pay it. These many years you have come here among us. We will trust
you for that. It is much that we should trust you--when it is one of
your own people who brought such suffering and loss upon us."
"But this is an outrage!" said Mr. Cabot. "I never did anything to you
but good. You know that."
"Yes, we know that," said the Indian, gravely. "But we shall leave you
here unless you pay. You cannot find your way out alone--even if you
could stand and walk upon your broken leg. We shall not carry you from
here unless you pay the money. Is that not so?"
He turned to the others, who had not said one word all this while:
they had been merely looking on and listening.
"Yes," they said. "He has spoken for us all. As he has said, we shall
do. You shall be left here, if you do not pay."
"The Great Spirit has given you into our hands," the Chief declared.
"When you came to us this summer again, we said among ourselves that
he had sent you. We did not know that he would cause you to break your
leg. We were going to keep you even if this had not happened. Now the
Great Spirit has caused this hurt to happen to you. We see, by this,
that we were not mistaken. He sent you to us as surely as he sends the
fish or the deer when we have need of food. It is for you to choose,
if you will pay, and go on with us to the coast--or refuse to pay and
be left here in the wilderness to die."
So Cabot had to sign a promise to pay them the $700 for a great rascal
whose name neither he nor those Indians will ever know.
They made a stretcher and put him on it, and carried him with them out
to the coast.
If they had not done so--his white bones would now be bleaching beside
the cold embers of a camp-fire in the desolate interior of Labrador.
Do you blame those Indians for wanting to "take it out" of the first
member they met, of a race that bred such a rogue as the man who
cheated them?
Dr. Grenfell tells us that for about two hundred years the Eskimo of
the interior and the Indians of the coast were at war with one
another. There was a battle, long, long ago, in which Indians killed a
thousand Eskimo.
But nowadays when the Eskimo and Indians come together they have no
quarrel.
There was such a meeting at Nain in 1910. It was the first time the
Eskimo had ever seen Indians in that tiny fishing-village, and they
"ran about in circles" in their excitement.
It was on a Sunday afternoon when the Indians appeared. They had come
down a stream from the interior, and when they rounded the bend in
their boats--of a kind that was strange to the Eskimo--the latter set
up a cackle like that of a barnyard when a hawk appears.
The Indians, with their bundles on their shoulders, filed ashore, made
their way to a hut the kindly Moravian missionary let them use, and
sat in muddy, weary silence round the walls.
The Eskimo crowded into the doorway, their tongues hanging out,
staring at these queer folk as if they had dropped from the moon.
But other Eskimo, kind-hearted and hospitable, were moved to show the
strangers what shore life was like.
They got busy at the stove, boiled water, and presently handed about
large cups of tea, with sugar and biscuit.
The Indians devoured the refreshments thankfully, for they were very
hungry. The Northern Indians lead lives that are often sharpened with
hunger for long periods together. You can see it in their lank frames
and their gaunt faces. The southern Indians, nearer the flesh-pots,
with kindly priests at work among them, look roly-poly, chubby and
content.
It was a very silent party. The Indians who had been so bold as to
come this far to the sea were probably homesick for the flat stones,
the dwarf birches, the far-lying ponds and cold swirling streams, the
hordes of mosquitoes and the caribou of their lone spaces at Indian
House Lake. The cluster of houses at Nain looked to them as New York
would seem to one who had always dwelt in the heart of the Maine
woods.
By morning, after a sound sleep on the floor, they were eager to begin
trading.
A southern Indian translated.
They had brought deerskins chiefly. There are few valuable furs in
their part of Labrador, but they did their best to make a brave
showing with the few they were able to find.
You can imagine their people at home at Indian House Lake saying
before the start of the expedition: "Oh, if we only had some beaver or
marten skins! Wouldn't it be nice, now, if we could get a silver or a
cross fox? Those people down there at the coast know such a lot, and
are so rich, and so particular! Nothing but the very best we have will
do."
They held up a bearskin with great pride. They had a wolverine,--the
only sort of fur on which snow will not freeze,--several wolf-skins,
and moccasins, embroidered. The translator would point to what they
wanted on the shelves. Then they would take the object in their hands
and weigh it very carefully, thinking of all those portages on the
homeward trail--probably twenty at least--over which every ounce must
be carried on a man's shoulders.
They bought lots of tea--one man getting as much as sixteen pounds.
They wanted gay prints. Other things to which they took a fancy were
tobacco, cartridges, fish-hooks, matches, needles, and pearl buttons.
First they handed over the skins, and received money in return: then
they spent the money. Mouth-organs were much in demand, and they
looked longingly at an accordeon and tried to play on it and were
enchanted with the squawks that came out: but they were not rich
enough to buy it. One boy bought a clay pipe, and spent all his time
licking it. They were not allowed to smoke in the store, but they spat
wherever they pleased.
Doctor and Mrs. Grenfell are out on the war-path against this
disgusting custom, and they have had very hard work to persuade even
the "liveyeres" that there is danger concealed in germs that cannot be
seen, when saliva dries and the wind blows it about. In all this
glorious fresh air it is mournful to think of the many who die of
consumption, pneumonia and all sorts of lung-trouble, because of
stifling houses and unclean habits.
The Indians at first were extremely shy. Then they waxed merry, and as
they bought they laughed and chatted. In the party were three women.
One of them was young and good-looking, and she was showered with
presents--kettles, cups and saucers, perfumed soap and cologne! A
young man bought for her anything she wanted--and every time he made a
purchase for the fair one the others laughed aloud. And each time he
bestowed a gift, one of the other women turned to her husband and made
him buy the same thing for her. Human nature is the same on the
Labrador as on Coney Island.
It took two days for them to do their buying, and wrap up their
purchases, and say farewell.
By this time Indians and Eskimo were sworn friends.
The Eskimo crowded to the end of the little pier, and knelt down to
reach over and grasp the hands of the parting guests. There were
shouts of "Yomai!" from the Indians, and various cries in answer from
the Eskimo. Then, crouching on their heels, the Indians trimmed their
sails to the breeze and were borne swiftly round the point to be seen
no more.
How different is all this from the days of old, when the Eskimo were
called "the most savage people in the world!"
IX
ALONE ON THE ICE
In April, 1908, Dr. Grenfell had the closest call of his life. Of
course in April the ice and snow are still deep over the bays and
forelands of Labrador and northern Newfoundland. There is not the
slightest sign that spring with its flowers and mosquitoes is coming.
All travel save by dog-team is at a standstill, and only a
life-and-death message--such as Dr. Grenfell is constantly getting--is
a reason for facing the howling winds and the driving snows of the
blizzards that the bravest seamen and the mightiest hunters have good
reason to fear.
On Easter Sunday morning at his St. Anthony home Dr. Grenfell was
walking back from the little church to his house after the morning
service, thinking of the sermon, and of his mother in England.
Suddenly a boy came running after him from the hospital near by.
"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!"
The Doctor turned in his deep, floundering steps to see who it was
that called him.
"Doctor," panted the small messenger, "I came to the hospital to fetch
ye. There's a man with dogs, from sixty mile away down to the south,
and he says they must have a doctor come to 'em, right off, or the
boy'll die."
The Doctor put his kind hand on the little fellow's shoulder. "Who is
it that is sick?"
"I dunno, Doctor, but he's wonderful sick. He'll die unless ye come."
The Doctor thought a moment--then he remembered. It was a young man on
whom he had operated two weeks before, for a bone disease that was
eating away his thigh.
Those who had tried to help him had closed up the wound--the worst
thing to do. The poison had collected, and probably the leg would have
to be taken off.
The Doctor knew that every minute counted. He went to his kennels in
the snow and picked out his sturdiest dog-team. They whined and pawed
and jumped up and down, eager to be chosen. The real "husky" hates to
loaf, except when he has come in from a long, hard run late at night
and has had his meal of fish. He wants to be at work all the time, and
when the sled is loaded the dogs must be tied up tight or they will
dart away at breakneck speed and perhaps upset everything. This sleigh
was heavy-laden with instruments, drugs and dressings. A second team
was to follow, with the messengers.
Dr. Grenfell loved, as with a personal affection, every one of the
five beasts that were taking him on this long haul to save a boy's
life.
First came "Brin," by common consent the surest leader anywhere on the
coast. The strongest dog of the team--big and affectionate and
playful--was "Doc." A black and white dog whose muscles were like
small wire ropes, was "Spy," and "Moody," now in his third year, was a
black-and-tan named for Dr. Grenfell's friend Will Moody, son of the
evangelist. "Moody" had the reputation of never looking behind him: he
was eager to go on to the bitter end.
The youngest dog of the team, named "Watch," had beautiful soft eyes,
a Gordon setter coat, and long legs capable of carrying him over the
frozen crust at a tremendous rate of speed. Then there was "Sue," the
most wolf-like of the lot--black as jet, her pointed ears the standing
question-marks for further orders. "Jerry" was a perfect lady, quick
on her feet as a dancer, and so fond of play and so demonstrative that
she often tipped the Doctor over when he had a boxing-bout with her,
and sent him sprawling on his back in the snow.
"Jack," a black dog with the looks and the ways of a retriever, had
"Moody's" good habit of going straight on without turning to see who
followed, and he was put in the position of trust nearest the sledge.
He liked to run with his nose close to the ground, and nothing that
the trail or the snow-crust could tell any wise "husky" dog was a
secret to the busy nose of this gentle-natured fellow.
Do you wonder that Dr. Grenfell was proud and fond of these
four-legged helpers, and that he gave them the tender care one bestows
on children? It would have grieved him to the heart to think of any
accident happening to any of them. He looked on them just as a Captain
Scott or a Sir Ernest Shackleton regarded his mates on a Polar
expedition. They were his friends and helpers. Some of them had stood
by him in many a hard tussle with the cold and the stinging hail, with
the rotten ice threatening to let them down into the river or the sea.
With their bushy tails thrown over them like fur wraps, they had slept
in the snow-drift round his camp-fires. They seemed to him like human
beings, his little brothers. As he is fond of saying, "Dogs are much
nicer than a Ford car. A Ford car can't come and kiss you good-night."
Since it was late April, and the melting ice might mean a soaking any
moment, Grenfell carried a spare outfit--a change of clothes, an
oilskin suit, snowshoes, an axe, a rifle, a compass. He knew there was
no place to stop and get any of these things if he should lose them.
The most daring skipper of a boat or driver of a sled along the coast,
the Doctor takes no chances when it comes to his equipment.
Though the messengers had broken the trail on the up journey, they
preferred to fall in behind the Doctor on the down trip. They knew
that he would want to travel like the wind. They felt a certain
security and comfort in letting him take the lead. It relieved them
of a lot of responsibility for setting the course. There are always
people traveling in Grenfell's wake who are willing to let him make
the hard choices and take the daring chances. But a good reason for
Grenfell's going first this time was that his picked team of young,
strong, spry dogs were hustlers, whom it would be impossible to hold
back, and the other dogs were heavier and slower.
Although Grenfell in the twenty miles before nightfall twice called a
halt, the slower team behind him was unable to catch up. He reached a
small hamlet and had given his eager dogs their supper of two fish
apiece, and was gathering the people together for prayers when the
second team overtook him.
In the night the weather changed. The wind began to blow from the
northeast; a fog set in, with rain. The snow became mushy, to make
hard going, and out in the bay the sea was ugly, with the water
heaving the ice-pans about. The plan for the coming day was to make a
run of forty miles, the first ten miles a short cut across a bay, over
the salt-water ice.
Grenfell did not want to get too far from his convoy, and so he let
the second team start on ahead, with a lead of two hours.
He told them just where to call a halt and wait for him. There was a
log hut, or "tilt," at the half-way point. Since there was no one
living on that part of the very lonely coast-line, this hut was a
refuge fitted out with anything that a shipwrecked mariner or a
benighted traveler by land might need--dry clothes, food, and
medicines.
"You go to the hut and wait there till I come," were the Doctor's
final orders.
The rain began to fall, and when Grenfell got under way it was such
treacherous going that he couldn't cut straight across the bay as he
wished, but had to keep closer to the land. The sea had risen in its
wrath and thrown the pans of ice about, so that there were wide spaces
between, and half a mile out from the shore it was clear water.
But far out from the shore there was an island, and by a daring series
of jumps across the cracks,--the dogs as buoyant as their master,
hauling the sled as though it were a load of feathers,--Grenfell
reached the island, and made the dogs rest--a hard thing to do--while
he looked about him to see where the next lap of the journey would
take him and them.
It was four miles, he knew, to a rocky headland over yonder, if he
ventured out on that uncertain field of ice. That would save several
miles over the more prudent course alongshore.
As far as he could see, the ice looked as though it would hold up the
sled. It was rough--but a hardened voyager with a dog-team is
accustomed to a hummocky road. It looked as if the sea had torn it up,
as men tear up the paving blocks in a city street, and then thrown the
bits together to make a hard, cohesive mass that men and dogs could
surely trust. The strong wind seemed to have packed it in and the
intense cold of the night, he supposed, had frozen it solid.
The wind died down, and Grenfell found that he was deep in what is
known as "sish"--soft ice as mushy as the name sounds. He compares it
to oatmeal, and it must have been many feet deep. There was a thin
coating of new ice on top of it, through which the whip-handle easily
pierced.
The "sish" ice is composed of the small fragments chipped off the
floes after the pounding and grinding between the millstones of the
great winds and the heavy seas. The changing breeze now blew from
offshore, and instead of packing the ice together it was driving it
apart. The packed "slob" was "running abroad," as the fisher-folk say.
The ice-pans were so small that there was hardly one as large as a
table-top.
By this time the team had come to a halt on one of these tiny pans,
and with the other pans floating about as the entire sheet was
breaking up the peril was evident. It was not possible to go back--the
way was cut off by the widening spaces between the pans. Only about a
quarter of a mile was left between their pan and the shore.
Grenfell threw off his oilskins, knelt by the side of the komatik, and
ordered the dogs to make for the shore.
It takes a great deal to "rattle" a husky. But the dogs, after about
twenty yards of half-wading, half-swimming, were thoroughly
frightened. They stopped, and the sled sank into the ice. With the
sled in the freezing water, it was necessary for the dogs to pull
hard, and now they too began to sink.
Not long before, the father of the boy to whom the Doctor was going
was drowned by being tangled in the dog's traces in just such a place
as this. To avoid that danger, Grenfell got out his knife, and cut the
traces in the water.
But he still kept hold of the leader's trace, which he wound about his
wrist.
In the water there was not a piece of ice to be seen in which dogs or
driver could put their trust. The dogs were as eager as their master
to find something to cling to. Care-free and jolly as they had been
hitherto, they knew as well as he that death by drowning stared their
little caravan in the face.
About twenty-five yards away there was a big lump of snow, such as
children put up when they mean to make a snow-man. The leading dog,
"Brin," as he wallowed about managed to reach it, at the end of his
long trace of about sixty feet. "Brin" had black marks on his face,
which made it look as though he were laughing all the time, like one
who finds this world a grand, good joke. When he clambered out on the
hummock he shook his coat and turned round and gazed calmly at his
master.
"He seemed to be grinning at me," says the Doctor.
But it was no laughing matter for the other dogs, floundering about.
Grenfell hauled himself along toward "Brin" by means of the trace
still attached to his wrist. But suddenly "Brin" stepped out of his
harness, and then the Doctor found himself sprawling and struggling in
the water, with no means of getting to the place where "Brin" had
found temporary safety.
Grenfell thought this time it was all over. He had looked Death in the
eyes before, but Death had decided to go by. This time, it did not
seem possible to escape. He did not feel any great alarm--in fact, he
became drowsy, and thought how easy it would be just to fall asleep
and forget everything, as the icy water chilled and numbed his senses.
He was like the weary traveler who drops into the snow-bank, on whom
the torpor steals by slow degrees.
Suddenly Grenfell caught sight of a big dog that had gone through the
ice and was pulling the trace after him, in a desperate effort to
reach the hummock on which "Brin" was sitting. Grenfell grabbed the
trace, and hauled himself along after the animal. He calls this "using
the dog as a bow anchor."
But the other dogs were following this poor beast's example, and they
crowded and jostled the Doctor so that it was hard for him to hold on.
One of them, in fact, got on his shoulder, very much as a drowning man
in his desperation will throw his arms round the neck of someone who
tries to rescue him, and drag him under. This pushed Grenfell still
deeper into the ice, and it was a question whether his energy would
hold out in that frigid water.
As they say on the football field, he now had only three yards to
gain, and by a mighty effort he drew himself past his living anchor
and climbed up on the piece of slob ice. He rested a moment to draw
breath, and then began to haul his beloved dogs one after another up
to a place beside him. They swam and panted through the lane in the
ice that he had broken, and seemed to understand perfectly that their
master was trying to save them, even though they had lost their heads
and had almost drowned him.
It would not do for them all to remain on that small, treacherous lump
of ice. It might break in two at any moment with the combined weight
of dogs and driver. It was slowly drifting with the tidal current out
to the open sea, where all hope would be lost. Grenfell knew that if
he were to save his team and himself--they were always first in his
thoughts--he must act instantly.
He stood up to survey the scene. About twenty yards away there was a
good-sized pan floating about in the "sish" like a raft, such as that
on which Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer floated down the Mississippi. To
reach that raft would at any rate be to postpone death for a little
while. But it was taking too much of a risk, to try to get from the
little cake to the big one without a life line. How was he to make
such a line, and then how was he to get it across the wide space
between?
Fortunately when the Doctor cut the dogs away from the sled he had not
lost his knife: he had tied it to the back of one of the dogs. There
it was still. It was the work of a joyful moment to untie it, and he
fell to work cutting from the dogs' harness the sealskin traces that
remained and stringing those together to make two long lines. His
overalls, coat, hat and gloves were gone, but he still had his
sealskin hip-boots. He took these off, shook them free from ice and
water, and tied them on the backs of "Brin" and another dog. Then he
fastened the lines to the two animals, tying the near ends round his
wrists.
"Hist!" he shouted--the signal to go on: but the dogs refused to
budge. They were setting their own wits against their master's. Such
dogs believe they know their business. They saw no proper place to go
to. Why should they dash into the icy water for the sake of reaching
another pan not much bigger than their own? If it were land--that
would be another story. So they must have reasoned, in their doggish
fashion. They had been devoted and obedient--but there were limits
even to their faith.
Grenfell three times threw the dogs off the Pan. Each time they
struggled back upon it: and their master could not blame them.
"This is really the end!" Grenfell told himself. "We never shall get
out of this!"
Just as a boy sometimes comes up to the scratch where a man has
failed, a small dog may play the hero when a big one quits. That was
the case here. The smallest dog of the lot, "Jack," came to the
rescue. He was so small that he was not taken very seriously for his
hauling power--but when it came to hunting, he was there with all four
paws, and he was used as retriever when Dr. Grenfell went out with a
gun. Here was a chance for him to show the stuff that was in his
black, rough hide.
"Jack!" said the Doctor. "Hist! Hist!" And he pointed to the other
pan, and threw a piece of ice in that direction.
"Jack" understood and instantly obeyed. In little more time than it
takes to tell of it, his furry paws had taken his small body through
and over the rotten mush. Since he was the lightest of the lot, he
scarcely sank below the surface as he went. "His frame was little but
his soul was large."
When he got there he turned about, wagging his tail as a flag-signal,
his tongue lolling out, his whole attitude seeming to say, "Well,
aren't you pleased with me?"
"Lie down!" shouted Grenfell, and the dog at once obeyed--"a little
black fuzz ball on the white setting."
That was an object lesson to "Brin" and the other dog. The next time
he threw them off they made directly for the other pan. It was a hard
fight to get there, but they must have said to themselves: "What dog
has done, dog can do. If that little fellow can turn the trick, so can
we." So they plashed and floundered through, their heads barely above
the waves, and the salt spray in their eyes, till they had carried the
lines across. The traces had been knotted securely under their
bellies, so they could not come off when the Doctor pulled with the
weight of his body against the lines.
He took as much of a run as he could get in the few feet from side to
side of the pan, and dived headlong into the "slob." It was a long,
hard pull, but the lines held, and the dogs too, so that presently he
found himself scrambling up beside them on the other pan where they
were waiting with little "Jack."
To his crushing disappointment, Dr. Grenfell found that the place
where he now clung was if anything worse than the spot he had left. By
this time all the other dogs but one poor fellow had made the
distance, and were beside him, their eyes asking the piteous questions
their tongues could not utter.