Dog Tracks by Ruby Slipperjack

Author:Ruby Slipperjack [Slipperjack, Ruby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fifth House Books
Published: 2014-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

The sun came up on a clear blue sky Wednesday morning. As Mom and I got ready to go out the door, the emergency satellite phone rang and Dad spoke with Ned. So far, everything was going fine with the trial run. Mad Dog would arrive that night to change the dog team. At lunch, clouds began rolling in from the north and I helped Mom take a big pot of moose stew over to Chief Paulie’s house for Mad Dog to take back to the tourist tent with him. When we got there, Gish came out of the dressing room in a beaded moosehide coat with a rabbit hood and mitts. His feet were encased in fully beaded mukluks. The sisters grinned as they sat on the couch, sipping tea.

Mom said, “How warm are you going to be in that?” Gish grinned and pulled back the flaps of his hood and we could see that it was lined with a rabbit skin. Genius! I thought he looked like a beaded inside-out toad myself, but I didn’t say anything.

By evening, as we sat down to supper, there was still no reply on the emergency satellite phone that Mike had tried to call several times. Mike, Linda, and David were having supper with us while we waited for Mad Dog to arrive. A storm began to blow as we sat down to eat. By the time we’d finished, we couldn’t see a thing outside, the snow was coming down so thick. Quite late in the evening, they went home and Dad went with them to check out Mad Dog’s place and visit Ching and Gish across the way. Gish was staying at Ching’s place that night so he could just go next door when Mad Dog arrived back in town. I could tell everyone was getting very worried.

I’d just dozed off that night when I heard the phone ring. I came running into the kitchen to hear Mom talking on the phone where it sat beside the window. She put the phone down and dialled a number. Then I heard her say, “Mike? John just called from Ching’s house. He said he was on his way home when he heard the dogs coming. They pulled up in front of Ned’s house. They came home on their own. They had the toboggan tied behind. John went back to get Ching. Check if the emergency box is tied inside the canvas wrap on the toboggan ... okay.”

She hung up and we looked at each other across the silent room. What could have happened?

The emergency box was a plastic container with a lid that held the satellite phone, a first aid kit, and the survival pack.

It snowed all that night and turned into a fierce storm early in the morning and into the afternoon on Thursday. There was no way that Ching could venture out into the storm alone. So, by late afternoon, when the snow had slowed down, Dad and Mike decided to

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