knew this absence must mean that the whole family had gone to
the distant islands for the fishing.

So he broke in the door, piled the things he had brought inside, and
wrote a letter.

"This is the price of your pelt. Put all the fur you catch next winter
in a barrel and sit on the top of the barrel till the spring, when we
are coming back again. Be sure not to let anybody get it from you at a
low price."

During the winter, accordingly, the family put by the furs that they
got from the animals which the boys caught in their traps. In the
summer, Grenfell took the pelts to the nearest cash buyer, and with
the money supplies were bought in St. John's. The poor fisherman found
that he had more food than he needed, so he sold the surplus, at a
fair profit, to his neighbor.

Year after year this was kept up, and when the father died he left
Grenfell $200 in cash to be divided among the children.

Thus the Doctor had the satisfaction of bringing this family up from a
blanketless poverty, on the flat brink of starvation, to something
like wealth in a land where a man with fire-wood, lettuce, dogs,
codfish in the sea and a few dollars in hand thinks he is well off and
piously thanks Heaven for his good fortune.

As for the sealers--the men who stand a chance to make anything are
those who buy what they call a ticket to the ice--that is to say, a
share in a sealing venture--and go out from St. John's in the steamers
or sailing vessels at the beginning of March. The ship has sheathed
wooden sides a foot and a half thick, and is bound with iron at the
bow, to aid in battering the ice-pack. For the auxiliary engine 500
tons of coal are carried: and a crew of 300 men will use 500 gallons
of water in a day--but the easy way to get more is to boil the ice, so
nobody worries about that. Tragedies of the sealing fleet are without
number. The worst have happened when blizzards caught the men out on
the ice-floes far from their ship. One captain saved all his men by
having them pile up their gaffs and lie down on them for cat-naps.
Then he would make them get up and dance like mad for five minutes,
while he crooned "chin-music" to them. Thus he saved them from
freezing to death. In that storm the _Greenland_ of Harbor Grace lost
52 of her 100 men. Grenfell tells of sixteen fishermen on Trinity Bay
who, without fire or food or sufficient clothing, after thirty-six
hours of suffering dragged their boats ten miles across the ice to