Obviously there was no room for little Teddy Brisk on Doctor Luke's komatik. Little Teddy Brisk, small as he was, and however ingenious an arrangement might be devised, and whatever degree of compression might be attempted, and no matter what generous measure of patience might be exercised by everybody concerned, including the dogs—little Teddy Brisk of Tight Cove could not be stowed away with the old dame from Run-by-Guess Harbour and the young man of Anxious Bight.
There were twenty miles of bay ice ahead; the dogs were footsore and lean; the komatik was overflowing—it was out of the question. Nor could Teddy Brisk, going afoot, keep pace with the Doctor's hearty strides and the speed of the Doctor's team—not though he had the soundest little legs on the Labrador, and the longest on the Labrador, of his years, and the sturdiest, anywhere, of his growth.
As a matter of fact, one of Teddy Brisk's legs was as stout and willing as any ten-year-old leg ever you saw; but the other had gone bad—not so recently, however, that the keen Doctor Luke was deceived in respect to the trouble, or so long ago that he was helpless to correct it.
Late that night, in the lamp-lit cottage by Jack-in-the-Box, the Doctor looked over the bad leg with a severely critical eye; and he popped more questions at Teddy Brisk, as Teddy Brisk maintained, than had ever before been exploded on anybody in the same length of time.
"Huh!" said he at last. "I can fix it."
"You can patch un up, sir?" cried Skipper Tom.
This was Thomas Brisk. The father of Teddy Brisk had been cast away, with the Brotherly Love, on the reef by Fly Away Head, in the Year of the Big Shore Catch. This old Thomas was his grandfather.
"No, no, no!" the Doctor complained. "I tell you I can fix it!"
"Will he be as good as new, sir?" said Teddy.
"Will he?" the Doctor replied. "Aha!" he laughed. "You leave that to the carpenter."