Word: sledding
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...eleven yelping Siberian Huskies heard the crack of the whip and the encouraging cries of Driver Bill Shearer: "Pick it up! Pick it up!" The dogs were near the end of the third and decisive race of the New England sled-dog championship at Jaffrey, N.H. last week. More important, they were close to chow time. And then, plunk in the middle of the snowy road, Driver Shearer saw a sight that chilled his spine: a cat, lazily sunning itself...
Shearer had visions of a snarling, harness-tangled mass of dogs taking off, pellmell, after the cat. It was much too late to stop the straining team. Shearer could only hope that his lead dog, Shamus, true to sled-dog tradition and training, would stay on the beaten path. Shamus did him proud. At the last minute Shamus saw the cat, but swerved resolutely away from temptation, and carried the heads-down pack with him. Shamus' faithful maneuver saved Driver Shearer the title-by a scant minute and 19 seconds. Elapsed time, for three 19-mile races against twelve...
Weil-Bred. Romanticized in the novels of Jack London, sled dogs were immortalized after the epic dash to carry diphtheria serum to Nome in 1925. Since then, though the airplane and bulldozer have displaced the Husky as Arctic freight haulers, the Huskies have served man well. Shearer, president of a Boston furniture store, served in World War II, as did many of the other dogsled racers, with the Arctic search & rescue units of the Air Force...
...this winter). Few drivers ever try to drive eleven dogs. Five can be handled, seven are barely manageable, nine are too many if they once get out of hand. At 45 (barely 5 ft. 10 in., 200 lbs.), Bill Shearer is no longer up to running beside the sled, helping the dogs uphill. He generally rides, and trusts his own handling skill-and Shamus -to keep the ten other dogs in line...
...first accident on the Winter Olympic Games bobsled run yesterday injured two Americans and brought demands that the course be rebuilt. The driver and No. 2 man on the U.S. four man sled were bruised when their sled rocketed off the third turn...