nly possible. I remember his story of what happened as
vividly as though it were yesterday, for I also had an appointment
with him at that time--and he was only a month late in keeping it.

He had written me:

"I am in a terrible state about my boat: she is still in the blockade
of ice, after two months fighting it. It is harder to beat than the
Huns, but I am very anxious you should come with me, even if we have
to canoe down the coast."

The story behind his finally successful attempt to reach New York on
that occasion is as follows:

He set apart a month to make the journey, which in open summer weather
would require only a week. He meant to go round the northern tip of
Newfoundland, from his headquarters on the east coast at St. Anthony.

He planned, therefore, to go by dog-team northward to the Straits of
Belle Isle, and then alongshore rounding Cape Bauld and Cape Norman,
and on down the west coast to the railroad at Curling which would take
him to Port aux Basques. At the latter place, the southwestern corner
of Newfoundland, an ice-breaking steamer would carry him over Cabot
Straits to North Sydney, and there he could get a train which would
make connections for New York.

There is what dogs would consider a fair route alongshore on the
western coast. And the dogs' opinion is worth considering.

But there sprang up a continuing gale, with a blizzard in its teeth.
It rocked and hammered and broke the ice with the fury of great guns
round about the headlands. As the trail for much of the way lay along
the sea-ice, it would have been as impossible for the dogs to go by it
as it was to make that short-cut across the bay when Doctor and dogs
had that terrible experience on the ice-pan.

"Very well then," said Grenfell, "we'll try a motor-boat."

Motor-boating is fun enough in summer on the placid reaches of the
Delaware or the Hudson, but it is a very different matter on the coast
of Newfoundland, in a narrow lane between great chunks that have
broken off a Greenland glacier and lean brown crags with the sea
crashing white and high upon them. If he went in a motor-boat,
Grenfell would have to be on the lookout day and night for ice-pans
and bergs, lest they close in and crush his boat as an elephant's
tread would squash a peanut.

When the blizzard that had spoiled the ice eased off, Grenfell had his
boat ready. After two or three days of creeping in the lee of the
rocks and trying to keep out of the clut