the tail of the fallen monarch. He threw the meat to the dogs, who had
it down in a gulp and a swallow and then stood with their ears up,
like the Jack-in-the-pulpit, to know if there would be more.
"No, boys, that's enough to start back on!" He produced straps and
ropes from the bread-bag and rigged up a harness so that the dogs
might haul the seal, giving himself the end of a rope, to pull more
than his share of the heavy carcass.
"Wisht we could git a coupla polar bears too!" he laughed. "But I
don't know how we could pull to the shore any more'n what we got
here. Well, when we've got this et we'll be comin' back fer more,
won't we, boys?"
And the dogs, tugging and wagging as they plodded shoreward, seemed to
agree.
In spite of the weight of the seal, the trip back did not seem nearly
so long. For you know how it is--when your heart is light any burden
you carry doesn't count for nearly so much.
Tom Bradley in spite of pulling so hard was singing to himself like a
kettle on a stove. And the dogs, too, would have spared breath to bark
joyously, if huskies ever barked. But no well-bred husky makes remarks
of that sort.
Tom stopped to rest, and sat on an ice-hummock, the dogs with their
heads against his knee, their tongues lolling out.
"'Member that time we chased the ole bear?" he laughed. "That was the
time I couldn't do nothing with you! You was young dogs then, an' you
got so excited you wouldn't listen to nothin'!
"You just went a-racin' an' a-tearin' on from the time you seen 'im.
O' course, as a driver don't have no reins, an' we only got a whip,
we can't pull you up if you really wanta go. We can just holler
'left' an' 'right' an' 'stop' an' 'go ahead.' But my oh my! We sure
did stack up against trouble that day.
"You an' the rest o' the team, you waded right into that bear before
I'd got you cut loose from the traces. The air was full o' bear-meat
an' dog-fur flyin'. Guess the bear didn't know no difference between
you an' wolves. There's many a man has made the same mistake.
"There was old Mr. Bear standin' up on his hind legs battin' away like
he was wound up, handin' out punishment like it was a boxin' match,
and you fellows hollerin' bloody murder.
"You done more'n wolves would 'a' done. Wolves wouldn't 'a' tackled a
bear that way--unless it was a great big crowd o' wolves an' one lone,
lorn, small bear.
"He was a buster, he was, an' there was only six o' you. But you stood
right up-ta him all right! You remember, don't you?"
Jim and Jack flopped their tails on the ice as if to say yes. Their
mouths were wide open--it looked as if they were laughing in delight
to be reminded of the battle.
"Say, you dogs certainly are the willin', hard-workin' fellers when
you're fed up right. I believe you'd rather haul a sled than eat. You
rascals! 'Member the time you et my gloves just as I was goin' to
start? I had to larrup outa you that trick you had when you was young
o' gobblin' your own harness when you wasn't watched. I sure do hate
to hit you. One o' these whips 'll bite a hole in a door twenty feet
off: I've seen ole Pop Rinker drive a nail in a board with one.
"When we get back, if that ther Dr. Grenfell has come we'll get some
other dogs an' take him out for a ride. He'll have to have a team o'
dogs. Can't get along in this country without you dogs--not till they
have reindeer. Heaven knows, the Doctor'll have miles and miles o'
country to cover, to get round to all the people hereabouts that needs
him. Ain't it a great an' mighty blessin' this country's now a-goin'
to have a doctor all our own, all our very own?"
When they got back to the hamlet with their seal, there was a
jollification.
Tom Bradley could have been Mayor, or King, or anything he wanted.
There was plenty of one thing in that place--and that was fire-wood,
from the spruces and firs alongshore.
So they built a monstrous pyramid, big enough to cook twenty seals,
and round the community bonfire they collected, dogs and all, for a
feast. The children shouted in glee and clapped their hands. The
mothers were happier for themselves than for their babies. And their
joy was the greater because word had come that Dr. Grenfell was
finding his way in the little steamer, the _Julia Sheridan_, through a
channel behind the islands and was likely to be in their midst at any
hour of any day.
Next day, the Doctor came. Such hand-shaking and back-slapping and
outcries of honest pleasure as greeted him! And from the very first
minute there were anxious appeals for his aid.
"Doctor, would ye please come to see my old woman?"
"What's the matter with her?"
"Oh, Doctor, she does be took wonderful bad. Sometimes the wind rises
an' it goes all up an' down an' it settles in her teeth an' the pains
shoots her in the stummick an' we has to take hold of her arms an'
pull 'em out and she howls like a dog an' we dunno what's the matter.
Would you please come an' see? She's askin' us to kill her she's in
such punishment, but us didn't think us'd ought to do it without
askin' you. Would you please come 'n' see?"
In that first winter Grenfell was "at home" three Sundays only, and he
had to cover fifteen hundred miles behind the dogs. Sometimes they
were heart-breaking, bone-racking miles. Sometimes they were as smooth
and easy as a skating-rink. But not very often.
One day he had a run of seventy miles to make across the frozen
country.
The path was not broken out--it wasn't even cut and blazed.
Just once had the leading dog made the journey.
But because he had made it once--they left it all to him to choose the
way to go.
Straight on the good dog went, never stopping to turn round and look
in the face of the driver, the way dogs will.
The way--such as it was--took them over wide lakes, and through thick
woods deep-hung with snow.
"Halt!" called Grenfell. The driver gave the command to the dogs. They
stopped and rested while the men explored.
Sure enough, the leading dog was right. A climb to the top of a high
tree showed the "leads" and proved to the men that they were traveling
in the right direction: and the compass said so too.
Again and again they stopped--and every time it proved that the dog
was right.
On journey after journey of this kind, round about St. Anthony on that
far northern peninsula of Newfoundland, Grenfell and the dogs he drove
got to know and love one another better.
Grenfell has done seventy-five miles in a day easily: but how far one
goes depends on the state of the ice and snow and the roughness of the
trail: sometimes five miles a day is as much as the dogs, pulling
their very hearts out, are able to cover. Six miles an hour is an
average rate of speed when it is "good going." Once the Doctor made
twenty-one miles in a little more than two hours, over level ice.
The building of the sled, or komatik, is a most important matter. The
Doctor prefers one eleven feet long, of black spruce, with runners an
inch thick, covered with spring steel. With such a sled, and a good
team of dogs attached with proper traces, travel on firm and level
snow is an exhilarating experience. But a thousand and one things may
go wrong, the dogs when not running are forever picking bloody
quarrels, and continual vigilance is the price of a swift, smooth
passage.
A member of Grenfell's staff had crossed a neck of land between two
bays, and was "twenty miles from anywhere," when his dogs struck the
fresh trail of deer.
At such times the dogs are likely to take leave of all their senses
save the instinct of the chase. These plucky beasts were no exception
to the rule.
As they were short of food, the two teams were hitched to one sled,
and the other sled, laden, was left in charge of a boy, while the men
gave chase to the caribou. Like Casabianca on the burning deck, the
boy had been told not to stir from that chilly, lonesome spot.
But just as the men got under way, a terrible snowstorm sprang up from
nowhere, and so enveloped and bewildered the hunters that for two days
they wandered, till they lost all hope.
Then, by great good luck, starving and worn out, they came to a little
house many long and weary miles from where the boy was left with the
komatiks.
They sent a relief team back to find him. There he was, standing by
the sleds like a good, true soldier, just where they told him to
remain. He was bound to be faithful unto death, even though he should
freeze stiff for his obedience to orders.
Another time, the team was halted in a wood at nightfall, and Grenfell
and his comrades started to walk on snowshoes to the village six miles
distant.
They lost their way, and found themselves by nightfall at the foot of
steep cliffs which they could not get round, though the village was
hardly more than a mile away and its lights twinkled them a warm
yellow welcome like friendly eyes.
The only thing to do was to fight their way up and over the rocks. As
they came to the top, they found two tired men who knew the way, but
were so weary they had made up their minds to flop down in the snow
for the night.
But Grenfell started a fire, and served out some bits of sweet cake he
carried: so that presently they took heart to go on. If they had not
done so, they might all have frozen to death in the snow, for the
night was bitterly cold and they were perspiring from their hard work,
so that their clothes were turning as stiff as suits of armor with the
ice. As it was, the whole party reached the village safely, and came
back next day to find the dogs and the sleds and bring them in.
A lumber mill was started on a bay sixty miles below St. Anthony, and
a boiler weighing three tons was landed and set in place with the
whole neighborhood helping. After Christmas Grenfell decided to make
the run thither with the dogs from St. Anthony.
There was no trail. Most of the way the journey was through virgin
forest. There were windfalls and stumps and bushes with pointed rocks
amid the snow--offering no end of pitfalls where a man might break
his ankle and lie groaning and helpless as a wounded caribou till he
died.
Nobody they could find had ever made the trip. But they had to know
without delay how the boiler worked and how the mill was going. So off
they started, gay as a circus parade, telling themselves they would do
the distance in two days.
Not so. At the end of two days they were still wrangling with mean
little scrub bushes, fallen rotten logs and the pointed rocks
treacherously sheeted with ice and snow.
If they struggled to the top of a snow-laden spruce for an outlook,
all they saw was more of the same old thing--a scowling landscape of
white-clad woods and lonesome ponds. The compass always seemed to lead
them straight into the thick of the worst places.
They took the wrong turning to get round a big hill, and found a river
which they thought would lead them to the head of the bay where the
mill stood.
But the river was a raging torrent, which leapt among the rocks, made
rapids and falls, and left gaping holes in the ice into which the
dogs fell, snarling their traces and their tempers and many times
risking a broken leg.
Still the brave little beasts of burden strained and tugged forward,
encouraged by the shouts of the men.
They couldn't get away from the river, for the banks were too steep.
By and by they reached a ravine where the water boiled and churned and
raced along in its great rocky trough too rapidly to be frozen, even
by the intense cold that prevailed. It seemed as if they must be
halted here--but that is not the way with men of Newfoundland and the
Labrador.
The only thing to do was to chop a passage through the ice along the
bank--like making a tow-path for a canal.
After they had fought their way through the narrows, they yearned for
sleep. So they built a fire, and felled tree-trunks twenty feet long
into it, till they had a "gorgeous blaze." Then they dug holes in the
snow, deep as bear's dens, broke loose from their stiff, icy clothes,
got into their sleeping bags, and slept the sleep of the just till
the golden sun warmed them with its morning blessing.
The rest of the way gave them no trouble. They got a royal welcome
from the hands at the mill. It was such a great event, in fact, that a
holiday was declared, and all hands went "rabbiting." At the end of
the day they built another mighty fire of logs, gathered round it with
steaming cocoa and pork buns, and decided all over again that life was
worth living and that moving a lumber-mill on an Arctic fore-shore is
sheer fun, if you only think so.
Not long after an experimental fox farm was begun. The farm part of it
is not so hard as the foxes. All you need for the farm is a few poles
and some wire netting.
They picked up a dozen couples of foxes--red, white, cross, and one
silver pair. A Harvard professor describes moving day when foxes were
being brought on the little steamer to St. Anthony. "Dr. Grenfell at
one time had fifteen little foxes aboard.... Some of these little
animals had been brought aboard in blubber casks, and their coats were
very sticky. After a few days they were very tame and played with the
dogs; they were all over the deck, fell down the companionway, were
always having their tails and feet stepped on, and yelping for pain,
when not yelling for food. The long-suffering seaman who took care of
them said, 'I been cleaned out dat fox box. It do be shockin'. I been
in a courageous turmoil my time, but dis be de head smell ever I
witnessed.'"
[Illustration: CASTLES AND CATHEDRALS OF ICE AFLOAT]
Probably the fox farm suffered from too much publicity. A mother
silver fox is one of the scariest of creatures, and is known to "kill
her children to save their lives" when a thunderstorm comes on, or
visitors are alarming. Most fox farms are therefore in the depths of
the woods: and the path to them is kept a dark secret by the owners.
But the farmers at St. Anthony's were green to the business, and they
let the fishermen come in numbers to see the show, not realizing what
the consequences would be. The red and the cross foxes seemed pleased
to entertain guests; not so with the white foxes, and the precious
silver foxes were the shyest of all. Not a pup lived to grow up. Many
were born, but their parents killed them all. By and by, after a
mortal plague broke out among the animals, the farm was converted
into a garden with a glass frame for seeding vegetables.
But others, with more science at their command, developed a profitable
industry in Quebec, Labrador and in Prince Edward Island. In the year
the war began a silver vixen and her brood were sold for ten thousand
dollars. A wild fox, sold for twenty-five dollars, was resold for a
thousand. There is money in the business, properly conducted. For
those who want wild animals to have fair play, there is satisfaction
in the thought that to get fox fur by way of breeding is infinitely
more humane than to get it by way of the trap, whose cruel teeth may
hold the animals through hours and days of suffering till the hunter
comes.
V
SOME REAL SEA-DOGS
"Get out o' there, youse!"
A big raw-boned fisherman with an oar in his hand came running up the
stony beach at Hopedale.
The door of the little Moravian church was open. So were the windows.
And so were the mouths of a pack of dogs who were yowling their heads
off and trying to kill each other inside the church.
"That's just the way with them huskies!" panted Long Jim, as he
stumbled up the slope. "Can't leave 'em be ten minutes without their
gettin' into mischief. 'Tis a nice place they picked out for a fight
this time! I'll soon have 'em out o' there! They'll find out the house
o' God ain't no dog-house."
Swinging his oar right and left he dashed into the church.
Such a scene as met his eyes!
The dogs had been tearing the hymn-books apart as if they were slabs
of raw seal-meat. For the Eskimos had been handling the books with
their fingers fresh from cleaning fish and cutting up blubber. So that
to a dog's nose each book smelt and tasted perfectly delicious. As
fast as one dog closed his hungry jaws on a book, another dog,
snarling and yowling, would try to snatch it from him.
Over and over in the aisles and between the pews they rolled, snapping
and tearing at one another. For the sake of meat they would do murder
any day--and the fact that it was in a church on Sunday meant nothing
to Long Jim's idle, hungry pack.
"Go on, now! Git outa here!" Long Jim laid about him vigorously with
the oar. Sharp yelps resounded as he thwacked their heads and legs.
One dog took a header into the baptismal font, which was full of stale
water.
Another tried to climb under the little cabinet organ. But there were
two dogs there already, and one of them bit him in the chest. He
backed away, slobbering and raging.
Another dog hid under the communion table, but Long Jim found him and
kicked him away with his soft furry boots that did no damage to dog
ribs.
The leaders of the pack, Jock and Sandy, soared out of the window at
the right. Jock landed on his head in the kitchen garden where the
precious cabbages were growing behind high wooden palings. Sandy was
more fortunate, and fell squarely on his feet. Both dogs began to
gobble the soft green stuff just visible above the ground.
The other dogs came after them, biting and tearing at each other even
while they were scrambling across the window-sill.
"Long Jim" ran out at the door, and had to tear down a lot of the
stakes before he could drive the dogs out of the garden. When at last
they went, most of the young and precious cabbages went with them. The
garden looked like a mud-pile where children have been in a quarrel.
"Ain't that a shame!" exclaimed Long Jim. "Them poor Moravian brothers
worked so hard to git that garden goin'! I s'pose I gotta pay for them
hymn-books an' them cabbages. Where I'm a-gonna git the money t' pay
f'r it all, I'm blessed if I know! I guess I'll have to see if I can
git the money from Dr. Grenfell till I get paid for my fish."
Dr. Grenfell was in a cottage near by, visiting a patient. The sick
man couldn't stir from his bed.
A puff of wind blew the door open, just as the hungry pack of dogs
came rushing up.
Instantly Jock and Sandy halted, and sniffed a mighty, soul-satisfying
sniff.
Such a nice, sweet smell of dinner as was blown on the breeze from the
door!
Their whiskers twitched and their mouths watered.
Then it was just as if Jock and Sandy said to the other dogs: "Well,
what about it, boys? Shall we have some more fun? Are you hungry?"
For the whole pack as though pulled by a string made a dash for the
door and swept in on the Doctor and the sick man lying there.
It was like an avalanche. Dr. Grenfell was swept off his legs, as if
he had been bathing in the surf and a big wave rushed up and knocked
him down.
The boldest jumped up on the stove, where the stewpot was, that sent
out such a delicious smell.
He pried off the cover, and then the pot rolled off the stove with a
terrible clatter, and its steaming contents were dumped out on the
floor.
You could fairly hear those beasts screaming "That's mine! Get out of
there! That belongs to me!" Just like greedy, quarrelsome boys that
forgot their manners long ago, if they ever had any.
They fought with added fury because--the hot stew burned their noses.
They were in such a hurry they couldn't wait for it to cool. They
snuffled and scuffled, they bit and snarled and snorted, as they had
done in the church with the hymn-books and then with the cabbages in
the vegetable garden.
One of the dogs thrust his head in the pot to get the last "lickings"
and then he couldn't shake it loose again.
Round and round the room he banged and struggled, till the Doctor took
pity on him and hauled it off his head.
Meanwhile the house filled with steam as if it were on fire.
The Eskimos came rushing from everywhere, with shouts in their own
tongue that sounded almost like the cries of the dogs.
They had long harpoon handles, and they pranced about the room,
thwacking right and left.
The Doctor was entirely forgotten. So was the sick man. The room was
filled with steam, stew, dogs, harpoons, and blue language.
At last the dogs were shoved out, and the door was slammed after them.
"How are you feeling?" said the Doctor to his patient.
"B-b-better, Doctor. It was a funny show while it lasted. But I guess
they ain't much left o' that there stew, is there?"
The Doctor laughed. "No--our dinner is wrecked. A total loss!"
The door opened slowly. Long Jim stood there in the doorway, fumbling
his hat in his hand. "Awful sorry about them dogs, Doctor," he
muttered. "They just seem to ha' gone clean crazy. They ain't had
nothin' to eat for so long, you see. They're good dogs when they ain't
hungry. Would you--would you lend me the money to pay for them
hymn-books an' cabbages an' the stew till I can pay ye back?"
"Oh, that's all right, Jim!" answered the Doctor. "All told, the
damage won't amount to much. I'll fix it up. Dogs will be dogs."
"Thank ye, Doctor," said Jim, simply. But he was deeply grateful. He
went out after his dogs to make them quit rampaging and take their
places in the team.
"Doctor," said the sick man, "I minds me o' the time one o' them
missionaries put a young dog in the team ahead o' the old leader. Did
ye ever hear tell o' that?"
"No. What happened?"
"Well, the big feller bit through the little feller's traces an' then
must 'a' said 'you get out o' here!' the way one dog knows how to talk
to another. 'Cause the pup he began to run away, before they'd got the
sled started at all."
"And then what?" asked Grenfell.
"Why--Mr. Young harnessed up the pup three times an' each time the big
dog he bites the pup loose an' the pup runs away."
"So what did Mr. Young do then?"
"He give the big dog a whipping."
"Did that do any good?"
"Not the least little bit that ever was. It done a lot o' harm. The
old dog's heart was bust. After that beatin' he weren't never the same
again--he seemed to lose all taste for haulin' a sled. He might as
well have lain down an' died in the traces, for all the use he was to
the team after that. He wa'n't no good for a leader any more. He
wa'n't no good for anything."
"Do you use moccasins for your dogs?" asked Grenfell.
"Sure us does. Makes 'em o' sealskin. Us ties 'em round the dog's
ankles, cuttin' three little holes for the claws."
"I know," said Grenfell. "And the dog sometimes eats his own shoes,
doesn't he?"
"Yes, sir. Till he gets to know what the shoes is for. I've had my
dogs eat their own harness, many's the time. Don't seem as if dogs
could ever git so tired they wouldn't rather fight than sleep. I'd
just like to know what'd wear out a husky so he wouldn't be ready for
a scrap. They likes fightin' next to eatin'!"
"I suppose you feed your dogs once a day?" said the Doctor.
"Yes, Doctor. Only--they puts down the two fish I gives 'em in about
one swallow for both fish. I can't see that they gits much fun out o'
their supper."
Then the sick man began to laugh feebly. "It 'minds me o' the time I
was out with the dogs in the deep snow. I was just goin' to build me a
snow hut for the night. There was a herd o' caribou come by, goin' so
fast I couldn't git my gun ready in time.
"But the dogs--they tears 'emselves loose from the traces, 'cause I
hadn't taken 'em out yet, an' off they starts like the wind. They
leaves behind one little mother dog. She was their leader--they was
mostly from her litter.
"So off they goes like a shot from a gun, me runnin' an' yellin' after
'em.
"Pretty soon they finds a deer a hunter had shot an' must ha' left
behind 'cause he had so much he couldn't carry any more.
"Anyway, they didn't ask no questions. They eats an' eats till you
could see 'em bulgin' way out like they had swallowed a football.
"Well sir, would you believe it? All those dogs wa'n't such pigs.
There was one hadn't forgot the poor little ole mother dog at home
that was all tied up so she couldn't go with 'em. The biggest dog, he
brought back a whole hunk out o' the leg o' that deer, an' he laid it
down, within her reach, where she could grab it up an' give a gnaw to
it when she felt like it."
"That reminds me," said Grenfell. "A settler and his wife, in a lonely
place, got the 'flu.' They were so weak they couldn't take care of
each other. The poor woman could hardly crawl to the cupboard and get
what little food there was, and she couldn't cook it when she got it.
"But she managed to write in pencil on a bit of paper, 'come over
quickly.' She put it in a piece of sealskin and tied it with a piece
of deer-thong round a dog's neck.