Grenfell: Knight-Errant of the North Part 21

The men who came to the rescue wanted no reward. To have the Doctor back in their midst again was all they desired. But the Doctor insisted on giving them tokens of his grat.i.tude. As George Andrews said:

"'E sent us watches, an' spy-gla.s.ses, an' pictures o' himself made large an' in a frame. George Read an' me 'ad th' watches an' th'

others 'ad th' spy-gla.s.ses. 'Eere's th' watch. It 'as 'In memory o'

April 21st' on it, but us don't need th' things to make we remember it, though we're wonderful glad t' 'ave 'em from th' Doctor."

XI

THE KIDNAPPERS

One day, as Grenfell was about to leave northern Labrador in his little steamer the _Strathcona_, a man came aboard with trouble in his eyes. It was the good-hearted Hudson's Bay agent.

"Doctor," he pleaded, "old Tommy Mitch.e.l.l's been comin' in every Sat.u.r.day for two months, tryin' to get somethin' for his family. I've been givin' him twenty pounds of flour a week for himself and wife and six children. That's every shred they've got to live on. He hasn't a salmon or a codfish to give me, and he was in debt when I came here.

What'll we do?"

The _Strathcona_ had steam up and was whistling to the Doctor to come aboard. On the Labrador coast you must leave promptly or the sea may punish you for the delay.

"See if you can't stop at the island off Napaktok Point, Doctor.

They're livin' out there with nothin' but their own hats to cover 'em--if they've got any."

"I will," the Doctor promised, and was off.

When they came near the island, the dory was lowered, and Grenfell and his mate rowed toward the rocks.

"Can you see anything that looks like a house, Bill? You have better eyes than mine."

"No, Doctor. I been a-lookin'. I sees--nothing."

"I didn't expect you to do as well as that," said the Doctor. "But keep on looking. And call out when you see anything."

They rowed almost round the island, against a stiff head wind.

Each time they pa.s.sed cove or headland they thought, "Well now, surely it must be just around the next point."

"There's a smoke, sir!" cried the sharp-eyed Bill.

Sure enough--there was a tiny wisp of smoke, trickling up the face of the rocks.

But no hut was to be seen.

They landed, and pulled the boat out on the beach.

Then they went toward the smoke. The fire was built among flat stones out in the open.

A hollow-cheeked woman sat with a poor, scrawny sc.r.a.p of a baby on her arm. In her other hand she held what looked like an old paint can, and she was stirring some thin sort of gruel in it, in spite of the weight of the baby on her arm. It was not heavy, poor little creature!

"Good-morning. Where's your tent?" Grenfell asked, cheerily.

"There she is."

The woman pointed with the gruel stick to a ma.s.s of canvas and matting, plastered in patches with mud against the face of the cliff.

"Why do you cook in the open?"

"'Cos us hasn't got no stove."

"Where's Tom?"

"He's away. He's gone off wid Johnnie, tryin' to shoot a gull. Here, Bill, run an' fetch yer dad, an' tell him Dr. Grenfell wants 'un."

A half-naked little boy about nine years old darted off into the scrub bushes.

"What's the matter with baby?" Dr. Grenfell inquired kindly, as the infant clasped his finger and looked up into his mild face.

"Hungry," was the mother's sufficient answer. "I ain't got nothin' to give him." Her lip trembled, and she turned her head away.

The baby kept up a constant whimpering, like a lamb very badly scared.

"It's half-starved," said the Doctor. "What do you give it?"

"Flour, and berries," was the response. "I chews the loaf first--or else it ain't no good for him."

Then a little girl, of perhaps five, and a boy of--maybe--seven, shyly came from behind the tent, where they had fled wild-eyed and hid when the strangers came. They had nothing on: but they were brown as chestnuts and fat as b.u.t.ter.

It was snowing, and the snow had driven them toward the poor, mean fire where mother sat with the baby.

"Glad to see the other children are fat," said the Doctor.

"They bees eatin' berries all the time," was the mother's answer. Then suddenly the full force of their plight swept all other thoughts out of her mind.

"What's t' good of t' government?" she cried. "Here is we all starvin'. And it's ne'er a crust they gives yer. There bees a sight o'

pork an' b.u.t.ter in t' company's store. But it's ne'er a sight of 'im us ever gets. What are them doin'? T' agent he says he can't give Tom no more'n dry flour, an' us can't live on dat."

Then a bent and weary figure shuffled on the scene. It was Tom, the poor husband and father. He had an old and rusty, single-barreled muzzle-loading gun, and he was carrying a dead sea-gull by the tip of one of its wings. Two small boys trudged along after him, their faces old before their time. They stood looking at the Doctor in wonderment.

"Well, Tom, you've had luck!" was Grenfell's greeting. He explains that he meant Tom was very lucky not to have the gun open at the wrong end and discharge its contents into his face!

"It's only a kitty," the hunter answered, sadly. "An' I been sittin'

out yonder on the p'int all day." A kitty is a little gull.

"Your gun isn't heavy enough to kill the big gulls, I suppose."

"No, Doctor. I hain't much powder--and ne'er a bit o' shot. I has to load her up most times with a handful o' they round stones. T' hammer don't always set her off, neither. Her springs bees too old, I reckon." He fumbled with the trigger in a way that led Grenfell to ask him to let him hold the gun instead. Tom pa.s.sed it over, and Grenfell held it till their talk was over.

Tom, who was part Eskimo, was a very poor business man. He had been a slave of the "truck system" by which a man brings his furs or his fish to a trader, exchanges them for supplies, and is always in debt to the storekeeper who takes pains to see that it shall be so.