trail at a run. The dogs
were fresh and in the pink of condition, and many miles were behind
him when he halted his team at dusk before a fisherman's cottage. Here
he spent the night, and the following morning, bright and early,
harnessed his dogs and was again hurrying forward.

The morning was fine and snappy. The snow, frozen and crisp, gave the
dogs good footing. The komatik slid freely over the surface. Dr.
Grenfell urged the animals forward that they might take all the
advantage possible of the good sledging before the heat of the midday
sun should soften the snow and make the hauling hard.

The fisherman's cottage where he had spent the night was on the shores
of a deep inlet, and a few rods beyond the cottage the trail turned
down upon the inlet ice, and here took a straight course across the
ice to the opposite shore, some five miles distant, where it plunged
into the forest to cross another neck of land.

A light breeze was coming in from the sea, the ice had every
appearance of being solid and secure, and Dr. Grenfell dove out upon
it for a straight line across. To have followed the shore would have
increased the distance to nearly thirty miles.

Everything went well until perhaps half the distance had been covered.
Then suddenly there came a shift of wind, and Grenfell discovered,
with some apprehension, that a stiff breeze was rising, and now
blowing from land toward the sea, instead of from the sea toward the
land as it had done when he started early in the morning from the
fisherman's cottage. Still the ice was firm enough, and in any case
there was no advantage to be had by turning back, for he was as near
one shore as the other.

Already the surface of the ice, which, with several warm days, had
become more or less porous and rotten, was covered with deep slush.
The western sky was now blackened by heavy wind clouds, and with
scarce any warning the breeze developed into a gale. Forcing his dogs
forward at their best pace, while he ran by the side of the komatik,
he soon put another mile behind him. Before him the shore loomed up,
and did not seem far away. But every minute counted. It was evident
the ice could not stand the strain of the wind much longer.

Presently one of Grenfell's feet went through where slush covered an
opening crack. He shouted at the dogs, but, buffeted by wind and
floundering through slush, they could travel no faster though they
made every effort to do so, for they, no le