Young Knights of the Empire | Page 9

dog-team, winding the leader's trace round his wrist.
In this way he was himself pulled along by the dogs plunging through the slush. The leading dog got on to a solid ice-floe, and Grenfell was gladly hauling himself up to him by the trace, when the dog slipped all his harness off, and his master was left, sinking among the other dogs in the "sish."
Then he luckily caught the trace of another, and pulled himself along that till he managed to get on to the block of ice, on to which he helped the rest of the dogs.
But it was quite a small block, which would soon break up, so he saw that the only chance was to struggle on through the "porridge-ice" till he could reach a bigger floe, which could serve as a raft for him.
He did not, as some people might have done, give up all hope; he wasn't going to say die till he was dead.
So he took off his gauntlets and moccasins and packed them on to the dogs' backs, then he secured their harness so that it could not slip off, and tied the traces round his wrists so that the team would drag him through; then he tried to start.
But the dogs did not like facing the danger, and he had to push them off the block; even then they only struggled to get back, till a particularly favourite dog understanding him when he threw a bit of ice on to another "pan" or block? started, and so led the others to get to it.
In this way, dragging their master after them, the dogs struggled from pan to pan, till at last they reached one larger than the rest, about ten feet by twelve in size.
It was not real solid ice, but a block of powdered ice, which might fall to bits at any time. Still, it was the best they could get, and with the rising wind and current it soon floated with them on to more open water, and began to drift away from the shore and down the coast. So they had no choice but to make the best of a very poor substitute for a raft,
The cold was intense, and poor Grenfell, like a clever Scout, at once thought out a plan for making himself a coat. His moccasins were long, soft boots made of sealskin reaching to the thigh, so he slit these up with his knife, and, by means of a bit of line, he made them into a kind of cape to put on his back.
Hours passed, and they kept drifting out from the coast, and night was approaching.
Then he saw that he must have more clothing, and also that he and the dogs must have some food the only thing to do was to sacrifice one of his beloved team. So he made a noose with one of the traces, and slipped it over a dog's neck, and tied it to his own foot; then, holding its head down in this way, he threw the dog on its back, and stabbed it to the heart.
Two more were killed in the same way. Then he skinned them and stitched their hides together with thin strips of leather, and thus made himself a coat, with the fur inside.
All the clothes he had had on till then were some old football things he had come across that morning in his house. A pair of football shorts and stockings of the Richmond Football Club (red, yellow, and black), and a flannel shirt and sweater, so he was practically in Boy Scout's kit rather than what you would expect a missionary-doctor to be wearing.
But then, you see, he was quite as much a Scout as he was a doctor or missionary; and we understand from this story how, like a Scout, he was able to turn his hand to anything and invent for himself the different means for saving his life although he was all alone with his dogs on a small lump of rotten ice floating past the coast of Labrador.
There was one little point in which, perhaps, a Boy Scout could have helped him had he been there. As darkness came on, he thought he would light up a flare, which would catch the attention of anyone on shore, so he frayed out a piece of rope and smeared it with the fat of the dead dogs, and was about to light it when he found that his matches had got wet, and in that damp air he could not get them dry.
I wonder whether he thought of the Scout's dodge of drying them in his hair for a minute or two?
[Illustration: Dr. Grenfell as he appeared on the ice-floe, with a cloak of dog-skins, and puttees made of