The statue in the center of town. A dog, some fallen hero, but whose heroics Kodi had no clue what they were. And whenever he'd asked, he, to his surprise, had been told by the town dogs that "He's no hero!" But why would the village of Nome make the statue of someone who wasn't a hero? When Kodi had asked what happened to the dog in question, he'd only been told "He died!".

Well, that had been the most Kodi ever found out. At least until today. Now, he at last would find out who the mysterious hero was. The one everyone seemed to hate.

It had been on account of something he'd said to his father, Balto, recently.  Balto was a dog who should have a monument to him.  After all, he was the one who had saved the town from diphtheria by bringing the medicine in time.   The town had talked about him for a good while, but, already, they were beginning to forget about him.

Balto, however, didn't seem bothered by this.  He hadn't let his famous run define him.   

Kodi wondered what this statue had anything to do with the comment he had recently made that had so upset his father.   Kodi had reliably delivered the mail as a mail dog and now, a new upstart on a thing called a plane was endangering his profession.   Vehicles didn't do well out here.   There weren't many roads.  But the air, that was another matter.    Still, somehow, they had won the race against the air machine, fair and square.

However, his father had suspected that there had been an accident, especially after the pilot on the plane hadn't returned.  Kodi, however, had been reluctant to try and find the fellow.  If he survived, he could get in another plane and put Kodi and his dogs out of a job.   When he'd voiced this fear to his father and that maybe, it's best if he just preserved the job, his father had had the greatest look of disappointment on his face that he'd seen in his life.   What this mysterious statue of some unknown dog had to do with his remark, he hadn't the faintest idea.

As his father approached, he asked "What does this dog statue have anything to do with the plane?"

"It's of a dog who cared about his job so much that he did terrible things."

"Who was he?" Kodi inquired, wondering why a dog who did terrible things would have a statue made honoring him.

"His name was Steele."

"Why did Steele have a statue made of him?"

"He was one of the dogs who led the medicine mission."

"Why's he bad, then?"

"Because, when he realized that he couldn't be the one who finished it and got the credit for it, he wanted to make sure that nobody finished it."

"What?!" Kodi gasped.  He wondered why any dog would have wanted all those people to die.  "Surely, he wouldn't have done that.   No dog could be that awful!"

"Steele was."

"But why?"

"His pride."

"Why even take the mission if he didn't even want to help?  I don't get it."

"He wasn't even supposed to have taken it in the first place.  But he played dirty."

"What do you mean?"

"There was a race to determine who would lead the mission.  He lost."

"He did?" Kodi gasped.  "Then why did they let him lead?"

"It was I who won the race."

"Then why didn't they let you....?" Kodi began.

"Because," his father cut him off before he could finish asking, "he clawed me in the foot, making me snarl.  They realized I was part wolf, and hence no good in their eyes."

"How did you end up doing the mission instead of him?"

"He abandoned the group."