rst Regiment of
Newfoundland, 5,000 young men picked from the 250,000 islanders, he
had given four years of his life to the world war, in France and
Flanders. Then he had come home, and with his honors, and the tales of
his bravery on all tongues and in all ears, he had gone back quietly
to scraping the fish and mending the nets as though he never knew
another life or another country.

As they ran on with hearts pounding, the one big question that kept
asking itself in the Doctor's mind was, "Am I too late?" He forgot
everything else--the battle with the ice-pack, the possible fate of
the _Strathcona_, the weary trudging round the northern promontory.
Nothing mattered except the brave young soldier, whose blood was
ebbing away clock-tick by clock-tick, as they hastened to his side.
That five miles seemed longer than the ninety miles he had covered in
the three preceding days.

He was no longer stiff and lame--the need of him seemed to have put
wings on his heels as if he were Mercury.

There was the little grey house at last. The panting boy at his side
gasped out, "My brother's there!"

Grenfell fairly fell against the door. It was flung open instantly.
The room was crowded with people who sobbed and sniffled and wrung
their hands: and none could do anything to help.

"The Doctor!" they cried. It was almost as if Christ Himself had come.

The young soldier lay on a hard table, flat on his back. Imagine his
conscious agony. What was left of his leg had been laid on a feather
pillow and to stop the flow of blood his foot was strung up to the
ceiling. Blood and salt water soaked his garments and dripped to the
floor, as if he were a slab of seal-meat.

Men and women alike were weeping, and telling each other how fond they
were of Abe, and what a good, brave lad he was, and how they would
hate to lose him now. Trouble in this part of the world makes people
singularly neighborly, and often in their need they are as children.
They think that any stranger from outside, with better clothes than
they wear, must know enough to doctor them.

Most of the people had to be sent from the room, for the sake of air
and space and the poor boy's comfort. Dr. Grenfell had no instruments
for an operation. He had no medicines. But messengers went hither and
yon, and picked up things he had left in the neighborhood for use in
such a crisis. They came back with a knife or two, rusty and in need
of sharpening, a precious thimbleful o