“Rise and shine!” he called to his friend.
They ate a hurried breakfast of hot cereal and scalding coffee, and by four-thirty they were on the trail again. The cold wind in their faces and the stinging spray kicked up by the dogs’ feet brought them fully awake before they had gone far.
When it began to get light, the boys got out of the sled and trotted along with Charley. They kept it up for a mile or so before Jerry developed a bad case of rubber legs and went down on his knees.
“I feel like a dope,” he said, as Sandy helped him back into the sled. “Here we are, a couple of kids, puffing like steam engines, and an old guy like Charley isn’t breathing any harder than if he had run up a flight of stairs.”
“And we’re in pretty good condition from being in school athletics. Can you imagine how some of the other guys in school would make out?” Sandy asked. “The guys who hop in the family car to go down to the corner newsstand and sneak smokes between every class?”
“Yeah,” Jerry agreed ruefully. “The kids in the States are getting soft, there’s no doubt about it.”
“My Uncle Russ always says you should take at least as much pride in your body as you do in your home. Most people wouldn’t live in sloppy, rundown houses, but a lot of them don’t care if they spend their lives in sloppy, rundown bodies.”
Jerry slapped his middle irritably. “Let me tell you, I’m going to work on this flab when I get home. Old Charley here has taught me a lesson. You miss a lot of the fun of life if you’re out of shape.”
Sandy kept up with Charley for another mile, then he got back into the sled. He noticed that the Indian held to a pattern: he would run along for a half hour or so and then hitch a ride on the sled for ten minutes. It seemed as if he could go on like that endlessly and tirelessly.
They stopped at mid-morning to give the dogs a rest and brew some strong Indian tea. Charley wouldn’t drink the coffee in the thermos. “Coffee no good. You ever see huskies drink coffee?” The boys had to admit that they never had. “Indian tea like medicine. Make you strong and healthy. Dogs know.” To demonstrate, he poured a little into a tin plate for Titan, and the big lead dog lapped it up promptly.