Sled Run for Survival by Marianne Hering

Author:Marianne Hering [Hering, Marianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUVENILE FICTION / Readers / Chapter Books
ISBN: 9781684283323
Publisher: Focus on the Family
Published: 2022-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

Clearsky ran alongside the dogsled for about three miles. It was packed with food and supplies. The cargo was covered by a large bearskin. Patrick stood on the sled and mushed.

“Great job!” Patrick shouted to the dogs.

They barked in response, and Patrick’s earmuffs vibrated. He heard, “Good job to you, too!” and “Do I smell a reindeer?” and “Can we please eat the salmon now?”

The sled slowed at a sprawling mining operation with a sign that said “Hammon Consolidated Gold Fields.” Huge pieces of machinery and rock piles were spread out along the ground.

Clearsky shouted to Patrick, “Seppala works here. But it looks like the mine is closed for quarantine. We’ll have to go to his house.”

Clearsky motioned to Patrick to turn the sled.

Patrick shouted, “Haw!”

Storm immediately led the dogs to the left.

A few minutes later, the sled arrived at a log cabin. Smoke was wisping from the chimney.

Clearsky and Patrick walked to the door. Clearsky knocked.

A woman opened the door. She wore a long skirt and a brown sweater with a snowflake pattern. Short, light-brown hair peeked out beneath her gray-and-brown knit cap. Patrick thought she looked friendly.

She nodded at the visitors. “Leonhard isn’t here,” she said.

Clearsky asked, “When will he return?”

The woman laughed. “You may as well ask, ‘When will the bluebells bloom?’ ”

A young girl peered around the woman’s skirt. “It will be before spring, Mama,” the girl said. “Daddy said he’d be gone a week.”

Clearsky frowned. “Where did he go and when?”

“Tuesday last,” Mrs. Seppala said. “He went to bring back another doctor.”

“Why?” Patrick asked. “Dr. Welch and Nurse Morgan are seeing to all the patients.”

Mrs. Seppala turned her attention to Clearsky. “A Miss Amelia Darling came here with an urgent message. She said that there would be a diphtheria outbreak. Then she said Leonhard had to fetch another doctor. Dr. Welch couldn’t help all the patients.”

Clearsky asked, “How far away?”

Mrs. Seppala said, “Four hundred miles.”

That will take days, Patrick thought.

“Was he heading east?” Clearsky asked. His voice was hopeful.

Mrs. Seppala shook her head and said, “He was going along the coast of the Bering Sea, south.”

“No one in Nome knows about another doctor coming,” Clearsky said. He wiped his forehead with a mitten.

The little girl stepped forward. She looked about eight years old. Her hair coiled in light-brown ringlets. “I didn’t like that woman,” the girl said. “I call her Ameliaworm. Get it? A mealworm?”

“Hush, Sigrid,” Mrs. Seppala said. “Go check on the dogs.”

Sigrid frowned and then disappeared behind her mother.

“I know of a Roy Darling,” Clearsky said. “He is a Navy pilot. But his wife is Caroline, not Amelia.”

“Yes, that’s the name. Roy,” Mrs. Seppala said. “Amelia said she was a relative of the famous pilot Roy Darling. She said she flew all the way from Anchorage to deliver the message to Leonhard.”

“I saw a yellow biplane yesterday,” Patrick said.

“That’s it,” Mrs. Seppala said. “She and that older gentleman—Mr. Whittaker—have been working on it for weeks. I’ve seen them a couple of times around town.

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