Balto, the Best Lead-dog in Alaska
阿拉斯加最优秀的领头狗巴尔图
Frances Margaret Fox
作者：弗朗西丝·玛格丽特·福克斯
Perhaps you think that dogs are used only as pets.
或许你会认为狗只是宠物。
Do you know that for hundreds of years dogs have been helpers of man?
你知道几百年来狗一直是人类的帮手吗？
They have hunted food for him, carried his loads and messages, and guarded his home.
狗为人类寻找食物、运送货物、传递消息、保卫家园。
In this story you will read how faithful dogs helped brave men in a time of great need.
在这个故事中，你将了解到忠实的狗如何在勇敢的人类需要时帮助人类的。
Balto was a dog of the United States Postal Service in far-off Alaska.
巴尔图是美国遥远的阿拉斯加邮政局的一条狗。
In the city of Nome, one black morning, he stepped into the world's Story-Book of Shining Deeds.
一个黑漆漆的清晨，诺姆市出版的面向全世界的故事书记载了巴尔图的光辉事迹。
That picture-book opened wide and took him in forever.
那本画册很大，巴尔图永远停留在此。
It was mid-winter, and an epidemic of diphtheria had broken out in Nome.
那是隆冬时节，诺姆市爆发了白喉传染病。
They called it the "Black Death" up there, for the disease carried off not only the children but their fathers and mothers.
当地人称这种病为“黑死病”，因为这病不仅夺取了孩子们的生命，也夺走了父母的生命。
Indeed, whole families were swept away during the time of that dreadful sickness.
事实上，在可怕的病发期间，有的整个家庭都病死了。
If the disease could not be stopped in Nome, it was likely to spread over all the territory of which that city was the center—
如果这种疾病不能在诺姆市控制住，很可能会以诺姆市为中心扩散到其他地区。
to the east one thousand miles, and north even as far as the Arctic Ocean.
向东一千米，北部甚至可达北冰洋。
In this region there lived eleven thousand people.
这个地区居住着1.1万人。
To care for them there was in Nome but one doctor, who with his little band of nurses belonged to the United States Public Health Service.
而在诺姆市却只有美国公共卫生署的一名医生和一小队护士。
