Jim and Jack flopped their tails on the ice as if to say yes. Their mouths were wide open—it looked as if they were laughing in delight to be reminded of the battle.
"Say, you dogs certainly are the willin', hard-workin' fellers when you're fed up right. I believe you'd rather haul a sled than eat. You rascals! 'Member the time you et my gloves just as I was goin' to start? I had to larrup outa you that trick you had when you was young o' gobblin' your own harness when you wasn't watched. I sure do hate to hit you. One o' these whips 'll bite a hole in a door twenty feet off: I've seen ole Pop Rinker drive a nail in a board with one.
"When we get back, if that ther Dr. Grenfell has come we'll get some other dogs an' take him out for a ride. He'll have to have a team o' dogs. Can't get along in this country without you dogs—not till they have reindeer. Heaven knows, the Doctor'll have miles and miles o' country to cover, to get round to all the people hereabouts that needs him. Ain't it a great an' mighty blessin' this country's now a-goin' to have a doctor all our own, all our very own?"
When they got back to the hamlet with their seal, there was a jollification.
Tom Bradley could have been Mayor, or King, or anything he wanted.
There was plenty of one thing in that place—and that was fire-wood, from the spruces and firs alongshore.
So they built a monstrous pyramid, big enough to cook twenty seals, and round the community bonfire they collected, dogs and all, for a feast. The children shouted in glee and clapped their hands. The mothers were happier for themselves than for their babies. And their joy was the greater because word had come that Dr. Grenfell was finding his way in the little steamer, the Julia Sheridan, through a channel behind the islands and was likely to be in their midst at any hour of any day.
Next day, the Doctor came. Such hand-shaking and back-slapping and outcries of honest pleasure as greeted him! And from the very first minute there were anxious appeals for his aid.
"Doctor, would ye please come to see my old woman?"
"What's the matter with her?"