Billy Topsail, M.D.

In the light airs the floe had spread. There was more open water than there had been. Fragments of ice had broken from the first vast pans into which Schooner Bay ice had been split in the break-up. These lesser, lighter pans moved faster than the greater ones; and the wind from the north – blown up to a steady breeze by this time – was driving them slowly south against the windward edge of the more sluggish fields in that direction.

At sunset – the west was white and frosty – a small pan caught Billy Topsail's eye and instantly absorbed his attention. It had broken from the field on which they were marooned and was under way on a diagonal across a quiet lane of black water, towards a second great field lying fifty fathoms or somewhat less to the south.

Were Billy Topsail and the boy aboard that pan the wind would ferry them away from the horrible menace of the dogs. It was a small pan – an area of about four hundred square feet; yet it would serve. It was not more than fifteen fathoms distant. Billy could swim that far – he was pretty sure he could swim that far, the endeavour being unencumbered; but the boy – a little fellow and a cripple – could not swim at all.

Billy jumped up.

"We've got t' leave this pan," said he, "an' forthwith too."

"Have you a notion, b'y?"

Billy laid off his seal-hide overjacket. He gathered up the dogs' traces – long strips of seal leather by means of which the dogs had drawn the komatik, a strip to a dog; and he began to knot them together – talking fast the while to distract the boy from the incident of peculiar peril in the plan.

The little pan in the lane – said he – would be a clever ferry. He would swim out and crawl aboard. It would be no trick at all. He would carry one end of the seal-leather line. Teddy Brisk would retain the other. Billy pointed out a ridge of ice against which Teddy Brisk could brace his sound leg. They would pull, then – each against the other; and presently the little pan would approach and lie alongside the big pan – there was none too much wind for that – and they would board the little pan and push off, and drift away with the wind, and leave the dogs to make the best of a bad job.

It would be a slow affair, though – hauling in a pan like that; the light was failing too – flickering out like a candle end – and there must be courage and haste – or failure.

Teddy Brisk at once discovered the interval of danger to himself.

"I'll be left alone with the dogs!" he objected.

"Sure, b'y," Billy coaxed; "but then you see – "

"I won't stay alone!" the boy sobbed. He shrank from the direction of the dogs towards Billy. At once the dogs attended. "I'm afeared t' stay alone!" he screamed. "No, no!"

"An we don't leave this pan," Billy scolded, "we'll be gobbled up in the night."

That was not the immediate danger. What confronted the boy was an immediate attack, which he must deal with alone.

"No! No! No!" the boy persisted.

"Ah, come now – "

"That Cracker knows I'm a cripple, Billy. He'll turn at me. I can't keep un off."

Billy changed front.

"Who's skipper here?" he demanded.

"You is, sir."

"Is you takin' orders or isn't you?"

The effect of this was immediate. The boy stopped his clamour.

"I is, sir," said he.

"Then stand by!"

"Aye, sir!" – a sob and a sigh.

It was to be bitter cold work in the wind and water. Billy Topsail completed his preparations before he began to strip. He lashed the end of the seal-leather line round the boy's waist and put the club in his hand.

All this while he gave directions: The boy was to face the dogs; he was not to turn round for hints of Billy's progress or to be concerned at all with that; he was not to lose courage; he was to feint and scold; he was to let no shadow of fear cross his face – no tremor of fear must touch his voice; he was not to yield an inch; he was not to sob and cover his eyes with his hands – in short, he was to mind his own task of keeping the dogs away and leave Billy to accomplish his.

And the boy answered: "Yes, sir!" and "Aye, sir!" and "Very well, sir!" – like an old hand of the coast.

It was stimulating. Billy Topsail was heartened. He determined privately that he would not turn to look back – that if the worst came to the worst, and he could manage to do so, he would jerk the lad into the water and let him drown. The snarling tumult of the onset would warn him when the worst had come to the worst.

And then he stripped stark naked, quickly stowed away his clothes in the midst of the boy's dogskin robes, tied the end of the seal-leather line round his waist, and ran to the edge of the pan.

"If you drowns – " the boy began.

"Keep them dogs off!" Billy Topsail roared. "I'll not drown!"

He slipped into the water and struck out.

CHAPTER X

In Which Teddy Brisk Confronts the Pack Alone and Cracker Leads the Assault

By this time the sun was touching the cliffs of shore. It was a patch of struggling white light in the drear gray colour of the west. It would drop fast. In his punt, in summer weather, wondering all the while at the acceleration of this last descent, Teddy Brisk had often paused to watch the sun fall and flicker out of sight. It had seemed to fall beyond the rim of the world, like a ball.

"She tumbles through the last foot or two!" he had determined.

In a little while the sun would be gone. Now the sky was overcast and scowling. In the east it was already dusk. The cloudy black sky in the east caught no light from the feeble sun. Presently everywhere it would be dark. It had turned colder too. The wind from the north was still blowing up – a nipping gray wind which would sweep the floe and hamper the manipulation of the little pan towards which the naked Billy Topsail was striving.

And the wind lifted the dry snow and drove it past Teddy Brisk's feet in swirling wreaths. The floe was smoking, the boy thought. Before long the snow would rise higher and envelop him. And he thought that when Billy reached the little pan, and stood exposed and dripping in the blast, he would be very cold. It would take a long time, too, to haul the little pan across the lane of water.

It will be recalled that Teddy Brisk was ten years old. He stood alone. He knew the temper of the dogs. Billy Topsail was out of reach. The burden of fear had fallen on the boy – not on Billy. The boy had been in a panic; yet he was not now even afraid. Duty occupied him. He had no time for reflection. The hazard of the quarter of an hour to come, however, was clear to him. Should he fail to keep off the dogs through every moment of that time, he would be torn to death before Billy could return to his rescue.

Should Billy Topsail fail to reach the pan – should Billy go down midway – he would surely be devoured.

And Billy Topsail was no swimmer to boast of. Teddy knew that. He had heard Billy tell of it. Billy could keep afloat – could achieve a slow, splashing progress.

That was true. Billy's chance of winning the pan was small. But Teddy was Labrador born and bred. What now commanded his fear was Billy's orders to duty. Obedience to a skipper was laid on all men. It must be instant and unfailing in an emergency. Billy was in command. He was responsible. It was for the boy to obey. That was the teaching of his habitat.

Consequently Teddy Brisk's terror yielded and he stood fast.

When Billy began to strip, the dogs were disturbed. What was the man up to? What was this? Queer proceeding this! It was a trick. When he stood naked in the wind the dogs were uneasy. When he went into the water they were alarmed. They withdrew. Cracker and Smoke ran to the water's edge and stared at Billy – keeping half an eye on the boy meantime. It troubles a dog to see a man in the water. Smoke whined. Cracker growled and crouched to leap after Billy. He could easily overtake and drown Billy.

Teddy went at Cracker and Smoke with his club.

He screamed at them:

"Back, you, Cracker! Back, you, Smoke!"

The dogs responded to this furious authority. They scurried away and rejoined the others. Teddy taunted them. He laughed at the pack, challenged it – crutch under his left arm and club swinging in his right hand. He taunted the dogs by name – Cracker and Smoke and Tucker. This bewildered the dogs. They were infinitely suspicious. The boy hobbled at them in a rage, a few feet forth – the seal-leather line round his waist limited him – and defied them. They retreated.