Dr. Grenfell may be described as the “Good Angel of Labrador,”
having for years devoted himself to ministering to the hardy
toilers who live in that grim land of snow, ice, and fog. In
this enthralling story he describes how, while on an errand of
mercy, he and his dog-team got adrift in the open sea on a tiny
cake of ice; how he killed three of the dogs to provide himself
with warm clothing; how he made a flagstaff out of their bones;
and how he was finally rescued when hope was well-nigh dead.
It was Easter Sunday, but still winter with us, and everything was
covered with snow and ice. Immediately after morning service word
came from our hospital to say that messengers with a large team of
dogs had come from sixty miles to the southward to get a doctor for a
very urgent case--that of a young man on whom we had operated about a
fortnight before for an acute bone disease in the thigh.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR, DR. WILFRED T. GRENFELL, C.M.G.
_From a Photo. by De Youngs, New York._]
There was obviously no time to be lost, so, having packed up the
necessary instruments, dressings, and drugs, and fitted out the sleigh
with my best dogs, I left at once, the messengers following me with
their own team.
Late in April there is always a risk of getting wet through on the ice,
so that I was prepared with a spare outfit, which included, besides a
change of garments, snow-shoes, rifle, compass, an axe, and oilskin
over clothes.
My dogs, being a powerful team, would not be held back, and though I
managed to wait twice for the other sleigh I had reached a village
about twenty miles on the journey before nightfall, had fed the dogs,
and was gathering one or two people for prayers, when they caught me up.
During the night the wind shifted to the north-east. This brought in
fog and rain, softened the snow, and made travelling very bad, besides
sending a heavy sea into the bay. Our drive next morning would be
somewhat over forty miles--the first ten miles across a wide arm of the
sea, on salt-water ice.
In order not to be separated too long from my friends, I sent them
ahead two hours before me, appointing a rendezvous at a log shanty we
had built in the woods for a half-way house. There is no one living
along all that lengthy coast-line, and so, in case of accident, we keep
dry clothes, food, and drugs at the hut.
The first rain of the year was falling when I left, and I was obliged
to keep on what we call the “ballicaters,” or ice barricades, much
farther up the bay than I had expected. The sea of the night before had
smashed up the ponderous covering of ice right to the land-wash, and
great gaping chasms between the enormous blocks, which we call “pans,”
made it impossible to get off. As soon as I topped the first hill
outside the village I could see that half a mile out it was all clear
water.
An island which lies off about three miles in the bay had preserved a
bridge of ice, however, and by crossing a few cracks I managed to reach
this island. The arm of the bay beyond this point is only about four
miles straight across. This would bring me to a rocky promontory and
would save some miles on the round. As far as the eye could see the ice
seemed good, though it was very rough. Obviously it had been smashed up
by the sea, and packed in again by the strong wind from the north-east,
but I judged it had frozen solid together again.
I set off to cross this stretch, and all went well till I was about a
quarter of a mile from the landing-point. Then the wind suddenly fell,
and I noticed I was travelling over loose “sish” ice, almost of the
consistency of porridge; by stabbing down, I could drive my whip-handle
clean through it. This “sish” ice consists of the tiny fragments made
by large pans pounding together on the heaving sea.
So strongly did the breeze now come off-shore, and so quickly did
the packed mass, relieved of the wind pressure, begin to scatter,
that already I could not see one floe larger than ten feet square. I
realized at once that retreat was absolutely impossible; the only thing
to be done was to make a dash for it and try to reach the shore.
There was not a moment to lose, so I tore off my oilskins, threw myself
out on my hands and knees by the side of the _komatik_ to give a larger
base to hold, and shouted to the dogs to go ahead.
Before we had gone twenty yards, the animals, divining their peril,
hesitated for a moment, and the _komatik_ instantly sank into the
slush. It then became necessary for the dogs to pull, and they promptly
began to sink in also. Earlier in the season the father of the very man
I was going to operate on had been drowned by his dogs tangling their
traces around him in the “slob.” This unpleasant fact now flashed into
my mind, and I managed to loosen my sheath-knife, scramble forward,
find the traces in the water, and cut them, meanwhile taking a turn
with the leader’s trace around my wrist.
There was a pan of ice some twenty-five yards away, about the size of a
dining-table, and on to this the leader very shortly climbed. The other
dogs, however, were hopelessly bogged in the slushy ice and water.
[Illustration: “ONE OF THE DOGS GOT ON TO MY SHOULDERS, PUSHING ME
FARTHER DOWN IN THE ICE.”]
Gradually I hauled myself along the leader’s line towards the pan,
till he suddenly turned round and slipped out of his harness. It was
impossible to make any progress through the “sish” ice by swimming, so
I lay there helplessly, thinking it would soon be over, and wondering
if anyone would ever know how the tragedy happened. Suddenly I saw the
trace of another big dog, who had himself fallen through just before
he reached the pan. Along this I hauled myself, using the animal as a
bow anchor, but much bothered by the other dogs, one of which, in his
struggle for life, got on to my shoulders, pushing me farther down in
the ice. Presently, however, I passed my living anchor, and soon, with
my dogs around me, I lay on the little piece of ice. I had to help the
dogs on to it, though they were able to work their way to me through
the lane of water that I had made.
We were safe for the moment, yet it was obvious that we must be drowned
before long if we remained on this little fragment, so, taking off my
moccasins, coat, gloves, and cap, and everything that I could spare, I
tied my knife and moccasins separately on to the backs of the dogs. My
only hope of life seemed to be to get ashore at once. Had I been able
to divine the long drift before me, I might have saved, in the same way
as I saved my knife, a small bag of food. The moccasins, made of tanned
sealskin, came right up to my thigh, and, as they were filled with
water, I thought they accounted for my being able to make no progress.
Taking the long traces from all the dogs but the two lightest, I gave
them the full length of the lines, tied the near ends around my own
wrists, and tried to make the animals go ahead. Nothing would induce
them to move, however, and though I threw them off the pan two or
three times, they always struggled back on to it. Fortunately, I had
with me a small black spaniel, a featherweight, with large furry paws,
something like snow-shoes, who will retrieve for me. I threw a piece
of ice for him, and he managed to get over the “slob” after it, on to
another pan about twenty yards away. The other dogs followed him and
after much painful struggling all of them got on but one.
Taking all the run I could get on my little pan, I made a rush,
slithering with the impetus along the surface till once more I sank
through. After a tough fight I was able to haul myself by the long
traces on to this new pan. I had taken care this time to tie the
harnesses, to which I was holding, under the dogs’ bellies, so that
they could not slip them off. But the pan I was now on was still not
enough to bear us, and so this exhausting process had to be repeated
immediately to avoid sinking with it.
I now realized, much to my dismay, that though we had been working
towards the land we had been losing ground all the time, for the
off-shore wind had now driven us a hundred yards farther out. The
widening gap was full of pounded ice, which rose to the surface as the
pressure lessened. Through this no man could possibly make his way.
I was now resting on a floe about ten feet by twenty, which, when I
came to examine it, was not ice at all, but simply snow-covered “slob,”
frozen into a mass, and which I feared would very soon break up in the
general turmoil and the heavy sea, which was continually increasing as
the ice drove offshore before the wind.
At first we drifted in the direction of a rocky point on which a heavy
surf was breaking, and I made up my mind, if there was clear water in
the surf, to try to swim for the land. But suddenly we struck a rock,
a large piece broke off the already small pan, and what was left swung
around in the backwash and went right off to sea. I saw then that my
pan was about a foot thick.
There was nothing now for it but to hope for rescue. Alas! there was no
possibility of being seen by human eyes. As I have already mentioned,
no one lives round this big bay. It was just possible, however, that
the people on the other _komatik_, knowing I was alone and had failed
to keep my tryst, would, perhaps, come back to look for me. This,
however, they did not do.
Meanwhile the westerly wind--our coldest wind at this time of the
year--was rising rapidly. It was very tantalizing, as I stood there
with next to nothing on, the wind going through me, and every stitch
soaked in ice-water, to see my _komatik_ some fifty yards away. It was
still above water, packed with food, hot tea in a Thermos bottle, dry
clothing, matches, wood, and everything for making a fire to attract
attention, if I should drive out far enough for someone to see me--and
yet it was quite beyond my reach.
It is easy to see a black object on the ice in the day-time, for its
gorgeous whiteness shows off the least thing. But, alas! the tops of
bushes and large pieces of kelp have so often deceived those looking
out that the watcher hesitates a long time before he takes action.
Moreover, within our memory no man has ever been thus adrift on the bay
ice. The chances were one in a thousand that I would be seen at all,
and, even if I were, I should probably be mistaken for a fragment of
driftwood or kelp.
To keep from freezing I took my long moccasins, strung out some line,
split the legs, and made a kind of jacket, which preserved my back from
the wind down as far as the waist.
I had not drifted more than half a mile before I saw my poor _komatik_
disappear through the ice, which was every minute loosening up into
small pans. The loss of the sledge seemed like that of a friend, and
one more tie with home and safety lost.
By midday I had passed the island and was moving out into the
ever-widening bay. It was scarcely safe to stir on the pan for fear of
breaking it, and yet I saw I must have the skins of some of my dogs--of
which there were eight on the pan--if I was to live the night out.
There was now from three to five miles of ice between me and the north
side of the bay, so I could plainly see there was no hope of being
picked up that day, even if seen, for no boat could get out.
Unwinding the sealskin traces from my waist, around which I had them
coiled to keep the dogs from eating them, I made a slip-knot and passed
it over the first dog’s head, tied it round my foot close to its neck,
threw him on his back, and stabbed him to the heart. Poor beast! I
loved him like a friend, but we could not all hope to live. In fact, at
that time I had no hope that any of us would, but it seemed better to
die fighting.
In the same way I sacrificed two more large dogs, receiving a couple of
bites in the process, though I fully expected that the pan would break
up in the struggle. A short shrift seemed to me better than a long
one, and I envied the dead dogs, whose troubles were over so quickly.
Indeed, I began to debate in my mind whether, if once I passed into
the open sea, it would not be better by far to use my faithful knife
on myself than to die by inches. There seemed no horror whatever in
the thought; I seemed fully to sympathize with the Japanese view of
_hara-kiri_. Working, however, saved me from dangerous philosophizing.
By the time I had skinned the dogs and strung the skins together with
some rope unravelled from the harnesses I was ten miles on my way and
it was already getting dark.
Away to the northward I could now see a single light in the little
village where I had slept the night before. One could not help
picturing them sitting down to tea, little thinking that there was
anyone watching them, for I had told them not to expect me back for
four days. I could also see the peaceful little school-house on the
hill, where many times I had gathered the people for prayer.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR’S DOG TEAM.
_From a Photograph._]
I had now frayed out some rope into oakum and mixed it with some fat
from the intestines of my dogs, with the idea of making a flare. But
I discovered that my match-box, which was always chained to me, had
leaked, and my precious matches were in pulp. Had I been able to make
a light, it would have looked so unearthly out there on the ice that I
felt sure they would have seen me. However, I kept the matches, hoping
that I might be able to dry them if I lived through the night. While
working at the dead dogs, about every five minutes I would stand up and
wave my hands towards the land. I had no flag and I could not spare my
shirt, for, wet as it was, it was better than nothing in that freezing
wind, and, anyhow, it was nearly dark.
Unfortunately, the coves in among the cliffs are so placed that only
for a very narrow space can the people in any house see the sea.
Indeed, most of them cannot see the sea at all, so that whether it was
possible for anyone to see me I could not tell, even supposing it had
been daylight.
Not daring to take any snow from the surface of my pan to break the
wind with, I piled up the carcasses of the dogs. Moreover, I could now
sit down on the skin rug without finding myself in a pool of water,
thawed out by my own heat. During these hours I had continually taken
off all my things, wrung them out, swung them in the wind, and put on
first one and then the other inside, hoping that what heat there was
in my body would thus serve to dry them. In this I had been fairly
successful.
My feet were the most trouble, for they immediately got wet again on
account of my thin moccasins being easily soaked through on the snow. I
suddenly thought of the way in which the Lapps, who tend our reindeer,
manage to dry socks. They carry grass with them, which they ravel up
and put into the shoe. Into this they put their feet, and then pack the
rest with more grass, tying up the top with a binder. The ropes of the
harness for our dogs are carefully “served” all over with two layers
of flannel, in order to make them soft against the animal’s sides. So,
as soon as I could sit down, I started with my trusty knife to rip up
the flannel. Though my fingers were more or less frozen, I was able to
ravel out the rope, put it into my shoes, and use my wet socks inside
my knicker-bockers, where, though damp, they served to break the wind.
Then, tying the narrow strips of flannel together, I bound up the tops
of the moccasins, Lapp fashion, and carried the bandage on up over my
knee, making a ragged though most excellent puttee.
In order to run easily and fast with our dogs in the spring of the
year, when the weather is usually warm, we wear very light clothing;
thus we do not perspire at midday and freeze at night. It chanced
that I had recently opened a box of football garments which I had not
seen for twenty years. I had found my old Oxford University running
“shorts,” and a pair of Richmond Football Club stockings of red,
yellow, and black, exactly as I wore them twenty years ago. These,
with a flannel shirt and sweater, were all I now had left. Coat, hat,
gloves, oilskins--everything else--were gone, and I stood there in
that odd costume exactly as I stood in the old days on a football
field. These garments, being very light, dried all the quicker until
afternoon; then nothing would dry any more, everything freezing stiff.
My occupation till what seemed like midnight was unravelling rope, and
with this I padded out my knickers inside and my shirt as well, though
it was a clumsy job, for I could not see what I was doing. Now, getting
my largest dog, as big as a wolf and weighing ninety-two pounds, I made
him lie down in order that I could cuddle around him. I then piled the
three skins so that I could lie on one edge, while the other came just
over my shoulders and head.
My own breath, collecting inside the newly-flayed skin, must have had
a soporific effect, for I was soon fast asleep. One hand I had plunged
down inside the curled-up dog, but the other hand, being gloveless, had
frozen, and I suddenly woke, shivering enough, I thought, to break my
pan. What I took to be the sun was just rising, but I soon found it was
the moon, and then I knew it was about half past twelve. The dog was
having an excellent time; he had not been cuddled up so warmly all the
winter. He resented my moving with low growls, till he found it wasn’t
another dog.
The wind was steadily driving me now towards the open sea, where, short
of a miracle, I could expect nothing but death.
Still I had only this hope--that my pan would probably be opposite
another village, called Goose Cove, at daylight, and might possibly
be seen from there. I knew that the _komatiks_ would be starting at
daybreak over the hills for a parade of Orangemen about twenty miles
away. I might, therefore, be seen as they climbed the hills, though the
cove does not open seaward. So I lay down and went to sleep again.
I woke some time later with a sudden thought in my mind that I must
have a flag to signal with. So I set to work at once in the dark to
disarticulate the legs of my dead dogs, which were now frozen stiff,
and seemed to offer the only chance of forming a pole to carry a flag.
Cold as it was, I determined to sacrifice my shirt for that purpose
with the first streak of daylight. It took a long time in the dark to
get the legs off, and when I had patiently marled them together with
old harness rope they formed the heaviest and crookedest flag-post it
has ever been my lot to see. Still it had the advantage of not being so
cold to hold, because the skin on the paws made it unnecessary to hold
the frozen meat with my bare hands.
What had awakened me this time, I found, was that the pan had swung
around and the shelter made by my dogs’ bodies was on the wrong side,
for, though there was a very light air, the evaporation it caused
from my wet clothes made quite a difference. I had had no food since
six o’clock the morning before, when I had porridge and bread and
butter. I had, however, a rubber band on instead of one of my garters,
and I chewed that for twenty-four hours. It saved me from thirst and
hunger, oddly enough. I did not drink from the ice of my pan, for it
was salt-water snow and ice. Moreover, in the night the salt water had
lapped up over the edges, for the pan was on a level with the sea. From
time to time I heard the cracking and grinding of the newly formed
“slob,” and it seemed that my little floe must inevitably soon go to
pieces.
At last the sun really did rise, and the time came for the sacrifice
of my shirt. I stripped, and, much to my surprise and pleasure, did
not find it was half so cold as I had anticipated. I now reformed my
dog-skins, with the raw side out, so that they made a kind of coat,
quite rivalling Joseph’s. But with the rising of the sun the frost
came out of the joints of my dogs’ legs, and the friction--caused, I
suppose, by waving it--made my flag-pole almost tie itself in knots.
Still, I could raise it three or four feet above my head, which seemed
very important.
Now, however, I found that, instead of having drifted as far as I had
reckoned, I was only off some cliffs called Ireland Head, near which
there is a little village looking seaward, whence I should certainly
have been seen had the time been summer. But as I had myself, earlier
in the season, been night-bound at the place, I had learnt there was
not a single soul living there in the winter. The people had all, as
usual, migrated to their winter houses up the bay, where they get
together for schooling and social purposes.
It was impossible to wave so heavy a flag as mine all the time, and
yet I dared not sit down, for that might be the exact moment someone
would be in a position to see me from the hills. The only thing in my
mind was how long I could stand up, and how long go on waving that pole
at the cliffs. Once or twice I thought I saw men against their snowy
faces, which I judged were about five or six miles from me. In reality,
however, all the time I knew in my heart of hearts that the black
specks were only trees. Once, also, I thought I saw a boat approaching.
A glittering object kept appearing and disappearing on the water, but
it was merely a small piece of ice sparkling in the sun as it rose on
the surface.
Physically I felt as well as ever I did in my life, and with the hope
of a long sunny day I felt sure I was good to last another twenty-four
hours if my ice-raft would only hold out. I determined to kill a big
Eskimo dog I had at midday and drink his blood (only a few days before
I had been reading an account of the sustaining properties of dogs’
blood in Dr. Nansen’s book) if I survived the battle with him.
I could not help feeling, even then, my ludicrous position, and I
thought if I ever got ashore again I would have to laugh at myself
standing hour after hour waving my shirt at those lofty cliffs, which
seemed to assume a kind of sardonic grin, so that I could almost
imagine they were laughing at me. I thought of the good breakfast my
colleagues were enjoying just at the back of those same cliffs, and of
the snug fire and comfortable room which we call our study.
I can honestly say that from first to last not a single sensation
of fear entered my mind, even when struggling in the “slob” ice. It
all seemed so natural; I had been through the ice half-a-dozen times
before. Now I merely felt sleepy, and the idea was very strong in my
mind that I should soon reach the solution of the mysteries that I had
been preaching about for so many years.
It was a perfect morning, a cobalt sky and an ultramarine sea, a golden
sun, and an almost wasteful extravagance of crimson pouring over hills
of purest snow, which caught and reflected its glories from every peak
and crag. Between me and their feet lay miles of rough ice, bordered
with the black “slob” formed during the night. Lastly, there was my
poor little pan in the fore-ground, bobbing up and down on the edge
of the open sea, stained with blood, and littered with carcasses and
_débris_. It was smaller than last night; the edges, beating against
the new ice around, had heaped themselves up in fragments that, owing
to its diminutive size, it could ill spare. I also noticed that the new
ice from the water melted under the dogs’ bodies had also been formed
at the expense of its thickness. Five dogs and myself in a coloured
football costume and a blood-smeared dog-skin cloak, with a grey
flannel shirt on a pole of frozen dogs’ legs, completed the picture.
The sun was almost hot by now, and I was conscious of a surplus of heat
in my skin cloak. I began to look longingly at one of my remaining
dogs, for an appetite will rise even on an ice pan. The idea of eating
made me think of fire, so once again I inspected my matches. Alas! the
heads had entirely soaked off them all, except three or four blue-top
wax matches which were in a paste. These I now laid out to dry, and
I searched around on my snow pan to see if I could get a bit of
transparent ice with which to make a burning-glass, for I was pretty
sure that, with all the unravelled tow stuffed into my nether garments
and the fat of the dead dogs, I could make smoke enough to be seen if I
could only get a light.
I had found a piece which it seemed might answer the purpose, and
had gone back to wave my flag, which I did every two minutes, when
suddenly, for the second time, I thought I saw the glitter of an oar.
It did not seem possible, however, for it must be remembered that it
was not water that lay between me and the land, but “slob” ice, which,
a mile or two inshore of me, was very heavy. Even if people had seen
me, I did not think they could get through, though I knew all of them
would be trying. Moreover, there was no smoke rising on the land to
give me hope that I had been seen. There had been no gun flashes in the
night, and I felt sure that, had anyone seen me, there would have been
a bonfire on every hill to encourage me to keep going. So I gave it up
and went on with my work. But the next time I went back to my flag it
seemed very distinct, and though it kept disappearing as we rose and
fell on the surface, my readers can well imagine I kept my eyes in that
direction. Through my dark spectacles having been lost, however, I was
already partly snow-blind.
I waved the flag as high as I could raise it in a direction to be
broadside towards those places where I thought people might have gone
out around the ice after ducks, which is their main occupation a little
later in the year. I hoped that they might then see my flag and come
straight on for me. At last, beside the glitter of a white oar, I made
out the black speck of a hull. I knew then if the pan held out for
another hour that I should be all right.
With that strange perversity of the human intellect, the first thing I
thought of when I realized that a rescue boat was under way was what
trophies I could carry with my luggage from the pan! I pictured the
dog-bone flagstaff adorning my study--the dogs intervened, however, and
ate it later on--and I thought of preserving my ragged puttees in my
museum.
I could see that my rescuers were frantically waving, and when they
came within shouting distance I heard someone shout, “Don’t get
excited; keep on the pan, where you are.” As a matter of fact, they
were infinitely more excited than I. Already it seemed just as natural
to me now to be saved as half an hour before it seemed inevitable that
I should be lost. Had my rescuers only known, as I did, the sensations
of a bath in the ice when you cannot dry yourself afterwards, they need
not have expected me to throw myself into the water.
At last the boat came up, crashing into my pan with such violence
that I was glad enough to catch hold of the bow, being more or less
acquainted by now with the frail constitution of my floe, and being
well aware it was not adapted for collisions. Moreover, I felt for the
pan, for it had been a good and faithful friend to me.
A hearty handshake all round and a warm cup of tea--thoughtfully packed
in a kettle--inside, and we hoisted in my remaining dogs and instantly
started back, for even then a change of wind might have penned the boat
with ice, which would have cost us dearly. Indeed, the men thought we
could not return, and we started for an island, in which direction the
way was all open.
[Illustration: “I COULD SEE THAT MY RESCUERS WERE FRANTICALLY WAVING.”]
There were not only five Newfoundland fishermen at the oars, but five
men with Newfoundland muscles in their backs and arms and five as brave
hearts as ever beat in the bodies of human beings. So we presently
changed our course and forced our way through to the shore.
To my intense astonishment they told me that the night before four
men had been out on a point of land, from which the bay is visible,
cutting some dead harp seals out from a store. The ice had been
extraordinarily hard, and it had taken them till seven o’clock at night
to cut out twenty-four seals. Just at the very moment before they left
for home, my pan of ice had drifted out clear of the island called
Hare Island, and one of them, with his keen fisherman’s eyes, had seen
something unusual. They at once returned to their village, saying there
was a man on a pan, but they had been discredited, for the people there
thought it could only be the top of some tree.
All the time I had been driving along I knew well that there was one
man on the coast who had a good spy-glass, and that he had twelve
children, among them some of the hardiest young men on the coast. Many
times my thoughts had wandered to him, for his sons are everywhere,
hunting seals and everything else. It was his sons, and another man
with them, who saw me, and were now with him in the boat. The owner
of the spy-glass told me he got up instantly in the middle of tea on
hearing the news, and hurried over the cliff to the look-out with his
glass. Immediately, dark as it was, he made out that there really was
a man out on the ice. Indeed, he saw me wave my hands every now and
again towards the shore. By a process of reasoning very easy on so
unfrequented a shore, they immediately knew who it was, but tried to
argue themselves out of their conviction. They went down at once to
try and launch a boat, but found it absolutely impossible. Miles of
ice lay between them and me, the heavy sea was hurling great blocks on
the land-wash, and night was already falling, with the wind blowing
hard on shore. These brave fellows, however, did not sit down idly.
The whole village was aroused, messengers dispatched at once along the
coast, and look-outs told off to all the favourable points, so that
while I considered myself a laughing-stock, waving my flag at those
irresponsive cliffs, there were really men’s eyes watching from them
all the time.
Every soul in the village was on the beach as we neared the shore,
and everybody wanted to shake hands when I landed. Even with the grip
that one after another gave me, some no longer trying to keep back
the tears, I did not find out that my hands were frost-bitten--a fact
I have not been slow to appreciate since. A weird sight I must have
looked as I stepped ashore--tied up in rags stuffed out with oakum,
wrapped in the blood-stained skins of dogs, with no hat, coat, or
gloves, and only a short pair of knickers on! It must have seemed to
some of them as if the Old Man of the Sea had landed.
No time was wasted before a pot of tea was exactly where I wanted it to
be, and some hot stew was locating itself where I had intended an hour
before that the blood of one of my remaining dogs should have gone.
Rigged out in the warm garments that fishermen wear, I started with a
large team as hard as I could race for hospital, for I had learnt that
the news had gone over that I was lost. It was soon painfully impressed
upon me that I could not much enjoy the ride; I had to be hauled like a
log up the hills, my feet being frost-bitten so that I could not walk.
Had I guessed this before I might have avoided much trouble.
We all love life, and I was glad to be back once more with a new
lease of it before me. My colleague soon had me “fixed up,” and I was
presently enjoying a really refreshing sleep.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR AS HE APPEARED AFTER HIS TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE
ON THE ICE FLOE, SHOWING THE FLAG-STAFF MADE OF DOGS’ BONES.
_From a Photograph._]
(Copyright, 1908, by Fleming H. Revell Company.)
THE WIDE WORLD: In Other Magazines.