so he wanted dogs who would work well with him.
By the last of October the team was assembled and it cost Richard a good sum of gold, but he was well satisfied. With his usual ardor, he at once set to work to discipline the team.
Richard was not long in discovering that he needed more trail hardening for the race than did the team. For, as the sourdough had said, to run for four miles in a college Marathon was quite a different thing from running four hundred odd miles upon the worst trail in Alaska. It was one thing to cover the level country with speed and quite another to run forty or fifty miles a day with one's hand resting on the gee pole of the sled. Here on the trail, there were many difficulties to be overcome in every league which did not appear upon the course. A misstep, a sprained ankle, and the race was lost. Not only that but a superhuman endurance had to be engendered. The word fatigue must be elim-
