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+--------------------------------------------------------------+| Transcriber's Note: Throughout the whole book, St. || John's (Newfoundland) is spelled St. Johns. A list || of typos fixed in this text are listed at the end. |+--------------------------------------------------------------+

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THE STORY OF GRENFELL OF THE LABRADOR

[Illustration: THE PHYSICIAN IN THE LABRADOR]

The Story of Grenfellof the Labrador

A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell

ByDILLON WALLACE, Author of "_Grit-a-Plenty_, " "_The Ragged Inlet Guards_, ""_Ungava Bob_, " etc. , etc. 

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK CHICAGOFleming H. Revell CompanyLONDON AND EDINBURGH

Copyright, 1922, byFLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth AvenueChicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster SquareEdinburgh: 75 Princes Street

Foreword

In a land where there was no doctor and no school, and through an evilsystem of barter and trade the people were practically bound toserfdom, Doctor Wilfred T. Grenfell has established hospitals andnursing stations, schools and co-operative stores, and raised thepeople to a degree of self dependence and a much happier condition oflife. All this has been done through his personal activity, and istoday being supported through his personal administration. 

The author has lived among the people of Labrador and shared some oftheir hardships. He has witnessed with his own eyes some of themarvelous achievements of Doctor Grenfell. In the following pages hehas made a poor attempt to offer his testimony. The book lays no claimto either originality or literary merit. It barely touches upon thefield. The half has not been told. 

He also wishes to acknowledge reference in compiling the book to oldfiles and scrapbooks of published articles concerning Doctor Grenfelland his work, to Doctor Grenfell's book _Vikings of Today_, and tohaving verified dates and incidents through Doctor Grenfell'sAutobiography, published by Houghton Mifflin & Company, of Boston. 

 D. W. 

 _Beacon, N. Y. _

Contents

 I. THE SANDS OF DEE 11

 II. THE NORTH SEA FLEETS 26

 III. ON THE HIGH SEAS 31

 IV. DOWN ON THE LABRADOR 39

 V. THE RAGGED MAN IN THE RICKETY BOAT 52

 VI. OVERBOARD! 61

 VII. IN THE BREAKERS 68

 VIII. AN ADVENTUROUS VOYAGE 74

 IX. IN THE DEEP WILDERNESS 83

 X. THE SEAL HUNTER 99

 XI. UNCLE WILLY WOLFREY 109

 XII. A DOZEN FOX TRAPS 116

 XIII. SKIPPER TOM'S COD TRAP 126

 XIV. THE SAVING OF RED BAY 135

 XV. A LAD OF THE NORTH 146

 XVI. MAKING A HOME FOR THE ORPHANS 158

 XVII. THE DOGS OF THE ICE TRAIL 171

 XVIII. FACING AN ARCTIC BLIZZARD 183

 XIX. HOW AMBROSE WAS MADE TO WALK 193

 XX. LOST ON THE ICE FLOE 203

 XXI. WRECKED AND ADRIFT 213

 XXII. SAVING A LIFE 219

 XXIII. REINDEER AND OTHER THINGS 225

 XXIV. THE SAME GRENFELL 233

ILLUSTRATIONS

 FACING PAGE

 The Physician in the LABRADOR _Title_

 The LABRADOR "LIVEYERE" 40

 "Sails North to Remain Until the End of Summer, Catching Cod" 46

 The Doctor on a Winter's Journey 84

 "The Trap is Submerged a Hundred Yards or so from Shore" 130

 "NEXT" 172

 "Please Look at My Tongue, Doctor" 172

 The Hospital Ship, STRATHCONA 220

 "I Have a Crew Strong Enough to Take You into My District" 234

I

THE SANDS OF DEE

The first great adventure in the life of our hero occurred on thetwenty-eighth day of February in the year 1865. He was born that day. The greatest adventure as well as the greatest event that ever comesinto anybody's life is the adventure of being born. 

If there is such a thing as luck, Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, as hisparents named him, fell into luck, when he was born on Februarytwenty-eighth, 1865. He might have been born on February twenty-ninthone year earlier, and that would have been little short of acatastrophe, for in that case his birthdays would have been separatedby intervals of four years, and every boy knows what a hardship itwould be to wait four years for a birthday, when every one else ishaving one every year. There _are_ people, to be sure, who would liketheir birthdays to be four years apart, but they are not boys. 

Grenfell was also lucky, or, let us say, fortunate in the place wherehe was born and spent his early boyhood. His father was Head Master ofMostyn House, a school for boys at Parkgate, England, a littlefishing village not far from the historic old city of Chester. Byreferring to your map you will find Chester a dozen miles or so to thesouthward of Liverpool, though you may not find Parkgate, for it is sosmall a village that the map makers are quite likely to overlook it. 

Here at Parkgate the River Dee flows down into an estuary that opensout into the Irish Sea, and here spread the famous "Sands of Dee, "known the world over through Charles Kingsley's pathetic poem, whichwe have all read, and over which, I confess, I shed tears when a boy:

 O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the Sands o' Dee; The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam, And all alone went she. 

 The creeping tide came up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see; The blinding mist came down and hid the land-- And never home came she. 

 Oh is it weed, or fish, or floating hair-- A tress o' golden hair, O' drown'ed maiden's hair, Above the nets at sea? Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, Among the stakes on Dee. 

 They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel, crawling foam, The cruel, hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea; But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home, Across the Sands o' Dee. 

Charles Kingsley and the poem become nearer and dearer to us than everwith the knowledge that he was a cousin of Grenfell, and knew theSands o' Dee, over which Grenfell tramped and hunted as a boy, for thesandy plain was close by his father's house. 

There was a time when the estuary was a wide deep harbor, and really apart of Liverpool Bay, and great ships from all over the world cameinto it and sailed up to Chester, which in those days was a famousport. But as years passed the sands, loosened by floods and carrieddown by the river current, choked and blocked the harbor, and beforeGrenfell was born it had become so shallow that only fishing vesselsand small craft could use it. 

Parkgate is on the northern side of the River Dee. On the southernside and beyond the Sands of Dee, rise the green hills of Wales, melting away into blue mysterious distance. Near as Wales is thepeople over there speak a different tongue from the English, and toyoung Grenfell and his companions it was a strange and foreign landand the people a strange and mysterious people. We have most of us, in our young days perhaps, thought that all Welshmen were like Taffy, of whom Mother Goose sings:

 "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef; I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't home, Taffy came to my house and stole a marrow bone; I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed, I took the marrow-bone, and beat about his head. "

But it was Grenfell's privilege, living so near, to make little visitsover into Wales, and he early had an opportunity to learn that Taffywas not in the least like Welshmen. He found them fine, honest, kind-hearted folk, with no more Taffys among them than there are amongthe English or Americans. The great Lloyd George, perhaps the greatestof living statesmen, is a Welshman, and by him and not by Taffy, weare now measuring the worth of this people who were the near neighborsof Grenfell in his young days. 

Mostyn House, where Grenfell lived, overlooked the estuary. From thewindows of his father's house he could see the fishing smacks goingout upon the great adventurous sea and coming back laden with fish. 

Living by the sea where he heard the roar of the breakers and everyday smelled the good salt breath of the ocean, it was natural that heshould love it, and to learn, almost as soon as he could run about, to row and sail a boat, and to swim and take part in all sorts ofwater sports. Time and again he went with the fishermen and spent thenight and the day with them out upon the sea. This is why it wasfortunate that he was born at Parkgate, for his life there as a boytrained him to meet adventures fearlessly and prepared him for thelater years which were destined to be years of adventure. 

Far up the river, wide marshes reached; and over these marshes, andthe Sands of Dee, Grenfell roamed at will. His father and mother wereusually away during the long holidays when school was closed, and heand his brothers were left at these times with a vast deal of freedomto do as they pleased and seek the adventure that every boy loves, andon the sands and in the marshes there was always adventure enough tobe found. 

Shooting in the marshes and out upon the sands was a favorite sport, and when not with the fishermen Grenfell was usually to be found withhis gun stalking curlew, oyster diggers, or some other of the numerousbirds that frequented the marshes and shores. Barefooted, until theweather grew too cold in autumn, and wearing barely enough clothing tocover his nakedness, he would set out in early morning and not returnuntil night fell. 

As often as not he returned from his day's hunting empty handed so faras game was concerned, but this in no wise detracted from the pleasureof the hunt. Game was always worth the getting, but the great joy wasin being out of doors and in tramping over the wide flats. With allthe freedom given him to hunt, he early learned that no animals orbirds were to be killed on any account save for food or purposes ofstudy. This is the rule of every true sportsman. Grenfell has alwaysbeen a great hunter and a fine shot, but he has never killedneedlessly. 

Young Grenfell through these expeditions soon learned to take a greatdeal of interest in the habits of birds and their life history. Thisled him to try his skill at skinning and mounting specimens. An oldfisherman living near his home was an excellent hand at this and gavehim his first lessons, and presently he developed into a really experttaxidermist, while his brother made the cases in which he mounted andexhibited his specimens. 

His interest in birds excited an interest in flowers and plants andfinally in moths and butterflies. The taste for nature study is likethe taste for olives. You have to cultivate it, and once the taste isacquired you become extremely fond of it. Grenfell became a student ofmoths and butterflies. He captured, mounted and identified specimens. He was out of nights with his net hunting them and "sugaring" trees toattract them, and he even bred them. A fine collection was the result, and this, together with one of flowers and plants, was added to thatof his mounted birds. In the course of time he had accumulated acreditable museum of natural history, which to this day may be seenat Mostyn House, in Parkgate; and to it have been added specimens ofcaribou, seals, foxes, porcupines and other Labrador animals, which inhis busy later years he has found time to mount, for he is still thesame eager and devoted student of nature. 

During these early years, with odds and ends of boards that theycollected, Grenfell and his brother built a boat to supply a bettermeans of stealing upon flocks of water birds. It was a curiousflat-bottomed affair with square ends and resembled a scow more than arowboat, but it served its purpose well enough, and was doubtless thefirst craft which the young adventurer, later to become a mastermariner, ever commanded. Up and down the estuary, venturing even tothe sea, the two lads cruised in their clumsy craft, stopping overnight with the kind-hearted fishermen or "sleeping out" when theyfound themselves too far from home. Many a fine time the ugly littleboat gave them until finally it capsized one day leaving them to swimfor it and reach the shore as best they could. 

At the age of fourteen Grenfell was sent to Marlborough "College, "where he had earned a scholarship. This was not a college as we speakof a college in America, but a large university preparatory school. 

In the beginning he had a fight with an "old boy, " and being victorfirmly established his place among his fellow students. Whether atMostyn House, or later at Marlborough College, Grenfell learned earlyto use the gloves. It was quite natural, devoted as he was toathletics, that he should become a fine boxer. To this day he lovesthe sport, and is always ready to put on the gloves for a bout, and itis a mighty good man that can stand up before him. In most boys'schools of that day, and doubtless at Marlborough College, boyssettled their differences with gloves, and in all probability Grenfellhad plenty of practice, for he was never a mollycoddle. He was perhapsnot always the winner, but he was always a true sportsman. There is avast difference between a "sportsman" and a "sport. " Grenfell was asportsman, never a sport. His life in the open taught him to acceptsuccess modestly or failure smilingly, and all through his life he hasbeen a sportsman of high type. 

The three years that Grenfell spent at Marlborough College were activeones. He not only made good grades in his studies but he took aleading part in all athletics. Study was easy for him, and this madeit possible to devote much time to physical work. Not only did hebecome an expert boxer, but he had no difficulty in making the schoolteams, in football, cricket, and other sports that demanded skill, nerve and physical energy. 

Like all youngsters running over with the joy of youth and life, hegot into his full share of scrapes. If there was anything on foot, mischievous or otherwise, Grenfell was on hand, though his mischiefand escapades were all innocent pranks or evasion of rules, such asgoing out of bounds at prohibited hours to secure goodies. The greaterthe element of adventure the keener he was for an enterprise. He wasnot by any means always caught in his pranks, but when he was headmitted his guilt with heroic candor, and like a hero stood up forhis punishment. Those were the days when the hickory switch inAmerica, and the cane in England, were the chief instruments oftorture. 

With the end of his course at Marlborough College, Grenfell wasconfronted with the momentous question of his future and what he wasto do in life. This is a serious question for any young fellow toanswer. It is a question that involves one's whole life. Upon thedecision rests to a large degree happiness or unhappiness, content ordiscontent, success or failure. 

It impressed him now as a question that demanded his most seriousthought. For the first time there came to him a full realization thatsome day he would have to earn his way in the world with his own brainand hands. A vista of the future years with their responsibilities, lay before him as a reality, and he decided that it was up to him tomake the most of those years and to make a success of life. No doubtthis realization fell upon him as a shock, as it does upon most ladswhose parents have supplied their every need. Now he was called uponto decide the matter for himself, and his future education was to beguided by his choice. 

At various periods of his youthful career nearly every boy has anambition to be an Indian fighter, or a pirate, or a locomotiveengineer, or a fireman and save people from burning buildings at therisk of his own life, or to be a hunter of ferocious wild animals. Grenfell had dreamed of a romantic and adventurous career. Now herealized that these ambitions must give place to a sedate professionthat would earn him a living and in which he would be contented. 

All of his people had been literary workers, educators, clergymen, orofficers in the army or navy. There was Charles Kingsley and "WestwardHo. " There was Sir Richard Grenvil, immortalized by Tennyson in "TheRevenge. " There was his own dear grandfather who was a master at Rugbyunder the great Arnold, whom everybody knows through "Tom Brown atRugby. "

It was the wish of some of his friends and family that he become aclergyman. This did not in the least suit his tastes, and heimmediately decided that whatever profession he might choose, it would_not_ be the ministry. The ministry was distasteful to him as aprofession, and he had no desire or intention to follow in thefootsteps of his ancestors. He wished to be original, and to blaze anew trail for himself. 

Grenfell was exceedingly fond of the family physician, and one day hewent to him to discuss his problem. This physician had a largepractice. He kept several horses to take him about the countryvisiting his patients, and in his daily rounds he traveled many miles. This was appealing to one who had lived so much out of doors asGrenfell had. As a doctor he, too, could drive about the countryvisiting patients. He could enjoy the sunshine and feel the drive ofrain and wind in his face. He rebelled at the thought of engaging inany profession that would rob him of the open sky. But he alsodemanded that the profession he should choose should be one ofcreative work. This would be necessary if his life were to be happyand successful. 

Observing the old doctor jogging along the country roads visiting hisfar-scattered patients, it occurred to Grenfell that here was not onlya pleasant but a useful profession. With his knowledge of medicine thedoctor assisted nature in restoring people to health. Man must have awell body if he would be happy and useful. Without a well body man'shands would be idle and his brain dull. Only healthy men could inventand build and administer. It was the doctor's job to keep them fit. Here then was creative work of the highest kind! The thought thrilledhim!

Every boy of the right sort yearns to be of the greatest possible usein the world. Unselfishness is a natural instinct. Boys are not bornselfish. They grow selfish because of association or training, andbecause they see others about them practicing selfishness. Grenfell'swhole training had been toward unselfishness and usefulness. Here wasa life calling that promised both unselfish and useful service and atthe same time would gratify his desire to be a great deal out ofdoors, and he decided at once that he would study medicine and be adoctor. 

His father was pleased with the decision. His course at MarlboroughCollege was completed, and he immediately took special workpreparatory to entering London Hospital and University. 

In the University he did well. He passed his examinations creditablyat the College of Physicians and Surgeons and at London University, and had time to take a most active part in the University athletics asa member of various 'Varsity teams. At one time or another he wassecretary of the cricket, football and rowing clubs, and he took partin several famous championship games, and during one term that he wasin residence at Oxford University he played on the University footballteam. 

One evening in 1885 Grenfell, largely through curiosity, dropped intoa tent where evangelistic meetings were in progress. The evangelistsconducting the meeting happened to be the then famous D. L. Moody andIra D. Sankey. Both Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey were men of marvelouspower and magnetism. Moody was big, wholesome and practical. Hepreached a religion of smiles and happiness and helpfulness. He livedwhat he preached. There was no humbug or hypocrisy in him. Sankeynever had a peer as a leader of mass singing. 

Moody was announcing a hymn when Grenfell entered. Sankey, in hisillimitable style, struck up the music. In a moment the vast audiencewas singing as Grenfell had never heard an audience sing before. Afterthe hymn Moody spoke. Grenfell told me once that that sermon changedhis whole outlook upon life. He realized that he was a Christian inname only and not in fact. His religious life was a fraud. 

There and then he determined that he must be either an out and outChristian or honestly renounce Christianity. With his home trainingand teachings he could not do the latter. He decided upon a Christianlife. He would do nothing as a doctor that he could not do with aclear conscience as a Christian gentleman. This he also decided: aman's religion is something for him to be proud of and any one ashamedto acknowledge the faith of his fathers is a moral coward, and a moralcoward is more contemptible than a physical coward. He also wasconvinced that a boy or man afraid or ashamed to acknowledge hisreligious belief could only be a mental weakling. 

It was characteristic of Grenfell that whatever he attempted to do hedid with courage and enthusiasm. He never was a slacker. The hospitalto which he was attached was situated in the centre of the worst slumsof London. It occurred to him that he might help the boys, and hesecured a room, fitted it up as a gymnasium, and established a sort ofboys' club, where on Sundays he held a Bible study class and where hegave the boys physical work on Saturdays. There was no Y. M. C. A. InEngland at that time where they could enjoy these privileges. In thebeginning, there were young thugs who attempted to make trouble. Hesimply pitched them out, and in the end they were glad enough toreturn and behave themselves. 

Grenfell and his brother, with one of their friends, spent the longholidays when college was closed cruising along the coast in an oldfishing smack which they rented. In the course of his cruising, thethought came to him that it was hardly fair to the boys in the slumsto run away from them and enjoy himself in the open while theysweltered in the streets, and he began at once to plan a camp for theboys. 

This was long before the days of Boy Scouts and their camps. It wasbefore the days of any boys' camps in England. It was an original ideawith him that a summer camp would be a fine experience for his boys. At his own expense he established such a camp on the Welsh coast, andduring every summer until he finished his studies in the University hetook his boys out of the city and gave them a fine outing during apart of the summer holiday period. It was just at this time that thefirst boys' camp in America was founded by Chief Dudley as anexperiment, now the famous Camp Dudley on Lake Champlain. We maytherefore consider Grenfell as one of the pioneers in making popularthe boys' camp idea, and every boy that has a good time in a summercamp should thank him. 

But a time comes when all things must end, good as well as bad, andthe time came when Grenfell received his degree and graduated afull-fledged doctor, and a good one, too, we may be sure. Now he wasto face the world, and earn his own bread and butter. Pleasantholidays, and boys' camps were behind him. The big work of life, whichevery boy loves to tackle, was before him. 

Then it was that Dr. Frederick Treves, later Sir Frederick, a famoussurgeon under whom he had studied, made a suggestion that was to shapeyoung Dr. Grenfell's destiny and make his name known wherever theEnglish tongue is spoken. 

II

THE NORTH SEA FLEETS

The North Sea, big as it is, has no great depth. Geologists say thatnot long ago, as geologists calculate time, its bottom was dry landand connected the British Isles with the continent of Europe. Then itbegan to sink until the water swept in and covered it, and it is stillsinking. The deepest point in the North Sea is not more than thirtyfathoms, or one hundred eighty feet. There are areas where it is notover five fathoms deep, and the larger part of it is less than twentyfathoms. 

Fish are attracted to the North Sea because it is shallow. Its bottomforms an extensive fishing "bank, " we might say, though it is not, properly speaking, a bank at all, and here is found some of the finestfishing in the world. 

From time immemorial fishing fleets have gone to the North Sea, andthe North Sea fisheries is one of the important industries of GreatBritain. Men are born to it and live their lives on the small fishingcraft, and their sons follow them for generation after generation. Itis a hazardous calling, and the men of the fleets are brave and hardyfellows. 

The fishing fleets keep to the sea in winter as well as in summer, andit is a hard life indeed when decks and rigging are covered with ice, and fierce north winds blow the snow down, and the cold is bitterenough to freeze a man's very blood. Seas run high and rough, which isalways the case in shallow waters, and great rollers sweep over thedecks of the little craft, which of necessity have small draft and lowfreeboard. 

The fishing fleets were like large villages on the sea. At the time ofwhich we write, and it may be so to this day, fast vessels came dailyto collect the fish they caught and to take the catch to market. Oncein every three months a vessel was permitted to return to its homeport for rest and necessary re-fitting, and then the men of her crewwere allowed one day ashore for each week they had spent at sea. Nowand again there came to the hospital sick or injured men returned fromthe fleet on these home-coming vessels. 

When Grenfell passed his final examinations in 1886, and was admittedto the College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons of England, Sir Frederick Treves suggested that he visit the North Sea fishingfleets and lend his service to the fishermen for a time beforeentering upon private practice. The great surgeon, himself a lover ofthe sea and acquainted with Grenfell's inclinations toward an activeoutdoor life, was also aware that Grenfell was a good sailor. 

"Don't go in summer, " admonished Sir Frederick. "Go in winter when youcan see the life of the men at its hardest and when they have thegreatest need of a doctor. Anyhow you'll have some rugged days at seaif you go in winter. "

He went on to explain that a few men had become interested in thefishermen of the fleets and had chartered a vessel to go among them tooffer diversion in the hope of counteracting to some extent theattraction of the whiskey and rum traders whose vessels sold muchliquor to the men and did a vast deal of harm. This vessel was open tothe visits of the fishermen. Religious services were held aboard heron Sundays. There was no doctor in the fleet, and the skipper, who hadbeen instructed in ordinary bandaging and in giving simple remediesfor temporary relief, rendered first aid to the injured or sick untilthey could be sent away on some home-bound vessel and placed in ahospital for medical or surgical treatment. Thus a week or sometimestwo weeks would elapse before the sufferer could be put under adoctor's care. Because of this long delay many men died who, withprompt attention, would doubtless have lived. 

"The men who have fitted out this mission boat would like a youngdoctor to go with it, " concluded Sir Frederick. "Go with them for alittle while. You'll find plenty of high sea's adventure, and you'lllike it. "

In more than one way this suited Grenfell exactly. The opportunityfor adventure that such a cruise offered appealed to him strongly, asit would appeal to any real live red-blooded man or boy. It alsooffered an opportunity to gain practical experience in his professionand at the same time render service to brave men who sadly needed it;and he could lend a hand in fighting the liquor evil among the seamenand thus share in helping to care for their moral, as well as theirphysical welfare. He had seen much of the evils of the liquor trafficduring his student days in London, and he had acquired a wholesomehatred for it. In short, he saw an opportunity to help make the livesof these men happier. That is a high ideal for any one--to dosomething whenever possible to bring happiness into the lives ofothers. 

This was too good an opportunity to let pass. It offered not onlypractice in his profession but service for others, and there would bethe spice of adventure. 

He applied without delay for the post, requesting to go on duty thefollowing January. Whether Sir Frederick Treves said a word for him tothe newly founded mission or not, I do not know, but at any rateGrenfell, to his great delight, was accepted, and it is probable thegroup of big hearted men who were sending the vessel to the fishermenwere no less pleased to secure the services of a young doctor of hischaracter. 

At last the time came for departure. The mission ship was to sailfrom Yarmouth. Grenfell had been impatiently awaiting orders to beginhis duties, when suddenly he received directions to join his vesselprepared to go to sea at once. Filled with enthusiasm and keen for theadventure he boarded the first train for Yarmouth. 

It was a dark and rainy night when he arrived. Searching down amongthe wharves he found the mission ship tied to her moorings. She provedto be a rather diminutive schooner of the type and class used by theNorth Sea fishermen, and if the young doctor had pictured a large andcommodious vessel he was disappointed. But Grenfell had beenaccustomed in his boyhood to knocking about with fishermen and now hewas quite content with nothing better than fell to the lot of those hewas to serve. 

The little vessel was neat as wax below deck. The crew werebig-hearted, brawny, good-natured fellows, and gave the Doctor a finewelcome. Of course his quarters were small and crowded, but he wasbound on a mission and an adventure, and cramped quarters were noobstacle to his enthusiasm. Grenfell was not the sort of man to growlor complain at little inconveniences. He was thinking only of theduties he had assumed and the adventures that were before him. 

At last he was on the seas, and his life work, though he did not knowit then, had begun. 

III

ON THE HIGH SEAS

The skipper of the vessel was a bluff, hearty man of the old school ofseamen. At the same time he was a sincere Christian devoted to hisduties. At the beginning he made it plain that Grenfell was to havequite enough to do to keep him occupied, not only in his capacity asdoctor, but in assisting to conduct afloat a work that in manyrespects resembled that of our present Young Men's ChristianAssociation ashore. 

The mission steamer was now to run across to Ostend, Belgium, wheresupplies were to be taken aboard before joining the fishing fleets. 

It was bitterly cold, and while they lay at Ostend taking on cargo theharbor froze over, and they found themselves so firm and fast in theice that it became necessary to engage a steamer to go around them tobreak them loose. At last, cargo loaded and ice smashed, they sailedaway from Ostend and pointed their bow towards the great fleets, notagain to see land for two full months, save Heligoland andTerschelling in the far distant offing. 

The little vessel upon which Grenfell sailed was the first sent tothe fisheries by the now famous Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen; and theyoung Doctor on her deck, hardly yet realizing all that was expectedof him, was destined to do no small part in the development of thesplendid service that the Mission has since rendered the fishermen. 

On the starboard side of the vessel's bow appeared in bold carvedletters the words, "Heal the sick, " on the port side of the bow, "Preach the Word. "

"Preaching the Word" does not necessarily mean, and did not mean here, getting up into a pulpit for an hour or two and preaching orthodoxsermons, sometimes as dry as dead husks, on Sundays. Sometimes just asmile and a cheery greeting is the best sermon in the world, and thefinest sort of preaching. Just the example of living honestly andspeaking truthfully and always lending a hand to the fellow who is introuble or discouraged, is a fine sermon, for there is not a man orboy living whose life and actions do not have an influence for good orbad on some one else. We do not always realize this, but it is true. 

Grenfell little dreamed of the future that this voyage was to open tohim. He knew little or nothing at that time of Labrador orNewfoundland. He had never seen an Eskimo nor an American Indian, unless he had chanced to visit a "wild west" show. He had no otherexpectation than that he should make a single winter cruise with themission schooner, and then return to England and settle in somepromising locality to the practice of his profession, there to rise tosuccess or fade into hum-drum obscurity, as Providence might will. 

The fishermen of the North Sea fleet were as rough and ready as theold buccaneers. They were constantly risking their lives and they hadnot much regard for their own lives or the lives of others. With themlife was cheap. Night and day they faced the dangers of the sea asthey worked at the trawls, and when they were not sleeping or workingthere was no amusement for them. Then they were prone to resort to thegrog ships, which hovered around them, and they too often drank agreat deal more rum than was good for them. They were reared to arough and cruel life, these fishermen. Hard punishments were dealt themen by the skippers. It was the way of the sea, as they knew it. 

There were more than twenty thousand of these men in the North Seafleets. Grenfell must have been overwhelmed with the thought that hewas to be the only doctor within reach of that great number of men. "Heal the sick"--that was his job!

But he resolved to do much more than that! He was going to "Preach theWord" in smiles and cheering words, and was going to help the men inother ways than with his pill box and surgical bandages. As a doctorhe realized how harmful liquor was to them, and he was going to fightthe grog ships and do his best to put them out of business. In aword, he was not only going to doctor the men but he was going to helpthem to live straight, clean lives. He was going to play the game ashe had played foot ball or pulled his oar with the winning crew atcollege. He was going to put into it the best that was in him!

That was the way Grenfell always did everything he undertook. When hehad to pummel the "old boy" at Marlborough College he did it the besthe knew how. Now he had a big job on his hands. He resolved, figuratively, to pummel the rum ships, and he was already planning andinventing ways that would make the men's lives easier. He went intothe thing with his characteristic zeal, determined to make good. It isa mighty fine thing to make good. Any of us can make good if we go atthings in the way Grenfell went at them--determined, whateverobstacles arise, not to fail. Grenfell never whined about luck goingagainst him. He made his own luck. That is the mark of everysuccessful and big man. 

"There are the fleets, " said the skipper one day, pointing out overthe bow. "We'll make a round of the fleets, and you'll have a chanceto get busy patching the men up. "

And he was busy. There came as many patients every day as any youngdoctor could wish to treat. But that was what Grenfell wanted. 

As the skipper suggested, the mission boat made a tour of the fleets, of which there were several, each fleet with its own name and coloursand commanded by an Admiral. There were the Columbias, the Rashers, the Great Northerners and many others. It was finally with the GreatNortherners that the mission boat took its station. 

Grenfell visited among the vessels and made friends among the men, whowere like big boys, rough and ready. They were always prepared to gointo daring ventures. They never flinched at danger. Few of them hadever enjoyed the privilege of going to school, and none of the men andfew of the skippers could write. They could read the compass just asmen who cannot read can tell the time of day from the clock. But theyhad their method of dead reckoning and always appeared to know wherethey were, even though land had not been sighted for days. 

Most of these men had been apprentised to the vessels as boys and hadfollowed the sea all their lives. There were always many apprentisedboys on the ships, and these worked without other pay than clothing, food and a little pocket money until they were twenty-one years ofage. In many cases they received little consideration from theskippers and sometimes were treated with unnecessary roughness andeven cruelty. 

From the beginning Doctor Grenfell devoted himself not only to healingthe sick, but also to bettering the condition of the fishermen. Hisskill was applied to the healing of their moral as well as theirphysical ills. Of necessity their life was a rough and rugged one, butthere were opportunities to introduce some pleasure into it and tomake it happier in many ways. Here was a strong human call that, fromthe beginning, Grenfell could not resist. 

Using his own influence together with the influence of other good men, necessary funds were raised to meet the expenses of additional missionships, and additional doctors and workers were sent out. Thoseselected were not only doctors, but men who were qualified bycharacter and ability to guide the seamen to better and cleaner andmore wholesome living. Queen Victoria became interested. The grogships were finally driven from the sea. Laws were enacted to betterconditions upon the fishing vessels that the lives of the fishermenmight be easier and happier. In the course of time, as the result ofGrenfell's tireless efforts, a marvelous change for the better tookplace. 

Thus the years passed. Dr. Grenfell, who in the beginning had givenhis services to the Mission for a single winter, still remained. Hefelt it a duty that he could not desert. The work was hard, and itdenied him the private practice and the home life to which he hadlooked forward so hopefully. He never had the time to drive finehorses about the country as he visited patients. But he had noregrets. He had chosen to accept and share the life of the fishermenon the high seas. It was no less a service to his country and tomankind than the service of the soldier fighting in the trenches. Whenhe saw the need and heard the call he was willing enough to sacrificepersonal ambitions that he might help others to become finer, bettermen, and live nobler happier lives. 

Looking back over that period there is no doubt that Doctor Grenfellfeels a thousand times repaid for any sacrifices he may have made. Itis always that way. When we give up something for the other fellow, ordo some fine thing to help him, our pleasure at the happiness we havegiven him makes us somehow forget ourselves and all we have given up. 

And so came the year 1891. It was in that year that a member of theMission Board returned from a visit to Canada and Newfoundland andreported to the Board great need of work among the Newfoundlandfishermen similar to that that had been done by Grenfell in the NorthSea. 

The members of the Board were stirred by what they heard, and it wasdecided to send a ship across the Atlantic. It was necessary that theman in command be a doctor understanding the work to be done. It wasalso necessary that he should be a man of high executive andadministrative ability, capable of organizing and carrying it onsuccessfully. The man that has made good is the man always looked forto occupy such a post. Grenfell had made good in the North Sea. Hiswork there indeed had been a brilliant success. He was the one man theBoard thought of, and he was asked to go. 

He accepted. Here was a new field of work and adventure offering evergreater possibilities than the old, and he never hesitated about it. 

He began preparations for the new enterprise at once. The _Albert_, alittle ketch-rigged vessel of ninety-seven tons register, wasselected. Iron hatches were put into her, she was sheathed withgreenhart to withstand the pressure of ice, and thoroughly refitted. Captain Trevize, a Cornishman, was engaged as skipper. Though DoctorGrenfell was himself a master mariner and thoroughly qualified as anavigator, he had never crossed the Atlantic, and in any case he wasto be fully occupied with other duties. There was a crew of eight menincluding the mate, Skipper Joe White, a famous skipper of the NorthSea fleets. 

On June 15, 1892, the _Albert_ was towed out of Great Yarmouth Harbor, and that day she spread her sails and set her course westward. Thegreat work of Doctor Grenfell's life was now to begin. All the yearsof toil on the North Sea had been but an introduction to it and apreparation for it. His little vessel was to carry him to the bleakand desolate coast of Labrador and into the ice fields of the North. He was to meet new and strange people, and he was destined toexperience many stirring adventures. 

IV

DOWN ON THE LABRADOR

Heavy seas and head winds met the _Albert_, and she ran in at theIrish port of Cookhaven to await better weather. In a day or two sheagain spread her canvas, Fastnet Rock, at the south end of Ireland, the last land of the Old World to be seen, was lost to view, and inheavy weather she pointed her bow toward St. Johns, Newfoundland. 

Twelve days later, in a thick fog, a huge iceberg loomed suddenly upbefore them, and the _Albert_ barely missed a collision that mighthave ended the mission. It was the first iceberg that Doctor Grenfellhad ever seen. Presently, and through the following years, they wereto become as familiar to him as the trees of the forests. 

Four hundred years had passed since Cabot on his voyage of discoveryhad, in his little caraval, passed over the same course that Grenfellnow sailed in the _Albert_. Nineteen days after Fastnet Rock was lostto view, the shores of Newfoundland rose before them. That was finesailing for the landfall was made almost exactly opposite St. Johns. 

The harbor of St. Johns is like a great bowl. The entrance is a narrowpassage between high, beetling cliffs rising on either side. From thesea the city is hidden by hills flanked by the cliffs, and a vesselmust enter the narrow gateway and pass nearly through it before thecity of St. Johns is seen rising from the water's edge upon slopinghill-sides on the opposite side of the harbor. It is one of the safestas well as most picturesque harbors in the world. 

As the _Albert_ approached the entrance Doctor Grenfell and the crewwere astonished to see clouds of smoke rising from within andobscuring the sky. As they passed the cliffs waves of scorching airmet them. 

The city was in flames. Much of it was already in ashes. Stark, blackened chimneys rose where buildings had once stood. Flames werestill shooting upward from those as yet but partly consumed. Some ofthe vessels anchored in the harbor were ablaze. Everything had beendestroyed or was still burning. The Colonial public buildings, thefine churches, the great warehouses that had lined the wharves, eventhe wharves themselves, were smouldering ruins, and scarcely a privatehouse remained. It was a scene of complete and terrible desolation. The fire had even extended to the forests beyond the city, and forweeks afterward continued to rage and carry destruction to quiet, scattered homes of the country. 

[Illustration: "THE LABRADOR 'LIVEYERE'"]

The cause or origin of the fire no one knew. It had come as adevastating scourge. It had left the beautiful little city a mass ofblackened, smoking ruins. 

The Newfoundlanders are as fine and brave a people as ever lived. Deeptrouble had come to them, but they met it with their characteristicheroism. No one was whining, or wringing his hands, or crying outagainst God. They were accepting it all as cheerfully as any peoplecan ever accept so sweeping a calamity. Benjamin Franklin said, "Godhelps them that help themselves. " That is as true of a city as it isof a person. That is what the St. Johns people were doing, andalready, while the fire still burned, they were making plans to takecare of themselves and rebuild their city. 

Of course Doctor Grenfell could do little to help with his one smallship, but he did what he could. The officials and the people foundtime to welcome him and to tell him how glad they were that he was togo to Labrador to heal the sick of their fleets and make the lives ofthe fishermen and the natives of the northern coast happier andpleasanter. 

A pilot was necessary to guide the _Albert_ along the uncharted coastof Labrador. Captain Nicholas Fitzgerald was provided by theNewfoundland government to serve in this capacity. Doctor Grenfellinvited Mr. Adolph Neilson, Superintendent of Fisheries forNewfoundland, to accompany them, and he accepted the invitation, thathe might lend his aid to getting the work of the mission started. Heproved a valuable addition to the party. Then the _Albert_ sailed awayto cruise her new field of service. 

It will be interesting to turn to a map and see for ourselves thecountry to which Doctor Grenfell was going. We will find Labrador inthe northeastern corner of the North American continent, just asAlaska is in the northwestern corner. 

Like Alaska, Labrador is a great peninsula and is nearly, though notquite, so large as Alaska. Some maps will show only a narrow stripalong the Atlantic east of the peninsula marked "Labrador. " This isincorrect. The whole peninsula, bounded on the south by the Gulf ofSt. Lawrence and Straits of Belle Isle, the east by the AtlanticOcean, the north by Hudson Straits, the west by Hudson Bay and JamesBay and the Province of Quebec, is included in Labrador. The narrowstrip on the east is under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland, while theremainder is owned by Quebec. Newfoundland is the oldest colony ofGreat Britain. It is not a part of Canada, but has a separategovernment. 

The only people living in the interior of Labrador are a few wanderingIndians who live by hunting. There are still large parts of theinterior that have never been explored by white men, and of which weknow little or no more than was known of America when Columbusdiscovered the then new world. 

The people who live on the coast are white men, half-breeds andEskimos. None of these ever go far inland, and they live by fishing, hunting, and trapping animals for the fur. Those on the south, as fareast as Blanc Sablon, on the straits of Belle Isle, speak French. Eastward from Blanc Sablon and northward to a point a little north ofIndian Harbor at the northern side of the entrance of Hamilton Inlet, English is spoken. The language on the remainder of the coast isEskimo, and nearly all of the people are Eskimos. Once upon a time theEskimos lived and hunted on the southern coast along the Straits ofBelle Isle, but only white people and half-breeds are now found southof Hamilton Inlet. 

The Labrador coast from Cape Charles in the south to Cape Chidley inthe north is scoured as clean as the paving stones of a street. Naked, desolate, forbidding it lies in a somber mist. In part it is low andragged but as we pass north it gradually rises into bare slopes andfinally in the vicinity of Nachbak Bay high mountains, perpendicularand grey, stand out against the sky. 

Behind the storm-scoured rocky islands lie the bays and tickles andruns and at the head of the bays the forest begins, reaching back overrolling hills into the mysterious and unknown regions beyond. Thereis not one beaten road in all the land. There is no sandy beach, nograssy bank, no green field. Nature has been kind to Labrador, however, in one respect. There are innumerable harbors snuglysheltered behind the islands and well out of reach of the rollingbreakers and the wind. There is an old saying down on the Labradorthat "from one peril there are two ways of escape to three shelteredplaces. " The ice and fog are always perils but the skippers of thecoast appear to hold them in disdain and plunge forward through stormand sea when any navigator on earth would expect to meet disaster. Forthe most part the coast is uncharted and the skippers, many of whomnever saw an instrument of navigation in their life, or at least neverowned one, sail by rhyme:

 "When Joe Bett's P'int you is abreast, Dane's Rock bears due west. West-nor'west you must steer, 'Til Brimstone Head do appear. 

 "The tickle's narrow, not very wide; The deepest water's on the starboard side When in the harbor you is shot, Four fathoms you has got. "

It is an evil coast, with hidden reefs and islands scattered like dustits whole length. "The man who sails the Labrador must know it alllike his own back yard--not in sunny weather alone, but in the night, when the headlands are like black clouds ahead, and in the mist, whenthe noise of breakers tells him all that he may know of hiswhereabouts. A flash of white in the gray distance, a thud and swishfrom a hidden place: the one is his beacon, the other his fog-horn. Itis thus, often, that the Doctor gets along. "

Labrador has an Arctic climate in winter. The extreme cold of thecountry is caused by the Arctic current washing its shores. All winterthe ocean is frozen as far as one can see. In June, when the icebreaks away, the great Newfoundland fishing fleet of little schoonerssails north to remain until the end of September catching cod, forhere are the finest cod fishing grounds in the world. 

In 1892 there were nearly twenty-five thousand Newfoundlanders on thisfleet. Doctor Grenfell's mission was to aid and assist these deep seafishermen. In those days there was no doctor with the fleet and noneon the whole coast, and any one taken seriously ill or badly injuredusually died for lack of medical or surgical care. Of course, Grenfellwas also to help the people who lived on the coast, that is, thenative inhabitants, who needed him. This service he was giving free. 

At this season there is more fog than sunshine in those northernlatitudes. It settles in a dense pall over the sea, adding to thedangers of navigation. Now the fog was so thick that they couldscarcely see the length of the vessel. On the fourth day out the foglifted for a brief time, and Cape Bauld the northeasterly point ofNewfoundland Island, showed his grim old head, as if to bid themgoodbye and to wish them good luck "down on The Labrador. " Then theywere again swallowed by the fog and plunged into the rough seas wherethe Straits of Belle Isle meet the wide ocean. 

No more land was seen, as they ploughed northward through the fog, until August 4th. This was a Thursday. Like the lifting of a curtainon a stage the fog, all at once, melted away, to reveal a scene ofmarvellous though rugged beauty. As though touched by a hand of magic, the atmosphere, for so many days dank and thick, suddenly becamebrilliantly clear and transparent, and the sun shone bright and warm. 

Off the port bow lay The Labrador, the great silent peninsula of thenorth. Doctor Grenfell turned to it with a thrill. Here was the landhe had come so far to see! Here he would find the people to whom hewas to devote his life work!

There before him lay her scattered islands, her grim and rockyheadlands and beetling cliffs, and beyond the islands, rolling awayinto illimitable blue distances her seared hills and the vast unknownregion of her interior, whose mysterious secrets she had kept lockedwithin her heart through all time. Back there, hidden from the world, were numberless lakes and rivers and mountains that no white man hadever seen. 

[Illustration: "SAILS NORTH TO REMAIN UNTIL THE END OF SUMMER CATCHINGCOD"]

The sea rose and fell in a lazy swell. Not far away a school of whaleswere playing, now and again spouting geysers of water high into theair. Shoals of caplin[A] gave silver flashes upon the surface of thesea where thousands of the little fish crowded one another to thesurface of the water. Countless birds and sea fowl hovered before theface of the cliffs and above the placid sea. 

A half hundred icebergs, children of age-old glaciers of the farNorth, were scattered over the green-blue waters. Some of them were ofgigantic proportions and strange outlines. There were hills with loftysummits, marvellous castles, turreted and towered, and majesticcathedrals, their icy pinnacles and spires reaching high above thetop-masts of the ship and their polished adamantine surfaces sparklingin the brilliant sunshine and scintillating fire and colour with thewondrous iridescent beauty of mammoth opals. 

"There's Domino Run, " said the pilot. 

"Domino Run? What is that?"

"'Tis a fine deep run behind the islands, " explained the pilot. "Allthe fleets of schooners cruisin' north and south go through DominoRun. There's a fine tidy harbor in there, and we'd be findin' someschooners anchored there now. "

"We'll go in and see. "

"I think 'twould be well and meet some of the fleet. There's liviyeresin there too. There's some liviyeres handy to most of the harbors onthe coast. "

"Liveyeres? What are liveyeres?"

"They're the folk that live on the coast all the time, --the whites andhalf-breeds. Newfoundlanders only come to fish in summer, butliveyeres stay the winter. The shop keepers we calls planters. They'reset up by traders that has fishin' places. The liveyeres has theirhomes up the heads of bays in winter, and when the ice fastens overthey trap fur. In the summer they come out to the islands to fish. "

Doctor Grenfell had heard all this before, but now as he looked at thedreary desolation of the rocks it seemed almost incredible thatchildren could be born and grow to manhood and womanhood and livetheir lives here, forever fighting for mere existence, and die at lastwithout ever once knowing the comforts that we who live in kindlierwarmer lands enjoy. 

Presently a beautiful and splendid harbor opened before the _Albert_. Several schooners were lying at anchor within the harbor's shelter, and the strange new ship created a vast sensation as she hove to anddropped her anchor among them, and hoisted the blue flag of the DeepSea Mission. 

From masthead after masthead rose flags of greeting. It was a gloriouswelcome for any visitor to receive. A warmer or more cordial greetingcould scarcely have been offered the Governor General himself. It wasgiven with the fine hearty fervour and characteristic hospitality ofthe Newfoundland fishermen and seamen. 

The _Albert's_ anchor chains had scarce ceased to rattle before boatswere pulling toward her from every vessel in the harbor. Ships enoughsailed down the coast, to be sure, but if they were not fishingvessels they were traders looking to barter for fish, bearing sharpmen who drove hard bargains with the fishermen, as we shall see. Buthere was a different vessel from any of them. Everybody knew that_this_ was not a fisherman, and that she was _not_ a trader. What_was_ her business? What had she come for? What did her blue flagmean? These were questions to which everybody must needs find theanswer for himself. 

Great was their joy when it was learned that the _Albert_ was ahospital ship with a real doctor aboard come to care for and healtheir sick and injured, and that the doctor made no charge for hisservices or his medicine. This was a big point that went to theirhearts, for there was scarce a man among them with any money in hispocket, and if Doctor Grenfell had charged them money they could nothave called upon him to help them, for they could not have paid him. But here he was ready to serve them without money and without price. The richest, who were poor enough, and the poorest, could alike havehis care and medicine. Here, indeed, was cause to wonder and rejoice. 

Many of the fishermen took their families with them to live in littlehuts at the fishing places during the summer, and to help them preparethe fish for market. Forty or fifty men, women and children werepacked, like figs in a box, on some of the schooners, with no othersleeping place than under the deck, on top of the cargo of provisionsand salt in the hold, wherever they could find a place big enough tosqueeze and stow themselves. Under such conditions there were ailingpeople enough on the schooners who needed a doctor's care. 

The mail boat from St. Johns came once a fortnight, to be sure, andshe had a doctor aboard her. But he could only see for a moment themore serious cases, and not all of them, hurriedly leave some medicineand go, and then he would not return to see them again in another twoweeks. The mail boat had a schedule to make, and the time given herfor the voyage between St. Johns and The Labrador was all too short, and she never reached the northernmost coast. 

There were calls enough from the very beginning to keep DoctorGrenfell busy with the sick folk of the schooners. All that day thepeople came, and it was late that evening when the sick on theschooners had been cared for and the last of the visitors haddeparted. 

Thus, on that first day in this new land, in the Harbor of Domino Run, Doctor Grenfell's life work among the deep sea fishermen of TheLabrador began in earnest. 

But even yet Doctor Grenfell's day's work was not to end. He was towitness a scene that would sicken his heart and excite his deepestpity. An experience awaited him that was to guide him to new andgreater plans and to bigger things than he had yet dreamed of. 

For a long while a rickety old rowboat had been lying off from the_Albert_. A bronzed and bearded man sat alone in the boat, eyeing thestrange vessel as though afraid to approach nearer. He was thin andgaunt. The evening was chilly, but he was poorly clad, and hisclothing was as ragged and as tattered as his old boat. 

Finally, as though fearing to intrude, and not sure of his reception, he hailed the _Albert_. 

FOOTNOTES:

[A] A small fish about the size of a smelt. 

V

THE RAGGED MAN IN THE RICKETY BOAT

Grenfell, who had been standing at the rail for some time watching thedecrepid old boat and its strange occupant, answered the hailcheerily. 

"Be there a doctor aboard, sir?" asked the man. 

"Yes, " answered Grenfell. "I'm a doctor. "

"Us were hearin' now they's a doctor on your vessel, " said the manwith satisfaction. "Be you a _real_ doctor, sir?"

"Yes, " assured the Doctor. "I hope I am. "

"They's a man ashore that's wonderful bad off, but us hasn't nomoney, " suggested the man, adding expectantly, "You couldn't come todoctor he now could you, sir?"

"Certainly I will, " assured the Doctor. "What's the matter with theman? Do you know?"

"He have a distemper in his chest, sir, and a wonderful bad cough, "explained the man. 

"All right, " said the Doctor. "I'll go at once. How far is it?"

"Right handy, sir, " said the man with evident relief. 

"Pull alongside and I'll be with you in a jiffy, " and the Doctorhurried below for his medicine case. 

The man was alongside waiting for him when he returned a few momentslater, and he stepped into the rickety old boat. As the liveyere rowedaway Grenfell may have thought of his own famous flat-boat that sankwith him and his brother in the estuary below Parkgate years beforewhen they were left to swim for it. But in his mental comparison it isprobable that the flat-boat, even in her oldest and most decrepiddays, would have passed for a rather fine and seaworthy craft incontrast to this rickety old rowboat. The boat kept afloat, however, and presently the liveyere pulled it alongside the gray rock thatserved for a landing. They stepped out and the guide led the way upthe rocks to a lonely and miserable little sod hut. At the door hehalted. 

"Here we is, sir, " he announced. "Step right in. They'll be wonderfulglad to see you, sir. "

Grenfell entered. Within was a room perhaps twelve by fourteen feet insize. A single small window of pieces of glass patched together wasdesigned to admit light and at the same time to exclude God's goodfresh air. The floor was of earth, partially paved with small roundstones. Built against the walls were six berths, fashioned after themodel of ship's berths, three lower and three upper ones. A broken oldstove, with its pipe extending through the roof into a mud protectionrising upon the peak outside in lieu of a chimney, made a smokyattempt to heat the place. The lower berths and floor served as seats. There was no furniture. 

The walls of the hut were damp. The atmosphere was dank andunwholesome and heavy with the ill-smelling odor of stale seal oil andfish. The place was dirty and as unsanitary and unhealthful as anyhuman habitation could well be. 

Six ragged, half-starved little children huddled timidly into a cornerupon the entrance of the visitor from the ship and gazed at the Doctorwith wide-open frightened eyes. In one of the lower bunks lay the sickman coughing himself to death. At his side a gaunt woman, miserablyand scantily clothed, was offering him water in a spoon. 

It was evident to the trained eye of the Doctor that the man wasfatally ill and could live but a short time. He was a hopelessconsumptive, and a hasty examination revealed the fact that he wasalso suffering from a severe attack of pneumonia. 

Doctor Grenfell's big sympathetic heart went out to the poor suffererand his destitute family. What could he do? How could he help the manin such a place? He might remove him to one of the clean, whitehospital cots on the _Albert_, but it would scarcely serve to makeeasier the impending death, and the exposure and effort of thetransfer might even hasten it. Then, too, the wife and children wouldbe denied the satisfaction of the last moments with the departingsoul of the husband and father, for the _Albert_ was to sail at once. The summer was short, and up and down the coast many others were insore need of the Doctor's care, and delay might cost some of themtheir lives. 

Grenfell sat silently for several minutes observing his patient andasking himself the question: "What can I do for this poor man?" Ifthere had only been a doctor that the man could have called a few daysearlier his life, at least might have been prolonged. 

There was but one answer to the question. There was nothing to do butleave medicine and give advice and directions for the man's care, andto supply the ill-nourished family much-needed food and perhaps somewarmer clothing. 

If there were only a hospital on the coast where such cases could betaken and properly treated! If there were only some place wherefatherless and orphaned children could be cared for! These were someof the thoughts that crowded upon Doctor Grenfell as he left the hutthat evening and was rowed back to the _Albert_. And in the weeks thatfollowed his mind was filled with plans, for never did the picture ofthe dying man and helpless little ones fade as he saw it that firstday in Domino Run. 

Another call to go ashore came that evening, and the Doctor answeredit promptly. Again he was guided to a little mud hut, but this had anadvantage over the other in that it was well ventilated. The onewindow which it boasted was an open hole in the side wall with noglass or other covering to exclude the fresh air. There was no stove, and an open fire on the earthen floor supplied warmth, while a largeopening in the roof, for there was no chimney, offered an escape forthe smoke, an offer of which the smoke did not freely take advantage. 

On a wooden bench in a corner of the room a man sat doubled up withpain. Here too was a family consisting of the man's wife and severalchildren. 

"What's the trouble?" asked the Doctor. 

"I'm wonderful bad with a distemper in my insides, sir, " answered theman with a groan. 

"Been ill long?"

"Aye, sir, for three weeks. "

"We'll see what can be done. "

"Thank you, sir. "

"We'll patch you up and make you as well as ever in a little while, "assured the Doctor after a thorough examination, for this proved to bea curable case. 

"That'll be fine, sir. "

Medicine was provided, with directions for taking, and, as the Doctorhad promised, and as he later learned, the man soon recovered hishealth and returned to his fishing. 

The _Albert_ sailed north. Into every little harbor and settlementshe dropped her anchor for a visit. She called at the trading posts ofthe old Hudson's Bay Company at Cartwright, Rigolet and Davis Inletand the Moravian Missions among the Eskimos in the North. She waswelcomed everywhere, and everywhere Doctor Grenfell found so many sickor injured people that the whole summer long he was kept constantlybusy. 

The waters of this coast were unknown to him. He knew nothing of theirtides or reefs or currents. But with confidence in himself and acourage that was well-nigh reckless, he sought out the people of everylittle harbor that he might give them the help that he had come togive. If there was too great a hazard for the schooner, he used awhale-boat. Once this whale-boat was blown out to sea, once it wasdriven upon the rocks, once it capsized with all on board, and beforethe summer ended it became a complete wreck. 

Nine hundred cases were treated, some trivial though perhaps painfulenough maladies, others most serious or even hopeless. Here was atooth to be extracted, there a limb to be amputated, --cases of allkinds and descriptions, with never a doctor to whom the people couldturn for relief until Doctor Grenfell providentially appeared. 

With all the work, the voyage was one of pleasure. Not only thepleasure of making others happier, --the greatest pleasure any one canknow, --but it was a rattling fine adventure finding the way amongislands that had never appeared on any map and were still unnamed. Itwas fine fun, too, cruising deep and magnificent fjords past loftytowering cliffs, and exploring new channels. And there were theEskimos and their great wolfish dogs, and their primitive manner ofliving and dressing. It was all interesting and fascinating. 

Never, however, since that August night in Domino Run, had the littlemud hut, the dying man, the grief-stricken, miserable mother, and theneglected and starving little ones been out of Doctor Grenfell'sthoughts, and often enough his big heart had ached for the strickenones. He had never before witnessed such awful depths of poverty. 

In other harbors that he had visited in his northern voyage similarheartrending cases had, to be sure, fallen under his attention. In oneharbor he found a poor Eskimo both of whose hands had been blown offby the premature discharge of a gun. For days and days the man hadendured indescribable agony. Nothing had been done for him, save tobathe the stubs of his shattered arms in cold water, until DoctorGrenfell appeared, for there was no surgeon to call upon to relievethe sufferer. 

Everywhere there was a mute cry for help. The people were in need ofdoctors and hospitals. They were in need of hospital ships to cruisethe coast and visit the sick of the harbors. They were in need ofclothing that they were unable to purchase for themselves. They werein great need of some one to devise a way that would help them to freethemselves from the ancient truck system that kept them foreverhopelessly in debt to the traders. 

The case of the man in the little mud hut at Domino Run, however, first suggested to Grenfell the need of these things and the thoughtthat he might do something to bring them about. As a result of thisvisit, he made, during his northward cruise, a most thoroughinvestigation of the requirements of the coast. 

It was early October, and snow covered the ground, when the _Albert_, sailing south, again entered Domino Run and anchored in the harbor. Grenfell was put ashore and walked up the trail to the hut. The manhad long since died and been laid to rest. The wife and children werestill there. They had no provisions for the winter, and Grenfell, wemay be sure, did all in his power to help them and make them morecomfortable. 

His plans had crystalized. He had determined upon the course he shouldtake. He would go back to England and exert himself to the utmost toraise funds to build hospitals and to provide additional doctors andnurses for The Labrador. He would return to Labrador himself and givehis life and strength and the best that was in him for the rest of hisdays in an attempt to make these people happier. Grenfell the athlete, the football player, the naturalist, and, above all, the doctor, wasready to answer the human call and to sacrifice his own comfort andease and worldly possessions to the needs of these people. The manthat will freely give his life to relieve the suffering of othersrepresents the highest type of manhood. It is divine. It wascharacteristic of Grenfell. 

And so it came about that the ragged man in the rickety boat who ledDoctor Grenfell to the dying man in the mud hut was the indirect meansof bringing hospitals and stores and many fine things to The Labradorthat the coast had never known before. The ragged man in going for thedoctor was simply doing a kindly act, a good turn for a needyneighbor. What magnificent results may come from one little act ofkindness! This one laid the foundation for a work whose fame hasencircled the world. 

VI

OVERBOARD!

When Grenfell set out to do a thing he did it. He never in all hislife said, "I will if I can. " His motto has always been, "I _can_ if Iwill. " He had determined to plant hospitals on the Labrador coast andto send doctors and nurses there to help the people. When hedetermined to do a thing there was an end of it. It would be done. Agreat many people plan to do things, but when they find it is hard tocarry out their plans, they give them up. They forget that anythingthat is worth having is hard to get. If diamonds were as easy to findas pebbles they would be worth no more than pebbles. 

That was a hard job that Grenfell had set himself, and he knew it. When you have a hard job to do, the best way is to go at it just assoon as ever you can and work at it as hard as ever you can until itis done. That was Grenfell's way, and as soon as he reached St. Johnshe began to start things moving. Someone else might have waited toreturn to England to make a formal report to the Deep Sea MissionsBoard, and await the Board's approval. Not so with Grenfell. He knewthe Board would approve, and time was valuable. 

Down on The Labrador winter begins in earnest in October. Already thefishing fleets had returned from Labrador when the _Albert_ reachedSt. Johns, and the fishermen had brought with them the news of the_Albert_'s visit to The Labrador and the wonderful things DoctorGrenfell had done in the course of his summer's cruise. Praise of hismagnificent work was on everybody's lips. The newspapers, alwayshungry for startling news, had published articles about it. DoctorGrenfell was hailed as a benefactor. All creeds and classes welcomedand praised him, --fishermen, merchants, politicians. Even thedignified Board of Trade had recorded its praise. 

It was November when Grenfell arrived in St. Johns. He immediatelywaited upon the government officials with the result that HisExcellency, the Governor of the Colony, at once called a meeting inthe Government House that Grenfell might present his plans for thefuture to the people. All the great men of the Colony were there. Theylistened with interest and were moved with enthusiasm. Some finethings were said, and then with the unanimous vote of the meetingresolutions were passed in commendation of Doctor Grenfell's summer'swork and expressing the desire that it might continue and grow inaccordance with Doctor Grenfell's plans. The resolutions finallypledged the "co-operation of all classes of this community. " Here wasan assurance that the whole of the fine old Colony was behind him, andit made Grenfell happy. 

But this was not all. It is not the way of Newfoundland people to holdmeetings and say fine things and pass high-sounding resolutions andthen let the whole matter drop as though they felt they had done theirduty. Doctor Grenfell would need something more than fine words andpats on the back if he were to put his plans through successfully, though the fine words helped, too, with their encouragement. He wouldneed the help of men of responsibility who would work with him, andHis Excellency, the Governor, recognizing this fact, appointed acommittee composed of some of Newfoundland's best men for thispurpose. 

Then it was that Mr. W. Baine Grieve arose and began to speak. Mr. Grieve was a famous merchant of the Colony, and a member of the firmof Baine Johnston and Company, who owned a large trading station andstores at Battle Harbor, on an island near Cape Charles, at thesoutheastern extremity of Labrador. He was a man of importance in St. Johns and a leader in the Colony. As he spoke Grenfell suddenlyrealized that Mr. Grieve was presenting the Mission with a building atBattle Harbor which was to be fitted as a hospital and made ready foruse the following summer. 

What a thrill must have come to Grenfell at that moment! The wholeNewfoundland government was behind him! His first hospital was alreadyassured! We can easily imagine that he was fairly overwhelmed anddazed with the success that he had met so suddenly and unexpectedly. 

But Grenfell was not a man to lose his head. This was only abeginning. He must have more hospitals than one. He must have doctorsand nurses, medicines and hospital supplies, food and clothing, and asteam vessel that would take him quickly about to see the sick of theharbors. A great deal of money would be required, and when the_Albert_ sailed out of St. John's Harbor and turned back to England heknew that he had assumed a stupendous job, and that the winter was notto be an idle one for him by any means. 

It was December first when the _Albert_ reached England. With thebacking and assistance of the Mission Board, Doctor Grenfell andCaptain Trevize of the _Albert_ arranged a speaking tour for thepurpose of exciting interest in the Labrador work. Men and women weremoved by the tale of their experiences and the suffering and needs ofthe fishermen and liveres. Gifts were made and sufficient fundssubscribed to purchase necessary supplies and hospital equipment, anda fine rowboat was donated to replace the _Albert's_ whaleboat whichhad been smashed during the previous summer. 

Then word came from St. Johns that the great shipping firm of JobBrothers, who owned a fisheries' station at Indian Harbor, had donateda hospital to the Newfoundland committee. This was to be erected atIndian Harbor, at the northern side of the entrance to Hamilton Inlet, two hundred miles north of Battle Harbor, and was to be ready for useduring the summer. This was fine news. Not only were there largefishery stations at both Battle Harbor and Indian Harbor, but bothwere regular stopping places for the fishing schooners when goingnorth and again on their homeward voyage. With two hospitals on thecoast a splendid beginning for the work would be made. 

But there was still one necessity lacking, --a little steamer in whichDoctor Grenfell could visit the folk of the scattered harbors. AtChester on the River Dee and not far from his boyhood home at ParkgateGrenfell discovered a boat one day that was for sale and that hebelieved would answer his purpose. It was a sturdy little steamlaunch, forty-five feet over all. It was, however, ridiculouslynarrow, with a beam of only eight feet, and was sure to roll terriblyin any sea and even in an ordinary swell. 

But Grenfell was a good seaman, and he could make out in a boat thatdid a bit of tumbling. He was the sort of man to do a good job with atool that did not suit him if he could not get just the sort of toolhe wanted, and never find fault with it either. The necessary amountto purchase the launch was subscribed by a friend of the Mission. Grenfell bought it and was mightily pleased that this last need wasfilled. Later the little launch was christened the "Princess May. "

Then the _Albert_ was made ready for her second voyage to Labrador. The Mission Board appointed two young physicians to accompany DoctorGrenfell, Doctor Arthur O. Bobardt and Doctor Eliott Curwen, and twotrained nurses, Miss Cecilia Williams and Miss Ada Cawardine, thatthere might be a doctor and a nurse for the hospital at Battle Harborand a doctor and a nurse for the hospital at Indian Harbor. The launch_Princess May_ was swung aboard the big Allan liner _Corean_ andshipped to St. John's, and on June second Doctor Grenfell and hisstaff sailed from Queenstown on the _Albert_. 

Grenfell was as fond of sports as ever he was in his boyhood andcollege days, and now, when the weather permitted, he played cricketwith any on board who would play with him. The deck of so small avessel as the _Albert_ offers small space for a game of this sort, andone after another the cricket balls were lost overboard until but oneremained. Then, one day, in the midst of a game in mid-ocean, thatlast ball unceremoniously followed the others into the sea. 

Grenfell ran to the rail. He could see the ball rise on a wave astern. 

"Tack back and pick me up!" he yelled to the helmsman, and to theastonishment and consternation of everyone, over the rail he dived inpursuit of the ball. 

Grenfell could swim like a fish. He learned that in the River Dee andthe estuary, when he was a boy, and he always kept himself in athletictraining. But he had never before jumped into the middle of so large aswimming pool as the Atlantic ocean, with the nearest land a thousandmiles away!

The steersman lost his head. He put over the helm, but failed to cutGrenfell off, and the Doctor presently found himself a long way fromthe ship struggling for life in the icy cold waters of the NorthAtlantic. 

VII

IN THE BREAKERS

The young adventurer did not lose his head, and he did not waste hisstrength in desperate efforts to overtake the vessel. He calmlylaid-to, kept his head above water, and waited for the helmsman tobring the ship around again. 

A man less inured to hardships, or less physically fit, would havesurrendered to the icy waters or to fatigue. Grenfell was as fit asever a man could be. 

In school and college he had made a record in athletic sports, andsince leaving the university he had not permitted himself to get outof training. An athlete cannot keep in condition who indulges incigarettes or liquor or otherwise dissipates, and Grenfell had livedclean and straight. 

It was this that saved his life now. He knew he was fit and he hadconfidence in himself, and was unafraid. While he appreciated hisperil, he never lost his nerve, and when finally he was rescued andfound himself on deck he was little the worse for his experience, andwith a change of dry clothing was ready to resume the interrupted gameof cricket with the rescued ball. 

With no further adventure than once coming to close quarters with aniceberg and escaping without serious damage, the _Albert_ arrived indue time at St. John's, and Grenfell was at once occupied inpreparation for his summer's work on The Labrador. Materials withwhich to construct the Indian Harbor hospital were shipped north bysteamer. Supplies were taken aboard the _Albert_, and with Dr. Curwinand nurses Williams and Cawardine she sailed for Battle Harbor, wherethe building to be utilized as a hospital was already erected. 

Then the launch _Princess May_, which had been landed from the_Corean_, was made ready for sea, and with an engineer and a cook ashis crew and Dr. Bobardt as a companion, Dr. Grenfell as skipper putto sea in the tiny craft on July 7th. 

There were many pessimistic prophets to see the _Princess May_ off. From skipper to cook not a man aboard her was familiar with the coast, or could recognize a single landmark or headland either on theNewfoundland coast or on The Labrador. 

They were going into rugged, fog-clogged seas. They might encounter anice-pack, and the sea was always strewn with menacing icebergs. True, they had charts, but the charts were most incomplete, and noNewfoundlander sails by them. 

The _Princess May_, a mere cockle-shell, was too small, it was said, for the undertaking. She was six years old and Grenfell had not givenher a try-out. The consensus of opinion among the wise oldNewfoundland seamen who gathered on the wharf as she sailed was thatDoctor Grenfell and his crew were much like the three wise men ofGotham who went to sea in a bowl. Still, not a man of them but wouldhave ventured forth upon the high seas in an ancient rotten old hullof a schooner. They were acquainted with schooners and the coast, while the little launch _Princess May_ was a new species of craft tothem, and was manned by green hands. 

"'Tis a dangerous voyage for green hands to be makin', " said one, "andthat small boat were never meant for the sea. "

"Aye, for green hands, " said another. "They'll never make un withoutmishap. "

"If they does, 'twill be by the mercy o' God. "

"And how'll they make harbor, not knowin' what to sail by?"

"That bit of a craft would never stand half a gale, and if she meetsth' ice she'll crumple up like an eggshell. "

"And they'll be havin' some nasty weather, _I_ says. We'll never hearo' _she_ again or any o' them on board. "

"Unless by the mercy o' God. "

Such were the remarks of those ashore as the _Princess May_ steameddown the harbor and out through the narrow channel between thebeetling cliffs, into the broad Atlantic. Dr. Grenfell has confessedthat he was not wholly without misgivings himself, and they seemedwell founded when, at the end of the first five miles, the engineerreported:

"She's sprung a leak, sir!" and anxiously asked, "Had we better putback?"

"No! We'll stand on!" answered Grenfell. "Those croakers ashore wouldnever let us hear the end of it if we turned back. We'll see what'shappened. "

An examination discovered a small opening in the bottom. A wooden plugwas shaped and driven into the hole. To Doctor Grenfell's satisfactionand relief, this was found to heal the leak effectually, and the_Princess May_ continued on her course. 

But this was not to end the difficulties. In those waters dense fogssettled suddenly and without warning, and now such a fog fell uponthem to shut out all view of land and the surrounding sea. 

Nevertheless, the _Princess May_ steamed bravely ahead. To avoiddanger Grenfell was holding her, as he believed, well out to sea, whensuddenly there rose out of the fog a perpendicular towering cliff. They were almost in the white surf of the waves pounding upon therocky base of the cliff before they were aware of their perilousposition. 

Every one expected that the little vessel would be driven upon therocks and lost, and they realized if that were to happen only amiracle could save them. Grenfell shouted to the engineer, the enginewas reversed and by skillful maneuvering the _Princess May_succeeded, by the narrowest margin, in escaping unharmed. To their ownsteady nerves, and the intervention of Providence the fearless marinerand his little crew undoubtedly owed their lives. 

Grenfell suspected that the compass was not registering correctly. Standing out to sea until they were at a safe distance from thetreacherous shore rocks, a careful examination was made. The binnaclehad been left in St. Johns for necessary repairs, and the examinationdiscovered that iron screws had been used to make the compass box fastto the cabin. These screws were responsible for a serious deviation ofthe needle, and this it was that had so nearly led them to fataldisaster. 

A heavy swell was running, and the little vessel, with but eight feetbeam, rolled so rapidly that the compass needle, even when the defecthad been remedied, made a wide swing from side to side as the vesselrolled. The best that could be done was to read the dial midwaybetween the extreme points of the needle's swing. This was deemed safeenough, and away the _Princess May_ ploughed again through the fog. 

At five o'clock in the afternoon it was decided to work in towardshore and search for a sheltering harbor in which to anchor for thenight. Under any circumstance it would be foolhardy for so small avessel to remain in the open sea outside, after darkness set in, inthose ice-menaced fog-choked northern waters. The course of the_Princess May_ was accordingly changed to bear to the westward andGrenfell was continuously feeling his way through the fog whensuddenly, and to the dismay of all on board, they found themselvessurrounded by jagged reefs and small rocky islands and in the midst ofboiling surf. 

Now they were indeed in grave peril. They must needs maintainsufficient headway to keep the vessel under her helm. Black rockscapped with foam rose on every side, they did not know the depth ofthe water, and the fog was so thick they could scarce see two boatlengths from her bow. 

VIII

AN ADVENTUROUS VOYAGE

The finest school of courage in the world is the open. The Sands ofDee, the estuary and the hills of Wales made a fine school of thissort for Grenfell. 

The out-of-doors clears the brain, and there a man learns to thinkstraight and to the point. When he is on intimate terms with the woodsand mountains, and can laugh at howling gales and the wind beating inhis face, and can take care of himself and be happy without theeffeminating comforts of steam heat and luxurious beds, a man willprove himself no coward when he comes some day face to face with gravedanger. He has been trained in a school of courage. He has learned todepend upon himself. 

Fine, active games of competition like baseball, football, basketballand boxing, give nerve, self-confidence and poise. Through them thehand learns instinctively, and without a moment's hesitation, to dothe thing the brain tells it to do. 

Down on The Labrador they say that Grenfell has always been "lucky" ingetting out of tight places and bad corners. But we all know, 'waydown in our hearts, that there is no such thing as "luck. " "God helpsthem that help themselves. " That's the secret of Grenfell's gettingout of such tight corners as this one that he had now run into in thefog. He was trained in the school of courage. He helped himself, andhe knew how. He was unafraid. 

So it was now as always afterward. Grim danger was threatening the_Princess May_ on every side. Each moment Grenfell and his companionsexpected to feel the shock of collision and hear the fatal crunchingand splintering of the vessel's timbers upon the rocks. All ofGrenfell's experiences on the Sands of Dee and in the hills of Walesand out on the estuary came to his rescue. He did not lose his headfor a moment. That would have been fatal. He had acquired courage andresourcefulness in that out-of-door school he had attended when a boy. The situation called for all the grit and good judgment he and hiscrew possessed. 

Under just enough steam to give the vessel steerageway, they wound inand out between protruding rocks and miniature islands amidst thewhite foam of breakers that pounded upon the rocks all around them. Atlength they were headed about. Then cautiously they threaded their wayinto the open sea and safety. 

This was to be but an incident in the years of labor that lay beforeGrenfell on The Labrador. He was to have no end of excitingexperiences, some of them so thrilling that this one was, incomparison, to fade into insignificance. Labrador is a land ofadventures. The man who casts his lot in that bleak country cannotescape them. Adventure lurks in every cove and harbor, on every turnof the trail, ready to spring out upon you and try your mettle, andlearn the sort of stuff you are made of. 

Later in the evening they again felt their way landward through thefog. To their delight they presently found themselves in a harbor, andthat night they rested in a safe and snug anchorage sheltered fromwind and pounding sea. 

There was adventure enough on that voyage to satisfy anybody. The sundid not set that the voyagers had not experienced at least one goodthrill during the daylight hours. On the seventh day from St. Johnsthe _Princess May_ crossed the Straits of Belle Isle, and drewalongside the _Albert_ at Battle Harbor. 

The new hospital was nearly ready to receive patients, the first ofthe hospitals to be built as a result of the visit to the _Albert_ theprevious summer of the ragged man in the rickety boat. The otherhospital was in course of building at Indian Harbor, and DoctorGrenfell dispatched the _Albert_, with Doctor Curwin and Miss Williamsto assist in preparing it for patients, while Doctor Bobart and MissCawardine remained in charge of the Battle Harbor hospital. 

Away Doctor Grenfell steamed again in the _Princess May_ nothingdaunted by his many difficulties with the little craft in his voyagefrom St. John's. It was necessary that he know the headlands and theharbors, the dangerous places and the safe ones along the whole coast. The only way to do this was by visiting them, and the quickest andbest way to learn them was by finding them out for himself whilenavigating his own craft. Now, light houses stand on two or three ofthe most dangerous points of the coast, but in those days there werenone, and there were no correct charts. The mariner had to carryeverything in his head, and indeed he must still do so. He must knowthe eight hundred miles of coast as we know the nooks and corners ofour dooryards. 

Doctor Grenfell wished also to make the acquaintance of the people. Hewished to visit them in their homes that he might learn their needsand troubles and so know better how to help them. He was not alone tobe their doctor. He was to clothe and feed the poor so far as he couldand to put them in a way to help themselves. 

To do this it was necessary that he know them as a man knows his nearneighbors. He must needs know them as the family doctor knows hispatients. He was no preacher, but, to some degree, he was to be theirpastor and look after their moral as well as their physical welfare. In short, he was to be their friend, and if he were to do his best forthem, they would have to look upon him as a friend and not only callupon him when they were in need, but lend him any assistance theycould. To this end they would have to be taught to accept him as oneof themselves, come to live among them, and not as an occasionalvisitor or a foreigner. 

With the exception of a few small settlements of a half-dozen housesor so in each settlement, the cabins on the Labrador coast are ten orfifteen and often twenty or more miles apart. If all of them werebrought together there would scarcely be enough to make one fair-sizedvillage. 

All of the people, as we have seen, live on the seacoast, and notinland. Only wandering Indians live in the interior. Though Labradoris nearly as large as Alaska, there is no permanent dwelling in thewhole interior. It is a vast, trackless, uninhabited wilderness ofstunted forests and wide, naked barrens. 

The Liveyeres, as the natives, other than Indians and Eskimos, arecalled, have no other occupation than trapping and hunting in winter, and fishing in summer. Their winter cabins are at the heads of deepbays, in the edge of the forest. In the summer they move to theirfishing places farther down the bays or on scattered, barren islands, where they live in rude huts or, sometimes, in tents. They catch codchiefly, but also, at the mouths of rivers, salmon and trout. All thefish are salted, and, like the furs caught in winter, bartered totraders for tea and flour and pork and other necessities of life. 

To make the acquaintance of these scattered people, along hundreds ofmiles of coast, was a big undertaking. And then, too, there were thesettlements in the north of Newfoundland, among whose people he was towork. Doctor Grenfell, and his assistants were the only doctors thatany of them could call upon. 

And there were the fishermen of the fleet. The twenty-five thousand ormore men, women and children attached to the Newfoundland summerfisheries on The Labrador formed a temporary summer population. 

He could not hope, of course, in the two or three months they werethere, to get on intimate terms with all of them, but he was to meetas many as he could, and renew and increase both his acquaintances andhis service of the year before. With the _Princess May_ to visit thesick folk ashore, and the hospital ship _Albert_, which was to serve, in a manner, as a sea ambulance to take serious cases to the newhospitals at Indian Harbor and Battle Harbor, Doctor Grenfell feltthat he had made a good start. 

As already suggested, this was an adventurous voyage. Twice thatsummer the _Princess May_ went aground on the rocks, and once the_Albert_ was fastened on a reef. Both vessels lost sections of theirkeels, but otherwise, due to good seamanship, escaped with minorinjuries. 

At every place the Doctor visited he made a record of the people. After the names of the poorer and destitute ones was listed the thingsof which they were most in need. 

In one poor little cabin the mother of a large family had, though ill, kept to her duties in and out of the house until she could stand onher feet no longer, and when Doctor Grenfell entered the cabin hefound her lying helpless on a rough couch of boards, with scarceenough bed clothing to cover her. Some half-clad children shiveredbehind a miserable broken stove, which radiated little heat but sentforth much smoke. The haggard and worn out father was walking up anddown the chill room with a wee mite of a baby in his arms, while itcried pitifully for food. Like all the family the poor little thingwas starving. 

The mother was suffering with an acute attack of bronchitis andpleurisy. All were suffering from lack of food and clothing. Thechildren were barefooted. One little fellow had no other covering thanan old trouser leg drawn over his frail little body. The man's furhunt had failed the previous winter. Sickness prevented fishing. Therewas nothing in the house to eat and the family were helpless. DoctorGrenfell came to them none too soon. 

In every harbor and bay and cove there was enough for Doctor Grenfellto do. His heart and hands were full that summer as they have everbeen since. His skill was constantly in demand. Here was some onedesperately ill, there a finger or an arm to be amputated, or a moreserious operation to be performed. 

The hospitals were soon filled to overflowing. Doctor Grenfell afloat, and his two assistants with the nurses in the hospitals were busynight and day. The best of it all was many lives were saved. Some whowould have been helpless invalids as long as they lived were sent homefrom the hospitals strong and well and hearty. An instance of this wasa girl of fourteen, who had suffered for three years with internalabsesses that would eventually have killed her. She was taken to theBattle Harbor Hospital, operated upon, and was soon perfectly well. Tothis day she is living, a robust contented woman, the mother of afamily, and, perchance, a grandmother. 

Grenfell was happy. Here was something better than jogging overEnglish highways behind a horse and visiting well-to-do grumblingpatients. He was out on the sea he loved, meeting adventure in fog andstorm and gale. That was better than a gig on a country road. He washelping people to be happy. He prized that far more than the wealth hemight have accumulated, or the reputation he might have gained athome, as a famous physician or surgeon. There is no happiness in theworld to compare with the happiness that comes with the knowledgethat one is making others happy and helping them to better living andcontentment. 

Without knowing it, Grenfell was building a world-fame. If he hadknown it, he would not have cared a straw. He was working not for famebut for results--for the good he could do others. Nothing else hasever influenced him. Every day he was doing endless good turns withoutpay or the thought of pay. In this he was serving not only God but hiscountry. And he never neglected his athletics, for it was necessarythat he keep his body in the finest physical condition that his brainmight always be keen and alert. Grenfell could not have remained ayear in the field if he had neglected his body, and he was still anathlete in the pink of condition. 

IX

IN THE DEEP WILDERNESS

Imagine, if you will, a vast primeval wilderness spreading away beforeyou for hundreds of miles, uninhabited, grim and solitary. None butwild beasts and the roving Indians that hunt them live there. None butthey know the mysteries that lie hidden and guarded by those tracklessmiles of forests and barren reaches of unexplored country. 

And so this wilderness has lain since creation, unmarred by the handof civilized man, clean and unsullied, as God made it. The air, ladenwith the perfume of spruce and balsam, is pure and wholesome. Thewater carries no germs from the refuse of man, and one may drink itfreely, from river and brook and lake, without fear of contamination. There is no sound to break the silence of ages save the song of riverrapids, the thunder of mighty falls, or the whisper or moan of wind inthe tree tops; or, perchance, the distant cry of a wolf, the weirdlaugh of a loon or the honk of the wild goose. 

There are no roads or beaten trails other than the trails of thecaribou, the wild deer that make this their home. The nearest railroadis half a thousand miles away. Automobiles are unknown and would bequite useless here. Great rivers and innumerable emerald lakes renderthe land impassable for horses. The traveler must make his own trails, and he must depend in summer upon his canoe or boat, and in winterupon his snowshoes and his sledge, hauled by great wolf dogs. 

With his gun and traps and fishing gear he must glean his living fromthe wilderness or from the sea. If he would have a shelter he mustfell trees with his axe and build it with his own skill. He has littlethat his own hands and brain do not provide. He must be resourcefuland self-reliant. 

I venture to say there is not a boy living--a real red-blooded boy orred-blooded man either for that matter--who has not dreamed of the daywhen he might experience the thrill of venturing into such awilderness as we have described. This was America as the discoverersfound it, and as it was before the great explorers and adventurersopened it to civilization. This was Labrador as Grenfell foundLabrador, and as it is to-day--the great "silent peninsula of theNorth. " It occupies a large corner of the North American continent, and much of it is still unexplored, a vast, grim, lonely land, but oneof majestic grandeur and beauty. 

[Illustration: "THE DOCTOR ON A WINTER'S JOURNEY"]

The hardy pioneers and settlers of Labrador, as we have seen, havemade their homes only on the seacoast, leaving the interior towandering Indian hunters. They do, to be sure, enter the wildernessfor short distances in winter when they are following their businessas hunters, but none has ever made his home beyond the sound of thesea. 

In the forests of the south and southeast are the Mountaineer Indians, as they are called by all English speaking people; or, if we wish toput on airs and assume French we may call them the _Montaignais_Indians. In the North are the Nascaupees, today the most primitiveIndians on the North American continent. In the west and southwest arethe Crees. 

All of these Indians are of the great Algonquin family, and are muchlike those that Natty Bumpo chummed with or fought against, and thosewho lived in New York and New England when the settlers first came towhat are now our eastern states. Labrador is so large, and there areso few Indians to occupy it, however, that the explorer may wanderthrough it for months, as I have done, without ever once seeing thesmoke rising from an Indian tepee or hearing a human voice. 

The Eskimos of the north coast are much like the Eskimos of Greenland, both in language and in the way they live. Their summer shelters areskin tents, which they call _tupeks_. In winter they build dome-shapedhouses from blocks of snow, though they sometimes have cave-likeshelters of stone and earth built against the side of a hill. The snowhouses they call _iglooweuks_, or houses of snow; the stone and earthshelters are _igloosoaks_, or big igloos, the word igloo, in theEskimo language, meaning house. When winter comes big snow drifts sooncover the igloosoaks, and the snow keeps out the wind and cold. As afurther protection, snow tunnels, through which the people crawl onhands and knees, are built out from the entrance to the igloosoak, andthese keep all drafts, when a gale blows, from those within. 

The Eskimos heat their snow igloos, and in treeless regions theirigloosoaks also, with lamps of hollowed stone. These lamps are made inthe form of a half moon. Seal oil is used as fuel, and a rag, if thereis any to be had, or moss, resting upon the straight side of the lamp, does service as the wick. 

Of course the snow igloos must never be permitted to get so warm thatthe snow will melt. The temperature in a snow house is therefore keptat about thirty degrees, or a little lower. Nevertheless it iscomfortable enough, when the temperature outside is perhaps forty orfifty degrees below zero and quite likely a stiff breeze blowing. Comfort is always a matter of comparison. I have spent a good manynights in snow houses, and was always glad to enjoy the comfort theyoffered. To the traveler who has been in the open all day, the snowhouse is a cozy retreat and a snug enough place to rest and sleep in. 

On the east coast the Eskimos are more civilized and live much likethe liveyeres. All Eskimos are kind hearted, hospitable people. Once, I remember, when an Eskimo host noticed that the bottom of my sealskinmocasins had worn through to the stocking, he pulled those he wore offhis feet, and insisted upon me wearing them. He had others, to besure, but they were not so good as those he gave me. No matter howpoorly off he is, an Eskimo will feel quite offended if a visitor doesnot share with him what he has to eat. 

Though Dr. Grenfell's hospitals are farther south, on the coast wherethe liveyeres have their cabins, he cruises northward to the Eskimocountry of the east coast every summer, and in the summer has nursingstations there. Sometimes, when there is a case demanding it, hebrings the sick Eskimos to one of the hospitals. But, generally, theeast coast Eskimos are looked after by the Moravian Brethren in theirmissions, and in summer Dr. Grenfell calls at the missions to givethem his medical and surgical assistance. 

As stated before, the liveyeres and others than the Indians, buildtheir cabins on the coast, usually on the shores of bays, but alwaysby the salt water and where they can hear the sound of the sea. Everyman of them is a hunter or a fisherman or both, and the boys grow upwith guns in their hands, and pulling at an oar or sailing a boat. They begin as soon as they can walk to learn the ways of thewilderness and of the wild things that live in it, and they are goodsailors and know a great deal about the sea and the fish while theyare still wee lads. That is to be their profession, and they arepreparing for it. 

The Labrador home of the liveyere usually contains two rooms, butoccasionally three, though there are many, especially north ofHamilton Inlet, of but a single room. All have an enclosed lean-toporch at the entrance. This serves not only as a protection fromdrifting snow in winter, but as a place where stovewood is piled, dogharness and snowshoes are hung, and various articles stored. 

In the cabin is a large wood-burning stove, the first and mostimportant piece of furniture. There is a home-made table and sometimesa home-made chair or two, though usually chests in which clothing andfurs are stored are utilized also as seats. A closet built at one sideholds the meager supply of dishes. On a mantelshelf the clock ticks, if the cabin boasts one, and by its side rests a well-thumbed Bible. 

Bunks, built against the rear of the room, serve as beds. If there isa second room, it supplies additional sleeping quarters, with bunksbuilt against the walls as in the living room. Travelers and visitorscarry their own sleeping bags and bedding with them and sleep upon thefloor. This is the sort of bed Dr. Grenfell enjoys when sleeping atnight in a liveyere's home. 

On the beams overhead are rifles and shotguns, always within easyreach, for a shot at some game may offer at any time. The side wallsof the cabins are papered with old newspapers, or illustrations cutfrom old magazines. 

The more thrifty and cleanly scrub floors, tables, doors and allwoodwork with soap and sand once a week, until everything isspotlessly clean. But along the coast one comes upon cabins oftenenough that appear never to have had a cleaning day, and in which theodor of seal oil and fish is heavy. 

Those of the Newfoundland fishermen that bring their families to thecoast live in all sorts of cabins. Some are well built andcomfortable, while others are merely sod-covered huts with earthenfloor. These are occupied, however, only during the fishing season. The fishermen move into them early in July and begin to leave themearly in September. 

As stated elsewhere, no farming can be done in Labrador, and the onlyway men can make a living is by hunting and fishing. Eskimos seldomventure far inland on their hunting and trapping expeditions, but someof the liveyeres go fifty or sixty miles from the coast to set theirtraps, and some of those in Hamilton Inlet go up the Grand River for adistance of more than two hundred and fifty miles, and others go upthe Nascaupee River for upwards of a hundred miles. 

Trapping is all done in winter and it is a lonely and adventurouscalling. Early in September, the men who go the greatest distanceinland set out for their trapping grounds. Usually two men gotogether. They build a small log hut called a "tilt, " about eight byten feet in size. Against each of two sides a bunk is made of saplingsand covered with spruce or balsam boughs. On the boughs the sleepingbags are spread, and the result is a comfortable bed. The bunks alsoserve as seats. A little sheet iron stove that weighs, includingstovepipe, about eighteen pounds and is easy to transport, heats thetilt, and answers very well for the trapper's simple cooking. Thestovepipe, protruding through the roof, serves as a chimney. 

The main tilt is used as a base of supplies, and here reserveprovisions are stored together with accumulations of furs as they arecaught. Fat salt pork, flour, baking powder or soda, salt, tea andBarbadoes molasses complete the list of provisions carried into thewilderness from the trading post. Other provisions must be hunted. 

Each man provides himself with a frying pan, a tin cup, a spoon ortwo, a tin pail to serve as a tea kettle and sometimes a slightlylarger pail for cooking. On his belt he carries a sheath knife, whichhe uses for cooking, skinning, eating and general utility. He rarelyencumbers himself with a fork. 

For use on the trail each man has a stove similar to the one thatheats the tilt, a small cotton tent, and a toboggan. 

From the base tilt the trapping paths or trails lead out. Each trapperhas a path which he has established and which he works alone. Hehauls his sleeping bag, provisions and other equipment on histoboggan or, as he calls it, "flat sled. " He carries his rifle in hishand and his ax is stowed on the toboggan, for he never knows when aquick shot will get him a pelt or a day's food. 

Sometimes tilts are built along the path at the end of a day'sjourney, but if there is no tilt the cotton tent is pitched. In likelyplaces traps are set for marten, mink or fox. Ice prevents trappingfor the otter in winter, but they are often shot. 

At the end of a week or fortnight the partners meet at the base tilt. Otherwise each man is alone, and we may imagine how glad they are tosee each other when the meeting time comes. But they cannot be idle. Out through the snow-covered forest, along the shores of frozen lakesand on wide bleak marshes the trapper has one hundred traps at least, and some of them as many as three hundred. The men must keep busy tolook after them properly, and so, after a Sunday's rest together theyagain separate and are away on their snowshoes hauling their toboggansafter them. 

At Christmas time they go back to their homes, down by the sea, to seetheir wives and children and to make merry for a week. What a meetingthat always is! How eagerly the little ones have been looking forwardto the day when Daddy would come! O, that blessed Christmas week! Butit is only seven days long, and on the second day of January thetrappers are away again to their tilts and trails and traps. Againearly in March they visit their homes for another week, and then againreturn to the deep wilderness to remain there until June. 

Sometimes the father never comes back, and then the wilderness carriesin its heart the secret of his end. Then, oh, those hours of happyexpectancy that become days of grave anxiety and finally weeks ofblack despair! Such a case happened once when I was in Labrador. Laterthey found the young trapper's body where the man had perished, seventy miles from his home. 

As I have said, the life of the trapper is filled with adventure. Manya narrow escape he has, but he never loses his grit. He cannot affordto. Gilbert Blake was one of four trappers that rescued me severalyears ago, when I had been on short rations in the wilderness forseveral weeks, and without food for two weeks. I had eaten mymoccasins, my feet were frozen and I was so weak I could not walk. Gilbert and I have been friends since then and we later traveled thewilderness together. Gilbert has no trapping partner. His "path" is ahundred miles inland from his home. All winter, with no othercompanion than a little dog, he works alone in that lonely wilderness. 

One winter game was scarce, and Gilbert's provisions were practicallyexhausted when he set out to strike up his traps preparatory to hisvisit home in March. He was several miles from his tilt when suddenlyone of his snowshoes broke beyond repair. He could not move a stepwithout snowshoes, for the snow lay ten feet deep. He had no skin withhim with which to net another snowshoe, even if he were to make theframe; and he had nothing to eat. 

A Labrador blizzard came on, and Gilbert for three days was heldprisoner in his tent. He spent his time trying to make a serviceablesnowshoe with netting woven from parts of his clothing torn intostrips. When at last the storm ended and he struck his tent he wasfamished. 

Packing his things on his toboggan he set out for the tilt, but hadgone only a short distance when the improvised snowshoe broke. He maderepeated efforts to mend it, but always it broke after a few stepsforward. He was in a desperate situation. 

He had now been nearly three days without eating. He was still severalmiles from the tilt where he had a scant supply that had been reservedfor his journey home. To proceed to the tilt was obviously impossible, and he could only perish by remaining where he was. 

Utterly exhausted after a fruitless effort to flounder forward, he satdown upon his flatsled, and looked out over the silent snow waste. Weakened with hunger, it seemed to him that he had reached the end ofhis endurance. So far as he knew there was not another human beingwithin a hundred miles of where he sat, and he had no expectation orslightest hope of any one coming to his assistance. "I was scrammed, "said he, which meant, in our vernacular, he was "all in. "

Gilbert is a fine Christian man, and all the time, as he told me inrelating his experience, he had been praying God to show him a way tosafety. He never was a coward, and he was not afraid to die, for hehad faced death many times before and men of the wilderness becomeaccustomed to the thought that sometime, out there in the silence andalone, the hand of the grim messenger may grasp them. But he wasafraid for Mrs. Blake and the four little ones at home. Were he toperish there would be no one to earn a living for them. He wasfrightened to think of the privations those he loved would suffer. 

Suddenly, in the distance, he glimpsed two objects moving over thesnow. As they came nearer he discovered that they were men. He shoutedand waved his arms, and there was an answering signal. Presently twoMountaineer Indians approached, hauling loaded toboggans, laughing andshouting a greeting as they recognized him. 

"'Twas an answer to my prayers, " said Gilbert in relating the incidentto me. "I was fair scrammed when I saw them Indians. They were thefirst Indians I had seen the whole winter. They weren't pretty, butjust then they looked to me like angels from heaven, and just aspretty as any angels could look. "

The Indians had recently made a killing, and their toboggans wereloaded with fresh caribou meat. They made Gilbert eat until theynearly killed him with kindness, and they had an extra pair ofsnowshoes, which they gave him. 

This is the life of the trapper on The Labrador. This is the sort ofman he is--hardy, patient, brave and reverent. He is a man of grit anddaring, as he must be to cheerfully meet, with a stout heart and asmile, the constant hardships and adventures that beset him. 

Dr. Grenfell declares that it is no hardship to devote his life tohelping men like this. His work among them brings constant joy to him. They appreciate him, and he has grown to look upon them as all membersof his big family. He takes a personal and devoted interest in each. It is a great comfort to the men to know that if any are sick orinjured at home while they are away on the trails the mission doctorwill do his best to heal them. Before Grenfell went to The Labradorthere was no doctor to call upon the whole winter through. 

The trapping season for fur ends in April. Then the trapper "strikesup" his traps, hangs them in trees where he will find them thefollowing fall, packs his belongings on his toboggan and returns home, unless he is to remain to hunt bear. In that case he must wait for thebears to come forth from their winter's sleep, and this will keep thehunter in the wilderness until after the "break-up" comes and the icegoes out. Those who go far inland usually wait in any case until theice is out of the streams and boat or canoe traveling is possible andsafe. 

The break-up sets in, usually, early in June. Then come torrentialrains. The snow-covered wilderness is transformed into a sea of slush. New brooks rise everywhere and pour down with rush and roar into lakesand rivers. The rivers over-flow their banks. Trees are uprooted andare swept forward on the flood. Broken ice jams and pounds its waythrough the rapids with sound like thunder. The spring break-up is aninspiring and wonderful spectacle. 

When the hunting season ends and the trappers return from their wintertrails, they enjoy a respite at home mending fishing nets, repairingboats and making things tidy and ship-shape for the summer's fishing. Everyone is now looking forward with keen anticipation to the firstrun of fish. From the time the ice goes out all one hears along thecoast is talk of fish. "Any signs of fish, b'y?" One hears iteverywhere, for everybody is asking everybody else that question. 

In Hamilton Inlet and Sandwich Bay salmon fisheries are of chiefimportance. Salmon here are all salted down in barrels and not tinned, as on the Pacific coast. Once there was a salmon cannery in SandwichBay, but the Hudson's Bay Company bought it and demolished it, asthere was doubtless less work and more profit for the Company insalted salmon. Elsewhere the fisheries are mainly for cod. 

In a frontier land it is not easy to earn a living. Everybody mustwork hard all the time. Men, women, boys and girls all do their shareat the fishing. Women and children help to split and cure the fish. Itis a proud day for any lad when he is big enough and strong enough topull a stroke with the heavy oar, and go out to sea with his father. 

The Labrador, or Arctic, current now and again keeps ice driftingalong the coast the whole summer through. When ice is there fishermencannot set their nets and fish traps, for the ice would tear the gearand ruin it. Neither can they fish successfully with hook and linewhen the ice is in. When this happens few fish are caught. 

Then, too, there are seasons when game and animals move away fromcertain regions, and then the trapper cannot get them. Perhaps they gofarther inland, and too far for him to follow. I have seen times whenptarmigans were so thick men killed them for dog food, and perhaps thenext year there would not be a ptarmigan to be found to put into thepot for dinner. I have seen the snow trampled down everywhere in thewoods and among the brush by innumerable snowshoe rabbits, and I haveseen other years when not a single rabbit track was to be foundanywhere. It is the same with caribou and the fur bearing animals aswell. In those years when game is scarce the people are hard put to itto get a bit of fresh meat to eat. 

When no fresh meat is to be had salt fish, bread (rarely with butter)and tea, with molasses as sweetening, is the diet. There is no milk, even for the babies. If all the salt fish has been sold or traded infor flour and tea, bread and tea three times a day is all there is toeat. 

People cannot keep well on just bread and tea, or even bread and saltfish and tea. It is not hard for us to imagine how we would feel ifevery meal we had day in and day out was only bread and tea, andsometimes not enough of that. 

X

THE SEAL HUNTER

No less perilous is the business of fisherman and sealer than that ofhunter and trapper. Every turn a man makes down on The Labrador islikely to carry him into some adventure that will place his life indanger, at sea as on land. But there is no way out of it if a livingis to be made. 

It is a strange fact that one never recognizes a great deal of dangerin the life that one is accustomed to living, no matter how perilousit may seem to others. If a Labradorman were to come to any of ourtowns or cities his heart would be in his mouth at every turn, for atime at least, dodging automobiles and street cars. It would appear tohim an exceedingly hazardous existence that we live, and he would longto be back to the peace and quiet and safety of his sea andwilderness. And our streets would be dangerous ground to him, indeed, until he became accustomed to dodging motor cars. He is nimble enough, and on his own ground could put most of us to shame in that respect, but here he is lacking in experience. 

The same hunter will face the storms and solitude of the wildernesstrail without ever once feeling that he is in danger or afraid. Heknows how to do it. That is the life that he has been reared to live. The average city man would perish in a day if left alone to care forhimself on a trapper's trail. He has never learned the business, andhe would not know how to take care of himself. 

The Labradorman being both hunter and fisherman, is perfectly at homeboth in the wilderness and on the sea. He has the dangers of both tomeet, but he does not recognize them as dangerous callings, thoughevery year some mate or neighbor loses his life. "'Tis the way o' th'Lard. "

Ice still covers the Labrador harbors in May, and this is when theseal hunt begins, or, as the liveyere says, he goes "swileing. " Hecalls a seal a "swile. " With a harpoon attached to a long line hestations himself at a breathing hole in the ice which the seals underthe ice have kept open, and out of which, now and again, one raisesits nose and fills its lungs with air, for seals are animals, notfish, and must have air to breathe or they will drown. The hole is asmall one, but large enough to cast the spear, or harpoon, into. 

Seals are exceedingly shy animals, and the slightest movement willfrighten them away. Therefore the seal hunter must stand perfectlystill, like a graven image, with harpoon poised, and that is prettycold work in zero weather. If luck is with him he will after a timesee a small movement in the water, and a moment later a seal's nosewill appear. Then like a flash of lightning, he casts the harpoon, andif his aim is good, as it usually is, a seal is fast on the barbs ofthe harpoon. 

The harpoon point is attached to a long line, while the harpoon shaft, by an ingenious arrangement, will slip free from the point. Now, whilethe shaft remains in the hands of the hunter, the line begins runningrapidly down through the hole, for the seal in a vain endeavor to freeitself dives deeply. The other end of the line also remaining in thehands of the hunter is fastened to the shaft of the harpoon, and thereis a struggle. In time, the seal, unable to return to its hole forair, is drowned, and then is hauled out through the hole upon the ice. 

These north Atlantic seals, having no fine fur like the Pacific seals, are chiefly valuable for their fat. The pelts are, however, ofconsiderable value to the natives. The women tan them and make theminto watertight boots or other clothing. Of course a good many of themfind their way to civilization, where they are made into pocketbooksand bags, and they make a very fine tough leather indeed. The flesh isutilized for dog food, though, as in the case of young sealsparticularly, it is often eaten by the people, particularly when othersorts of meat is scarce. Most of the people, and particularly theEskimos, are fond of the flippers and liver. 

Sometimes the seals come out of their holes to lie on the ice andbask in the sun. Then the hunter, simulating the movements of a seal, crawls toward his game until he is within rifle shot. 

Should a gale of wind arise suddenly, the ice may be separated intopans and drift abroad before the seal hunters can make their escape toland. In that case a hunter may be driven to sea on an ice pan, and heis fortunate if his neighbors discover him and rescue him in boats. 

After the ice goes out, those who own seal nets set them, and a greatmany seals are caught in this way. At this season the seals frequentlyare seen sunning themselves on the shore rocks, and the hunters stalkand shoot them. 

Newfoundlanders carry on their sealing in steamers built for thepurpose. They go out to the great ice floe, far out to sea and quitetoo far for the liveyeres to reach in small craft. Here the seals arefound in thousands. These vessels, depending upon the size, bring homea cargo sometimes numbering as many as 20, 000 to 30, 000 seals in asingle ship, and there are about twenty-five ships in the fleet. 

This terrible slaughter has seriously decreased the numbers. TheLabrador Eskimos used to depend upon them largely for their living. They can do this no longer, for not every season, as formerly, arethere enough seals to supply needs. All of the five varieties of NorthAtlantic seals are caught on the coast--harbor, jar, harp, hooded andsquare flipper. The last named is also called the great bearded sealand sometimes the sealion. The first named is the smallest of all. 

Scarce a year passes that we do not hear of a serious disaster in theNewfoundland sealing fleet. Sometimes severe snow storms arise whenthe men are hunting on the floe, and then the men are often lost. Sometimes the ships are crushed in the big floe and go to the bottom. The latest of these disasters was the disappearance of the _SouthernCross_, with a crew of one hundred seventy-five men. 

One of my good friends, Captain Jacob Kean, used to command the_Virginia Lake_, one of the largest of the sealers. She carried a crewof about two hundred men. A few years before Captain Kean lost hislife in one of the awful sea disasters of the coast, he related to meone of his experiences at the sealing. 

Captain Kean was in luck that year, and found the seals early and ingreat numbers. The crew had made a good hunt on the floe, and they areloading them with about a third of a cargo aboard when suddenly theice closed in and the _Virginia Lake_ was "pinched, " with the resultthat a good sized hole was broken in her planking on the port sideforward below the water line. The sea rushed in, and it looked for atime as though the vessel would sink, and there were not boats enoughto accommodate the crew even if boats could have been used, which washardly possible under the conditions, for the sea was clogged withheaving ice pans. 

The pumps were manned, and Captain Kean, and with every man notworking the pumps, with feverish haste shifted the cargo to thestarboard side and aft. Presently, with the weight shifted, the shiplay over on her starboard side and her bow rose above the water untilthe crushed planking and the hole were above the water line. 

The hole now exposed, Captain Kean stuffed it with sea biscuit, orhardtack. Over this he nailed a covering of canvas. Tubs of butterwere brought up, and the canvas thoroughly and thickly buttered. Thisdone, a sheathing of planking was spiked on over the buttered canvas. Then the cargo was re-shifted into place, the vessel settled back uponan even keel, and it was found that the leak was healed. The seabiscuit, absorbing moisture, swelled, and this together with thecanvas, butter and planking proved effectual. Captain Kean loaded hisship with seals and took her into St. John's harbor safely with a fullcargo. 

The following year the _Virginia Lake_ was again pinched by the ice, but this time was lost. Captain Kean and his crew took refuge on theice floe, and were fortunately rescued by another sealer. When CaptainKean lost his life a few years later the sealing fleet lost one of itsmost successful masters. He was a fine Christian gentleman and as ablea seaman as ever trod a bridge. 

But this is the life of the sealer and the fisherman of the northernsees. Terrible storms sometimes sweep down that rugged, barren coastand leave behind them a harvest of wrecked vessels and drowned men anddestitute families that have lost their only support. 

These were the conditions that Grenfell found in Labrador, and thiswas the breed of men, these hunters and trappers, fishermen andsealers--sturdy, honest, God-fearing folk--with whom Grenfell took uphis life. He had elected to share with them the hardships of theirdesolate land and the perils of their ice-choked sea. They needed him, and to them he offered a service that was Christ-like in its breadthand devotion. 

It was a peculiar field. No ordinary man could have entered it withhope of success. Mere ability as a physician and surgeon of wideexperience was not enough. In addition to this, success demanded thathe be a Christian gentleman with high ideals, and freedom frombigotry. Courage, moral as well as physical, was a necessity. Only aman who was himself a fearless and capable navigator could make therounds of the coast and respond promptly to the hurried and urgentcalls to widely separated patients. Constant exposure to hardship andperil demanded a strong body and a level head. Balanced judgment, highexecutive and administrative ability, deep insight into humancharacter and unbounded sympathy for those who suffered or were introuble were indispensable characteristics. All of these attributesGrenfell possessed. 

A short time before Mr. Moody's death, Grenfell met Moody and told himof the inspiration he had received from that sermon, delivered inLondon many years before by the great evangelist. 

"What have you been doing since?" asked Moody. 

What has Grenfell been doing since? He has established hospitals atBattle Harbor, Indian Harbor, Harrington and Northwest River inLabrador, and at St. Anthony in northeastern Newfoundland. He hasestablished schools and nursing stations both in Labrador andNewfoundland. He has built and maintains two orphanages. He foundedthe Seamen's Institute in St. Johns. 

Year after year, since that summer's day when the _Albert_ anchored inDomino Run and Grenfell first met the men of the Newfoundland fishingfleet and the liveyeres of the Labrador coast, winter and summer, Grenfell himself and the doctors that assist him have patrolled thatlong desolate coast giving the best that was in them to the peoplethat lived there. Grenfell has preached the Word, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless and righted many wrongs. Hehas fought disease and poverty, evil and oppression. Hardship, periland prejudice have fallen to his lot, but he has met them with acourage and determination that never faltered, and he is still "up andat it. "

Grenfell's life has been a life of service to others. Freely andjoyfully he has given himself and all that was in him to the work ofmaking others happier, and the people of the coast love and trust him. With pathetic confidence they lean upon him and call him in theirneed, as children lean upon their father, and he has never failed torespond. When a man who had lost a leg felt the need for an artificialone, he appealed to Grenfell:

 Docter plase I whant to see you. Docter sir have you got a leg if you have Will you plase send him Down Praps he may fet and you would oblig. 

One who wished clothing for his family wrote:

 To Dr. Gransfield Dear honrabel Sir, I would be pleased to ask you Sir if you would be pleased to give me and my wife a littel poor close. I was going in the Bay to cut some wood. But I am all amost blind and cant Do much so if you would spear me some Sir I would Be very thankful to you Sir. 

Calls to visit the sick are continuously received. The following aregenuine examples:

 Reverance dr. Grandfell. Dear sir we are expecting you hup and we would like for you to come so quick as you can for my dater is very sick with a very large sore under her left harm we emenangin that the old is two enchis deep and two enches wide plase com as quick as you can to save life I remains yours truely. 

 Docker--Please wel you send me somting for the pain in my feet and what you proismed to send my little boy. Docker I am almost cripple, it is up my hips, I can hardly walk. This is my housban is gaining you this note. 

 doctor--i have a compleant i ham weak with wind on the chest, weakness all over me up in my harm. 

 Dear Dr. Grenfell. I would like for you to Have time to come Down to my House Before you leaves to go to St. Anthony. My little Girl is very Bad. It seems all in Her neck. Cant Ply her Neck forward if do she nearly goes in the fits. I dont know what it is the matter with Her myself. But if you would see Her you would know what the matter with Her. Please send a word by the Bearer what gives you this note and let me know where you will have time to come down to my House, i lives down the Bay a Place called Berry Head. 

These people are made of the same clay as you and I. They are moved bythe same human emotions. They love those who are near and dear to themno less than we love those who are near and dear to us. The sameheights or depths of joy and sorrow, hopes and disappointments enterinto their lives. In the following chapters let us meet some of them, and travel with Doctor Grenfell as he goes about his work among them. 

XI

UNCLE WILLIE WOLFREY

One bitterly cold day in winter our dog team halted before a cabin. Wehad been hailed as we were passing by the man of the house. He gave usa hearty hand shake and invitation to have "a drop o' tea and a bit toeat, " adding, "you'd never ha' been passin' without stoppin' for a cupo' tea to warm you up, whatever. " It was early, and we had intended tostop farther on to boil our kettle in the edge of the woods with aslittle loss of time as possible, but there was no getting away fromthe hospitality of the liveyere. 

There were three of us, and we were as hungry as bears, for there isnothing like snowshoe traveling in thirty and forty degrees below zeroweather to give one an appetite. As we entered we sniffed a deliciousodor of roasting meat, and that one sniff made us glad we had stopped, and made us equally certain we had never before in our lives been sohungry for a good meal. For days we had been subsisting on hardtackand jerked venison, two articles of food that will not freeze for theycontain no moisture, and tea; or, when we stopped at a cabin, on breadand tea. The man's wife was already placing plates, cups and saucerson the bare table for us, and two little boys were helping with hungryeagerness. 

"Hang your adikeys on the pegs there and get warmed up, " our hostinvited. "Dinner's a'most ready. 'Tis a wonderful frosty day to becruisin'. "

We did as he directed, and then seated ourselves on chests that hepulled forward for seats. He had many questions to ask concerning thefolk to the northward, their health and their luck at the winter'strapping, until, presently, the woman brought forth from the oven andplaced upon the table a pan of deliciously browned, smoking meat. 

"Set in! Set in!" beamed our host. "'Tis fine you comes today and notyesterday, " adding as we drew up to the table: "All we'd been havin'to give you yesterday and all th' winter, were bread and tea. Game'sbeen wonderful scarce, and this is the first bit o' meat we has th'whole winter, barrin' a pa'tridge or two in November. But this marnin'I finds a lynx in one o' my traps, and a fine prime skin he has. I'llshow un to you after we eats, though he's on the dryin' board and youcan't see the fur of he. "

We bowed our heads while the host asked the blessing. The Labradormanrarely omits the blessing, and often the meal is closed with a finalthanks, for men of the wilderness live near to God. He is very near tothem and they reverence Him. 

"Help yourself, sir! Help yourself!"

Each of us helped himself sparingly to the cat meat. There was bread, but no butter, and there was hot tea with black molasses forsweetening. 

"Take more o' th' meat now! Help yourselves! Don't be afraid of un, "our hospitable host urged, and we did help ourselves again, for it wasgood. 

Whenever we passed within hailing distance of a cabin, we had to stopfor a "cup o' hot tea, whatever. " Otherwise the people would have feltsorely hurt. We seldom found more elaborate meals than bread, tea andmolasses, rarely butter, and of course never any vegetables. 

We soon discovered that we could not pay the head of the family forour entertainment, but where there were children we left money withthe mother with which to buy something for the little ones, whichdoubtless would be clothing or provisions for the family. If therewere no children we left the money on the table or somewhere where itsurely would be discovered after our departure. 

I remember one of this fine breed of men well. I met him on thisjourney, and he once drove dog team for me--Uncle Willie Wolfrey. Doctor Grenfell says of him:

"Uncle Willie isn't a scholar, a social light, or a capitalistmagnate, but all the same ten minutes' visit to Uncle Willie Wolfreyis worth five dollars of any man's investment. "

It requires a lot of physical energy for any man to tramp the trailsday after day through a frigid, snow-covered wilderness, and monthsof it at a stretch. It is a big job for a young and hearty man, and atremendous one for a man of Uncle Willie's years. And it is a man'sjob, too, to handle a boat in all weather, in calm and in gale, inclear and in fog, sixteen to twenty hours a day, and the fisherman'sday is seldom shorter than that. The fish must be caught when they arethere to be caught, and they must be split and salted the day they arecaught, and then there's the work of spreading them on the "flakes, "and turning them, and piling and covering them when rain threatens. 

A cataract began to form on Uncle Willie's eyes, and every day hecould see just a little less plainly than the day before. Theprospects were that he would soon be blind, and without his eyesighthe could neither hunt nor fish. 

But with his growing age and misfortune Uncle Willie was never a whitless cheerful. He had to earn his living and he kept at his work. 

"'Tis the way of the Lard, " said he. "He's blessed me with fine healthall my life, and kept the house warm, and we've always had a bit toeat, whatever. The Lard has been wonderful good to us, and I'll neverbe complainin'. "

It was never Uncle Willie's way to complain about hard luck. He alwaysdid his best, and somehow, no matter how hard a pinch in which hefound himself, it always came out right in the end. 

Finally Uncle Willie's eyesight became so poor that it was difficultfor him to see sufficiently to get around, and one day last summer(1921) he stepped off his fish stage where he was at work, and thefall broke his thigh. This happened at the very beginning of thefishing season, and put an end to the summer's fishing for UncleWillie, and, of course, to all hope of hunting and trapping duringlast winter. 

Then Doctor Grenfell happened along with his brave old hospital ship_Strathcona_. Dr. Grenfell has a way of happening along just whenpeople are desperately in need of him. With Dr. Grenfell was Dr. Morlan, a skillful and well-known eye and throat specialist fromChicago. Dr. Morlan was spending his holiday with Dr. Grenfell, helping heal the sick down on The Labrador, giving free his servicesand his great skill. 

Dr. Grenfell set and dressed Uncle Willie Wolfrey's broken thigh. Dr. Morlan was to remain but a few days. If he were to help Uncle Willie'seyes there could be no time given for a recovery from the operation onthe thigh. Uncle Willie was game for it. 

They had settled Uncle Willie comfortably at Indian Harbor Hospital, and immediately the thigh was set Dr. Morlan operated upon one of theeyes. The operation was successful, and when the freeze-up came withthe beginning of winter, Uncle Willie, hobbling about on crutches andwith one good eye was home again in his cabin. 

Uncle Willie lives in a lonely place, and for many miles north andsouth he has but one neighbor. The outlook for the winter was dismalindeed. His flour barrel was empty. He had no money. 

But that stout old heart could not be discouraged or subdued. UncleWillie was as full of grit as ever he was in his life. He was still afountain of cheery optimism and hope. He could see with one eye now, and out of that eye the world looked like a pretty good place in whichto live, and he was decided to make the best of it. 

Dr. Grenfell, passing down the coast, called in to see the crippledold fisherman and hunter, and in commenting on that visit he said:

"There are certain men it always does one good to meet. Uncle Willieis a channel of blessing. His sincerity and faith do one good. Thereis always a merry glint in his eye. Even with one eye out, and hiscrutches on, and his prospect of hunger, Uncle Willie was just thesame. "

Dr. Grenfell left some money, donated by the Doctor's friends, andmade other provisions for the comfort of Uncle Willie Wolfrey duringthe winter. If all goes well he will be at his fishing again, when theice clears away; and the snows of another winter will see him again onhis trapping path setting traps for martens and foxes. And with hisrifle and one good eye, who knows but he may knock over a silver foxor a bear or two?

Good luck to Uncle Willie Wolfrey and his spirit, which cannot bedowned. 

As Dr. Grenfell has often said, the Labradorman is a fountain of faithand hope and inspiration. If the fishing season is a failure he turnsto his winter's trapping with unwavering faith that it will yield himwell. If his trapping fails his hope and faith are none the less whenhe sets out in the spring to hunt seals. Seals may be scarce and thereward poor, but never mind! The summer fishing is at hand, and _this_year it will certainly bring a good catch! "The Lard be wonderful goodto us, _what_ever. "

XII

A DOZEN FOX TRAPS

On that same voyage along the coast when Uncle Willie Wolfrey wasfound with a broken thigh, Dr. Grenfell, after he had operated uponUncle Willie, in the course of his voyage, stopping at many harbors togive medical assistance to the needy ones, ran in one day to KaipokokBay, at Turnavik Islands. 

As the vessel dropped her anchor he observed a man sitting on therocks eagerly watching the ship. The jolly boat was launched, and asit approached the land the man arose and coming down to the water'sedge, shouted:

"Be that you, Doctor?"

"Yes, Uncle Tom, it is I?" the Doctor shouted back, for he had alreadyrecognized Uncle Tom, one of the fine old men of the coast. 

When Grenfell stepped ashore and took Uncle Tom's hand in a heartygrasp, the old man broke down and cried like a child. Uncle Tom wasevidently in keen distress. 

"Oh, Doctor, I'm so glad you comes. I were lookin' for you, Doctor, "said the old man in a voice broken by emotion. "I were watchin' andwatchin' out here on the rocks, not knowin' whether you'd be comin'this way, but hopin', and prayin' the Lard to send you. He sends you, Doctor. 'Twere the Lard sends you when I'm needin' you, sir, sorelyneedin' you. "

Uncle Tom is seventy years of age. He was born and bred on TheLabrador, but he has not spent all his life there. In his younger dayshe shipped as a sailor, and as a seaman saw many parts of the world. But long ago he returned to his home to settle down as a fisherman anda trapper. 

When the war came, the brave old soul, stirred by patriotism, paid hisown passage and expenses on the mail boat to St. Johns, and offered tovolunteer for service. Of course he was too old and was rejectedbecause of his age. 

Uncle Tom, his patriotism not in the least dampened, returned to hisLabrador home and divided all the fur of his winter's hunt into twoequal piles. To one pile he added a ten dollar bill, and that pile, with the ten dollars added, he shipped at once to the "Patriotic Fund"in St. Johns. He had offered himself, and they would not take him, andthis was all he could do to help win the war, and he did it freely andwistfully, out of his noble, generous patriotic soul. 

"What is the trouble, Uncle Tom?" asked Grenfell, when Uncle Tom hadto some extent regained his composure, and the old man told hisstory. 

He was in hard luck. Late the previous fall (1920) or early in thewinter he had met with a severe accident that had resulted in severalbroken ribs. Navigation had closed, and he was cut off from allsurgical assistance, and his broken ribs had never had attention andhad not healed. He could scarcely draw a breath without pain, or evenrest without pain at night, and he could not go to his trapping path. 

He depended upon his winter's hunt mainly for support, and with no furto sell he was, for the first time in his life, compelled to contracta debt. Then, suddenly, the trader with whom he dealt discontinuedgiving credit. Uncle Tom was stranded high and dry, and when thefishing season came he had no outfit or means of purchasing one, andcould not go fishing. 

Besides his wife there were six children in Uncle Tom's family, thoughnone of them was his own or related to him. When the "flu" came to thecoast in 1918, and one out of every five of the people around TurnavikIslands died, several little ones were left homeless and orphans. Thegenerous hearts of Uncle Tom and his wife opened to them and they tookthese six children into their home as their own. And so it happenedthat Uncle Tom had, and still has, a large family depending upon him. 

"As we neared the cottage, " said Doctor Grenfell, "his good wife, beaming from head to foot as usual, came out to greet us. Optimist tothe last ditch, she _knew_ that somehow provision would be made. She, too, had had her troubles, for twice she had been operated on atIndian Harbor for cancer. "

Uncle Tom must have suffered severely during all those months that hehad lived with his broken ribs uncared for. Now Dr. Grenfell, withoutloss of time, strapped them up good and tight. Mrs. Grenfell suppliedthe six youngsters with a fine outfit of good warm clothes, and whenDr. Grenfell sailed out of Kaipokok Bay Uncle Tom and Mrs. Tom had nofurther cause for worry concerning the source from which provisionswould come for themselves and the six orphans they had adopted. 

These are but a few incidents in the life of the people to whom Dr. Grenfell is devoting his skill and his sympathy year in and year out. I could relate enough of them to fill a dozen volumes like this, butspace is limited. 

There is always hardship and always will be in a frontier land likeLabrador, and Labrador north of Cape Charles is the most primitive offrontier lands. Dr. Grenfell and his helpers find plenty to do inaddition to giving out medicines and dressing wounds. A little boostsometimes puts a family on its feet, raising it from abject poverty toindependence and self-respect. Just a little momentum to push themover the line. Grenfell knows how to do this. 

Several years ago Dr. Grenfell anchored his vessel in Big Bight, andwent ashore to visit David Long. David had had a hard winter, andamong other kindnesses to the family, Dr. Grenfell presented David'stwo oldest boys, lads of fifteen or sixteen or thereabouts, with adozen steel fox traps. Lack of traps had prevented the boys takingpart in trapping during the previous winter. 

The next year after giving the boys the traps, Grenfell again castanchor in Big Bight, and, as usual, rowed ashore to visit the Longs. There was great excitement in their joyous greeting. Somethingimportant had happened. There was no doubt of that! David and Mrs. Long and the two lads and all the little Longs were exuding mystery, but particularly the two lads. Whatever this mysterious secret wasthey could scarce keep it until they had led Dr. Grenfell into thecabin, and he was comfortably seated. 

Then, with vast importance and some show of deliberate dignity, Davidopened a chest. From its depths he drew forth a pelt. Dr. Grenfellwatched with interest while David shook it to make the fur stand outto best advantage, and then held up to his admiring gaze the skin of abeautiful silver fox! The lads had caught it in one of the dozen trapshe had given them. 

"We keeps un for you, " announced David exultantly. 

"It's a prime one, too!" exclaimed the Doctor, duly impressed, as heexamined it. 

"She _be_ that, " emphasized David proudly. "No finer were caught onthe coast the winter. "

"It was a good winter's work, " said the Doctor. 

"'Twere _that_ now! 'Twere a _wonder_ful good winter's work--justt'cotch that un!" enthused Mrs. Long. 

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Doctor Grenfell. 

"We keeps un for you, " said David. "The time was th' winter when wehas ne'er a bit o' grub but what we hunts, all of our flour andmolasses gone. But we don't take _he_ to the trade, _what_ever. Wekeeps _he_ for you. "

Out on a coast island Captain William Bartlett, of Brigus, Newfoundland, kept a fishing station and a supply store. Captain Willis a famous Arctic navigator. He is one of the best known and mostsuccessful masters of the great sealing fleet. He is also a codfisherman of renown and he is the father of Captain "Bob" Bartlett, master of explorer Peary's _Roosevelt_, and it was under Captain WillBartlett's instruction that Captain "Bob" learned seamanship andnavigation. Captain William Bartlett is as fine a man as ever trod adeck. He is just and honest to a degree, and he has a big generousheart. 

Doctor Grenfell accepted the silver fox pelt, and as he steamed downthe coast he ran his vessel in at Captain Bartlett's station. He hadconfidence in Captain Bartlett. 

"Here's a silver fox skin that belongs to David Long's lads, " said he, depositing the pelt on the counter. "I wish you'd take it, and do thebest you can for David, Captain Will. I'll leave it with you. "

Captain Bartlett shook the pelt out, and admired its lustrous beauty. 

"It's a good one! David's lads were in luck when they caught _that_fellow. I'll do the best I can with it, " he promised. 

"They'll take the pay in provisions and other necessaries, " suggestedGrenfell. 

"All right, " agreed Captain Will. "I'll send the goods over to them. "

On his way to the southward a month later Doctor Grenfell again castanchor at Big Bight. David Long and Mrs. Long, the two big lads, andall the little Longs, were as beaming and happy as any family could bein the whole wide world. Captain Bartlett's vessel had run in at BigBight one day, and paid for the silver fox pelt in merchandise. 

The cabin was literally packed with provisions. The family were wellclothed. There was enough and to spare to keep them in affluence, asaffluence goes down on The Labrador, for a whole year and longer. Needand poverty were vanished. Captain Will had, indeed, done well withthe silver fox pelt. 

These are stories of life on The Labrador as Doctor Grenfell foundit. From the day he reached the coast and every day since his hearthas ached with the troubles and poverty existing among the liveyeres. He has been thrilled again and again by incidents of heroic struggleand sacrifice among them. He has done a vast deal to make them morecomfortable and happy, as in the case of David Long. Still, in spiteof it all, there are cases of desperate poverty and suffering there, and doubtless will always be. 

In every city and town and village of our great and prosperous countrypeople throw away clothing and many things that would help to make thelives of the Longs and the hundreds of other liveyeres of the coastwho are toiling for bare existence easier to endure. Enough is wastedevery year, indeed, in any one of our cities to make the wholepopulation of Labrador happy and comfortable. And there's the pity. IfGrenfell could _only_ be given _some_ of this waste to take to them!

From the beginning this thought troubled Doctor Grenfell. And inwinter when the ice shuts the whole coast off from the rest of theworld, he turned his attention to efforts to secure the help of goodpeople the world over in his work. Making others happy is the greatesthappiness that any one can experience, and Grenfell wished others toshare his happiness with him. Nearly every winter for many years hehas lectured in the United States and Canada and Great Britain withthis in view. The Grenfell Association was organized withheadquarters in New York, where money and donations of clothing andother necessaries might be sent. [B]

As we shall see, many great things have been accomplished by DoctorGrenfell and this Association, organized by his friends several yearsago. Every year a great many boxes and barrels of clothing go to himdown on The Labrador, filled with good things for the needy ones. Boysand girls, as well as men and women, send warm things for winter. Notonly clothing, but now and again toys for the Wee Tots find their wayinto the boxes. Just like other children the world over, the Wee Totsof The Labrador like toys to play with and they are made joyous withtoys discarded by the over-supplied youngsters of our land. 

Of course there are foolish people who send useless things too. Scattered through the boxes are now and again found evening clothesfor men and women, silk top hats, flimsy little women's bonnets, dancing pumps, and even crepe-de-chene nighties. These serve asplaythings for the grown-ups, many of whom, especially the Indians andEskimos, are quite childlike with gimcracks. I recall once seeing anEskimo parading around on a warm day in the glory of a full dress coatand silk hat, the coat drawn on over his ordinary clothing. He was theenvy of his friends. 

While Grenfell dispensed medical and surgical treatment, and at thesame time did what he could for the needy, he also turned hisattention to an attack upon the truck system. This system of barterwas responsible for the depths of poverty in which he found theliveyeres. He was mightily wrought up against it, as well he mighthave been, and still is, and he laid plans at once to relieve theliveyeres and northern Newfoundlanders from its grip. 

This was a great undertaking. It was a stroke for freedom, for thetruck system, as we have seen, is simply a species of slavery. Herealized that in attacking it he was to create powerful enemies whowould do their utmost to injure him and interfere with his work. Someof these men he knew would go to any length to drive him off TheLabrador. It required courage, but Grenfell was never lacking incourage. He rolled up his sleeves and went at it. He always did thingsopenly and fearlessly, first satisfying himself he was right. 

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The address of the Grenfell Association is 156 Fifth Avenue, NewYork. 

XIII

SKIPPER TOM'S COD TRAP

Skipper Tom lived, and for aught I know still lives, at Red Bay, alittle settlement on the Straits of Belle Isle, some sixty miles tothe westward of Battle Harbor. 

Along the southern coast of Labrador the cabins are much closertogether than on the east coast, and there are some small settlementsin the bays and harbors, with snug little painted cottages. 

Red Bay, where Skipper Tom lived, is one of these settlements. Itboasts a neat little Methodist chapel, built by the fishermen andtrappers from lumber cut in the near-by forest, and laboriously sawninto boards with the pit saw. 

Skipper Tom lived in one of the snuggest and coziest of the cottages. I remember the cottage and I remember Skipper Tom well. I happenedinto the settlement one evening directly ahead of a winter blizzard, and Skipper Tom and his good family opened their little home to me andsheltered me with a hospitable cordial welcome for three days, untilthe weather cleared and the dogs could travel again and I pushedforward on my journey. 

Skipper Tom stood an inch or two above six feet in his moccasins. Hewas a broad-shouldered, strong-limbed man of the wilderness and thesea. His face was kindly and gentle, but at the same time reflectedfirmness, strength and thoughtfulness. When he spoke you were sure tolisten, for there was always the conviction that he was about to uttersome word of wisdom, or tell you something of importance. The momentyou looked at him and heard his voice you said to yourself: "Here is aman upon whom I can rely and in whom I can place absolute confidence. "

If Skipper Tom promised to do anything, he did it, unless Providenceintervened. If he said he would not do a thing, he would not do it, and you could depend on it. He was a man of his word. That was SkipperTom--big, straight spoken, and as square as any man that ever lived. That is what his neighbors said of him, and that is the way DoctorGrenfell found him. 

Now and again the Methodist missionary visited Red Bay in his circuitof the settlements, and when he came he made his headquarters in thehome of Skipper Tom. On the occasion of these visits he conductedservices in the chapel on Sunday, and on week days visited every homein Red Bay. Skipper Tom was class leader, and looked after thereligious welfare of the little community, presiding over his class inthe chapel, on the great majority of Sundays, when the missionary wasengaged elsewhere. 

The people looked up to Skipper Tom. The folk of Red Bay, like mostpeople who live much in the open and close to nature, have a deepreligious reverence and a wholesome fear of God. As their class leaderSkipper Tom guided them in their worship, and they looked upon him asan example of upright living. So it was that he had a great burden ofresponsibility, with the morals of the community thrust upon him. 

In one respect Skipper Tom was fortunate. He did not inherit a debt, and all his life he had kept free from the truck system under whichhis neighbors toiled hopelessly, year in and year out. 

He had, in one way or another, picked up enough education to read andwrite and figure. He could read and interpret his Bible and he couldcalculate his accounts. He knew that two times two make four. If hesold two hundred quintals[C] of fish at $2. 25 a quintal, he knew that$450. 00 were due him. No trader had a mortgage upon the product of_his_ labor, as they had upon that of his neighbors, and he was freeto sell his fur and fish to whoever would pay him the highest price. 

To be sure there were seasons when Skipper Tom was hard put to it tomake ends meet, and a scant diet and a good many hardships fell to hislot and to the lot of his family. And when he had enough and hisneighbors were in need, he denied himself to see others through, andeven pinched himself to do it. 

But he saved bit by bit until, at the age of forty-five, he was ableto purchase a cod trap, which was valued at about $400. 00. Thepurchase of this cod trap had been the ambition of his life and we canimagine his joy when finally the day came that brought it to him. Itmade more certain his catch of cod, and therefore lessened thepossibility of winters of privation. 

It is interesting to know how the fishermen of The Labrador catch cod. It may be worth while also to explain that when the Labradorman orNewfoundlander speaks of "fish" he means cod in his vocabulary. Atrout is a trout, a salmon is a salmon and a caplin is a caplin, but acod is a fish. He never thinks of anything as fish but cod. 

Early in the season, directly the ice breaks up, a little fish calledthe caplin, which is about the size of a smelt, runs inshore in greatschools of countless millions, to spawn. I have seen them lying inwindrows along the shore where the receding tide had left them highand dry upon the land. This is a great time for the dogs, which feastupon them and grow fat. It is a great time also for the cod, whichfeed on the caplin, and for the fishermen who catch the cod. Codfollow the caplin schools, and this is the season when the fisherman, if he is so fortunate as to own a trap, reaps his greatest harvest. 

The trap is a net with four sides and a bottom, but no top. It is likea great room without a ceiling. On one side is a door or opening. Thetrap is submerged a hundred yards or so from shore, at a point wherethe caplin, with the cod at their heels, are likely to run in. A netattached to the trap at the center of the door is stretched to thenearest shore. 

Like a flock of geese that follows the old gander cod follow theirleaders. When the leaders pilot the school in close to shore inpursuit of the caplin, they encounter the obstructing net, then followalong its side with the purpose of going around it. This leads theminto the trap. Once into the trap they remain there until thefishermen haul their catch. 

The fisherman who owns no trap must rely upon the hook and line. Though sometimes hook and line fishermen meet with good fortune, theresults are much less certain than with the traps and the work muchslower and vastly more difficult. 

When the water is not too deep jigging with unbaited hooks provessuccessful when fish are plentiful. Two large hooks fastened back toback, with lead to act as a sinker, serve the purpose. This doublehook at the end of the line is dropped over the side of the boat andlowered until it touches bottom. Then it is raised about three feet, and from this point "jigged, " or raised and lowered continuously untiltaken by a cod. 

[Illustration: "THE TRAP IS SUBMERGED A HUNDRED YARDS OR SO FROMSHORE"]

In deep water, however, bait is necessary and the squid is a favoritebait. A squid is a baby octopus, or "devil fish. " The squid iscaught by jigging up and down a lead weight filled with wire spikesand painted bright red. It seizes the weight with its tentacles. Whenraised into the boat it releases its hold and squirts a small streamof black inky fluid. In the water, when attacked, this inky fluiddiscolors the water and screens it from its enemy. 

The octopus grows to immense size, with many long arms. TwoNewfoundlanders were once fishing in an open boat, when an octopusattacked the boat, reaching for it with two enormous arms, with thepurpose of dragging it down. One of the fishermen seized an ax thatlay handy in the boat and chopped the arms off. The octopus sank andall the sea about was made black with its screen of ink. The sectionsof arms cut off were nineteen feet in length. They are still onexhibition in the St. Johns Museum, where I have seen them many times. Shortly afterward a dead octopus was found, measuring, with tentaclesspread, forty feet over all. It was not, however, the same octopuswhich attacked the fishermen, for that must have been much larger. 

We can understand, then, how much Skipper Tom's cod trap meant to him. We can visualize his pleasure, and share his joy. The trap was, to alarge extent, insurance against privation and hardship. It was hisreward for the self-denial of himself and his family for years, andrepresented his life's savings. 

When at last the ice cleared from his fishing place and the trap wasset, there was no prouder or happier man on The Labrador than SkipperTom. The trap was in the water when the _Princess May_, one Saturdayafternoon, steamed into Red Bay and Doctor Grenfell accepted thehospitable invitation of Skipper Tom to spend the night at his home. 

It was still early in the season and icebergs were plentiful enough, as, indeed, they are the whole summer long. They are always a menaceto cod traps, for should a berg drift against a trap, that will be theend of the trap forever. Fishermen watch their traps closely, and ifan iceberg comes so near as to threaten it the trap must be removed tosave it. A little lack of watchfulness leads to ruin. 

"The trap's well set, " said Skipper Tom, when Doctor Grenfell inquiredconcerning it. "The ice is keepin' clear, but I watches close. "

"What are the signs of fish?" asked the Doctor. 

"Fine!" said Skipper Tom. "The signs be _wonderful_ fine. "

"I hope you'll have a big year. "

"There's a promise of un, " Skipper Tom grinned happily. "The trap'ssure to do fine for us. "

But nobody knows from one day to another what will happen on TheLabrador. 

According to habit Skipper Tom was up bright and early on Sundaymorning and went for a look at the trap. When presently he returnedto join Doctor Grenfell at breakfast he was plainly worried. 

"There's a berg driftin' down on the trap. We'll have to take her in, "he announced. 

"But 'tis Sunday, " exclaimed his wife. "You'll never be workin' onSunday. "

"Aye, 'tis Sunday and 'tis against my principles to fish on theSabbath day. I never did before, but 'tis to save our cod trap now. The lads and I'll not fish. We'll just haul the trap. "

"The Lard'll forgive _that, what_ever, " agreed his wife. 

Skipper Tom went out when he had eaten, but it was not long until hereturned. 

"I'm not goin' to haul the trap today, " he said quietly anddecisively. "There are those in this harbor, " he added, turning toDoctor Grenfell, "who would say, if I hauled that trap, that 'twouldbe no worse for them to fish on Sunday than for me to haul my trap. Then they'd go fishin' Sundays the same as other days, and none of unwould keep Sunday any more as a day of rest, as the Lard intends us tokeep un, and has told us in His own words we must keep un. I'll nothaul the trap this day, though 'tis sore hard to lose un. "

For a principle, and because he was well aware of his influence uponthe folk of the settlement, Skipper Tom had made his decision tosacrifice his cod trap and the earnings of his lifetime. Hisconscience told him it would be wrong to do a thing that might leadothers to do wrong. When our conscience tells us it is wrong to do athing, it is wrong for us to do it. Conscience is the voice of God. Ifwe disobey our conscience God will soon cease to speak to us throughit. That is the way every criminal in the world began his downwardcareer. He disobeyed his conscience, and continued to disobey it untilhe no longer heard it. 

Skipper Tom never disobeyed his conscience. Now the temptation wasstrong. His whole life's savings were threatened to be swept away. There was still time to save the trap. 

But Skipper Tom was strong. He turned his back upon the cod trap andthe iceberg and temptation, and as he and Doctor Grenfell climbed thehill to the chapel he greeted his neighbors calmly and cheerily. 

Every eye in Red Bay was on Skipper Tom that day. Every person knew ofthe cod trap and its danger, and all that it meant to Skipper Tom, andthe temptation Skipper Tom was facing; but from all outward appearancehe had dismissed the cod trap and the iceberg from his mind. 

When dusk fell that night the iceberg was almost upon the cod trap. 

FOOTNOTES:

[C] Pronounced kentel in Labrador; 112 pounds. 

XIV

THE SAVING OF RED BAY

At an early hour on Sunday evening Skipper Tom went to his bed asusual, and it is quite probable that within a period of ten minutesafter his head rested upon his pillow he was sleeping peacefully. There was nothing else to do. He had no doubt that his cod trap waslying under the iceberg a hopeless wreck. 

Well, what of it? In any case he had acted as his conscience had himact. He knew that there were those who would say that his consciencewas over-sensitive. Perhaps it was, but it was _his_ conscience, nottheirs. He was class leader in the chapel. He never forgot that. Andhe was the leading citizen of the settlement. At whatever cost, hemust needs prove a good example to his neighbors in his deeds. Worrywould not help the case in the least. Too much of it wouldincapacitate him. He had lived forty-four years without a cod trap, and he had not starved, and he could finish his days without one. 

"The Lard'll take care of us, " Skipper Tom often said when they werein a tight pinch, but he always added, "if we does our best to makethe best of things and look after ourselves and the things the Lardgives us to do with. He calls on us to do that. "

Though Skipper Tom could scarce see how his trap might have escapeddestruction he had no intention of resting upon that supposition andperhaps he still entertained a lingering hope that it had escaped. There is no doubt he prayed for its preservation, and he had strongfaith in prayer. At any rate, at half past eleven o'clock that nighthe was up and dressed, and routed his two sons out of their beds. Atthe stroke of midnight, waiting a tick longer perhaps, to be quitesure that Sunday had gone and Monday morning had arrived, he and hissons pushed out in their big boat. 

Skipper Tom would not be doing his best if he did not make certain ofwhat had actually happened to the cod trap. Every one in Red Bay saidit had been destroyed, and no doubt of that. But no one knew for acertainty, and there _might_ have been an intervention of DivineProvidence. 

"The Lard helped us to get that trap, " said Skipper Tom, "and 'tishard to believe he'll take un away from us so soon, for I tried not tobe vain about un, only just a bit proud of un and glad I has un. IfHe's took un from me I'll know 'twere to try my faith, and I'll nevercomplain. "

Down they rowed toward the iceberg, whose polished surface gleamedwhite in the starlight. 

"She's right over where the trap were set! The trap's gone, " said oneof the sons. 

"I'm doubtin', " Skipper Tom was measuring the distance critically withhis eye. 

"The trap's tore to pieces, " insisted the son with discouragement inhis voice. 

"The berg's to the lee'ard of she, " declared Skipper Tom finally. 

"Tis too close t' shore. "

"'Tis to the lee'ard!"

"Is you sure, now, Pop?"

"The trap's safe and sound! The berg _is_ t' the lee'ard!"

Tom was right. A shift of tide had come at the right moment to savethe trap. 

"The Lard is good to us, " breathed Skipper Tom. "He've saved our trap!He always takes care of them that does what they feels is right. We'llthank the Lard, lads. "

In the trap was a fine haul of cod, and when they had removed the fishthe trap was transferred to a new position where it would be quitesafe until the menacing iceberg had drifted away. 

There were seventeen families living in Red Bay. As settlements go, down on The Labrador, seventeen cabins, each housing a family, isdeemed a pretty good sized place. 

At Red Bay, as elsewhere on the coast, bad seasons for fishing camenow and again. These occur when the ice holds inshore so long that thebest run of cod has passed before the men can get at them; or becausefor some unexplained reason the cod do not appear at all along certainsections of the coast. When two bad seasons come in succession, starvation looms on the horizon. 

Seasons when the ice held in, Skipper Tom could not set his cod trap. When this happened he was as badly off as any of his neighbors. In aseason when there were no fish to catch, it goes without saying thathis trap brought him no harvest. Fishing and trapping is a gamble atbest, and Skipper Tom, like his neighbors, had to take his chance, andsometimes lost. If he accumulated anything in the good seasons, heused his accumulation to assist the needy ones when the bad seasonscame, and, in the end, though he kept out of debt, he could not getahead, try as he would. 

The seasons of 1904 and 1905 were both poor seasons, and when, in thefall of 1905, Doctor Grenfell's vessel anchored in Red Bay Harbor hefound that several of the seventeen families had packed theirbelongings and were expectantly awaiting his arrival in the hope thathe would take them to some place where they might find betteropportunities. They were destitute and desperate. 

There was nowhere to take them where their condition would be better. Grenfell, already aware of their desperate poverty, had been givingthe problem much consideration. The truck system was directlyresponsible for the conditions at Red Bay and for similar conditionsat every other harbor along the coast. Something had to be done, anddone at once. 

With the assistance of Skipper Tom and one or two others, DoctorGrenfell called a meeting of the people of the settlement thatevening, to talk the matter over. The men and women were despondentand discouraged, but nearly all of them believed they could get onwell enough if they could sell their fish and fur at a fair valuation, and could buy their supplies at reasonable prices. 

All of them declared they could no longer subsist at Red Bay upon therestricted outfits allowed them by the traders, which amounted tolittle or nothing when the fishing failed. They preferred to gosomewhere else and try their luck where perhaps the traders would bemore liberal. If they remained at Red Bay under the old conditionsthey would all starve, and they might as well starve somewhere else. 

Doctor Grenfell then suggested his plan. It was this. They would forma company. They would open a store for themselves. Through the storetheir furs and fish would be sent to market and they would get just asbig a price for their products as the traders got. They would buy thestore supplies at wholesale just as cheaply as the traders could buythem. They would elect one of their number, who could keep accounts, to be storekeeper. They would buy the things they needed from thestore at a reasonable price, and at the end of the year each would becredited with his share of the profits. In other words, they wouldorganize a co-operative store and trading system and be their owntraders and storekeepers. 

This meant breaking off from the traders with whom they had alwaysdealt and all hope of ever securing advance of supplies from themagain. It was a hazardous venture for the fishermen to make. They didnot understand business, but they were desperate and ready for anychance that offered relief, and in the end they decided to do asDoctor Grenfell suggested. 

Each man was to have a certain number of shares of stock in the newenterprise. The store would be supplied at once, and each family wouldbe able to get from it what was needed to live upon during the winter. Any fish they might have on hand would be turned over to the store, credited as cash, and sent to market at once, in a schooner to bechartered for the purpose and this schooner would bring back to RedBay the winter's supplies. 

A canvass then was made with the result that among the seventeenfamilies the entire assets available for purchasing supplies amountedto but eighty-five dollars. This was little better than nothing. 

Doctor Grenfell had faith in Skipper Tom and the others. They werehonest and hard-working folk. He knew that all they required was anopportunity to make good. He was determined to give them theopportunity, and he announced, without hesitation, that he wouldpersonally lend them enough to pay for the first cargo and establishthe enterprise. Can any one wonder that the people love Grenfell? Hewas the one man in the whole world that would have done this, or whohad the courage to do it. He knew well enough that he was calling downupon his own head the wrath of the traders. 

The schooner was chartered, the store was stocked and opened, andthere was enough to keep the people well-fed, well-clothed, happy andcomfortable through the first year. 

In the beginning there were some of the men who were actually afraidto have it known they were interested in the store, such was the fearwith which the traders had ruled them. They were so timid, indeed, about the whole matter that they requested no sign designating thebuilding as a store be placed upon it. That, they declared, would makethe traders angry, and no one knew to what lengths these formerslaveholders might go to have revenge upon them. It is no easy matterto shake oneself free from the traditions of generations and it washard for these trappers and fishermen to realize that they were freedfrom their ancient bondage. But Doctor Grenfell fears no man, and, with his usual aggressiveness, he nailed upon the front of the store abig sign, reading:

 RED BAY CO-OPERATIVE STORE. 

It was during the winter of 1905-1906 and ten years after thelaunching of the enterprise and the opening of the store, that I droveinto Red Bay with a train of dogs one cold afternoon. Skipper Tom wasmy host, and after we had a cheery cup of tea, he said:

"Come out. I wants to show you something. "

He led me a little way down from his cottage to the store, andpointing up at the big bold sign, which Grenfell had nailed there, heannounced proudly:

"'Tis _our_ co-operative store, the first on the whole coast. DoctorGrenfell starts un for us. "

Then after a pause:

"Doctor Grenfell be a wonderful man! He be a man of God. "

As expected, there was a furore among the little traders when the newswas spread that a co-operative store had been opened in Red Bay. Thebig Newfoundland traders and merchants were heartily in favor of it, and even stood ready to give the experiment their support. 

But the little traders who had dealt with the Red Bay settlement forso long, and had bled the people and grown fat upon their labors, werebitterly hostile. They began a campaign of defamation against DoctorGrenfell and his whole field of work. They questioned his honesty, andcriticised the conduct of his hospitals. They even enlisted thesupport of a Newfoundland paper in their opposition to him. They dideverything in their power to drive him from the coast, so that theywould have the field again in their own greedy hands. It was adastardly exhibition of selfishness, but there are people in the worldwho will sell their own souls for profit. 

Grenfell went on about his business of making people happier. He wasin the right. If the traders would fight he would give it to them. Hewas never a quitter. He was the same Grenfell that beat up the big boyat school, years before. He was going to have his way about it, and dowhat he went to Labrador to do. He was going to do more. He wasdetermined now to improve the trading conditions of the people ofLabrador and northern Newfoundland, as well as to heal their sick. 

From the day the co-operative store was opened in Red Bay not one fishand not one pelt of fur has ever gone to market from that harborthrough a trader. The store has handled everything and it hasprospered and the people have prospered beyond all expectation. Everyone at Red Bay lives comfortably now. The debt to Doctor Grenfell waslong since paid and cancelled. And it is characteristic of him that hewould not accept one cent of interest. Shares of stock in the store, originally issued at five dollars a share, are now worth one hundredand four dollars a share, the difference being represented by profitsthat have not been withdrawn. Every share is owned by the people ofthe prosperous little settlement. 

Up and down the Labrador coast and in northern Newfoundland nineco-operative stores have been established by Doctor Grenfell sincethat autumn evening when he met the Red Bay folk in conference andthey voted to stake their all, even their life, in the venture thatproved so successful. Two or three of the stores had to discontinuebecause the people in the localities where they were placed lived sofar apart that there were not enough of them to make a storesuccessful. 

Every one of these stores was a great venture to the people who casttheir lot with it. True they had little in money, but the stake oftheir venture was literally in each case their life. The man who neverventures never succeeds. Opportunity often comes to us in the form ofa venture. Sometimes, it is a desperate venture too. 

Doctor Grenfell had to fight the traders all along the line. They evenhad the Government of Newfoundland appoint a Commission to inquireinto the operation of the Missions as a "menace to honest trade. " Amenace to honest trade! Think of it!

The result of the investigation proved that Grenfell and his missionwas doing a big self-sacrificing work, and the finest kind of work tohelp the poor folk, and were doing it at a great cost and at noprofit to the mission. So down went the traders in defeat. 

The fellow that's right is the fellow that wins in the end. The fellowthat's wrong is the fellow that is going to get the worst of it at theproper time. Grenfell only tried to help others. He never reaped apenny of personal gain. He always came out on top. 

It's a good thing to be a scrapper sometimes, but if you're a scrapperbe a good one. Grenfell is a scrapper when it is necessary, and whenhe has to scrap he goes at it with the best that's in him. He neverdoes things half way. He never was a quitter. When he starts out to doanything he does it. 

XV

A LAD OF THE NORTH

The needs of the children attracted Dr. Grenfell's attention from thebeginning. A great many of them were neglected because the parentswere too poor to provide for them properly. Those who were orphanedwere thrown upon the care of their neighbors, and though the neighborswere willing they were usually too poor to take upon themselves thisadded burden. 

There were no schools save those conducted by the Brethren of theMoravian missions among the Eskimos to the northward, and these wereEskimo schools where the people were taught to read and write in theirown strange language, and to keep their accounts. But for the Englishspeaking folk south of the Eskimo coast no provision for schools hadever been made. 

The hospitals were overflowing with the sick or injured, and there wasno room for children, unless they were in need of medical or surgicalattention. There was great need of a home for the orphans where theywould be cared for and receive motherly training and attention andcould go to school. 

Dr. Grenfell had thought about this a great deal. He had made thebest arrangements possible for the actually destitute little ones byfinding more or less comfortable homes for them, and seekingcontributions from generous folk in the United States, Canada andGreat Britain to pay for their expense. 

But it was not, perhaps, until Pomiuk, a little Eskimo boy, came underhis care that he finally decided that the establishment of achildren's home could no longer be delayed. 

Pomiuk's home was in the far north of Labrador, where no trees grow, and where the seasons are quite as frigid as those of northernGreenland. In summer he lived with his father and mother in a skintent, or tupek, and in winter in a snow igloo, or iglooweuk. 

Pomiuk's mother cooked the food over the usual stone lamp, which alsoserved to heat their igloo in winter. This lamp, which was referred toin an earlier chapter, and described as a hollowed stone in the formof a half moon, was an exceedingly crude affair, measuring eighteeninches long on its straight side and nine inches broad at its widestpart. When it was filled with oil squeezed from a piece of sealblubber, the blubber was suspended over it at the back that the heat, when the wick of moss was lighted, would cause the blubber oil tocontinue to drip and keep the lamp supplied with oil. The lamp gaveforth a smoky, yellow flame. This was the only fireside that littlePomiuk knew. You and I would not think it a very cheerful one, perhaps, but Pomiuk was accustomed to cold and he looked upon it asquite comfortable and cheerful enough. 

Ka-i-a-chou-ouk, Pomiuk's father, was a hunter and fisherman, as areall the Eskimos. He moved his tupek in summer, or built his igloo ofblocks of snow in winter, wherever hunting and fishing were the best, but always close to the sea. 

Here, under the shadow of mighty cliffs and towering, ruggedmountains, by the side of the great water, Pomiuk was born and grewinto young boyhood, and played and climbed among the mountain crags oralong the ocean shore with other boys. He loved the rugged, nakedmountains, they stood so firm and solid! No storm or gale could evermake them afraid, or weaken them. Always they were the same, toweringhigh into the heavens, untrod and unchanged by man, just as they hadstood facing the arctic storms through untold ages. 

From the high places he could look out over the sea, where icebergsglistened in the sunshine, and sometimes he could see the sail of afishing schooner that had come out of the mysterious places beyond thehorizon. He loved the sea. Day and night in summer the sound of surfpounding ceaselessly upon the cliffs was in his ears. It was music tohim, and his lullaby by night. 

But he loved the sea no less in winter when it lay frozen and silentand white. As far as his vision reached toward the rising sun, theendless plain of ice stretched away to the misty place where the iceand sky met. Pomiuk thought it would be a fine adventure, some night, when he was grown to be a man and a great hunter, to take the dogs andkomatik and drive out over the ice to the place from which the sunrose, and be there in the morning to meet him. He had no doubt the sunrose out of a hole in the ice, and it did not seem so far away. 

Pomiuk's world was filled with beautiful and wonderful things. Heloved the bright flowers that bloomed under the cliffs when the wintersnows were gone, and the brilliant colors that lighted the sky andmountains and sea, when the sun set of evenings. He loved the mists, and the mighty storms that sent the sea rolling in upon the cliffs insummer. He never ceased to marvel at the aurora borealis, which bynight flashed over the heavens in wondrous streams of fire and lightedthe darkened world. His father told him the aurora borealis was thespirits of their departed people dancing in the sky. He learned theways of the wild things in sea and on land and never tired offollowing the tracks of beasts in the snow, or of watching the sealssunning themselves on rocks or playing about in the water. 

The big wolf dogs were his special delight. His father kept nine ofthem, and many an exciting ride Pomiuk had behind them when his fathertook him on the komatik to hunt seals or to look at fox traps, or tovisit the Trading Post. 

When he was a wee lad his father made for him a small dog whip ofbraided walrus hide. This was Pomiuk's favorite possession. Hepracticed wielding it, until he became so expert he could flip apebble no larger than a marble with the tip end of the long lash; andhe could snap and crack the lash with a report like a pistol shot. 

As he grew older and stronger he practiced with his father's whip, until he became quite as expert with that as with his own smaller one. This big whip had a wooden handle ten inches in length, and a supplelash of braided walrus hide thirty-five feet long. The lash was aboutan inch in diameter where it joined the handle, tapering to a thin tipat the end. 

One summer day, when Pomiuk was ten years of age, a strange shipdropped anchor off the rocky shore where Pomiuk's father and severalother Eskimo families had pitched their tupeks, while they fished inthe sea near by for cod or hunted seals. A boat was launched from theship, and as it came toward the shore all of the excited Eskimos fromthe tupeks, men, women and children, and among them Pomiuk, ran downto the landing place to greet the visitors, and as they ran every oneshouted, "Kablunak! Kablunak!" which meant, "Stranger! Stranger!"

Some white men and an Eskimo stepped out of the boat, and in thehospitable, kindly manner of the Eskimo Pomiuk's father and Pomiuk andtheir friends greeted the strangers with handshakes and cheerfullaughter, and said "Oksunae" to each as he shook his hand, which isthe Eskimo greeting, and means "Be strong. "

The Eskimo that came with the ship was from an Eskimo settlementcalled Karwalla, in Hamilton Inlet, on the east of Labrador, but along way to the south of Nachvak Bay where Pomiuk's people lived. Hecould speak English as well as Eskimo, and acted as interpreter forthe strangers. 

This Eskimo explained that the white men had come from America toinvite some of the Labrador Eskimos to go to America to see theircountry. People from all the nations of the world, he said, were togather there to meet each other and to get acquainted. They were tobring strange and wonderful things with them, that the people of eachnation might see how the people of other nations made and used theirthings, and how they lived. They wished the Labrador Eskimos to comeand show how they dressed their skins and made their skin clothing andskin boats, and to bring with them dogs and sledges, and harpoons andother implements of the hunt. 

The white men promised it would be a most wonderful experience forthose that went. They agreed to take them and all their things on theship and after the big affair in America was over bring them back totheir homes, and give them enough to make them all rich for the restof their lives. 

The Eskimos were naturally quite excited with the glowingdescriptions, the opportunity to travel far into new lands, and theprospect of wealth and happiness offered them when they again returnedto their Labrador homes. Pomiuk and his mother were eager for thejourney, but his father did not care to leave the land and the life heknew. He decided that he had best remain in Labrador and hunt; but heagreed that Pomiuk's mother might go to make skin boots and clothing, and Pomiuk might go with her and take the long dog whip to show howwell he could use it. 

And so one day Pomiuk and his mother said goodbye to his father, andwith several other Eskimos sailed away to the United States, destinedto take their place as exhibits at the great World's Fair in Chicago. 

The suffering of the Eskimos in the strange land to which they weretaken was terrible. In Labrador they lived in the open, breathingGod's fresh air. In Chicago they were housed in close and often poorlyventilated quarters. The heat was unbearable, and through all the longhours of day and night when they were on exhibition they werecompelled to wear their heavy winter skin or fur clothing. They wereunaccustomed to the food. Some of them died, and the white men buriedthem with little more thought or ceremony than was given those oftheir dogs that died. 

Pomiuk, in spite of his suffering, kept his spirits. He loved to wieldhis long dog whip. It was his pride. Visitors at the fair pitchednickles and dimes into the enclosure where the Eskimos and theirexhibits were kept. Pomiuk with the tip of his thirty-five foot lashwould clip the coins, and laugh with delight, for every coin heclipped was to be his. He was the life of the Eskimo exhibit. Visitorscould always distinguish his ringing laugh. He was always smiling. 

The white men who had induced the Eskimos to leave their homes failedto keep their promise when the fair closed. The poor Eskimos wereabandoned in a practically penniless condition and no means wasprovided to return them to their homes. To add to the distress ofPomiuk's mother, Pomiuk fell and injured his hip. Proper surgicaltreatment was not supplied, the injury, because of this neglect, didnot heal, and Pomiuk could no longer run about or walk or even standupon his feet. 

Those of the Eskimos who survived the heat and unaccustomed climate, in some manner, God alone knows how, found their way to Newfoundland. Pomiuk, in his mother's care, was among them. The hospitality of bighearted fishermen of Newfoundland, who sheltered and fed the Eskimosin their cabins, kept them through the winter. It was a period ofintense suffering for poor little Pomiuk, whose hip constantly grewworse. 

When summer came again, Doctor Frederick Cook, the explorer, bound tothe Arctic on an exploring expedition, heard of the stranded Eskimos, and carried some of them to their Labrador homes on his ship; and whenthe schooners of the great fishing fleets sailed north, kindlyskippers made room aboard their little craft for others of thedestitute Eskimos. Thus Pomiuk, once so active and happy, now ahelpless cripple, found his way back on a fishing schooner toLabrador. 

We can understand, perhaps, the joy and hope with which Pomiuk lookedagain upon the rock-bound coast that he loved so well. On _these_shores he had lived care-free and happy and full of bounding healthuntil the deceitful white men had lured him away. He had no doubt thatonce again in his own native land and among his own people in oldfamiliar surroundings, he would soon get well and be as strong as everhe had been to run over the rocks and to help his father with the dogsand traps and at the fishing. 

Pomiuk could scarcely wait to meet his father. He laughed andchattered eagerly of the good times he and his father would havetogether. He was deeply attached to his father who had always beenkind and good to him, and who loved him better, even, than his motherloved him. 

Pomiuk's heart beat high, when at last, one day, the vessel drew intothe narrow channel that leads between high cliffs into Nachvak Bay. Helooked up at the rocky walls towering two thousand feet above him oneither side. They were as firm and unchanging as always. He lovedthem, and his eyes filled with happy tears. Just beyond, at the otherend of the channel, lay the broad bay and the white buildings of theHudson's Bay Company's trading post, where his father used to bringhim sometimes with the dogs in winter or in the boat in summer. Whatfine times he and his father had on those excursions! And somewhere, back there, camped in his tupek, was his father. What a surprise hiscoming would be to his father!

Pomiuk was carried ashore at the Post. Eskimos camped near-by crowdeddown to greet him and his mother and the other wanderers who hadreturned with them. It would be a short journey now in the boat to hisfather's fishing place and his own dear home in their snug tupek. Whata lot of things he had to tell his father! And at home, with hisfather's help he would soon be well and strong again. 

Then he heard some one say his father was dead. Dazed with grief hewas taken to one of the Eskimo tupeks where he was to make his home. All that day and for days afterward, days of deep, unspoken sorrow, the thought that he would never again hear his father's dear voice wasin his mind and forcing itself upon him. The world had grown suddenlydark for the crippled boy. All of his fine plans were vanished. 

One day late that fall Dr. Grenfell found Pomiuk lying helpless andnaked upon the rocks near the tupek of the Eskimo who had taken himin. The little lad was carried aboard the hospital ship. He was washedand his diseased hip dressed, he was given clean warm clothing towear, and altogether he was made more comfortable than he had been inmany months. Then, with Pomiuk as a patient on board, the ship steamedaway. 

Thus Pomiuk bade goodbye to his home, to the towering cliffs andrugged sturdy mountains that he loved so well, and to his people. Thedear days when he was so jolly and happy in health were only a memory, though he was to know much happiness again. Perhaps, lying helplessupon the deck of the hospital ship, he shed a tear as he recalled thefine trips he used to have when his father took him to the post withdogs and komatik in winter, or he and his father went cruising in theboat along the coast in summer. And now he would never see his dearfather again, and could never be a great hunter like his father, as hehad once dreamed he would be. 

But the cruise was a pleasant one, with every moment something new toattract his attention. Dr. Grenfell was as kind and considerate as afather. Pomiuk had never known such care and attention. His diseasedhip was dressed regularly, and had not been so free from pain since itwas injured. Appetizing, wholesome meals were served him. Everyoneaboard ship did everything possible for his comfort and entertainment. 

Pomiuk was taken to the Indian Harbor Hospital where he remained untilthe cold of winter settled, and the hospital was closed for the winterseason. Then he was removed to a comfortable home up the Bay. Undercareful surgical treatment his hip improved until he was able to getabout well on crutches. 

There was never a happier boy in the world than this little Eskimocripple in his new surroundings and with his new friends. He laughedand played about quite as though he had the use of his limbs, and hadforgotten his affliction. During the winter one of the goodmissionaries from the Moravian Mission at Hopedale visited him andbaptized him "Gabriel"--the angel of comfort. He was a comfort indeedand a joy to those who had his care. 

XVI

MAKING A HOME FOR THE ORPHANS

The next winter Pomiuk was taken to the hospital at Battle Harborwhere he could receive more constant surgical treatment. He was a joyto the doctors and nurses. His face was always happy and smiling. Henever complained, and his amiable disposition endeared him not only tothe doctors and nurses but to the other patients as well. 

But Pomiuk was never to be well again. The diseased hip was beyondcontrol, and was wearing down his constitution and his strength. Oneday he fell suddenly very ill. For a week he lay in bed, at timesunconscious, and then early one morning passed away. 

Many shed tears for Pomiuk when he was gone. They missed his joyouslaughter and his smiling face. Doctor Grenfell missed him sorely. Hecould not forget the suffering, naked little boy that he had rescuedfrom the rocks of Nachvak Bay, and he decided that some provisionshould be made to care for the other orphaned, homeless, neglectedchildren of Labrador. In some way, he decided, the funds for such ahome had to be found, though he had no means then at his disposal forthe purpose. He further decided that the home must not be aninstitution merely but a real home made pleasant for the boys andgirls, where they would have motherly care and sympathy, and wherethey should have a school to go to like the children of our ownfavoured land. 

With cheerful optimism and heroic determination Doctor Grenfell setfor himself the task of establishing such a home. And in the end greatthings grew out of the suffering and death of Gabriel Pomiuk. Thesplendid courage and cheerfulness of the little Eskimo lad was toresult in happiness for many other little sufferers. Now, as always itwas, with Doctor Grenfell, "I can if I will, "--none of the uncertaintyof, "I will if I can. " He pitched into the work of raising money tobuild that children's home. He lectured, and wrote, and talked aboutit in his usual enthusiastic way, and money began to come to him fromgood people all over the world. At length enough was raised and thehome was built. 

He had already picked up and taken into his mission family so manyboys and girls, orphans or otherwise, that were without home orshelter, and that he could not leave behind him to suffer and die, that he had nearly enough on his hands to populate the new buildingbefore it was ready for them. Indeed he soon found himself almost inthe position of the "old woman that lived in a shoe, " and "had somany children she didn't know what to do. " His big kind fatherly heartwould never permit him to abandon a homeless child, and so he tookthem under his care, and somehow always managed to provide for them. 

It was about the time of Pomiuk's death, I believe, that the first ofthese children came to him. One day, when cruising north in the_Strathcona_, he was told that a family living in an isolated andlonely spot on the Labrador coast required the attention of a doctor. He answered the call at once. 

When he approached the bleak headland where the cabin stood, and hisvessel hove her anchor, he was quite astonished that no one came outof the cabin to offer welcome, as is the custom with Labradormeneverywhere when vessels anchor near their homes. He and his mate wereput ashore in a boat, and as they walked up the trail to the cabinstill no one appeared and no smoke issued from the stovepipe, which, rising through the roof, served as a chimney. When he lifted the latchhe was quite decided no one, after all, was at home. 

Upon entering the cabin a shocking scene presented itself. The motherof the family lay upon the bed with wide-open stare. Doctor Grenfell'spracticed eye told him she was dead. The father, a Scotch fishermanand trapper, was stretched upon the floor, helplessly ill, and a hastyexamination proved that he was dying. Five frightened, hungry, coldlittle children were huddled in a corner. 

That night the father died, though every effort was made to revive himand save his life. Grenfell and his crew gave the man and woman asdecent a Christian burial as the wilderness and conditions wouldpermit, and when all was over the Doctor found five small children onhis hands. 

An uncle of the children lived upon the coast and this unclevolunteered to take one of them into his home. The other four DoctorGrenfell carried south on the hospital ship. There was no properprovision for their care at St. Anthony, his headquarters hospital, and he advertised in a New England paper for homes for them. Oneresponse was received, and this from the wife of a New England farmer, offering to provide for two. The Doctor sent two to the farm, theother two remaining at St. Anthony hospital. 

The next child to come to him was a baby of three years. The child'sfather had died and the mother married a widower with a large familyof his own. He was a hard-hearted rascal, and the mother was a selfishwoman with small love for her baby. The man declined to permit her totake it into his home and she left it in a mud hut, a cellar-likeplace, with no other floor than the earth. A kind-hearted woman, wholived near by, ran in now and again to see the baby and to take itscraps of food and give it some care. She could not adopt it, for sheand her husband were scarce able to feed the many mouths in their ownfamily. 

So alone this tiny little girl of three lived in the mud hut throughthe long days and the longer and darker nights. There was no mother'sknee at which to kneel; no one to teach her to lisp her first prayer;no one to tuck her snugly into a little white bed; no one to kiss herbefore she slept. O, how lonely she must have been! Think of thosechilly Labrador nights, when she huddled down on the floor in theragged blanket that was her bed! How many nights she must have criedherself to sleep with loneliness and fear!

Here, in the mud hut, Doctor Grenfell found her one day. She wassitting on the earthen floor, talking to herself and playing with abit of broken crockery, her only toy. He gathered her into his bigstrong arms and I have no doubt that tears filled his eyes as helooked into her innocent little face and carried her down to his boat. 

In a locker on his ship, the _Strathcona_, there were neat littleclothes that thoughtful children in our own country had sent him togive to the destitute little ones of Labrador. He turned the baby girlover to his big mate, who had babies of his own at home. The matestroked her tangled hair with a brawney hand, and talked baby talk toher, and as she snuggled close in his fatherly arms, he carried herbelow decks. The baby's mother would not have known her littledaughter if, two hours later, she had gone aboard the _Strathcona_ andheard the peals of laughter and seen the happy little thing, bathed, dressed in neat clean clothes, and well fed, playing on deck with apretty doll that Doctor Grenfell had somewhere found. 

It was on his last cruise south late one fall, and not long beforenavigation closed, that Doctor Grenfell learned that a family ofliveyeres encamped on one of the coastal islands was in a destitutecondition, without food and practically unsheltered and unclothed. 

He went immediately in search, steaming nearly around the island, anddiscerning no sign of life he had decided that the people had gone, when a little curl of smoke rising from the center of the islandcaught his eye. He at once brought his vessel to, let go the anchor, lowered away a boat and accompanied by his mate pulled ashore. Makingthe boat fast the two men scrambled up the rocks and set out in thedirection from which they had seen the smoke rise. 

Near the center of the island they suddenly brought up before a cliff, against which, supported by poles, was stretched a sheet of oldcanvas, pieced out by bits of matting and bagging, to form the roof ofa lean-to shelter. In front of the lean-to a fire burned, and underthe shelter by the fire sat a scantily clad, bedraggled woman. In herarms she held a bundle of rags, which proved to envelop a tiny newborn baby, nursing at her breast. 

A little girl of five, barefooted and ragged, slunk timidly back asthe strangers approached. The woman grunted a greeting, but did notrise. 

"Where is your man?" asked Doctor Grenfell. 

"He's right handy, huntin' gulls, " she answered. 

Upon inquiry it was learned that there were three boys in the familyand that they were also "somewheres handy about. " A search discoveredtwo of them, lads of seven and eight, practically naked, but tough aslittle bears, feeding upon wild berries. Their bodies were tannedbrown by sun and wind, and streaked and splotched with the blue andred stain of berry juice. They were jabbering contentedly and bothwere as plump and happy in their foraging as a pair of young cubs. 

Snow had begun to fall before Doctor Grenfell followed by the two ladsreturned to the fire at the cliff, soon to be joined by the boys'father, tall, gaunt and bearded. His hair, untrimmed for many weeks, was long and snarled. He was nearly barefooted and his clothing hungin tatters. In one hand he carried a rusty old trade gun, (asingle-barreled, old-fashioned muzzle loading shotgun), in the otherhe clutched by its wing a gull that he had recently shot. Followingthe father came an older lad, perhaps fourteen years of age, littlebetter clothed than his two brothers and as wild and unkempt inappearance as the father. 

"Evenin', " greeted the man, as he leaned his gun against the cliff anddropped the gull by its side. 

It was cold. The now thickly falling snow spoke loudly of the Arcticwinter so near at hand. The liveyere and his family, however, seemednot to feel or mind the chill in the least, and apparently gave nomore thought to the morrow or the coming winter, upon whose frigidthreshold they stood, than did the white-winged gulls flying low overthe water. 

Fresh wood was placed upon the fire, and Grenfell and the mate joinedthe family circle around the blaze. 

"Do you kill much game here on the island?" asked Doctor Grenfell. 

"One gull is all I gets today, " announced the man. "They bides too farout. I has no shot. I uses pebbles for shot, and 'tis hard to hit unwith pebbles. 'Tis wonderful hard to knock un down with no shot. "

"What have you to eat?" inquired the Doctor. "Have you any provisionson hand?"

"All us has is the gull, " the man glanced toward the limp bird. "Weeats berries. "

"'Tis the Gover'me't's place to give us things, " broke in the woman ina high key. "The Gov'me't don't give us no flour and nothin'. "

"It's snowing and the berries will soon be covered, " suggestedGrenfell. "You can't live without something to eat and now winter iscoming you'll need a house to live in. You haven't even a tent. "

"Us would make out and the Gover'me't gave us a bit o' flour and teaand some clodin' (clothing), " harped the woman. "The Gover'me't don'tgive un to us. The Gover'me't folks don't care what becomes o' we. "

"How are you going to take care of these children this winter?" askedGrenfell. "You can't feed them and without clothing they'll freeze. Let us take them with us. We'll give them plenty to eat and clothethem well. "

"Don't be sayin' now you'll let un go!" broke in the mother in a highvoice, turning to the man, who stood mute. "Don't be givin' away yourown flesh and blood now! Don't let un go. "

"You can't keep yourselves and these children alive through thewinter. Some of you will starve or freeze, " persisted Grenfell. "Suppose you let us have the two young lads and the little maid. We'lltake good care of them and we'll give you some clothing we have aboardthe vessel, and some flour and tea to start you. "

"And a bit o' shot for my gun?" asked the man, showing interest. 

"Don't be givin' away your own flesh and blood!" interjected the womanin the same high key. "'Tis the Gov'me't's place to be givin' us whatwe needs, clodin' and grub too. "

"I'll let you have one o' th' lads and you lets me have a bit o'shot, " the man compromised. 

The sympathetic mate, with no intention of giving the man anopportunity to change his mind, seized the naked boy nearest him, tucked the lad, kicking and struggling, under one arm, and started forthe boat, but upon Doctor Grenfell's suggestion waited, with the ladstill under his arm, for developments. 

In the beginning, to be sure, Doctor Grenfell had intended to issuesupplies to the man, whether or no. But no matter how much or whatsupplies were issued there was no doubt these people would be reducedto severe suffering before summer came again. He wished to save thechildren from want, and to give them a chance to make good in theworld as he believed they would with opportunity. 

The oldest boy could be of assistance to his father in the winterhunting, and he could scarce expect the mother to give up her new-bornbaby. Therefore negotiations were confined to a view of securing thetwo small boys and the little girl. 

Presently, in spite of violent protests from the mother, the fatherwas moved, by promises of additional supplies, to consent to Grenfelltaking the other boy. And immediately the man had said, "Take unboth, " the mate seized the second lad and with a youngster strugglingunder each arm, and with four bare legs kicking in a wild but vaineffort for freedom and two pairs of lusty young lungs howlingrebellion, he strode exultantly away through the falling snow to theboat with his captives. 

No arguments and no amount of promised stores could move the fatherto open his mouth again, and Grenfell was finally compelled to becontent with the two boys and to leave the little girl behind him toface the hardships and rigors of a northern winter. Poor little thing!She did not realize the wonderful opportunity her parents had deniedher. 

When negotiations were ended Doctor Grenfell arranged for theliveyeres to occupy a comfortable cabin on the mainland. He conspiredwith the agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, with the result that theywere properly clothed and provisioned, a better gun was found for theman and an ample supply of ammunition. 

Hundreds of stories might be told of the destitute little ones thathave been, since the day he found Pomiuk on the rocks of Nochvak, gathered together by Doctor Grenfell and tenderly cared for in theChildren's Home that was built at St. Anthony. There was a little girlwhose feet were so badly frozen that her father had to chop them bothoff with an ax to save her life, and who Doctor Grenfell foundhelpless in the poor little cabin where her people lived. I wish therewas time and room to tell about her. He took her away with him, andhealed her wounds, and fitted cork feet to her stumps of legs so thatshe could go to school and run around and play with the otherchildren. Indeed, she learned to use her new feet so well that today, if you saw her you would never guess that her feet were not her realones. 

And there was a little boy whose father was frozen to death at histrapping one winter, a bright little chap now in the home and going toschool. 

These are but a few of the many, many children that have been madehappy and have been trained at the Home and under Doctor Grenfell'scare to useful lives. Some of them have worked their way throughcollege. Some of the boys served in the Great War at the front. Manyare holding positions of importance. Let us see, however, what becameof those particular ones, mentioned in this chapter. 

One of the Scotch trapper's daughters found by Doctor Grenfell in thelonely cabin when her mother lay dead and her father dying is atrained nurse. The others are also in responsible positions. 

The baby of the mud hut is a charming young lady, a graduate of aschool in the United States, and the successful member of a usefulprofession. 

Both of the little naked boys taken from the island that snowy day aregrown men now, and graduates of the famous Pratt Institute inBrooklyn, New York. One is a master carpenter, the other the managerof a big trading store on the Labrador coast. 

Now, as I write, in the fall of 1921, the walls of a new fine concretehome for the children are under construction at St. Anthony, to beused in conjunction with the original wooden building which is crowdedto capacity. Children of the United States, Canada, and Great Britaingiving of their pennies made the new building possible. More money isneeded to furnish it, but enough will surely be given for the homelesslittle ones of the Labrador must be cared for. 

And so, in the end, great things grew out of the suffering and deathof Gabriel Pomiuk, the little Eskimo lad. His splendid courage andcheerfulness has led to happiness for many other little sufferers. 

XVII

THE DOGS OF THE ICE TRAIL

One of the most interesting features of Labrador life in winter is dogtravel. The dogs are interesting the year round, for they are alwaysin evidence winter and summer, but in the fall when the sea freezesand snow comes, they take a most important place in the life of thepeople of the coast. They are the horses and automobiles andlocomotives of the country. No one can travel far without them. 

The true Eskimo dog of Labrador, the "husky, " as he is called, is thedirect descendant of the great Labrador wolf. The Labrador wolf is thebiggest and fiercest wolf on the North American continent, and theEskimo dog of northern Labrador, his brother, is the biggest andfinest sledge dog to be found anywhere in the world. He is larger andmore capable than the Greenland species of which so much has beenwritten, and he is quite superior to those at present found in Alaska. 

The true husky dog of northern Labrador has the head and jawls andupstanding ears of the wild wolf. He has the same powerful shoulders, thick forelegs, and bristling mane. He does not bark like other dogs, but has the characteristic howl of the wolf. There is apparently butone difference between him and the wild wolf, and this comes, possibly, through domestication. He curls his tail over his back, while the wolf does not. Even this distinction does not always hold, for I have seen and used dogs that did not curl their tail. These bigfellows often weigh a full hundred pounds and more. 

Indeed these northern huskies and the wild wolves mix togethersometimes to fight, and sometimes in good fellowship. Once I had awolf follow my komatik for two days, and at night when we stopped andturned our dogs loose the wolf joined them and staid the night withthem only to slink out of rifle shot with the coming of dawn. 

One of my friends, an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, was oncetraveling with a native Labradorman driver along the Labrador coast, when his train of eight big huskies, suddenly becoming excited, gavean extra strain on their traces and snapped the "bridle, " the longwalrus hide thong that connects the traces with the komatik. Away thedogs ran, heading over a low hill, apparently in pursuit of some gamethey had scented. 

[Illustration: "PLEASE LOOK AT MY TONGUE, DOCTOR!"]

[Illustration: "NEXT!"]

My friend, on snowshoes, ran in pursuit, while the driver made acircuit around the hill in the hope of heading the dogs off. Tenminutes later the team swung down over the hill and back to thekomatik. From a distance the men saw them and also turned back, butto their astonishment they counted not the eight dogs that composedtheir team, but thirteen. On drawing nearer they realized that fivegreat wolves had joined the dogs. 

The men's guns were lashed on the komatik, and both were, therefore, unarmed, and before they could reach the komatik and unlash the riflesthe wolves had fled over the hill and out of range. The dogs, however, answered the driver's call and were captured. 

One winter evening a few years ago I drove my dog team to the isolatedcabin of Tom Broomfield, a trapper of the coast, where I was to spendthe night. When our dogs were fed and we had eaten our own supper, Tomwent to a chest and drew forth a huge wolf skin, which he held up formy inspection. 

"He's a big un, now! A wonderful big un!" he commented. "Most bigenough all by hisself for a man's sleepin' bag!"

"It's a monster!" I exclaimed. "Where did you kill it?"

"Right here handy t' th' door, " he grinned. "I were standin' justoutside th' door o' th' porch when I fires and knocks he over th'first shot. "

"He were here th' day before Tom kills he, " interjected Tom's wife. "He gives me a wonderful scare that wolf does. I were alone wi' th'two young ones. "

"Tell me about it, " I suggested. 

"'Twere this way sir, " said Tom, spreading the pelt over a big chestwhere we could admire it. "I were away 'tendin' fox traps, and I hasth' komatik and all th' dogs, savin' one, which I leaves behind. Th'woman were bidin' home alone wi' th' two young ones. In th' evenin'[D]her hears dogs a fightin' outside, and thinkin' 'tis one o' th' teambroke loose and runned home that's fightin' th' dog I leaves behind, she starts t' go out t' beat un apart and stop th' fightin' when shesees 'tis a wolf and no dog at all. 'Twere a wonderful big un too. Hewere inside that skin you sees there, sir, and you can see foryourself th' bigness o' he. 

"Her tries t' take down th' rifle, th' one as is there on th' pegs, sir. Th' wolf and th' dog be now fightin' agin' th' door, and th' dooris bendin' in and handy t' breakin' open. She's a bit scared, sir, andshakin' in th' hands, and she makes a slip, and th' rifle, he goesoff, bang! and th' bullet makes that hole marrin' th' timber above th'windy. "

Tom arose and pointed out a bullet hole above the window. 

"Then th' wolf, he goes off too, bein' scared at th' shootin'. 

"I were home th' next day mendin' dog harness, when I hears th' dogsfightin', and I takes a look out th' windy, and there I sees that wolffightin' wi' th' dogs, and right handy t' th' house. I just takes myrifle down spry as I can, and goes out. When th' dogs sees me open th'door they runs away and leaves th' wolf apart from un, and I ups andknocks he over wi' a bullet, sir. I gets he fair in th' head firstshot I takes, and there be th' skin. 'Tis worth a good four dollarstoo, for 'tis an extra fine one. "

They are treacherous beasts, but, like the wolf, cowardly, these bigdogs of the Labrador. If a man should trip and fall among them, thelikelihood is he would be torn to pieces by their fangs before hecould help himself. You cannot make pals of them as you can of otherdogs. They would as lief snap off the hand that reared and feeds themas not. It is never safe for a stranger to move among a pack of themwithout a stick in his hand. But a threatened kick or the swing of amenacing stick will send them off crawling and whining. 

The Hudson's Bay Company once had a dozen or so of these big fellowsat Cartwright Post, in Sandwich Bay. They were exceptionally fine dogsof the true husky breed, brought down from one of the more northerlyposts, and the agent was proud of them. This was the same agent whosedogs ran away to chum with the wolves, and I believe these were someof the same dogs. They were splendid animals in harness, well brokenand tireless travelers on the trail. 

One evening, late in the fall, the agent's wife was standing at theopen door of the post house, and her little boy, a lad of about youryears, was playing near the doorstep. 

Labrador dogs are fed but once a day, and this is always in theevening. It was feeding time for the dogs, and a servant down at thefeed house, where the dog rations were kept, called them. With a rushthey responded. Just when some of them were passing the post house thelittle boy in his play stumbled and fell. In an instant the dogs wereupon him. The mother, with rare presence of mind, sprang forward, seized the boy, sprang back into the house and slammed the door uponthe dogs. 

The boy was on the ground but a moment, but in that moment he washorribly torn by the sharp fangs. At one place his entrails were laidbare. There were over sixty wounds on his little body. The dogs lappedup the blood that fell upon the ground and doorstep. That night thepack, like a pack of hungry wolves, congregated outside the windowwhere they heard the child crying and moaning with pain and all nighthowled as wolves howl when they have cornered prey. 

The following morning it happened providentially that DoctorGrenfell's hospital ship steamed into Cartwright Harbor and droppedanchor. The Doctor himself was aboard. He took the boy under hischarge and the little one's life was saved through his skill. 

After the attack the dogs became extremely aggressive and surly. Theywere like a pack of fierce wolves. No one about the place was safe, and the agent was compelled to shoot every animal in defense of humanlife. Usually in Labrador when dogs are guilty of attacking peoplethey are hung by the neck to a gibbet until dead, and left hanging forseveral days. I have seen dogs thus hanging after execution. 

When I left Davis Inlet Post of the Hudson's Bay Company with my dogteam one cold winter morning, a native trapper told me that he wouldfollow later in the day and probably overtake me at the MoravianMission Station at Hopedale. We made half the journey to Hopedale thatnight and spent the night in a native cabin. A storm was threateningthe next morning, but, nevertheless, we set forward. Shortly aftermidday the storm broke with a gale of wind and driving, smotheringsnow, and a temperature 30 degrees below zero. Every moment itincreased in fury, but fortunately we reached the mission stationbefore it had reached its worst, and here remained stormbound for twodays, during which time the trapper did not appear. 

Later I learned that, with his wife and young son he left Davis Inleta few hours after our departure. After the storm had abated his dogteam appeared at Davis Inlet, but he and his wife and child were notheard from. A searching party set out, but could find no trace of themissing ones. 

In the spring, when the snow had begun to melt, the komatik was foundand scattered about it were human bones. It was supposed that the manhad halted to camp and await the passing of the storm. Benumbed by thecold he had probably fallen among his dogs, and they had torn him topieces, and with whetted appetite had then attacked and killed hiswife and child. 

These great wolf dogs of the north are quite different from those ofthe south. It is doubtful if today a true Eskimo dog is to be foundsouth of Sandwich Bay, and here and for a long distance north ofSandwich Bay many of the animals have mongrel blood in their veins. They are smaller and inferior. But from Sandwich Bay southward thedifference is marked. 

These southern dogs are faster, in a spurt of half a day or so, thanthe big wolf dog, but they lack size and strength, and therefore thestaying powers that will carry them forward tirelessly day after day. The strain of wolf in their blood often makes them vicious, but ingeneral they respond to kindly treatment and may be petted like dogsthe world over, and sometimes the natives make house dogs of theirleaders. 

The dogs of Newfoundland, such as Doctor Grenfell uses in his winterjourneys in going out from St. Anthony to visit patients, are still adifferent type. These are usually big lop-eared kindly fellows, andjust as friendly as any dog in the world. The laws of Newfoundlandprovide a heavy fine upon any one bringing upon the island a Labradordog that is related even remotely to the husky wolf dog. 

The leader of the dog team is the best disciplined dog in the team butnot always by any means the "boss" dog, or bully, of the pack. Everypack has its bully and generally, also, its under dog that all theothers pick upon. Eskimo dogs fight among themselves, but the packshold together as a gang against strange packs, and when sledges meeteach other on the trail the drivers must exert their utmost effort andcaution, and wield the whip freely, or there will be a fine mix-up, resulting often in crippled animals. 

The komatik or sledge used in dog travel is from ten to fourteen feetin length, though in the far north I have seen them a full eighteenfeet long. In the extreme north of Labrador, where the largest onesare found, they are but sixteen inches wide. Further south, in theregion where the mission hospitals are situated, from ten to twelvefeet is the usual length and about two feet the breadth. 

In Alaska and the Northwest dogs are harnessed tandem, that is one infront of another in a straight line. This is a white man's method, anda fine method too when driving through timbered regions. 

But in Labrador dog travel is usually on the naked coast and seldom intimbered country, and here the old Eskimo method is used. Each dog hasits individual trace, which is fastened to the end of a single lineof walrus skin leading from the komatik and called the bridle. Theleading dog, which is especially trained to answer the driver'sdirection, has the longest trace, the next two dogs nearer the komatikshorter ones, the next two still shorter, and so on. Thus, when theytravel the leader is in advance with the pack spread out behind him oneither side, fan-shaped. Dogs follow the leader like a pack of wolves. 

When the driver wishes the dogs to go forward he shouts "oo-isht, " andto hurry "oksuit. "[E] If he wishes them to turn to the right he calls"ouk!", to the left "rah-der!", and to stop "Ah!"

In Newfoundland "Hist!" means "Go on"; "Keep off!" "to the right";"Hold on!" "to the left. " The dogs are harnessed in a similar mannerto that used in Labrador, and the sledges are of the same form, thoughof the widest type. 

When the dogs are put in harness in preparation for a journey they arealways keen for the start. They will leap and howl in eagerness to beoff unless the menace of a whip compels them to lie down. When thedriver is ready he shouts "oo-isht!" to the dogs, as he pulls the noseof the komatik sharply to one side to "break" it loose from the snow. Immediately the dogs are away at a mad gallop, with the komatikswinging wildly from side to side. Quickly enough the animals settledown to a slow pace, only to spurt if game is scented or onapproaching a building. 

The usual dog whip is thirty or thirty-five feet in length, though Ihave seen them nearly fifty feet long. Eskimo drivers are exceedinglyexpert in handling the long whip, and in the hands of a cruel driverit is an instrument of torture. In southeastern and southern Labradorand in Newfoundland the dog whip is used much less freely than in thenorth, and the people are less expert in its manipulation than are theEskimos. The different species of dogs renders the use of the whipless necessary. 

Dog travel is seldom over smooth unobstructed ice fields. Sometimes itis over frozen bays where the tide has thrown up rough hummocks andridges. I have been, under such conditions, nearly half a day crossingthe mouth of a river one mile wide. Often the trail leads over highhills, with long hard steep climbs to be made and sometimes dangerousdescents. In traveling over sea ice, especially in the late winter andspring, and always when an off shore wind prevails, there is danger ofencountering bad ice, and breaking through, or having the ice "goabroad, " and cutting you off from shore. When the tide has smashed theice, it is often necessary to drive the team on the "ballicaders, " orice barricade, a narrow strip of ice clinging to the rocky shore. Thisis sometimes scarce wide enough for the komatik, and the greatestskill is necessary on the part of the driver to keep the komatik fromslipping off the ballicader and falling and pulling the dogs into thesea. 

When the snow is soft some one on snowshoes must go in advance of thedogs and pack the trail for them. Where traveling is rough, and inup-hill work, it is more than often necessary to pull with the dogs, and lift the komatik over obstructions. 

In descending steep slopes the driver has a thick hoop of woven walrushide, which he throws over the nose of one of the runners to serve asa drag. Even then, the descent may be rapid and exciting, and not alittle dangerous for dogs and men. The driver throws himself on hisside on the komatik clinging to it with both hands. His legs extendforward at the side of the sledge, he sticks his heels into the snowahead to retard the progress, in imminent danger of a broken leg. 

Winter settles early in Labrador and northern Newfoundland. Snowcomes, the sea smokes, and then one morning men wake up to find afield of ice where waves were lapping the day before and where boatshave sailed all summer. 

Then it is that Doctor Grenfell sets out with his dogs and komatikover the great silent snow waste to visit his far scattered patients. Adventures meet him at every turn and some exciting experiences he hashad, as we shall see. 

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Afternoon is referred to as "evening" by Labradormen. 

[E] In Alaska they say "Mush, " but this is never heard in Labrador. 

XVIII

FACING AN ARCTIC BLIZZARD

The leader of Doctor Grenfell's dog team at St. Anthony, Newfoundland, is Gypsy, a big black and white fellow, friendly as ever a good dogcan be, and trained to a nicety, always obedient and prompt inresponding to the driver's commands. Running next behind Gypsy, andpulling side by side, are Tiger and Spider. Tiger is a large, good-natured red and white fellow, and Spider, his brother, is blackand white. The next is Spot, a great white fellow with a black spot onhis neck, which gives him his name. His mate in harness is a tawnyyellow dog called Scotty. Then come Rover and Shaver. Rover is asmall, black, lop-eared dog, about half the size of Shaver, who looksupon Rover as an inconsequent attachment, and though he thinks thatRover is of small assistance, he takes upon himself the responsibilityof making this little working mate of his keep busy when in harness. Tad and Eric, the rear dogs, are the largest and heaviest of the pack, and perhaps the best haulers. Their traces are never slack, and theyattend strictly to business. 

This is the team that hauls Doctor Grenfell in long winter journeys, when he visits the coast settlements of northern Newfoundland, inevery one of which he finds no end of eager folk welcoming him andcalling him to their homes to heal their sick. 

In the scattered hamlets and sparsely settled coast of northernNewfoundland the folk have no doctor to call upon at a moment's noticewhen they are sick, as we have. They live apart and isolated from manyof the conveniences of life that we look upon as necessities. 

It was this condition that led Doctor Grenfell to build his finemission hospital at St. Anthony, and from St. Anthony, to brave thebitter storms of winter, traveling over hundreds of miles of drearyfrozen storm-swept sea and land to help the needy, often to save life. He never charges a fee, but the Newfoundlander is independent andself-respecting, and when he is able to do so he pays. All that comesto Doctor Grenfell in this way he gives to the mission to help supportthe hospitals. Those who cannot pay receive from him and hisassistants the same skilled and careful treatment as those who do pay. Money makes no difference. Doctor Grenfell is giving his life to thepeople because they need him, and he never keeps for his own use anypart of the small fees paid him. He is never so happy as when he ishelping others, and to help others who are in trouble is his one greatobject in life. 

Two or three years ago the Newfoundland Government extended atelegraph line to St. Anthony. This offers the people an opportunityto call upon Doctor Grenfell when they are in need of him, thoughsometimes they live so far away that in the storms of winter anduncertainty of dog travel several days may pass before he can reachthe sick ones in answer to the calls. But let the weather be what itmay, he always responds, for there is no other doctor than DoctorGrenfell and his assistant, the surgeon at St. Anthony Hospital, within several hundred miles, north and west of St. Anthony. 

Late one January afternoon in 1919 such a telegram came from a youngfisherman living at Cape Norman, urging Doctor Grenfell to come to hishome at once, and stating that the fisherman's wife was seriously ill. Grenfell's assistant had taken the dog team the previous day to answera call, and had not returned, and if he were to go before hisassistant's return there would be no doctor at the hospital. Hetherefore answered the man, stating these facts. During the eveninganother wire was received urging him to find a team somewhere and comeat all costs. 

It was evidently indeed a serious case. Cape Norman lies thirty milesto the northward of St. Anthony, and the trail is a rough one. Thenight was moonless and pitchy black, but Grenfell set out at once tolook for dogs. He borrowed four from one man, hired one from another, and arranged with a man, named Walter, to furnish four additionalones and to drive the team. Walter was to report at the hospital at4:30 in the morning prepared to start, though it would still be longbefore daybreak. 

Having made these arrangements Grenfell went back to the hospital andwith the head nurse called upon every patient in the wards, providingso far as possible for any contingency that might arise during hisabsence. It was midnight when he had finished. Snow had set in, andthe wind was rising with the promise of bad weather ahead. 

At 4:30 he was dressed and ready for the journey. He looked out intothe darkness. The air was thick with swirling clouds of snow drivenbefore a gale. He made out a dim figure battling its way to the door, and as the figure approached he discovered it was Walter, but withoutthe dogs. 

"Where are the dogs, Walter?" he asked. 

"I didn't bring un, sir, " Walter stepped inside and shook theaccumulation of snow from his garments. "'Tis a wonderful nastymornin', and I'm thinkin' 'tis too bad to try un before daylight. I'vebeen watchin' the weather all night, sir. 'Tis growin' worse. We hasonly a scratch team and the dog'll not work together right 'till theygets used to each other. I'm thinkin' we'll have to wait 'till itcomes light. "

"You've the team to drive and you know best, " conceded the Doctor. "Under the circumstances I suppose we'll save time by waiting. "

"That we will, sir. We'd be wastin' the dogs' strength and ours andlosin' time goin' now. We couldn't get on at all, sir. "

"Very well; at daylight. "

Walter returned home and Doctor Grenfell to his room to make the mostof the two hours' rest. 

It was scarce daylight and Walter had not yet appeared when anothertelegram was clicked in over the wires:

"Come along soon. Wife worse. "

The storm had increased in fury since Walter's early visit. It was nowblowing a living gale, and the snow was so thick one could scarcebreathe in it. The trail lay directly in the teeth of the storm. Nodogs on earth could face and stem it and certainly not the picked up, or "scratch" team as Walter called it, for strange dogs never workwell together, and will never do their best by any means for a strangedriver, and Walter had never driven any of these except his own four. 

With visions of the suffering woman whose life might depend upon hispresence, the Doctor chafed the forenoon through. Then at midday cameanother telegram:

"Come immediately if you can. Wife still holding out. "

He had but just read this telegram when, to his astonishment, twosnow-enveloped, bedraggled men limped up to the door. 

"Where did you come from in this storm?" he asked, hardly believinghis eyes that men could travel in that drift and gale. 

"We comes from Cape Norman, sir, to fetch you, " answered one of themen. 

"Fetch me!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Do you believe dogs can travelagainst this gale?"

"No, sir, they never could stem it, not 'till the wind shifts, whatever, " said the man. "Us comes with un drivin' from behind. Thegale blows us here. "

That was literally true. Ten miles of their journey had been overpartially protected land, but for twenty miles it lay overunobstructed sea ice where the gale blew with all its force. Only thedeep snow prevented them being carried at a pace that would havewrecked their sledge, in which case they would certainly haveperished. 

"When did you leave Cape Norman?" asked the Doctor. 

"Eight o'clock last evenin', sir, " said the man. 

All night these brave men, with no thought of reward, had beenenduring that terrible storm to bring assistance to a neighbor! Afterthe manner of the Newfoundlanders they had already fed and cared forthe comfort of their wearied dogs, before giving thought tothemselves, staggering with fatigue as they were. 

"Go into the hospital and get your dinner, " directed the Doctor. "Whenyou've eaten, go to bed. We'll call you when we think it's safe tostart. "

"Thank you, sir, " and the grateful men left for the hospital kitchen. 

It was after dark that evening when the two men again appeared atDoctor Grenfell's house. They were troubled for the safety of theirneighbor's sick wife, and could not rest. 

"Us were just gettin' another telegram sayin' to hurry, sir, "announced the spokesman. "The storm has eased up a bit, and we'rethinkin' to make a try for un if you're ready. "

"Call Walter, and I'll be right with you, " directed the Doctor. 

"Us has been and called he, sir, " said the man. "He's gettin' the dogstogether and he'll be right here. "

A lull in a winter storm in this north country, with the clouds stillhanging low and no change of wind, does not promise the end of thestorm. It indicates that this is the center, that it is working in acircle and will soon break upon the world again with even increasedfury. 

Doctor Grenfell knew this and the men knew it full well, but theiranxiety for the suffering woman at Cape Norman would not permit themto sleep. Anything was better than sitting still. The decision tostart was a source of vast relief to Doctor Grenfell, even though itwere to venture into the face of the terrible storm and bitter cold. Grenfell will venture anything with any man, and if those men couldface the wind and snow and cold he could. 

In half an hour they were off. Before them lay the harbor of St. Anthony, and the ice must be crossed. Through the darkness of nightand swirling snow they floundered down to it. The men were immediatelyknee-deep in slush and the two teams of dogs were nearly swimming. Their feet could not reach the solid bed of ice below. The immenseweight of snow had pushed the ice down with the falling tide and therising tide had flooded it. 

The team from Cape Norman took the lead to break the way. Every oneput on his snowshoes, for traveling without them was impossible. Oneof those with the advance team went ahead of the dogs to tramp thepath for the sledge and make the work easier for the poor animals, while the other remained with the team to drive. In like manner Waltertramped ahead of the rear dogs and Doctor Grenfell drove them. 

At length they reached the opposite shore, fighting against the galeat every step. Now there was a hill to cross. 

Here on the lee side of the hill they met mighty drifts of featherysnow into which the dogs wallowed to their backs and the snowshoes ofthe men sunk deep. They were compelled to haul on the traces with thedogs. They had to lift and manipulate the sledges with tremendouseffort. Up the grade they toiled and strained, yard by yard, foot byfoot. Sometimes it seemed to them they were making no appreciableprogress, but on they fought through the black night and the drivingsnow, sweating in spite of the Arctic blasts and clouds of drift thatsometimes nearly stopped their breath and carried them off their feet. 

The life of the young fisherman's wife at Cape Norman hung in thebalance. The toiling men visualized her lying on a bed of pain andperhaps dying for the need of a doctor. They saw the agonized husbandby her side, tortured by his helplessness to save her. They forgotthemselves and the risk they were taking in their desire to bring tothe fisherman's wife the help her husband was beseeching God to send. This is true heroism. 

As the saying on the coast goes, "'tis dogged as does it, " and asGrenfell himself says, "not inspiration, but perspiration wins theprizes of life. " They finally reached the crest of the hill. 

On the opposite or weather side of the hill the gale met them withfull force. It had swept the slope clean and left it a glade of ice. They slid down at a dangerous speed, taking all sorts of chances, colliding in the darkness with stumps and ice-coated rocks and othersnags, in imminent danger of having their brains knocked out or limbsbroken. 

The open places below were little better. Everything was ice-coated. They slipped and slid about, falling and rising with every dozensteps. If they threw themselves on the sledges to ride the dogs cameto a stop, for they could not haul them. If they walked they could notkeep their feet. Their course took them along the bed of BartlettRiver, and twice Grenfell and some of the others broke through intothe icy rapids. 

At half past one in the morning they reached the mouth of BartlettRiver where it empties into the sea and between them and Cape Normanlay twenty miles of unobstructed sea ice. They had been traveling fornearly six hours and had covered but ten miles of the journey. Thetemporary lull in the storm had long since passed, and now, beatingdown upon the world with redoubled fury, it met them squarely in theface. No dog could stem it. The men could scarce stand upright. Theclouds of snow suffocated them, and the cold was withering. 

Far out they could hear the thunder of smashing ice. It was a threatthat the still firm ice lying before them might be broken intofragments at any time. Sea water had already driven over it, forming athick coating of half-frozen slush. Even though the gale that sweptthe ice field had not been too fierce to face, any attempt to crosswould obviously have been a foolhardy undertaking. 

XIX

HOW AMBROSE WAS MADE TO WALK

One of the men from Cape Norman had been acting as leader on the trailfrom St. Anthony. His name was Will, and he was a big broad-shoulderedman, a giant of a fellow. He knew all the trappers on this part of thecoast, and where their trapping grounds lay. One of his neighbors, whom he spoke of as "Si, " trapped in the neighborhood where thebaffled men now found themselves. 

"I'm rememberin', now, Si built a tilt handy by here, " he suddenlyexclaimed. 

"A tilt!" Grenfell was sceptical. "I've been going up and down thiscoast for twenty years and I never heard of a tilt near here. "

"He built un last fall. I thinks, now, I could find un, " Willsuggested. 

"Find it if you can, " urged Grenfell hopefully. "Where is it?"

"'Tis in a bunch of trees, somewheres handy. "

"Is there a stove in it?"

"I'm not knowin' that. I'll try to find un and see. "

They had retreated to the edge of the forest. Will disappeared amongthe trees, and Grenfell and the others waited. It was still six hoursto daylight, and to stand inactive for six hours in the storm andbiting cold would have been perilous if not fatal. 

Presently Will's shout came out of the forest, rising above the roadof wind:

"Ti-l-t and St-o-ve!"

They followed Will's voice, bumping against trees, groping throughflying snow and darkness, and quickly came upon Will and the tilt. There was indeed, to their great joy, a stove in it. There was also asupply of dry wood, all cut and piled ready for use. In one end of thetilt was a bench covered with spruce boughs which Si used as a bed. 

There was nothing to feed the exhausted dogs, but they wereunharnessed and were glad enough to curl up in the snow, where thedrift would cover them, after the manner of northern dogs. 

Then a fire was lighted in the stove. Will went out with the ax andkettle, and presently returned with the kettle filled with waterdipped from Bartlett River after he had cut a hole through the ice. 

Setting the kettle on the stove, Will, standing by the stove, proceeded to fill and light his pipe while Doctor Grenfell opened hisdunnage bag to get the tea and sugar. Suddenly Will's pipe clatteredto the floor. Will, standing like a statue, did not stoop to pick itup and Grenfell rescued it and rising offered it to him, when, to hisvast astonishment, he discovered that the man, standing erect uponhis feet was fast asleep. He had been nearly sixty hours without sleepand forty-eight hours of this had been spent on the trail. 

They aroused Will and had him sit down on the bench. He re-lighted hispipe but in a moment it fell from his teeth again. He rolled over onthe bench and was too soundly asleep to be interested in pipe or teaor anything to eat. 

Daylight brought no abatement in the storm. The ice was deep under acoating of slush, and quite impassable for dogs and men, and the seawas pounding and battering at the outer edge, as the roar of smashingice testified, though quite shut out from view by driving snow. Therewas nothing to do but follow the shore, a long way around, and offthey started. 

Here and there was an opportunity to cut across small coves and inletswhere the ice was safe enough, and at two o'clock in the afternoonthey reached Crow Island, a small island three-quarters of a mile fromthe mainland. 

Under the shelter of scraggly fir trees on Crow Island an attempt wasmade to light a fire and boil the kettle for tea. But there was noprotection from the blizzard. They failed to get the fire, and finallycompelled by the elements to give it up they took a compass course fora small settlement on the mainland. The instinct of the dogs led themstraight, and when the men had almost despaired of locating thesettlement they suddenly drew up before a snug cottage. 

A cup of steaming tea, a bit to eat, and Grenfell and his men were offagain. Cape Norman was not far away, and that evening they reached thefisherman's home. 

The joy and thankfulness of the young fisherman was beyond bounds. Hiswife was in agony and in a critical condition. Doctor Grenfellrelieved her pain at once, and by skillful treatment in due timerestored her to health. Had he hesitated to face the storm or had hebeen made of less heroic stuff and permitted himself to be driven backby the blizzard, she would have died. Indeed there are few men on thecoast that would have ventured out in that storm. But he went and hesaved the woman's life, and today that young fisherman's wife is aswell and happy as ever she could be, and she and her husband willforever be grateful to Doctor Grenfell for his heroic struggle toreach them. 

In a few days Doctor Grenfell was back again in St. Anthony, and thena telegram came calling him to a village to the south. The weather wasfair. His own splendid team was at home, and he was going through aregion where settlements were closer together than on the Cape Normantrail. 

The first night was spent in his sleeping bag stretched on the floorof a small building kept open for the convenience of travelers withdog sledges. The next night he was comfortably housed in a littlecabin in the woods, also used for the convenience of travelers, andgenerally each night he was quite as well housed. 

He was going now to see a lad of fifteen whose thigh had been brokenwhile steering a komatik down a steep hill. Dog driving, as we haveseen, is frequently a dangerous occupation, and this young fellow hadsuffered. 

In every settlement Doctor Grenfell was hailed by folk who needed adoctor. There was one broken leg that required attention, one man hada broken knee cap. In one house he found a young woman dying ofconsumption. There were many cases of Spanish influenza and severalpeople dangerously ill with bronchial pneumonia. There was one littleblind child later taken to the hospital at St. Anthony to undergo anoperation to restore her sight. In the course of that single journeyhe treated eighty-six different cases, and but for his fortunatecoming none of them could have had a doctor's care. 

He found the lad Ambrose suffering intense pain. After his accidentthe lad had been carried home by a friend. His people did not knowthat the thigh was broken, and when it swelled they rubbed andbandaged it. 

The pain grew almost too great for the boy to bear. A priest passingthrough the settlement advised them to put the leg in splints. Thiswas done, but no padding was used, which, as every Boy Scout knows, was a serious omission. Boards were used as splints, extending fromthigh to heel and they cut into the flesh, causing painful sores. 

The priest had gone, and though Ambrose was suffering so intenselythat he could not sleep at night no one dared remove the splints. Theneighbors declared the lad's suffering was caused by the pain from theinjured thigh coming out at the heel. 

Ambrose was in a terrible condition when Doctor Grenfell arrived. Thepain had been continuous and for a long time he had not slept. Thebroken thigh had knit in a bowed position, leaving that leg threeinches shorter than the other. 

It was necessary to re-break the thigh to straighten it. DoctorGrenfell could not do this without assistance. There was but one thingto do, take the lad to St. Anthony hospital. 

A special team and komatik would be required for the journey, but thelad's father had no dogs, and with a family of ten children tosupport, in addition to Ambrose, no money with which to hire one. Afriend came to the rescue and volunteered to haul the lad to thehospital. 

It was a journey of sixty miles. The trail from the village whereAmbrose lived rose over a high range of hills. The snow was deep andthe traveling hard, and several men turned out to help the dogs haulthe komatik to the summit. Then, with Doctor Grenfell's sledge aheadto break the trail, and the other following with the helpless ladpacked in a box they set out, Ambrose's father on snowshoes walking bythe side of the komatik to offer his boy any assistance the lad mightneed. 

The next morning Doctor Grenfell was delayed with patients and theother komatik went ahead, only to be lost and to finally turn back onthe trail until they met Grenfell's komatik, which was searching forthem. 

The cold was bitter and terrible that day. The men on snowshoes werecomfortable enough with their hard exercise, but it was almostimpossible to keep poor Ambrose from freezing in spite of heavycovering. Now and again his father had to remove the moccasins fromAmbrose's feet and rub them briskly with bare hands to restorecirculation. He even removed the warm mittens from his own hands andgave them to Ambrose to pull on over the ones he already wore. 

At midday a halt was made to "boil the kettle, " and by the side of thebig fire that was built in the shelter of the forest Ambrose wasrestored to comparative comfort. On the trail again it was colder thanever in the afternoon, and they thought the lad, though he never onceuttered a complaint, would freeze before they could reach the cabinthat was to shelter them for the night. At last the cabin was reached. A fire was hurriedly built in the stove, and with much rubbing ofhands and legs and feet, and a roaring fire, he was made socomfortable that he could eat, and a fine supper they had for him. 

At the place where they stopped the previous night Doctor Grenfell hadmentioned that the oven that sat on the stove in this cabin, was wornout. One of the men immediately went out, procured some corrugatediron, pounded it flat with the back of an ax and then proceeded tomake an oven for Grenfell to take with him on his komatik. Uponopening the oven now it was found that the good friend who had madethe oven had packed it full of rabbits and ptarmigans, the whitepartridge or grouse of the north. In a little while a delicious stewwas sending forth its appetizing odors. A pan of nicely browned hotbiscuits, freshly baked in the new oven and a kettle of steaming teacompleted a feast that would have tempted anyone's appetite, andAmbrose, for the first time in many a day relieved of much of hispain, through Doctor Grenfell's ministrations, enjoyed it immensely, and for the first time in many a night, followed his meal withrefreshing sleep. 

The next morning the cold was more intense than ever. Ambrose waswrapped in every blanket they had and, as additional protection, Doctor Grenfell stowed him away in his own sleeping bag, and packedhim on the sledge. Off they went on the trail again. Late thatafternoon they crossed a big bay, and St. Anthony was but eighteenmile away. 

When Ambrose was made comfortable in a settler's cottage, DoctorGrenfell directed that he was to be brought on to the hospital thefollowing morning, and he himself much needed at the hospital pushedforward at once, arriving at St. Anthony long after night. 

But before morning the worst storm of the winter broke upon them. Thebuildings at St. Anthony rocked in the gale until the maids on the topfloor of the hospital said they were seasick. And when the storm wasover the snow was so deep that men with snowshoes walked from thegigantic snow banks to some of the roofs which were on a level withthe drifts. Tunnels had to be cut through the snow to doors. 

The storm delayed Ambrose and his friends, but after the weathercleared their komatik appeared. The lad was put on the operatingtable, the thigh re-broken and properly set by Doctor Grenfell, andthe leg brought down to its proper length. Presently the time camewhen Grenfell was able to tell the father that, after all their fears, Ambrose was not to be a cripple and that he would be as strong andnimble as ever he was. This was actually the case. Doctor Grenfell isa remarkably skillful surgeon and he had wrought a miracle. Thethankful and relieved father shed tears of joy. 

"When I gets un, " said he, his voice choked by emotion, "I'll sendfive dollars for the hospital. "

Five dollars, to Ambrose's father, was a lot of money. 

Winter storms, as we have seen, never hold Doctor Grenfell back whenhe is called to the sick and injured. Many times he has broken throughthe sea ice, and many times he has narrowly escaped death. The storyof a few of these experiences would fill a volume of rattling fineadventure. I am tempted to go on with them. One of these bigadventures at least we must not pass by. As we shall see in the nextchapter, it came dangerously near being his last one. 

XX

LOST ON THE ICE FLOE

One day in April several years ago, Dr. Grenfell, who was at the timeat St. Anthony Hospital, received an urgent call to visit a sick mantwo days' journey with dogs to the southward. The patient wasdangerously ill. No time was to be lost, for delay might cost theman's life. 

It is still winter in northern Newfoundland in April, though the daysare growing long and at midday the sun, climbing high now in theheavens, sends forth a genial warmth that softens the snow. At thisseason winds spring up suddenly and unexpectedly, and blow withtremendous velocity. Sometimes the winds are accompanied by squalls ofrain or snow, with a sudden fall in temperature, and an off-shore windis quite certain to break up the ice that has covered the bays allwinter, and to send it abroad in pans upon the wide Atlantic, to meltpresently and disappear. 

This breaking up of the ice sometimes comes so suddenly that travelingwith dogs upon the frozen bays at this season is a hazardousundertaking. Scarcely a year passes that some one is not lost. Sometimes men are carried far to sea on ice pans and are never heardfrom again. 

A man must know the trails to travel with dogs along this rough coast. Much better progress is made traveling upon sea ice than on landtrails, for the latter are usually up and down over rocky hills andthrough entangling brush and forest, while the former is a smoothstraight-away course. When the ice is rotted by the sun's heat, however, and is covered by deep slush, and is broken by dangerousholes and open leads that cannot safely be crossed, the driver keepsclose to shore, and is sometimes forced to turn to the land and leavethe ice altogether. When the ice is good and sound the dog traveleronly leaves it to cross necks of land separating bays and inlets, where distance may be shortened, and makes as straight a course acrossthe frozen bays as possible. 

There is a great temptation always, even when the ice is in poorcondition, to cross it and "take a chance, " which usually means aconsiderable risk, rather than travel the long course around shore. Long experience at dog travel, instead of breeding greater caution inthe men of the coast, leads them to take risks from which the lessexperienced man would shrink. 

These were the conditions when the call came that April day to Dr. Grenfell. Traveling at this season was, at best, attended by risk. Butthis man's life depended upon his going, and no risk could bepermitted to stand in the way of duty. Without delay he packed hiskomatik box with medicines, bandages and instruments. It was certainhe would have many calls, both for medical and surgical attention, from the scattered cottages he should pass, and on these expeditionshe always travels fully prepared to meet any ordinary emergency fromadministering pills to amputating a leg or an arm. He also packed inthe box a supply of provisions and his usual cooking kit. 

Only in cases of stress do men take long journeys with dogs alone, butthere was no man about the hospital at this time that Grenfell couldtake with him as a traveling companion and to assist him, and no timeto wait for any one, and so, quite alone and driving his own team, heset out upon his journey. 

It was mid-afternoon when he "broke" his komatik loose, and his dogs, eager for the journey, turned down upon the trail at a run. The dogswere fresh and in the pink of condition, and many miles were behindhim when he halted his team at dusk before a fisherman's cottage. Herehe spent the night, and the following morning, bright and early, harnessed his dogs and was again hurrying forward. 

The morning was fine and snappy. The snow, frozen and crisp, gave thedogs good footing. The komatik slid freely over the surface. Dr. Grenfell urged the animals forward that they might take all theadvantage possible of the good sledging before the heat of the middaysun should soften the snow and make the hauling hard. 

The fisherman's cottage where he had spent the night was on the shoresof a deep inlet, and a few rods beyond the cottage the trail turneddown upon the inlet ice, and here took a straight course across theice to the opposite shore, some five miles distant, where it plungedinto the forest to cross another neck of land. 

A light breeze was coming in from the sea, the ice had everyappearance of being solid and secure, and Dr. Grenfell dove out uponit for a straight line across. To have followed the shore would haveincreased the distance to nearly thirty miles. 

Everything went well until perhaps half the distance had been covered. Then suddenly there came a shift of wind, and Grenfell discovered, with some apprehension, that a stiff breeze was rising, and nowblowing from land toward the sea, instead of from the sea toward theland as it had done when he started early in the morning from thefisherman's cottage. Still the ice was firm enough, and in any casethere was no advantage to be had by turning back, for he was as nearone shore as the other. 

Already the surface of the ice, which, with several warm days, hadbecome more or less porous and rotten, was covered with deep slush. The western sky was now blackened by heavy wind clouds, and withscarce any warning the breeze developed into a gale. Forcing his dogsforward at their best pace, while he ran by the side of the komatik, he soon put another mile behind him. Before him the shore loomed up, and did not seem far away. But every minute counted. It was evidentthe ice could not stand the strain of the wind much longer. 

Presently one of Grenfell's feet went through where slush covered anopening crack. He shouted at the dogs, but, buffeted by wind andfloundering through slush, they could travel no faster though theymade every effort to do so, for they, no less perhaps than theirmaster, realized the danger that threatened them. 

Then, suddenly, the ice went asunder, not in large pans as it wouldhave done earlier in the winter when it was stout and hard, but in amass of small pieces, with only now and again a small pan. 

Grenfell and the dogs found themselves floundering in a sea of slushice that would not bear their weight. The faithful dogs had done theirbest, but their best had not been good enough. With super-human effortGrenfell managed to cut their traces and set them free from thekomatik, which was pulling them down. Even now, with his own life inthe gravest peril, he thought of them. 

When the dogs were freed, Grenfell succeeded in clambering upon asmall ice pan that was scarce large enough to bear his weight, andfor the moment was safe. But the poor dogs, much more frightened thantheir master, and looking to him for protection, climbed upon the panwith him, and with this added weight it sank from under him. 

Swimming in the ice-clogged water must have been well nigh impossible. The shock of the ice-cold water itself, even had there been no ice, was enough to paralyze a man. But Grenfell, accustomed to cold, andwith nerves of iron as a result of keeping his body always in the pinkof physical condition, succeeded finally in reaching a pan that wouldsupport both himself and the dogs. The animals followed him and tookrefuge at his feet. 

Standing upon the pan, with the dogs huddled about him, he scanned thenaked shores, but no man or sign of human life was to be seen. Howlong his own pan would hold together was a question, for the brokenice, grinding against it, would steadily eat it away. 

There was a steady drift of the ice toward the open sea. The wind wasbitterly cold. There was nothing to eat for himself and nothing tofeed the dogs, for the loaded komatik had long since disappearedbeneath the surface of the sea. 

Exposed to the frigid wind, wet to the skin, and with no otherprotection than the clothes upon his back, it seemed inevitable thatthe cold would presently benumb him and that he would perish from iteven though his pan withstood the wearing effects of the water. Thepan was too small to admit of sufficient exercise to keep up thecirculation of blood, and though he slapped his arms around hisshoulders and stamped his feet, a deadening numbness was crawling overhim as the sun began to sink in the west and cold increased. 

Though, in the end he might drown, Grenfell determined to live as longas he could. Perhaps this was a test of courage that God had givenhim! It is a man's duty, whatever befalls him, to fight for life tothe last ditch, and live as long as he can. Most men, placed asGrenfell was placed, would have sunk down in despair, and said: "It'sall over! I've done the best I could!" And there they would havewaited for death to find them. When a man is driven to the wall, asGrenfell was, it is easier to die than live. When God brings a manface to face with death, He robs death of all its terrors, and whenthat time comes it is no harder for a man who has lived right with Godto die than it is for him to lie down at night and sleep. But Grenfellwas never a quitter. He was going to fight it out now with theelements as best he could with what he had at hand. 

These northern dogs, when driven to desperation by hunger, will turnupon their best friend and master, and here was another danger. If heand the dogs survived the night and another day, what would the dogsdo? Then it would be, as Grenfell knew full well, his life or theirs. 

The dogs wore good warm coats of fur, and if he had a coat made of dogskins it would keep him warm enough to protect his life, at least, from the cold. Now the animals were docile enough. Clustered about hisfeet, they were looking up into his face expectantly and confidently. He loved them as a good man always loves the beasts that serve him. They had hauled him over many a weary mile of snow and ice, and hadbeen his companions and shared with him the hardships of many awinter's storm. 

But it was his life or theirs. If he were to survive the night, someof the dogs must be sacrificed. In all probability he and they wouldbe drowned anyway before another night fell upon the world. 

There was no time to be lost in vain regrets and indecision. Grenfelldrew his sheath knife, and as hard as we know it was for him, slaughtered three of the animals. This done, he removed their pelts, and wrapping the skins about him, huddled down among the living dogsfor a night of long, tedious hours of waiting and uncertainty, untilanother day should break. 

That must have been a period of terrible suffering for Grenfell, buthe had a stout heart and he survived it. He has said that the dogskins saved his life, and without them he certainly would haveperished. 

The ice pan still held together, and with a new day came fresh hope ofthe possibility of rescue. The coast was still well in sight, andthere was a chance that a change of wind might drive the pan toward iton an incoming tide. At this season, too, the men of the coast wereout scanning the sea for "signs" of seals, and some of them might seehim. 

This thought suggested that if he could erect a signal on a pole, itwould attract attention more readily. He had no pole, and he thoughtat first no means of raising the signal, which was, indeed, necessary, for at that distance from shore only a moving signal would be likelyto attract the attention of even the keenly observant fishermen. 

Then his eyes fell upon the carcasses of the three dogs with theirstiff legs sticking up. He drew his sheath knife and went at themimmediately. In a little while he had severed the legs from the bodiesand stripped the flesh from the bones. Now with pieces of dog harnesshe lashed the legs together, and presently had a serviceable pole, butone which must have been far from straight. 

Elated with the result of his experiment, he hastily stripped theshirt from his back, fastened it to one end of his staff, and raisingit over his head began moving it back and forth. 

It was an ingenious idea to make a flagstaff from the bones of dogs'legs. Hardly one man in a thousand would have thought of it. It was anexemplification of Grenfell's resourcefulness, and in the end it savedhis life. 

As he had hoped, men were out upon the rocky bluffs scanning the seafor seals. The keen eyes of one of them discovered, far away, something dark and unusual. The men of this land never take anythingfor granted. It is a part of the training of the woodsman and seamanto identify any unusual movement or object, or to trace any unusualsound, before he is satisfied to let it pass unheeded. Centering hisattention upon the distant object the man distinguished a movementback and forth. Nothing but a man could make such a movement he knew, and he also knew that any man out there was in grave danger. He calledsome other fishermen, manned a boat and Dr. Grenfell and his survivingdogs were rescued. 

XXI

WRECKED AND ADRIFT

It happened that it was necessary for Dr. Grenfell to go to New Yorkone spring three or four years ago. Men interested in raising funds tosupport the Labrador and Newfoundland hospitals were to hold ameeting, and it was essential that he attend the meeting and tell themof the work on the coast, and what he needed to carry it on. 

This meeting was to have been held in May, and to reach New York inseason to attend it Dr. Grenfell decided to leave St. AnthonyHospital, where he then was, toward the end of April, for in any casetraveling would be slow. 

It was his plan to travel northward, by dog team, to the Straits ofBelle Isle, thence westward along the shores, and finally southward, down the western coast of Newfoundland, to Port Aux Basque, from whichpoint a steamer would carry him over to North Sydney, in Nova Scotia. There he could get a train and direct railway connections to New York. There is an excellent, and ordinarily, at this season, an expeditiousroute for dog travel down the western coast of Newfoundland, andGrenfell anticipated no difficulties. 

Just as he was ready to start a blizzard set in with a northeast gale, and smash! went the ice. This put an end to dog travel. There was butone alternative, and that was by boat. Traveling along the coast in asmall boat is pretty exciting and sometimes perilous when you have tonavigate the boat through narrow lanes of water, with land ice on oneside and the big Arctic ice pack on the other, and a shift of wind islikely to send the pack driving in upon you before you can get out ofthe way. And if the ice pack catches you, that's the end of it, foryour boat will be ground up like a grain of wheat between mill stones, and there you are, stranded upon the ice, and as like as not cut offfrom land, too. 

But there was no other way to get to that meeting in New York, andGrenfell was determined to get there. And so, when the blizzard hadpassed he got out a small motor boat, and made ready for the journey. If he could reach a point several days' journey by boat to thesouthward, he could leave the boat and travel one hundred miles onfoot overland to the railroad. 

This hike of one hundred miles, with provisions and equipment on hisback, was a tremendous journey in itself. It would not be on a beatenroad, but through an unpopulated wilderness still lying deep underwinter snows. To Grenfell, however, it would be but an incident in hisactive life. He was accustomed to following a dog team, and thathardens a man for nearly any physical effort. It requires that a mankeep at a trot the livelong day, and it demands a good heart and goodlungs and staying powers and plenty of grit, and Grenfell was wellequipped with all of these. 

The menacing Arctic ice pack lay a mile or so seaward when Grenfelland one companion turned their backs on St. Anthony, and the motorboat chugged southward, out of the harbor and along the coast. For atime all went well, and then an easterly wind sprang up and therefollowed a touch-and-go game between Dr. Grenfell and the ice. 

In an attempt to dodge the ice the boat struck upon rocks. This causedsome damage to her bottom, but not sufficient to incapacitate her, asit was found the hole could be plugged. The weather turned bitterlycold, and the circulating pipes of the motor froze and burst. This wasa more serious accident, but it was temporarily repaired whileGrenfell bivouaced ashore, sleeping at night under the stars with abed of juniper boughs for a mattress and an open fire to keep himwarm. 

Ice now blocked the way to the southward, though open leads of waterto the northward offered opportunity to retreat, and, with the motorboat in a crippled condition, it was decided to return to St. Anthonyand make an attempt, with fresh equipment, to try a route through theStraits of Belle Isle. 

They were still some miles from St. Anthony when they found itnecessary to abandon the motor boat in one of the small harborsettlements. Leaving it in charge of the people, Grenfell borrowed asmall rowboat. Rowing the small boat through open lanes and hauling itover obstructing ice pans they made slow progress and the month of Maywas nearing its close when one day the pack suddenly drove in uponthem. 

They were fairly caught. Ice surrounded them on every side. The boatwas in imminent danger of being crushed before they realized theirdanger. Grenfell and his companion sprang from the boat to a pan, andseizing the prow of the boat hauled upon it with the energy ofdesperation. They succeeded in raising the prow upon the ice, but theywere too late. The edge of the ice was high and the pans were movingrapidly, and to their chagrin they heard a smashing and splintering ofwood, and the next instant were aware that the stern of the boat hadbeen completely bitten off and that they were adrift on an ice pan, cut off from the land by open water. 

An inspection of the boat proved that it was wrecked beyond repair. All of the after part had been cut off and ground to pulp between theice pans. In the distance, to the westward, rose the coast, a grimoutline of rocky bluffs. Between them and the shore the sea was dottedwith pans and pieces of ice, separated by canals of black water. Themen looked at each other in consternation as they realized that theyhad no means of reaching land and safety, and that a few hours mightfind them far out on the Atlantic. 

In the hope of attracting attention, Dr. Grenfell and William Taylor, his companion, fired their guns at regular intervals. Expectantly theywaited, but there was no answering signal from shore and no sign oflife anywhere within their vision. 

For a long while they waited and watched and signalled. With a turn inthe tide it became evident, finally, that the pan on which they weremarooned was drifting slowly seaward. If this continued they wouldsoon be out of sight of land, and then all hope of rescue wouldvanish. 

"I'll tell you what I'll do, now, " suggested Taylor. "I'll copy towardshore. I'll try to get close enough for some one to see me. "

To "copy" is to jump from one pan or piece of ice to another. The gapsof water separating them are sometimes wide, and a man must be a goodjumper who lands. Some of the pieces of ice are quite too small tobear a man's weight, and he must leap instantly to the next or he willsink with the ice. It is perilous work at best, and much too dangerousfor any one to attempt without much practice and experience. 

They had a boat hook with them, and taking it to assist in the longleaps, Taylor started shore-ward. Dr. Grenfell watched him anxiouslyas he sprang from pan to pan making a zigzag course toward shore, nowand again taking hair-raising risks, sometimes resting for a moment ona substantial pan while he looked ahead to select his route, thenrunning, and using the boat hook as a vaulting pole, spanning a widechasm. Then, suddenly, Dr. Grenfell saw him totter, throw up his handsand disappear beneath the surface of the water. In a hazardous leap hehad missed his footing, or a small cake of ice had turned under hisweight. 

XXII

SAVING A LIFE

It was a terrible moment for Grenfell when he saw his friend disappearbeneath the icy waves. Would the cold so paralyze him as to render himhelpless? Would he be caught under an ice pan? A hundred such thoughtsflashed through Grenfell's mind as he stood, impotent to help becauseof the distance between them. Then to his great joy he saw Taylor riseto the surface and scramble out upon a pan in safety. 

The ice was too far separated now for Taylor either to advance orretreat, and the pan upon which he had taken refuge began a rapiddrift seaward. He had made a valiant effort, but the attempt hadfailed. 

Grenfell resumed firing his gun, still hoping that some one might hearit and come to their rescue. Time passed and Taylor drifted abreast ofGrenfell and finally drifted past him. Then, in the far distance, Grenfell glimpsed the flash of an oar. The flash was repeated withrhythmic regularity. The outlines of a boat came into view. The menshouted the good news to each other. Help was coming!

The signals had been heard, and in due time, and with muchthankfulness, Dr. Grenfell and William Taylor were safely in the boatand on their way to St. Anthony. 

Not long after his return to St. Anthony, the ice drifted eastward andan open strip of sea appeared leading northward toward the Straits ofBelle Isle. The ice was now a full mile off shore, it was thebeginning of June, and Dr. Grenfell, expecting that at this lateseason the Straits would be open for navigation, had the _Strathcona_made ready for sea at once, and with high hopes, stowed the anchor andsteamed northward. It was his plan to have the vessel carry himwestward through the Straits and land him at some port on the westcoast of Newfoundland where he could take passage on the regular mailboat, which he had been advised had begun its summer service. Thencehe could continue his trip to New York, where the important meetinghad been adjourned several times in expectation of his coming. 

But again he was doomed to disappointment. The Straits were found tobe packed from shore to shore with heavy floe ice and clogged withicebergs. Before the _Strathcona_ could make her escape she wassurrounded by ice and frozen tight and fast into the floe. 

[Illustration: "THE HOSPITAL SHIP. STRATHCONA"]

Grenfell was determined to reach New York and attend that meeting. Itwas supremely important that he do so. Now there was but one way toreach the mail boat, and that was to walk. The distance to the nearestport of call was ninety miles. 

Making up a pack of food, cooking utensils, bedding and a suit ofclothes that would permit him to present a civilized and respectableappearance when he reached New York, he made ready for the longoverland journey. Shouldering his big pack, he bade goodbye to Mrs. Grenfell, who was with him on the _Strathcona_, and to the crew, andset out over the ice pack to the land. 

Three days later Dr. Grenfell reached the harbor where he was to boardthe mail boat upon her arrival. He was wearied and stiff in his jointsafter the hard overland hike with a heavy pack on his back, andlooking forward to rest and a good meal, he went directly to the homeof a mission clergyman living in the little village. 

His welcome was hearty, as a welcome always is on this coast. Theclergyman showered him with kindnesses. A pot of steaming tea and anappetizing meal was on the table in a jiffy. It was luxury after thelong days on the trail and Grenfell sat down with anticipation of keenenjoyment. 

At the moment that Grenfell seated himself the door openedunceremoniously, and an excited fisherman burst into the room with theexclamation:

"For God's sake, some one come! Come and save my brother's life! He'sbleeding to death!"

Dr. Grenfell learned in a few hurried inquiries that the man'sbrother had accidentally shot his leg nearly off an hour before andwas already in a comatose condition from loss of blood. The familylived five miles distant, and the only way to reach the cabin wherethe wounded man lay was on foot. 

Grenfell forgot all about the steaming tea, the good meal and rest. Amoment's delay might cost the man his life. Grenfell ran. Over thatfive miles of broken country he ran as he had never run before, withthe half-frenzied fisherman leading the way. 

The wounded man was a young fellow of twenty. Dr. Grenfell knew himwell. He was a hero of the world war. He had volunteered when a mereboy, served bravely through four years of the terrible conflict andthough he had taken part in many of the great battles he had lived toreturn to his home and his fishing. 

"I never knew a better cure for stiffness than a splendid chance forserving, " said Grenfell in referring to that run from the missionary'shome to the fisherman's cottage. All his stiff joints and wearymuscles were forgotten as he ran. 

When Dr. Grenfell entered the room where the man lay, he found theyoung fisherman soaked with blood and sea water, lying stretched upona hard table. The remnant of his shattered leg rested upon a featherpillow and was strung up to the ceiling in an effort to stop the flowof blood. He was moaning, but was practically unconscious, and barelyalive. 

The room was crowded to suffocation with weeping relatives andsympathetic neighbors. Dr. Grenfell cleared it at once. The place wassmall and the light poor and a difficult place in which to treat socritical a case or to operate successfully. He had no surgicalinstruments or medicines, and even for him, accustomed as he was towork under handicaps and difficulties, a serious problem confrontedhim. 

The man was so far gone that an operation seemed hopeless, butnevertheless it was worth trying. Grenfell sent messengers far andnear for reserve supplies that he had left at various points to bedrawn upon in cases of emergency, and in a little while had at hiscommand some opiates, a small amount of ether, some silk forligatures, some crude substitutes for instruments, and the supply ofcommunal wine from the missionary's little church, five miles away. 

While these things had been gathered in, the flow of blood had beenabated by the use of a tourniquet. There was scarcely enough ether tobe of use, but with the assistance of two men Dr. Grenfell applied itand operated. 

One of the assistants fainted, but the other stuck faithfully to hispost, and with a cool head and steady hand did Dr. Grenfell's bidding. The operation was performed successfully, and the young soldier'slife was saved through Dr. Grenfell's skillful treatment. Today thisfisherman has but one leg, but he is well and happy and a useful manin the world. 

Fate takes a hand in our lives sometimes, and plays strange prankswith us. In New York a group of gentlemen were impatiently awaitingthe arrival of Dr. Grenfell, while he, in an isolated cottage on therugged coast of Northern Newfoundland was saving a fisherman's life, and in the importance and joy of this service had perhaps for the timequite forgotten the gentlemen and the meeting and even New York. 

Perhaps Providence had a hand in it all. If the water lanes had notclosed, and the motor boat had not been damaged, and Dr. Grenfell andWilliam Taylor had not been sent adrift on the ice, and no obstacleshad stood in the way of Dr. Grenfell's journey to New York, and the_Strathcona_ had not been frozen into the ice pack, in all probabilitythis brave young soldier and fisherman would have died. There is nodoubt that _he_ believes God set the stage to send Dr. Grenfell onthat ninety-mile hike. 

XXIII

REINDEER AND OTHER THINGS

Hunting in a northern wilderness is never to be depended upon. Sometimes game is plentiful, and sometimes it is scarcely to be had atall. This is the case both with fur bearing animals and food game. Soit is in Labrador. When I have been in that country I have dependedupon my gun to get my living, just as the Indians do. One year I allbut starved to death, because caribou and other game was scarce. Otheryears I have lived in plenty, with a caribou to shoot whenever Ineeded meat. 

In Labrador the Eskimos and liveyeres rely upon the seals to supplythem with the greater part of their dog feed, supplemented by fish, cod heads and nearly any offal. The Eskimos eat seal meat, too, with afine relish, both cooked and raw, and when the seals are not too oldtheir meat, properly cooked, is very good eating indeed for anybody. 

The Indians rely on the caribou, or wild reindeer, to furnish theirchief food supply, and to a large extent the caribou is also the chiefmeat animal of the liveyeres. 

Sometimes caribou are plentiful enough on certain sections of thecoast north of Hamilton Inlet. I remember that in January, 1903, animmense herd came out to the coast north of Hamilton Inlet, Theypassed in thousands in front of a liveyere's cabin, and standing inhis door the liveyere shot with his rifle more than one hundred ofthem, only stopping his slaughter when his last cartridge was used. From up and down the coast for a hundred miles Eskimos and liveyerescame with dogs and komatik to haul the carcasses to their homes, forthe liveyere who killed the animals gave to those who had killed noneall that he could not use himself, and none was wasted. 

That was a year of plenty. Oftener than not no caribou come withinreach of the folk that live on the coast, and in these frequentseasons of scarcity the only meat they have in winter is the salt porkthey buy at the trading posts, if they have the means to buy it, together with the rabbits and grouse they hunt, and, in the woodeddistricts, an occasional porcupine. Now and again, to be sure, a polarbear is killed, but this is seldom. Owls are eaten with no less relishthan partridges, and lynx meat is excellent, as I can testify fromexperience. 

But the smaller game is not sufficient to supply the needs and itoccurred to Doctor Grenfell that, if the Lapland reindeer could beintroduced, this animal would not only prove superior to the dog fordriving, but would also furnish a regular supply of meat to thepeople, and also milk for the babies. 

The domestic reindeer is a species of caribou. In other words, thecaribou is the wild reindeer. The domestic and the wild animals eatthe same food, the gray caribou moss, which carpets northernNewfoundland and the whole of Labrador, furnishing an inexhaustiblesupply of forage everywhere in forest and in barrens. The Laplandreindeer had been introduced into Alaska and northwestern Canada withgreat success. They would thrive equally well in Labrador andNewfoundland. 

With this in mind Doctor Grenfell learned all he could about reindeerand reindeer raising. The more he studied the subject the betterconvinced he was that domesticated reindeer introduced into Labradorwould prove a boon to the people. He appealed to some of his generousfriends and they subscribed sufficient money to undertake theexperiment. 

In 1907 three hundred reindeer were purchased and landed safely at St. Anthony, Newfoundland. With experienced Lapland herders to care forthem they were turned loose in the open country. For a time the herdgrew and thrived and the prospects for complete success of theexperiment were bright. 

It was Doctor Grenfell's policy to first demonstrate the usefulness ofreindeer in Newfoundland, and finally transfer a part of the herd toLabrador. The great difficulty that stood in the way of rearing theanimals in eastern Labrador was the vicious wolf dogs. It was obviousthat dogs and reindeer could not live together, for the dogs wouldhunt and kill the inoffensive reindeer just as their primitiveprogenitors, the wolves, hunt and kill the wild caribou. 

Because of the dogs, no domestic animals can be kept in easternLabrador. Once Malcolm MacLean, a Scotch settler at Carter's Basin, inHamilton Inlet, imported a cow. He built a strong stable for itadjoining his cabin. Twelve miles away, at Northwest River, the dogsone winter night when the Inlet had frozen sniffed the air blowingacross the ice. They smelled the cow. Like a pack of wolves they wereoff. They trailed the scent those twelve miles over the ice to thedoor of the stable where Malcolm's cow was munching wild hay. Theybroke down the stable door, and before Malcolm was aware of what wastaking place the cow was killed and partly devoured. 

For generations untold, Labradormen have kept dogs for hauling theirloads and the dogs have served them well. They were not willing tosubstitute reindeer. They knew their dogs and they did not know thereindeer, and they refused to kill their dogs. To educate them to thechange it was evident would be a long process. 

In the meantime the herd in Newfoundland was growing. In 1911 itnumbered one thousand head, and in 1912 approximated thirteen hundred. Then an epidemic attacked them and numbers died. Following this, illegitimate hunting of the animals began, and without proper meansof guarding them Doctor Grenfell decided to turn them over to theCanadian Government. 

During those strenuous years of war, when food was so scarce, a goodmany of the herd had been killed by poachers. Perhaps we cannot blamethe poachers, for when a man's family is hungry he will go to lengthsto get food for his children, and Doctor Grenfell recognized thestress of circumstances that led men to kill his animals and carry offthe meat. The epidemic, as stated, had proved fatal to a considerablenumber of the animals, and the herd therefore was much reduced insize. The remnant were corralled in 1918, and shipped to the CanadianGovernment at St. Augustine, in southern Labrador, where they are nowthriving and promise marvelous results. 

Some day Doctor Grenfell's efforts with reindeer will prove a greatsuccess at least in southern Labrador, where the dogs are lessvicious, and play a less important part in the life of the people thanon the eastern coast. Upon these thousands of acres of uncultivatedand otherwise useless land the reindeer will multiply until they willnot only feed the people of Labrador but will become no small part ofthe meat supply of eastern Canada. His introduction of reindeer intosouthern Labrador will be remembered as one of the great acts of hisgreat life of activity. Their introduction was the introduction of anindustry that will in time place the people of this section in aposition of thrifty independence. 

There never was yet a man with any degree of self-respect who did notwish to pay his own way in the world. Every real man wishes to standsquarely upon his own feet, and pay for what he receives. To acceptcharity from others always makes a man feel that he has lost out inthe battle of life. It robs him of ambition for future effort and ofself-reliance and self-respect. 

Doctor Grenfell has always recognized this human characteristic. Itwas evident to him when he entered the mission field in Labrador thatin seasons when the fisheries failed and no fur could be trapped agreat many of the people in Labrador and some in northern Newfoundlandwould be left without a means of earning their living. There are nofactories there and no work to be had except at the fisheries in thesummer, trapping in winter and the brief seal hunt in the spring andfall. When any of these fail, the pantries are empty and the men andtheir families must suffer. But most of the people are too proud toadmit their poverty when a season of poverty comes to them. They areeager for work and willing and ready always to turn their hand toanything that offers a chance to earn a dollar. 

To provide for such emergencies Grenfell, many years ago, establisheda lumber camp in the north of Newfoundland, and at Canada Bay in theextreme northeast a ship building yard where schooners and other smallcraft could be built, and nearly everyone out of work could findemployment. 

In southern and eastern Labrador, where wood is to be had for thecutting, he arranged to purchase such wood as the people might deliverto his vessels. In return for the wood he gave clothing and othersupplies. 

Then came mat and rug weaving, spinning and knitting and basketmaking. Through Grenfell's efforts volunteer teachers went north insummers to teach the people these useful arts. He supplied looms. Every one was eager to learn and today Labrador women are making rugs, baskets and various saleable articles in their homes, and Grenfellsells for them in the "States" and Canada all they make. Thus a newmeans of earning a livelihood was opened to the women, where formerlythere was nothing to which they could turn their hand to earn moneywhen the men were away at the hunting and trapping. 

Mrs. Grenfell has more recently introduced the art of makingartificial flowers. The women learned it readily, and their product isquite equal to that of the French makers. 

Doctor Grenfell had been many years on the coast before he wasmarried. Mrs. Grenfell was Miss Anna MacCalahan, of Chicago. Upon hermarriage to Doctor Grenfell, Mrs. Grenfell went with him to hisnorthern field. She cruises with him on his hospital ship, the_Strathcona_, acting as his secretary, braving stormy seas, andworking for the people with all his own self-sacrificing devotion. Sheis a noble inspiration in his great work, and the "mother of thecoast. "

Doctor Grenfell has established a school at St. Anthony open not onlyto the orphans of the children's home but to all the children of thecoast. There are schools on the Labrador also, connected with themission. It is a fine thing to see the eagerness of the Labrador boysand girls to learn. They are offered an opportunity through DoctorGrenfell's thoughtfulness that their parents never had and theyappreciate it. It is no exaggeration to say that they enjoy theirschools quite as much as our boys and girls enjoy moving pictures, andthey give as close attention to their books and to the instruction asany of us would give to a picture. They look upon the school as a finegift, as indeed it is. The teachers are giving them something everyday--a much finer thing than a new sled or a new doll--knowledge thatthey will carry with them all their lives and that they can useconstantly. And so it happens that study is not work to them. 

How much Doctor Grenfell has done for the Labrador! How much he isdoing every day! How much more he would do if those who have inabundance would give but a little more to aid him! How much happinesshe has spread and is spreading in that northland!

XXIV

THE SAME GRENFELL

Doctor Grenfell is not alone the doctor of the coast. He is also aduly appointed magistrate, and wherever he happens to be on Sundays, where there is no preacher to conduct religious services, and itrarely happens there is one, for preachers are scarce on the coast, hetakes the preacher's place. It does not matter whether it is a Churchof England, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, or a Baptist congregation, hespeaks to the people and conducts the service with fine unsectarianreligious devotion. Grenfell is a deeply religious man, and in hisreligious life there is no buncomb or humbug. He lives what hepreaches. In his audiences at his Sunday services are Protestants andRoman Catholics alike, and they all love him and will travel far tohear him. 

Norman Duncan, in that splendid book, "Doctor Grenfell's Parish, "tells the story of a man who had committed a great wrong, amounting toa crime. The man was brought before Grenfell, as Labrador magistrate. He acknowledged his crime, but was defiant. The man cursed thedoctor. 

"You will do as I tell you, " said the Doctor, "or I will put you underarrest, and lock you up. "

The man laughed, and called Doctor Grenfell's attention to the factthat he was outside his judicial district, and had no power to makethe arrest. 

"Never mind, " warned the Doctor quietly. "I have a crew strong enoughto take you into my district. "

The man retorted that he, also, had a crew. 

"Are the men of your crew loyal enough to fight for you?" asked theDoctor. "There's going to be a fight if you don't submit without it. This is what you must do, " he continued. "You will come to the churchservice at seven o'clock on Sunday evening, and before the wholecongregation you will confess your crime. "

Again the man cursed the Doctor and defied him. It happened that thisman was a rich trader and felt his power. 

The man did not appear at the church on Sunday evening. DoctorGrenfell announced to the congregation that the man was to appear toconfess and receive judgment, and he asked every one to keep his seatwhile he went to fetch the fellow. 

He found the man in a neighbor's house, surrounded by his friends. Itwas evident the man's crew had no mind to fight for him, they knew hewas guilty. The man was praying, perhaps to soften the Doctor'sheart. 

[Illustration: "I HAVE A CREW STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE YOU INTO MYDISTRICT"]

"Prayer is a good thing in its place, " said the Doctor, "but itdoesn't 'go' here. Come with me. "

The man, like a whipped dog, went with the Doctor. Entering themeeting room, he stood before the waiting congregation and made acomplete confession. 

"You deserve the punishment of man and God?" asked the Doctor. 

"I do, " said the man, no longer defiant. 

The Doctor told him that God would forgive him if he truly repented, but that the people, being human, could not, for he had wronged themsorely. Then he charged the people that for a whole year none of themshould speak or deal with that man; but if he made an honest effort tomend his way, they could feel free to talk with him and deal with himagain at the end of the year. 

"This relentless judge, " says Norman Duncan, "on a stormy July daycarried many bundles ashore at Cartwright, in Sandwich Bay of theLabrador. The wife of the Hudson's Bay Company's agent examined themwith delight. They were Christmas gifts from the children of the"States" to the lads and little maids of that coast. The Doctor neverforgets the Christmas gifts. " The wife of the agent stowed away thegifts to distribute them at next Christmas time. 

"It makes them _very_ happy, " said the agent's wife. 

"Not long ago, " said Duncan, "I saw a little girl with a stick ofwood for a dolly. Are they not afraid to play with these prettythings?"

"Sometimes, " she laughed, "but it makes them happy just to look atthem. But they do play with them. There is a little girl up the baywho _has kissed the paint off her dolly_!"

And so even the tiniest, most forlorn little lad or lass is notforgotten by Doctor Grenfell. He is the Santa Claus of the coast. Henever forgets. Nothing, if it will bring joy into the life of any one, is too big or too small for his attention. 

Can we wonder that Grenfell is happy in his work? Can we wonder thatnothing in the world could induce him to leave the Labrador for a lifeof ease? Battling, year in and year out, with stormy seas in summer, and ice and snow and arctic blizzards in winter, the joy of life is inhim. Every day has a thrill for him. Here in this rugged land ofendeavor he has for thirty years been healing the sick and savinglife, easing pain, restoring cripples to strength, feeding andclothing and housing the poor, and putting upon their feet with usefulwork unfortunate men that they might look the world in the facebravely and independently. 

There is no happiness in the world so keen as the happiness that comesthrough making others happy. This is what Doctor Grenfell is doing. Heis giving his life to others, and he is getting no end of joy out oflife himself. The life he leads possesses for him no element ofself-denial, after all, and he never looks upon it as a life ofhardship. He loves the adventure of it, and by straight, clean livinghe has prepared himself, physically and mentally, to meet the stormsand cold and privations with no great sense of discomfort. 

Wilfred Thomason Grenfell is the same sportsman, as, when a lad, heroamed the Sands o' Dee; the same lover of fun that he was when hewent to Marlborough College; the same athlete that made the footballteam and rowed with the winning crew when a student in theUniversity--sympathetic, courageous, tireless, a doer among men andabove all, a Christian gentleman. 

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_Printed in the United States of America_

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Obvious typos fixed:

"book" for "look", page 132"alseep" for "asleep", page 195 (twice)"hundrel" for "hundred", page 214"seaprated" for "separated", page 216"Malcom's" for "Malcolm's", page 228 (twice)"bad" for "bade", page 156"Trezize" for "Trevize", page 38

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