that, upon receiving the first news of my proposed
attempt to bring out Hubbard's body, Dr. Macpherson had made a special
trip of twenty-five miles to Chateau Bay, to telegraph to New York
suggesting that arrangements be made with Bowering & Co., the owners of
the Aurora, to have that steamer pick us up at Battle Harbour. Perhaps
I should say here that the kindness of the doctor to us was only what
might have been expected from a gentleman by birth and breeding who,
with his charming wife, buries himself on the desolate coast of
Labrador, in order to do his Master's work. Pitiable indeed would be
the condition of the poor folk on The Labrador were it not for Dr.
Grenfell and his brave co-workers of the Deep Sea Mission. For
hundreds of miles along the coast they travel on their errands of
mercy, braving the violent storms of the bitter Arctic winter, sleeping
in the meanest of huts, and frequently risking their lives in open
boats on the raging sea. Many is the needy one for whom they have
found work, many is the stricken soul that they have comforted, and
many is the life that their medical skill has saved.

At the doctor's house I received my first letters from home, and the
first accurate news of what had been transpiring in the outside world.
While there I also met Captain Kean. Unfortunately the people in New
York had not made the arrangement Dr. Macpherson had suggested, but the
captain assumed the responsibility of carrying us to Newfoundland,
saying that we should go as his guests. He is a former member of the
Newfoundland parliament, and a man of influence as well as initiative,
and it was lucky for us that he commanded the Aurora, else we, in all
probability, should have had to push farther down the coast with dogs,
or waited at Battle Harbour for the first appearance of the mail boat.

The next day (Friday, May 13th) a firm of traders at Battle Harbour,
under Dr. Macpherson's supervision, lined Hubbard's coffin with sheet
lead and sealed it hermetically. The body was still frozen and in good
condition. In the afternoon we were taken to the Aurora by Dr.
Macpherson and a crew of his men, and established in the cabin, while
Hubbard's coffin was carefully stowed away in the hold, there to remain
until it was transferred at St. Johns to the Silvia, the steamer on
which my old friend, so full of life and ambition, had sailed from New
York, and which now was to carry him back a corpse.

Because of a delay