he had
confidence in himself, and was unafraid. While he appreciated his
peril, he never lost his nerve, and when finally he was rescued and
found himself on deck he was little the worse for his experience, and
with a change of dry clothing was ready to resume the interrupted game
of cricket with the rescued ball.

With no further adventure than once coming to close quarters with an
iceberg and escaping without serious damage, the _Albert_ arrived in
due time at St. John's, and Grenfell was at once occupied in
preparation for his summer's work on The Labrador. Materials with
which to construct the Indian Harbor hospital were shipped north by
steamer. Supplies were taken aboard the _Albert_, and with Dr. Curwin
and nurses Williams and Cawardine she sailed for Battle Harbor, where
the building to be utilized as a hospital was already erected.

Then the launch _Princess May_, which had been landed from the
_Corean_, was made ready for sea, and with an engineer and a cook as
his crew and Dr. Bobardt as a companion, Dr. Grenfell as skipper put
to sea in the tiny craft on July 7th.

There were many pessimistic prophets to see the _Princess May_ off.
From skipper to cook not a man aboard her was familiar with the coast,
or could recognize a single landmark or headland either on the
Newfoundland coast or on The Labrador.

They were going into rugged, fog-clogged seas. They might encounter an
ice-pack, and the sea was always strewn with menacing icebergs. True,
they had charts, but the charts were most incomplete, and no
Newfoundlander sails by them.

The _Princess May_, a mere cockle-shell, was too small, it was said,
for the undertaking. She was six years old and Grenfell had not given
her a try-out. The consensus of opinion among the wise old
Newfoundland seamen who gathered on the wharf as she sailed was that
Doctor Grenfell and his crew were much like the three wise men of
Gotham who went to sea in a bowl. Still, not a man of them but would
have ventured forth upon the high seas in an ancient rotten old hull
of a schooner. They were acquainted with schooners and the coast,
while the little launch _Princess May_ was a new species of craft to
them, and was manned by green hands.

"'Tis a dangerous voyage for green hands to be makin'," said one, "and
that small boat were never meant for the sea."

"Aye, for green hands," said another. "They'll never make un without
mishap."

"If they does, 'twill be by the mercy o'