Grenfell: Knight-Errant of the North Part 12

"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 sc.r.a.p. 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.

"He ran with it to the nearest house, which was ten miles away. And soon men came and brought them aid, and their lives were saved.--Well, John, I'm coming back in a day or two to see how you are. And I'll call in on neighbor Martha Dennis, and she'll make you some nice broth to take the place of the stew the dogs got."

"Thank you, Doctor! I'll be glad to see you when you comes back. I don't know what us would do, if it wasn't for you, Doctor!"

To the stories that the Doctor and his patient told each other might be added many more true tales of the intelligence of the "husky" dogs.

Sometimes a man at work in the forest, getting in his winter's supply of fire-wood, will send the dog home with no message at all.

Then the good wife looks about, to see what the dog's master has forgotten. It may be an axe-head, or his pipe, or his lunch of bread and potatoes.

Whatever it is, she ties it to the dog and back he trots to his master in the woods, a willing express-messenger.

But one of the finest deeds set down to the credit of a "husky" is what a plain, every-day "mutt" dog did at Martin's Point, on the west coast of Newfoundland near Bonne Bay, in December 1919.

The steamer _Ethie_, Captain English commanding, was making her last southward trip of the season. I knew the _Ethie_ well, every inch of her, for I had made the up trip and the down trip aboard her only a few weeks before. Through no fault of her gallant captain, she had been carrying a great many more pa.s.sengers than she ever was meant to carry. On a pinch, she had accommodations for fifty. But on one trip, by standing up the fishermen in the washroom as if they were bunches of asparagus, she had taken three hundred pa.s.sengers. From a hundred to two hundred was a common number. I had been one of about twenty-five lucky enough to find a "berth" in the small dining-saloon.

The berth was like a parcel-rack in a railway car. The people of the coast were signing a long pet.i.tion to have the miserable old tub laid up and a larger, modern vessel subst.i.tuted.

When Captain English was nearing Martin's Point on the _Ethie's_ last voyage, a high sea was running, and she sprang a leak. The water rushed into the fireroom. Captain English went below and made an appeal to "his boys" not to desert their fires and not to fail him.

"If you will stick till we get round the Point we can beach her," he said. The stokers manfully plied their shovels: with the snow whirling, and the wind blowing half a gale, the vessel struck, several hundred yards from the beach. In a little while the waves, sweeping furiously over the deck, would have swept the ninety-two persons aboard into the sea.

They tried to fire a line ash.o.r.e to the willing crowd that stood at the edge of the breakers.

But the line fell short, across an ugly reef of jagged rocks half-way to the land.

Then volunteers were asked to swim ash.o.r.e with the rope. But none of the sailors knew how to swim. It is a rare accomplishment among sailors, especially in those bitter northern waters. So that plan was surrendered.

A boat was launched. Before it had fairly hit the tremendous waves, it was dashed to pieces against the _Ethie's_ side.

The company on s.h.i.+pboard seemed at the end of their resources. But the people ash.o.r.e had not been idle.

There was a fisherman of Martin's Point named Reuben Decker, who had a dog whom he had not taken the trouble to name at all. It was one of the young dogs in process of being broken to the sled, and in the meantime it was kicked and stoned and starved--not by the owner, but by strangers afraid of it, as is the general lot of dogs in this part of the world, after they have done their best by man.

The dog happened to be down at the sh.o.r.e, forlornly searching for sculpins and caplin. There was still open water between the sh.o.r.e and the s.h.i.+p. Reuben Decker pointed to the rocks across which the rope had fallen. At his word of command, the dog jumped into the sea, swam to the rocks, and seized the rope in his mouth. Then, with the cries from the s.h.i.+p and the sh.o.r.e ringing in his ears, he turned and began to swim with it to the sh.o.r.e. It was not a heavy line. It was meant to be used to haul a thicker rope. But it was wet, of course, and partly frozen, and the miracle is how the animal managed to pull it through a sea where men did not dare to go.

The watchers ash.o.r.e, standing waist and shoulder deep in the waves, anxious to launch a boat as soon as the heavy swell would let them, watched the dog and clapped their hands and yelled to him to come on.

"Look at un!"

"Swimmin' like a swile!"

"Kim alang, b'y, kim alang!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: LET'S GO!]

"Man dear! My, my, my! Ain't dat wunnerful, now!"

"Dat 'm de b'y!"

"By de powers!--Git y'r gaff, b'y! Help un in!"

"We'll have 'm all sove, soon's us lays han's on dat rope. Lord bless dat dog!"

At one moment his little brown head would rise on the crest of a streaked, yeasty wave, the rope still in the white teeth--and then as the wave curled and broke he would be plunged to the bottom of the trough and they would lose sight of him. Would he come up again?

"Yes--dere he be! My, my, my! Look at him a-comin' and a-comin'! I never did see a dog the beat o' un! By the livin' Jarge, he's got more sense 'n any o' us humans! I tell ye, thet's a miracle, thet's what it is. Nothin' short o' a gospel miracle!"

So the comment ran--for those who said anything. But many were too surprised and thrilled to speak--and if they cried out it was when they all cheered mightily together as the dog, hauled through the surf by as many as could get their eager hands on him, scrambled out on the beach and dropped the f.a.g-end of the rope as if it were a stick, thrown into the water in sport, for him to retrieve.

Now that communication was established, the next thing to do was to haul a heavier rope to the beach. On this a breeches-buoy was rigged without delay. In that breeches-buoy the ninety-two were hauled ash.o.r.e. One of them was a baby, eighteen months old, who traveled in a mail-bag, "pleasantly sleeping and unaware." The last to leave was the captain.

The sea hammered the life out of the boat--but the human life was gone from it, and n.o.body cared. As for the dog--you can imagine how Reuben Decker's cottage door was kept a-swing till it was nearly torn from its hinges, by friends who dropped in to pat him on the back, and look with curiosity at the animal which a few hours ago they ignored or despised. And Reuben did not tire of telling them all what a dog it was. He could safely say there was no better on the coast. Perhaps in the world.

The rumbling echoes of the dog's brave deed traveled "over the hills and far away," to Curling, where lives from hand to mouth a little paper called _The Western Star_. It has a circulation of 675 in fair weather and 600 when it storms. The editor is a man named Barrett, who is a correspondent of the a.s.sociated Press. He put a brief dispatch on the wire for all America. Some people in Philadelphia read it, and sent the dog a silver collar, almost big enough to go three times round his neck. Since the dog had no name, the word "Hero" was engraved on the collar.

The day of the presentation was a general holiday. All the way from St. John's, people came to see "Hero" rewarded. Father Brennan made a speech, the sheriff was in his glory, and Reuben Decker and his dog, dragged blinking into the limelight, were equally dumb with modesty, surprise and grat.i.tude. The cheer that was raised when the silver clasp of the magnificent collar clicked round "Hero's" throat drowned out the loud music of the ocean.

Now "Hero," freed forever from bondage to the sled, may lie by the fire in his master's house, his head on his paws, his nose twitching, as he dreams of his great adventure.