When the northern posts are ice-bound the last autumn mail for the coast is left by the mail boat each year at a post three hundred miles to the southward, and carried thence to its destination by dog sledge. Customarily this mail reaches the Hudson Bay Post in Eskimo Bay on the evening of the twenty-second or twenty-third of December. Doctor Joe was keenly anxious for its arrival this year, for he was confident it would contain the hoped-for reply from the great New York surgeon, and as the time approached he was indeed in a state of nervous expectancy.
There was still the uncertainty as to whether or no the surgeon would be in New York the following summer. Doctor Joe had promised that he would be there, or at least held out such strong hopes that Jamie and Thomas and Margaret were depending upon them as a promise, and with the utmost faith. Doctor Joe felt the responsibility keenly, and as the weeks wore away this feeling of personal responsibility increased. He did not dare to think of Jamie’s future should his plans fail, and when the thought did force itself upon him a strange panic seized him.
Doctor Joe’s anxiety was so keen that he must needs lose no time in receiving the letter that he hoped would come to him, and two days before Christmas, when he came home from the trail in the evening, he announced that he was to go to the Post the following morning.
“How would you like to take the cruise with me, Margaret?” he asked. “You haven’t been away from The Jug in six months.”
“Oh, ’twould be fine!” exclaimed Margaret, delighted at the prospect. “I’d like so much t’ go!”
“Then I’ll drive the dogs over, and take you,” said Doctor Joe. “Your father and Jamie will do very well without you for one day, and I’m not going out on my trail on Christmas eve. Besides, we’re very apt to meet Santa Claus, and we mustn’t miss seeing him, for he may have something for Jamie, and the old rascal would like as not go right on and never leave it, if we don’t remind him.”
Doctor Joe gave a quizzical glance toward Jamie, who was immediately intensely excited.
“Jamie and I’ll do fine alone for one day,” declared Thomas, “though I don’t know how we’d ever do without Margaret longer than that. It never would do to miss old Santa Claus, though, and Margaret must go along.”
“Ask he—ask he—if you sees he, now, t’ bring me a knife!” exclaimed Jamie, vastly excited. “A huntin’ knife! When th’ mist leaves my eyes I’ll have un t’ use when I goes huntin’ with Pop. Tell he that, and he’ll sure give un to me!”