Allen hurried them along. “What an extraordinary man Mace is! What skill he uses in handling his dogs!”
“What’s so special about that?” Judy asked, still ruminating about the ups and downs of Baby Doe. “Horses pull wagons and dogs pull sleighs. Why is Mr. Mace so wonderful?”
“For one thing, kid,” Allen said, annoyed at Judy’s lack of enthusiasm, “he was with the ski troops that saw Arctic duty in World War II. He learned about dogs the hard way.”
Allen turned to a more appreciative audience. “Lynne, I guess none of us realized what these mountain troops went through out in that wasteland of snow and ice. The pilots they saved, the planes and cargo they salvaged—”
“What had the dogs to do with the pilots?” Judy asked.
“Fierce storms often forced the planes down,” Allen explained patiently. “Mace was in charge of a division whose job it was to search for and rescue the flyers and, of course, to save the air cargo on which their lives depended. You see, Judy, only dogs and dog-sleighs can travel over that sort of country.”
They moved along at a snail’s pace as Allen became more and more engrossed in his subject. “Mr. Mace had to train the dogs, keep the drivers from fighting each other. Tempers get ugly under such conditions. The war went on. Sleighs wore out. He had to make new ones—new equipment.” Allen shook his head. “Mace is a modest man. You have to drag the story out of him.”
“How did he happen to get to Ashcroft?” Lynne asked.
Allen laughed. “I asked him that myself. It seems that when the war was over, they didn’t know what to do with those wonderful dogs. The top brass ordered them sold. Mace said he’d grown to love working with dogs. The thought of giving it up made him wretched. He saved some money and he bought all the top-strain dogs he could afford. He and his wife decided to take their dogs to Aspen to breed and train them, as a hobby.”
“What did he do before the war?” Lynne asked.