Chapter XII
The Great Race
THE great Alaska sweepstakes race is unique in the annals of racing, for there is nothing else just like it in the whole world. Neither men, animals, nor machines are raced under just these conditions anywhere else. It is the one great sporting event in far-away Alaska, and it absorbs all the attention for weeks. Alaskans rarely get together to spin yarns in the winter time at the roadhouses, but they recall sweepstake races which they have seen, or tell tales of Alaska's great dog mushers.
The king of all Alaskan dog mushers at the time of which I write was Scotty Ellis. He was a tall muscular Scotchman, with muscles like whipcords, nerves like steel and wind like a moose. He had a low,
