THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



261 



valley below to the 

 front line on the 

 mountain above. 



In the V o s g e s 

 Mountains more than 

 a thousand Alaskan 

 sled dogs helped to 

 hold the Hun during 

 the last year of the 

 war. 



DOG TEAMS THAT WON 



THE CROIX DE 



GUERRE 



One woman brought 

 back to America a 

 Croix de Guerre 

 awarded by France to 

 her intrepid teams of 

 sled dogs. The occa- 

 sion that won them 

 that honor was their 

 salvation of a storm- 

 bo u n d, foe-pressed 

 outpost in the French 

 Alps. Dispatch bear- 

 ers had been sent back 

 repeatedly, but no suc- 

 coring answer came, 

 for the messengers 

 were overwhelmed as 

 they passed through 

 the blinding blizzard. 



At last matters be- 

 came desperate. The 

 foe was pressing his 

 advantage with dash 

 and courage, and noth- 

 ing but quick action 

 could save the situa- 

 tion. So Lieutenant 

 Rene Haas hitched his dogs to a light 

 sled and started through a blizzard be- 

 fore which human flesh, in spite of the 

 "urge" of a consecrated patriotism, had 

 failed. In "sweepstakes racing time" 

 they covered the trip down the mountain 

 and over a perilous pass to the main army 

 post. 



There the 28 dogs were hitched to 14 

 light sleds, and these were loaded with 

 ammunition.. Back over the forbidding 

 trail they went, under an artillery fire, 

 facing a bitter wind, and plowing through awarded the war cross star for his work 

 blinding clouds of snow. On the fifth as an advanced sentinel. Nellie, a fox 



Photograph by Harry F. Blanchard 



FRIENDS THROUGH SUNSHINE AND SHOWERS 



From their present state of mutual trust and comradeship, it is 

 difficult to picture the age when the "forebears of these three play- 

 mates were bitter antagonists — the cave-man and the wolf. 



day, at sunrise, the panting malamutes 

 reached the outpost, their burden of am- 

 munition was rushed to the gunners, and 

 the mountain was saved from the in- 

 solent foe. 



The stories of courage and bravery 

 among individual dogs on the battlefield 

 are many and inspiring. Michael was the 

 name of a dog which, unaided, dragged 

 his master, who had been left for dead 

 in No Man's Land, back to the trenches. 

 Lutz, the dogf hero of Verdun, was 



