"Well, I probably gotta go.  My dad's running in a race in just a minute.  See ya."  And she took off, pelting through the crowds, without a backward glance.  "See ya," Juneau murmured. 

Oh no!  The race!  It hit him a second later.  Cross at himself, he charged, on three legs, as bravely as he could into the throng of human beings.  From quite a ways behind him, Juneau thought he could just barely make out a sound-the sound of squawking, like a goose.  And not just any goose, he thought with a grin.

 

"Junie, let me have a look at that leg of yours."  A auburn-and-white husky was closely examining Juneau's wounded leg.  At least, she was trying.  The squirming puppy sure was making it hard.  "Jenna, please don't call me that."  Juneau had just enough time to be slightly put off by the nickname before the starting gun went off for Balto's son, Kodiak's, race.  As the dogs roared by in a blur of speeding color, Juneau hopped up and down, being careful not to land on his bad leg.  "I can't see!  I...can't...see!"

"Easy there, sport.  I'll help you out."  With a look to his mate like, Give the poor thing a break for just one second, Balto scooped Juneau up carefully and swung him onto his broad, warm back.  Although Balto wasn't the tallest dog in Nome, Juneau was able to see a great deal better that before.  He strained as far forward as he could, and before he knew it he was scaling the fuzzy heights of his caretaker's head.  But Balto didn't mind, even though Juneau was about half his size and therefore weighing him down.  He understood perfectly the pup's urge to see the races.  After all, that was his own passion, his obsession.  Why shouldn't this pup be able to dream?  And anyway, he reasoned, At least he's not part wolf.  That makes things a thousand times harder.  Sighing, he watched as Kodi and his team slowly ebbed out of sight beneath the early sun.  He must give Juneau every chance under that sun.

 

The next day Juneau awoke to something painful.  Struggling to wake up fully, he reached back into the misty folds of his puppy memory.  Something had happened yesterday that hurt...that much he knew.  But what?  As he saw Jenna bending over one of his legs, his right forepaw, it came to him in a wave of painfulness.  "YOOOOOWWWW!"  He screamed.  "That hurts!"

"I was hoping you'd stay asleep for this part."  Balto's mate never looked up from her position, hovering over his leg.  "Your leg's pretty stiff.  Not surprising at all."

"Since when were you a doctor?"  A very sleepy Balto murmured from Juneau's left side.  He grinned as he half-sat, half-sprawled and stretched.  "You could've nursed yourself back to health after you injured your leg in that fight with the bear."

"What bear?"  Juneau sat up, but quickly collapsed again after being hit by a wave of nausea. 

Jenna fussed over him a little and gave Balto a warning glance.  "What bear?"  Juneau repeated, looking from one to the other after clearing his foggy head.  Balto got a strange, faraway gleam in his eye.  Jenna rolled hers.  Shaking her head, she continued binding the leg as Balto reached back into the depths of his mind.  Oh, he could remember the story all right, unlike Juneau...he just wanted to use the right words to describe one of the most thrilling moments of his life to the pup.  "Well, I was out in the woods, searching for Steele's sled team..."  Juneau became so engrossed in the story that he forgot his pain.  Jenna made the most of this, and by the time Balto had gotten safely out of the freezing water and on his way to the mountain trail in search of Steele again, the bandaging was all done.

"There you go," declared Jenna triumphantly.  "Finished."

"Thanks!"  The wrapping was done up so tightly, Juneau could put almost all of his light weight on his right leg.

"Say, you wanna come with me into town, Juneau?  I just remembered, I've got a sled to pull today, one of the mail dogs was sick."  By himself, Juneau wouldn't have, but he felt safe with his uncle Balto nearby. 

"Okay," he yipped.

 

Later that morning in Nome, Juneau scanned the streets out of curiosity.  There was that girl, Brite, again, this time without Cal.  Thank goodness, Juneau sighed inwardly.  But Brite spotted him and came barreling towards him and Balto.  "Hey," she panted.  "You're back."

"Yeah," he replied awkwardly.  Once again, Balto saw a perfect opportunity for a friendship.  "There's the team," he said, although in truth that wasn't the sled he'd be pulling.  His would arrive in another ten minutes or so.  Either way, Juneau fell for it.  "All right, Balto."

"Have fun," Balto said almost gleefully over his shoulder as he loped over to the wrong sled.  Luckily the pups didn't notice the strange looks the musher was giving him.  "Wrong sled, boy," the Inuit man murmured in puzzlement as he petted the wolfdog.  Balto wagged his tail.

 

As Brite and Juneau played on the sand dunes, Juneau became more and more comfortable aound her.  He didn't like her or anything, it was just that...well, she was so unlike him that for a while he had felt like he was constantly off his feet trying to keep up with her barreling pace-of talking and running.  As she suddenly took off, he panted to maintain the rapidfire pace as they cavorted across the sand.  Finally Brite stopped, laughing.

"You're a slowpoke, you know that?" She rolled over and over until she was barely a foot from the water's edge.  As the tide rolled up to greet her, she whapped it with a speckled paw.

"Yeah, right..." Juneau leaped in and boldly sprayed her by skimming his own paw across the surf.  Brite shrieked and toppled farther into the water.  Scrambling to her feet, she dashed after Juneau, intending revenge.  But her wet, salty coat proved too heavy this time.  By the time she'd caught up with him, he was stretched out on the sand, feigning sleep.  She playfully kicked sand into his face, and Juneau led her on a mad chase through the seaside scrub.  This is the life, he thought happily.  She's not so bad after all.

 

Balto's muscles were pleasantly warm after the easy run.  He barked goodbye to the other dogs, who hastily reminded him that he was welcome to join them again at any time.  He noticed some of them were panting harder than he.  As for him, he felt he could've run another route and still be ready for more.  The icing on the cake would be if Juneau had a good time while I was gone, he thought.  Bounding over the hard-packed snow of Nome's main street, Balto was bursting with bottled-up energy.  Little did he know, he was soon going to need it.

As Balto headed toward the beach, he slowed to a steady trot.  From a distance, he heard a faint sound, growing louder.  It was a loud honking, loud enough to wake the dead.  Balto stopped in his tracks, then began to run, much faster than he had in harness just moments before.  It must be Boris.  He'd gotten himself into trouble.

The squalling reached an almost deafening pitch as Balto reached the schooner's ramp.  Jenna wasn't there.  However, there was a canine...just not one that Balto had been expecting.

It was a small, lithe wolf.  And it had Boris's feathers, which were, of course, still attatched to the goose's wing-tip.  As soon as the wolf caught sight of Balto, he let go of Boris, who brushed himself off disgustedly.  Balto guessed from the surprised look on the creature's face that he hadn't been able to smell Balto until now.  But that was no advantage, because the wolfdog was equally stunned.  "What do you want?" Balto finally got out.

"There's a wolf pup somewhere in this town," the wolf rasped.  "Shonee-that's our clan's alpha leader-said something about our old leader's brother...some guy named...Balto?"

 

"Why isn't he back yet?"  Stretched out under the setting sun, which was dropping below the sea like a speeding comet of fire, Juneau lifted his head to

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