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Title: Billy Topsail, M.D.: A Tale of Adventure With Doctor Luke of the Labrador

Author: Norman Duncan

Release date: October 15, 2014 [eBook #47128]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Joke Van Dorst and the Online
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BILLY TOPSAIL, M.D.: A TALE OF ADVENTURE WITH DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR ***

BILLY TOPSAIL, M.D.

The "Billy Topsail" Books

By NORMAN DUNCAN

Each Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.25

The Adventures of Billy Topsail

"There was no need to invent conditions or imagine situations. The life of any lad of Billy Topsail's years up there is sufficiently romantic. It is this skill in the portrayal of actual conditions that lie ready to the hand of the intelligent observer that makes Mr. Duncan's Newfoundland stories so noteworthy."—Brooklyn Eagle.

Billy Topsail and Company

"Another rousing volume of 'The Billy Topsail Books.' Norman Duncan has the real key to the boy heart and in Labrador he has opened up a field magnetic in its perils and thrills and endless excitements."—Examiner.

Billy Topsail, M. D.

A Tale of Adventure with "Doctor Luke of the Labrador."

The further adventures of Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong on the ice, in the forest and at sea. In a singular manner the boys fall in with a doctor of the outposts and are moved to join forces with him. The doctor is Doctor Luke of the Labrador whose prototype as every one knows is Doctor Grenfell. Its pages are as crowded with brisk adventures as those of the preceding books.

"BACK, YOU, CRACKER! BACK, YOU, SMOKE!"

(See page 85)

BILLY TOPSAIL, M.D.

A Tale of Adventure With Doctor Luke of the Labrador

By
NORMAN DUNCAN

ILLUSTRATED

New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

To the Reader

In this tale of the seas and ice-floes of Newfoundland and Labrador, Billy Topsail adventures with Doctor Luke of the Labrador. There are thrilling passages in the book. The author is frank to admit the hair-raising quality of them. Indeed, they have tickled his own scalp. Well, it is proper that the hair of the reader should sometimes stand on end and his eyes pop wide. The author would be a poor teller of tales if he could not manage as much—a charlatan if he did not. Yet these thrilling passages are not the work of a saucy imagination, delighting in shudders, no matter what, but are all decently founded upon fact, true to the experience of the coast, as many a Newfoundlander, boy and man, could tell you.

Doctor Luke has often been mistaken for Doctor Wilfred Grenfell of the Deep Sea Mission. That should not be. No incident in this book is a transcript from Doctor Grenfell's long and heroic service. What Billy Topsail and Doctor Luke encounter, however, is precisely what the Deep Sea Mission workers must encounter. It should be said, too, that as the tale is told of the spring of the year, when the ice breaks up and the floes come drifting out of the north with great storms, Newfoundland presents herself in her worst mood. Yet the sun shines in Newfoundland, tender enough in summer weather—there are flowers on the hills and warm winds on the sea; and such as learn to know the land come quickly to love her for her beauty and for her friendliness.

N. D.

New York, March, 1916.

Chapter I	15
In which it is hinted that Teddy Brisk would make a nice little morsel o' dog meat, and Billy Topsail begins an adventure that eventually causes his hair to stand on end and is likely to make the reader's do the same.
Chapter II	24
In which Timothy Light's team of ten potential outlaws is considered, and there is a significant description of the career of a blood-guilty, ruined young dog, which is in the way of making desperate trouble for somebody.
Chapter III	33
In which Timothy Light's famished dogs are committed to the hands of Billy Topsail and a tap on the snout is recommended in the probable case of danger.
Chapter IV	40
In which the komatik is foundered, the dogs draw their own conclusions from the misfortune and prepare to take advantage, Cracker attempts a theft and gets a clip on the snout, and Billy Topsail and Teddy Brisk confront a situation of peril with composure, not knowing the ultimate disaster that impends.
Chapter V	50
In which the wind goes to work, the ice behaves in an alarming way, Billy Topsail regrets, for obvious reasons, having to do with the dogs, that he had not brought an axe, and Teddy Brisk protests that his mother knew precisely what she was talking about.
Chapter VI	56
In which the sudden death of Cracker is contemplated as a thing to be desired, Billy Topsail's whip disappears, a mutiny is declared and the dogs howl in the darkness.

Chapter VII	64
In which a blazing club plays a salutary part, Teddy Brisk declares the ways of his mother, and Billy Topsail looks forward to a battle that no man could win.
Chapter VIII	70
In which Teddy Brisk escapes from the wolfskin bag and determines to use his crutch and Billy Topsail comes to the conclusion that "it looks bad."
Chapter IX	76
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.
Chapter X	82
In which Teddy Brisk confronts the pack alone and Cracker leads the assault.
Chapter XI	87
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.
Chapter XII	92
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.
Chapter XIII	100
In which Doctor Luke undertakes a feat of daring and endurance and Billy Topsail thinks himself the luckiest lad in the world.
Chapter XIV	104
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.

Chapter XV	112
In which Bad-Weather Tom West's curious financial predicament is explained.
Chapter XVI	118
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.
Chapter XVII	126
In which rubber ice is encountered and Billy Topsail is asked a pointed question.
Chapter XVIII	134
In which discretion urges Doctor Luke to lie still in a pool of water.
Chapter XIX	140
In which Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail hesitate in fear on the brink of Tickle-my-Ribs.
Chapter XX	149
In which Skinflint Sam of Ragged Run finds himself in a desperate predicament and Bad-Weather Tom West at last has what Skinflint Sam wants.
Chapter XXI	158
In which a Crœsus of Ragged Run drives a hard bargain in a gale of wind.
Chapter XXII	167
In which Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail go north, and at Candlestick Cove, returning, Doctor Luke finds himself just a bit peckish.
Chapter XXIII	174
In which, while Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail rest unsuspecting at Candlestick Cove, Tom Lute, the father of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island, sharpens an axe in the wood-shed, and the reader is left to draw his own conclusions respecting the sinister business.

Chapter XXIV	184
In which Bob Likely, the mail-man, interrupts Doctor Luke's departure, in the nick of time, with an astonishing bit of news, and the ice of Ships' Run begins to move to sea in a way to alarm the stout hearted.
Chapter XXV	190
In which a stretch of slush is to be crossed and Billy Topsail takes the law in his own hands.
Chapter XXVI	196
In which it seems that an axe and Terry Lute's finger are surely to come into injurious contact, and Terry Lute is caught and carried bawling to the block, while his mother holds the pot of tar.
Chapter XXVII	204
In which Doctor Luke's flesh creeps, Billy Topsail acts like a bob-cat, and the Little Fiddler of Amen Island tells a secret.
Chapter XXVIII	212
In which Sir Archibald Armstrong's son and heir is presented for the reader's inspection, highly complimented and recommended by the author, and the thrilling adventure, which Archie and Billy are presently to begin, has its inception on the departure of Archie from St. John's aboard the Rough and Tumble.
Chapter XXIX	221
In which the crew of the Rough and Tumble is harshly punished, and Archie Armstrong, having pulled the wool over the eyes of Cap'n Saul, goes over the side to the floe, where he falls in with a timid lad, in whose company, with Billy Topsail along, he is some day to encounter his most perilous adventure.
Chapter XXX	226
In which a little song-maker of Jolly Harbour enlists the affection of the reader.
Chapter XXXI	232
In which a gale of wind almost lays hands on the crew of the Rough and Tumble, Toby Farr is confronted with the suggestion of dead men, piled forward like cord-wood, and Archie Armstrong joins Bill o' Burnt Bay and old Jonathan in a roar of laughter.

Chapter XXXII	240
In which Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail say good-bye to Toby Farr for the present, and, bound down to Our Harbour with Doctor Luke, enter into an arrangement, from which issues the discovery of a mysterious letter and sixty seconds of cold thrill.
Chapter XXXIII	251
In which the letter is opened, Billy and Archie are confronted by a cryptogram, and, having exercised their wits, conclude that somebody is in desperate trouble.
Chapter XXXIV	257
In which Archie and Billy resolve upon a deed of their own doing, and are challenged by Ha-ha Shallow of Rattle Water.
Chapter XXXV	265
In which Billy Topsail takes his life in his hands and Ha-ha Shallow lays hold of it with the object of snatching it away.
Chapter XXXVI	271
In which Ha-ha Shallow is foiled, Archie Armstrong displays swift cunning, of which he is well aware, and Billy Topsail, much to his surprise, and not greatly to his distaste, is kissed by a lady of Poor Luck Barrens.
Chapter XXXVII	279
In which Archie Armstrong rejoins the Rough and Tumble, with Billy Topsail for shipmate, and they seem likely to be left on the floe, while Toby Farr, with the gale blowing cold as death and dark falling, promises to make a song about the ghosts of dead men, but is entreated not to do so.
Chapter XXXVIII	287
In which the wind blows a tempest, our heroes are lost on the floe, Jonathan Farr is encased in snow and frozen spindrift, Toby strangely disappears, and an heroic fight for life is begun, wrapped in bitter dark.
Chapter XXXIX	293
In which one hundred and seventy-three men of the Rough and Tumble are plunged in the gravest peril of the coast, wandering like lost beasts, and some drop dead, and some are drowned, and some kill themselves to be done with the torture they can bear no longer.

Chapter XL	298
In which Toby Farr falls in the water, and, being soaked to the skin, will freeze solid in half an hour, in the frosty dusk of the approaching night, unless a shift of dry clothes is found, a necessity which sends Jonathan Farr and Billy Topsail hunting for dead men.
Chapter XLI	305
In which a dead man is made to order for little Toby Farr.
Chapter XLII	311
In which the tale comes to a good end: Archie and Billy make ready for dinner, Toby Farr is taken for good and all by Sir Archibald, and Billy Topsail, having been declared wrong by Archie's father, takes the path that leads to a new shingle, after which the author asks a small favour of the reader.

To
Elspeth's
Canadian Cousins
Russ and Dode, Tom and Kenn,
Rich and Logan, Mort and
Fos, Georgie,
and
all the girls of the connection
who will deign
to read the tale, Mar
and Buff, Frankie,
Bettie and Jean
when the time
comes,
with a wink and a challenge
to
Kathie Sweet.

CHAPTER I

In Which It Is Hinted that Teddy Brisk Would Make a Nice Little Morsel o' Dog Meat, and Billy Topsail Begins an Adventure that Eventually Causes His Hair to Stand on End and Is Likely to Make the Reader's Do the Same

One dark night in the fall of the year, the trading-schooner Black Bat, of Ruddy Cove, slipped ashore on the rocks of Tight Cove, of the Labrador. She was frozen fast before she could be floated. And that was the end of her flitting about. It was the end, too, of Billy Topsail's rosy expectation of an hilarious return to his home at Ruddy Cove. Winter fell down next day. A great wind blew with snow and frost; and when the gale was blown out—the sun out and the sky blue again—it was out of the question to rip the Black Bat out of her icy berth in Tight Cove Harbour and put her on the tumbled way to Ruddy.

And that is how it came about that Billy Topsail passed the winter at Tight Cove, with Teddy Brisk, and in the spring of the year, when the ice was breaking up, fell in with Doctor Luke of the Labrador in a way that did not lack the aspects of an adventure of heroic proportions. It was no great hardship to pass the winter at Tight Cove: there was something to do all the while—trapping in the back country; and there was no uneasiness at home in Ruddy Cove—a wireless message from the station at Red Rock had informed Ruddy Cove of the fate of the Black Bat and the health and comfort of her crew.

And now for the astonishing tale of how Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail fell in together——

When Doctor Luke made Tight Cove, of the Labrador, in the course of his return to his little hospital at Our Harbour, it was dusk. His dogs were famished; he was himself worn lean with near five hundred miles of winter travel, which measured his northern round, and his komatik (sled) was occupied by an old dame of Run-by-Guess Harbour and a young man of Anxious Bight. The destitute old dame of Run-by-Guess Harbour was to die of her malady in a cleanly peace; the young man of Anxious Bight was to be relieved of those remnants of a shoulder and good right arm that an accidental gunshot wound had left to endanger his life.

It was not fit weather for any man to be abroad—a biting wind, a frost as cold as death, and a black threat of snow; but Doctor Luke, on this desperate business of healing, was in haste, and the patients on the komatik were in need too urgent for any dawdling for rest by the way. Schooner Bay ice was to cross; he would put up for the night—that was all; he must be off at dawn, said he in his quick, high way.

From this news little Teddy Brisk's mother returned to the lamp-lit cottage by Jack-in-the-Box. It was with Teddy Brisk's mother that Billy Topsail was housed for the winter.

"Is I t' go, mum?" said Teddy.

Teddy Brisk's mother trimmed the lamp.

"He've a ol' woman, dear," she replied, "from Run-by-Guess."

Teddy Brisk's inference was decided.

"Then he've room for me," he declared; "an' I'm not sorry t' learn it."

"Ah, well, dear, he've also a poor young feller from Anxious Bight."

Teddy Brisk nodded.

"That's all about that," said he positively. "He've no room for me!"

Obviously there was no room for little Teddy Brisk on Doctor Luke's komatik. Little Teddy Brisk, small as he was, and however ingenious an arrangement might be devised, and whatever degree of compression might be attempted, and no matter what generous measure of patience might be exercised by everybody concerned, including the dogs—little Teddy Brisk of Tight Cove could not be stowed away with the old dame from Run-by-Guess Harbour and the young man of Anxious Bight.

There were twenty miles of bay ice ahead; the dogs were footsore and lean; the komatik was overflowing—it was out of the question. Nor could Teddy Brisk, going afoot, keep pace with the Doctor's hearty strides and the speed of the Doctor's team—not though he had the soundest little legs on the Labrador, and the longest on the Labrador, of his years, and the sturdiest, anywhere, of his growth.

As a matter of fact, one of Teddy Brisk's legs was as stout and willing as any ten-year-old leg ever you saw; but the other had gone bad—not so recently, however, that the keen Doctor Luke was deceived in respect to the trouble, or so long ago that he was helpless to correct it.

Late that night, in the lamp-lit cottage by Jack-in-the-Box, the Doctor looked over the bad leg with a severely critical eye; and he popped more questions at Teddy Brisk, as Teddy Brisk maintained, than had ever before been exploded on anybody in the same length of time.

"Huh!" said he at last. "I can fix it."

"You can patch un up, sir?" cried Skipper Tom.

This was Thomas Brisk. The father of Teddy Brisk had been cast away, with the Brotherly Love, on the reef by Fly Away Head, in the Year of the Big Shore Catch. This old Thomas was his grandfather.

"No, no, no!" the Doctor complained. "I tell you I can fix it!"

"Will he be as good as new, sir?" said Teddy.

"Will he?" the Doctor replied. "Aha!" he laughed. "You leave that to the carpenter."

"As good as Billy Topsail's off shank?"

"I'll scrape that bad bone in there," said the Doctor, rubbing his hands in a flush of professional expectation; "and if it isn't as good as new when the job's finished I'll—I'll—why, I'll blush, my son: I'll blush all red and crimson and scarlet."

Teddy Brisk's mother was uneasy.

"Will you be usin' the knife, sir?"

"The knife? Certainly!"

"I'm not knowin'," said the mother, "what little Teddy will say t' that."

"What say, son?" the Doctor inquired.

"Will it be you that's t' use the knife?" asked Teddy.

"Mm-m!" said the Doctor. He grinned and twinkled. "I'm the butcher, sir."

Teddy Brisk laughed. "That suits me!" said he.

"That's hearty!" the Doctor exclaimed. He was delighted. The trust was recompense. God knows it was welcome! "I'll fix you, Teddy boy," said he, rising. And to Skipper Thomas: "Send the lad over to the hospital as soon as you can, Skipper Thomas. When the ice goes out we'll be crowded to the roof at Our Harbour. It's the same way every spring. Egad! they'll sweep in like the flakes of the first fall of snow! Now's the time. Make haste! We must have this done while I've a cot to spare."

"I will, sir."

"We're due for a break-up soon, I suppose—any day now; but this wind and frost will hold the ice in the bay for a while. You can slip the lad across any day. It must be pretty fair going out there. You can't bring him yourself, Skipper Thomas. Who can? Somebody here? Timothy Light? Old Sam's brother, isn't he? I know him. It's all arranged, then. I'll be looking for the lad in a day or two. You've plenty of dogs in Tight Cove, haven't you?"

"Oh, aye, sir," Skipper Thomas replied; "we've dogs, sir—never you mind about that!"

"Whose dogs?"

"Timothy Light's dogs."

The Doctor grinned again.

"That pack!" said he.

"A saucy pack o' dogs!" said Teddy's mother. "It's mostly new this season. I don't like un! I'm fair afraid o' them, sir. That big Cracker, sir, that Timothy haves for bully an' leader—he've fair spoiled Timothy Light's whole team. I'm none too fond o' that great dog, sir; an' I'll have my say about it."

Skipper Thomas laughed—as a man will at a woman's fears.

"No sheep's manners t' that pack," he drawled. "The team's all dawg."

"What isn't wolf!" the woman retorted.

"She've been afraid o' that Cracker," Skipper Thomas explained, "ever since he fetched a brace o' wolves out o' the timber. 'Twas as queer a sight, now, as ever you seed, sir. They hung round the harbour for a day an' a night. You might think, sir, that Cracker was showin' off his new quarters t' some friends from the back country. They two wolves seemed t' have knowed Cracker all their lives. I 'low that they had knowed——"

"He's half wolf hisself."

"I 'low he's all wolf," Skipper Thomas admitted. This was not true. Cracker was not all wolf. "I never heard o' nobody that knowed where Cracker was born. That dog come in from the timber."

"A wicked crew—the pack o' them!"

"We've had a lean winter at Tight Cove, sir," said Skipper Thomas. "The dogs have gone marvellous hungry this past month, sir. They're just a wee bit savage."

"Spare your dog meat if you lack it," the Doctor advised. "I'll feed that team at Our Harbour."

Teddy Brisk put in:

"Timothy Light haves command o' that pack."

"I'm not so sure that he've command," Teddy Brisk's mother protested. "I'm not so sure that any man could command a shockin' pack like that. In case o' accident, now——"

Skipper Thomas chucked his ample, glowing daughter-in-law under the chin.

"You loves that lad o' yourn!" he bantered.

"I does!"

"You're thinkin' he'd make a nice little morsel o' dog meat?"

"As for me," she laughed, "I could eat him!"

She caught little Teddy Brisk in her arms and kissed him all over his eager little face. And then Doctor Luke, with a laugh and a boyish "So long, Teddy Brisk! See you soon, old soldier!" vanished to his lodgings for the night.

CHAPTER II

In Which Timothy Light's Team of Ten Potential Outlaws is Considered, and There is a Significant Description of the Career of a Blood-Guilty, Ruined Young Dog, Which is in the Way of Making Desperate Trouble for Somebody

Of all this Billy Topsail had been an observer. To a good deal of it he had listened with an awakened astonishment. It did not appear to him that he would be concerned in what might grow out of the incident. He did not for a moment imagine, for example, that he would find himself in a situation wherein his hair would stand on end—that he would stand stripped naked in the north wind, confronting Death in a most unpleasant form. Nor was it that Doctor Luke's personality had stirred him to admiration—though that was true: for Doctor Luke had a hearty, cheery twinkling way with him, occasionally mixed with a proper austerity, that would have won any boy's admiration; but what particularly engaged Billy Topsail was something else—it was Doctor Luke's confident assertion that he could cure little Teddy Brisk.

Billy Topsail knew something of doctors, to be sure; but he had never before quite realized their power; and that a man, being only human, after all, could take a knife in his hand, which was only a man's hand, after all, and so employ the knife that the painful, hampering leg of Teddy Brisk, which had placed a dreadful limitation on the little boy, would be made whole and useful again, caused Billy Topsail a good deal of deep reflection. If Doctor Luke could do that, why could not Billy Topsail learn to do it? It seemed to Billy Topsail to be a more admirable thing to be able to do than to sail a hundred-tonner in a gale of wind.

"Who is that man?" he asked.

"That's Doctor Luke," said Teddy's mother. "You know that."

"Well, who's Doctor Luke?"

"I don't know. He's jus' Doctor Luke. He've a wee hospital at Our Harbour. An' he heals folk. You'll find un go anywhere he's asked t' go if there's a poor soul in need. An' that's all I know about un."

"What does he do it for?"

"I reckon he wants to. An' anyhow, I'm glad he does do it. An' I reckon you'd be glad, too, if you had a little boy like Teddy."

"I am glad!" said Billy. "I think 'tis the most wonderful thing ever I heard of. An' I wish——"

And the course of Billy Topsail's life moved inevitably on towards a nearing fate that he would have shuddered to contemplate had he foreseen it.

Well, now, there was but one team of dogs in Tight Cove. It was a happy circumstance. No dogs could have existed as a separate pack in the neighbourhood of Timothy Light's mob of potential outlaws. It was all very well for Timothy Light to pleasure his hobby and pride in the unsavoury collection. Timothy Light had command of his own team. It was quite another matter for the timid mothers of Tight Cove. Timothy Light's dogs had a bad name. As neighbours they deserved it, whatever their quality on the trail—a thieving, snarling crew.

To catch Timothy Light in the act of feeding his team was enough to establish an antipathy in the beholder—to see the old man beat off the rush of the pack with a biting walrus whip while he spread the bucket of frozen fish; to watch him, then, leap away from the ferocious onset; and to be witness of the ravenous anarchy of the scramble—a free fight, dwindling, at last, to melancholy yelps and subsiding in the licking of the small wounds of the encounter. Timothy Light was a fancier of dog flesh, as a man may be devoted to horse-flesh; and the object of his selective taste was what he called go-an'-gumption.

"The nearer the wolf," said he, "the better the dog."

It was to accord with this theory—which is a fallacy as a generalization—that he had evolved the team of ten that he had.

"I'm free t' say," he admitted, "that this here Cracker o' mine is none too tame. He've the wolf in him—that's so. As a wolf, with the pack in the timber, he'd be a bad wolf; as a dog in harbour he's a marvellous wicked rogue. He've a eye as bitter as frost. Did you mark it? He leaves it fool all over a person in a laughin' sort o' fashion an' never stop on the spot he really wants t' look at—except jus' once in a while. An' then it darts t' the throat an' away again; an' Cracker thinks, jus' as plain as speech:

"'Oh, Lord, wouldn't I like t' fix my teeth in there!'

"Still an' all," the old man concluded, "he yields t' command. A tap on the snout goes a long way with Cracker. He've a deal o' wolf's blood—that one has; but he's as big a coward, too, as a wolf, an' there's no danger in him when he's overmastered. Still an' all"—with a shrug—"I'd not care t' lose my whip an' stumble an' fall on the trail in the dusk when he haven't been fed for a while."

Cracker had come to Tight Cove in a dog trade of questionable propriety. Cracker had not at once taken to the customs and dogs of Tight Cove; he had stood off, sullen, alert, still—head low, king-hairs lifted, eyes flaring. It was an attitude of distrust, dashed with melancholy, rather than of challenge. Curiosity alone maintained it through the interval required for decision. Cracker was deliberating.

There was Tight Cove and a condition of servitude to Timothy Light; there were the free, wild, famishing spaces of the timber beyond. Cracker must choose between them.

All at once, then, having brooded himself to a conclusion, Cracker began to wag and laugh in a fashion the most ingratiating to be imagined: and thereupon he fought himself to an established leadership of Timothy Light's pack, as though to dispose, without delay, of that necessary little preliminary to distinction. And subsequently he accepted the mastery of Timothy Light and fawned his way into security from the alarmed abuse of the harbour folk; and eventually he settled himself comfortably into the routine of Tight Cove life.

There were absences. These were invariably foreshadowed, at first, by yawning and a wretched depth of boredom. Cracker was ashamed of his intentions. He would even attempt to conceal his increasing distaste for the commonplaces of an existence in town by a suspiciously subservient obedience to all the commands of Timothy Light. It was apparent that he was preparing for an excursion to the timber; and after a day or two of whimpering restlessness he would vanish.

It was understood, then, that Cracker was off a-visiting of his cronies. Sometimes these absences would be prolonged. Cracker had been gone a month—had been caught, once, in a distant glance, with a pack of timber wolves, from whom he had fled to hiding, like a boy detected in bad company. Cracker had never failed, however, to return from his abandoned course, in reasonable season, as lean and ragged as a prodigal son, and in a chastened mood, to the respectability and plenty of civilization, even though it implied an acquiescence in the exigency of hard labour.

Timothy Light excused the dog.

"He've got t' have his run abroad," said he. "I 'low that blood is thicker than water."

Cracker had a past. Timothy Light knew something of Cracker's past. What was respectable he had been told, with a good deal of elaboration—concerning Cracker's feats of endurance on the long trail, for example, accomplished with broken shoes, or no shoes at all, and bloody, frosted feet; and relating, with warm, wide-eyed detail of a persuasively conscientious description, to Cracker's cheerful resistance of the incredible pangs of hunger on a certain celebrated occasion.

Moreover, Cracker was a bully of parts. Cracker could bully a discouraged team into a forlorn endeavour of an amazing degree of power and courage. "As clever a dog as ever you seed, sir! No shirkin'—ecod!—with Cracker t' keep watch on the dogs an' snap at the heels an' haunches o' the loafers." It was all true: Cracker was a powerful, clever, masterful, enduring beast in or out of harness, and a merciless driver of the dogs he led and had mastered.

"Give the devil his due!" Timothy Light insisted.

What was disreputable in Cracker's past—in the course of the dog trade of questionable propriety referred to—Timothy Light had been left to exercise his wit in finding out for himself. Cracker was from the north—from Jolly Cove, by the Hen-an'-Chickens. And what Timothy Light did not know was this: Cracker had there been concerned in an affair so doubtful, and of a significance so shocking, that, had the news of it got abroad in Tight Cove, the folk would have taken the customary precaution as a defensive measure, in behalf of the children on the roads after dark, and as a public warning to all the dogs of Tight Cove, of hanging Cracker by the neck until he was dead.

Long John Wall, of Jolly Cove, on the way to the Post at Little Inlet, by dog team, in January weather, had been caught by the snow between Grief Head and the Tall Old Man; and Long John Wall had perished on the ice—they found his komatik and clean bones in the spring of the year; but when the gale blew out, Long John Wall's dogs had returned to Jolly Cove in a fawning humour and a suspiciously well-fed condition.

The Jolly Cove youngster, the other party to the dog trade, neglected to inform Timothy Light—whose eyes had fallen enviously on the smoky, taut, splendid brute—that this selfsame Cracker which he coveted had bullied and led Long John Wall's team on that tragic and indubitably bloody occasion.

His philosophy was ample to his need.

"In a dog trade," thought he with his teeth bare, when the bargain was struck, "'tis every man for hisself."

And so this blood-guilty, ruined young dog had come unsuspected to Tight Cove.

CHAPTER III

In Which Timothy Light's Famished Dogs Are Committed to the Hands of Billy Topsail and a Tap on the Snout is Recommended in the Probable Case of Danger

It is no great trick to make Tight Cove of the Labrador from the sea. There is no chart, of course. Nor is any chart of the little harbours needed for safe sailing, as long as the songs of the coast are preserved in the heads of the skippers that sail it. And so you may lay with confidence a bit west of north from the Cape Norman light—and raise and round the Scotchman's Breakfast of Ginger Head: whereupon a straightaway across Schooner Bay to the Thimble, and, upon nearer approach to the harbour water of the Cove—

Billy Topsail, M.D.: A Tale of Adventure With Doctor Luke of the Labrador

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