The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador Part 14

"I'll let you have one o' th' lads and you lets me have a bit o'

shot," the man compromised.

The sympathetic mate, with no intention of giving the man an opportunity to change his mind, seized the naked boy nearest him, tucked the lad, kicking and struggling, under one arm, and started for the boat, but upon Doctor Grenfell's suggestion waited, with the lad still under his arm, for developments.

In the beginning, to be sure, Doctor Grenfell had intended to issue supplies to the man, whether or no. But no matter how much or what supplies were issued there was no doubt these people would be reduced to severe suffering before summer came again. He wished to save the children from want, and to give them a chance to make good in the world as he believed they would with opportunity.

The oldest boy could be of a.s.sistance to his father in the winter hunting, and he could scarce expect the mother to give up her new-born baby. Therefore negotiations were confined to a view of securing the two small boys and the little girl.

Presently, in spite of violent protests from the mother, the father was moved, by promises of additional supplies, to consent to Grenfell taking the other boy. And immediately the man had said, "Take un both," the mate seized the second lad and with a youngster struggling under each arm, and with four bare legs kicking in a wild but vain effort for freedom and two pairs of l.u.s.ty young lungs howling rebellion, he strode exultantly away through the falling snow to the boat with his captives.

No arguments and no amount of promised stores could move the father to open his mouth again, and Grenfell was finally compelled to be content with the two boys and to leave the little girl behind him to face the hards.h.i.+ps and rigors of a northern winter. Poor little thing!

She did not realize the wonderful opportunity her parents had denied her.

When negotiations were ended Doctor Grenfell arranged for the liveyeres to occupy a comfortable cabin on the mainland. He conspired with the agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, with the result that they were properly clothed and provisioned, a better gun was found for the man and an ample supply of ammunition.

Hundreds of stories might be told of the dest.i.tute little ones that have been, since the day he found Pomiuk on the rocks of Nochvak, gathered together by Doctor Grenfell and tenderly cared for in the Children's Home that was built at St. Anthony. There was a little girl whose feet were so badly frozen that her father had to chop them both off with an ax to save her life, and who Doctor Grenfell found helpless in the poor little cabin where her people lived. I wish there was time and room to tell about her. He took her away with him, and healed her wounds, and fitted cork feet to her stumps of legs so that she could go to school and run around and play with the other children. Indeed, she learned to use her new feet so well that today, if you saw her you would never guess that her feet were not her real ones.

And there was a little boy whose father was frozen to death at his trapping one winter, a bright little chap now in the home and going to school.

These are but a few of the many, many children that have been made happy and have been trained at the Home and under Doctor Grenfell's care to useful lives. Some of them have worked their way through college. Some of the boys served in the Great War at the front. Many are holding positions of importance. Let us see, however, what became of those particular ones, mentioned in this chapter.

One of the Scotch trapper's daughters found by Doctor Grenfell in the lonely cabin when her mother lay dead and her father dying is a trained nurse. The others are also in responsible positions.

The baby of the mud hut is a charming young lady, a graduate of a school in the United States, and the successful member of a useful profession.

Both of the little naked boys taken from the island that snowy day are grown men now, and graduates of the famous Pratt Inst.i.tute in Brooklyn, New York. One is a master carpenter, the other the manager of a big trading store on the Labrador coast.

Now, as I write, in the fall of 1921, the walls of a new fine concrete home for the children are under construction at St. Anthony, to be used in conjunction with the original wooden building which is crowded to capacity. Children of the United States, Canada, and Great Britain giving of their pennies made the new building possible. More money is needed to furnish it, but enough will surely be given for the homeless little ones of the Labrador must be cared for.

And so, in the end, great things grew out of the suffering and death of Gabriel Pomiuk, the little Eskimo lad. His splendid courage and cheerfulness has led to happiness for many other little sufferers.

XVII

THE DOGS OF THE ICE TRAIL

One of the most interesting features of Labrador life in winter is dog travel. The dogs are interesting the year round, for they are always in evidence winter and summer, but in the fall when the sea freezes and snow comes, they take a most important place in the life of the people of the coast. They are the horses and automobiles and locomotives of the country. No one can travel far without them.

The true Eskimo dog of Labrador, the "husky," as he is called, is the direct descendant of the great Labrador wolf. The Labrador wolf is the biggest and fiercest wolf on the North American continent, and the Eskimo dog of northern Labrador, his brother, is the biggest and finest sledge dog to be found anywhere in the world. He is larger and more capable than the Greenland species of which so much has been written, and he is quite superior to those at present found in Alaska.

The true husky dog of northern Labrador has the head and jawls and upstanding ears of the wild wolf. He has the same powerful shoulders, thick forelegs, and bristling mane. He does not bark like other dogs, but has the characteristic howl of the wolf. There is apparently but one difference between him and the wild wolf, and this comes, possibly, through domestication. He curls his tail over his back, while the wolf does not. Even this distinction does not always hold, for I have seen and used dogs that did not curl their tail. These big fellows often weigh a full hundred pounds and more.

Indeed these northern huskies and the wild wolves mix together sometimes to fight, and sometimes in good fellows.h.i.+p. Once I had a wolf follow my komatik for two days, and at night when we stopped and turned our dogs loose the wolf joined them and staid the night with them only to slink out of rifle shot with the coming of dawn.

One of my friends, an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, was once traveling with a native Labradorman driver along the Labrador coast, when his train of eight big huskies, suddenly becoming excited, gave an extra strain on their traces and snapped the "bridle," the long walrus hide thong that connects the traces with the komatik. Away the dogs ran, heading over a low hill, apparently in pursuit of some game they had scented.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "PLEASE LOOK AT MY TONGUE, DOCTOR!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NEXT!"]

My friend, on snowshoes, ran in pursuit, while the driver made a circuit around the hill in the hope of heading the dogs off. Ten minutes later the team swung down over the hill and back to the komatik. From a distance the men saw them and also turned back, but to their astonishment they counted not the eight dogs that composed their team, but thirteen. On drawing nearer they realized that five great wolves had joined the dogs.

The men's guns were lashed on the komatik, and both were, therefore, unarmed, and before they could reach the komatik and unlash the rifles the wolves had fled over the hill and out of range. The dogs, however, answered the driver's call and were captured.

One winter evening a few years ago I drove my dog team to the isolated cabin of Tom Broomfield, a trapper of the coast, where I was to spend the night. When our dogs were fed and we had eaten our own supper, Tom went to a chest and drew forth a huge wolf skin, which he held up for my inspection.

"He's a big un, now! A wonderful big un!" he commented. "Most big enough all by hisself for a man's sleepin' bag!"

"It's a monster!" I exclaimed. "Where did you kill it?"

"Right here handy t' th' door," he grinned. "I were standin' just outside th' door o' th' porch when I fires and knocks he over th'

first shot."

"He were here th' day before Tom kills he," interjected Tom's wife.

"He gives me a wonderful scare that wolf does. I were alone wi' th'

two young ones."

"Tell me about it," I suggested.

"'Twere this way sir," said Tom, spreading the pelt over a big chest where we could admire it. "I were away 'tendin' fox traps, and I has th' komatik and all th' dogs, savin' one, which I leaves behind. Th'

woman were bidin' home alone wi' th' two young ones. In th' evenin'[D]

her hears dogs a fightin' outside, and thinkin' 'tis one o' th' team broke loose and runned home that's fightin' th' dog I leaves behind, she starts t' go out t' beat un apart and stop th' fightin' when she sees 'tis a wolf and no dog at all. 'Twere a wonderful big un too. He were inside that skin you sees there, sir, and you can see for yourself th' bigness o' he.

"Her tries t' take down th' rifle, th' one as is there on th' pegs, sir. Th' wolf and th' dog be now fightin' agin' th' door, and th' door is bendin' in and handy t' breakin' open. She's a bit scared, sir, and shakin' in th' hands, and she makes a slip, and th' rifle, he goes off, bang! and th' bullet makes that hole marrin' th' timber above th'

windy."

Tom arose and pointed out a bullet hole above the window.

"Then th' wolf, he goes off too, bein' scared at th' shootin'.

"I were home th' next day mendin' dog harness, when I hears th' dogs fightin', and I takes a look out th' windy, and there I sees that wolf fightin' wi' th' dogs, and right handy t' th' house. I just takes my rifle down spry as I can, and goes out. When th' dogs sees me open th'

door they runs away and leaves th' wolf apart from un, and I ups and knocks he over wi' a bullet, sir. I gets he fair in th' head first shot I takes, and there be th' skin. 'Tis worth a good four dollars too, for 'tis an extra fine one."

They are treacherous beasts, but, like the wolf, cowardly, these big dogs of the Labrador. If a man should trip and fall among them, the likelihood is he would be torn to pieces by their fangs before he could help himself. You cannot make pals of them as you can of other dogs. They would as lief snap off the hand that reared and feeds them as not. It is never safe for a stranger to move among a pack of them without a stick in his hand. But a threatened kick or the swing of a menacing stick will send them off crawling and whining.

The Hudson's Bay Company once had a dozen or so of these big fellows at Cartwright Post, in Sandwich Bay. They were exceptionally fine dogs of the true husky breed, brought down from one of the more northerly posts, and the agent was proud of them. This was the same agent whose dogs ran away to chum with the wolves, and I believe these were some of the same dogs. They were splendid animals in harness, well broken and tireless travelers on the trail.

One evening, late in the fall, the agent's wife was standing at the open door of the post house, and her little boy, a lad of about your years, was playing near the doorstep.

Labrador dogs are fed but once a day, and this is always in the evening. It was feeding time for the dogs, and a servant down at the feed house, where the dog rations were kept, called them. With a rush they responded. Just when some of them were pa.s.sing the post house the little boy in his play stumbled and fell. In an instant the dogs were upon him. The mother, with rare presence of mind, sprang forward, seized the boy, sprang back into the house and slammed the door upon the dogs.

The boy was on the ground but a moment, but in that moment he was horribly torn by the sharp fangs. At one place his entrails were laid bare. There were over sixty wounds on his little body. The dogs lapped up the blood that fell upon the ground and doorstep. That night the pack, like a pack of hungry wolves, congregated outside the window where they heard the child crying and moaning with pain and all night howled as wolves howl when they have cornered prey.

The following morning it happened providentially that Doctor Grenfell's hospital s.h.i.+p steamed into Cartwright Harbor and dropped anchor. The Doctor himself was aboard. He took the boy under his charge and the little one's life was saved through his skill.

After the attack the dogs became extremely aggressive and surly. They were like a pack of fierce wolves. No one about the place was safe, and the agent was compelled to shoot every animal in defense of human life. Usually in Labrador when dogs are guilty of attacking people they are hung by the neck to a gibbet until dead, and left hanging for several days. I have seen dogs thus hanging after execution.