Chapter V: Part 5

With cheerful optimism and heroic determination Doctor Grenfell set for himself the task of establishing such a home. And in the end great things grew out of the suffering and death of Gabriel Pomiuk. The splendid courage and cheerfulness of the little Eskimo lad was to result in happiness for many other little sufferers. Now, as always it was, with Doctor Grenfell, "I can if I will,"--none of the uncertainty of, "I will if I can." He pitched into the work of raising money to build that children's home. He lectured, and wrote, and talked about it in his usual enthusiastic way, and money began to come to him from good people all over the world. At length enough was raised and the home was built.

He had already picked up and taken into his mission family so many boys and girls, orphans or otherwise, that were without home or shelter, and that he could not leave behind him to suffer and die, that he had nearly enough on his hands to populate the new building before it was ready for them. Indeed he soon found himself almost in the position of the "old woman that lived in a shoe," and "had so many children she didn't know what to do." His big kind fatherly heart would never permit him to abandon a homeless child, and so he took them 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 of these children came to him. One day, when cruising north in the _Strathcona_, he was told that a family living in an isolated and lonely 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 his vessel hove her anchor, he was quite astonished that no one came out of the cabin to offer welcome, as is the custom with Labradormen everywhere when vessels anchor near their homes. He and his mate were put ashore in a boat, and as they walked up the trail to the cabin still no one appeared and no smoke issued from the stovepipe, which, rising through the roof, served as a chimney. When he lifted the latch he was quite decided no one, after all, was at home.

Upon entering the cabin a shocking scene presented itself. The mother of the family lay upon the bed with wide-open stare. Doctor Grenfell's practiced eye told him she was dead. The father, a Scotch fisherman and trapper, was stretched upon the floor, helplessly ill, and a hasty examination proved that he was dying. Five frightened, hungry, cold little children were huddled in a corner.

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

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

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

So alone this tiny little girl of three lived in the mud hut through the long days and the longer and darker nights. There was no mother's knee 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 her before she slept. O, how lonely she must have been! Think of those chilly Labrador nights, when she huddled down on the floor in the ragged blanket that was her bed! How many nights she must have cried herself to sleep with loneliness and fear!

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

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

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

He went immediately in search, steaming nearly around the island, and discerning no sign of life he had decided that the people had gone, when a little curl of smoke rising from the center of the island caught his eye. He at once brought his vessel to, let go the anchor, lowered away a boat and accompanied by his mate pulled ashore. Making the boat fast the two men scrambled up the rocks and set out in the direction 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 old canvas, pieced out by bits of matting and bagging, to form the roof of a lean-to shelter. In front of the lean-to a fire burned, and under the shelter by the fire sat a scantily clad, bedraggled woman. In her arms she held a bundle of rags, which proved to envelop a tiny new born baby, nursing at her breast.

A little girl of five, barefooted and ragged, slunk timidly back as the strangers approached. The woman grunted a greeting, but did not rise.

"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 family and that they were also "somewheres handy about." A search discovered two of them, lads of seven and eight, practically naked, but tough as little bears, feeding upon wild berries. Their bodies were tanned brown by sun and wind, and streaked and splotched with the blue and red stain of berry juice. They were jabbering contentedly and both were 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 lads returned 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 hung in tatters. In one hand he carried a rusty old trade gun, (a single-barreled, old-fashioned muzzle loading shotgun), in the other he clutched by its wing a gull that he had recently shot. Following the father came an older lad, perhaps fourteen years of age, little better clothed than his two brothers and as wild and unkempt in appearance as the father.

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

It was cold. The now thickly falling snow spoke loudly of the Arctic winter so near at hand. The liveyere and his family, however, seemed not to feel or mind the chill in the least, and apparently gave no more thought to the morrow or the coming winter, upon whose frigid threshold they stood, than did the white-winged gulls flying low over the water.

Fresh wood was placed upon the fire, and Grenfell and the mate joined the 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 far out. I has no shot. I uses pebbles for shot, and 'tis hard to hit un with pebbles. 'Tis wonderful hard to knock un down with no shot."

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

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

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

"It's snowing and the berries will soon be covered," suggested Grenfell. "You can't live without something to eat and now winter is coming 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 tea and some clodin' (clothing)," harped the woman. "The Gover'me't don't give 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?" asked Grenfell. "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 clothe them well."

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

"You can't keep yourselves and these children alive through the winter. Some of you will starve or freeze," persisted Grenfell. "Suppose you let us have the two young lads and the little maid. We'll take good care of them and we'll give you some clothing we have aboard the 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 woman in the same high key. "'Tis the Gov'me't's place to be givin' us what we 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 an opportunity to change his mind, seized the naked boy nearest him, tucked the lad, kicking and struggling, under one arm, and started for the boat, but upon Doctor Grenfell's suggestion waited, with the lad still under his arm, for developments.

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

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

Presently, in spite of violent protests from the mother, the father was moved, by promises of additional supplies, to consent to Grenfell taking the other boy. And immediately the man had said, "Take un both," the mate seized the second lad and with a youngster struggling under each arm, and with four bare legs kicking in a wild but vain effort for freedom and two pairs of lusty young lungs howling rebellion, he strode exultantly away through the falling snow to the boat with his captives.

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

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

Hundreds of stories might be told of the destitute little ones that have been, since the day he found Pomiuk on the rocks of Nochvak, gathered together by Doctor Grenfell and tenderly cared for in the Children's Home that was built at St. Anthony. There was a little girl whose feet were so badly frozen that her father had to chop them both off with an ax to save her life, and who Doctor Grenfell found helpless in the poor little cabin where her people lived. I wish there was time and room to tell about her. He took her away with him, and healed her wounds, and fitted cork feet to her stumps of legs so that she could go to school and run around and play with the other children. 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 real ones.

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

These are but a few of the many, many children that have been made happy and have been trained at the Home and under Doctor Grenfell's care to useful lives. Some of them have worked their way through college. Some of the boys served in the Great War at the front. Many are holding positions of importance. Let us see, however, what became of those particular ones, mentioned in this chapter.

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

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

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

Now, as I write, in the fall of 1921, the walls of a new fine concrete home for the children are under construction at St. Anthony, to be used in conjunction with the original wooden building which is crowded to capacity. Children of the United States, Canada, and Great Britain giving of their pennies made the new building possible. More money is needed to furnish it, but enough will surely be given for the homeless little ones of the Labrador must be cared for.

And so, in the end, great things grew out of the suffering and death of Gabriel Pomiuk, the little Eskimo lad. His splendid courage and cheerfulness 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 dog travel. The dogs are interesting the year round, for they are always in evidence winter and summer, but in the fall when the sea freezes and snow comes, they take a most important place in the life of the people of the coast. They are the horses and automobiles and locomotives of the country. No one can travel far without them.

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

The true husky dog of northern Labrador has the head and jawls and upstanding 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 but one 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 big fellows often weigh a full hundred pounds and more.

Indeed these northern huskies and the wild wolves mix together sometimes to fight, and sometimes in good fellowship. Once I had a wolf follow my komatik for two days, and at night when we stopped and turned our dogs loose the wolf joined them and staid the night with them 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 once traveling with a native Labradorman driver along the Labrador coast, when his train of eight big huskies, suddenly becoming excited, gave an extra strain on their traces and snapped the "bridle," the long walrus hide thong that connects the traces with the komatik. Away the dogs ran, heading over a low hill, apparently in pursuit of some game they had scented.

My friend, on snowshoes, ran in pursuit, while the driver made a circuit around the hill in the hope of heading the dogs off. Ten minutes later the team swung down over the hill and back to the komatik. From a distance the men saw them and also turned back, but to their astonishment they counted not the eight dogs that composed their team, but thirteen. On drawing nearer they realized that five great 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 rifles the 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 isolated cabin of Tom Broomfield, a trapper of the coast, where I was to spend the night. When our dogs were fed and we had eaten our own supper, Tom went to a chest and drew forth a huge wolf skin, which he held up for my inspection.

"He's a big un, now! A wonderful big un!" he commented. "Most big enough 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' just outside 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 chest where we could admire it. "I were away 'tendin' fox traps, and I has th' 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' team broke 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 she sees 'tis a wolf and no dog at all. 'Twere a wonderful big un too. He were inside that skin you sees there, sir, and you can see for yourself 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' door is bendin' in and handy t' breakin' open. She's a bit scared, sir, and shakin' in th' hands, and she makes a slip, and th' rifle, he goes off, 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' dogs fightin', and I takes a look out th' windy, and there I sees that wolf fightin' wi' th' dogs, and right handy t' th' house. I just takes my rifle 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 and knocks he over wi' a bullet, sir. I gets he fair in th' head first shot I takes, and there be th' skin. 'Tis worth a good four dollars too, for 'tis an extra fine one."

They are treacherous beasts, but, like the wolf, cowardly, these big dogs of the Labrador. If a man should trip and fall among them, the likelihood is he would be torn to pieces by their fangs before he could help himself. You cannot make pals of them as you can of other dogs. They would as lief snap off the hand that reared and feeds them as not. It is never safe for a stranger to move among a pack of them without a stick in his hand. But a threatened kick or the swing of a menacing stick will send them off crawling and whining.

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

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

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

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

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

After the attack the dogs became extremely aggressive and surly. They were 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 human life. Usually in Labrador when dogs are guilty of attacking people they are hung by the neck to a gibbet until dead, and left hanging for several days. I have seen dogs thus hanging after execution.

When I left Davis Inlet Post of the Hudson's Bay Company with my dog team one cold winter morning, a native trapper told me that he would follow later in the day and probably overtake me at the Moravian Mission Station at Hopedale. We made half the journey to Hopedale that night and spent the night in a native cabin. A storm was threatening the next morning, but, nevertheless, we set forward. Shortly after midday the storm broke with a gale of wind and driving, smothering snow, and a temperature 30 degrees below zero. Every moment it increased in fury, but fortunately we reached the mission station before it had reached its worst, and here remained stormbound for two days, during which time the trapper did not appear.

Later I learned that, with his wife and young son he left Davis Inlet a few hours after our departure. After the storm had abated his dog team appeared at Davis Inlet, but he and his wife and child were not heard from. A searching party set out, but could find no trace of the missing ones.

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

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

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

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

The leader of the dog team is the best disciplined dog in the team but not always by any means the "boss" dog, or bully, of the pack. Every pack has its bully and generally, also, its under dog that all the others pick upon. Eskimo dogs fight among themselves, but the packs hold together as a gang against strange packs, and when sledges meet each other on the trail the drivers must exert their utmost effort and caution, 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 feet in length, though in the far north I have seen them a full eighteen feet long. In the extreme north of Labrador, where the largest ones are found, they are but sixteen inches wide. Further south, in the region where the mission hospitals are situated, from ten to twelve feet is the usual length and about two feet the breadth.

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

But in Labrador dog travel is usually on the naked coast and seldom in timbered country, and here the old Eskimo method is used. Each dog has its individual trace, which is fastened to the end of a single line of walrus skin leading from the komatik and called the bridle. The leading dog, which is especially trained to answer the driver's direction, has the longest trace, the next two dogs nearer the komatik shorter ones, the next two still shorter, and so on. Thus, when they travel the leader is in advance with the pack spread out behind him on either 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," and to 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 manner to that used in Labrador, and the sledges are of the same form, though of the widest type.

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

The usual dog whip is thirty or thirty-five feet in length, though I have seen them nearly fifty feet long. Eskimo drivers are exceedingly expert in handling the long whip, and in the hands of a cruel driver it is an instrument of torture. In southeastern and southern Labrador and in Newfoundland the dog whip is used much less freely than in the north, and the people are less expert in its manipulation than are the Eskimos. The different species of dogs renders the use of the whip less necessary.

Dog travel is seldom over smooth unobstructed ice fields. Sometimes it is over frozen bays where the tide has thrown up rough hummocks and ridges. I have been, under such conditions, nearly half a day crossing the mouth of a river one mile wide. Often the trail leads over high hills, with long hard steep climbs to be made and sometimes dangerous descents. In traveling over sea ice, especially in the late winter and spring, and always when an off shore wind prevails, there is danger of encountering bad ice, and breaking through, or having the ice "go abroad," and cutting you off from shore. When the tide has smashed the ice, it is often necessary to drive the team on the "ballicaders," or ice barricade, a narrow strip of ice clinging to the rocky shore. This is sometimes scarce wide enough for the komatik, and the greatest skill is necessary on the part of the driver to keep the komatik from slipping off the ballicader and falling and pulling the dogs into the sea.

When the snow is soft some one on snowshoes must go in advance of the dogs and pack the trail for them. Where traveling is rough, and in up-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 walrus hide, which he throws over the nose of one of the runners to serve as a drag. Even then, the descent may be rapid and exciting, and not a little dangerous for dogs and men. The driver throws himself on his side on the komatik clinging to it with both hands. His legs extend forward at the side of the sledge, he sticks his heels into the snow ahead to retard the progress, in imminent danger of a broken leg.

Winter settles early in Labrador and northern Newfoundland. Snow comes, the sea smokes, and then one morning men wake up to find a field of ice where waves were lapping the day before and where boats have sailed all summer.

Then it is that Doctor Grenfell sets out with his dogs and komatik over the great silent snow waste to visit his far scattered patients. Adventures meet him at every turn and some exciting experiences he has had, 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 dog can be, and trained to a nicety, always obedient and prompt in responding to the driver's commands. Running next behind Gypsy, and pulling side by side, are Tiger and Spider. Tiger is a large, good-natured red and white fellow, and Spider, his brother, is black and white. The next is Spot, a great white fellow with a black spot on his neck, which gives him his name. His mate in harness is a tawny yellow dog called Scotty. Then come Rover and Shaver. Rover is a small, black, lop-eared dog, about half the size of Shaver, who looks upon Rover as an inconsequent attachment, and though he thinks that Rover is of small assistance, he takes upon himself the responsibility of 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 they attend strictly to business.

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

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

It was this condition that led Doctor Grenfell to build his fine mission hospital at St. Anthony, and from St. Anthony, to brave the bitter storms of winter, traveling over hundreds of miles of dreary frozen storm-swept sea and land to help the needy, often to save life. He never charges a fee, but the Newfoundlander is independent and self-respecting, and when he is able to do so he pays. All that comes to Doctor Grenfell in this way he gives to the mission to help support the hospitals. Those who cannot pay receive from him and his assistants the same skilled and careful treatment as those who do pay. Money makes no difference. Doctor Grenfell is giving his life to the people because they need him, and he never keeps for his own use any part of the small fees paid him. He is never so happy as when he is helping others, and to help others who are in trouble is his one great object in life.

Two or three years ago the Newfoundland Government extended a telegraph line to St. Anthony. This offers the people an opportunity to call upon Doctor Grenfell when they are in need of him, though sometimes they live so far away that in the storms of winter and uncertainty of dog travel several days may pass before he can reach the sick ones in answer to the calls. But let the weather be what it may, he always responds, for there is no other doctor than Doctor Grenfell 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 young fisherman living at Cape Norman, urging Doctor Grenfell to come to his home at once, and stating that the fisherman's wife was seriously ill. Grenfell's assistant had taken the dog team the previous day to answer a call, and had not returned, and if he were to go before his assistant's return there would be no doctor at the hospital. He therefore answered the man, stating these facts. During the evening another wire was received urging him to find a team somewhere and come at all costs.

It was evidently indeed a serious case. Cape Norman lies thirty miles to the northward of St. Anthony, and the trail is a rough one. The night was moonless and pitchy black, but Grenfell set out at once to look for dogs. He borrowed four from one man, hired one from another, and arranged with a man, named Walter, to furnish four additional ones and to drive the team. Walter was to report at the hospital at 4:30 in the morning prepared to start, though it would still be long before daybreak.

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

At 4:30 he was dressed and ready for the journey. He looked out into the darkness. The air was thick with swirling clouds of snow driven before 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 without the dogs.

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

"I didn't bring un, sir," Walter stepped inside and shook the accumulation of snow from his garments. "'Tis a wonderful nasty mornin', and I'm thinkin' 'tis too bad to try un before daylight. I've been watchin' the weather all night, sir. 'Tis growin' worse. We has only a scratch team and the dog'll not work together right 'till they gets used to each other. I'm thinkin' we'll have to wait 'till it comes 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 and losin' 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 most of the two hours' rest.

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

"Come along soon. Wife worse."

The storm had increased in fury since Walter's early visit. It was now blowing a living gale, and the snow was so thick one could scarce breathe in it. The trail lay directly in the teeth of the storm. No dogs on earth could face and stem it and certainly not the picked up, or "scratch" team as Walter called it, for strange dogs never work well together, and will never do their best by any means for a strange driver, and Walter had never driven any of these except his own four.

With visions of the suffering woman whose life might depend upon his presence, the Doctor chafed the forenoon through. Then at midday came another telegram:

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

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

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

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

"Fetch me!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Do you believe dogs can travel against 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. The gale blows us here."

That was literally true. Ten miles of their journey had been over partially protected land, but for twenty miles it lay over unobstructed sea ice where the gale blew with all its force. Only the deep snow prevented them being carried at a pace that would have wrecked their sledge, in which case they would certainly have perished.

"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 been enduring that terrible storm to bring assistance to a neighbor! After the manner of the Newfoundlanders they had already fed and cared for the comfort of their wearied dogs, before giving thought to themselves, staggering with fatigue as they were.

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

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

It was after dark that evening when the two men again appeared at Doctor Grenfell's house. They were troubled for the safety of their neighbor'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're thinkin' 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 dogs together and he'll be right here."

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

Doctor Grenfell knew this and the men knew it full well, but their anxiety for the suffering woman at Cape Norman would not permit them to sleep. Anything was better than sitting still. The decision to start was a source of vast relief to Doctor Grenfell, even though it were to venture into the face of the terrible storm and bitter cold. Grenfell will venture anything with any man, and if those men could face 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 night and swirling snow they floundered down to it. The men were immediately knee-deep in slush and the two teams of dogs were nearly swimming. Their feet could not reach the solid bed of ice below. The immense weight of snow had pushed the ice down with the falling tide and the rising tide had flooded it.

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

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

Here on the lee side of the hill they met mighty drifts of feathery snow into which the dogs wallowed to their backs and the snowshoes of the men sunk deep. They were compelled to haul on the traces with the dogs. They had to lift and manipulate the sledges with tremendous effort. Up the grade they toiled and strained, yard by yard, foot by foot. Sometimes it seemed to them they were making no appreciable progress, but on they fought through the black night and the driving snow, sweating in spite of the Arctic blasts and clouds of drift that sometimes nearly stopped their breath and carried them off their feet.

The life of the young fisherman's wife at Cape Norman hung in the balance. The toiling men visualized her lying on a bed of pain and perhaps dying for the need of a doctor. They saw the agonized husband by her side, tortured by his helplessness to save her. They forgot themselves and the risk they were taking in their desire to bring to the 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 as Grenfell himself says, "not inspiration, but perspiration wins the prizes of life." They finally reached the crest of the hill.

On the opposite or weather side of the hill the gale met them with full 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 other snags, in imminent danger of having their brains knocked out or limbs broken.

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

At half past one in the morning they reached the mouth of Bartlett River where it empties into the sea and between them and Cape Norman lay twenty miles of unobstructed sea ice. They had been traveling for nearly six hours and had covered but ten miles of the journey. The temporary lull in the storm had long since passed, and now, beating down upon the world with redoubled fury, it met them squarely in the face. No dog could stem it. The men could scarce stand upright. The clouds of snow suffocated them, and the cold was withering.

Far out they could hear the thunder of smashing ice. It was a threat that the still firm ice lying before them might be broken into fragments at any time. Sea water had already driven over it, forming a thick coating of half-frozen slush. Even though the gale that swept the ice field had not been too fierce to face, any attempt to cross would 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 trail from St. Anthony. His name was Will, and he was a big broad-shouldered man, a giant of a fellow. He knew all the trappers on this part of the coast, and where their trapping grounds lay. One of his neighbors, whom he spoke of as "Si," trapped in the neighborhood where the baffled men now found themselves.

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

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

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

"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 among the trees, and Grenfell and the others waited. It was still six hours to daylight, and to stand inactive for six hours in the storm and biting cold would have been perilous if not fatal.

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

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

They followed Will's voice, bumping against trees, groping through flying 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 a supply of dry wood, all cut and piled ready for use. In one end of the tilt was a bench covered with spruce boughs which Si used as a bed.

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

Then a fire was lighted in the stove. Will went out with the ax and kettle, and presently returned with the kettle filled with water dipped 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 his dunnage bag to get the tea and sugar. Suddenly Will's pipe clattered to the floor. Will, standing like a statue, did not stoop to pick it up and Grenfell rescued it and rising offered it to him, when, to his vast astonishment, he discovered that the man, standing erect upon his feet was fast asleep. He had been nearly sixty hours without sleep and 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 his pipe but in a moment it fell from his teeth again. He rolled over on the bench and was too soundly asleep to be interested in pipe or tea or anything to eat.

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

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

Under the shelter of scraggly fir trees on Crow Island an attempt was made to light a fire and boil the kettle for tea. But there was no protection from the blizzard. They failed to get the fire, and finally compelled by the elements to give it up they took a compass course for a small settlement on the mainland. The instinct of the dogs led them straight, and when the men had almost despaired of locating the settlement they suddenly drew up before a snug cottage.

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