THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 48? WiltM* <ZL <0rettfell 
 
 LABRADOR DAYS. Tales of the Sea Toilers. 
 
 With frontispiece. 
 
 TALES OF THE LABRADOR. With frontispiece. 
 THE ADVENTURE OF LIFE. 
 ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN. Illustrated. 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK
 
 Labrador Days
 
 
 
 NORTHWARD HO!
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 By 
 
 Wilfred Thomason Grenfell 
 
 M.D. (OXON.), C.M-. G. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW TORE 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 tR* jRibtrsttie JJrrss CambnOse 
 
 1919
 
 PR 
 
 Contents 
 
 THERE'S TROUBLE ON THE SEA 1 
 
 NANCY 19 
 
 SALLY'S "TURNS" 38 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S BIG FEE 61 
 
 Two CAT'S-PAWS 73 
 
 THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 92 
 
 PORTLAND BILL 113 
 
 KAIACHOUOUK 130 
 
 Two CHRISTMASES 148 
 
 THE LEADING LIGHT 181 
 
 THE RED ISLAND SHOALS . 203
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 THERE'S TROUBLE ON THE SEA 
 
 THE ice in the big bay had broken up suddenly 
 that year in the latter part of March before a 
 tremendous ocean swell heaving in beneath it. 
 The piles of firewood and the loads of timber 
 for the summer fishing-rooms on all the outer 
 islands were left standing on the landwash. 
 The dog-teams usually haul all this out at a 
 stretch gallop over the glare ice which overlies 
 in April the snow-covered surface of winter. 
 For weeks, heavy pack ice, driven to and fro 
 with the tides, but ever held in the bay with 
 the onshore winds, had prevented the small 
 boats' freighting more than their families and 
 the merest necessities to the summer stations. 
 So it came to pass that long after the usual 
 tune, indeed after the incoming shoals of fish 
 were surely expected, John Mitchell's firewood 
 still lay on the bank, some twenty miles up 
 
 1
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 the bay. When at last a spell of warm and off- 
 shore winds had driven the ice mostly clear, 
 John announced to his eager lads that "come 
 Monday, if the wind held westerly," he would 
 go up the bay for a load. What a clamour en- 
 sued, for every one wanted to be one of the 
 crew to go to the winter home. The lads, like 
 ducklings, "fair loved the water"; and though 
 John needed Jim, and was quite glad to have 
 Tom, now of the important age of fourteen 
 years, he did his best, well seconded by the 
 wise old grandmother, to persuade Neddie, 
 aged twelve, and Willie, aged ten, to stay be- 
 hind. 
 
 "You be too small, Ned, yet awhile. Next 
 year perhaps father will take you," was the old 
 lady's first argument. "'Twill be cold in t* 
 boat, boy, and you'll perish altogether." 
 
 "Father '11 look after me, Grannie, and I'll 
 wrap up ever so warm. Do let me go. There 's 
 a dear grannie." 
 
 The curly-haired, rosy-cheeked lads were so 
 insistent and so winsome that the old lady con- 
 fessed to me afterwards, "They somehow got
 
 There's Trouble on the Sea 
 
 round my heart as they mostly does, and I let 
 'em go, though sore against my mind, Doc- 
 tor." 
 
 Of course, Willie had to go if Neddie went, 
 for "they'd be company while t' men worked, 
 and he could carry small things as well as t' 
 rest. He did so want to go." 
 
 When at length Monday came, and a bright 
 sun shone over a placid sea, the grandmother's 
 last excuse to keep them at home was lost. Her 
 consent was finally secured, and, before a 
 light, fair wind the women watched, not with- 
 out anxiety, so many of those whom they held 
 dearer than life itself sail "out into the deep." 
 
 Progress was slow, for the wind fell away al- 
 most altogether as the morning passed, but 
 the glorious warmth and exuberance of life 
 made the tune seem as nothing. The picnic in 
 the big trap boat was as good as a prince's ban- 
 quet. For the fun of "boiling t' kettle your- 
 self," and an appetite bred of a day on the 
 water, made the art of French cooks and the 
 stimulus of patent relishes pale into insignifi- 
 cance. During the afternoon they "had a spurt 
 
 3
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 singing," and as the words of hymns were the 
 only ones they knew, the old favourites were 
 sung and resung. The little lads especially led 
 the programme; and the others remembered 
 Willie singing for them, as a solo, a childish 
 favourite called "Bring Them In." 
 
 It was just about seven o'clock in the eve- 
 ning. The boat was well out in the bay, be- 
 tween three and four miles from land, when 
 John noticed a fresh "cat's-paw" of wind, just 
 touching the water here and there. There was 
 scarcely a cloud in the sky, and nothing what- 
 ever to suggest a squall. But as he looked again, 
 a suspicious wisp of white water lifted sud- 
 denly from the surface a few yards to wind- 
 ward. Like a flash he remembered that the boat 
 had no ballast in her, and was running with 
 her sheets made fast. Instinctively he leaned 
 forward to let go the foresail, but at the same 
 moment the squall struck the boat like the 
 hammer of Thor. Relieved of the fore canvas, 
 the trap should have come to the wind in an 
 instant. Instead, leaning over heavily with the 
 immense pressure, she staggered and reeled 
 
 4
 
 There's Trouble on the Sea 
 
 as if some unseen enemy had gripped her. 
 Scarcely perceptibly she gave ground, and a 
 lifetime seemed to elapse to John's horror- 
 stricken mind as she fell slowly over, as if fight- 
 ing for every inch, and conscious of her terrible 
 responsibilities for the issues at stake. 
 
 At last, in spite of her stout resistance, and 
 before John could climb aft and get at the 
 main sheet, or do anything to relieve the boat, 
 her stern was driven right under water by the 
 sheer pressure of the storm. Slowly she turned 
 over, leaving all of her occupants struggling in 
 the icy water, for there were many pieces of 
 ice still "knocking around." 
 
 The slow rate at which the boat had gone 
 over was one point in their favour, however, 
 for it enabled even the little lads to get clear of 
 the gunwale; and by the help of John and Jim 
 all five were soon huddled on the upturned 
 keel of the boat. The boys being all safe for the 
 moment, John rubbed his eyes, and, raising 
 himself as high as he could, viewed the situa- 
 tion. Alas! the squall had come to stay. 
 Everywhere now the placid surface of the 
 
 5
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 sea was ruffled and angry .\ The rising, flaky 
 clouds convinced him even in that instanta- 
 neous glance that the brewing storm offered 
 them little chance for their lives. 
 
 Far away to leeward, not less than four 
 miles distant, the loom of the land was only 
 just visible. Well he realized that it would be 
 many long hours before the boat, with her 
 masts and sails still fast in, could drive near 
 enough to enable them to make a landing. For, 
 like most fishermen in these icy waters, none of 
 them knew how to swim. Moreover, he soon 
 found that the anchor, fast to the warp, had 
 fallen out, and would certainly sooner or later 
 touch bottom thus robbing them of their 
 one and only chance of escape by preventing 
 the boat from drifting into shallow water. 
 
 So cold was it already that it appeared as if 
 a few moments at most must chill the life out 
 of at least the younger children. 
 
 "Hold Willie on, Ned, and ask God to bring 
 us all safe home," said John. He told me that 
 he felt somehow as if their prayers were more 
 likely to be heard than his own. He then 
 
 6
 
 There's Trouble on the Sea 
 
 crawled forward, having made up his mind to 
 try and cut the anchor free, and to get the rope 
 to tie round the boat and hold on the children. 
 His determination was fortified by his anxiety; 
 but it was a forlorn hope, for it meant lowering 
 himself right into the water, and he knew well 
 enough that he could not swim a yard. Then it 
 was done, and he was once more clinging to 
 the keel with the rope in his hand. It was not 
 difficult to get a bight round the boat, and 
 soon he had the children firmly lashed on and 
 the boat was again making fair progress before 
 the wind to the opposite shore. 
 
 Hours seemed to go by. The children were 
 sleepy. Apparently they no longer felt the 
 cold, and the average man might have thought 
 that it was a miracle on their behalf, for God 
 knows they had prayed hard enough for one. 
 But John recognized only too well that it was 
 that merciful harbinger of the last long sleep, 
 which had overtaken more than one of his best 
 friends, when adrift in the storms of winter. 
 And still the age-long journey dragged hope- 
 lessly on. 
 
 7
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 At last the awful suspense, a thousand tunes 
 more cruel for their being unable to do any- 
 thing, was broken by even the welcome inci- 
 dent of a new danger. Breakers were visible in 
 the direct course of their drift. "Maybe she'll 
 turn over, Jim," whispered the skipper. "I 
 reckon we must loose t' children for fear she 
 does." This being effected as promptly as their 
 condition allowed, Tom was told off to do 
 nothing but watch them and keep them safe. 
 For already the men had planned, if the slight- 
 est chance offered, to try and get the masts 
 out while she lay on her beam-ends. 
 
 The breakers? Well, they knew they were 
 only of small extent. There was a pinnacle of 
 rock and a single sea might possibly carry 
 them over it; but the peril of being washed off 
 was none the less. Now they could see the huge 
 rise of the combing sea with its frowning 
 black top rushing at the shoal, and smashing 
 into an avalanche of snowy foam. They could 
 hear the dull roar of the sea, and its mighty 
 thunder, as it curled over and fell furiously 
 upon itself, for want of other prey. 
 
 8
 
 There's Trouble on the Sea 
 
 "Good-bye, Jim," whispered the skipper. 
 "The children is all right either way, but one 
 of us may come through. Tell 'em home it was 
 all right if I goes." 
 
 Almost as he stopped speaking, the rising 
 swell caught the craft, and threw her once more 
 on her beam-ends. As for a moment she lay on 
 her side, the men attempted to free the masts, 
 but could do nothing, for the boat almost im- 
 mediately again fell over, bottom up. But a 
 second comber, lifting her with redoubled vio- 
 lence, threw them all clear of the boat, turned 
 her momentarily right way up, and then break- 
 ing into the masts and sails, tipped her for the 
 third time upside down, flinging her at the 
 same instant in mad fury clear of the angry 
 water. So violent had been the blow which 
 had thrown them clear, that they must inevit- 
 ably all have perished, had not the last effort of 
 the breakers actually hurled the boat again 
 almost on the top of them. Clutching as at a 
 straw, the two men caught the loops of the rope 
 which they had wound round their craft, but 
 they could see nothing of the other three. Sud- 
 
 9
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 denly, from almost directly under the boat, 
 Tom's head appeared within reach. Grabbing 
 him, they tried to drag him up on to the keel. 
 Rolling in the wake of the breakers which still 
 followed them with vicious pertinacity, they 
 twice lost their hold of the boy, their now 
 numbed limbs scarcely giving them strength 
 to grasp anything. It seemed of little account 
 at the time either way. But their third attempt 
 was successful, and they got the lad once more 
 on to the bottom of the boat. 
 
 Of the children they saw no more. Only 
 when Tom had revived somewhat could he ex- 
 plain that the capsizing boat had caught them 
 all three under it as in a trap, that he had suc- 
 ceeded, still clinging to Willie, to get him from 
 under it, and that he was still holding his 
 brother when he first came to the surface. Af- 
 ter that he did not remember anything till they 
 were calling to him on the boat's bottom. The 
 men were sure that it was so that because 
 he had been true to the last to his trust, he had 
 been such a deadweight the first two times he 
 
 came to the surface. 
 
 10
 
 There's Trouble on the Sea 
 
 And now began again the cruel, wearisome, 
 endless drift of the water- logged boat toward 
 the still distant shore, lightened but little by 
 the loss of the loved children. There was no 
 longer any doubt left in their minds; unless 
 something could be done, none of them would 
 possibly live to tell the tale. It was the still 
 active mind and indomitable courage of the 
 skipper which found the solution. Crawling 
 close to Jim, he said: "There's only one 
 chance. We must turn her over, and get in 
 her, or perish. I'm going to try and loose t' 
 masts." 
 
 Swinging himself once more into the bitter- 
 cold water, he succeeded in finding the slight 
 ropes which formed the stays, and though it is 
 almost incredible, he actually managed to cut 
 and free them all, before Jim hauled him back, 
 more dead than alive, on to the boat's bottom. 
 At all hazards they must right the boat and 
 climb into her. Their plans were soon made. 
 Tom, placed between the two men, was to do 
 exactly as they did. Stretching themselves out, 
 
 and holding the keel rope in their hands, they 
 
 11
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 all threw themselves over on one side, lying as 
 nearly as possible at full length. The boat re- 
 sponded instantly, and then* only fear was 
 that, as she had done before, she might again 
 go right over on them. But there were no masts 
 now to hold the wind, so she stood up on her 
 beam-ends. As the water took the weights of 
 the men, it was all they could do to get her 
 over. Moreover, the task was rendered doubly 
 difficult and perilous by their exhaustion and 
 inability to swim when the keel to which they 
 were holding went under water. But then* agil- 
 ity and self-reliance, evolved from a life next 
 to Nature, stood them in good stead, and soon 
 all three were actually standing inside the 
 water-logged boat. The oars, lashed under the 
 seats, were still in her, and, though almost up 
 to their waists in water, they began sculling 
 and rowing as hard as their strength and the 
 dangerous roll of the sunken boat would per- 
 mit. 
 
 Slowly the surf on the sandy beach drew 
 near, and now, keeping her head before the 
 breeze, they rolled along shorewards. Again,
 
 There's Trouble on the Sea 
 
 however, it became apparent that a new de- 
 parture must be made. For a heavy surf was 
 breaking on the shore which they were apr 
 preaching, that ran off shallow for half a mile. 
 There was not water enough to let the boat 
 approach the land, and they realized that they 
 had not sufficient strength left to walk through 
 the breakers. Yet struggle as they would, the 
 best they could do was to keep the boat very 
 slightly across the wind. 
 
 John maintains now that it was the direct 
 intervention of Providence which spared them 
 just when once more all hope seemed over. 
 They suddenly noticed that while still forging 
 shorewards they were also drif ting rapidly into 
 the bay. It was the first uprush of the strong 
 rising tide, and they might yet be carried to a 
 deep-water landing. The play of hope and fear 
 made the remaining hours an agony of sus- 
 pense. What would be the end of it all seemed 
 a mere gamble. Every mark on the approach- 
 ing shore was now familiar to them. It had be- 
 come, they knew well enough, a question of life 
 or death where the drifting boat would touch 
 
 13
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 the strand. Now it seemed impossible that she 
 should clear the shallow surf, whose hungry 
 roar sounded a death-knell to any one handed 
 to its tender mercies. Now it seemed certain 
 that she would be carried up the bay without 
 touching land at all. Hope rose as a little later 
 it became obvious that she would clear the 
 sands. 
 
 Now the rocky headland, round which their 
 winter house stood, was coming rapidly into 
 view. As the mouth of the bay narrowed, the 
 pace of the current increased, and for a time 
 they seemed to be hopelessly rushing past 
 their one hope of landing. The excitement and 
 the exertion of putting might and main into 
 the oars had made them almost forget the wet 
 and cold and darkness, now only relieved by 
 the last afterglow of the setting sun. But it all 
 appeared of no avail; they were still some hun- 
 dred yards off as they passed the point. It 
 might as well have been some hundred miles, 
 for they drifted helplessly into the bay, which 
 was widening out again. 
 
 Despair, however, still failed to grip them, 
 14
 
 There's Trouble on the Sea 
 
 and apparently hopelessly they kept toiling 
 on at the sweeps. Once more a miracle hap- 
 pened, and they were really apparently ap- 
 proaching the point a second time. The very 
 violence of the tide had actually saved them, 
 creating as it did a strong eddy, which with the 
 little aid from the oars, bore them now stead- 
 ily toward the land. Nearer and nearer they 
 came. They were half a mile inside the head. 
 Only a few boat-lengths now separated them 
 from the beach. Would they be able to get 
 ashore ! 
 
 Strange as it sounds, any and all specula- 
 tions they might have with regard to where 
 the boat would strike bottom were to be disap- 
 pointed. Her keel never touched bottom at all. 
 It was her gunwale which first bumped into 
 the steep rocks and that at a point only a 
 few yards from their winter house. 
 
 Even now their troubles were not over. 
 Only the skipper could stand erect. Tom, 
 dragged out by the others, lay an inert mass 
 on the soft bed of crisp creeping plants which 
 cover the bank. Jim was able to totter a few 
 
 15
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 yards, fell, and finally crawled part of the way 
 to the house door. But the skipper, in spite of 
 swollen and blackened legs, held out not only 
 to get a fire lit, but to bring in the other two, 
 and finally wean back their frozen limbs to life. 
 
 It took two days to regain strength enough 
 to haul up the boat and refit her; and then the 
 sorrowful little company proceeded on their 
 homeward journey. It was a sad home-coming 
 after the brave start they had made. It was a 
 terrible message which they had to carry to 
 the anxious hearts awaiting them. For nothing 
 in heaven or earth can replace the loss of loved 
 ones suddenly taken from us. 
 
 "I've been cruising in boats five and forty 
 years," said John. "I were out two days and a 
 night with t' Bonnie Lass when she were lost 
 on t* Bristle Rocks, and us brought in only two 
 of her crew alive. And I was out on t' ice in t* 
 blizzard when Jim Warren drove off, and us 
 brought he back dead to his wife next day. But 
 this was the worst of all. As us passed t' rocky 
 shoal, it seemed only a few minutes since us 
 
 capsized on it; and I knowed Ned and Willie 
 
 16
 
 There's Trouble on the Sea 
 
 must be right alongside. As us passed Snarly 
 Bight, out of which t' puff came, us thought of 
 t' boys singing their little songs, and know'd 
 that they should be with us now; and when t' 
 Lone Point loomed up, round which youse turn 
 to make our harbour, us all sort of wished one 
 more puff would come along and finish t' job 
 properly. For it would n't have been hard to 
 join t' children again, but to face t' women 
 without 'em seemed more 'n us could do. 
 
 "How to break the news us had talked a 
 dozen times, but never got no nearer what to 
 say. As us ran in at last for t' stage, us could see 
 that Mother had hoisted t' flag t' Company 
 gived we t' year us bought furs for they, and 
 that Grannie was out waiting for us on t' land- 
 wash. 
 
 "All I remembers was that scarce a word 
 was spoke. They know'd it. I believe they 
 know'd it before they seed t' boat. If only 
 them had cried I 'd have been able to say some- 
 thing. But ne'er a word was spoke. So I says, 
 'Jim, go up and pull t' flag down quick. Us has 
 no right to having t' flags flying for we.' 
 
 17
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 ''Then Grannie, she gets her voice, and she 
 says, 'No, Jimmie, don't you do it. It be just 
 right as it is. For 't is for Neddie's and Willie's 
 home-coming it be flying."
 
 NANCY 
 
 WE had just reached hospital from a long trip 
 "on dogs." My driver was slipping the har- 
 nesses off the animals and giving them the 
 customary friendly cuff and words of praise. 
 Among the crowd which always gathered to 
 greet us, one friend, after giving us the usual 
 welcome of "What cheer, Doctor?" noticed 
 apparently that I had a new winter compagnon 
 de voyage. 
 
 "Joe's not with you, Doctor? Gone sawing 
 t' winter, I hear. T' boys say he's got a fine 
 bulk of timber cut already." 
 
 "Working for the lumber camp, I suppose, 
 Uncle Abe," I replied. 
 
 "Not a bit of it," he chuckled. "'T is sawing 
 for hisself he's gone." 
 
 "Eh? Wants lumber, does he? Going to build 
 a larger fishing boat?" 
 
 " Youse can call it that if you likes, Doctor, 
 for 't will be a fine fish he lands into it. But I 
 reckon 't is more of a dock he'll need." And 
 
 19
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 the rest joined in hearty laughter at the 
 sally. 
 
 "T is a full-rigged schooner he be going to 
 moor there, with bunting enough to burn, and 
 as saucy as a cyclone," chimed in another, 
 while a third 'lowed, "T is a great girl he's 
 after, if he gets her, anyhow." 
 
 "Nancy's the pluckiest little girl for many 
 a mile along this coast or she wouldn't be 
 what she is, and her family so poor." 
 
 A week or so later I fell in with hah* a dozen 
 boisterous lads driving their sledges home 
 laden with new wood. It proclaimed to the har- 
 bour that the rumour of Joe's big bulk of tim- 
 ber being ready so early had not been exag- 
 gerated. It was only then that I learned that he 
 had in addition quickly got his floors down be- 
 fore the ground froze, so that he might finish 
 building before the winter set in. 
 
 Many hands make light work and every one 
 was Joe's friend, so by the end of December the 
 new house had not only been sheathed in, but 
 roofed and floored, ready for occupation. 
 
 In our scattered communities, isolated not 
 20
 
 Nancy 
 
 only from one another, but also largely from 
 the world outside, the simple incidents of 
 everyday life afford just as much interest as 
 the more artificial attractions of civilization. 
 Every one on our coast in winter has to have a 
 dog team, no matter how poor he is, in order to 
 haul home his firewood. In summer there is no 
 time and there are no roads, while in winter 
 the snow makes the whole land one broad high- 
 way. There is no better fun than a "randy" 
 over the snow on a light komatik. At this time 
 even our older people go on "joy rides," visit- 
 ing along the coast. Many a moonlight night, 
 after the day's work is over, when the reflec- 
 tion from the snow makes it almost as light 
 as day, an unexpected but welcome visitor 
 comes knocking at one's door, asking for a 
 shake-down just for the night. 
 
 Thus Joe's secret was soon common prop- 
 erty. His own enthusiasm, however, engen- 
 dered a reflection of itself in other people, and 
 almost before he had the cottage sheathed in- 
 side, and really "ready for launching," from 
 here and there every one had come in, bringing 
 
 21
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 at any rate the necessities to make it possible 
 to put out to sea on the new voyage. Accord- 
 ingly I was not surprised one evening a little 
 later when a low knock at my door, followed 
 by a summons to come in, revealed Joe stand- 
 ing somewhat sheepishly, cap in hand, in the 
 entrance. Once the subject was broached, how- 
 ever, the matter was soon arranged, Joe having 
 a direct way about him which ignored difficul- 
 ties, and I, being a Justice of the Peace, was 
 soon pledged to act as parson at the function. 
 
 Everything went well. We struck glorious 
 weather for the day of the wedding. Little dep- 
 utations streamed in from other villages; gay 
 flags and banners, though some of fearsome 
 home-devised patterns, made a brave contrast 
 to the white mantle of snow; while we supple- 
 mented the usual salvo of guns from porten- 
 tous and historic fowling-pieces with a halo of 
 distress rockets, which we burned from our 
 hospital boat, which was lying frozen in our 
 harbour. 
 
 The excitement of the affair, like all other 
 
 things human, soon passed away, and the ordi- 
 
 22
 
 Nancy 
 
 nary routine of the wood-path, the fur-path, 
 and seal-hunting, the saw-pit, the net-loft, and 
 boat-building, turned our attention to our own 
 affairs once more. The new venture was soon 
 an old one, only we were glad to see, as we 
 passed along the road, a fresh column of blue 
 smoke rising, and speaking of another centre 
 of life and activity in our village. 
 
 Once more, as the sun crept north of the 
 line, the ice bonds of our harbour began to 
 melt. Once more the mighty ocean outside, 
 freed from the restraint of the Arctic floe, gen- 
 erously sent surging into the landwash the very 
 power we needed, and on which we depend, to 
 break up and carry out the heavy ice accumu- 
 lation of the winter, which must otherwise 
 bar us altogether from the prosecution of our 
 calling. 
 
 My own vessel had been scraped and re- 
 painted. Her spars bright with new varnish, 
 her funnel gay with our blue bunting flag con- 
 trasting with the yellow, she had come to the 
 wharf for the last time before leaving for the 
 long summer cruise among the Labrador fish- 
 
 23
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 ing fleet. Indeed, I was just working over the 
 ship's course in my chart-room, when once 
 more Joe, cap in hand, stood hi the doorway 
 evidently with something very much on his 
 mind. 
 
 "What is it, Joe? Come in and shut the door 
 and sit down. You are only just in time, for I 
 was going to ring for steam as you came along." 
 ""Well, Doctor," he said, "'t is this way. I 's 
 only got hook and line to fish with as you 
 knows; and that don't give a fellow a chance of 
 putting anything by, no matter how well he 
 does. There 's no knowing now but what I may 
 need more still. It is n't like when a man was 
 alone hi the world. I was aboard Captain Jack- 
 son of the Water Lily, what come in last night, 
 and he says that he 'd take me to the Labra- 
 dor fishing, and give me a share hi his cod trap, 
 being as he is short of a hand. Well, 't is a fine 
 chance, Doctor. But Nancy won't hear of my 
 going without her going too. She says that she 
 is well able to do it, and well acquainted with 
 schooners and that's true, as you knows; 
 but I 'm afraid to take her as she is. Still, 't is 
 
 24
 
 Nancy 
 
 a good chance, and I did -n't like to let it go, so 
 I just come to ask what your mind is about it." 
 
 I had seen Nancy on my farewell round of 
 the cottages, and although I should have pre- 
 ferred almost any other occupation for her, yet, 
 taking into consideration the habits and cus- 
 toms of the people, and that to her the venture 
 was in no way a new one, I advised him to ac- 
 cept the skipper's offer, and take Nancy along 
 with him, if they could get decent accommo- 
 dation. I received his assurance that he would 
 keep a lookout for the hospital boat. With most 
 sincere protestations of gratitude he bade me 
 farewell, and when a few minutes later we 
 steamed past his little house on our way out 
 to sea, he was all ready with his long gun to 
 fire us good-bye salutes, which we answered 
 and re-answered with our steam whistle. 
 
 All summer long we were cruising off the 
 northern Labrador coast, now running into the 
 fjords to visit the scattered settlers, now on the 
 outside among the many fishing craft which 
 were plying their calling on the banks that 
 fringe the islands and outermost points of land. 
 
 25
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 Fishermen from hundreds of vessels visited us 
 for sickness, for books, for a thousand different 
 reasons; but never a sight of the Water Lily 
 did we see, and never a word did we hear of 
 either Joe or Nancy the whole season through. 
 True, in the number of other claims on our 
 attention, it was not often that their fortunes 
 came to one's mind. But now and again we 
 asked about the schooner, and always got the 
 same negative reply, "Reckon she've got a 
 load and gone south." This was a view which 
 we were only too glad to adopt, as it meant the 
 best possible luck for our friends. 
 
 Now November had come round once more. 
 The main fleet of vessels had long ago passed 
 south. It was so long since we had seen even 
 one of the belated craft which "bring up the 
 heel of the Labrador" that we had closed up 
 the summer stations, and were paying our last 
 visits to our colleagues at the southern hos- 
 pital, who were to remain through the winter. 
 
 It was therefore no small surprise when Jake 
 Low, from the village* who had been up spying 
 from the lookout on the hill, came into the hos- 
 
 26
 
 Nancy 
 
 pital and announced that a large schooner with 
 a flag flying in her rigging was beating up to 
 the harbour mouth from sea. "She's making 
 good ground and is well fished," he added. 
 "What's more, I guess from t' course she's 
 shaping they know the way in all right. So it 
 must be a doctor they wants, and not a pilot at 
 this tune of year." 
 
 The news proved interesting enough to lure 
 us up to the hilltop with the telescope, where 
 in a short while we were enjoying the wonder- 
 ful spectacle of watching a crew of the vikings 
 of our day force their way through a winding 
 narrow passage in a large vessel against a 
 heavy winter head wind. 
 
 The tide, too, was running out against her, 
 and now and then a flaw of wind or a back 
 eddy, caused by the cliffs on either side, would 
 upset the helmsman's calculations. Yet with 
 superb coolness he would drive her, till to us 
 watchers, lying stretched out on the ground 
 overhead, it seemed that her forefoot must 
 surely be over the submerged cliff-side. Cer- 
 tainly the white surf from the rocks washed her 
 
 27
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 cutwater before the skipper who was "scun- 
 ning" or directing, perched on the fore cross- 
 tree, would sing out the "Ready about. Lee, 
 oh!" for which the men at the sheets and bow- 
 lines were keenly waiting. 
 
 A single slip, and she would have cracked 
 like a nutshell against those adamantine 
 walls. But to get into the harbour it was the 
 only way, and as the skipper said afterwards, 
 when I remonstrated on his apparent f oolhard- 
 iness, "Needs must, when the devil drives." 
 
 "There's a big crowd of men on deck, Doc- 
 tor," said my companion. "Reckon she's been 
 delayed with her freighters, and that there 's a 
 load of women and children in t' hold on t* 
 fish." 
 
 I had been so absorbed in watching his sea- 
 manship, that I had not been thinking about 
 the stranger. Jake's remark changed the cur- 
 rent of my thoughts; and soon the vessel's lines 
 seemed to assume a familiar shape, and I began 
 to realize that I must have seen her before. 
 Then suddenly it flashed upon me the 
 Water Lily, of course.
 
 Nancy 
 
 Yes, it was the Water Lily. Then Joe was on 
 board, and the flag was because Nancy was in 
 trouble. The reasoning was intuitive rather 
 than didactic; but the conviction was so forci- 
 ble that I instinctively rose to return to the 
 hospital for the black bag that is my fidus 
 Achates on every emergency call. 
 
 "You is n't going till she rounds t' point of t' 
 Chain Rocks, is you, Doctor? It's all she'll do 
 with the wind and tide against her if she 
 does it. I minds more than one good vessel 
 that's left her bones on them reefs." 
 
 "As well stay, I suppose, Jake, for I'll be in 
 time if I do. My! look at that!" I could not 
 help shouting, as a flaw of wind struck the 
 schooner right ahead as she was actually in 
 stays, and it seemed she must either fall ha 
 sideways or drive stern foremost on the cliffs. 
 But almost as quick as the eddy, the staysail 
 and jib were let run and off her, and her main 
 boom was pushed by a whole gang of men away 
 out over the rail, so that by altering the points 
 of pressure the good ship went safely round 
 on her heel, and before we had time to discuss 
 
 29
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 it, her head sails were up again, and she was 
 racing on her last tack to enable her to claw 
 through the narrow channel between the Chain 
 Rocks and the Cannons, which form the last 
 breakwater for the harbour. 
 
 "I think she'll do it, Jake!" 
 
 "If she once gets in t' narrows and can't 
 fetch t' point, it 's all up with her. I 'lows 't is 
 time to get them women out of t' hold, any- 
 how," he replied laconically, his eyes riveted 
 all the while on the scene below. "There's a 
 crowd standing by t' boat, I sees, and them 's 
 putting a line in her," he added a minute or 
 two later, during which time excitement had 
 prevented either of us from speaking. "Us '11 
 know in a second one way or t' other." 
 
 The crisis had soon arrived. The schooner 
 had once more reached across the harbour 
 channel, and was for the last time "in stays." 
 A decision had to be arrived at instantly, and 
 on it, and on the handling of the vessel, de- 
 pended her fate. 
 
 "He's game, sure enough, whoever he is. 
 
 He's going for it hit or miss." And there was a 
 
 30
 
 Nancy 
 
 touch of excitement evidenced even in Jake's 
 undemonstrative exterior. 
 
 We could now plainly see the master. He was 
 standing on the cross-tree, whence he could tell, 
 by looking into the water, almost to an inch 
 how far it was possible to go before turning. 
 
 "She'll do it, Jake, she'll do it. See, she's 
 heading for the middle of the run." 
 
 "She will if she does, and that's all, Doctor. 
 She's falling off all t' while." 
 
 It was only too true. The vessel could no 
 longer head for the point. Her sails were 
 aback, shaking in the wind, and she now head- 
 ing straight for the rock itself. Surely she must 
 at once try to come up in the wind, stop her 
 way, drop her sails, if possible throw out the 
 boat, and head for the open before she should 
 strike on one side or the other of the run. 
 
 But no, we could hear the stentorian tones 
 of the skipper on the cross-trees shouting that 
 which to any but an experienced sailor must 
 have seemed certain suicide. "Keep her away! 
 Keep her full! Don't starve her! Give her 
 way ! Up topsail ! " the latter having been let 
 
 31
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 down to allow the vessel to lie closer hauled to 
 the wind. "Stand by to douse the head sails! 
 Stand by the topsail!" we heard him shout. 
 "Stand by to shoot her into the wind!" and 
 then at last, just as the crash seemed inevita- 
 ble, "Hard down! Shoot her up! Down sails!" 
 
 We up above, with our hearts in our mouths, 
 saw the plucky little vessel shoot true as a die 
 up for the point. It was her only chance. I am 
 sure that I could have heard my own heart 
 beating as I saw her rise on the swell that ran 
 up on the point, and it seemed to me she 
 stopped and hung there. But before I could be 
 certain whether she was ashore or not, another 
 flood of the swell had rushed over the point, 
 and she was fairly swirled around and dropped 
 down into the safety of the harbour. 
 
 "It's time to be going, Doctor," Jake re- 
 marked as he rose from the ground. "But I 
 'low t' point won't want painting t' winter," he 
 added, with a twinkle in his eye. "Howsom- 
 ever, he's a good one, he is, wherever he be 
 from, and I don't care who says 't ain't so " 
 high praise from the laconic Jake.
 
 Nancy 
 
 The Water Lily was at anchor when we 
 reached the wharf, and a boat already rowing 
 in to the landing. A minute later, just as I had 
 expected, Joe was wringing me by the hand, as 
 if he had a design on the continuity of my 
 bones. 
 
 "Nancy's bad," he blurted out. "Won't you 
 come and see her to oncet?" 
 
 I smiled in spite of my anxiety as I looked 
 down at my trusty bag. "I'm all ready," I 
 replied. 
 
 The deck of the schooner was crowded with 
 people as we came alongside. The main hatch 
 had been taken off, and the women and chil- 
 dren had come up for an airing. They, like our 
 friends, were taking their passages home from 
 their fishing stations. They are known as 
 "freighters." 
 
 "The skipper's been awful good, Doctor. 
 When he heard Nancy were sick, he brought 
 her out of t' hold, and give her his own bunk. 
 But for that she'd have been dead long ago. 
 She had t' fits that bad; and no one knowed 
 
 what to do. She were ill when t' vessel corned 
 
 33
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 into t* harbour, and t* skipper waited nigh 
 three days till she seemed able to come along. 
 Then her got worse again. Not a thing have 
 passed her lips this two days now." 
 
 In the little, dark after-cabin I found the 
 sick girl, scarcely recognizable as the bonny 
 lass whose wedding we had celebrated the 
 previous whiter with such rejoicings. There 
 were two young women in the cabin, told off to 
 "see to her," the kindly skipper and his offi- 
 cers having vacated their quarters and gone 
 forward for poor Nancy's benefit. 
 
 The case was a plain one. It was a matter of 
 life and death. Before morning a baby boy had 
 been brought into the world in that strange 
 environment only to live a few hours. The fol- 
 lowing day we ventured to move the mother, 
 still hanging between life and death, to the 
 hospital. 
 
 And now came the dilemma of our lives. It 
 was impossible to delay the schooner, as al- 
 ready the crowd on board had lost several 
 days; and it was not safe or right so late in the 
 year to be keeping these other families from 
 
 34
 
 Nancy 
 
 their homes. The Water Lily, so the kindly 
 captain informed us, must absolutely sail south 
 the following morning. My own vessel was in 
 the same plight. We had more work outlined 
 that we must do than the already forming ice 
 promised to give us tune to accomplish. To 
 send poor Nancy untended to sea in a schooner 
 was simply to sign her death-warrant. Indeed, 
 I had small hope for her life anyhow. 
 [ Our hospital was on the coast of Labrador, 
 and the remorseless Straits of Belle Isle 
 yawned forty miles wide between it and the 
 nearest point of the island home of most of our 
 friends. One belated vessel, still waiting to fin- 
 ish loading, lay in the harbour. She expected to 
 be a week yet, and possibly ten days if the 
 weather held bad. An interview with the skip- 
 per resulted in a promise to carry the sick 
 woman to her harbour if she were still alive on 
 the day of sailing, or news of her death if she 
 passed away. 
 
 Joe had no alternative. He certainly must go 
 on, for he had nothing for the winter with him, 
 no gear, and no way of procuring any. So it was 
 
 35
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 agreed that Nancy should be left in our care, 
 and, if alive, should follow by the schooner. 
 Only poor Nancy was undisturbed next morn- 
 ing by the creaking of the mast hoops and the 
 squealing of the blocks the familiar warning 
 to our ears that a vessel is leaving for sea. For 
 she lay utterly unconscious of the happenings 
 of the outside world, hovering between life and 
 death in the ward upstairs, 
 i To whatever cause we ought to ascribe it 
 does not much matter. But for the tune, any- 
 how, our arrangements "panned out right." 
 The weather delayed the fish vessel till our 
 patient was well enough to be moved. Ten days 
 later, sewed up in a blanket sleeping-bag, 
 Nancy was painfully carried aboard and de- 
 posited in a captain's berth again most gen- 
 erously put at her disposal. 
 
 And so once more she put out to sea. 
 
 It was not until the next spring that I heard 
 the final outcome of all the troubles. Nancy 
 had arrived home in safety, with only one 
 hitch her kit-bag and clothing had been 
 forgotten in sailing, and when at length she 
 
 36
 
 Nancy 
 
 reached her harbour, she had had to be carried 
 up to her home swathed only in a bag of 
 blankets. 
 
 Such are but incidents like head winds in the 
 lives of the Labrador fisher-folk; but those 
 who, like our people, are taught to meet 
 troubles halfway look at the silver lining in- 
 stead of the dark cloud. As for Joe himself, he 
 is still unable to get into his head why these 
 events should be of even passing interest to 
 any one else.
 
 SALLY'S "TURNS" 
 
 " SPIN me a yarn, Uncle Eph. I 'm fairly played 
 out. We've been on the go from daylight and 
 I'm too tired to write up the day's work." 
 
 "A yarn, Doctor. I'm no hand at yarns," 
 said the master of the spick-and-span little cot- 
 tage at which I and my dogs had brought up 
 for the night. But the generously served sup- 
 per, with the tin of milk and the pot of berry 
 jam, kept in case some one might come along, 
 and the genial features of my hospitable host, 
 slowly puffing at his pipe on the other side of 
 the fireplace, made me boldly insistent. 
 
 "Oh, not anything special, Uncle Eph, just 
 some yarn of an adventure with your dogs in 
 the old days." 
 
 Uncle Eph ruminated for quite a while, but I 
 saw by the solid puffs he was taking at his pipe 
 that his mind was working. Then a big smile, 
 broader than ever, lit up his face, and he said 
 slowly: $ 
 
 "Well, if you're so minded, I'll tell you a 
 38
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 yarn about a fellow called 'Sally* who lived 
 down our way in my early days." 
 
 At this I just settled down comfortably to 
 listen. 
 
 Of course Sally was only a nickname, but on 
 our coast nicknames last a man all his life. 
 Thus my last patient, a woman of forty-odd 
 years, trying to-day to identify herself, ex- 
 plained, "Why, you must know my father, 
 Doctor. He be called 'Powder' 'Mr. Pow- 
 der/ because of his red hair and whiskers." 
 
 Sally's proper nickname was apparently 
 "Chief," which the boys had given him be- 
 cause he had been a regular "Huck Finn" 
 among the others. But in young manhood 
 some said it was because "Marjorie Sweetapple 
 went and took Johnnie Barton instead o' he" 
 somehow or other "Chief" took a sudden 
 "turn." This expression on our coast usually 
 means a religious "turn," or a turn such as 
 people take when "they sees something and be 
 going to die"; it may be a ghost or sign. But 
 this turn was neither. It was just a plain com- 
 mon "turn." 
 
 39
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 It had manifested itself in "Chief" by his 
 no longer going about with the other boys, by 
 his habits becoming solitary, and by his neg- 
 lecting his personal appearance, especially in 
 letting his very abundant hair grow longer 
 than fashion dictates for the young manhood 
 of the coast. That was the reason some wag one 
 day dubbed him "Absalom," which the rest 
 caught up and soon shortened to "Sally." In 
 the proper order of things it should have been 
 "Abe." Was n't Absalom Sims always called 
 "Abe"? There was obviously an intentional 
 tinge of satire in this unusual abbreviation. 
 
 Whether it was due to the "turn" or not, 
 the fact remained that at the advanced age of 
 four and twenty Sally was still unmarried. He 
 lived and fished and hunted mostly alone. No 
 one, therefore, had much to say of him, good or 
 bad. In its kindly way the coast just left him 
 alone, seeing that was what he wished. 
 
 As the years went by it happened that hard 
 times with a scarcity of food struck "Frying- 
 Pan Tickle," the hospitable name of the cove 
 
 where Sally was reared. Fish were scarce, cape- 
 
 40
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 lin never struck in, fur could not be got. This 
 particular season every kind of fur had been 
 scarce. A forest fire had driven the deer into 
 the country out of reach. The young bachelor 
 seals, called "bedlamers," that precede the 
 breeding herd on their annual southern whelp- 
 ing excursion, and normally afford us a much- 
 needed proteid supply, had evidently skipped 
 their visit to the bay; while continuous on- 
 shore winds made it impossible in small boats 
 to intercept the mighty rafts, or flocks, of 
 ducks which pass south every fall. As a rule 
 the ducks "take a spell" feeding off the shoals 
 and islands as they go on their way, but the 
 northeaster had robbed our larders of this other 
 supply of meat, which we are in the habit of 
 freezing up for spring use. 
 
 In spite of the ice jam, packed by the un- 
 friendly winds, the men had ventured to set 
 their big seal nets as usual, not expecting the 
 long persistence of "weather" that now seri- 
 ously endangered their recovery. 
 
 The time to move to the winter houses up 
 
 the bay had already passed, and so the men at 
 
 41
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 last thought best to go on and get them ready 
 and then come out once more to haul and stow 
 the nets and carry the women back with 
 them. The long-delayed break came suddenly 
 at last, with a blue sky and a bright, calm 
 morning, but alas! no wind to move the 
 packed-in slob ice. So there was no help for it 
 but to get away early on shanks' pony, if they 
 decided to go on; and that would mean they 
 would not "reach down" before dark. There 
 were only three of them, but they were all fam- 
 ily men: Hezekiah Black, called "Ky "; Joseph 
 Stedman, known as "Patsy," and old Uncle 
 John Sanborne. They got under way bright 
 and early, but the weather clouded up soon 
 after they left, and a puff or two of wind 
 should have warned them all under ordinary 
 circumstances to abandon the attempt, or at 
 least to branch off and take shelter in the 
 "Featherbed Tilt" before trying to cross the 
 White Hills. 
 
 As it was, Uncle John decided to adopt that 
 plan, leaving the younger men, whom nothing 
 
 would dissuade from pushing ahead. After 
 
 42
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 all, they knew every turn of the trail, every 
 rock and landmark on the hillside; and one 
 need not wonder if the modern spirit of "hus- 
 tle" finds an echo even in these far-off wilds. 
 Throwing precaution to the winds, the two 
 young men pushed on regardless of signs and 
 omens. 
 
 Sally just knew it. Nothing would ever con- 
 vince him that they did not deserve to get into 
 trouble for not respecting "signs." Even Uncle 
 John had often talked about "t* foolishness o* 
 signs," and many a time Ky, once a humble 
 member of Chief's followers, had laughed at 
 what he called "old women's stuff." But what 
 Sally thought of signs would not have been of 
 any interest in itself. The interesting thing 
 was that though he was in the country hunt- 
 ing, having moved long ago to his winter trap- 
 ping-grounds, he saw signs enough to make 
 him anxious about the three fathers of families 
 tramping over the bleak hills that day. When 
 snow began to fall with a westerly wind, that 
 was sign number one. Something uncanny was 
 about to happen. Then there was sign number 
 
 43
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 two of bad weather coming, namely, the tin- 
 gling in his fingers and sometimes "a scattered 
 pain in t* joints." So Sally left his fur-path for 
 the day, hurried back to his tiny home among 
 the trees, and, calling his dogs together, har- 
 nessed them quickly and started at once for 
 the winter houses at the bottom of Grey Wolf 
 Bay. 
 
 A tenderfoot could have told now that they 
 were "in for weather." The snow by midday 
 was not falling, it was being shovelled down in 
 loads. The temperature had dropped so rap- 
 idly that the flakes, as large as goose feathers, 
 were dry and light, a fact that with the in- 
 creasing wind made the going like travelling 
 through a seething cauldron. Unfortunately 
 the men were already over the crest of the 
 White Hills when they realized that the storm 
 which had swept down on them had come to 
 stay. There was no stemming the gale on the 
 wind-swept ice of those hillsides, even could 
 they have faced the fiercely driving snow. All 
 they could do was to hurry along before it, 
 knowing there would be no shelter for them 
 
 44
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 till they reached Frying-Pan Tickle. For the 
 forest had retired there beyond the hills be- 
 fore the onslaught of man and the careless- 
 ness that had caused forest fires. 
 
 No one who has not been through it has any 
 conception of the innumerable little accidents 
 which in circumstances like these eat up the 
 stock of chances for coming through. It did 
 seem foolish that Patsy got his mittens wet in 
 salt water coming through the broken balli- 
 cater ice as they tried to make the short cut 
 across the Maiden's Arm; and that they froze 
 while he was trying to warm his hands, so that 
 he could not get them on again. It sounds like 
 madness on Ky's part to have let his nor'- 
 wester cap get blown away, but it really only 
 fell from his numbed hands while he was 
 knocking the snow off, and was instantly swept 
 away in a flurry of snow in the darkness. When 
 the beam broke in his snow racquet, one of a 
 pair he had absolutely counted on as beyond 
 accident, he could scarcely get ahead at all. 
 
 To stop and try to "boil the kettle" would 
 
 not only have occupied too much time, but 
 
 45
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 under the circumstances making a fire was 
 practically impossible. Neither of the men 
 carried a watch, and the unusual darkness 
 caused by the thick snow made it impossible 
 for them to tell what progress they were mak- 
 ing. They supposed that surely between the 
 worst snow "dweys" they would catch sight 
 of some familiar leading mark, but that 
 proved only another of their small but fatal 
 miscalculations. The storm never did let up. 
 More than once they discovered they were out 
 of the track, and, knowing well their danger, 
 had grudgingly to sacrifice time and strength 
 in groping their way back to a spot where they 
 could recognize the trail again. 
 
 December days are short, anyhow, "down 
 north" and every moment warned them that 
 the chances of getting out before dark were 
 rapidly diminishing. All the strength and en- 
 durance of which they were capable were un- 
 stintingly utilized to get ahead; but when 
 night finally overtook them, they knew well 
 that there were several miles to go, while to 
 
 move ahead meant almost certainly losing the 
 
 46
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 trail, which inevitably spelt death. It was only 
 the whiter before that Jake Newman, of Rog- 
 ers Cove, left his own home after dinner, "just 
 to fetch in a load of wood," and he was n't 
 found till three days later, buried in snow not 
 two hundred yards from his front door, frozen 
 to death. But if to advance meant death, to 
 stop moving was equally dangerous. So there 
 was nothing to do but keep moving round and 
 round a big rock in hopes of living out the long, 
 terrible night. ; 
 
 Meanwhile Sally was under way. Though he 
 knew that the men were crazy to get back, it 
 was only his surmise that they had started, so he 
 had to call round at the winter cottages in the 
 bay to make sure. He realized full well it was 
 a man's job he was about to undertake, and 
 had no wish to attempt it unnecessarily. As 
 he expected, however, he found that the 
 houses were all shut up, and such tracks as 
 there were on the snow about the trail end 
 showed quite clearly three men's footmarks. 
 "Uncle John's gone with t' others," he mut- 
 tered to himself. "I 'low 't is t' last journey 
 
 47
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 some of 'em '11 make, unless they minded the 
 signs before too late. 'T is lucky that I had n't 
 left old Surefoot at t' tilt; more'n likely I 
 shall be needing he before t' night's out." And 
 he called his one earthly chum and constant 
 companion to him, rubbed his head, and made 
 him nose the men's tracks which he was about 
 to follow. 
 
 In spite of his nickname, Sally was no green- 
 horn on occasions like this. Every harness was 
 carefully gone over, every trace tested; the 
 runners and cross-bars of his komatik all came 
 in for a critical overhauling. The contents of 
 the nonnybag were amply replenished; the 
 matches in the water-tight bottle were tested 
 for dampness; his small compass was securely 
 lashed to the chain of his belt. His one bottle 
 of spirits, "kept against sickness," was care- 
 fully stowed with the tea and hardtack. A 
 bundle of warm wraps, with his axe, and even 
 a few dry splits, completed his equipment. 
 Then once more Surefoot was shown the 
 tracks on the threshold, the trailing loops of 
 
 the traces were hitched on their respective 
 
 48
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 toggles, the stern line was slipped, and away 
 went his sturdy team into the darkness. 
 
 That animals have a sense of direction that 
 man has lost is clearly proven by the seals, 
 birds, polar bears, and our northern migra- 
 tory animals generally, who every year follow 
 in their season the right trails to their des- 
 tinations, even though thousands of miles dis- 
 tant and over pathless seas or trackless snows 
 and barrens. That instinct is nowhere more 
 keenly developed than in our draught dogs; 
 and amongst these there are always now and 
 again, as in human relationships, those that 
 are peerless among their fellows. Surefoot's 
 name, like Sally's own, was not strictly his 
 baptismal cognomen, the original name of 
 "Whitefoot" having been relegated to oblivion 
 early in life owing to some clever trail-follow- 
 ing the pup had achieved. 
 
 Many men would face an aeroplane flight 
 with a sinking sensation. Many would have to 
 acknowledge some qualms on a start with 
 "mere dogs" in a blizzard like this one. But 
 Sally, unemotional as a statue and serene as a 
 
 49
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 judge, knew his pilot too well to worry, and, 
 stretched out full length on the sledge, occu- 
 pied himself with combating the snow in be- 
 tween "spells" of hauling the komatik out of 
 hopeless snowbanks. "It won't do to pass 
 the Featherbed without making sure them's 
 not there," thought Sally. "If Ky had any 
 wits about him, he'd never try the Hanging 
 Marshes a night like this." So when at last the 
 team actually divided round the leading mark- 
 pole, Surefoot having rubbed his side on it, so 
 straight had he travelled even in that inferno, 
 Sally leaped off immediately, and, following 
 the line of poles, was cheered to see sparks is- 
 suing from the snug tilt among the trees. But 
 alas, there was only one man, old Uncle John, 
 resting there safely when Sally came tumbling 
 in. The cheerful wood fire, the contrast of the 
 warmth and quiet with the howling and dark- 
 ness of the storm outside, called loudly to 
 every physical faculty to stay for the night. 
 
 "Where be them gone?" queried Sally as 
 soon as the old man had roused himself 
 enough to understand the sudden interrup- 
 
 50
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 lion. "Where's Ky and Patsy? I thought you 
 was all together by t' tracks." 
 
 " So we was, so we was, boy. But them 's gone 
 on, while I thought I'd bide till daylight." 
 
 The loud wail of the dogs in chorus, as they 
 chafed at being left out of sight or knowledge 
 of their master's whereabouts, was plainly 
 audible to both men, and suggested the cruel 
 bleakness of the night outside. 
 
 "Youse isn't going on to look for J em, is 
 you? There be no chance of doing nothing a 
 night like this," added the old man. 
 
 But Sally was in another world. He could 
 see the two men adrift and trying to keep life in 
 themselves on the White Hills just as plainly 
 as the cry made him see his beloved dogs call- 
 ing to him from the exposed trail outside. 
 
 "There'll be nothing left anyhow to do by 
 morning, Uncle John," he answered. "Look 
 after yourself well and keep t' fire in; maybe 
 I'll be back sooner than us expects. Good- 
 night to you." And Sally disappeared once 
 more into the night. 
 
 They were still alive when Surefoot found 
 51
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 them, though far more played out than one 
 would suppose strong men could be in so short 
 a time. The extra wraps were at once requi- 
 sitioned, a ration from the spirit flask was 
 rapidly given to each, and then, forcing them to 
 sit down on the sledge, Sally again encouraged 
 Surefoot to take the trail. Downhill, they 
 managed to move along, but the heavy thatch 
 of snow made progress difficult on the level 
 and almost impossible uphill, just when ex- 
 haustion made marching impracticable even 
 with a line from the sledge lashed to their 
 arms. Sally found his last device unavailable. 
 The men must get off for the uphill work, and 
 that is what it became increasingly impossible 
 for them to do. 
 
 Apparently Ky was the worse off. He did n't 
 seem to know what was going on. Sally no- 
 ticed that his hat had gone and thought his 
 head was freezing, so without hesitation he 
 covered it with his own warm nor'wester. Ky 
 lay mostly on the komatik now, and it took all 
 Sally's strength and such little aid as Patsy 
 could give to enable the dogs to haul up the 
 
 52
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 Frenchman's Leap, usually nearly perpendicu- 
 lar, but now fortunately sloped off by the 
 heavy drift. Each man had to take a trace 
 ahead and haul exactly like two big dogs, thus 
 strengthening the team. At last the komatik 
 topped the brow and was once more coming 
 along after them. But Patsy was so played out 
 that Sally drove him back to the sledge, hop- 
 ing that the dogs could now haul the two men 
 again. To his horror on reaching the komatik 
 he found the real cause of its running so much 
 more easily. Ky was gone. Probably he had 
 only just slipped off. He would go back and 
 look for hmi. But then he would lose the dogs. 
 Patsy was too lost to the world to understand 
 anything or to help. If he went back alone the 
 dogs might follow and he would lose Patsy as 
 well. Still he must try it. Halting the dogs he 
 turned the komatik over, driving the upturned 
 nose of the runners deep into the snow; then 
 he laid Patsy on the top, and, lashing him on, 
 finally began groping back down the steep rise 
 for the missing man. 
 
 Not a sign was to be found; any traces he 
 53
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 had left were not only invisible, but impossi- 
 ble to feel, though he took off his mittens to 
 try. The pitiless, driving snow instantly lev- 
 elled off every mark. How long dare he de- 
 lay? He remembered at last that even if he 
 found hmi he could do no good. He could 
 never carry him up the hill. But he had tried 
 had done his best and his conscience felt 
 easier. And then there was Patsy. He might 
 save Patsy yet. It was right he should go on. 
 Fortunately the dogs were giving tongue 
 when he crawled and stumbled once more up 
 the Leap. They knew their master had left 
 them and had come back to the komatik to 
 wait. Some of them were huddled up against 
 the motionless body of the man. Surefoot, bolt 
 upright on the topmost bend, was leading the 
 chorus. The komatik had to be extricated and 
 righted. Patsy was still breathing. His body 
 must be re-lashed on the right side; and then 
 once more the weary march began the march 
 that was a battle for every inch. 
 
 Of the remainder of the journey Sally never 
 had much remembrance. It was like a moving 
 
 54
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 dream he knew it was crowded with adven- 
 tures, but the details had vanished completely 
 from his ken. It was his old father who told 
 the remainder of the story. He had turned into 
 bed as usual, never dreaming any man was 
 astir on such a night as that. He was sleeping 
 the sleep of the righteous when he suddenly be- 
 came conscious of dogs howling. Even dogs 
 would not be out unless they were in harness on 
 such a night. His own dogs he knew were safely 
 barred into then* kennels after being fed at 
 sundown. For a few minutes he lay awake and 
 listened. The sounds came no nearer, but they 
 were quite distinct. There was something astir 
 in the darkness something uncanny. Sally 
 would have called it a "sign." Uneasily he 
 arose and lit the lamp. He could not hear a 
 soul stirring. Even the howling of the dogs had 
 ceased. Nothing but the noise of the house 
 creaking and groaning under the wind pressure 
 was discernible. And then, just as the bitter 
 cold, dark, and loneliness made him long to 
 get into his warm bed again, the wail of a lone 
 
 dog was distinctly audible. Uncle Eben, pull- 
 
 55
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 ing the lamp safely out of the draught, opened 
 a crack of the porch door only to be saluted by 
 a rush of cold wind and snow which nearly 
 swept him off his feet. But again clearer than 
 before came the wail of the dog. 
 
 "He must be hitched up by mistake or in 
 harness," he thought. "I 'low I'll fire a powder 
 gun." 
 
 Going back into the bedroom, the old man 
 warned his wife that he was going to shoot and 
 not to be frightened. Then taking his old muz- 
 zle-loader, which was always kept ready, from 
 among the lesser weapons which stood in the 
 gun-rack, he poked the muzzle through the 
 crack and fired it into the air. True he had 
 thought there might be some one adrift. But 
 even a prophet could not have imagined that 
 what did happen could have done so. For the 
 sound of the explosion had not done echoing 
 through the empty rooms before the door was 
 burst suddenly in by some heavy body falling 
 against it. The thud of some weighty mass 
 falling on the floor was all that Uncle Eben 
 
 could make out, for the gust through the wide- 
 
 56
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 open door at once extinguished the light. It 
 seemed as if some huge bird must have been 
 hovering overhead and have fallen to the 
 charge of the big gun. The door must be shut 
 at all costs, and shut at once; so Uncle Eben, 
 stooping to feel his way over the fallen object, 
 put his hands out to find where it lay in the 
 darkness. Instantly he recognized the body of 
 a man a man alive too, but apparently un- 
 able to speak or move. Like lightning he had 
 the door closed. The vigour of youth seemed 
 to leap into his old veins. The light was soon 
 burning again, to reveal to him the prostrate 
 body of j his own son, ice-covered from head 
 to foot, his hatless head like a great snow 
 cannon-ball, his face so iced up that it 
 was scarcely recognizable. No he was un- 
 wounded and there was life in him. "I had 
 just to thaw his head out first," Uncle Eben 
 said, "and then us rubbed him and got some- 
 thing down his throat. He roused himself, got 
 up, and told us his dogs must be snarled up in 
 t* woodpile on the hillside, only a few minutes 
 away, and he kept signing that there were 
 
 57
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 a man, possibly still alive, lashed on t' ko- 
 matik." It was no night for the old man to go 
 out. "He'd be dead, bless you," before he got 
 anywhere; and it seemed impossible to let 
 Sally go out again. The stranger must surely 
 be dead long ago. But, weak as he was, Sally 
 would. go. He could stand now and was once 
 more blundering toward the door. To live and 
 think he had let a man perish alongside was 
 as impossible to one man as to the other. 
 
 It was Uncle Eben who solved the problem. 
 There were a dozen balls of stout seal twine 
 lying in the locker. The old man, unable 
 longer to haul wood or drive dogs himself, 
 spent much of his time knitting up gear for 
 the boys. He put on Sally his own cap, coat, 
 and mits, tied the twine round his wrist, and 
 then let him out to find the komatik again if 
 he could; while if he fell exhausted Uncle Eben 
 could at least follow the line and perhaps get 
 him back again. 
 
 As events turned out they were justified in 
 making the attempt. The cold wind served 
 only as a lash to Sally's reserve strength and 
 
 58
 
 Sally's Turns 
 
 his grit. That night he certainly found himself 
 again. He reached the sledge, cut the traces he 
 could not disentangle, and, keeping Surefoot 
 by him, he cleared the komatik of the wood- 
 pile. Once more he hitched in the dogs, which 
 he knew would make straight for the house, 
 while he piloted down that last hillside. 
 
 Patsy got well again, though his toes and 
 fingers alike were badly burned. Ky was not 
 found till a few days later. He had evidently 
 wandered to the edge of the cliffs, which near 
 the Jump fall perpendicularly a hundred feet 
 on to the rocky beach below, and had slipped 
 over in the darkness. 
 
 Uncle Eben's shot had passed almost im- 
 mediately over Sally's head. He remembers 
 being unable to free the dogs, realizing he was 
 close home, and stumbling on for only a minute 
 or two before something exploded just above 
 him; then he recalls nothing till Uncle Eben 
 had thawed out the touselly head and rubbed 
 back the circulation into the frozen limbs. 
 
 The slur so obviously intentional in the old 
 59
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 nickname made it impossible for any one to 
 use it longer. It was unanimously agreed that 
 he had established most surely his right to his 
 old name of "Chief," and by this for many 
 years he was known. With the lapse of years 
 and the advent of grey hairs, even that was 
 gradually recognized as too familiar, and he 
 received the cognomen of "Uncle," the title 
 of endearment of the coast, attached to his 
 own name of Ephraim. Moreover, this proved 
 to be the last of Sally's "turns," for the long 
 hair and the lonely habits disappeared. The 
 barrier that had grown up between him and his 
 fellows vanished, as they always do before the 
 warmth of unselfish deeds and the next time 
 "Chief" asked a girl the fateful question, there 
 proved to be no Johnnie Barton in his way. 
 
 "Is Sally living still?" I asked, my keenness 
 of interpretation obscured by weariness or by 
 interest in the details. 
 
 "Oh, yes, he's alive all right," replied my 
 host and my mind at once apologized, as I 
 realized he had been telling me the story of his 
 own early life.
 
 THE DOCTOR'S BIG FEE 
 
 A CROWD of visitors had landed from the fort- 
 nightly mail boat, and had come up to see the 
 sights of our little harbour while our mails and 
 freight were being landed and the usual two 
 hours were allowed to collect and put aboard 
 any return packages or letters. The island on 
 which the station stands is a very small one, 
 attractions are naturally few, and custom has 
 reconciled us to the experience, strange enough 
 at first, of being included in the list of 
 "sights." 
 
 A nice, cheerful group had just "done the 
 hospital" and its appendages, and were rest- 
 ing on the rocky hilltop, after seeing the winter 
 dog-team and examining the hospital reser- 
 voir. The ever-recurrent questions had been 
 asked, and patiently answered yes, the ice 
 was cold, but not always wet; the glare of the 
 snow was hard on the eyes; dogs do delight to 
 bite; and so on. Conversation flagged a little 
 
 till some one enquired the names of the head- 
 
 61
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 lands and bays stretching away in succession 
 beneath our view. 
 
 "It all looks so grim and cold, and the peo- 
 ple seem so scattered and so poor. Surely they 
 can't pay a doctor's fees?" some one asked. 
 
 "That depends on what you mean by a fee. 
 We don't expect to get blood out of a stone." 
 
 "Is all your work done for nothing, then?" 
 
 "No, not exactly for nothing. There is no 
 produce of the coast which has not been used 
 to express gratitude, and 'to help the hospital 
 along.' Codfish is a common fee. Sealskins, 
 venison, wild ducks, beadwork, embroidered 
 skinwork, feathers, firewood nothing is too 
 bizarre to offer." 
 
 "Do they never pay money?" 
 
 " Yes, sometimes. Of late years, a little more 
 each year. But when we began work, they 
 practically never got any with which to pay. 
 The fur-trading companies settled in kind, 
 values were often measured, not by so many 
 dollars, but by so many pelts. The traders gave 
 out supplies on credit, took the fish or fur from 
 
 their planters in return, and made up the bal- 
 
 62
 
 The Doctor's Big Fee 
 
 ance, when there was any, in goods. Even bar- 
 ter was quite unusual, though some traders 
 had a 'cash price' for produce paid down at 
 once, besides the credit price." 
 
 "Do you think it a sound policy to be pro- 
 viding services, drugs, and nursing free?" 
 chimed in a grey-bearded old fellow, evidently 
 the philosopher of the party. 
 
 "Sometimes, sir, policies must be adopted 
 which are rendered necessary for the time by 
 conditions. Besides, as I have said, the people 
 pay what they can, and, after all, it is they who 
 catch the fish and fur, reaping harvests for the 
 world's benefit for not much return." 
 
 "Well, I'm glad that you don't do it for 
 nothing, anyhow. That would be an imposi- 
 tion on the workers as well as on the subscrib- 
 ers." 
 
 The old gentleman seemed a bit disgruntled, 
 so I ventured to put my viewpoint in a differ- 
 ent way. 
 
 "Do you see that steep, rocky cape over 
 there?" I asked. "It is the most northerly you 
 can distinguish." 
 
 63
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 "A great landmark, and worth the journey 
 up here only to look at it," he answered with 
 an enthusiasm which showed that he had a 
 tender spot for Nature's beauties, and that 
 even if the shell was hard, the kernel was soft. 
 
 "There is a little village just behind that 
 head. It is hidden away in a rift in the moun- 
 tain which forms a tiny cove for a safe anchor- 
 age. I had as big a fee there only two days ago 
 as ever I received when I was practising hi 
 London." 
 
 The company looked up in astonishment, 
 but like Brer Rabbit, I lay low to see if they 
 cared for an explanation. I thought I saw a 
 twinkle hi my critic's eye as it caught mine. 
 
 "Go ahead," was all that he said, however. 
 
 Deep- Water "Crik," we call it. About half 
 a dozen fishermen's families live there. Well, 
 three days ago a boat came over at daylight to 
 see if they could get a doctor, and I was debat- 
 ing as to the advisability of leaving the hospi- 
 tal, when an old skipper from a schooner in the 
 
 harbour came ashore to tell me: "It'st' old 
 
 64
 
 The Doctor's Big Fee 
 
 Englishman; Uncle Solomon they calls him. 
 He's had a bad place this twelvemonth." 
 
 "How's the wind outside?" 
 
 "Soldier's wind. Abeam both ways." 
 
 "Think I could get back to-night?" 
 
 "Yes, by after dark." 
 
 "Let's get right away, then." 
 
 But other calls delayed us, and it was nearly 
 midday before we started for the cape. Un- 
 fortunately, the wind veered as the sun sank, 
 and "headed" us continually. The northern 
 current was running strong, and it was just 
 "duckish" when at last we entered the creek. 
 
 The former glories of Deep- Water Creek 
 have passed away. Fortune has decreed that 
 seals and mackerel and even salmon to a large 
 extent should not "strike in" along that 
 shore. Bad seasons and the wretched trading 
 system have impoverished the fishermen, 
 while the opening of the southern mines has 
 taken away some of the most able-bodied. 
 Here and there a braver cottage still boasts a 
 coat of whitewash and a mixture of cod oil and 
 red dust on the roof. But for the most part 
 
 65
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 there is a sombre, dejected look about the hu- 
 man part of the harbour that suggests nothing 
 but sordid poverty. 
 
 It had commenced to rain, and we were wet, 
 cold, and feeling generally blue as we landed 
 at a small fish stage, whose very cleanliness 
 helped further to depress us, telling as it did 
 the tale of a bad "voyage." For now it ought 
 to have reeked of fish and oil; and piles of cod 
 heads, instead of the cleanest of cold water, 
 should have covered the rocks beneath. So 
 many of our troubles are due to deficient die- 
 tary, winter was already on our heels, and there 
 seemed to be the shadow of hunger in the very 
 air. 
 
 As soon, however, as we landed, a black- 
 bearded, bright-faced man of about fifty gave 
 us a hearty greeting, and such evident happi- 
 ness lit up his peculiarly piercing eyes that it 
 made us feel a little more cheerful, even before 
 he had taken us into his house. There we found 
 a cup of steaming hot tea prepared. That tea 
 did not seem a whit less sweet, because "there 
 be ne'er a drop o' milk in t' harbour, Doctor, 
 
 66
 
 The Doctor's Big Fee 
 
 and molasses be scarce, too, till t* fish be 
 dry." 
 
 Everything was so clean that you could have 
 eaten off the floor. The pots and pans and tin 
 cooking-utensils shone so brightly from the 
 walls that the flame of the tiny kerosene lamp, 
 reflected from so many sides at once, suggested 
 ten hundredfold the candle-power it possessed. 
 A museumful of treasures could not have 
 added to the charm of the simplicity of the 
 room, which, though small, was ever so cosy 
 compared with the surroundings outside. 
 Three children were playing on the hearth 
 with a younger man, evidently their father. 
 
 "No, Doctor, they aren't ours exactly," 
 replied our host, in answer to my question, 
 "but us took Sam as our own when he was 
 born, and his mother lay dead, and he've been 
 with us ever since. Those be his little ones. 
 You remember Kate, his wife, what died in the 
 hospital?" 
 
 Yes, I remembered her very well, and the 
 struggle we had had in trying to save her. 
 
 "Skipper John," I said as soon as tea was 
 67
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 over, "let's get out and see the old English- 
 man. He'll be tired waiting." 
 
 " Youse need n't go out, Doctor. He be up- 
 stairs in bed." 
 
 So upstairs, or rather up the ladder, we 
 went, to find the oddest arrangement, and yet 
 far the most sensible under the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances. "Upstairs" was the triangular 
 space between the roof and the ceiling of the 
 ground floor. At each end was a tiny window, 
 and the whole, windows included, had been 
 divided longitudinally by a single thickness of 
 hand-sawn lumber, up to the tiny cross-beams. 
 There was no lofting, and both windows were 
 open, so that a cool breeze was blowing right 
 through. Cheerfulness was given by a bright 
 white paper which had been pasted on over 
 everything. Home-made rag mats covered the 
 planed boards. At one end a screen of cheese- 
 cloth veiled off the corner. Sitting bolt upright 
 on a low bench, and leaning against the par- 
 tition, was a very aged-looking woman, staring 
 fixedly in front of her, and swaying forwards 
 and backwards like some whirling Dervish. She 
 
 68
 
 The Doctor's Big Fee 
 
 ceaselessly monotoned what was intended for 
 a hymn. 
 
 "The old gentleman sleeps over there," said 
 the skipper with his head just above the floor 
 level. He indicated the screened corner, and 
 then bobbed down and disappeared, being far 
 too courteous a man to intrude. 
 
 The old lady took no notice whatever as I 
 approached. No head was visible among the 
 rude collection of bedclothes which, with a 
 mattress on the boards, served for the bed. 
 
 "Uncle Solomon, it's the Doctor," I called. 
 
 The mass of clothes moved, and a trembling 
 old hand came out to meet mine. 
 
 "Not so well, Uncle Solomon? No pain, I 
 hope?" 
 
 "No pain, Doctor, thank t* good Lord 
 and Skipper John," he added. "He took us in, 
 Doctor, when t* old lady and I were starving." 
 
 The terrible cancer in spite of which his 
 iron constitution still kept him alive had so 
 extended its fearful ravages that the reason 
 for the veiled corner was at once apparent, 
 
 and also the effective measures for ventilation. 
 
 69
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 The old lady had now caught the meaning of 
 my presence. "He suffers a lot, Doctor, though 
 he won't say it. If it was n't for me singing to 
 him, I don't know how he would bear up." 
 And, strangely enough, even I had noticed the 
 apparent descent from an odd, dreamy state 
 to crude realities, as the old lady abandoned 
 her droning, and talked of symptoms. 
 
 "But, Aunt Anne," I said, "you can't keep 
 it up all night as weU as all day? " 
 
 "No, not exactly, Doctor, but I mostly 
 sleeps very little." And to my no small aston- 
 ishment she now shut up like an umbrella, and 
 at once recommenced her mesmeric monotone. 
 
 When the interview was over, and all my 
 notes made and lines of action decided, I still 
 did not feel like moving. I was standing in a 
 brown study when I heard the skipper's voice 
 calling me. 
 
 "Be you through, Doctor? There be two or 
 three as wants to see you," it said; but it 
 meant, "Is there anything wrong?" The long 
 silence might mean that the sight had been 
 
 too much for me. 
 
 70
 
 The Doctor's Big Fee 
 
 "There's no hurry, Doctor," it hastened to 
 add, for his quick ear had caught the noise of 
 my start as I came to earth again. 
 
 "What can be the meaning of it all?" I was 
 pondering. Is there any more explanation to 
 the riddle of life than to Alice in Wonderland? 
 Are we not all a lot of "slithy toves, that gyre 
 and gimble in the wabe" or worse? Must we 
 who love living only regard it as one long 
 tragedy? 
 
 The clinic of Skipper John's lower room in- 
 cluded one or two pathetic tales, and evidently 
 my face showed discouragement, but I confess 
 I was surprised when the last poor creature had 
 left, to find my host's hand on my shoulder. 
 
 "You'll be wanting a good hot cup o' tea, I 
 knows, Doctor. And t' wife 's made you a bit o' 
 toast, and a taste o' hot berry jam. We are so 
 grateful you corned, Doctor. T' poor old crea- 
 tures won't last long. But thanks are n't dol- 
 lars." 
 
 At that minute his happy, optimistic eyes 
 chanced to meet mine. They seemed like good, 
 deep water, and just for a second the thought 
 
 71
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 crossed my mind that perhaps he knew more 
 of the real troubles of life than his intellectual 
 opportunities might suggest. 
 
 "No, Skipper," was all I said. "We doctors, 
 anyhow, find them quite as scarce." 
 
 "Well, Doctor," he added, "please God if I 
 gets a skin t* winter I '11 try and pay you for 
 your visit, anyhow. But I has n't a cent in the 
 world just now. The old couple has taken the 
 little us had put by." 
 
 " Skipper John, what relation are those peo- 
 ple to you?" 
 ,"Well, Doctor, no relation 'zactly."< 
 
 "Do they pay nothing at all?" 
 
 "Them has nothing," he replied. 
 
 "Why did you take them in?" i 
 
 "They was homeless, Doctor, and the old 
 lady was already blind." 
 
 "How long have they been with you?" 
 
 "Just twelve months come Saturday." 
 
 "Thanks, Skipper," was all I could say, but 
 I found myself standing with my hat off in the 
 presence of this man. I thought then, and still 
 think, I had received one of my largest fees.
 
 TWO CAT'S-PAWS 
 
 JEAN MARQUETTE had nothing French about 
 him but his name. Indeed "ne'er a word of 
 French" could the old man remember, for he 
 had lived for many years on the bleak, north- 
 east side of Labrador; and few folk knew why, 
 for all his forbears from sunny France had 
 studiously avoided the Atlantic seaboard. 
 
 Over his evening pipe, when the sparkling 
 forks of fire bursting from the crackling logs 
 seemed to materialize before his eyes again the 
 scenes of his venturous life in the wild, as if 
 they had been imperishably imprinted in the 
 old trunks which had witnessed them, the old 
 coureur de bois spirit, and even accent, flashed 
 out as he carried his listeners back into the gal- 
 lant days of the men who founded the great 
 seigneuries which still stretch along the thou- 
 sand miles of coast from the barren Atlantic 
 seaboard to the bold heights of Quebec. 
 
 In this country, only separated from the 
 land of Evangeline by a few miles of salt water, 
 
 73 
 
 i
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 one might reasonably suppose that the good 
 folk would look to the soil and the peaceful 
 pursuits of Arcady for at least some part of 
 their daily bread. But, with the exception of a 
 few watery potatoes, Uncle Johnnie had never 
 "growed e'er a thing in his life." His rule and 
 axe, his traps and his lines, had exacted suffi- 
 cient tribute from wild nature around him, not 
 only to keep the wolf from the door, but to lay 
 up in the stocking in his ancient French trunk 
 dollars enough to give his only child, Marie- 
 Joseph, quite a little dowry for that coast. 
 
 It had often been a puzzle to us why this 
 lonely old man, with no one belonging to him 
 but one unusually pretty daughter, should 
 have migrated to the lonely North. He had 
 been asked more than once what the reason 
 was, but he had always put the curious off by 
 saying, "Hunting must be a lonesome trade. 
 You wants a lot of room to catch foxes." 
 
 But one night, when he was in a more com- 
 municative mood than usual, we got the whole 
 story out of him. 
 
 Late one fall, when the southern fishing craft 
 74
 
 Two Cat's-Paws 
 
 had gone south, and the ground was crisp with 
 the first frost of winter, the lovely calm and 
 sunny October morning had induced him to 
 suggest to his wife that she should go over to 
 the neighbouring island with their two elder 
 children, a girl and a boy, and have a picnic, 
 while they gathered some of the beautiful red 
 cranberries to "stow away" for the winter. 
 The baby girl, Marie, was left at home with the 
 little servant maid. The children had jumped 
 for joy at the idea, and early after breakfast he 
 had rowed them across to the island, returning 
 himself to finish loading his small schooner 
 with the household goods and chattels which 
 they must take up the bay to their winter 
 home in the woods. So busy had he been with 
 work that only as it came time to go off for the 
 family did he notice how suddenly the weather 
 had chopped around. A sinister northerly flaw 
 was already rippling the surface of the hitherto 
 placid sea; and Uncle Johnnie, accustomed to 
 read the sky like a book, hurried as he seldom 
 did to get the small boat under way. No one 
 could have driven her faster than he drove her, 
 
 75
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 and the pace satisfied even his uneasy mind. 
 The "cat's-paw" had stiffened to a bitter blast 
 behind him, and long before the boat reached 
 the beach, it was difficult enough to look to 
 windward. Hauling up the boat, he gave the 
 familiar call which his wife knew so well; but 
 no answer came to greet him. Following along 
 the shore, and still finding no traces, he sud- 
 denly remembered that there was an old de- 
 serted house nearly a mile farther along, and 
 incontinently he started to run as fast as he 
 could in its direction. As he drew near, to his 
 infinite joy he caught sight of smoke issuing 
 from holes in the leaky roof. Calling as he 
 went, he soon reached the cabin, to find the 
 little party trying to dry themselves before a 
 wood fire in the crazy stove, which had no f un- 
 nelling, and was filling the hut with eye-tortur- 
 ing smoke. 
 
 "Come along, Mother," he cried. "There's 
 no time to be lost. If we hurry, we may get 
 over before dark." 
 
 A little delay was caused by the children, 
 who were unwilling to leave even that pretence 
 
 7G
 
 Two CatVPaws 
 
 of a shelter; and more time was lost crossing 
 the island, the children having to be carried 
 most of the way. At last, having placed them 
 all safely in the boat, Uncle Johnnie pro- 
 ceeded to launch her, and by wading into the 
 water himself, succeeded in keeping them dry 
 for the start. But the increasing sea soon made 
 even that sacrifice of little avail, for broken 
 water and driving spray, with the now heavily 
 falling snow, soon soaked them through and 
 through, at last half filling the boat itself with 
 water. 
 
 Uncle Johnnie knew by instinct that it was 
 now neck or nothing. He must get across that 
 strip of water if human endurance could do it. 
 So he kept on and on, long after he might have 
 gone back, and put the boat before it once more 
 to run for the island only after it was well 
 dark, and he was being blown astern anyhow 
 in spite of his best efforts. Nearing the shore, 
 he had every reason to expect disaster, for the 
 boat was now half filled, and he could see no 
 place to make a landing. So as soon as his 
 oars struck bottom he once more jumped into 
 
 77
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 the water, and, holding the boat in his iron grip, 
 he dragged it and its precious freight once more 
 out of the furious violence of the sea. 
 
 The children by this time were quite unable 
 to "travel"; so, sending his wife ahead, Uncle 
 Johnnie struggled along with the little ones as 
 best he could. 
 
 Alas, all of them were thoroughly beaten 
 out. As he passed a big boulder halfway across 
 the island which served as a landmark for the 
 pathway, Uncle Johnnie found his poor wife 
 lying in the snow, and already beyond any help 
 he could give. Hurrying on to the cottage as 
 best he could, he deposited the children, and 
 once more fled out into the darkness for his 
 wife, only to be, as he feared, too late, and to 
 be obliged to leave her where she had fallen. 
 Distracted as he was, he could only once more 
 hurry to the hut, where again nothing but dis- 
 aster awaited him. The place was flooded, the 
 fire was out, no dry matches were left, and the 
 little boy was already following his mother 
 into the great beyond. Tearing off his coat and 
 
 shirt, and pressing the little girl to his naked 
 
 78
 
 Two Cat's- Paws 
 
 skin, he covered himself up again as best he 
 could, and was actually able by moving about 
 the whole night long, not only to keep himself 
 alive, but to preserve the vital spark in his 
 little daughter. Help came hi the morning from 
 the nearest neighbour some miles away, who 
 had been given the alarm by the servant maid 
 from his home. But there was still one more 
 loss for him to meet, his little daughter failing 
 to react to all their tenderest efforts to bring 
 her back to life. 
 
 Before Marie was out of her teens, hah 5 the 
 young bloods of the neighbourhood were court- 
 ing around Uncle Johnnie's house. But none of 
 them ever made any headway, for Uncle John- 
 nie clung to his one ewe lamb with almost 
 childish dependence, and guarded her with all 
 the wiles of his lifelong woodcraft. 
 
 " T is natural enough," thought young Ned 
 Waring, " that t' old man don't want to part 
 with she. For there be nothing else for he round 
 here now. Every stone on t' beach reminds he 
 of his terrible misfortune." He had said this 
 
 often enough before, but one day it struck him 
 
 79
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 "When you wants to outwit a beaver, youse 
 got to bank on dem t'ings that are real part of 
 his make-up, and which he can no more help 
 than a bear can help licking molasses. Fishing 
 is n't as good as it used to be round here, and 
 swiles 1 well, there be'ant one year in a dozen 
 when they comes in any quantity. I reckon I '11 
 rig t' Saucy Lass for a longer trip t' year, and 
 see what luck '11 bring lower down t' Lab- 
 rador." 
 
 So it came to pass that year that on a day in 
 June, with his two brothers and a shipped 
 "hand," Ned landed north of fifty-three in a 
 lovely cove in some islands off the mouth of a 
 long bay. Even as he passed in he had seen fish 
 schooling so thick "you could catch 'em by the 
 tails." His vessel safely anchored, he went 
 ashore, much as did the old navigators in the 
 brave days of the French explorers. No sign of 
 human beings existed anywhere. Thick groves 
 of evergreen trees covered all the slopes of the 
 valleys which held the river in whose mouth 
 they had anchored. But though signs of rab- 
 
 1 Seals. 
 80
 
 Two Cat's-Paws 
 
 bits, foxes, and other game greeted their trained 
 eyes, not a living animal was to be seen mov- 
 ing anywhere. 
 
 It so happened, however, that as they 
 stretched themselves out on the brow of the 
 hill before returning to their schooner, Ned 
 chanced to disturb a large bee, which resented 
 painfully the intrusion of these idlers on his 
 labours. It was an insect rare enough on Lab- 
 rador; so, taking the overture as a touch of 
 personal interest rather than hostility, they 
 christened their cove "Bumble-Bee Bight," and 
 the home which they partly built before the 
 winter drove them south again, "the Hive"; 
 while for purposes of his own Ned left the 
 island unnamed. 
 
 The trip proved a bumper one. They carried 
 a full fare home; and big were the rumours 
 which got around of the fisherman's paradise 
 which Ned Waring had discovered. When the 
 voyage was turned in, Ned was able to pur-' 
 chase every essential and many comforts for 
 the new home in the North, and yet have a 
 balance coming to him large enough to furnish 
 
 81
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 him with the bravest winter outfit a young 
 suitor could wish. 
 
 Uncle Johnnie was, however, all the time 
 "one too many" for him as well as all the rest; 
 and never was he able to catch Marie alone. 
 Things went on uneventfully through Christ- 
 mas and the New Year. The old man no longer 
 drove dogs. He spent almost all his time pot- 
 tering around his own house, now and again 
 cleaving a few billets of wood ; but to all intents 
 and purposes he was hibernating like one of 
 our Labrador bears. 
 
 When March month once more came around, 
 the magic word "swiles" was whispered from 
 mouth to mouth, and Uncle Johnnie woke up 
 like a weasel when a rabbit is about. Every day 
 he sallied up to his lookout on the hill, tele- 
 scope in hand, at stated hours. But the hours 
 were so timed that Marie could always go with 
 him. 
 
 "Swiles" are second nature to most Labra- 
 dor men. As for Uncle Johnnie, he would leave 
 his Christmas dinner any time if any one came 
 and called, "Swiles!" He would rather haul 
 
 82
 
 Two Cat's Paws 
 
 a two-dollar pelt over "t' ballicaters" than 
 make two hundred hi any other way. 
 
 "So I reckoned," said Ned cannily, "one 
 chance to make t' old man friendly was to put 
 him in t' way o' doing again what he was really 
 scarcely able to do any longer; and that was, 
 to have as many notches on his gaff-stick for 
 dead seals as any other man. 
 
 "It were, however, longer than I cares to 
 remember now, before much of a chance come 
 my way, but it come at last. T' spring had been 
 that hard and that quiet that I 'lows us could 
 have walked over to t' Gaspe shore if us had 
 been so minded. T' standing ice never broke up 
 from Christmas to April month; and there 'd 
 been ne'er a bit of whelping ice near enough to 
 see with a spyglass, or a swatch big enough for 
 an old harp to put his whiskers through. So 
 when us woke one morning and found that t' 
 sea had heaved in overnight unbeknownst to 
 us, and that there was lakes of blue water 
 everywhere, every man was out with his rope 
 and gaff, as natural as a young duck takes to 
 
 water. 
 
 83
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 "That evening t' ice packed in again, and by 
 nightfall it all seemed fast as ever. There was 
 always a big tide made round Cape Blowme- 
 down, and as t' land fell sharp away on each 
 side of it, it were never too safe to go off very 
 far on t' ice. But, that being a bad year, every 
 man was on his mettle, and us all took more 
 chances than was real right. 
 
 "From t' bluff of t' head Uncle Johnnie had 
 spied old and young seals on t' ice before most 
 of t' boys was out o' bed ; and us had a dozen or 
 so on t' rocks before t 9 others was out t' ice at 
 all. As those near t' land got cleaned up, us 
 went a bit farther out each tune; and more'n 
 one seal I did n't exactly see so 's to give Uncle 
 Johnnie a better chance, and to let me keep all 
 t' time outside o' he. 
 
 "Just before it came dark and we was two or 
 three miles out, t' wind shifted all of a sudden 
 and came off t' land. Uncle Johnnie had a tow 
 of three big pelts, and, believe me, heaven and 
 earth would n't have made he leave them 
 swiles behind. I 'd left mine just as quick as I 
 felt t' shift, and never let on I had any, so 's I 
 
 84
 
 Two Cat's-Paws 
 
 could rope up Uncle Johnnie's load and hustle 
 him toward t' land. But t' ice was that hum- 
 micky it was an hour before us got near, and 
 there we were, almost dark, t' ice broken off, 
 driving along about twenty yards from t' 
 standing ice almost as fast as a man could 
 walk, and t' wind freshening every minute. 
 There was about a mile to t' bill of t' Cape, and 
 after that there 'd be no hope whatever. 
 
 "Four years before Jim Willis and his 
 brother Joe had been caught just t' same way. 
 Joe had perished in his brother's arms next day 
 after he 'd carried him for some hours, and Jim 
 had drifted ashore on t' second day with only 
 a spark of Me left in him. 
 
 "Every other man had been ashore and 
 gone home for long ago, not knowing we was 
 working outside, and only one chance were left 
 for we. For t' gap of water was getting wider 
 every minute, and there was n't a loose pan to 
 ferry over on big enough to float a dog. So I 
 shouted to Uncle Johnnie to run along t' ice 
 edge back up the bay just as hard as he could 
 go, and I 'd jump into t' water and swim for t' 
 
 85
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 standing ice edge. I never expected to get out 
 again, but t' good Lord arranged it, I suppose, 
 that I should strike a low shelf running off 
 level with t' water, and by kicking like a 
 swile, I was able to climb up and on to the 
 ballicaters. 
 
 "There was always a boat hauled up on t* 
 cape for men gunning to get birds or swiles, 
 and t* only chance was to get there and launch 
 her before t' ice passed out. T' rise and fall of t* 
 tide had piled up t' ballicaters at t' foot of t* 
 cliffs like young mountains, and it was already 
 dark, too, while my wet clothes froze on me 
 like a box. I reckon that saved my legs from 
 being broken more 'n once, for I fell into holes 
 and slid down precipices, and, anyhow, next 
 day I was black and blue from head to toe 
 though for that matter I'd have been green 
 and pink glad enough to have t' chance it gave 
 me. 
 
 "Anyhow, I got t' boat in t' water at last, 
 and pulled out toward t' floe, but ne'er a sign 
 could I make out of Uncle Johnnie. There 
 were n't a moment for waste, for spray was 
 
 86
 
 Two Cat's-Paws 
 
 drifting over t' punt, and she was icing up that 
 fast that if we lost much tune I knew that it 
 was good-bye to home for both of us. So I had 
 to risk hauling her up on t' ice, while I ran 
 along t* edge, shouting for all I knew. I had n't 
 gone many yards before I stumbled right over 
 t' old man. In t' dark he had slipped into a lake 
 of water that had gathered on t' ice, and was 
 about half -dead already. For I had been mov- 
 ing and had n't noticed t' tune, and Uncle 
 Johnnie had given out quickly, thinking I were 
 lost, anyhow. Well, in t' dark it was not an 
 easy job to half -carry t' old man back to where 
 I 'd left t' boat. But when you must 't is won- 
 derful what you can do; and even dragging 
 him were n't as hard as rowing ashore against 
 t' wind. 
 
 "T' men thought us would never reach land, 
 for t' ice made so fast on t' punt and oars, and 
 us were carried well outside t' bill while I was 
 getting Uncle Johnnie. When we did at last 
 make t' standing ice edge, it would have been 
 t' end again if Marie had n't been clever 
 enough to go and rouse out t' boys, and come 
 
 87
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 with them right to t' very edge of t' ice looking 
 for us. And she had n't forgotten some hot 
 stuff nor a blanket neither. She told us after- 
 wards that she saw Uncle Johnnie perishing of 
 cold away out off t' cape before she left t' cot- 
 tage, just as clear as she did when t' boys 
 hauled us out of t' punt. 
 
 "Uncle Johnnie pulled round in a day or so, 
 but I pulled round early next morning, and 
 those two days gave me t' first chance I 'd had 
 to get to windward of t' old man, and have 
 Marie for an hour or two by herself. 
 
 "T' business soon blew over, as I knew it 
 would, and what's more, Uncle Johnnie were 
 no more for letting any one get Marie away 
 from him than he'd been afore. Indeed, it 
 seemed to me that it made him cling closer to 
 she than ever; and I got real down-hearted 
 when it come time to fit out t' Saucy Lass for 
 North Labrador once more. 
 
 "Lucky for me, I 'd made t' most of my time 
 when Uncle Johnnie were ill, and talked many 
 times to Marie about how her father might get 
 young again if he could go where he could for- 
 
 88
 
 Two Cat's-Paws 
 
 get the old scenes. So when we had had t' 
 schooner painted up and launched, and t' sails 
 bent and began getting firewood and things 
 aboard, I got her to talk to he about coming 
 along with we. 
 
 "I've often noticed how t' very things you 
 thought t' last on earth to happen come about 
 just as easy as f ailing off a log. When I went 
 over next morning to pretend to say good-bye, 
 Marie whispered in my ear, 'He really wants 
 to go. He only wants asking ' and before 
 night we had it all arranged. We was to fix up 
 t' hold for him and Marie, and they'd come 
 along and make a new home alongside us at 
 Bumble-Bee Bight. 
 
 "I won't trouble you with t' story of t' voy- 
 age down, only to say that we found that two 
 could play better than one at hide-and-seek. 
 When at last we anchored off t' river mouth, 
 Uncle Johnnie was fair delighted. Nothing 
 would satisfy him but he must choose a spot for 
 his new house right away. But meanwhile t' 
 cargo had to be stored in t' 'Hive* out o' t' 
 weather. Uncle Johnnie was always extra care- 
 
 89
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 ful about his things and would n't allow no 
 one but he to handle 'em. So Marie went up to 
 get a fire and tidy up, while t' old man handed 
 t' things up to we. For my part I found that I 
 had to stay up at t' 'Hive' and help arrange t' 
 goods as they came along; and, 'lowing it might 
 be t' last chance, for we'd be into t' fishery 
 straight away, I up and asked Marie if it 
 would n't be as well not to build another house 
 after all. All I wanted was her to share t' house 
 we'd built already; and Uncle Johnnie would 
 be less lonesome than he 'd ever been since his 
 accident, because instead of losing one, he'd be 
 getting two. I'm not telling you all what was 
 said; as I'd told t' boys not to hurry with t' 
 unloading, and Uncle Johnnie did n't get 
 ashore till real late. By that time it was all 
 fixed up, but nothing was to be said till the 
 house was ready next night. 
 
 "When us come in together hand in hand 
 that evening, Uncle Johnnie had started his 
 pipe after tea. He guessed right away some- 
 thing was up, but maybe he had guessed some- 
 thing before. All he said was, 'Well, Ned, all 
 
 90
 
 Two Cat's-Paws 
 
 my bridges is burnt behind me, as you know, 
 anyhow, and if it had n't been for you, there 'd 
 be no need of asking any one for Marie, for I 'd 
 have been gone. So I can't well say no; and she 
 might go farther and fare worse for sure. So I '11 
 just leave it to Marie herself, and if she says so, 
 so it shall be.' 
 
 "And that's all there is to tell about it. 
 Sure people often wonders how others came to 
 live 'way down on these lonesome shores. But 
 Marquette Islands have given me fish and fur 
 and good life, with ne'er a cent owing to any 
 man, and there's four fine youngsters to help 
 out when we can no longer fend for ourselves."
 
 THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 
 
 "THEY brought in a blind man last night," 
 said the house surgeon. "It only seemed a case 
 of starvation, so I did n't call you." 
 
 "Where is he from?" 
 
 "About thirty miles in the country down 
 north somewhere. Apparently he has been liv- 
 ing at the bottom of a bay 'way out of the line 
 of the komatik trail. Formerly he could get 
 firewood easily, and a few bay seals and game 
 to live on. He seems too proud to let people 
 know how badly off he was." 
 
 "What's the history?" 
 
 "He has a wife and two girls, who appear to 
 be in almost as poor shape as he is himself. He 
 has been gradually growing blind for some time, 
 and was up here two years ago to see the eye 
 specialist. His name is Emile Moreau." 
 
 "A Frenchman! Why, I remember the man 
 perfectly. A slow-growing cerebral tumor." 
 
 He had been under observation for some 
 weeks, and we had had to decide that he would
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 not be benefited by an operation. So he went 
 away, promising to return soon. But this is the 
 way he had kept his promise. 
 
 A few minutes later I stood by the bedside of 
 the blind Frenchman. The poor fellow was a 
 skeleton, with the characteristic sunken face 
 and fallen skin with which we are familiar in 
 those living on what we know as "dry diet." 
 He had nothing to say for himself except, 
 "Times has been none too good, Doctor. It is a 
 bad country when a fellow can't see where he 
 is going. 'T is many an odd tumble I've had, 
 too, knocking around." Emile had been away 
 from France for many a long day, and the only 
 English he had ever heard was the vernacular 
 of our Northern Coast. 
 
 "How's your wife and the kiddies you told 
 us about when you were here last time? It 
 strikes me that they may have had a tumble 
 too." 
 
 "Well, I 'lows, Doctor, them has been 
 clemmed up on tunes. But, Jeanie, she never 
 says nothing; she's that busy with t' things I 
 can't do. She 'lowed she'd stay and mind t' 
 
 93
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 children till I get better a bit. No, that's right. 
 She has n't much grub. But us uses very little, 
 and she never complains." 
 
 Two days later our good dogs brought in the 
 rest of the family the babes to the warm wel- 
 come and plenty at the Children's Home, while 
 one of the pluckiest little women I have ever 
 known, even in a country of brave and self- 
 reliant women, was carried into the hospital 
 partially paralyzed with beri-beri. She was so 
 close to the gate from which there is no return- 
 ing that it took our nurses six months to wean 
 her back to another spell of usefulness. 
 
 It was no ordinary conundrum which vexed 
 my mind when the house surgeon at last an- 
 nounced, "These Moreau patients are well 
 enough to leave hospital," though I had real- 
 ized that for good or evil the day was near. 
 
 Neither had said a word about the future. 
 The worst feature of sending them out was the 
 personal affection which their lessons in con- 
 tentment had kindled in us. How could this 
 helpless family ever hope to keep the wolf from 
 
 the door. A council of war was called the same 
 
 94
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 evening, and some neighbours who well knew 
 the dilemma in which we found ourselves 
 asked to be allowed to attend. There was an 
 old shack in the compound in which some 
 workmen had once been housed, and which 
 had subsequently been used as a small store- 
 house. It was proposed, in the absence of 
 funds, for all hands to assault this stronghold, 
 and convert it as far as possible into a habit- 
 able home. 
 
 Thus came into existence what developed 
 later into the general headquarters of the 
 "triple entente/' 
 
 To relieve the situation, one child was 
 adopted by a childless, well-to-do neighbour, 
 and the other was left for education and care 
 with our little wards in the Home. Emile 
 learned basket-work; Jeanie took in washing. 
 The Moreau exchequer once more was in 
 funds. But two difficulties soon presented 
 themselves. There was a glut in our basket 
 market, and Emile found life without being 
 able to move out of the house almost more 
 than a man born to the sea and the trail could 
 
 95
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 bear. Small dogs in civilization are wont to fill 
 this gap. But alas, "down North" small dogs 
 are taboo their imperious Eskimo congeners 
 having decided against them. 
 
 There happened to be at this time also under 
 our care an Eskimo lad from the Far North, 
 whom we had picked up suffering with a form 
 of lung trouble which only the radical opera- 
 tion of collapsing one side of his chest wall 
 could relieve. The ribs had been removed. The 
 boy had recovered slowly; but, having only a 
 very limited breathing capacity, he had been 
 allowed to remain for the chores he could do. 
 Without kith, kin, or even fellow countrymen, 
 he was a veritable pelican in the wilderness 
 without any home attachments and a very 
 serious problem to ourselves. 
 
 Emile could cut wood, being strong as a 
 horse and an excellent axeman; but he could 
 not find it alone. He could carry heavy pack- 
 ages, but he could not find his way. He could 
 haul water, but could not economically direct 
 his energies. Karlek's eyes were the best part 
 of him. So it came about that one morning on 
 
 96
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 the way to the hospital I met Emile whistling 
 like a newly arrived robin in spring, his hand 
 on Karlek's shoulder, and on his back a heavy 
 sack of potatoes which he was bringing up to 
 the hospital kitchen from the frost-proof cellar 
 in the cove. 
 
 It brought a smile to one's lips to see the 
 nonchalance and almost braggadocio of his 
 gait as he stepped out boldly, covering the 
 ground at a speed which was itself a luxury to 
 one so long cut off from that joie de vivre of a 
 strong man. And more, it brought a smile to 
 one's soul to see the joy of victory flashing in 
 the features of the upturned face the tri- 
 umph of the man over the pitifulness of his 
 sightless eyes. The international dual alliance 
 was making its debut on the field. The firm of 
 Karlek and Moreau, Eskimo and Frenchman, 
 had come to stay. 
 
 So time went on, cheerfully and even rapidly 
 for all concerned the Mission developing 
 its labour-saving devices as the work increased, 
 and the help of its friends made it possible. A 
 water-supply system soon partially obviated 
 
 97
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 the need for hauling barrels in the summer 
 from our spring and puncheons on the dog 
 sledges in the winter. A roadway and narrow- 
 gauge railway track relieved us of the necessity 
 of so much portage on men's backs; and a cir- 
 cular saw, run by a small gasoline engine, cut 
 up our firewood with less waste and with more 
 satisfactory results. 
 
 As with the basket market, so with the 
 chore market, the ground was once more fall- 
 ing away from beneath our poor friends' feet. 
 Only the indefatigable Jeanie held the house- 
 hold together, for in the heyday of the dual alli- 
 ance's prosperity, the little daughter had been 
 permitted to return to her parents from the 
 Children's Home. 
 
 With the lapse of years, however, even if 
 Emile could see no better with his eyes, his 
 other faculties had developed so largely as to 
 surrender to him again the joy of independ- 
 ence of outside help, and with characteristic 
 self-reliance and optimism he once more tack- 
 led his own difficulties. 
 
 I was recently visiting a small cottage, built 
 08
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 on a tiny ledge under the shadow of gloomy, 
 high cliffs. It was far from any pathway and 
 only approachable by stumbling over huge 
 rocks the debris of the crags behind. The 
 hut had been built by a lonely old fellow who 
 resorted to it in summer because it was right 
 on the fishing-grounds, and he was getting un- 
 able any longer to face the long row to and 
 from his house in the harbour. Nowhere in the 
 world is the old adage concerning the birds of 
 a feather truer than on this coast. The poorer 
 and lonelier a man is, the greater is the cer- 
 tainty that some other poor and lonely person 
 will seek the shelter of their poverty. Thus it 
 had been with old man Martin. 
 
 One day there had appeared at the cottage 
 door from twenty miles farther down the 
 coast one-legged Ike, an irregular, angular 
 youth, who, stumbling over the hillside, and 
 magnified into portentous proportions by one 
 of our Promethean fogs, had nearly scared the 
 wits out of even my trusty dog team. Quite 
 without invitation from old man Martin, one- 
 legged Ike had come to stay. The proximity to 
 
 99
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 the fishing-grounds suited this seafarer, who 
 shared in every particular the limpet-like 
 characteristics of Sinbad's Old Man of the 
 Sea. 
 
 Anyhow, old Martin had never shaken him 
 off, and had been heard to excuse himself by 
 saying, "After all, he can sit in a boat as well 
 as any of them with two legs." "Where there's 
 room for one, there's room for two/' is almost 
 an axiom of life on these shores. In the lapse of 
 time the old man had taken his last voyage, 
 and Ike had come into full possession of the 
 estate, living almost like Robinson Crusoe, 
 cut off from his fellows by to him impassable 
 barriers. 
 
 It was a reported lapse in some other por- 
 tion of Ike's anatomy that had led me to 
 scramble along the landwash to the cottage. 
 The ice having broken up and gone out of the 
 harbour, I should have considered longer the 
 advisability of the trip, for the morning 
 frosts left the jagged rock masses at the foot 
 of the cliff harbingers of ill omen to the travel- 
 ler, had it not been that his isolation might 
 
 100
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 possibly make even trivial trouble serious. For 
 he had come safely through so many scrapes, 
 not a few being of his own making, that I 
 had nicknamed him in my mind "indestructi- 
 ble Ike." 
 
 At last, congratulating myself that I had 
 arrived without any untoward happenings, I 
 rapped loudly on his door, expecting to hear 
 his squeaky, perpetually broken voice bid me 
 enter. Much to my surprise, therefore, the 
 door opened itself, and smiling in the doorway 
 stood our blind friend. 
 
 "Good Heavens! Emile, how on earth did 
 yon p't IUMV? And why did yon over want lo 
 come, anyhow?" 
 
 "Why, I thought it was a good plan for me 
 to go fishing," he replied, addressing appar- 
 ently a huge rock, so accurately poised over 
 the hut that it suggested any moment an an- 
 nihilating assault upon it. "Ike 's going to be 
 pilot and I'm to do t* rowing. We're to be 
 partners for t* summer, and Karlek 's going to 
 look after t* family and help out when he can. 
 
 It feels like being young again to be on t' 
 
 101
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 water with a fishing-line. And, mind you, Ike 
 knows a few tricks with a line that's worth 
 more'n another leg to we, once we be on t' 
 grounds. They all 'lows he be as good as t' next 
 man for hauling in fish, so be as there's any 
 around." 
 
 Ike's indisposition, as I had surmised, was 
 not of a serious nature, and I learned subse- 
 quently that it was the proper ratification of 
 the terms of the new triple alliance that had 
 more to do with the sick call than any undue 
 foreboding of impending dissolution on Ike's 
 part. There had been some hitch in coming to 
 terms, and Emile had put the only one point 
 in them to his credit, when he saw through the 
 trick, and "plumped for a magistrate," feel- 
 ing also that he could trust me for more than 
 mere legal technicalities. 
 
 It was obviously an offensive campaign on 
 which I found them bent. Ike had himself 
 carefully repaired the boat's structure, having 
 always a keen eye to comfort and safety; while 
 from Emile's hands I could see that the task 
 of tarring their warship, owing to Ike's tempo- 
 
 102
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 rary indisposition and the need for immediate 
 preparedness, had fallen to him. His only 
 method for finding out where he had applied 
 that hot and adhesive liquid had left very ap- 
 parent evidences of both his energy and his 
 zeal. To Emile also had fallen the rearrange- 
 ment of the big rocks, so as to form as level a 
 surface as possible on which to dry the fish. 
 It was a Sisyphean task, and poor Emile had 
 spent much sweat and not a little blood in 
 his efforts. But, as Ike told him, "lifting 
 rocks were n't no work for a man with one 
 leg." So he had offset against it getting the 
 meals ready, and what he called "tidying 
 things up." But as Karlek was, unrewarded, 
 to bring the bread, Ike's household labours 
 did not promise to be onerous. 
 
 In one sense the entente campaign proved 
 victorious, for they had a goodly catch ; but in 
 the division of the spoils it apparently turned 
 out that it had been so arranged that Emile's 
 share was to catch the fish, Karlek's to dry it, 
 and Ike's to exchange it piecemeal for tobacco 
 or "things for t' house," as he called them. 
 
 103
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 Ever since Stevenson wrote of the one- 
 legged rascal Silver, one associates with that 
 handicap a tendency to try to outwit others; 
 while the dependence of blind men presup- 
 poses simplicity and trustfulness. 
 
 Emile worked like a tiger, with the single- 
 mindedness of the Verdun spirit of France, 
 blissfully supposing that Ike did the same in 
 his end of the boat. Fishing in sixty fathoms of 
 icy water, Emile would haul his lines up and 
 down, re-bait and tend them, till his hands 
 were blue with cold, and the skin "fair wore off 
 t' bones." One day, however, a harbour trap 
 boat happened to pass close by their rodney 
 while they were anchored on the fishing- 
 grounds, and the owner called out, "Wake 
 up, Ike! Price of dream fish is down." Ike had 
 somewhat loudly and not too politely re- 
 sponded to the salutation, but all the same it 
 awoke a first suspicion hi Emile's mind. While 
 not slacking himself, he "kept an eye" on his 
 partner as best he could. 
 
 He knew that a one-legged man must sit 
 down for work, while for his part he stood, but 
 
 104
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 he had not realized that Ike considered any 
 more restful posture essential. "A blind man 
 sees more'n most folk" is a common claim of 
 Emile's. It is tedious pegging away when fish 
 are scarce, yet fishing is a trade where " 't is 
 dogged as does it." He suspected that Ike took 
 it easy in the stern while he worked in the 
 bow; and his doubts were confirmed when one 
 day, from a passing boat, some one called out : 
 "'T ain't safe for you to be out alone, Emile. 
 You'll be running some one down one of these 
 days." It was obvious that Ike was not visible 
 over the gunwale. 
 
 From that day on, Emile began to count his 
 catch and to put a cross-thwait in the middle 
 of the boat to keep them separate "Some- 
 thing to push my feet against when I rows, I 
 called 'un," he told me. Still Ike was almost 
 too much for him, for Karlek remembered see- 
 ing him sorting out the fish as he landed them, 
 and the big ones, somehow or other, all found 
 their way into Ike's yaffles. Ike also discovered 
 that it was good economy constantly to change 
 the location of such things as the tobacco box, 
 
 105
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 butter tub, and molasses jar, for it often meant 
 that the good-natured Emile went without. 
 
 The cold weather set in early, and though 
 the contract was not up, Ike's hereditary in- 
 stinct that hardship was bad for his constitu- 
 tion made him decide to stop if he could. But 
 Emile went steadily on, having learned from 
 Karlek that there were occasional leakages from 
 the fish pile. He ventured to remonstrate with 
 his partner, but as fish were plentiful, he refused 
 to cancel the contract before the proper date. 
 
 It was Ike who finally forced the issue. 
 Emile being bowman, it was their custom al- 
 ways to come in to the ladder leading to the 
 stage platform head on, when Emile, grabbing 
 the cross-bars with one hand and holding the 
 painter in the other, climbed up and "made 
 her fast." Projecting from the stage head is a 
 long pole used for preventing boats that are 
 made fast from bumping against the stage. 
 Coming in a day or so later, Ike drove the punt 
 in parallel with the stage head, and the pole 
 coming into Emile's hands deceived him into 
 
 thinking that the stage was above him as usual. 
 
 106
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 He promptly stepped off the boat, and natu- 
 rally fell into the water. Naturally also, it 
 shook Emile up a good deal, for he was in the 
 water quite a while. After the incident Ike's 
 tender heart had made him absolutely refuse 
 the responsibility of a blind man in a small 
 boat in fall weather. As we walked up the 
 wharf together Emile told me many more such 
 details of the transactions of our only "triple 
 alliance." All he wanted me to do was to add 
 up his own tally of the fish he had caught, 
 multiplying it by a reasonable average fish, 
 and for the sake of the family help him to get 
 from his ally a return for his labour which 
 would enable him to buy food for the winter 
 for Jeanie and the little girl. 
 
 Fortunately it proved to be not too late. 
 You cannot "get the breeks off a Highlander," 
 and after a week or two not a cod tail or a cent 
 would have been available from Ike. As it was, 
 my coming to the assistance of my poor friend 
 happened to save the "entente" from being a 
 tragedy, and enabled us to relegate the whole 
 incident to our comedy group. 
 
 107
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 A peremptory order to Ike to wait for me at 
 midday at the room we call the court-house 
 would, I knew, impress him with the necessity 
 of obedience, far more than a second visit to 
 his cabin. The effort which the journey would 
 cost him and the time allowed for reflection 
 would, moreover, punctuate the importance of 
 the occasion. 
 
 Emile's calculation of the amount of fish 
 caught, corrected by Karlek by the simple 
 process of multiplying the sum by two, and 
 with a bit more added by myself to be sure not 
 to underestimate it, formed all the legal data I 
 needed. The lean, scrawny figure of Ike, twist- 
 ing and squirming with evident uneasiness, 
 awaited my arrival at the appointed time. 
 Ike's fear of "t* Law" was the superstition of 
 a child. It was to him a great big man wait- 
 ing to pounce upon you and "lug youse away." 
 Indeed, I learned afterwards that he had 
 stayed in bed for fear of being carried off 
 surreptitiously. " 'T is a lonesome spot I lives 
 in," he had explained. 
 
 "To steal from a blind man, Ike," I began, 
 108
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 "is bad. Moreover, it does n't bring any one 
 any luck ever. Where have you put those sixty 
 quintals of fish which belong to Emile? " 
 
 "It took more'n half t' voyage, believe me, 
 Doctor, to meet t' summer's expenses. There 
 wasn't more'n thirty quintals all told, and 
 half of that was mine. Samuels only allowed we 
 four dollars a quintal, and his flour was eight, 
 and molasses seventy cents. He said he'd land 
 Emile's share when he comes in on his home 
 trip." 
 
 "The Law will have to send down and 
 search your house and all around it, and cany 
 off things while you wait here, and you won't 
 get any credit for it either. I told you there was 
 no luck for those who rob a blind man, unless 
 they confess hi time. I '11 come back in half an 
 hour for your decision. " And, having an un- 
 fair advantage of a one-legged man, I locked 
 the door and was well down the road before 
 Ike had made a move. 
 
 Our little rickety court-house, in order to 
 be in the centre of the village, stands on a 
 rocky hill-crest away by itself. When the wind 
 
 109
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 blows high, awesome noises with much creak- 
 ing and groaning help to suggest to the guilty 
 conscience that supernatural agencies are at 
 work. The half -hour was purposely a long one, 
 and had the desired effect. Ike made a full 
 confession of his delinquencies and promised 
 reparation. An immediate search while he was 
 in this frame of mind revealed that Emile's 
 winter food could only be obtained by leaving 
 Ike to a diet of hope and charity. The lesson 
 being necessary, however, the whole of his 
 supplies were loaded into the boat, and Ike 
 condemned to row it to Emile's house and 
 land it at once. It was late and dark, but the 
 fear of what might happen to him alone on his 
 point, now that it was known that he had 
 robbed a blind man, held more terrors even 
 than hunger for Ike. So the judgment of the 
 court was carried out that very night. 
 
 Partly moved by curiosity, Christmas found 
 me once again visiting the mansion under the 
 cliff. A shortage in the commissariat was, I 
 knew, no new experience to the poor fellow, 
 and even the wiles of a "one-legger" cannot 
 
 110
 
 The Triple Alliance 
 
 convert stones into bread. Ike, radiant with 
 smiles and fat as a spring seal, was out to meet 
 me on my arrival which circumstance was 
 a little difficult at first to understand. Then he 
 explained : 
 
 "You'm right, Doctor. It drives away t* 
 bad luck when you pays up a blind man. I 
 has n't wanted ne'er a t'ing since." 
 
 It had been a good voyage that year, and, as 
 a matter of fact, every one had a warm spot 
 somewhere in his heart for " that rascal Ike." 
 For though he was admittedly a rogue, he was 
 always such an amusing, hail-fellow-well-met 
 rogue, and not the really mean type which 
 every one dislikes. All the shore had heard of 
 his dilemma, and, isolation not allowing one 
 man to know what another is doing, indiscrim- 
 inate charity had poured in upon poor Ike, 
 without possibly doing him much harm, for he 
 attributed it absolutely to that oftentimes use- 
 ful mentor of the feeble-minded, the great god 
 of good luck. 
 
 To my surprise it was Emile who really suf- 
 fered most, though he would not admit it, but 
 
 111
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 by actual computation of the supplies in his 
 very give-away storeroom, I learned that he 
 had secretly carried back to Ike's beach in the 
 dark just one half of those goods which "t* 
 Law" had recovered for him; and which Ike 
 to this day believes were deposited for his 
 benefit by the good-luck fairy.
 
 PORTLAND BILL 
 
 "IT must be nigh sixty years ago, but I re- 
 members it as if it was yesterday, when a new 
 settler come to live in our harbour," said 
 Skipper Life Flynn, at whose house I was 
 spending the night with my driver and dogs. 
 
 "Life" was short for Eliphoreth the 
 " given " names being mostly out of the Bible 
 down North. " It were a wonderful thing them 
 days, for Father were the only Liveyer then 
 that is, as stayed all the year round. He did n't 
 mind being alone, and t' moving in t' schooner 
 every spring and fall were bad for Mother. Fish 
 were plenty every season one side or t' other 
 of Deadman's Cape, and there was lots of fur 
 and swiles t' winter. So he built a house in 
 Sleepy Cove, and there us grew up! 
 
 "No, Doctor, I'm not able now to read and 
 write. None of us is, for us had no teachers. 
 But we was all big, strong men, and handy at 
 that, and there was n't a thing to be done wi' 
 axe or saw about boats and timber us could 
 
 113
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 n't do. We made a good deal at furring, too, and 
 many 's and many 's t' night in winter I've laid 
 down under t' trees and slept with ne'er a 
 greatcoat neither. An' if us was n't brought up 
 scholars, Father taught us to be honest, and 
 to fear God and nothing and nobody else. 
 
 "It were our way them days to greet every 
 stranger as a friend, and so when Bill started 
 his cabin, for that was all it ever were, us 
 lads all went in and helped him chop and saw t' 
 logs for studding. 
 
 "In winter Father minded t' big French 
 Room; but he were away hunting most of t' 
 time, there being no need to watch much, be- 
 ing as there was no one besides ourselves any- 
 where near. But early spring and late fall 
 when t' fleets were passing, it were day and 
 night watch, and not without a gun neither. 
 
 "But it would have paid us better to have 
 watched that whiter; for when t' Frenchmen 
 come in t' spring there was a number of little 
 things missing that Father had to stand to 
 and, somehow, us never suspected t' new- 
 comer. 
 
 114
 
 Portland Bill 
 
 "It was only long afterwards us learned how 
 t' new settler come by his name which was 
 'Skipper Bill Portland.' Seems that's where 
 the big English convict prison is. So after Bill 
 escaped, he not being good at letters, and not 
 wanting exactly to use his own name, he just 
 twisted her round, and to this day no one's 
 ever found out really who he was before. 
 
 "Hundreds of schooners anchored in the 
 Bight in our harbour that spring, t' whitecoats 
 having come right in on t' floe, just t' other 
 side of t' Deadman's Cape. One day a schooner 
 captain read we a piece in t' papers about a 
 man what had been a pirate, what had es- 
 caped to Newfoundland; and a hundred dol- 
 lars was being offered for his head. Reading 
 about that man made us all think of Skipper 
 Portland. It were his build and his kind, too. 
 But us folk never mixed with that kind of 
 work; and all us did was to keep a good look- 
 out for t' future. But a poor neighbour he 
 proved to be, for he were as cute as a fox, and 
 he had no fear o' nothing. 
 
 " He were n't no idle man, though, Skipper 
 115
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 Bill were n't. That second winter he set to and 
 built a ten-tonner all by hisself that is, t' 
 hull. He had galvanized fastenings for her, such 
 as he never bought fair hi Newfoundland. But 
 o' course he had no gear to fit her out, and he 
 could n't get any more than he 'd got already 
 off our room. We lads saw to that, and he knew 
 it, too and that it were n't safe playing no 
 games, neither. 
 
 "He were away t' following winter, * fur- 
 ring,' so he told we, but no fox could ever get 
 fooled by a trap Skipper Bill set. It were n't in 
 his line, getting round animals. Beyond which 
 he had ne'er a trap. He 'lowed he just set dead- 
 falls a good name for his work, I 'm think- 
 ing now. Anyhow, he came back with enough 
 gear, stolen off French Rooms to t' south, 
 I reckon, to get his boat afloat by t* time t' 
 owners got back. 
 
 "She were an odd craft, built for a crew of 
 one man only. For Skipper Bill had n't much 
 trust hi any man 'cept hisself. Once when he 
 were full o' French brandy he told me that 
 
 when he were working on t' cliffs in England, 
 
 116
 
 Portland Bill 
 
 he found out that his mate were going to 
 * squeal/ as he called it, about his leaving, so 
 he'd given him such a kick behind when he 
 were n't expecting it that no one had ever heard 
 from him since. He meant, we reckoned, that t' 
 poor fellow had fell off t' bill into t' sea. 
 
 " When he built that boat he were thinking 
 already that he might have to leave sudden, 
 and perhaps a crew would n't be willing to, 
 even if he got one. So he trimmed his teller lan- 
 yards to run f orrard, so as he could steer before 
 t' foremast, and handle t' headsheets hisself 
 going to windward, and at t' same time keep a 
 lookout for ice and slob. 
 
 "Many's t' time I've seen him sailing along 
 with ne'er a watch on deck at all, he being be- 
 low aft steering by compass from t' locker, 
 with t' tiller lines leading down the companion 
 hatch. 
 
 "I minds one fall that he brought in a big 
 cask o' rum and a lot o' brandy, which he were 
 going to sell to us folk. But Father would n't 
 stand for that. He said that he 'd seen too much 
 of it when he were young to want any more 
 
 117
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 lying round. We lads found it only fun to go 
 over and knock t' heads in, and hear what old 
 Portland had to say about we. 
 
 "One day, however, a fellow all dressed in 
 blue came down from St. John's to take he 
 along, and before Bill knew it t' boat were 
 alongside his craft and t' man calling he to 
 come ashore. Bill knowed what he were at once. 
 He'd had experience. 'All right, Officer,' he 
 said, 'I'll just get my coat and come along.' 
 But when he come up on deck he had a barrel 
 of gunpowder all open and a box of matches in 
 his hand. 'Come on, now,' he shouted with an 
 oath, 'let's all go to hell together.' But just as 
 soon as ever t' small boat backed off, he runs 
 f orrard and slips his cable, and was off before t' 
 wind before youse could say 'Jack Robinson.' 
 
 " He always left his mainsail up, Skipper Bill 
 did. 'Better be sure than sorry ' was a rule he 
 always told us were his religion. 
 
 "T' policeman seemed in two minds about 
 following t' boat, but when she rounded Dead- 
 man's Cape, he rows back ashore. I minds 
 running up t' hill to watch where Skipper Bill 
 
 118
 
 Portland Bill 
 
 would go, but he stood right on across for t' 
 Larbadore. T' policeman said that that were 
 n't his beat; and he looked glad enough that it 
 were n't neither. Old Portland never came back 
 to Sleepy Cove to live. He just left everything 
 standing which were mostly only what he 
 could n't take away with him anyhow. 
 
 "That fall one of t' Frenchmen stowed away 
 in t' woods when their ship was getting ready 
 for home. His name was Louis Marteau; and 
 his vessel had no sooner gone than in he goes 
 and lives in Bill's house across t' cove. Things 
 got missing again that winter, and though 
 Father had to feed him, seeing that he had n't 
 been able to steal a diet, we lads give him no- 
 tice to quit in t' spring. As he did n't show no 
 signs of moving, us just put a couple of big 
 trees for shoes under t' house, and ran it and 
 Louis, too, out onto t' ice as far as t' cape a 
 matter of two miles or more. 
 
 "So us thought us had done with both of 
 them, and a good riddance too; but when t' 
 spring opened t' Frenchman wrote up to t' 
 English man-o'-war captain to come in and 
 
 119
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 find out about t' things what they'd lost. So 
 one day in comes t' big ship and anchors right 
 alongside in our bay. 1" very first man to come 
 rowing across and go aboard to see what he 
 could get, I reckon, was Louis Marteau. When 
 t' captain asked him what he wanted, he said 
 that he had come over to ask him to send a 
 boat to t* cape to search his rooms, as t* 
 neighbours blamed he for having taken their 
 things. 
 
 "Well, it were a long way to go and there 
 were no motor boats them days; and t' captain 
 must have thought if Louis had taken any- 
 thing he had it hid away where no one would 
 find it. So they just did n't take t' trouble to 
 send out a crew and look. At the same time 
 Louis had stolen fish drying on his flakes, and 
 stolen twine right in his open fish stage to go 
 and catch more with. 
 
 "Another steamer came in t* fall, and Louis, 
 thinking that t' trouble had blown over, went 
 aboard as usual. One of t' officers, thinking 
 that the man was just a fisherman, and as sim- 
 ple as most o' we, asked him if he did n't know 
 
 120
 
 Portland Bill 
 
 where a man called Louis Marteau was. 'Yes/ 
 said Louis, ' I knows he well. He be here to-day, 
 and gone to-morrow' and with that he slips 
 away, and was far enough in the woods for 
 safety long before the searching party landed. 
 "Louis, like old Bill, was as fond o' liquor as 
 a cat is o' milk; and when he got French brandy 
 in him, he did n't care what he did. There be 
 only one law here which every one keeps, as 
 you knows, Doctor, on this coast. Whatever 
 else you does, you must never touch t' prop- 
 erty of another settler, whether he be good or 
 bad, or whether he be away fishing, or whether 
 he be in America. Because any time he may 
 need to come back, and that many are away 
 summers fishing, if they can't leave their 
 homes locked and feel 'em safe, they can't live 
 at all. So everybody minds that law, whether 
 it be written in St. John's or not. There are 
 new stages, yes, and houses, too, and plenty of 
 'em, and boats hauled up, that men has left 
 and gone to Canada years ago. They're tum- 
 bling down right alongside folk as needs 'em as 
 bad as gold just for firewood, but ne'er a stick 
 
 121
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 is touched come year, go year not till they 
 rots or t' sea comes and carries 'em away. 
 
 "Well, Louis and a man called Tom Marling 
 got some liquor aboard that day, and started 
 scrapping, Marling saying that Louis must be 
 a crook or he would n't steal another man's 
 house. T' end of that was that Louis shot 
 Marling through the shoulder and nearly blew 
 his arm off. 
 
 "Next spring a large bully sailed across t' 
 Straits and four men landed in my cove. It 
 chanced that old Skipper Sam Brewer caught 
 sight of 'em, and he recognized Bill Portland 
 from t' old days. T' other three was Tom Mar- 
 ling's brothers. All t' men had guns, and old 
 Skipper Sam guessed they was after Louis. So 
 he sent off his lad Mose to run out to t' cape 
 and give he warning. Though why he should I 
 can't say. Louis just said, 'All right, I'll be 
 ready for 'em, boy,' and started right in load- 
 ing his two big guns and his rifle. Then he fixed 
 up t' windows and barred t' door, and when 
 Mose come away he could see Louis moving 
 round inside and swearing enough to frighten
 
 Portland Bill 
 
 t* fish off t' coast for t' whole summer. Mose 
 waited round out of sight all day to see what 
 would happen. But nothing did, only before 
 dark he saw the four men making their camp- 
 fire on the edge of the woods near Louis's 
 house. I reckon they knew he'd be ready and 
 wanted to keep him waiting. Anyway, they 
 was there all next day. 
 
 "T" third morning I caught sight of some 
 men loading a boat at Louis's stage, so, being 
 only a hobbledehoy then, I guessed they 'd not 
 take much notice of me, and no more they did. 
 They told me Louis had tried to break away t' 
 second night in t' dark, but they caught him 
 and carried his pack back for him, and what 
 else they did to he I don't rightly know. Any- 
 how, they loaded up their own boat and then 
 Louis's two boats with fish and twine, and 
 everything else that were worth taking and 
 they could stow, not forgetting t' barrel of 
 flour and t' keg of molasses. 
 
 " Skipper Bill told me that t' Governor of- 
 fered to make him t' captain of a man-o'-war, 
 just to stop t' law-breaking on the coast. But 
 
 123
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 he were a policeman instead because he felt 
 ashamed to see t' laws broken and villains like 
 Louis go free. 'It's to teach you people on t' 
 coast to be good boys what brings us away 
 from our homes so far in t' fishing season.' 
 
 " They never stopped loading a minute all t' 
 time, and as soon as ever they were ready, and 
 that was n't long after it were light, away they 
 goes towing t' two boats behind, and giving it 
 to her straight for t' Labrador. 'Skipper Life,' 
 Bill shouted, just after the anchor was up, 
 'if you sees Louis be sure and tell him to be 
 good and say his prayers, and when he is 
 ready, not to forget his uncles in Labrador and 
 come over and settle down peaceful like.' 
 
 " No, Doctor, Louis never got so much as a 
 match back, though he wrote and wrote about 
 it and Louis were a good scholar, being well 
 learnt in France. All t' Government did was to 
 offer Captain Fordland, who fished t' big Jer- 
 sey rooms across near Isle au Loup on Labra- 
 dor, another hundred dollars to bring back 
 Skipper Bill with him in t' fall. T' captain told 
 his men that they could divide t' money 
 
 124
 
 Portland Bill 
 
 if they liked to catch old Portland out of 
 hours. 
 
 " I 'lows it was more t' fun of hunting than 
 anything else that started 'em, though two 
 hundred dollars cash meant a nice bit in them 
 times. Soon there were half a dozen small 
 crowds keeping an eye out for Bill. There were 
 no wires or mail steamers to carry news them 
 days, and it so happened that Bill fell right 
 into t' trap. For Captain Fordland did a bit o* 
 trade, and Bill, being out of flour, come along 
 to buy a barrel. Half a dozen men soon had him 
 and his boat as well. T' trouble was where to 
 keep him till they went home in t' fall, which 
 was a full two months anyhow. 
 
 " The crowd what took him got leave from 
 Skipper Fordland to lock Bill up in t' top 
 storey of t' old Jersey brick store on the Island; 
 and 'em fixed it like sailors so that not even Bill 
 should get away. They had to share t* expense 
 of feeding and looking after he between 'em, 
 and though they did n't give he none too 
 much it took quite a bit of their wages 
 only a hundred dollars for the whole summer. 
 
 125
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 " Bill had been there nearly six weeks and 
 all hands were thinking of going home, when 
 one day he told t* cook who brought up his 
 food that he was fair dying of doing nothing, 
 and could n't he give him some work. Be- 
 ing an old sailor, he set Bill to making bread 
 bags, and for a few days he made a whole lot, 
 and t* cook took it easy. All he gave Bill was 
 some canvas, a pocket-knife, and some needles 
 and thread. Bill, however, saved a lot of canvas 
 out of them bags and made himself a long rope 
 of it. Then he just worked on, waiting for a real 
 dark night and an offshore wind, when he let 
 hisself down through t' window, swam off to t' 
 best fishing bully Captain Fordland had, and 
 was out of sight before daylight. 
 
 "You may bet they was all mad, more es- 
 pecially t' captain, who swore that t' crowd 
 would have to pay for his good boat. What 
 they said and did to t' cook be scarcely fit for 
 ears to hear. Anyhow, no one knowed where 
 Bill had gone, and none of that crowd ever saw 
 him again. He were n't very dear to memory 
 either. 
 
 126
 
 Portland Bill 
 
 "T" next place us heard of him was on the 
 West Coast. He brought with him an Eskimo 
 wife he called Nancy, who was very good at 
 doctoring. She could make poultices out of 
 herbs and medicines out of t' woods, and she 
 would charm toothache and warts and such 
 like, and could stop bleeding by just tying 
 green worsted round your left arm. She had a 
 haddock's fin-bone that never touched any 
 boat that she used to lend out for rheumatism. 
 She did a lot o' good, they says, Doctor, and 
 she made a nice bit of money, too, so that old 
 Bill had an easy time. But he spent most of t' 
 cash hi liquor, and at last she would n't work 
 any more for he and he got beating her. One 
 day he come rowing down right into Port War- 
 field, with she tied up in t' bottom of t* boat, 
 and a stone tied round her neck as well ! It so 
 happened that big Skipper Weymouth came 
 alongside and seed her. 
 
 'What be you going to do wi' she?' he 
 asked, he not being afraid as most were. ' Why 
 drown her, to be sure,' said Bill. 'I towed her 
 
 behind t' boat for a mile a week ago come Sun- 
 
 127
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 day to drive t' devil out of her. But she ain't 
 no good to me now, and so I reckon I'll get 
 another/ 
 
 "The skipper saw that Bill had liquor in 
 him and was quarrelsome, and feared that he 'd 
 just as likely as not upset t* boat and 
 drowned t' woman would be sure enough with 
 that stone round her neck. So he says, * Drown 
 her! Not on this coast and lobsters just setting 
 in. She'd spoil the catch all summer just to 
 spite you.' Bill looked puzzled. 'You're right, 
 sure enough, Skipper Alf. I'll have to do for 
 she some other way' and round he goes and 
 rows her home again. 
 
 " The people, howsomever, was real afraid, 
 and letters went up to the Government. No 
 doubt Bill heard about it. But there were no 
 place left now for him to go safely, so he just 
 drank and drank where he was, all he could 
 lay hands on; and when he could n't get no 
 more I guess he must have gone mad. For he 
 were found dead on t' floor of his house, with a 
 great big knife he had for hunting deer in his 
 
 hand. 
 
 128
 
 Portland Bill 
 
 "Yes, his wife 's alive to this day so far as us 
 knows. Her son Bill found a box of old silver 
 dollars, Spanish and French, buried under t* 
 house Bill had on Labrador, the time he were 
 trapped by Captain Fordland's men. They 
 were mostly about a hundred years old. I saw 
 many of them, but where they come from, or 
 how he come by 'em, no one ever knew. We 
 heard, however, that they helped poor Nancy 
 to get back to her people again all right."
 
 KAIACHOUOUK 
 
 THE brief summer of Northern Labrador had 
 passed, and the Eskimos around the Hudson's 
 Bay Post at Katatallik were busy preparing 
 for the approaching winter. The season previ- 
 ous, according to the accurate notes of the 
 Moravians, kept for over a hundred years, had 
 been the worst on record; and now again, as 
 the long, cold, icy grip of winter drew near, 
 the prospect of supplies was menacingly poor. 
 So the Innuits, that cheerful and resourceful 
 little race of the North who wrest their living 
 from so reluctant an environment, were put- 
 ting forth all their energies in a "prepared- 
 ness" from whose example many a civilized 
 community might well have profited. 
 
 Their chief Kaiachououk, of upright char- 
 acter, and the courage born of simplicity, was 
 a familiar figure at the Hudson's Bay Post 
 where my friend Barlow was facteur for so 
 many years. His acquaintance with the chief- 
 tain dated from an afternoon many years be- 
 
 130
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 fore, when he had first seen him, steering his 
 large oomiavik, or flat-bottomed boat, up to 
 the station, while his four lusty wives cheerily 
 worked at the sweeps with his eldest son an 
 almost regal procession. It was on that same 
 evening that he had told the facteur, after 
 watching Mrs. Barlow prepare the evening 
 meal, "Ananaudlualakuk" ("She is much too 
 good for you"), and the frankness of his speech, 
 far from seeming to disparage his host, en- 
 deared the speaker all the more to that hos- 
 pitable and discerning person. 
 
 Kaiachououk possessed qualities which 
 evoked the respect and admiration of all with 
 whom he came in contact. Very noticeable 
 among these was his affection for his family. 
 To this day on the coast there is a story told 
 of him and his youngest wife. He had been 
 camping on their outside walrus-hunting sta- 
 tion, and as was customary, he was sometimes 
 away two or three days at a time, having to 
 take refuge on one of the off-lying islands, if 
 bad weather or the fickleness of fortune in- 
 volved longer distances to travel than he was 
 
 131
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 able to accomplish in a short winter's day. It 
 was on his return from one of these temporary 
 absences that he was greeted with ths news 
 that his youngest wife, Kajue, was very ill. 
 One might have supposed that having so gen- 
 erous a complement of that nature, the news 
 would not have afflicted him in the same de- 
 gree as one less gifted. But exactly the reverse 
 proved to be the case. Kaiachououk was com- 
 pletely prostrated; and when the girl died two 
 days later, having failed to make any rally in 
 spite of all her husband's generous presents to 
 Angelok, he literally went out of his mind. 
 
 The Eskimo custom, still observed in the 
 North, is to lay out the dead in all their cloth- 
 ing, but with no other covering, on the rocky 
 summit of some projecting headland. The body 
 thus placed on the surface of the rocks is 
 walled in with tall, flat stones standing on end, 
 long, narrow slits being left between them, so 
 that air and light may freely circulate, and the 
 spirit of the departed may come and go at 
 will and keep watch on passing animals, whose 
 
 spirits must serve the person in the spirit land 
 
 132
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 just as, when embodied, they paid tribute to 
 the needs and prowess of the dead. The top of 
 the grave is also covered with large, flat slabs; 
 and in a small separate cache of similar con- 
 struction are stored all the personal belongings 
 likely to be of use. The spirits of these latter 
 are set free, either by having holes bored hi 
 them or some part of them broken or removed, 
 so that thus being rendered useless to the liv- 
 ing, they suffer what in the Eskimo mind cor- 
 responds to the death of inanimate objects. 
 
 Kaiachououk was so convinced of the reality 
 of the spirit world, and so heart-broken at his 
 utter inability to bring back to life the one he 
 had loved so well, that now nothing would sat- 
 isfy his mind but that in order to continue the 
 communion which had been so sweet to him on 
 earth, he should be treated exactly as his lost 
 wife, and be immediately buried alongside her 
 on some point of vantage. 
 
 At first his followers were inclined to treat 
 his injunctions as mere vapourings, but they 
 finally realized that the man was in deadly 
 earnest, and were eventually compelled to 
 
 133
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 comply with his wishes. The day being set, he 
 was accordingly dressed in his finest garments, 
 and, his dead wife being duly caparisoned and 
 walled in in the customary manner, Kaiachou- 
 ouk, laid out on the rock beside her, was 
 treated in an exactly similar fashion. There was 
 no apparent alteration of the chief's attitude 
 of mind as they proceeded with the walling up, 
 and the heavy slabs were already being laid 
 over him when two of the largest happened to 
 become lodged on his chest. For a short time 
 he made no sign and offered no kind of resist- 
 ance; but it was gradually forced upon him 
 that this method of translation into other 
 worlds was far from being as easy as he had 
 been inclined to suppose. Consequently, before 
 the cortege had broken up and his last friends 
 departed, he was loudly appealing to them to 
 return and release him. 
 
 He was never known afterwards to refer to 
 the incident; but on the whole it had an excel- 
 lent effect on the Innuits; and they realized, so 
 far as their unimpressionable natures are ca- 
 pable of doing, the strong domestic affection 
 
 134
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 for his wife which was one of their chief's pre- 
 eminent sources of greatness. 
 
 On this particular fall, when the last drama 
 in Kaiachououk's life was played, when the 
 northern lights sent their many-coloured ban- 
 ners floating over the heavens, and the stars 
 looked so large and shining that it seemed one 
 must surely touch them from the tops of the 
 high hills, he was camping with his family and 
 two or three others on a small ledge at the foot 
 of the mighty Kiglapeit (shining top) Moun- 
 tains, hunting walrus. This year the hunt was 
 doubly important to them, and they delayed 
 longer than was their wont. Here the great 
 cape with which the spur ends marks the divi- 
 sion of the whole trend of the land north from 
 that which runs more directly south toward 
 Katatallik. There the whole force of the south- 
 going polar streams, focused on the ice, keeps 
 open water long after all the rest of the coast 
 is locked in the grim grip of winter. The walrus 
 herds seem, in the evolution of ages, to have 
 got an appreciation of this fact through their 
 
 adamantine skulls. Therefore, from time im- 
 
 135
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 memorial, it has been chosen as a rendezvous 
 of the Innuits in spring and fall. The chaos 
 of ancient walrus bones which strews the stony 
 beach reminds one of nothing so forcibly as the 
 stacks of bleaching buffalo bones which dis- 
 grace the prairies. 
 
 On several occasions during the year previ- 
 ous, Kalleligak (the Capelin) had been guilty 
 of the worst crime in the Eskimo calendar 
 on several occasions he had failed to extend 
 that hospitality to strangers without which life 
 on the coast is scarcely possible. It had been 
 brought to Kaiachououk's notice, and he had 
 lost no time in seeking out the man and taxing 
 him with his remissness. A mixture of traits 
 like the colours in a variegated skein of worsted 
 formed the spectrum of Kalleligak's character; 
 and selfishness, which fortunately is rarer 
 among the Eskimos than among those in 
 keener competition with civilization, was too 
 often the prevailing colour. After the inter- 
 view, at which he had promised to mend his 
 ways, he apparently always lived in fear that 
 
 sooner or later Kaiachououk would have him 
 
 136
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 punished, and even deprive him of some of his 
 possessions. The obsession haunted him as the 
 thought of the crime does the murderer, and 
 at last impelled him to the act which, though 
 it went unpunished by men, blasted the re- 
 mainder of his days. 
 
 Among the others who camped around Kai- 
 achououk's igloo this year was as usual the 
 sub-chief Kalleligak. He had been more than 
 usually successful in his hunt, and was able to 
 face the prospect of the oncoming winter with 
 optimism. On the other hand, his supposed 
 enemy, Kaiachououk, had been singularly 
 unfortunate, largely owing to the fact that his 
 kayak had been left farther to the north. He 
 showed no signs of either impatience or jeal- 
 ousy, however, and never by word or act gave 
 evidence that he so much as remembered the 
 rebuke he had been forced to administer to the 
 sub-chief. Finally he dispatched his eldest sons, 
 Bakshuak and Kommak, with a big team of 
 dogs, to hurry down north and bring the be- 
 lated and forgotten boat back with all speed. 
 
 Kalleligak, obsessed by his jealousy and 
 137
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 chagrin, was able from his camp to watch every 
 movement of the chief's. He positively brooded 
 so much over the incident that he came to be- 
 lieve that his life was in danger at Kaiachou- 
 ouk's hands. The next steps were easy, for he 
 was favoured both by the innocence of his 
 superior and the weather. Days are short in 
 the late fall in the North, and darkness falls 
 before work is finished. 
 
 In the late afternoon, two days after Bak- 
 shuak and Kommak's departure, while Kai- 
 achououk was still out of his igloo and the 
 darkness was rapidly coming on, Kalleligak 
 stole inside and took the chief's gun. This he 
 unloaded and then reloaded with two balls. 
 Early next morning, before the dawn, he crept 
 out, carrying his own and the stolen weapon, to 
 watch his chance. Kaiachououk, emerging soon 
 after from his snow house, turned his back on 
 Kalleligak's igloo while he stooped to make a 
 trifling repair on his own. Without a second's 
 hesitation, Kalleligak seized Kaiachououk's 
 own gun, and crawling and crouching up be- 
 hind the five-foot snow ramparts which the 
 
 138
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 Eskimos invariably build around their winter 
 houses, he fired two bullets through the un- 
 suspecting man's back and body. The chief 
 fell head foremost, having received two fatal 
 wounds; but Kalleligak, throwing down one 
 gun had instantly grabbed the other, in order 
 if necessary to finish the deed before the mor- 
 tally wounded man could tell who was respon- 
 sible. But Kaiachououk never moved, and his 
 enemy slunk inside, believing that he had been 
 unobserved. 
 
 As fate would have it, Anatalik, another of 
 the hunters, appeared at the entrance of his 
 igloo just in tune to see the smoking gun-barrel 
 over the edge of the snow wall. Running to his 
 fallen chief, he begged him to tell him what had 
 occurred. The dying man had only strength 
 left to whisper "Kiapevunga?" ("Who has 
 killed me?"), and Anatalik could barely dis- 
 cern from his eye that he understood the an- 
 swer, "Kalleligamut" ("It was Kalleligak who 
 did it"). 
 
 It was probably this, to us, unimportant 
 item which caused a confession ever to be made. 
 
 139
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 Kalleligak, now convinced that the spirit of his 
 dead chief knew he was the murderer, believed 
 it would haunt him without mercy, and that 
 his own life might be immediately forfeit un- 
 less he could appease it. He therefore at once 
 set about preparations for a funeral befitting 
 the dignity of the deceased; which, in the ab- 
 sence of Kaiachououk's eldest son, he himself 
 personally supervised. When all was over he 
 went to the igloo carrying gifts, and offered to 
 support the entire family till the sons should 
 be of an age to assume it. His overtures were 
 as unwelcome as they were importunate; but 
 the poor women were forced to listen hi silence. 
 Helpless as they, were, with their young men 
 away, they dared not anger the man, whose 
 character was only too well known. Kalleligak, 
 in order further to allay the anger of the spirit, 
 with all speed set out on the trail to meet the 
 dead man's returning sons, and apprize them 
 personally of his version of the story. 
 
 Bakshuak, the eldest, listened in silence 
 while Kalleligak first recounted the long list of 
 
 imaginary wrongs which he had suffered at the 
 
 140
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 hands of his father, then made his plea of self- 
 defence, and lastly recited the hateful over- 
 tures which he had made to the helpless 
 family, who were now, in spite of themselves, 
 under very definite obligations to the murderer. 
 
 Angrily the lad repudiated any parleying. 
 The family would far rather starve than be be- 
 holden to such infamy as was suggested. He 
 was only a boy now, he declared, but he said 
 fearlessly that if no one else killed him, he 
 would do the deed himself as soon as he was big 
 enough; and he raced on with his dogs, to 
 reach home and comfort his poor mother. Had 
 he but known it, he was really indebted for his 
 life to the supposed wrath of his father's spirit 
 and the restraining effect which it had on 
 Kalleligak. 
 
 Eskimos never refer to painful events if they 
 can help it. They go even farther than certain 
 modern "scientists," for if a person who dies 
 happens to have had the same name as one 
 still living in the vicinity, the latter inconti- 
 nently changes his. As a result, confusion not 
 infrequently arises, for a man whom you have 
 
 141
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 known all his life as "John" is "William" the 
 next time you meet him. Thus they avoid the 
 mention of the word the memory of which 
 might bring pain to the relatives. Much less 
 would they bring bad news to a white man. 
 
 They took good care, however, that the local 
 Innuits should know that Kaiachououk was 
 dead, hoping that they might give the great 
 white man at the post the sad news of the loss 
 of his friend. Barlow, as soon as he was certain 
 of the main facts, at once dispatched messen- 
 gers to summon to him Kalleligak, and Ana- 
 talik, who had seen the deed. The murderer 
 had already expressed his willingness to sur- 
 render to the white man, and he at once packed 
 up and accompanied the couriers back to 
 Katatallik. 
 
 Meanwhile the news had also reached Ek- 
 koulak, the sister of Kaiachououk, and her 
 husband, Semijak, immediately summoned his 
 council to discuss matters. All were agreed that 
 the tribal custom must be observed. "A life for 
 a life" was the only law they recognized, and 
 the two elder sons of Semijak were selected to 
 
 142
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 carry the sentence into effect. Well armed and 
 equipped, they started the very next morning 
 for the North. The following day they walked 
 into the Hudson's Bay Post to apprize the 
 white man of their errand, so that there might 
 be no suspicion of their blood-guiltiness, not 
 knowing that by a strange whim of fortune 
 Kalleligak and Anatalik were already there 
 and were seated in one room while they were 
 being received in another. 
 
 In the room with Kalleligak and Anatalik 
 was Mr. Barlow's daughter, a little child of 
 six, who was amusing herself with a picture 
 book of the life of Christ. The little girl began 
 to show the pictures to the two men, telling 
 them the story in then* own tongue as she went 
 along. She at last came to the picture of Christ 
 upon the Cross between the two thieves. Mr. 
 Barlow in the adjoining room heard Kalleligak 
 ask the child if she thought Jesus would forgive 
 any one who had killed another man, to which 
 the little one replied, "Why, yes, if he were 
 really sorry and tried to be better." 
 
 The house of friends is neutral ground, and 
 143
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 to start a quarrel in the great white man's 
 house would be about as likely as that we 
 should begin one on the steps of the altar. 
 Thus, when Kalleligak and Anatalik were 
 summoned to dinner, both parties proceeded 
 as if nothing unusual were in the air and all 
 refreshed themselves at the same board. 
 
 Bidding them to keep the peace, Mr. Bar- 
 low made an effort to get to the bottom of the 
 affair; but he found it very hard to know what 
 to advise. The sister of Kaiachououk had 
 begged and prayed her sons, now chosen as 
 avengers, to have nothing to do with the slay- 
 ing, saying, " It will only make more trouble. 
 It will be Kalleligak's family who will suffer. 
 They will surely starve to death." She had 
 even sent a special messenger to the agent with 
 an earnest plea that he would use all his influ- 
 ence to save her lads from the shedding of 
 blood. 
 
 Having decided that the matter should be 
 settled in open court and to abide by the deci- 
 sion of the great white man, all concerned now 
 adjourned to the kitchen, and not for the first 
 
 144
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 time that humble room was transformed into a 
 court of justice. Kalleligak first gave his ver- 
 sion of the story without the slightest attempt 
 to conceal anything. He said he had lived in 
 constant terror of what Kaiachououk might 
 inflict upon him; and then, turning to the two 
 men, who were fully armed with loaded guns, 
 he said : 
 
 "I know you have come to kill me. I shall 
 never know good fortune again, anyhow. I 
 have many skins and gooxls. With those I will 
 pay for Kaiachououk. I can say no more." 
 
 As he ceased speaking, Semijak's eldest son 
 burst out angrily: 
 
 ' Yes, we have come to kill you. Our law is 
 a life for a life. We will not take any bribe." 
 
 But Oggak, the second avenger, thought 
 differently: 
 
 :< We will hurt those who are not guilty. It 
 would be different if he had no family. What 
 offer does he make?" 
 
 "You know that Kalleligak is the second 
 best hunter in the North," the agent spoke up. 
 
 " And your mother, the wife of Semijak, has 
 
 145
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 also sent me a letter. She says nothing but evil 
 will come from killing the head of another 
 family. Cannot the spirit be satisfied in some 
 other way? " 
 
 Mr. Barlow said he would go out and return 
 when they had talked over the matter among 
 themselves. He always felt great pity for these 
 far-off outcasts of humanity. To kill another 
 could only make matters worse. It was quite 
 probable that even a blood feud would be 
 started and more valuable lives be sacrificed. 
 The struggle for existence was hard enough in 
 any case, and if he suggested their taking the 
 law into their own hands, there was no telling 
 where it would end. 
 
 So it turned out that the matter was settled 
 by simple word of mouth. That was absolutely 
 sufficient for Kalleligak. If the avengers ap- 
 pointed by the tribe were satisfied, not only 
 would the spirit of the murdered chief rest 
 quietly, but the guilty one's life would be 
 safe. 
 
 The agreement, duly drawn up by the agent, 
 
 read as follows: 
 
 146
 
 Kaiachououk 
 
 " We will not kill you. 
 You are to pay 
 Two white bears. 
 Twelve white foxes. 
 Three live dogs." 
 
 That was the value set on a really great 
 man's life. It makes one wonder at what rate 
 ours would be appraised in Eskimo land.
 
 TWO CHRISTMASES 
 
 IT was Christmas Eve, and Malcolm McCrea, 
 just back from the woods, was throwing down 
 some frozen seal meat from the scaffold for his 
 hungry dogs after their long day's hauling. 
 Malcolm was only eighteen, and in whiter still 
 lived with his father in then* home below the 
 falls of Pike's River. However, now that he 
 had been away for two summers in his uncle's 
 schooner fishing "down North," his eyes were 
 already turned to some long-untenanted fjords 
 in the mouths of which the craft had anchored. 
 Pike's Falls was a lonely place, and the 
 sound of a human voice calling to a dog team 
 kept Malcolm standing with a fine forkful of 
 meat in his hands long enough so greatly to 
 tantalize the team below as to start a serious 
 fight. This woke him from his reverie. "Ah, 
 Ah!" he shouted, and, jumping down right into 
 the middle of the fracas, soon had his dogs 
 busy again with the frozen blocks which con- 
 stituted their food for the day. 
 
 148 '
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 "Is that you, Mr. Norman?" he exclaimed 
 heartily. " Why, who would ever have thought 
 of seeing you here, and alone, this evening of 
 all days hi t' year?" as a middle-aged man 
 jumped from an empty sledge and began un- 
 harnessing a half-starved-looking team. " Shall 
 I give you a hand? They seem spun out." 
 
 "Better not touch 'em, I reckon," was the 
 gruff answer. "They're a bit surly with stran- 
 gers." And indeed already the animals were 
 snarling and showing their teeth at the other 
 dogs finishing then* meal near by. 
 
 Malcolm, who at once proceeded to throw 
 down a liberal allowance of seal meat for the 
 newcomers' suppers, attributed the savage 
 way in which then* master whipped off his 
 host's team from trying to get a second help- 
 ing, to the weariness of a long journey. For to 
 beat another man's dogs, especially with the 
 long and heavy lash of our Northern whips, is 
 a breach of the unwritten law of the Labrador. 
 
 It was not until he had shared the steaming 
 supper prepared for Malcolm that the strings of 
 
 the visitor's tongue began to be unloosed. For 
 
 149
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 it is not etiquette to ask a stranger's reasons 
 for visiting a well-stocked house, in a country 
 where the komatik trail is the only resource 
 for the destitute. 
 
 " It's to t* post I'm bound. We be short of 
 grub south. T' fishery have been bad this three 
 years, and there's six of us now," he began. 
 "There was n't more than a couple of bakings 
 of flour in t' barrel when I left. I could n't get 
 no credit south at Deep-Water Creek; and so I 
 just had to try north or starve." 
 
 " 'T is a long bit yet to t' post," replied Mal- 
 colm. "There is t' Monkey to cross if you goes 
 inside; and us allows it a good hundred miles to 
 go round t' cape. It '11 take you a week to haul 
 a barrel of flour from there here." 
 
 Roderick, sitting back in his chair, was de- 
 jectedly surveying the comfortable-looking 
 room. Malcolm caught his gaze, and realized 
 what was passing in the poor fellow's mind. 
 
 "Draw up, draw up, and light your pipe, 
 Mr. Norman," he interposed. ' 'T is only 
 Home Rule tobacco, but it serves us down 
 
 here." 
 
 150
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 Eagerly enough Norman accepted the prof- 
 fered plug, and then relapsed into a silence 
 which Malcolm found it hard to break. So, ex- 
 cusing himself for a minute, he beckoned the 
 old folk to come into their bedroom that they 
 might talk over the situation in private. 
 
 "He has four youngsters, and I knows they 
 be hard up," he began. "They has n't a chance 
 where they are. T' neighbours blames Roder- 
 ick for several little troubles which happened 
 to t' southard, and t' traders won't advance 
 more 'n he can pay for. If it was any one else, 
 and to-morrow was n't Christmas, it would be 
 just good fun to go down North with him and 
 help haul back a barrel or so that is, if they 
 lets him have it." 
 
 "That 's not like you, Malcolm. You can't 
 make a man good that way, any more'n you 
 can a dog by beatin' him," chimed in his old 
 mother. "I guess you'll go along with him, 
 even to-morrow, if so be he wishes it." 
 
 "S'pose I will, Mother, but " 
 
 '"Course you would," said his father 
 
 proudly. "They've never known a McCrea 
 
 151
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 yet on this coast that would let even a dog 
 starve. But there 's a barrel of flour in our cellar 
 which we can live without. Maybe it's t' kind 
 of Christmas greeting t' poor fellow needs." 
 
 "If you says so, it's all right, Father," said 
 Malcolm, "and, seeing it's a good hundred 
 miles to Mr. Norman's house, I guess I'll go 
 along, anyhow, in t* morning and let my 
 beauties help them half-fed pups of his, or 
 it'll be Old Christmas Day before his kids get 
 a bite out of it." 
 
 Only the joy of the first tobacco for weeks 
 was keeping the worn-out man from being fast 
 asleep when Malcolm again took a chair beside 
 him. 
 
 "I've got to make a round south to-mor- 
 row, Mr. Norman," he began, "and it would 
 be a pity if you had to be going t* other way. 
 Father says he has a barrel of flour in t* cellar 
 you can have and pay for it when youse can. So 
 if that'll suit, I 'd like to give you a hand some 
 part of t* way, especially as there'll be a few 
 gallons of molasses to carry also if you '11 take 
 
 'em." 
 
 152
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 Gratitude is a rare grace. The lack of it was 
 one of the costly defects in Roderick's charac- 
 ter. No longer hungry, sitting before a good 
 fire with a well-filled pipe, even the cunning 
 which usually supplies the vacancy failed him; 
 and Malcolm had to force himself to put down 
 to exhaustion the ungracious way in which his 
 real sacrifice was accepted. 
 
 In spite of hard work, they had only made 
 thirty miles by sunset the next day, and, there 
 being no shelter, they were obliged to camp 
 early as light snow was falling. Yet it was a 
 good Christmas night around the blazing fire 
 with the special cheer the old mother had 
 packed into the bread-boxes on their koma- 
 tik. The following morning they did better, 
 reaching the landwash of a big inlet forty miles 
 farther south by noon. Here Malcolm had de- 
 cided to turn back, for the remainder of the 
 trail to Long Point lay practically over level 
 ice. Just as they were saying good-bye, how- 
 ever, his quick eye detected something black 
 moving out on the bay. 
 
 "A fox, Mr. Norman. Look! A fox! And a 
 153
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 black one too. You may be able to pay for that 
 barrel of flour before t' day's out." 
 
 They were both good furriers, and their 
 plans were soon laid. The dogs were quickly 
 hitched up to stumps, and, glad of a rest, were 
 easily made to lie down. Alas, the men had 
 only Malcolm's gun; but it was arranged that 
 he should go out and turn the fox, and Nor- 
 man, hiding at the third corner of the triangle, 
 should try and shoot it passing or lure it in 
 range down wind. 
 
 Things went admirably. Malcolm by a long 
 detour was able to turn the fox from far out 
 without frightening it. Roderick, well hidden, 
 and squeaking like a mouse, tolled it into easy 
 range; and within an hour the two men held in 
 their hands a skin worth at least four hundred 
 dollars. It was agreed, at Roderick's sugges- 
 tion, that he should carry it home, as he was 
 nearer the fur-buyers, take the first offer over 
 that sum, and then send the half due by the 
 law of the woods to Malcolm north by the 
 earliest mail-carrier. 
 
 Malcolm added as he said good-bye, "I 
 154
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 reckon maybe Father will want to let t' barrel 
 go as good luck on t* bargain." 
 
 Summer came, and open water with it, but 
 the half value of that skin never arrived. 
 Later, in reply to Malcolm's enquiry by let- 
 ter, a note came to say that it was being held 
 for a better price in the fall; and with that 
 he had to be content. 
 
 Winter followed summer, and when once 
 again the "going was good," Malcolm, "run- 
 ning light" with his dogs, made the journey to 
 Long Point easily in two days. Yes, the skin 
 was sold, but the agent had not yet sent the 
 cash. It had brought $430 and the hah* would 
 come along as soon as ever Monsieur Baillot 
 forwarded the notes. But the winter again 
 went by and no notes, no letters, or other news 
 ever reached Malcolm McCrea. Six years 
 passed, and still they never came, and the 
 McCreas supposed the debt was time-barred. 
 Indeed, they had almost forgotten the whole 
 incident. 
 
 Malcolm was still nominally at his father's 
 house, but for three winters he had trapped on 
 
 155
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 the Grand River, which flowed out into one of 
 the bays he had discovered "down North." 
 Here with the help of a hired man he had built 
 up quite a fine little house, and made every 
 preparation for that momentous life experi- 
 ence which usually comes early in life to every 
 Labrador man. With characteristic caution he 
 had waited for a good winter hunt to buy 
 furnishings and traps. This had also given 
 Nancy Grahame, who lived close to his home, 
 time to get ready the needed linen and other 
 requisites. "Clewing up" his salmon fishery in 
 good time, Malcolm had cruised North hi his 
 own small sailboat, and till the first ice made 
 had been very busy cutting wood, hauling 
 food into the country for the winter tilts along 
 his fur-path on the Grand River, completing 
 his cellar, and safely storing his winter house 
 supplies. 
 
 His first hunt being mostly for foxes along 
 the landwash of the bay, he had waited until 
 the snow came to tail his traps, judging that 
 although it would take a week with his dogs to 
 
 fetch his wife to their new home, he might 
 
 156
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 safely chance that length of time away without 
 losing anything which might be snared in the 
 meanwhile. This was the third winter he had 
 furred this path without interruption, and by 
 all the custom of the coast no one would now 
 interfere with his claim. So Malcolm started 
 south at a stretch gallop with a light heart. 
 
 The two hundred and odd miles to the ren- 
 dezvous at his father-in-law's winter home in 
 the woods were covered with only two nights 
 out, and that when the trails were as yet 
 hardly broken and the young ice on the rivers 
 would surely have delayed any man with less 
 determination. 
 
 The wedding was in real Labrador style. 
 Every one from far and near was present, 
 quite without the formality of an invitation. 
 It would, indeed, be an ill omen for the future 
 if any one were omitted through the miscar- 
 riage of an invitation. So the danger is averted 
 by the grapevine telegraph, which simply sig- 
 nals the event in sufficient time to make it a 
 man's own fault if he is not present. Malcolm 
 had many friends and there had been great 
 
 157
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 preparations in Capelin Bay. Every scrap of 
 room was needed to accommodate the guests, 
 and at night hardly an inch of floor space but 
 lodged some sleeping form wrapped in a four- 
 point blanket, while the hardier ones with 
 sleeping-bags contentedly crawled into them 
 out in the snow, as their fashion is when noth- 
 ing better offers. 
 
 The cooking had to be done in two large net- 
 barking cauldrons over open fires under the 
 trees; and as the fall deer hunt had been suc- 
 cessful, and pork had not in those days as- 
 sumed the present impossible prices, there were 
 all kinds of joints, and no limit to proteids 
 and carbohydrates. The great plum puddings 
 which served for wedding cakes were pulled 
 out of the same boiling froth, tightly wrapped 
 in their cloth jackets, with long fish "pews" 
 or forks. Unlimited spruce beer, brewed with 
 molasses and fortified with "Old Jamaica," 
 flowed from a large barrel during the two days 
 that the celebration lasted. 
 
 At twenty below zero a slight increase in the 
 calories consumed or even in the excess of al- 
 
 158
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 cohol over the normal two per cent of spruce 
 beer leaves little trace on hardy folk; and when 
 on the third morning, McCrea and his bride 
 fared forth behind their splendid dog-team, 
 every guest was gathered at the starting-point 
 to "whoop up" the departing couple. 
 
 " 'T is early I '11 be starting in t' morning, 
 Nancy, for it's nigh a fortnight since I tailed 
 my traps, and there were good signs, too, by t' 
 boiling brooks," said Malcolm the first evening 
 they arrived home. "A fox following t' land- 
 wash from t' rattle must surely take t' path 
 there, for t' cliff fair shoulders him off t' land, 
 and t' ice is n't fast more 'n a foot or so from 
 t' bluff. 'T would be a pity to lose a good skin, 
 and us just starting in housekeeping." 
 
 "What's right's right, Malcolm," an- 
 swered his wife, pouting just perceptibly. "Us 
 must end our honeymoon with the journey 
 down. I'll not be lonely, I reckon, getting t' 
 house to rights." And she laughed gayly as she 
 noticed the results of Malcolm's sincere but 
 unique attempts at furnishing. 
 
 "It'll be a ration of pork I'll be needing 
 159
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 boiled, and a bun or two for my nonny-bag. I 
 can cover t' path in two days so be t' going's 
 good; but there's nothing like being pre- 
 pared." 
 
 " Get a few more splits, then, boy," she re- 
 plied, "and I'll be cutting t' pork t' while." 
 For she knew that Malcolm's estimate of the 
 supply necessary for a possible delay was not 
 the preparedness which would satisfy her 
 ideas. 
 
 Days are short in November in the North, 
 and the moon was still up to see Malcolm pick- 
 ing his way along the unmade trail which led 
 to the spot where the sea ice joined the "balli- 
 caters " or heaped-up shore ice. In the late fall 
 this is the happy hunting-ground of foxes, for a 
 much-needed dinner is often to be picked up in 
 the shape of some enfeebled auk or other sea- 
 bird, while even a dead shark or smaller fish 
 may be discovered. 
 
 This was only a brief fall hunt. Malcolm had 
 some fifty traps over ten miles of country, all 
 of which he would take up the following month 
 when the sea ice froze on permanently to the 
 
 160
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 shore, re-tailing them along his real fur-path 
 up the Grand River along the bank of which 
 he had no less than three small shacks some 
 thirty miles apart. Here he made his long win- 
 ter hunt for sables, otters, and lynxes, using 
 nearly three hundred traps. 
 
 It was with keen expectation and brisk step 
 that he now strode along over the open; only 
 the unwritten law of silence for a trapper on 
 his path prevented his whistling as he went. 
 When passing through the long belt of woods 
 which marks the edge of the river delta, he 
 found numerous windfalls blocking his narrow 
 trail; but, keyed up as he was, he managed to 
 get by them without so much as rustling a 
 twig. "I'm fending for two now," he said to 
 himself, and the very thought was sweet, lend- 
 ing zest to the matching of his capacities 
 against those of the wild. 
 
 There was nothing in his first two traps. He 
 had n't expected anything. They were only a 
 sort of outliers in case something went wrong 
 with those in the sure places. But now he was 
 nearing the Narrows, and already his fence 
 
 161
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 running from the steep bluff to the river edge 
 was visible. But there was no fox in number 
 three. The trap had not been sprung. The bait 
 was as he had left it. "Maybe there'll be more 
 to t* eastward," he thought, "though there 
 were signs on this side of t' river." And, re- 
 setting the trap, he plodded along farther on 
 his round. 
 
 Midday came. He had passed no less than 
 fifteen of his best traps, and not only had no 
 fox been found, but not one trap was sprung 
 or one bait taken. 
 
 Malcolm stood meditatively scratching his 
 head by trap twenty. "Something 's wrong," 
 he said to himself, "but what? Better boil t* 
 kettle and think it over. Perhaps better luck 
 after lunch." 
 
 Unstringing his tomahawk, he started to 
 find some dry wood with which to kindle a fire. 
 None being close to the beach, he walked a few 
 yards into the forest, and had just commenced 
 on a tree when he noticed by the white scar 
 that a branch had been broken quite recently 
 
 from the very same trunk. "Wind and t* 
 
 162
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 weight of t' silver thaw," he supposed, for 
 there was no one living within fifty miles, and 
 no other fur-path at that time, anyhow, in 
 the bay. The northern komatik trail crossed 
 twenty miles seaward, where the calm, wide 
 expanse made the ice much safer in the early 
 winter than near the swift current at the river 
 mouth. But as he stooped to clear the trunk 
 for his own axe, he noticed that, though dis- 
 guised as a break, a cut had been first made 
 to weaken the bough. "Some one's been here, 
 that's sure," he said to himself. "Who can it 
 be?" So much snow had fallen since Malcolm 
 had gone after his wife that it was no easy 
 matter to guess an answer much less to read 
 it from the trails around. 
 
 His frugal meal finished, he sat meditatively 
 smoking his pipe by the glowing embers of his 
 generous fire. But no light came to him. Prac- 
 tically no one lived near. The few who did 
 were as honest as daylight. He had not an 
 enemy on earth so far as he knew; and yet he 
 realized now that the good condition of his 
 
 traps, and especially his baits, after a fortnight 
 
 163
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 of the blusterous Labrador fall weather needed 
 accounting for. Well, anyhow, there was only 
 one thing to do go and finish his round, and 
 when he got back he could talk the trouble over 
 with his wife. 
 
 Slipping on his snow racquets and once 
 more shouldering his nonny-bag, he strode off 
 toward his next trap. It was new to him to 
 suspect men. It was his business as a trapper 
 to suspect Nature. It was, however, from this 
 new viewpoint that he must approach his next 
 task. For therein lies the intense interest of the 
 trapper's life every moment affords a keen 
 problem. The gambler has the excitement of a 
 possible big return, a sudden acquisition of 
 gain. The trapper has all that, and the added 
 satisfaction of knowing that it is his ability 
 and not merely his luck which has won out. 
 
 At first sight there seemed nothing amiss 
 with trap twenty-one. It had been tailed on the 
 top of a specially felled tree. There it was still 
 a little mound of snow above the great ex- 
 panse of whiteness, only recognizable because 
 a trapper knows every inch of his path as a 
 
 164
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 priest does his breviary. True, as the surface 
 snow was only two days old, many marks 
 could not be expected upon it. All the same, it 
 struck Malcolm as odd that not a single fox- 
 footing had he sighted since leaving home. 
 "Something must have been cleaning 'em 
 up," he reasoned. "There were two broods on 
 Whale Island and one at least on t' Isle of 
 Hope. That 's some twenty all told and 
 ne'er a wolf or lynx track out to t* landward t' 
 year." Musing to himself, he knelt down by 
 the trap to examine it more closely. Lifting it 
 up, he blew off the loose snow and inspected 
 the stump carefully. No, nothing to indicate 
 that it had been moved. If it had been, it must 
 have been replaced with consummate care; 
 for the rain had fallen once since Malcolm had 
 tailed it, and the trap lay exactly in the icy 
 trough, its handle and chain lying in the same 
 groove. But the very fact suggested an idea. 
 Possibly, if he cleared the snow there might be 
 a frozen footmark in the hard surface beneath. 
 Carefully, handful by handful, he removed 
 over a foot of snow from around the bottom of 
 
 165
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 the old tree, till he felt with his fingers the 
 frozen crust. It took him over an hour's cold, 
 tedious work, for he feared to use a mitten to 
 protect his hand lest he should destroy the 
 very traces of which he was in search. Though 
 it froze his fingers and meant a long delay, it 
 was well worth while, for he had undeniable 
 evidence of a man's footmark, without any 
 racquet, made since the rain previous to the 
 last snowfall. It was probably at least a week 
 old. 
 
 Again he examined the trap carefully. Not a 
 hair, not a blood mark, not a sign to show that 
 any fox had been in it. If it had been robbed, 
 an expert had done it. There was another 
 chance, however. Using his racquet as a spade, 
 Malcolm was soon at work clearing the snow 
 away right around the roots. The chain was a 
 long one, and driven into one of the leaders was 
 a steel fastener. It was as he expected. Not 
 only had the chain been obviously gnawed, 
 but there was considerable chafing of the bark 
 as well. "He's been in it, sure enough, but the 
 
 question is, Who's got t' skin?" Dark was 
 
 166
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 coming on. There was no use going back; so, 
 cutting down a few boughs and making a small 
 lean-to under a big spruce, Malcolm kindled a 
 blazing fire, "cooked the kettle," and turned 
 in for the night. 
 
 Nancy had seen her husband as soon as he 
 crossed the shoulder of the hill on his home- 
 coming the third morning. To tell the truth, it 
 was her first experience of being quite alone in 
 the forest, and she had been doing but little 
 "furnishing" after the first night. Now she 
 was sure he had made a fine haul, and hurried 
 out to meet him and hear the news. Malcolm, 
 with the canniness of his kind, at once told her 
 he had had no luck. 
 
 Now the actual amount of money lost may 
 not have been great, but it had the irritating 
 feature of being an unknown quantity and the 
 additional vague risk of making all his winter 
 work fruitless. It is useless to set traps if some 
 one else is to follow around and rob them. So 
 that night he told his wife the whole story. 
 Discuss it as they would, there was no clue of 
 any kind to follow; so like wise folk they de- 
 
 167
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 cided to go on their way as if nothing had 
 happened, keeping their mouths shut and their 
 eyes and ears open. 
 
 No one visited their bay before Malcolm 
 went on his first long fur round, which he did 
 earlier than was his wont in order to be back 
 in time for the first of the two winter mails. 
 This trip he made a much better hunt, setting 
 his traps as he went into the country. He took 
 good care to make long marches, and even one 
 day to double back on his tracks, making a 
 long detour to see if he might not possibly pick 
 up some unexpected signs of another man on 
 his path. His, because, although there is no 
 law on the subject, custom is law on Labrador, 
 and the man who first finds a new trail for 
 trapping has a conceded right of at least a mile 
 in width for just as far as he cares to go. 
 
 The whole round was made in ten days, and, 
 coming back with six sables, two otter, and a 
 few mink and ermine, he was fortunate enough 
 to reach home some hours before the southern 
 mail team. 
 
 "What's t' news, Pat?" he asked, when at ' 
 168
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 last supper was over, and the final pipe was 
 being discussed by the fire. 
 
 "Nothing to boast of," was the answer. "T" 
 same old story, with some a feast and with 
 some a famine. They do say Roderick Norman's 
 luck seems to have turned at last. T' Company 
 gave he over four hundred dollars for a dark 
 silver he got, and as much more, some say, for 
 a batch o' reds and patches. 'T is more than 
 good luck that half-breed must have had, for 
 he has n't had a dozen traps to his name this 
 five years." 
 
 Before he had finished speaking, Malcolm 
 was watching him narrowly, wondering if some 
 sprite had whispered abroad the robbing of his 
 traps. But Pat was evidently unconscious of 
 any possible connection between his news and 
 his audience. As absolute silence was the only 
 possible road ever to learning the truth, Pat 
 left the next day on his journey north, not a 
 whit the wiser for his night at the new home- 
 stead. 
 
 "It do sound strange, Nancy, don't it?" 
 
 said her husband, after their guest had gone. 
 
 169
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 "Roderick Norman can't have any grudge 
 against me. Why, sure, it should be all t' other 
 way." And he got up, stretched his splendid 
 muscular limbs, and, picking up his axe, took 
 out any excess of feeling there might be in his 
 heart by a good two hours' work at the wood- 
 pile. 
 
 Meanwhile his mind had not been idle. 
 Whoever it was that robbed his traps could not 
 have come along the usual trail. The ice out- 
 side had not been safe for travelling. He cer- 
 tainly must have come out from the country. 
 It had never occurred to Malcolm to spend 
 time exploring the land which lay south of his 
 fur-path. But now it seemed to him that he 
 must at all costs set out the following morning 
 and verify his suspicions if he were to retain 
 his hope of a livelihood in that locality. 
 
 "I'm minded to try it right away, Nancy," 
 said Malcolm. "If I could only get a good view 
 from one of t' hilltops, I 'd have no trouble, for 
 there is still plenty of food in my tilts." 
 
 "But, Malcolm, 'tis only two days till 
 Christmas and this is our first together. Surely 
 
 170
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 no one ever goes on the fur-path Christmas- 
 time." 
 
 "That's just it, lass. No one is on t' path as 
 ought to be, and I reckon for that very reason 
 there be more chance of seeing those as ought 
 not." 
 
 There was no escaping the logic of the 
 Scotchman, and his wife acquiesced without 
 further argument. He was well into the coun- 
 try before daylight next day. 
 
 It was a glorious morning, as away there in 
 utter solitude the evergreen trees, the red- 
 faced cliffs, the startling whiteness of the snow, 
 and exquisite blue overhead fading into the 
 purple distance of the winding valley met his 
 keen view from a mountain-top. It was Lab- 
 rador at its best clear, dry, cold, and not a 
 sound to break the absolute silence, even the 
 trickling of the rapids and the splashing of dis- 
 tant falls being muffled by their heavy cloaks 
 of ice. 
 
 Suddenly Malcolm's face grew rigid and his 
 eyes unconsciously fixed themselves on a mov- 
 ing object a tiny whiff of blue smoke was 
 
 171
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 curling up from the woods on the other side of 
 the valley. Gentle though he was, his big mus- 
 cles set and his jaw tightened as the idea of 
 revenge flashed across his mind. 
 
 A man does not learn to outwit successfully 
 the keen senses of the denizens of the woods 
 without finding it easy to solve a problem such 
 as the one which Malcolm now faced. For all 
 that, he decided not to approach too close till 
 dark what he was now sure was a hut, for the 
 way the smoke rose was quite unlike that from 
 an open fire. Having, therefore, plenty of time, 
 he made a long and cautious detour till he had 
 at last completely encircled the spot. There 
 were the marks of one pair of snow racquets 
 only on the snow. The trail was possibly three 
 days old. No snow had fallen for several days. 
 "Reckon he is taking a good spell with that 
 catch of his." 
 
 This much he knew. He knew the stranger 
 was in or close to the tilt. He was not trap- 
 ping, though he had been inside the circle for 
 several days, and he had no dogs. 
 
 As it fell dark, Malcolm fully expected to see 
 172
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 a light in the hut, but not a twinkle showed 
 through the single-pane window light, which 
 he had located from his hiding-place. 
 
 Now he was crawling nearer. There was no 
 chance of his being seen, as the moon had not 
 yet risen and it was very dark among the 
 trees. A light wind had risen, rustling the firs 
 and spruces above his head. The fire worried 
 him. Why had it almost died out? Heaven 
 knows it was cold enough to need one, for with 
 all his warm blood Malcolm himself was shiv- 
 ering. What could it mean? 
 
 Suddenly he heard some one move inside. 
 Then came the noise of sticks hitting a tin 
 camp-stove and a sudden blaze flared up, 
 burnt for a minute or two, and apparently 
 went out again. Whoever it was must be ill, or 
 hurt. He had no big billets or he would n't be 
 firing with twigs. 
 
 It could not do any harm now to enter, and 
 Malcolm strode noisily to the door and peered 
 inside. 
 
 A man's weak voice greeted him. "Who's 
 there? For God's sake, come in." 
 
 173
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 "My name's Malcolm McCrea. Where's 
 your light? " 
 
 "Haven't got one. I've no candle either," 
 came the answer. "Had an accident three days 
 ago with my gun, and nearly blew my foot off. 
 My leg's swelled up something wonderful." 
 
 The voice, feeble almost to a whisper, con- 
 veyed no information as to the man's identity, 
 except that the Scotchman's quick ear de- 
 tected that there was resentment somehow 
 mixed with satisfaction that a rescuer had come. 
 
 "I've a drop of kerosene in my nonny-bag," 
 was all Malcolm said, "but it's scarce, and I 
 'low I '11 cut up some wood and get t' fire going 
 before lighting up. You lie quiet for a minute 
 or two and I'll get you a drop of tea." 
 
 "Lie quiet!" snarled the other. "I've lain 
 quiet for three days, and expected to stay till 
 doomsday. It's no virtue keeps me lying quiet. 
 I had no business to be here, anyhow, seeing 
 there was no need of it." 
 
 "Well, do as you please," answered Mc- 
 Crea. And without much delay he soon had a 
 
 roaring fire in the camp-stove which turned 
 
 174
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 the chimney red-hot and made it possible to 
 see dimly stretched out on a bed of fir boughs 
 the long, thin form of a man whose drawn, 
 unshaven face showed that he was suffering 
 much pain. His right foot was swaddled in an 
 ominously stained bundle of rags evidently 
 some torn-up garment. 
 
 Methodically lighting the bit of wick which 
 he had placed in the kerosene bottle, Malcolm 
 knelt down by the side of the injured man and, 
 peering into the semi-darkness of the gloomy 
 corner, found himself looking right into the 
 eyes of Roderick Norman. 
 
 Having made some hot tea and shared it 
 with the sick man, he offered him part of the 
 pork and hard biscuit, all that he had with 
 him for his own supper. But Roderick was too 
 feeble to touch more than a bit of it soaked 
 in hot tea, and that seemed a small strength- 
 giver for such a time of need. 
 
 "If you'd a bit o' wire or line, I'd tail a 
 snare for a rabbit when the moon rises and try 
 if we could n't get a drop o' hot stew to help 
 
 out. But I have n't a bit in my bag." 
 
 175
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 "There's a couple o' traps," growled the 
 sick man, and then stopped suddenly, shut- 
 ting his jaws with a snap. 
 
 Malcolm looked around, but was unable to 
 see any signs of them. "Where did you say 
 they were? " he enquired; but no response came 
 from the bunk. 
 
 McCrea finished his supper, lit his pipe, and 
 suggested trying to wash the wounded foot. 
 But fearing to start the bleeding again, they 
 decided to leave it till morning. 
 
 "Where are those traps you spoke of, sir? 
 The moon is beginning to show and I'll be 
 needing to get 'em put out, if we're to have 
 any chance." But still the other man made no 
 answer. Malcolm went up close to the bed and 
 knelt down by him again. "Mr. Norman," he 
 said, "we're in a bad hole here. We're fifty 
 miles from help, anyhow. We've no dogs and 
 only one of us can walk. Moreover, there 's al- 
 most no food. If you 've got any traps, why not 
 tell me where they are. I 'm not going to steal 
 'em." 
 
 Roderick Norman opened his eyes and 
 176
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 looked at him. The dim rays of the little wick 
 in the kerosene bottle gave scarcely enough 
 light to show the ordinary eye where the lamp 
 itself was. But when their glances met, it was 
 enough to show Roderick that it was no longer 
 a child with whom he was dealing. For a sec- 
 ond neither spoke, then Malcolm, putting his 
 hand on the man's shoulder, gripped it per- 
 haps more roughly than he intended. "The 
 traps," he repeated. 
 
 Roderick winced. He saw that his secret was 
 out. He was at the Scotchman's mercy, and he 
 knew it. "They're stowed in t' hollow of t' old 
 trunk, fifty yards back of t' tilt, damn you," 
 he snarled, and tried to roll over, groaning bit- 
 terly with pain of both body and soul. 
 
 The pity of it appealed straight to Malcolm's 
 generous heart, and his grip relaxed instantly. 
 He strove to make the other more comfortable, 
 moving him gently in his great arms. 
 
 "Forget it, Mr. Norman," he said. "No one 
 shall ever know unless you tell 'em. I'll give 
 you my word for that." 
 
 The sick man said nothing. His deep breath- 
 177
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 ing, painfully drawn, was, however, enough in 
 that dead silence to warn Malcolm of the 
 struggle going on so close to him a struggle 
 so much more momentous than one of tooth 
 and claw. He slipped his hand into that of the 
 other and held it gently. 
 
 "You're very hot, sir," he remarked, just 
 for something to say. "Shall I get you some 
 cold water?" 
 
 But still there was no answer. Evidently the 
 man's mind was engrossed with other thoughts. 
 A long pause followed. 
 
 "Mr. Norman, for God's sake, forget it. No 
 one's been hurt but yourself. If there's been 
 any wrong, it 's all forgiven and forgotten long 
 ago. Let's just begin again. Remember 'tis 
 Christmas Eve night." 
 
 Still there was no reply, but McCrea's in- 
 tuition saved him from the mistake of saying 
 more. The stillness became uncanny. Then an 
 almost imperceptible pressure of the sick 
 man's hand sent a thrill vibrating through the 
 Scotchman's soul. Yes, and he had himself re- 
 turned the pressure before he knew it. A shiver 
 
 178
 
 Two Christmases 
 
 passed over the sick man's frame and the si- 
 lence was broken by a sob. 
 
 With an innate sense of fellow-feeling, Mal- 
 colm laid down the other's hand, rose, and 
 went out without a word. The night was per- 
 fect with the glorious light of the waning moon. 
 His mind was at once made up. He would be 
 home by daylight and back again with his dogs 
 by midday, with stimulants and blankets, and 
 could have Roderick in Nancy's skilled hands 
 before night. 
 
 Noiselessly opening the door, he filled the 
 stove once more, piled up spare billets close to 
 the bedside, laid out what food was left, placed 
 his kettle full of water on the ground within 
 reach of the sick man, and, just whispering, " I '11 
 be back soon, sir," disappeared into the night. 
 
 How fast he sped only the stars and moon 
 shall say. But joy lent him wings which 
 brought him home before daylight. His faith- 
 ful dogs, keeping their watch and ward out in 
 the snow around his house, first brought the 
 news to Nancy that her man was back so soon. 
 
 A few minutes served to explain how mat- 
 179
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 ters stood, and in a few more everything was 
 ready. The coach-box was strapped on the 
 komatik. The bearskin rug and a feather bed 
 were lashed inside it, with all the restoratives 
 loving care could think of, and with the music 
 of the wild barking of the dogs echoing from 
 the mountain and valley, the sledge went 
 whirling back over the crisp snow the team 
 no less excited than Malcolm himself at this 
 unexpected call for their services. 
 
 Everything was silent as once more they ap- 
 proached the scene of trouble. The dogs, pant- 
 ing and tired, having had no spell since they 
 started, no longer broke the stillness with 
 their barking. Malcolm hitched them up a 
 hundred yards or so from the tilt, preferring to 
 approach it on foot. He had long ago noticed 
 that no smoke was coming from the funnel and 
 it made his heart sink, for even in the woods 
 the cold was intense. 
 
 Malcolm always says that he knew the 
 meaning of it before he opened the door. 
 Roderick Norman had gone to spend his first 
 Christmas hi happier hunting-grounds.
 
 THE LEADING LIGHT 
 
 IT was getting late in the year. The steep cliffs 
 that everywhere flank the sides of the great 
 bay were already hoary with snow. The big 
 ponds were all "fast," and the fall deer hunt 
 which follows the fishery was over. Most of 
 the boats were hauled up, well out of reach of 
 the "ballicater " ice. The stage fronts had been 
 taken down till the next spring, to save them 
 from being torn to pieces by the rising and 
 falling floe. Everywhere "young slob," as we 
 call the endless round pans growing from the 
 centre and covering the sea like the scales of 
 a salmon, was making. But the people at the 
 head of the bay were still waiting for those 
 necessities of life, such as flour, molasses, and 
 pork, which have to be imported as they are 
 unable to provide them for themselves, and 
 for which they must wait till the summer's 
 voyage has been sent to market and sold to 
 pay for them. 
 
 181
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 The responsibility of getting these supplies 
 to them rested heavily on the shoulders of my 
 good friend John Bourne, the only trader in 
 the district. Women, children, whole families, 
 were looking to him for those "things" which 
 if he failed to furnish would mean such woeful 
 consequences that he could not face the winter 
 without at least a serious attempt to provide 
 them. 
 
 In the harbour lay his schooner, a saucy little 
 craft which he had purchased only a short 
 while before. He knew her sea qualities; and as 
 the ship tugged at her chains, moving to and 
 fro on the swell, she kept a fine "swatch" of 
 open water round her. Like some tethered an- 
 imal, she seemed to be begging him to give her 
 another run before Jack Frost gripped her in 
 his chilly arms for months to come. The fact 
 that he was a married man with hostages to 
 fortune round his knees might have justified 
 his conscience in not tempting the open sea at 
 a time when frozen sheets and blocks choked 
 with ice made it an open question if even a 
 
 youngster ought to take the chances. But it 
 
 182
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 happened that his "better half," like himself, 
 had that "right stuff" in her which thinks of 
 itself last, and her permission for the venture 
 was never in question. 
 
 So Trader Bourne, being, like all our men, a 
 sailor first and a landsman after, with his crew 
 of the mate and a boy, and the handicap of a 
 passenger, put to sea one fine afternoon in late 
 November, his vessel loaded with good things 
 for his necessitous friends "up along." He was 
 encouraged by a light breeze which, though 
 blowing out of the bay and there ahead for 
 him, gave smooth water and a clear sky. 
 
 To those who would have persuaded him to 
 linger for a fair wind he had cheerfully count- 
 ered that the schooner had "two sides," mean- 
 ing that she could hold her own in adversity, 
 and could claw well to windward; besides, 
 " 't will help to hold the Northern slob back" 
 that threatening spectre of our winters. 
 
 When darkness fell, however, very little 
 progress had been made. The wind kept shift- 
 ing against the schooner, and all hands could 
 still make out the distant lights of home twin- 
 
 183
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 kling like tiny stars, apparently not more than 
 a couple of miles under their lee. 
 
 "Shall us 'hard up/ and try it again at day- 
 light? " suggested the mate. " If anything hap- 
 pens J t is a poor time of year to be out all 
 night in a small craft." 
 
 But the skipper only shrugged his shoulders, 
 aware that the mate was never a " snapper " 
 seaman, being too much interested in gardens 
 for his liking. 
 
 "It's only a mile or two to Beach Rock 
 Cove. We'll make it on the next tack if the 
 wind holds. 'T is a long leg and a short one, 
 and we'll have a good chance then to make 
 the Boiling Brooks to-morrow." 
 
 "Lee oh!" and, putting the helm up, the 
 Leading Light was soon racing off into the 
 increasing darkness towards the cliffs away 
 on the opposite side of the bay. 
 
 The wind freshened as the evening ad- 
 vanced the usual experience of our late fall 
 nights. An hour went by, and as the wind was 
 still rising, the flying jib was taken in. After 
 
 this the captain sent the crew below for a 
 
 184
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 "mug o' tea" while he took the first trick at 
 the wheel. 
 
 Still the wind rose. The sea too was begin- 
 ning to make, and the little craft started to 
 fall to leeward too much to please the skipper. 
 The men were again called, and together they 
 reset all the head canvas. The Leading Light 
 now answered better to her helm, and, heading 
 up a point, reached well into the bay. 
 
 "Smooth water again before dawn," said 
 the skipper in his endeavour to cheer the de- 
 spondent mate, when once more they had 
 gone aft. "Looks like clearing overhead. I 
 reckon she'll be well along by daylight." 
 
 But the mate seemed "stun," and only 
 grunted in return. 
 
 "You go down and finish supper, and then 
 you can give me a spell at the wheel while I 
 get my pipe lighted," continued the captain. 
 Thereupon the other, nothing loath to have 
 something to keep his mind diverted, was soon 
 below, searching for consolation in a steaming 
 mug, but failing to find it, in spite of the wel- 
 come contrast between the cosy warm cabin, 
 
 185
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 and the darkness and driving spume on deck, 
 lacking as he did, alas, the sea genius of our 
 race. 
 
 "Watch on deck!" at length called Bourne; 
 and a few minutes later, having entrusted the 
 helm to the mate, he was lighting his pipe at 
 the cabin fire. All of a sudden down, down, 
 down went the lee floor of the cabin, and up, 
 up, up went the weather, till it felt as if the 
 little ship were really going over. 
 
 "What's up?" the skipper fairly yelled 
 through the companion, as clinging and strug- 
 gling his utmost he forced his way on deck, 
 as soon as the vessel righted herself enough to 
 make it possible. "Hard down! Hard down! 
 Let her come up! Ease her! Ease her!" and 
 whether the puff of wind slackened or the 
 mate lost hold of the wheel, he never has been 
 able to tell, but she righted enough for a mo- 
 ment to let him get on the deck and rush 
 forward to slack up the fore-sheet, bawling 
 meanwhile through the darkness to the mate 
 to keep her head up, as he himself tore and 
 
 tugged at the rope. 
 
 186
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 The schooner, evidently well off the wind, 
 
 yet with all her sheets hauled tight and clewed 
 \ 
 
 down, was literally flying ahead, but trying 
 to dive right through the ponderous seas, in- 
 stead of skimming over and laughing at them, 
 as the captain well knew she ought to do. 
 There was n't a second to lose pondering the 
 problem as to why she would not come up and 
 save herself. Difficult and dangerous as it was 
 in the pitch dark with the deck slippery with 
 ice, and the dizzy angle at which it stood, the 
 only certain way to save the situation was to 
 let go that sheet. Frantically he struggled with 
 the rope, firmly clinched though it was round 
 its cleats with the ice that had made upon it. 
 Knowing how sensitive the vessel was and 
 that she would answer to a half -spoke turn of 
 the wheel, and utterly at a loss to understand 
 her present stubbornness, he still kept calling 
 to the helmsman, "Hard down! Hard down!" 
 only to receive again the growling answer, 
 "Hard down it is. She's been hard down this 
 long time." 
 
 It was all no good. Up, up came the weather 
 187
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 rail under the terrific pressure of the wind. The 
 fore-sheet was now already well under water, 
 cleat and all, and the captain had just time to 
 dash for the bulwark and hold on for dear 
 life, when over went the stout little craft, sails, 
 masts, and rigging, all disappearing beneath the 
 waves. It seemed as if a minute more and she 
 must surely vanish altogether, and all hands be 
 lost almost within sight of their own homes. 
 
 Tumultuous thoughts flooded the captain's 
 mind as for one second he clung to the rail. 
 Vain regrets were followed like lightning by a 
 momentary resignation to fate. In the minds 
 of most men hope would undoubtedly have 
 perished right there. But Captain Bourne was 
 made of better stuff. "Nil desperandum" is 
 the Englishman's soul; and soon he found 
 himself crawling carefully hand over hand to- 
 wards the after end of the vessel. Suddenly in 
 the darkness he bumped into something soft 
 and warm lying out on the quarter. It proved 
 to be his passenger, resigned and mute, with 
 no suggestion to offer and no spirit to do more 
 than lie and perish miserably. 
 
 188
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 Still climbing along he could not help mark- 
 ing the absence of the mate and the boy from 
 the rail, which standing out alone against the 
 sky-line was occasionally visible. Doubtless 
 they must have been washed overboard when 
 the vessel turned turtle. There was some 
 heavy ballast in the schooner besides the bar- 
 rels of flour and other supplies in her hold. Her 
 deck also was loaded with freight, and alas, the 
 ship's boat was lashed down to the deck with 
 strong gripes beneath a lot of it. Moreover, it 
 was on the starboard side, and away down 
 under water anyhow. Though every moment 
 he was expecting the Leading Light to make 
 her last long dive, his courage never for a 
 second deserted him. 
 
 He remembered that there was a new boat 
 on the counter aft which he was carrying with 
 him for one of his dealers. She was not lashed 
 either, except that her painter was fast to a 
 stanchion. It was just possible that she might 
 still be afloat, riding to the schooner as a sea 
 anchor. Still clinging to the rail he peered and 
 peered through the darkness, only to see the 
 
 189
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 great white mainsail now and again gleam 
 ghostlike in the dim light when the super- 
 incumbent water foamed over it, as the Lead- 
 ing Light wallowed in the sullen seas. Then 
 something dark rose against the sky away out 
 beyond the peak end of the gaff something 
 black looming up on the crest of a mighty 
 comber. An uncanny feeling crept over him. 
 Yet what else could it be but the boat? But 
 what could that boat be doing out there? Fas- 
 cinated, he kept glaring out in that direction. 
 Yes, surely, there it flashed again across the 
 sky-line. This time he was satisfied that it was 
 the boat, and that she was afloat and partly 
 protected by the breakwater formed by the 
 schooner's hull. She was riding splendidly. In 
 an instant he recalled that he had given her a 
 new long painter; and that somehow she must 
 have been thrown clear when the ship turned 
 over. Anyhow, she was his only chance for life. 
 Get her he must, and get her at once. Every 
 second spelt less chance of success. Any mo- 
 ment she might break adrift or be dragged 
 
 down by the sinking schooner. And then came 
 
 190
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 the horrible memory that she too had been 
 stowed on the lee side, and her painter also 
 was under the mainsail and fastened now 
 several feet below the surface. Even the sail 
 itself was under water, and the sea breaking 
 in big rushes over it with every comber that 
 came along. 
 
 To get the boat was surely impossible. It 
 only added to the horror of the plight to perish 
 there miserably of cold, thinking of home and 
 of the loved ones peacefully asleep so near, 
 while the way to them and safety lay only a 
 few fathoms distant torturing him by its 
 very nearness. For every now and then driv- 
 ing hard to the end of her tether she would 
 rush forward on a sea and appear to be coming 
 within his reach, only to mock him by drifting 
 away once more, like some relentless lady-love 
 playing with his very heartstrings. The rope 
 under the sunken mainsail prevented her from 
 quite reaching him, and each time that she 
 seemed coming to his arms, she again darted 
 beyond his grasp. 
 
 Whatever could be done must be done at 
 191
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 once. Even now he realized that the cold and 
 wet were robbing him of his store of strength. 
 Could he possibly get out to where the boat 
 was? There might be one way, but there could 
 be only one, and even that appeared a desper- 
 ate and utterly futile venture. It was to find a 
 footing somehow, to let go his vise-like grip of 
 the rail, and leap out into the darkness across 
 the black and fathomless gulf of water surging 
 up between the hull and the vessel's main 
 boom in the hope of landing in the belly of the 
 sail; to be able to keep his balance and walk 
 out breast high through the rushing water into 
 the blackness beyond till he should reach the 
 gaff; and so, clinging there, perchance catch 
 the boat's painter as she ran in on a rebound- 
 ing sea. There would be nothing to hold on to. 
 The ever swirling water would upset a man 
 walking in daylight on a level quayside. He 
 would have nothing but a sunken, bellying 
 piece of canvas to support him a piece only, 
 for the little leach rope leading from the clew 
 to the peak marked a sharp edge which would 
 spell the dividing line between life and death. 
 
 192
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 He had known men of courage; he had read 
 of what Englishmen had done. But he had 
 never suspected that in his own English blood 
 could lie dormant that which makes heroes 
 at all times. A hastily breathed prayer his 
 mind made up, letting go of the weather rail 
 he commenced to lower himself to the wheel, 
 hoping to get a footing there for the momen- 
 tous spring that would in all probability land 
 him in eternity. But even as he climbed a 
 little farther aft to reach down to it, he found 
 himself actually straddling the bodies of the 
 missing mate and boy, who were cowering 
 under the rail, supported by their feet against 
 the steering-gear boxing. 
 
 Like a thunderclap the whole cause of the 
 disaster burst upon his mind. The mate's feet 
 planked against the spokes of the wheel sug- 
 gested it. The helm was not hard down at all, 
 and never had been. It was hard up all the 
 time. He remembered, now that it was too 
 late, that the mate had always steered hith- 
 erto with a tiller; that a wheel turns exactly 
 the opposite way to the tiller; and that with 
 
 193
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 every sail hauled tight, and the helm held hard 
 over, the loyal little craft had been as literally 
 murdered as if she had been torpedoed, and 
 also their lives jeopardized through this man's 
 folly. What was the good of him even now? 
 There he lay like a log, as dumb as the man 
 whom he had left clinging to the taffrail. 
 
 "What's to be done now?" he shouted, try- 
 ing in vain to rouse the prostrate figure with 
 his foot. "Rouse up! Rouse up, you fool!" he 
 roared. "Are you going to die like a coward?" 
 And letting himself down, he put his face 
 close to that of the man who by his stupidity 
 had brought them all to this terrible plight. 
 But both the mate and boy seemed paralyzed. 
 Not a word, not a moan could he get out of 
 them. The help which they would have been 
 was denied him. Once more he realized that if 
 any one was to be saved, he and he alone must 
 accomplish it. A momentary rest between two 
 waves decided him. There was one half -second 
 of trying to get his balance as he stood up, 
 then came the plunge into the wild abyss, and 
 he found himself floundering in the belly of 
 
 194
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 the sail, struggling to keep his footing, but up 
 to his waist in water. With a fierce sense of 
 triumph that he was safely past the first dan- 
 ger, the yawning gulf between the rail and 
 boom, he threw every grain of his remaining 
 strength into the desperate task before him, 
 and pushed out for the gaff that was lying on 
 the surface of the sea, thirty feet away in the 
 darkness. Even as he started a surging wave 
 washed him off his feet, and again he found 
 himself hopelessly wallowing in the water, but 
 still in the great cauldron formed by the 
 canvas. 
 
 How any human being could walk even the 
 length of the sail under such circumstances he 
 does not know any more than I do. But the 
 impossible was accomplished, and somehow he 
 was clinging at last like a limpet to the very 
 end of the gaff, his legs already dangling over 
 the fatal edge, and with nothing to keep him 
 from the clutch of death beyond it but his 
 grip of the floating spar. To this he must cling 
 until the mocking boat should again come taut 
 on the line and possibly run within his reach. 
 
 195
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 The next second out of the darkness what 
 seemed to the man in the sail a mountain of 
 blackness rushed hissing at him from the 
 chaos beyond, actually swept across him into 
 the belly of the sail, and tore him from his 
 rapidly weakening hold of the spar. With the 
 energy of despair his hands went up and caught 
 something, probably a bight in the now slack- 
 ened painter. In a trice he was gripping the 
 rail, and a second later he was safely inside 
 the boat, and standing shaking himself like 
 some great Newfoundland dog. 
 
 Even now a seemingly insuperable difficulty 
 loomed ahead. He had no knife and was un- 
 able to let go the rope. Would he be able 
 to take his comrades aboard, and would the 
 schooner keep afloat and form a breastwork 
 against the sea, or would it sink and, after 
 all his battle, drag the boat and him down 
 with it to perdition? 
 
 Philosophizing is no help at such a time. Ht 
 would try for the other men. To leave them 
 was unthinkable. Once more fortune was on 
 his side. The oars were still in the boat, lashed 
 
 196
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 firmly to the thwarts a plan upon which 
 he had always insisted. Watching his chance, 
 and skilfully manoeuvring, he succeeded in ap- 
 proaching the schooner stern first, when the 
 cable just allowed him to touch the perpen- 
 dicular deck. His shouts to the others had now 
 quite a different ring. His words were com- 
 mands, leaving no initiative to them. They 
 realized also that their one and only chance 
 for life lay in that boat; and returning 
 hope lent them the courage which they had 
 hitherto lacked. After a delay which seemed 
 hours to the anxious captain at such a time, 
 with skilful handling he had got all three 
 aboard. 
 
 Once more he was face to face with the 
 problem of the relentless rope, but again 
 fortune proved to be on his side. It was the 
 passenger, the useless, burdensome passenger, 
 who now held the key to the situation. He 
 had sensed the danger in a moment, and in- 
 stantly handed the skipper a large clasp-knife. 
 With it to free the boat from the wreck was 
 
 but the work of a moment. 
 
 197
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 True, their position in a small open "rod- 
 ney" in the middle of a dark, rough night in 
 the North Atlantic was not exactly enviable, 
 especially as the biting winter wind was freez- 
 ing their clothing solid, and steadily sapping 
 their small stock of remaining vitality. 
 
 Yet these men felt that they had crossed a 
 gulf almost as wide as that between Dives and 
 Lazarus. If they could live, they knew that the 
 boat could, for the ice would not clog her 
 enough to sink her before daylight, and as for 
 the sea well, as with the schooner, it was 
 only a matter of handling their craft till the 
 light came. 
 
 Meanwhile, though they did not then know 
 it, they had drifted a very considerable way 
 towards their own homes, so that, rowing 
 in turn and constantly bailing out their boat 
 they at length made the shore at the little 
 village of Wild Bight, only a few miles away 
 from their own. The good folk at once kindled 
 fires, and bathed and chafed the half-frozen 
 limbs and chilled bodies of the exhausted 
 
 crew. 
 
 198
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 Now the one anxiety of all hands was to get 
 home as quickly as possible for fear that some 
 rumor of the disaster in the form of wreckage 
 from the schooner might carry to their loved 
 ones news of the accident, and lead them to be 
 terrified over their apparent deaths. As soon as 
 possible after dawn of day, the skipper started 
 for home, having borrowed a small rodney, 
 and the wind still keeping in the same quarter. 
 To his intense surprise a large trap-boat 
 manned by several men, seeing his little boat, 
 hailed him loudly, and when on drawing near 
 it was discovered who they were, proceeded 
 to congratulate him heartily on his escape. 
 Already the very thing that he had dreaded 
 might happen must surely have occurred. 
 i "How on earth did you know so soon?" he 
 enquired, annoyed. 
 
 "As we came along before t* wind we saw 
 what us took to be a dead whale. But her 
 turned out to be a schooner upside down. We 
 made out she were t' Leading Light, and 
 feared you must all have been drowned, as 
 there was no sign of any one on her upturned 
 
 199
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 keel. So we were hurrying to your house to 
 find out t' truth." 
 
 "Don't say a word about it, boys," said the 
 skipper. "One of you take this skiff and row 
 her back to Wild Bight, while I go with the 
 others and try and tow in the wreck before 
 the wind shifts. But be sure not to say any- 
 thing about the business at home." 
 
 The wind still held fair, and by the aid of a 
 stout line they were able, after again finding 
 the vessel, to tow her into their own harbour 
 and away to the very bottom of the Bight, 
 where they stranded her at high water on the 
 tiny beach under the high crags which shoulder 
 out the ocean. By a clever system of pulleys 
 and blocks from the trunks of trees in the 
 clefts of the cliff she was hauled upright, and 
 held while the water fell. Then the Leading 
 Light was pumped out and refloated on the 
 following tide. On examination, she was pro- 
 nounced uninjured by her untimely adven- 
 ture. 
 
 I owe it to John Bourne to say that the 
 
 messenger forbidden to tell of the terrible ex- 
 
 200
 
 The Leading Light 
 
 perience told it to his own wife, and she told it 
 well, anyhow, the skipper's wife had heard 
 of it before the Leading Light once more lay 
 at anchor at her owner's wharf. Courage in a 
 moment of danger, or to preserve life, is one 
 thing. The courage that faces odds when the 
 circumstances are prosaic and the decision 
 deferred is a rarer quality. It was a real piece 
 of courage which gave the little schooner 
 another chance that fall to retrieve her repu- 
 tation. She was permitted to deliver the goods 
 against all odds, and what is more the cap- 
 tain's wife kissed him good-bye with a brave 
 face when once again he let the foresail draw, 
 and the Leading Light stood out to sea on her 
 second and successful venture. 
 
 There is no doubt that when she went to 
 bed in the ice that winter, she carried with her 
 the good wishes and grateful thanks of many 
 poor and lonely souls; and some have said that 
 when they were walking round the head of the 
 cove in which it was the habit of the little 
 craft to hibernate, strange sounds like that of 
 a purring cat were ofttimes wafted shoreward. 
 
 201
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 "It is only the wind in her rigging," the 
 skeptical explained; but a suspicion still lurks 
 in some of our minds that the Eskimo are not 
 so far from the truth in conceding souls to 
 inanimate objects.
 
 THE RED ISLAND SHOALS 
 
 THE house was fairly shaking in the gale, and 
 any one but Uncle Rube, who had lived in it 
 since he put it there forty years before, would 
 have been expecting things to happen. But 
 the old man sat dozing in his chair beside 
 the crackling stove, and the circling rings of 
 smoke rising over his snow-white head were 
 the only signs of life about him. The only 
 other occupant of the house was a little girl 
 whom Uncle Rube had taken for "company," 
 the year that his wife left him. The coast 
 knew that his only lad had been lost aboard 
 some sealer many years ago. The little girl was 
 lying stretched out on the wooden settle close 
 beside him. Twice already in the dim light of 
 the tiny window, now well covered with snow 
 outside and frost within, I had mistaken her 
 towsly golden curls for a hearth-brush, she 
 lay so still. 
 
 At length, as the cottage gave a more vio- 
 203
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 lent lurch than usual, even my book failed to 
 keep my mind at rest. 
 
 "Are n't you afraid the house is going to 
 blow away, Uncle Rube? You remember that 
 our church blew into the harbor, pews and 
 floor as well as walls and roof. You could see 
 the pews at low water till the ice took them 
 away." 
 
 Crack! Crack! Crack! 
 
 "No fear of she, Doctor. She's held on this 
 forty years, and I reckon she won't bring her 
 anchors home till I does myself." 
 
 "Never to go again till the old man died," 
 I hummed. 
 
 Something, however, seemed to have roused 
 up Uncle Rube. For, carefully laying his pipe 
 in its place on the shelf, he went to the door, 
 opening it enough to allow him to peer out 
 through the crack. Unfortunately another 
 eddying gust struck the house at that very 
 moment, tore the door from his grasp, and 
 by sweeping in and taking the fortress from 
 within, very nearly gave it its coup de grace. 
 
 In the momentary lull that followed we man- 
 
 204
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 aged to shut the door, and to barricade it 
 from inside. 
 
 The child was astir before we got back to 
 the genial warmth of the stove. Crack! Crack! 
 Crack! went the little dwelling again, as a 
 more than usually fierce blast of the hurricane, 
 strengthened by the furiously driving snow, 
 hit it like another hammer of Thor. Crack! 
 Crack! The house seemed to swing like a 
 pendulum before it came to rest again. I could 
 see that the old man was uneasy. 
 
 "What is it, Uncle Rube? What is it?" the 
 little girl cried out petulantly. 
 
 "Why, nothing, little one, nothing. Only 
 't is as well to take a peek out on times. There 's 
 no knowing when there might be some one 
 astray through this kind of weather. J T is no 
 hurt to make sure, is it?" 
 
 She was a pale-faced little thing, with the 
 lustrous eyes and delicate skin that often so 
 pathetically array the prospective victims of 
 the White Man's Curse. She had been a tiny, 
 unwanted item in a large family of twelve 
 with which "Providence had blessed" a strug- 
 
 205
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 gling friend and neighbor. The arrival of the 
 last had robbed him of his only help. "Daddy 
 gived me to Uncle Rube," was her only ex- 
 planation of her being there. 
 
 "T is cold, though," she answered. "It 
 made me dream that you were on the old 
 island again, and I was with you, and then 
 the house shook so that it woke me up." 
 
 For answer he went to an old and well-worn 
 seaman's chest which served ordinarily for an 
 additional seat. The reverent care with which 
 he turned over the contents would have hon- 
 ored a priest before the sanctuary. But even- 
 tually he returned with a really beautiful shawl 
 which he tenderly wrapped around the child, 
 and sitting down laid her head upon his shoul- 
 der. In this position she was almost immedi- 
 ately asleep again, and, fearing to wake her, 
 I had forborne to break the silence. Indeed, I 
 was far enough away from ice and snow and 
 blizzards for the moment the Indian shawl 
 having carried me home to England, and the 
 old camphor trunk which my own mother, 
 
 herself born in India, had taught us boys to 
 
 206
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 reverence as the old man did his, filled as ours 
 was with specimens of weird patterns and 
 exquisite workmanship. 
 
 Uncle Rube had been watching my eyes 
 fixed on the rich mantle that contrasted so 
 strangely with every other surrounding. 
 
 "I brought it from India when I used to go 
 overseas. I keeps it because my Mary loved 
 it so, though she 'lowed it was too rich for t* 
 likes o' her to wear it much. But I guess it'll 
 last now. 'T is t' last bit o' finery left," he 
 smiled, "and 't is most tune to be hauling 
 that down. For I reckons Nellie won't last out 
 to need it long. Eh, Doctor?" And for a mo- 
 ment a tear sparkled in his merry old eyes, as 
 he peered from under his heavy white eye- 
 brows. 
 
 "You can always trust me to find a good 
 home for Nellie, Uncle Rube," I answered. 
 "I've forty like her now, and one more won't 
 sink the ship. But you know that better than I 
 can tell you." And suddenly it flashed over me 
 that Uncle Rube's unexpected visit to our 
 Children's Home must had have some rela- 
 
 207
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 tion to the curly head on his shoulder. The 
 tear fell on his tanned cheek, and he looked 
 away and coughed. But he said nothing. 
 
 "What was the old island that Nellie was 
 talking about? " I broke in to relieve the situ- 
 ation. "It sounded as if you had been playing 
 Robinson Crusoe some time," I added, "and 
 have spun her yarns that you won't tell me." 
 For the hope that here might be something 
 which would fill in the time during which it 
 was plain that Jack Frost intended to keep 
 me prisoner in this bookless cabin, suddenly 
 dawned upon me. 
 
 "Island?" he smiled, after a brief pause. 
 "Island? Oh! that was forty years ago, when 
 us lost t* old Manxman on t' Red Island 
 Shoals." And the wanderlust of Uncle Rube's 
 British blood, stirred by this leap back over 
 the passing years, made him once more a 
 bouncing, devil-may-care sailor lad. The sign 
 of tears had vanished from his cheeks as he 
 rose, and, gently laying the little figure in her 
 old corner on the settle, leisurely lit his pipe. 
 
 Like that of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Feather- 
 
 208
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 top it seemed to send renewed youth through 
 his veins with every puff he drew. Knowing 
 that he was trying to think, and fearing to 
 distract his mind, I again kept a discreet 
 silence. At last, just as if he saw the scene 
 again, his eyes closed and his splendid shock 
 of long white hair was once more thrown back 
 into its accustomed place in the rocking-chair. 
 
 "It was n't a fair deal, Doctor. Not a fair 
 deal. We was sailors in those days, just as 
 much as them is in they old tin kettles that 
 rattles up and down t' Straits now, for all 
 they big size and they gold braid. T' Manxman 
 would n't have come by her end as she did if 
 stout arms and good seamen could 'a' saved 
 her. Murdered she was, Doctor, murdered by 
 this same Jack Frost what's trying to blow us 
 out o' house and home right now. But don't 
 you have no uneasiness, Doctor, I 've got him 
 beat this tune, and she'll not drag. No, sir, 
 not till I do" and a fierce spirit gleamed 
 out through his eyes. 
 
 We had often wondered why Uncle Rube, 
 
 the genial, gentle, hospitable old man that the 
 
 209
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 coast knew him to be, had come to put down 
 his anchors in this wild and almost desolate 
 gorge. Here was a possible explanation. The 
 loss of his only lad must have been from 
 this very Manxman, and by some strange 
 twist of mentality the father had determined 
 to plant himself just as near the scene and 
 circumstance as human strength permitted, 
 and there, single-handed if need be, fight out 
 the battle of life, with the daily sense of flaunt- 
 ing the enemy that had robbed him of his joy 
 in life his one and only child. For with 
 Chestertonian paradox this lonely man's pas- 
 sion was children. 
 
 "No. No, he can't move her, Doctor," he 
 repeated, as if he were reading my thoughts, 
 as I truly believe that he was. For our minds 
 in the North are not crusted like tender feet 
 with horny coverings from the chafe of boots, 
 or as are minds beset with telephones, special 
 deliveries, and editions of the yellow press. 
 
 "No, Uncle Rube, you don't think I'd sit 
 here if I was n't certain of it. You've got him 
 
 beaten to a frazzle this time." 
 
 210
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 I was right then, for Uncle Rube " slacked 
 away" as he put it, and took up the thread of 
 his story again without further comment, but 
 not before apologizing for any undue familiar- 
 ity into which the excitement, of which he was 
 well aware, might have betrayed him. 
 
 "Us found t' seals early that year, and 
 panned a voyage of as fine young fat as ever 
 a 'swiler' wished for, but t* weather was dirty 
 from t' day us struck t' patch, as if Jack Frost 
 was determined us should n't have 'em. Any- 
 how, afore we could pick up more 'n half what 
 us'd killed, a dozen o' our lads got adrift on 
 t' floe, and though they got aboard another 
 vessel, us thought 'em was lost. While us sailed 
 about looking for 'em, us lost most o' t' pans. 
 So round t' beginning of April t' skipper, in 
 company with a score of other schooners, put 
 her for the Norrard, in hopes of cutting off 
 some of t' old seals in t' swatches. T' slob 
 being very heavy outside, us lay for inside 
 Belle Isle, and carried open water most across 
 t' Straits. Well, sir, t' wind veered round all of 
 a sudden, just as us was abeam of t' Devil's 
 
 211
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 Table, and t' Gulf ice came out of t' Straits 
 fair roaring" and Uncle Rube took another 
 contemplative puff at his pipe. 
 
 "It would have been all right if only t* big 
 field had gone off t* same tune before t' wind. 
 But somehow there were a big block held up 
 by t' Islands, and t' western ice just came and 
 hit it clip! It must have been all up with us 
 right there but for t' northeast current, and 
 that took our vessel like a nutshell and whisked 
 her away in t' heavy slob as if to carry her 
 along the Labrador coast. But it proved us 
 was not far enough off t' land, for just about 
 midday t' Red Islands come up like dark 
 specks out o' t' ice right ahead t' way we 
 was being driven. T' other schooners was 
 caught in t' jam too and drifting with us, 
 little black dots scattered over t' surface of t' 
 ice field like t' currants in slices of sweet white 
 loaf. 
 
 "I believe our skipper knowed it were no 
 good, just as soon as t' watch called him to see 
 for hisself. But he made out as if there was 
 
 nothing to it, and ordered all hands to be 
 
 212
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 ready to take t' ice, as though 't was a patch 
 o' swiles instead of rocks ahead. But when he 
 started getting up grub, and canvas, and all 
 sorts of things, and had us put 'em in t' boats, 
 us knew it were no old harps he was thinking 
 of. 
 
 "Well, sir, it seemed as if it had to be. The 
 old Manxman went as fair for them reefs as if 
 she was being hauled there with a capstan. It 
 was fair uncanny, and I believes there be more 
 in some one driving her there than most people 
 'lows. Anyhow, tied up as us was in t' heavy 
 jam, right fair towards 'em she had to go, and 
 then on to 'em, and up over t' reef as if us 'd 
 laid t' course express for 'em, while every other 
 vessel round us went clear. T' reef 's about five 
 feet out o' water at high springs, and about 
 ten feet over surface on t' neaps. Springs it 
 was that day, t' moon being nearly full, and 
 t' first crack ripped t' bottom clean out o' t' 
 old ship. Us all hustled out on to t' ice, taking 
 with us all us could carry, working as quick as 
 ever us could, for t' pressure o' wind was raft- 
 ing t' pans on to t' rocks, and almost before us 
 
 213
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 knew it, what remained of her above t' ice had 
 gone right on over t' shoals; and long before 
 dusk, I reckons, had gone down through it. At 
 any rate, us saw no more of her. Us tried to 
 make a bit of shelter for t' night out o' some 
 of t' canvas, but t' wind never slacked a peck, 
 and t' rafting ice soon carried away even t' 
 few things us had saved. 
 
 "Had us known in time us had better have 
 stuck to t' boats, for they might have given 
 us a chance. But t' wind being offshore, and t' 
 ice running out to sea, made it seem safer to 
 keep to t' rocks. For t' Red Island Shoal is 
 only three or four miles from t' land, and there 
 be liveyers, as us knew, almost opposite. If t' 
 wind had held in t' same direction even then 
 us might have escaped, but it dropped sud- 
 denly about day dawn, and there were huge 
 swatches o* water between us and t' mainland 
 before it came light enough to try and get 
 across. Then just as suddenly t' wind clipped 
 round, and t' sea began to make, and t' water 
 started breaking right over them rocks. 
 
 "Us had managed to build a fire out o' some 
 214
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 of t' wreckage saved, and had thrown in bits 
 o* canvas and some tarry oakum to make 
 smoke. They had seen it too on t' land, and 
 had lit three smoke fires in a line to let us 
 know that they would send help if they could. 
 But the veering of the wind had made that 
 impossible, for they could only launch small 
 skiffs, and they would not have lived more 'n 
 a few minutes for t* ice making on 'em. 
 
 "T" breaking seas and driving spray soon 
 wet all our men through. There were forty of 
 us all told. But by night several were either 
 dead or beyond help. T' ice had taken our 
 boats, and now t' seas took all that was left. 
 T* fire went out just before midday/ and our 
 bit o' grub got wet and frozen. Next morning 
 t' sea was higher than ever, and t* bodies of t* 
 men mostly washed away as they died. All that 
 day t' rest of us just held on, some twenty or 
 so; but it was a bare six of us that were living 
 t' second night. There was no sleep, and not 
 even any lying down if you wanted to live. 
 None of them that slept ever woke again. I 
 might have nodded standing up. Guess I must 
 
 215
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 have. But t j third morning I was t* only man 
 moving; and though it was as fine a shining 
 morning as ever broke, and t' hot sun from t* 
 ice soon put a little life hi me, I never expected 
 to see .another night. Then I must have for- 
 gotten everything, even t' people on t* shore. 
 For I never saw any boat coming, or any one 
 land. Everything had been washed away but 
 myself. I had been alone, I reckon, many 
 hours. It seemed ages since I 'd heard a human 
 voice; but I still remembers some one putting 
 his hand on my shoulder. They had been call- 
 ing, so they told me, but somehow I heard 
 nothing. They kept me a good many days be- 
 fore I knowed anything doing for me like a 
 mother would for her boy. But more 'n a week 
 had gone by before I could tell 'em who I was. 
 "And then it all came back to me t* cruel 
 suffering of my shipmates, and most of all of 
 Willy, t* only chick or child I ever had. He had 
 my coat over his oil frock, and he were so 
 brave, so young, and so strong. And he lived 
 till morning long after great strong men 
 
 had perished and me able to do nothing. 
 
 216
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 Then his poor frozen body was washed to and 
 fro in that terrible surf, as if my boy would n't 
 leave me even if he was dead. Why I lived on, 
 and why it pleased God to spare my poor life I 
 never knowed, or shall know, Doctor, till he 
 tells me himself." 
 
 He was sitting bolt upright now, looking me 
 straight in the face. But the fire died suddenly 
 from Uncle Rube's eyes, and, exhausted by 
 the effort and the memories the story brought 
 back to him, he fell back in the chair as if he 
 had been struck by some knock-out blow. The 
 thud of the fall once more woke the child, and, 
 seeing me jump to the old man's help, she 
 began to sob piteously. It was only for a mo- 
 ment, however. The splendid vitality of the 
 man, toughened by his hard life and simple 
 fare, soon made him master of himself again, 
 and, apologizing for giving me trouble, he 
 took up the child, crooning over her to get her 
 quiet. 
 
 "Forty years I 've been living here, Doctor," 
 he went on. "Forty years and t* last ten 
 
 I've been all alone. Not a living soul have I 
 
 217
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 had t' chance to save all these long years, 
 though God knows I ' ve kept as good a lookout 
 as one watch could. Then Neighbor Blake lost 
 his helpmate like I had mine, and he let me 
 share up with him, and have Nellie. He wanted 
 his boys to help him get food and things for 
 t' rest, so a girl was what he gave me. And I 
 could n't have had a boy, Doctor, anyhow. 
 Willy's place will never be filled for me, till he 
 comes himself and fills it, and that won't be 
 long now either." He looked at his pipe, which 
 had gone out, and then continued: "No, I'm 
 not one o* them as can take a new wife almost 
 as soon as t' first one's gone" and then 
 suddenly: "But it's time to boil t' kettle. 
 You'se getting hungry, I 'lows, and me chat- 
 tering like a fool, and not thinking of any- 
 thing beyond my own troubles. I 'm forgetting 
 you must be worriting over being kept so long 
 in this bit of a tilt, but you '11 not get away till 
 morning, so just make yourself as miserable 
 as you can!" 
 
 As he bustled around filling the kettle with 
 ice for water, and struggling to heat up a 
 
 18
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 small molasses barrel in order to let out some 
 "sweetness" for our tea, I had made a bird, a 
 boat, and a couple of darts out of paper, as 
 overtures to the lady of the house. Before the 
 humble meal was spread she had the room 
 ringing with her laughter, as she darted now 
 here, now there, and at last succeeded in hit- 
 ting the old man himself almost in the eye. 
 Many times that meal has come back to my 
 memory. The rough bare boards of the walls, 
 naked but for one old picture of a horse cut 
 from a magazine, carefully pasted upside 
 down, and probably designed chiefly to cover 
 some defective spot that was admitting too 
 much coldness; the crazy table shaking with 
 every gust and causing a tiny kerosene lamp 
 to flare up and menace the dim religious dark- 
 ness by depositing even more lamp-black than 
 was its wont on its already negrine globe; the 
 meagre board of dark bread, "oleo," and 
 molasses; the weird minstrelsy of the hurri- 
 cane the whole a harmony of poverty and 
 war. Yet the memory brings deeper pleasure 
 to my mind than that of many costly banquets 
 
 219
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 and even I have eaten from plates of silver 
 with implements of gold. For in the flickering 
 light of the crackling logs I can still see the joy 
 of the old man's kindly face over the boister- 
 ous happiness of his quaint ward, the dance 
 in the eyes of the merry child as some colored 
 candies placed in my nonny-bag by my wife 
 fell somehow from the sky right on to the 
 table before her. The telling of his story, never 
 before mentioned to any one but his wife and 
 foster child, but kept like some vendetta 
 wrong waiting for revenge in his rebellious 
 heart these many years, seemed to have re- 
 newed his youth. A merrier, happier party it 
 has never been my lot to share in; and now 
 that I know the pathos of the last chapter 
 written in this strange life, I rejoice more than 
 ever that for that night, anyhow, the enemy 
 that haunted him overreached, and the very 
 blizzard proved the key for one evening at 
 least of freedom from his obsession. 
 
 We were away before daylight, and I never 
 saw Uncle Rube again. Life, it seems, went 
 along tranquilly with him the following winter. 
 
 220
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 As usual he kept his watch and ward on the 
 cliffs by the Red Island Shoals. Then the fatal 
 10th of April came round. Once again it broke 
 upon the solitary figure of the old man strain- 
 ing his eyes from his coign of vantage on the 
 dread shoals of the Red Islands. Unquestion- 
 ably he saw again reenacted there the weird 
 tragedy that nearly half a century before had 
 broken his life, bringing home with a strange 
 fascination the moving picture to his very 
 heart. But with it this spring he witnessed also 
 a scene that for many years every man on the 
 coast had prayed for, but no man had been 
 privileged to take part in. The wind had come 
 out of the Straits and the Gulf ice was driving 
 swiftly towards the great Atlantic, exactly as 
 it had done on the memorable day now forty 
 years before. Once again there was ice in huge 
 sheets jammed against the great cliffs of Belle 
 Isle, and clear water between. Suddenly the 
 straining eyes of the old sailor shone with a 
 totally new light. He jumped to his feet, and 
 with hands shading his starting eyes, stood 
 motionless like a statue on the pedestal of his 
 
 221
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 lookout, now white as the purest marble in its 
 winter mantle. 
 
 Was it age? Or the final break-up of his 
 mind? No, neither he was certain of it. 
 There were black things moving on the white 
 ice, and driving with it once more, just as the 
 Manxman had, straight for the shoals of the 
 Red Islands. Nearer and nearer they came. 
 There could be no doubt now. They moved. 
 They could be no land debris, no shadows from 
 the rafted ice sheets. So quickly was the floe 
 running that just as he remembered it, before 
 anything could be done, clip! and the advanc- 
 ing edge had again struck the standing ice, 
 and woe betide anything that was in or on it, 
 anywhere near the line of contact. As a dazed 
 mouse watches the cat that is toying with it, 
 the rigid figure on the hilltop gazed at the im- 
 pending tragedy too far off for his material 
 brain correctly to interpret the image on his 
 actual retina. He was seeing, though he failed 
 to realize it, the same impress that emotion 
 had recorded on the tablets of his very soul. 
 
 The realism of it was too much for human
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 nature, and Uncle Rube, his hands covering 
 his face, started running homewards over the 
 familiar pathway he had trodden so often. 
 Even as he reached the cottage in the gulch he 
 was aware of loud shouting, and of a team of 
 huskies literally tearing over the snow. They 
 were making as if to pass his house without 
 stopping, as no man ever did that lonely spot, 
 if only for the cup of tea and the moment's 
 "spell," and the kindly stimulus of the old 
 man's company. Yes, the driver was shouting, 
 shouting to him. "Ships, Uncle Rube!" 
 "What is it?" "Ships on the ice!" the old 
 man heard. Did n't he know it only too well ? 
 Another moment and the modern Paul 
 Revere, with dogs for horses and ice and snow 
 for a highway, was flying on his self-imposed 
 journey, carrying his slogan from house to 
 house and village to village along the sparsely 
 inhabited coast-line. As Uncle Rube opened 
 his door and peered into the little room, to his 
 infinite joy he saw the golden curls in their 
 proper place on the old settle by the stove, 
 while the regular quiet breathing assured him 
 
 223
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 that the child had not yet waked from sleep. 
 As he softly tiptoed around, seeking the outfit 
 he needed for his great adventure, the barren- 
 ness of the house, the poverty of it, struck him 
 for the first time. God knows he had never 
 thought of "things," except as he had needed 
 them for himself or others; and now he wished 
 suddenly that he had more of them for the 
 child's sake. Suppose, now that his "day" had 
 at last arrived, he should not return from the 
 long-looked-for quest. He became strangely 
 conscious that he had nothing laid up for his 
 darling, the child who now filled the whole 
 horizon of his cramped life. Her very clothes 
 were in tatters. The Indian shawl, that I had 
 seen pressed into the service against his enemy 
 the Frost King, was now only a thing of rags 
 and patches. Were it not for his own big coat, 
 even at this moment his Princess would be 
 shivering with cold. Furtively he glanced 
 round for his rope and gaff, relics of the last 
 time he had gone on the ice. All these years he 
 had kept them ready for "the day," never able 
 to break the spell woven around them on the 
 
 224
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 ill-fated Manxman. There was his nonny-bag, 
 in it already the sugar and oatmeal, the ration 
 of pork, and the small bottle of brandy, that 
 each year he kept ready when the 10th of 
 March came round the day on which the 
 sealers leave for the ice fields. The new idea 
 that his life was of value for the child's sake 
 sent a half-guilty feeling through him, lest he 
 be caught looking at these implements, where 
 they lay with his old converted flintlock gun 
 on the rack above the still glowing stove. Sh! 
 The child on the settle muttered something in 
 her sleep, and the old man, rigid as an ice 
 block, stood listening to her breathing, as if he 
 were a burglar robbing a rich man's bedroom, 
 in which the owner himself lay sleeping. But 
 she quieted down again, and once more he 
 breathed freely. 
 
 At last he was ready, all but the big coat. 
 Well, he could do without that. If he were not 
 back before dark the difference it would make 
 would anyhow be negligible. There was no 
 time to delay. He must go now or never; and 
 the indomitable old warrior stooped over to 
 
 225
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 kiss the child good-bye, though he dare only 
 touch with his lips the golden hair, for fear of 
 waking her. Then in his simple way he breathed 
 a wordless prayer, committing her to God's 
 keeping, and, stealthily letting himself out, 
 made straight for the likeliest part of the head- 
 land from which to take the ice. 
 
 As one thinks now of that old man setting 
 out alone over that endless ocean of ice, one 
 wonders if one has one's self ever attempted 
 anything heroic. But Uncle Rube thought only 
 of one thing that morning of foiling his arch 
 enemy on the Red Island Shoals; and though 
 nearly fourscore years had passed over him, 
 he felt like a lad of twenty as he strode rapidly 
 along towards the landwash. 
 
 Of course he must haul his boat, but that he 
 could easily do. Had he not built her himself 
 expressly, small, and of half-inch planking over 
 the lightest of frames, with two bilge streaks 
 to act as runners, and flat-bottomed that she 
 should drag well over snow? When at length 
 he had launched her over the "ballicater" ice, 
 
 and had pulled her clear of the cracks by the 
 
 226
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 landwash, he stopped and spent a grudgingly 
 spared moment in lighting his pipe. Then, 
 heigho, and away for the open sea out on to 
 which he marched with his head erect and his 
 old heart dauntless, like the peaceful Minute- 
 Men of 1776. 
 
 Meanwhile an ever-increasing crowd of men, 
 women, and even children were pouring from 
 apparently nowhere out on to the floe. The 
 young men were "copying," as we say, over 
 the ice, that is, jumping from pan to pan as 
 they ventured far out from the land seeking 
 the seals which the running ice, driving out 
 before the wind, had brought down from the 
 Gulf, and then killing them, and hauling them 
 back into safety. 
 
 It was from them that I subsequently 
 learned the story of the day. Before night fell 
 the wind had risen, and blew directly from 
 the land. Snow began to fall soon after mid- 
 day, and by sundown a living blizzard howled 
 over the frozen ocean. None of the distant 
 neighbors had seen Uncle Rube set out; none 
 of them even knew that he had left his house; 
 
 227
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 no one before ever heard of his doing such a 
 thing as start out on the ice alone. Nor was it 
 till the next day that a half -frozen little girl, 
 who was heard crying in the snow in front of 
 a neighbor's house, disclosed the secret that 
 Uncle Rube was missing. 
 
 How had they known at all that there were 
 seals on the ice that day? Known? Why, Mark 
 Seaforth had gone all along the coast telling 
 them early in the morning. He had got the 
 news from the lighthouse, and it was the oldest 
 of customs to give all hands a chance whenever 
 the seals were sighted driving alongshore. 
 
 It had not been the material ear drum to 
 which the old man had listened for his sailing 
 orders. On that day especially he had heard 
 with other ears, and all the coast freed Mark 
 from any blame for the old sailor's having 
 understood "ships" instead of "seals." 
 
 Late in the sealing season of that same year 
 the good ship Artemis, a stout, steel-sheathed 
 ice hunter, a unit of the modern fleet that have 
 long ago displaced the wooden schooners that 
 
 once in hundreds followed the seal herds, was 
 
 228
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 steaming north to finish up shooting old harps 
 in the swatches, having lost a number of her 
 pans in bad weather farther south. Seals were 
 scarce on the west side, and the wireless had 
 warned the skipper that a patch of old seals 
 was passing eastward through the Straits. 
 Cape Bauld Light had been sighted, and so 
 also had the new light on Belle Isle. The bar- 
 relmen were eagerly scanning the ice for any 
 signs of the expected herd. 
 
 "Something black on the ice on the port 
 bow!" shouted the man from the foretop. 
 
 "Where away?" answered the master of 
 the bridge. 
 
 "About four points to the northwest." 
 
 "Hard astarboard!" from the bridge. 
 
 "Starboard hard!" from the wheel, and the 
 big ship wheeled a course direct for the Red 
 Island Shoals. 
 
 "Steady!" from the bridge. 
 
 "Steady it is!" And the Artemis wheeled a 
 little more, and leaving the shoals on her right, 
 steamed towards the object that had attracted 
 the attention of the watch. The bridge mas-
 
 Labrador Days 
 
 ter, viewing it through his glasses, suddenly 
 stopped short, fixing his gaze on the spot with 
 far more than his wonted intensity. 
 
 "What is it, John?" he said to the watch- 
 man. "Seems queer to me. It's no seal, I'll 
 swear." 
 
 John took the glasses, and, putting them to 
 
 his eyes, made out at once what the object was. 
 
 * 'T is a small boat upside down and yes, 
 
 there 's a man's body for certain, stretched out 
 
 beside it," he announced in a subdued voice. 
 
 "Go slow!" to the engine man. 
 
 "Slow!" rang back the watchful engineer. 
 
 "Stop her!" and over the side went half a 
 dozen men. 
 
 "Take that hatch over, and bring in the 
 man off the ice." 
 
 All the crew, some three hundred blackened 
 figures, were now leaning over the rail to see 
 the evidence of this latest tragedy. No one 
 knew him, or could even guess where he and 
 his boat had come from, or on what strange 
 quest he had been bound. Those ice pans might 
 have come from any where along the hundreds 
 
 230
 
 The Red Island Shoals 
 
 of miles between Anticosti and Cape Chidley. 
 To these men, it was just the body of an old 
 man, a stranger. Not much loss. He could not 
 have lived many more years, anyhow. Prob- 
 ably no one would miss him. No need to 
 trouble over it. A prompt burial at sea, 
 thought the captain, would be as good as on 
 the land, where a grave was an impossibility 
 now, anyhow. Besides, he was obviously an 
 old seaman, and what could be more appro- 
 priate? Moreover, the crew would rather have 
 it so than to carry the corpse around while 
 they were seal-hunting. 
 
 There was no parson aboard, but the skipper 
 was a God-fearing man. So the flags were 
 hauled to half-mast, the ship hove to the 
 wind, the crew called on deck just as they 
 were, and when the skipper had read a brief 
 prayer, "in sure and certain hope" the body 
 of Uncle Reuben Marston, vanquished by his 
 enemy at last, was committed to the deep 
 within a biscuit toss of the Red Island Shoals. 
 
 THE END
 
 (Cfte 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A
 
 S R L F 
 SEE SPINE FOR BARCODE NUMBER