CHAPTER IX

THE DOGS WERE DESPERATELY RAVENOUS

Cracker was alive and still masterful. Billy went out in chase of Smoke. It was futile. Billy cut a ridiculous figure in the pursuit. He could neither catch the dog nor overreach him with blandishments; and a cry of alarm from the boy brought him back to his base in haste to drive off Cracker and Tucker and Sling, who were up to the wolf's trick of flanking. The dogs had reverted. They were wolves again—as nearly as harbour dogs may be. Billy perceived that they could no longer be dealt with as the bond dogs of Tight Cove.

In the afternoon Billy slept. He would need to keep watch through the night.

Billy Topsail had husbanded the fragments of the komatik. A fire burned all that night—a mere glow and flicker of light. It was the last of the wood. All that remained was the man's club and the boy's crutch. Now, too, the last of the food went. There was nothing to eat. What Billy had brought, the abundant provision of a picnic, with something for emergencies—the bread and tea and molasses—had been conserved, to be sure, and even attenuated. There was neither a crumb nor a drop of it left.

What confronted Billy Topsail now, however,and alarmed his hope and courage, was neither wind nor frost, nor so much the inevitable pangs of starvation, which were not immediate, as a swift abatement of his strength. A starved man cannot long continue at bay with a club. Billy could beat off the dogs that night perhaps—after all, they were the dogs of Tight Cove, Cracker and Smoke and Tucker and Sling; but to-morrow night—he would not be so strong to-morrow night.

The dogs did not attack that night. Billy heard them close—the sniffing and whining and restless movement in the dark that lay beyond the light of his feeble fire and was accentuated by it. But that was all.

It was now clear weather and the dark of the moon. The day was bright and warm. When night fell again it was starlight—every star of them all twinkling its measure of pale light to the floe. The dogs were plain as shifting, shadowy creatures against the white field of ice. Billy Topsail fought twice that night. This was between midnight and dawn. There was no maneuvering. The dogs gathered openly, viciously, and delivered a direct attack. Billybeat them off. He was gasping and discouraged, though, at the end of the encounter. They would surely come again—and they did. They waited—an hour, it may have been; and then they came.

There was a division of the pack. Six dogs—Spunk and Biscuit and Hero in advance—rushed Billy Topsail. It was a reluctant assault. Billy disposed of the six—after all, they were dogs of Tight Cove, not wolves from the rigours of the timber; and Billy was then attracted to the rescue of Teddy Brisk, who was tied up in the wolfskin bag, by the boy's muffled screams. Cracker and Smoke and Tucker and Sling were worrying the wolfskin bag and dragging it off. They dropped it and took flight when Billy came roaring at them with a club.

When Billy released him from the wolfskin bag the boy was still screaming. He was not quieted—his cries and sobbing—until the day was broad.

"Gimme my crutch!" said he. "I'll never go in that bag no more!"

"Might as well wield your crutch," Billy agreed.

To survive another night was out of the question. Another night came in due course, however, and was to be faced.

It was a gray day. Sky and ice and fields of ruffled water had no warmth of colour. All the world was both cold and drear. A breeze was stirring down from the north and would be bitter in the dusk. It cut and disheartened the castaways. It portended, moreover, a black night.

Teddy cried a good deal that day—a little whimper, with tears. He was cold and hungry—the first agony of starvation—and frightened and homesick. Billy fancied that his spirit was broken. As for Billy himself, he watched the dogs, which watched him patiently near by—a hopeless vigil for the man, for the dogs were fast approaching a pass of need in which hunger would dominate the fear of a man with a club. And Billy was acutely aware of this much—that nothing but the habitual fear of a man with a club had hitherto restrained the full fury and strength of the pack.

That fury, breaking with determination, would be irresistible. No man could beat off the attack of ten dogs that were not, in the beginning, already defeated and overcome by awe of him.In the dark—in the dark of that night Billy could easily be dragged down; and the dogs were manifestly waiting for the dark to fall.

It was to be the end.

"It looks bad—it do so, indeed!" Billy Topsail thought.

That was the full extent of his admission.

In Which Attack is Threatened and Billy Topsail Strips Stark Naked in the Wind in Pursuit of a Desperate Expedient and with Small Chance of Success

Teddy Briskkept watch for a skiff from Our Harbour or Come-Again Bight. He depended for the inspiration of this rescue on his mother's anxious love and sagacity. She would leave nothing to the indifferent dealings and cold issue of chance; it was never "more by good luck than good conduct" with her, ecod!

"I knows my mother's ways!" he sobbed, and he repeated this many times as the gray day drew on and began to fail. "I tells you, Billy, I knows my mother's ways!"

And they were not yet beyond sight of the coast. Scotchman's Breakfast of Ginger Head was a wee white peak against the drab of the sky in the southwest; and the ragged line of cliffs running south and east was a long, thinridge on the horizon where the cottages of Walk Harbour and Our Harbour were.

No sail fluttered between—a sail might be confused with the colour of the ice, however, or not yet risen into view; but by and by, when the misty white circle of the sun was dropping low, the boy gave up hope, without yielding altogether to despair. There would be no skiff along that day, said he; but there would surely be a sail to-morrow, never fear—Skipper Thomas and a Tight Cove crew.

In the light airs the floe had spread. There was more open water than there had been. Fragments of ice had broken from the first vast pans into which Schooner Bay ice had been split in the break-up. These lesser, lighter pans moved faster than the greater ones; and the wind from the north—blown up to a steady breeze by this time—was driving them slowly south against the windward edge of the more sluggish fields in that direction.

At sunset—the west was white and frosty—a small pan caught Billy Topsail's eye and instantly absorbed his attention. It had broken from the field on which they were marooned and was under way on a diagonal across a quietlane of black water, towards a second great field lying fifty fathoms or somewhat less to the south.

Were Billy Topsail and the boy aboard that pan the wind would ferry them away from the horrible menace of the dogs. It was a small pan—an area of about four hundred square feet; yet it would serve. It was not more than fifteen fathoms distant. Billy could swim that far—he was pretty sure he could swim that far, the endeavour being unencumbered; but the boy—a little fellow and a cripple—could not swim at all.

Billy jumped up.

"We've got t' leave this pan," said he, "an' forthwith too."

"Have you a notion, b'y?"

Billy laid off his seal-hide overjacket. He gathered up the dogs' traces—long strips of seal leather by means of which the dogs had drawn the komatik, a strip to a dog; and he began to knot them together—talking fast the while to distract the boy from the incident of peculiar peril in the plan.

The little pan in the lane—said he—would be a clever ferry. He would swim out and crawl aboard. It would be no trick at all. He wouldcarry one end of the seal-leather line. Teddy Brisk would retain the other. Billy pointed out a ridge of ice against which Teddy Brisk could brace his sound leg. They would pull, then—each against the other; and presently the little pan would approach and lie alongside the big pan—there was none too much wind for that—and they would board the little pan and push off, and drift away with the wind, and leave the dogs to make the best of a bad job.

It would be a slow affair, though—hauling in a pan like that; the light was failing too—flickering out like a candle end—and there must be courage and haste—or failure.

Teddy Brisk at once discovered the interval of danger to himself.

"I'll be left alone with the dogs!" he objected.

"Sure, b'y," Billy coaxed; "but then you see——"

"I won't stay alone!" the boy sobbed. He shrank from the direction of the dogs towards Billy. At once the dogs attended. "I'm afeared t' stay alone!" he screamed. "No, no!"

"An we don't leave this pan," Billy scolded, "we'll be gobbled up in the night."

That was not the immediate danger. What confronted the boy was an immediate attack, which he must deal with alone.

"No! No! No!" the boy persisted.

"Ah, come now——"

"That Cracker knows I'm a cripple, Billy. He'll turn at me. I can't keep un off."

Billy changed front.

"Who's skipper here?" he demanded.

"You is, sir."

"Is you takin' orders or isn't you?"

The effect of this was immediate. The boy stopped his clamour.

"I is, sir," said he.

"Then stand by!"

"Aye, sir!"—a sob and a sigh.

It was to be bitter cold work in the wind and water. Billy Topsail completed his preparations before he began to strip. He lashed the end of the seal-leather line round the boy's waist and put the club in his hand.

All this while he gave directions: The boy was to face the dogs; he was not to turn round for hints of Billy's progress or to be concerned at all with that; he was not to lose courage; hewas to feint and scold; he was to let no shadow of fear cross his face—no tremor of fear must touch his voice; he was not to yield an inch; he was not to sob and cover his eyes with his hands—in short, he was to mind his own task of keeping the dogs away and leave Billy to accomplish his.

And the boy answered: "Yes, sir!" and "Aye, sir!" and "Very well, sir!"—like an old hand of the coast.

It was stimulating. Billy Topsail was heartened. He determined privately that he would not turn to look back—that if the worst came to the worst, and he could manage to do so, he would jerk the lad into the water and let him drown. The snarling tumult of the onset would warn him when the worst had come to the worst.

And then he stripped stark naked, quickly stowed away his clothes in the midst of the boy's dogskin robes, tied the end of the seal-leather line round his waist, and ran to the edge of the pan.

"If you drowns—" the boy began.

"Keep them dogs off!" Billy Topsail roared. "I'll not drown!"

He slipped into the water and struck out.

In Which Teddy Brisk Confronts the Pack Alone and Cracker Leads the Assault

Bythis time the sun was touching the cliffs of shore. It was a patch of struggling white light in the drear gray colour of the west. It would drop fast. In his punt, in summer weather, wondering all the while at the acceleration of this last descent, Teddy Brisk had often paused to watch the sun fall and flicker out of sight. It had seemed to fall beyond the rim of the world, like a ball.

"She tumbles through the last foot or two!" he had determined.

In a little while the sun would be gone. Now the sky was overcast and scowling. In the east it was already dusk. The cloudy black sky in the east caught no light from the feeble sun. Presently everywhere it would be dark. It had turned colder too. The wind from the north was still blowing up—a nipping gray wind which would sweep the floe and hamper themanipulation of the little pan towards which the naked Billy Topsail was striving.

And the wind lifted the dry snow and drove it past Teddy Brisk's feet in swirling wreaths. The floe was smoking, the boy thought. Before long the snow would rise higher and envelop him. And he thought that when Billy reached the little pan, and stood exposed and dripping in the blast, he would be very cold. It would take a long time, too, to haul the little pan across the lane of water.

It will be recalled that Teddy Brisk was ten years old. He stood alone. He knew the temper of the dogs. Billy Topsail was out of reach. The burden of fear had fallen on the boy—not on Billy. The boy had been in a panic; yet he was not now even afraid. Duty occupied him. He had no time for reflection. The hazard of the quarter of an hour to come, however, was clear to him. Should he fail to keep off the dogs through every moment of that time, he would be torn to death before Billy could return to his rescue.

Should Billy Topsail fail to reach the pan—should Billy go down midway—he would surely be devoured.

And Billy Topsail was no swimmer to boast of. Teddy knew that. He had heard Billy tell of it. Billy could keep afloat—could achieve a slow, splashing progress.

That was true. Billy's chance of winning the pan was small. But Teddy was Labrador born and bred. What now commanded his fear was Billy's orders to duty. Obedience to a skipper was laid on all men. It must be instant and unfailing in an emergency. Billy was in command. He was responsible. It was for the boy to obey. That was the teaching of his habitat.

Consequently Teddy Brisk's terror yielded and he stood fast.

When Billy began to strip, the dogs were disturbed. What was the man up to? What was this? Queer proceeding this! It was a trick. When he stood naked in the wind the dogs were uneasy. When he went into the water they were alarmed. They withdrew. Cracker and Smoke ran to the water's edge and stared at Billy—keeping half an eye on the boy meantime. It troubles a dog to see a man in the water. Smoke whined. Cracker growled and crouched to leap after Billy. He could easily overtake and drown Billy.

Teddy went at Cracker and Smoke with his club.

He screamed at them:

"Back, you, Cracker! Back, you, Smoke!"

The dogs responded to this furious authority. They scurried away and rejoined the others. Teddy taunted them. He laughed at the pack, challenged it—crutch under his left arm and club swinging in his right hand. He taunted the dogs by name—Cracker and Smoke and Tucker. This bewildered the dogs. They were infinitely suspicious. The boy hobbled at them in a rage, a few feet forth—the seal-leather line round his waist limited him—and defied them. They retreated.

When Teddy returned to the edge of the field they sat regarding him in amazement and renewed suspicion. In this way for a time the boy kept the dogs at a distance—by exciting their surprise and suspicion. It sufficed for a space. The dogs were curious. They were entertained. What was strange in the behaviour of the quarry, moreover, was fearsome to the dogs. It indicated unknown resources. The dogs waited.

Presently Teddy could devise no new startling gestures. He was never silent—he was neverstill; but his fantastic antics, growing familiar and proving innocuous, began to fail of effect. Something else—something out of the way and unexpected—must be done to distract and employ the attention of the dogs. They were aware of Billy Topsail's absence—they were cunning cowards and they would take advantage of the opportunity.

The dogs began to move—to whine and circle and toss their heads. Teddy could see the concerted purpose take form. It was as though they were conspiring together. He was fully aware of what impended. They were coming! he thought; and they were coming in a moment. It was an attack agreed on. They were to act as a pack.

They advanced. It was tentative and slow. They paused.

They came closer. Teddy brandished his club and reviled them in shrill screams. The dogs paused again. They crouched then. Cracker was in the lead. The boy hated Cracker. Cracker's white breast was touching the ice.

His head was thrust forward. His crest began to rise.

In Which Teddy Brisk Gives the Strains of a Tight Cove Ballad to the North Wind, Billy Topsail Wins the Reward of Daring, Cracker Finds Himself in the Way of the Evil-Doer, and Teddy Brisk's Boast Makes Doctor Luke Laugh

Strippeddown, at first, on the field, Billy Topsail would not yield to the cold. He did not shrink from the wind. He moved like a man all clothed. Nor would he yield to the shock of the water. He ignored it. It was heroic self-command. But he was the man for that—a Newfoundlander. He struck out precisely as though he had gone into the summer water of Ruddy Cove. If he relapsed from this attitude the cold would strike through him. A chill would momentarily paralyze his strength.

He was neither a strong nor a cunning swimmer. In this lapse he would go down and be choked beyond further effort before he could recover the use of his arms and legs. It was icy cold. He would not think of the cold. His bestprotection against it was the sufficient will to ignore it. The power would not long endure. It must endure until he had clambered out of the water to the little pan towards which he floundered. He was slow in the water. It seemed to him that his progress was mysteriously prolonged—that the wind was driving the pan away.

The wind could not rise to this pitch in a minute; but when he was midway of the lane he thought half an hour had elapsed—an hour—that he must have left the field and the boy far behind.

The boy was not much more than fifteen yards away.

A word of advice occurred to Billy. He did not turn. He was then within a dozen strokes of the little pan.

He shouted:

"Give un a tune!"

Teddy Brisk dropped his crutch, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, whipped out his mouth organ, clapped it to his lips, and blew a lively air:

Lukie's boat was painted green,The finest boat that ever was seen;Lukie's boat had cotton sails,A juniper rudder and galvanized nails.

And he so profoundly astonished the dogs with these sudden, harmonious sounds, accompanied by the jerky movement of a crippled leg, designed to resemble a dance, and in itself shockingly suspicious—so profoundly astonished the dogs that they paused to reconsider the matter in hand.

It was startling. They sat up. Aha! What was this? What did it portend?

And the little boy wheezed away:

Lukie sailed her out one day,A fine spell o' weather in the month o' May;She leaked so bad when he put about,He drove her ashore on the Tailor's Snout.

And he kept on blowing that famous jig-time ballad of Tight Cove for dear life until a tug at the line round his waist warned him to brace himself against the steady pull to follow.

Teddy was still giving the strains of Lukie's adventure to the north wind when the little pan came alongside.

"Carry on!" Billy Topsail chattered behind him.

Teddy interrupted himself to answer:

"Aye, sir!"

"I'll get my clothes an' the skins aboard. Ecod! It's awful cold!"

Presently they pushed out from the field. It had not taken long. The patch of white light that was the sun had not yet dropped out of sight behind the cliffs of the shore.

It was a bad night on the field to the south. The boys were hungry. It was cold. Billy Topsail suffered from the cold. In the morning the northerly wind had turned the heap of dogskin robes into a snowdrift. The sun shone. Billy was still cold. He shivered and chattered. He despaired. Rescue came, however, in the afternoon. It was the Tight Cove skiff, hailing now from Our Harbour, with Doctor Luke aboard.

The skiff from Come-Again Bight found the dogs. The dogs were wild—the men said—and would not come aboard, but ran off in a pack to the farthest limits of the field and were not seen again—save only Cracker, who fawned and jumped into the skiff without so much as a by-your-leave. And Cracker, in due course and according to custom, they hanged by the neck at Tight Cove until he was dead.

That day, however—the afternoon of the rescue—when the Tight Cove skiff came near, Teddy Brisk put his hands to his mouth and shouted—none too lustily:

"Ahoy!"

"Aye?" Skipper Thomas answered.

"Did my mother send you?"

"She did."

Teddy Brisk turned to Billy Topsail.

"Didn't I tell you," he sobbed, his eyes blazing, "that I knowed my mother's ways?"

And Doctor Luke laughed.

In Which Billy Topsail's Agreeable Qualities Win a Warm Welcome with Doctor Luke at Our Harbour, There is an Explosion at Ragged Run, Tommy West Drops Through the Ice and Vanishes, and Doctor Luke is in a Way Never to Be Warned of the Desperate Need of His Services

InDoctor Luke's little hospital at Our Harbour, Billy Topsail fell in with a charming group—Doctor Luke and his friends; and being himself a boy of a good many attractive qualities, and of natural good manners, which association with his friend Archie Armstrong, of St. John's, Sir Archibald's son, had helped to fashion—being a manly, good-mannered, humorous fellow, he was very soon warmly accepted. There was no mystery about Doctor Luke. He was an Englishman—a well-bred, cultured man; and having been wrecked on the coast, and having perceived the great need of a physician in those parts, he had thrown in his lot for good and all with the Labrador folk. And he wasobviously happy—both busy and happy. That he regretted his determination was a preposterous thing to assume; on the contrary, he positively did not regret it—he whistled and sang and laughed and laboured, and Billy Topsail was convinced that he was not only the most useful man in the world, but the most delightful and best, and the happiest, too.

That Doctor Luke was useful was very soon evident to an astonishing degree. Teddy Brisk's leg was scraped—it was eventually healed and became quite as sound as Billy Topsail's "off shank." But there was a period of convalescence, during which Billy Topsail had all the opportunity in the world to observe just how mightily useful Doctor Luke was. The demands upon him were extraordinary; and his response to them—his ready, cheerful, skillful, brave response—was more extraordinary still.

Winter was not yet done with: summer delayed—there was more snow, more frost; and the ice drifted in and out with the variable winds: so that travelling in those parts was at its most dangerous period. Yet Doctor Luke went about with small regard for what might happen—afoot, with the dogs, and in a punt,when the ice, having temporarily drifted away, left open water. Up and down the coast, near and far, always on the wing: that was Doctor Luke—the busiest, happiest, most useful man Billy Topsail had ever known.

And Billy Topsail was profoundly affected by all this beneficent activity. He wished to emulate it. This was a secret, to be sure; there was no reason for Billy Topsail to think that a fisherman's son like himself would ever be presented with the opportunity to "wield a knife" and be made master of the arts of healing—and consequently he said nothing about the growing ambition. But the ambition flourished.

When Doctor Luke returned from his professional calls with tales of illness cured and distress alleviated, and when Billy Topsail reflected that there would have been neither cure nor alleviation had it not been for Doctor Luke's skill and kindly heart, Billy Topsail wanted with all his strength to be about that selfsame business. And there was a good deal in the performance of it to appeal to a lad like Billy Topsail—the adventure of the thing: for Doctor Luke seldom counted the chances, when they seemed not too unreasonably against him, andwhen the need was urgent he did not count them at all.

Billy Topsail was just a little bit puzzled at first. Why should Doctor Luke do these things? There was no gain—no material gain worth considering; but it did not take Billy Topsail long to perceive that there was in fact great gain—far exceeding material gain: the satisfaction in doing a good deed for what Doctor Luke called "the love of God" and nothing else whatsoever. Doctor Luke was not attached to any Mission. His work was his own: his field was his own—nobody contributed to his activities; nobody helped him in any way. Yet his work was done in the spirit of the missionary; and that was what Billy Topsail liked about it—the masterful, generous, high-minded quality of it.

Being an honest, healthy lad, Billy Topsail set Doctor Luke in the hero's seat and began to worship, as no good boy could very well help doing; it was not long, indeed, before Doctor Luke had grown to be as great a hero as Sir Archibald Armstrong, Archie's father—and that is saying a good deal. In the lap of the future there lay some adventures in whichBilly Topsail and Archie Armstrong were to be concerned; but Billy Topsail was not aware of that.

Billy Topsail was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. Sometimes, however, he sighed:

"I wish Archie was here!"

And that wish was to come true.

Before Teddy Brisk was well enough to be sent home, something happened at Ragged Run Cove, which lay across Anxious Bight, near by the hospital at Our Harbour; and Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail were at once drawn into the consequences of the accident. It was March weather. There was sunshine and thaw. Anxious Bight was caught over with rotten ice from Ragged Run Cove to the heads of Our Harbour. A rumour of seals—a herd on the Arctic drift-ice offshore—had come in from the Spotted Horses. It inspired instant haste in all the cottages of Ragged Run—an eager, stumbling haste.

In Bad-Weather Tom West's wife's kitchen, somewhat after ten o'clock in the morning, in the midst of this hilarious scramble to be off tothe floe, there was a flash and spit of fire, pale in the sunshine, and the clap of an explosion and the clatter of a sealing gun on the bare floor; and in the breathless, dead little interval, enduring between the appalling detonation and a man's groan of dismay and a woman's choke and scream of terror—in this shocked silence, Dolly West, Bad-Weather Tom's small maid, and Joe West's niece, stood swaying, wreathed in gray smoke, her little hands pressed tight to her eyes.

She was a pretty little creature—she had been a pretty little creature: there had been yellow curls, in the Labrador way—and rosy cheeks and grave blue eyes; but now of all this shy, fair loveliness——

"You've killed her!"

"Dear Lord—no!" cried Uncle Joe West, whose gun had exploded.

Dolly dropped her hands. She reached out, then, for something to grasp.

And she plainted:

"I ithn't dead, mother. I juth'—I juth' can't thee."

She extended her red hands.

"They're all wet!" she complained.

By this time the mother had the little girl gathered close in her arms.

She moaned:

"Doctor Luke—quick!"

Tommy West caught up his cap and mittens and sprang to the door.

"Not by the Bight!" Joe West shouted.

"No, sir."

Dolly West whimpered:

"It thmart-th, mother!"

"By Mad Harry an' Thank-the-Lord!"

"Ay, sir."

Dolly screamed—now:

"It hurt-th! Oh, oh, it hurt-th!"

"An' haste, lad!"

"Ay, sir."

There was of course no doctor at Ragged Run; there was a doctor, Doctor Luke, at Our Harbour, however—across Anxious Bight. Tommy West avoided the rotten ice of the Bight, which he dared not cross, and took the 'longshore trail by way of Mad Harry and Thank-the-Lord. At noon he was past Mad Harry, his little legs wearing well and his breath coming easily through his expanded nostrils—he had not paused; and at four o'clock—still on adog-trot—he had hauled down the chimney smoke of Thank-the-Lord and was bearing up for Our Harbour. Early dusk caught him short-cutting the doubtful ice of Thank-the-Lord Cove; and half an hour later, midway of the passage to Our Harbour, with two miles left to accomplish—dusk falling thick and cold, then, and a frosty wind blowing—the heads of Our Harbour looming black and solid in the wintry night beyond—he dropped through the ice and vanished. There was not a sign of him left—some bubbles, perhaps: nothing more.

In Which Doctor Luke Undertakes a Feat of Daring and Endurance and Billy Topsail Thinks Himself the Luckiest Lad in the World

Returningfrom a call at Tumble Tickle, in clean, sunlit weather, with nothing more tedious than eighteen miles of wilderness trail and rough floe ice behind him, Doctor Luke was chagrined to discover himself a bit fagged. He had come heartily down the trail from Tumble Tickle in the early hours of that fine, windy morning, fit and eager for the trudge—as a matter of course; but on the ice, in the shank of the day—there had been eleven miles of the floe—he had lagged. A man cannot practice medicine out of a Labrador outport harbour and not know what it means to stomach a physical exhaustion. Doctor Luke had been tired before. He was not disturbed by that. But being human, he looked forward to rest; and in the drear, frosty dusk, when he rounded the heads of Home, openedthe lights of Our Harbour, and caught the warm, yellow gleam of the lamp in the surgery window, he was glad to be near his supper and his bed.

And so he told Billy Topsail, whom he found in the surgery, replenishing the fire.

"Ha, Billy!" said he. "I'm glad to be home."

Afterwards, when supper had been disposed of, and Doctor Luke was with Billy in the surgery, the rest of the family being elsewhere occupied, there was a tap on the surgery door. Doctor Luke called: "Come in!"—with some wonder as to the event. It was no night to be abroad on the ice. Yet the tap on the surgery door could mean but one thing—somebody was in trouble; and as he called "Come in!" and while he waited for the door to open, Doctor Luke considered the night and wondered what strength he had left.

A youngster—he had been dripping wet and was now sparkling all over with frost and ice in the light of the surgery lamp—intruded.

"Thank-the-Lord Cove?"

"No, sir."

"Mad Harry?"

"Ragged Run, sir."

"Bad-Weather West's lad?"

"Yes, sir."

"Been in the water?"

The boy grinned. He was ashamed of himself. "Yes, sir. I falled through the ice, sir."

"Come across the Bight?"

The boy stared. "No, sir. A cat couldn't cross the Bight the night, sir. 'Tis all rotten. I come alongshore by Mad Harry an' Thank-the-Lord. I dropped through all of a sudden, sir, in Thank-the Lord Cove."

"Who's sick?"

"Uncle Joe's gun went off, sir."

Doctor Luke rose. "Uncle Joe's gun went off! Who was in the way?"

"Dolly, sir."

"And Dolly in the way! And Dolly——"

"She've gone blind, sir. An' her cheek, sir—an' one ear, sir——"

"What's the night?"

"Blowin' up, sir. There's a scud. An' the moon——"

"You didn't cross the Bight? Why not?"

"'Tis rotten from shore t' shore. I'd not try the Bight, sir, the night."

"No?"

"No, sir." The boy was very grave.

"Mm-m."

All this while Doctor Luke had been moving about the surgery in sure haste—packing a waterproof case with little instruments and vials and what-not. And now he got quickly into his boots and jacket, pulled down his coonskin cap, pulled up his sealskin gloves, handed Bad-Weather West's boy over to the family for supper and bed, and was about to close the surgery door upon himself when Billy Topsail interrupted him.

"I say, sir!"

Doctor Luke halted.

"Well, Billy?"

"Take me, sir! Won't you?"

"What for?"

"I wants t' go."

"I go the short way, Billy."

"Sure, you does! I knowsyou, sir!"

Doctor Luke laughed.

"Come on!" said he.

Billy Topsail thought himself the luckiest lad in the world. And perhaps he was.

In Which Billy Topsail and Doctor Luke Take to the Ice in the Night and Doctor Luke Tells Billy Topsail Something Interesting About Skinflint Sam and Bad-Weather Tom West of Ragged Run

Doctor Lukeand Billy Topsail took to the harbour ice and drove head down into the gale. There were ten miles to go. It was to be a night's work. They settled themselves doggedly to the miles. It was a mile and a half to the Head, where the Tickle led a narrow way from the shelter of Our Harbour to Anxious Bight and the open sea; and from the lee of the Head—a straightaway across Anxious Bight—it was nine miles to Blow-me-Down Dick of Ragged Run Cove. Doctor Luke had rested but three hours. It was but a taste. Legs and feet were bitterly unwilling to forego a sufficient rest. They complained of the interruption. They were stiff and sore and sullen. It was hard to warm them to their labour. Impatient to revive the accustomed comfort and glow of strength, Doctor Luke began to run.

Presently they slowed up. Doctor Luke told Billy Topsail, as they pushed on, something about the Ragged Run family they were to visit. "There is a small trader at Ragged Run," said he. "A strange mixture of conscience and greed he is. Skinflint Sam—they call him. Conscience? Oh, yes, he has a conscience! And his conscience—as he calls it—has made him rich as riches go in these parts. No, of course not! You wouldn't expect a north-coast trader to have a conscience; and you wouldn't expect a north-coast trader with a conscience to be rich!"

Billy Topsail agreed with this.

"Ah, well," Doctor Luke went on, "conscience is much like the wind. It blows every which way (as they say); and if a man does but trim his sails to suit, he can bowl along in any direction without much wear and tear of the spirit. Skinflint Sam bowled along, paddle-punt fisherman to Ragged Run merchant. Skinflint went where he was bound for, wing-and-wing to the breeze behind, and got there with his peace of mind showing never a sign of the weather. It is said that the old man has an easy conscience and ten thousand dollars!

"This Bad-Weather West vowed long agothat he would even scores with Skinflint Sam before he could pass to his last harbour with any satisfaction.

"'With me, Tom?' said Sam. 'That's a saucy notion for a hook-an'-line man.'

"'Ten more years o' life,' said Tom, 'an' I'll square scores.'

"'Afore you evens scores with me, Tom,' said Sam, 'you'll have t' have what I wants.'

"'I may have it.'

"'An' also,' said Sam, 'what I can't get.'

"'There's times,' said Tom, 'when a man stands in sore need o' what he never thought he'd want.'

"'When you haves what I needs,' said Sam, 'I'll pay what you asks.'

"'If 'tis for sale,' said Tom.

"'Money talks,' said Sam.

"'Ah, well,' said Tom, 'maybe it don't speak my language.'

"Of course, Skinflint Sam's conscience is just as busy as any other man's conscience. I think it troubles Sam. It doesn't trouble him to be honest, perhaps; it troubles him only to be rich. And possibly it gives him no rest. When trade is dull—no fish coming into Sam's storehouses andno goods going out of Sam's shop—Sam's conscience makes him grumble and groan. They say a man never was so tortured by conscience before.

"And to ease his conscience Sam goes over his ledgers by night; and he will jot down a gallon of molasses here, and a pound of tea there, until he has made a good day's trade of a bad one. 'Tis simple enough, too: for Sam gives out no accounts, but just strikes his balances to please his greed, at the end of the season, and tells his dealers how much they owe him or how little he owes them."

Doctor Luke paused.

"Ay," said Billy Topsail. "I've seed that way o' doin' business."

"We all have, Billy," said Doctor Luke. And resumed: "In dull times Sam's conscience irks him into overhauling his ledgers. 'Tis otherwise in seasons of plenty. But Sam's conscience apparently keeps pricking away just the same—aggravating Sam into getting richer and richer. There is no rest for Skinflint Sam. Skinflint Sam must have all the money he can take by hook and crook or suffer the tortures of an evil conscience. And as any other man, Sam must ease that conscience or lose sleep o' nights.

"And so in seasons of plenty up goes the price of tea at Skinflint Sam's shop. And up goes the price of pork. And up goes the price of flour. All sky high, ecod! Never was such harsh times (says Sam); why, my dear man, up St. John's way (says he) you couldn't touch tea nor pork nor flour with a ten-foot sealing-gaff. And no telling what the world is coming to, with prices soaring like a gull in a gale and all the St. John's merchants chary of credit!

"''Tis awful times for us poor traders,' says Sam. 'No tellin' who'll weather this here panic. I'd not be surprised if we got a war out of it.'

"Well, now, as you know, Billy, on the north-coast in these days it isn't much like the big world beyond. Folk don't cruise about. They are too busy. And they are not used to it anyhow. Ragged Run folk are not born at Ragged Run, raised at Rickity Tickle, married at Seldom-Come-By, aged at Skeleton Harbour and buried at Run-By-Guess. They are born and buried at Ragged Run. So what the fathers think at Ragged Run, the sons think; and what the sons know, has been known by the old men for a good many years.

"Nobody is used to changes. They are shyof changes. New ways are fearsome. And so the price of flour is a mystery.It is, anyhow.Why it should go up and down at Ragged Run is beyond any man of Ragged Run to fathom. When Skinflint Sam says that the price of flour is up—well, then, it is up; and that's all there is about it. Nobody knows better. And Skinflint Sam has the flour. You know all about that sort of thing, don't you, Billy?"

"Ay, sir," Billy replied. "But I been helpin' the clerk of an honest trader."

"There are honest traders. Of course! Not Sam, though. And, as I was saying, Sam has the pork, as well as the flour. And he has the sweetness and the tea. And he has the shoes and the clothes and the patent medicines. And he has the twine and the salt. And he has almost all the cash there is at Ragged Run. And he has the schooner that brings in the supplies and carries away the fish to the St. John's markets.

"He is the only trader at Ragged Run. His storehouses and shop are jammed with the things that the folk of Ragged Run can't do without and are able to get nowhere else. So all in all, Skinflint Sam can make trouble for thefolk that make trouble for him. And the folk grumble. But it is all they have the courage to do. And Skinflint Sam lets them grumble away. The best cure for grumbling (says he) is to give it free course. If a man can speak out in meeting (says he) he will work no mischief in secret.

"'Sea-lawyers, eh?' says Sam. 'Huh! What you fellers want, anyhow? Huh? You got everything now that any man could expect. Isn't you housed? Isn't you fed? Isn't you clothed? Isn't you got a parson and a schoolmaster? I believes you wants a doctor settled in the harbour! A doctor! An' 'tisn't two years since I got you your schoolmaster! Queer times we're havin' in the outports these days with every harbour on the coast wantin' a doctor within hail.

"'You're well enough done by at Ragged Run. None better nowhere. An' why? Does you ever think o' that? Why? Because I got my trade here. An' think o'me! If ar a one o' you had my brain-labour t' do, you'd soon find out what harsh labour was like. What with bad debts, an' roguery, an' failed seasons, an' creditors t' St. John's, I'm hard put to it t' keepmy seven senses. An' small thanks I gets—me that keeps this harbour alive in famine an' plenty. 'Tis the business I haves that keeps you. You make trouble for my business, an' you'll come t' starvation! Now, you mark me!'

"I do not want you to think too harshly of Skinflint Sam. No doubt he has his good points. Most of us can discover a good point or two in ourselves and almost everybody else. There are times when Skinflint Sam will yield an inch. Oh, yes! I've known Skinflint Sam to drop the price of stick-candy when he had put the price of flour too high for anybody's comfort."

In Which Bad-Weather Tom West's Curious Financial Predicament is Explained

"Well, now," said Doctor Luke, continuing his tale, "Bad-Weather Tom West, of Ragged Run, has a conscience, too. But 'tis just a common conscience. Most men have that kind. It is not like Skinflint Sam's conscience. Nothing 'useful' ever comes of it. It is like yours and mine, Billy. It troubles Tom West to be honest and it keeps him poor. All Tom West's conscience ever aggravates him to do"—Doctor Luke was speaking in gentle irony now—"is just to live along in a religious sort of fashion, and rear his family, and be decently stowed away in the graveyard when his time is up if the sea doesn't catch him first.

"But 'tis a busy conscience for all that—and as sharp as a fish-prong. There is no rest for Tom West if he doesn't fatten his wife and crew of little lads and maids. There is no peace of mind for Tom if he doesn't labour! And soTom labours, and labours, and labours. Dawn to dusk, in season, his punt is on the grounds off Lack-a-Day Head, taking fish from the sea to be salted and dried and passed into Skinflint Sam's storehouses.

"The tale began long ago, Billy. When Tom West was about fourteen years old, his father died. 'Twas of a Sunday afternoon, Tom says, that they stowed him away. He remembers the time: spring weather and a fair day, with the sun low, and the birds twittering in the alders just before turning in.

"Skinflint Sam caught up with young Tom on the road home from the little graveyard on Sunset Hill.

"'Well, lad,' said he, 'the old skipper's gone.'

"'Ay, sir, he's dead an' buried.'

"'A fine man,' said Skinflint. 'None finer.'

"With that young Tom broke out crying. 'He were a kind father t' we,' says he. 'An' now he's dead!'

"'You lacked nothin' in your father's life-time,' said Sam.

"'An' now he's dead!'

"'Well, well, you've no call t' be afeared o' goin' hungry on that account,' said Sam, puttingan arm over the lad's shoulder. 'No; nor none o' the little crew over t' your house. Take up the fishin' where your father left it off, lad,' said he, 'an' you'll find small difference. I'll cross out your father's name on the books an' put down your own in its stead.'"

Billy Topsail interrupted.

"That was kind!" he snorted, in anger. "What a kind man this Skinflint is!"

And Doctor Luke continued:

"'I'm fair obliged,' said Tom. 'That's kind, sir.'

"'Nothin' like kindness t' ease sorrow,' said Skinflint Sam. 'Your father died in debt, lad.'

"'Ay, sir?'

"'Deep.'

"'How much, sir?'

"'I'm not able t' tell offhand,' said Sam. ''Twas deep enough. But never you care. You'll be able t' square it in course o' time. You're young an' hearty. An' I'll not be harsh.I'mno skinflint!'

"'That's kind, sir.'

"'You—you—willsquare it?'

"'I don't know, sir.'

"'What?' cried Sam. 'What!You're notknowin', eh? That's saucy talk. Didn't you have them there supplies?'

"'I 'low, sir.'

"'An' you guzzled your share, I'll be bound!'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'An' your mother had her share?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'An' you're not knowin' whether you'll pay or not! Ecod! What is you? A scoundrel? A dead beat? A rascal? A thief? A jail-bird?'

"'No, sir.'

"''Tis for the likes o' you that jails was made.'

"'Oh, no, sir!'

"'Doesn't you go t' church? Is that what they learns you there? I'm thinkin' the parson doesn't earn what I pays un. Isn't you got no conscience?'

"'Twas just a little too much for young Tom. You see, Tom Westhada conscience—a conscience as fresh and as young as his years. And Tom had loved his father well. And Tom honoured his father's name. And so when he had brooded over Skinflint Sam's words for a time—and when he had lain awake in the nightthinking of his father's goodness—he went over to Skinflint's office and said that he would pay his father's debt.

"Skinflint gave him a clap on the back.

"'You are an honest lad, Tom West!' said he. 'I knowed you was. I'm proud t' have your name on my books!'

"And after that Tom kept hacking away on his father's debt.

"In good years Skinflint would say:

"'She's comin' down, Tom. I'll just apply the surplus.'

"And in bad he'd say:

"'You isn't quite cotched up with your own self this season, b'y. A little less pork this season, Tom, an' you'll square this here little balance afore next. I wisht this whole harbour was as honest as you. No trouble, then,' said he, 't' do business in a businesslike way.'

"When Tom got over the hill—fifty and more—his father's debt, with interest, according to Skinflint's figures, which Tom had no learning to dispute, was more than it ever had been; and his own was as much as he ever could hope to pay. And by that time Skinflint Sam was rich and Bad-Weather Tom was gone sour. One ofthese days—and not long, now—I shall make it my business to settle with Skinflint Sam. And I should have done so before, had I known of it."

"When did you find out, sir?"

"Bad-Weather Tom," Doctor Luke replied, "came to consult me about two months ago. He is in a bad way. I—well, I had to tell him so. And then he told me what I have told you—all about Skinflint Sam and his dealings with him. It was an old story, Billy. I have—well, attended to such matters before, in my own poor way. Bad-Weather Tom did not want me to take this up. 'You leave it to me,' said he; 'an' I'll fix it meself.' I wish he might be able to 'fix' it to his satisfaction."

"I hopes he does!" said Billy.

"Well, well," Doctor Luke replied, "it is Bad-Weather Tom's maid who is in need of us at Ragged Run."

Billy liked that "Us"!

In Which Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail Proceed to Accomplish What a Cat Would Never Attempt and Doctor Luke Looks for a Broken Back Whilst Billy Topsail Shouts, "Can You Make It?" and Hears No Answer

Whenthey came to the Head and there paused to survey Anxious Bight in a flash of the moon Billy Topsail and Doctor Luke were tingling and warm and limber and eager. Yet they were dismayed by the prospect. No man could cross from the Head to Blow-me-Down Dick of Ragged Run Cove in the dark. Doctor Luke considered the light. Communicating masses of ragged cloud were driving low across Anxious Bight. Offshore there was a sluggish bank of black cloud. And Doctor Luke was afraid of that bank of black cloud. The moon was risen and full. It was obscured. The intervals of light were less than the intervals of shadow. Sometimes a wide, impenetrable cloud, its edges alight, darkened the moon altogether. Still—there was lightenough. All that was definitely ominous was the bank of black cloud lying sluggishly offshore.

"I don't like that cloud, Billy," said Doctor Luke.

"No, sir; no more does I."

"It will cover the moon by and by."

"Sure, sir."

"There may be snow in it."

"Sure t' be, sir."

The longer Doctor Luke contemplated that bank of black cloud—its potentiality for catastrophe—the more he feared it.

"If we were to be overtaken by snow——"

Billy interrupted with a chuckle.

"'Twould be a tidy little fix," said he. "Eh, sir?"

"Well, if that's all you have to say," said Doctor Luke—and he laughed—"come right along!"

It was blowing high. There was the bite and shiver of frost in the wind. Half a gale ran in from the open sea. Midway of Anxious Bight it would be a saucy, hampering, stinging head-wind. And beyond the Head the ice was in doubtful condition. A man might conjecture: that was all. What was it Tommy West hadsaid? "A cat couldn't cross!" It was mid-spring. Freezing weather had of late alternated with periods of thaw and rain. There had been windy days. Anxious Bight had even once been clear of ice. A westerly wind had broken the ice and swept it out beyond the heads; a punt had fluttered over from Ragged Run Cove.

In a gale from the northeast, however, these fragments had returned with accumulations of Arctic pans and hummocks from the Labrador Current; and a frosty night had caught them together and sealed them to the cliffs of the coast. It was a slender attachment—a most delicate attachment: one pan to the other and the whole to the rocks.

It had yielded somewhat—it must have gone rotten—in the weather of that day.

What the frost had accomplished since dusk could be determined only upon trial.

"Soft as cheese!" Doctor Luke concluded.

"Rubber ice," said Billy.

"Air-holes," said the Doctor.

There was another way to Ragged Run—the way by which Tommy West had come. It skirted the shore of Anxious Bight—Mad Harry and Thank-the-Lord and Little Harbour Deep—and something more than multiplied the distance by one and a half. Doctor Luke was completely aware of the difficulties of Anxious Bight, and so was Billy Topsail—the way from Our Harbour to Ragged Run: the treacherous reaches of young ice, bending under the weight of a man, and the veiled black water, and the labour, the crevices, the snow-crust of the Arctic pans and hummocks, and the broken field and wash of the sea beyond the lesser island of the Spotted Horses.

They knew, too, the issue of the disappearance of the moon—the desperate plight into which the sluggish bank of black cloud might plunge a man.

Yet they now moved out and shaped a course for the black bulk of the Spotted Horses.

This was in the direction of Blow-me-Down Dick of Ragged Run and the open sea.

"Come on!" said Doctor Luke.

"I'm comin', sir," Billy replied.

There was something between a chuckle and a laugh from Billy's direction.

Doctor Luke started.

"Laughing, Billy?" he inquired.

"I jus' can't help it, sir."

"Nothing much to laugh at."

"No, sir," Billy replied. "I don'tfeellike laughin', sir. But 'tis so wonderful dangerous out on the Bight that I jus' can'thelplaughin'."

Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail were used to travelling all sorts of ice in all sorts of weather. The returning fragments of the ice of Anxious Bight had been close packed for two miles beyond the entrance to Our Harbour by the northeast gale that had driven them back from the open. An alien would have stumbled helplessly and exhausted himself; by and by he would have begun to crawl—in the end he would have lost his life in the frost. This was rough ice. In the press of the wind the drifting floe had buckled. It had been a big gale. Under the whip of it, the ice had come down with a rush. And when it encountered the coast, the first great pans had been thrust out of the sea by the weight of the floe behind.

A slow pressure had even driven them up the cliffs of the Head and heaped them in a tumble below.

It was thus a folded, crumpled floe—a vast field of broken bergs and pans at angles.

No Newfoundlander would adventure on the ice without a gaff. A gaff is a lithe, iron-shod pole, eight or ten feet in length. Doctor Luke was as cunning and sure with the gaff as any old hand of the sealing fleet; and Billy Topsail always maintained that he had been born with a little gaff in his hand instead of a silver spoon in his mouth. They employed the gaffs now to advantage. They used them like vaulting poles. They walked less than they leaped. But this was no work for the half-light of an obscured moon. Sometimes they halted for light. And delay annoyed Doctor Luke. A peppery humour began to possess him. A pause of ten minutes—they squatted for rest meantime—threw him into a state of incautious irritability. At this rate it would be past dawn before they made the cottages of Ragged Run Cove.

It would be slow beyond—surely slow on the treacherous reaches of green ice between the floe and the Spotted Horses.

And beyond the Spotted Horses, whence the path to Ragged Run led—the crossing of Tickle-my-Ribs!

A proverb of Our Harbour maintains that a fool and his life are soon parted.

Doctor Luke invented the saying.

"'Twould be engraved on my stationery," he would declare, out of temper with recklessness, "if I had any engraved stationery!"

Yet now, impatient of precaution, when he thought of Dolly West, Doctor Luke presently chanced a leap. It was error. As the meager light disclosed the path, a chasm of fifteen feet intervened between the edge of the upturned pan upon which he and Billy Topsail stood and a flat-topped hummock of Arctic ice to which he was bound. There was footing for the tip of his gaff midway below. He felt for this footing to entertain himself whilst the moon delayed.

It was there. He was tempted. It was an encouragement to rash conduct. The chasm was critically deep for the length of the gaff. Worse than that, the hummock was higher than the pan. Doctor Luke peered across. It was notmuchhigher. Was it too high? No. It would merely be necessary to lift stoutly at the climax of the leap. And there was need of haste—a little maid in hard case at Ragged Run and a rising cloud threatening black weather.

"Ah, sir, don't leap it!" Billy pleaded.

"Tut!" scoffed the Doctor.

"Wait for the moon, sir!"

A slow cloud covered the moon. It was aggravating. How long must a man wait? A man must take a chance—what? And all at once Doctor Luke gave way to impatience. He gripped his gaff with angry determination and projected himself towards the hummock of Arctic ice. In mid-air he was doubtful. A flash later he had regretted the hazard. It seemed he would come short of the hummock altogether. He would fall. There would be broken bones. He perceived now that he had misjudged the height of the hummock.

Had the gaff been a foot longer Doctor Luke would have cleared the chasm. It occurred to him that he would break his back and merit the fate of his callow mistake. Then his toes caught the edge of the flat-topped hummock. His boots were of soft seal-leather. He gripped the ice. And now he hung suspended and inert. The slender gaff bent under the prolonged strain of his weight and shook in response to the shiver of his arms.

Billy Topsail shouted:

"Can you make it, sir?"

There was no answer.

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