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Then again, Doc Cooley wasn’t an official entrant himself. The debonair mushing vet from Wisconsin was Iditarod’s so-called “trail sweep,” conducting tests on sled-dog metabolism while providing veterinary backup for teams traveling in the rear of the field. It was a new concept, something Cooley, 44, had thought up after years of frustration watching apparently healthy Iditarod dogs collapse from undetected heart problems. Doc suspected electrolyte imbalances might be the cause. The race offered the perfect opportunity to test the hypothesis.

Cooley tried to lure the stray within reach, offering the dog chunks of meat. Darting between trees, Charlie remained out of reach, barking at the unwelcome intruder’s team.

Not far ahead of Cooley, John Ace barely clipped a tree with his knee. Though only a glancing blow, it came at a damaging angle. It was as if a grenade had exploded under Ace’s sled, which tumbled down the hill. He felt like his face got the worst of it. He didn’t notice the throbbing in his leg until later.

Dawn was breaking. Ace figured he could tough it out to Nikolai. Not that he had any choice. The burly musher drove onward. The pain in his leg steadily increased, as did the swelling. Before long, Ace was precariously hunched over the sled, unable to help his dogs on the hills, and enduring terrible pain as he repeatedly capsized.

The team dragged its injured driver into Don and Catherine Mormile’s camp in the Burn. They took one look at Ace’s leg and ordered him to lie down. The leg might be broken, they warned. Ace, a former Vietnam medic, wasn’t entirely convinced. He held out hope of finishing this, his sixth, Iditarod. But he welcomed their help feeding his dogs.

Cooley arrived on the scene and lent his voice to the Mormiles’. Ace’s condition was indeed grave. On a bitter night like this, Doc told the musher, he risked losing that leg, because swelling magnified the risk of frostbite. The veterinarian convinced Ace to take shelter in his sled bag and wait there while he mushed to Nikolai for help. Just to be on the safe side, Cooley confiscated Ace’s boots, leaving him no choice but to stay put.

Race Judge Al Marple and Jeff Stokes, a local EMT, returned several hours later on snowmachines, equipped with a rescue sled. In a bumpy ride, punctuated by the musher’s groans, they hauled the crippled musher to the village. Ace was flown to McGrath Friday afternoon. X rays revealed a hair-line fracture in his leg just below the knee. He and his dogs were headed home. This incident brought the total number of race casualties to eight.

Tom Daily found the Burn oddly fascinating. He passed through the skeletal forest at night, his favorite time for mushing, chasing the tracks of a fox in the fresh snow. The team’s joyride ended at Sullivan Creek, where his dogs balked at crossing the open water. The creek was about 15 feet across. Trailbreakers had built a temporary bridge for the race leaders, but the jumbled logs and sticks looked dangerous now. A dog killer, Daily decided, after scouting the crossing.

Bridge or no bridge, the rushing water had to be crossed. After a few abortive attempts at ordering the leaders across, the musher took matters into his own arms. One at a time, he picked up his dogs and carried them to the far side, wading through freezing water well above his knees. The chore delayed Tom Daily three hours, and turned his space-age foam boots into huge clumps of ice.

Lee and Garth were studying Sullivan Creek when I arrived. My timing couldn’t have been better. We teamed up for the crossing. I rode sleds to the edge of the creek, holding the dogs to a crawl as Lee threw reluctant swimmers into the water. Garth was positioned on the far shore, coaxing the dogs forward, and ready to yank foundering critters to safety. Soggy though they were, the dogs pulled our sled across upright and dry. Between the three of us, we forded the creek with minimal delay and no accidents.

I was the