V

R OF AFTE

Ragged Run-an eager, stumbling haste. In Bad-Weather Tom West's kitchen, somewhat after ten o'clock in the morning, in the midst of this hilarious scramble to be off to the floe, there was a flash and spit of fire, and the clap of an explosion, and the clatter of a sealing-gun on the bar

d been yellow curls-in the Newfoundland way-and rosy cheeks a

e kill

o-

nted: "I ithn't dead, mother. I juth-I juth can't thee." She extended her hands. The

little girl gathered close in he

his cap and mittens a

ight!" Bad-We

, s

pered: "It thma

ry an' Than

, s

w: "It hurt-th! O

haste

, s

the 'longshore trail by way of Mad Harry and Thank-the-Lord. At noon he was past Mad Harry, his little legs wearing well and his breath coming easily through his exp

y of the passage to Afternoon Arm, with two miles left to accomplish-dusk falling thick and cold, then, a

mble Tickle, but on the ice in the shank of the day-there had been eleven miles of the floe-he had lagged and complained under what was indubitably the weight of his sixty-three years. He was slightly perturbed. He had been fagged out before, to be sure. A man cannot practice

indow, his expectation ran all at once to his supper and his bed. He was hungry-that was true. Sleepy? No; he was not sleepy. Yet he wanted to go to bed. Why? He wanted to go to bed in the way that old men wa

t's

w

," Doctor Rolfe resolved, "I go

ere was no shame in it, was there? Did duty require of a man that he should practice medicine out of Afternoon Arm for thirty-seven years-in all sorts of weather and along a hundred and thirty miles of the worst coast in the world-and go recklessly into a future of increasing

of that one hundred and thirty miles of harsh coast, through the thirty-seven years he had managed to survive the winds and

ew a dusty, yellowing sheaf of statements of accounts from a dusty pigeonhole, and set himself to work, fuming and grumbling all the while. "I'll tilt the fee!" he determined. This was to be the new policy-to "tilt the

be abroad on the ice. Yet the tap could mean but one thing-somebody was in trouble; and as he called "Come in!" and looked up from the statement of account, and while

wet and was now sparkling all o

the-Lor

, s

Har

d Run,

ther Wes

s,

in the

med of himself. "Yes, sir. I

ross the

sir. 'Tis all rotten. I come alongshore by Mad Harry an' Thank-the-L

's s

un went

'Pop's gun went off!

ly,

in the way!

ir. An' her cheek, si

s the

. There's a scud

cross the Bi

t' shore. I'd not try th

N

The boy was

m-

ls and what not. And now he got quickly into his boots and jacket, pulled down his coonskin cap, pulled up his sealskin gloves, hande

his aspect of the night's work was not stimulating to a tired old man. It was a mile and a half to Creek Head, where Afternoon Tickle led a narrow way from the shelter of Afternoon Arm to Anxious Bight an

own Dick of Ragged Run Harbor in the dark. Doctor Rolfe considered the light. Communicating masses of ragged cloud were driving low across Anxious Bight. Offshore there was a sluggish bank of black cloud. The moon was risen and full. It was obscured. The intervals of light were less than the intervals o

o be overtak

e alternated with periods of thaw and rain. There had been windy days. Anxious Bight had even once been clear of ice. A westerly wind had broken the ice and swept it out beyond the heads. In a gale from the northeast, however, these fragments had returned with accumulations of Arctic pans and hummocks from the Labrador current

r Rolfe concluded. "Rub

s of Anxious Bight-the way from Afternoon Arm to Ragged Run; the treacherous reaches of young ice, bending under the weight of a man; the veiled black water; the labor, the crevices, the snow crust of the Arctic pans and hummocks; and the broken field and wash of the sea beyond the

bulk of the Spotted Horses. This was in the direction

I had a son--

gale which had driven them back from the open. This was rough ice. In the press of the wind the drifting floe had buckled. It had been a big gale. Under the whip of it the ice had come down with a rush. And when it encountered the coast the first great p

ling fleet. He employed it now to advantage. It was a vaulting pole. He walked less than he leaped. This was no work for the half light of an obscured moon. Sometimes he halted for light; but delay a

ound. There was footing for the tip of his gaff midway below. He felt for this footing to entertain himself while the moon delayed. It was there. He was tempted. The chasm was critically deep for the length of the gaff. Worse than that, the hummock was hig

gretted the hazard. He perceived that he had misjudged the height of the hummock. Had the gaff been a foot longer he would have cleared the chasm. It occurred to him that he would break his back and merit the fate of his callow mistake. Then his toes caught the edge of the flat-topped hummock. H

k. The wind was up; the cottage shook in the squalls. She had long ago washed Dolly's eyes and temporarily stanched the terrifyi

est c

us

sleepin'

She cries out, poor lamb!" Dolly stirr

bight he'll never ge

not t

migh

fore he comes. I'm

lly moaned

ee feller. I'm w

ident. "He'll make

if he's d

. An' the doctor got und

come by t

I knows that man. He'll co

all. The Bight's breakin' up. There's rotten ice b

. He'll be

' down. 'Twill cloud the moon

ll c

s of waiting. It would be dawn before a man could come by Thank-the-Lord and Mad Harry, if he left Afternoon Arm even so early as dusk. And as for crossing the Bight-no man could cross the Bight. It was blowing up too-clouds rising

al to the strain. He wriggled his toe back to its grip on the edge of the ice. It was an improved foothold. He turned then and began to lift and thrust himself backward. A last thrust on the gaff set him on his haunches

Was it ten below? The ga

folded-had not "raftered." When the wind failed they had subsided toward the open. As they say on the coast, the ice had "gone abroad." It was distributed. And after that the sea had fallen flat; and a vicious frost had caught the floe-wi

ation of the condition of Anxious B

en clear through. Doctor Rolfe contemplated an advance with distaste. And by and by the first brief barrier of new ice confronted him. He must cross it. A black film-the color of water in that light-bridged the way from one

e. He must run across. He scowled. Disinclination increased. He snarled: "Green ice!" He crossed then

ea the more widespread was the floe. Beyond-hauling down the Spotted Horses, which lay in the open-the proportion of new ice would be vastly greater. At a trot for the time over the

ashed his boots. He had been on the lookout for holes. This hole he heard-the spurt and gurgle of it. He

and splash of breakers came down with the gale from the point of the island. It indicated that the sea was working in the passage between the Spotted Horses and Blow-me-down Dick of the Ragged Run coast. Th

d be marooned from the main shore. And there was another reason: it was immediate and desperately urgent. As the sea was biting off the ice in Tickle-my-Ribs, so, too, it was encroaching upon the body of the ice in Anxious Bight. Anxious Bight was breaking up. Acres of ice were wrenched from the field at a

ible stretches was instantly and dreadfully dangerous. It was horrifying. A man took his life in his hand every time he left a pan. Doctor Rolfe was not insensitive. He began to sweat-not with labor but with

ctor Rolfe was not physically exhausted; every muscle that he had was warm and alert. Yet he was weak; a repetition of suspense had unnerved him. A

he frost fell. It measured perhaps fifty yards. It was now black and still, sheeted with new ice which had been delayed in forming by the ripple of that exposed situation. Doctor Rolfe had encountered nothing as doubtful. He paused on the brink. A long, thin line of solid pan

second hole he twisted violently to the right and almost plunged into a third opening. It seemed the ice was rotten from shore to shore. And it was a long way across. Doctor Rolfe danced a zigzag toward the pan ice under the cliffs, spurting forward and retreating and swerving. He did not pause; had he paused he w

at by the kitchen fire. It

d in from the frosty night. "Is

in. She's havin' a deal o' pain, T

own on the

afeared 'twould start the wound

t y

come

r time. 'Twill be

n, T

ll be black dark in half an hour. I felt a flake o' s

n' by the

, and lifted her bandaged head a little. She di

whispered. "'Tis

he

s co

out again and stumbled down the path t

ce and try to draw himself forward. It was a failure. His fingernails were too short. He could merely scratch the ice. He reflected that if he did not concentrate his weight-that if he kept it distributed-he would not break through. And once more he

nd toes. By this the distribution of his weight was not greatly disturbed. It was not concentrated upon one point. I

of solid ice under the cliffs of the Little Spotted Horse and had a clear path forward. Whereupon he picked up h

st. Doctor Rolfe's path was determined. It must lead from the point of the island to the base of Blow-me-Down Dick and the adjoining fixed and solid ice of the narrows to Ragged Run Harbor. Ice choked the channel. It was continuously running in fr

ily. Then they would tip or sink. There would be foothold through the instant required to choose another foothold and leap toward it. Always the leap would have to be taken from sinking ground. When he came, by good chance, to a pan that would bear h

pan and fall slowly back for sheer lack of power to obtain a balance; a man might misjudge the strength of a pan to bear him up; a man might find no ice near enough for the next immediately i

octor Rolfe glanced alo

cloud were very close. There was snow i

th the air of a man who had survived difficulties and was proud of it. Bad-weather Tom West was sitting by the fire, his fa

any case, as you know, yielded the additional patience and courage which the simple means at hand for her relief required; and Doctor Rolfe laved Dolly West's blue eyes until she could see a

ce the night of the passage of Anxious Bight he had not found time to send out any statements of accounts. It occurred to him that he had then determined, after a reasonable and suffici

her West, of Ragged Run Harbor, and after he had written the amount