of what
some still believe to be the rest of heaven. Rest for our souls we
certainly had, and to some of us that is the rest which God calls His
own and intends shall be ours also. When later I spoke to some young
men about this, it seemed to them a Chestertonian paradox, that we
should actually hold a Sunday service and then go forth to render it.
They thought that Sunday prayers had to do only with the escaping the
consequences of one's sins.

I still believe that we were absolutely right in our theory of the
introduction of the deer into this North country, and that we shall be
justified in it by posterity. That these thousands of miles, now
useless to men, will be grazed over one day by countless herds of deer
affording milk, meat, clothing, transport, and pleasure to the human
race, is certain. They do not by any means destroy the land over which
they rove. On the contrary, the deep ruts made by their feet, like the
ponies' feet in Iceland, serve to drain the surface water and dry the
land. The kicking and pawing of the moss-covered ground with their
spade-like feet tear it up, level it, and cut off the dense moss and
creeping plants, bring the sub-soil to the top, and over the whole the
big herd spreads a good covering of manure.

Reindeer-trodden barrens, after a short rest, yield more grass and
cattle food than ever before. No domesticated animal can tolerate the
cold of this country and find sustenance for itself as can the deer.
It can live as far north as the musk-ox. Peary found reindeer in
plenty on the shores of the polar sea. The great barren lands of
Canada, from Hudson Bay north of Chesterfield Inlet away to the west,
carry tens of thousands of wild caribou. Mr. J.B. Tyrrell's
photographs show armies of them advancing; the stags with their lordly
horns are seen passing close to the camera in serried ranks that seem
to have no end.

Our own experiment is far from being a failure. It has been a success,
even if only the corpse is left in Newfoundland. We have proved
conclusively that the deer can live, thrive, and multiply on the
otherwise perfectly valueless areas of this North country, and furnish
a rapidly increasing domesticated "raw material" for a food and
clothing supply to its people.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ICE-PAN ADVENTURE

On Easter Sunday, the 21st of April, 1908, it was still winter with us
in northern Newfoundland. Everything was covered with snow and ice. I
was returning to t