Billy Topsail, M.D.

Toby whistled a tune.

"Whistlin'!" said Bill. "Yet afore this v'y'ge is out ye may lie a blue corpse yourself on the ice!"

And Toby yawned.

"Yep," said he.

It was a cure. Archie and Bill and Jonathan burst into a roar of laughter. Toby was timid no longer. He could not be frightened by tales and gruesome suggestions to his imagination.

CHAPTER XXXII

In Which Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail Say Good-bye to Toby Farr for the Present, and, Bound Down to Our Harbour with Doctor Luke, Enter Into an Arrangement, From Which Issues the Discovery of a Mysterious Letter and Sixty Seconds of Cold Thrill

What happened next was the astonishing meeting of Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail in Tom Lute's cottage on Amen Island. The rising blast of wind that threatened to interrupt Doctor Luke's passage of Ship's Run, and thus cost Terry Lute the "fiddle finger" he cherished, so dealt with the floe, at sea, where the men of the Rough and Tumble were at work, that Archie was cut off from return to the ship. At first the adventure wore a grave appearance; but Archie knew the coast, and was aware, also, that the land near which the Rough and Tumble had debarked her crew in the morning was the land of Amen Island.

That there was an hospitable settlement on Amen Island, Cap'n Saul had told him. It was towards Amen Island, then, that his endeavour was directed, when the shifting ice cut him off from the ship and dusk caught him on the floe. And he had no great difficulty in making the shore. The floe, in the grip of the wind, drifted towards the land and came in contact with it before night fell.

Archie had a long, stumbling search for the cottages of Amen. That was the most trying aspect of his experience. In the end, however, pretty well worn out, but triumphant, he caught sight of the light in Tom Lute's cottage; and he knocked on the door and pushed into the kitchen just when Doctor Luke, having lanced Terry Lute's finger, and having been informed that Terry Lute's fiddle was a jew's-harp, had joined Billy Topsail in the hearty laughter that the amazing disclosure excited.

It was late then. Archie and Billy and Doctor Luke were all feeling the effect of the physical labour of that stormy night; and when Billy and Archie had exchanged news in sufficient measure to ease their curiosity, and when Doctor Luke and Archie, who were old friends, had accomplished the same satisfying end, and Black Walt and his assistant had departed, and when Terry Lute and Tom Lute and Terry Lute's mother had recovered from their delight, the simple household turned in to sleep as best it could.

In the morning – which means almost immediately after dawn – Archie Armstrong insisted upon his own way. And his own way was happy and acceptable. The Rough and Tumble lay offshore. She was within sight from the window of Tom Lute's cottage. Undoubtedly Cap'n Saul had a searching party – probably the whole crew-out after Archie Armstrong; and undoubtedly the old man was in a fever and fury of anxiety – a fury of anxiety because, no great wind having blown, and the ice having been driven against the coast, his alarm for Archie's safety need not be great, whereas the delay caused by Archie's misadventure would surely arouse a furious impatience.

Consequently Archie sought to relieve both his anxiety and his impatience; and to this end he set out over the ice, with Billy Topsail and Doctor Luke, to board the Rough and Tumble, where Billy Topsail was wanting to shake the hand of his old friend, Bill o' Burnt Bay, and Archie was eager to have Doctor Luke "inspect" Toby Farr and his grandfather. It was in Archie's mind to "make a man" of Toby.

"Cap'n Saul," said Archie, by and by, "will you be sailing to the s'uth'ard?"

"A mad question!" Cap'n Saul growled.

"Yes; but, sir – "

"Isn't you got no sense at all? How can I tell where the ice will go?"

Archie grinned.

"It wasn't very bright, sir," he admitted. "Still, Cap'n Saul, is there any chance – "

"Why?"

"I want to go down with Doctor Luke, sir, to Our Harbour. But I don't want to be left on the coast until the mail-boat comes north. If you think you might be in the neighbourhood of Our Harbour, and could send a boat ashore for me, sir, I'll take a chance."

"I might," Cap'n Saul replied. "An' the way the ice sets, I think I will. Will that do ye?"

"It will, sir!"

"If the ice goes t' sea – "

"You'll leave me. I understand that."

"I'll leave ye like a rat!"

Archie laughed.

"Billy," said he, gleefully, "I'll go south with you!" And to Cap'n Saul: "How long will you give me, sir?"

"I'll give you a week."

"Make it ten days, sir?"

"Archie," Cap'n Saul replied, "I thought you was a b'y o' some sense. How can I say a week or ten days? I'll pick you up if I can. An' that's all I'll say. What I'm here for is swiles. An' swiles I'll have, b'y, no matter whether you're left on the coast or not."

Archie flushed.

"Cap'n Saul, sir," said he, "I beg pardon. You see, sir, I – I – "

Cap'n Saul clapped him on the back.

"Archie, b'y," said he, putting an arm over the boy's shoulder, "I'll pick you up if I can. An' if I can't" – Cap'n Saul accomplished a heavy wink – "there'll be some good reason why I don't. Now, you mark me!"

Upon that understanding Archie packed a seaman's bag and went back to Amen Island with Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail. First, however, he shook the hand of Bill o' Burnt Bay, and shook the hand of Toby Farr, and shook the hand of Jonathan Farr. And Billy Topsail shook hands with them all, too. Billy Topsail liked the quality of Toby Farr. They were to go through a gale of wind together – Archie and Billy and Bill and Jonathan and little Toby Farr. And Billy and Archie were to learn more of the quality of Toby Farr – to stand awed in the presence of the courage and nobility of Jonathan Farr.

Thus it came about that Doctor Luke, Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong, near dusk, two days later, drove Doctor Luke's dogs into Bread-and-Butter Tickle, on the way south to Doctor Luke's hospital at Our Harbour. There was sickness near by – at Round Cove and Explosion Bight; and as Doctor Luke was in haste, he was in something of a quandary. Doctor Luke's solution and immediate decision were sufficient.

Billy Topsail was to carry medicine and directions, especially directions, which had a good deal to do with the virtues of fresh air, to ease the slight trouble at Explosion Bight, and Doctor Luke would himself attend to the serious case at Round Cove, setting off at once and returning before noon of the next day, all being well.

Billy's errand was the longer; it might be two or three days before he could get back – Explosion Bight lay beyond Poor Luck Barrens – but at any rate a start for Our Harbour would be made as soon as he got back. As for Archie Armstrong, he was to kick his heels and feed the dogs at Bread-and-Butter Tickle – a prospect that he did not greatly enjoy, but was disposed to make the best of. As it turned out, the issue of the whole arrangement gave him sixty seconds of thrill that he will never forget.

In the operation of the plan, returning from Explosion Bight, where he had executed his directions, dusk of a scowling day caught Billy Topsail on the edge of the woods. And that was a grave matter – Billy Topsail was in driven haste. As the white wilderness day had drawn on, from a drab dawn to a blinding noon, and from noon to the drear, frosty approach of night, the impression of urgency, in the mystery that troubled him, grew large and whipped him faster.

When he loped from the timber into the wind, high above the sea, he was dog-tired and breathless. It was offshore weather then; a black night threatened; it was blowing in tepid gray gusts from the southwest; a flutter of wet snow was in the gale. In the pool of ghostly, leaden dark, below Spear Rock, of Yellow Head, the ice of Skeleton Arm was wrenched from the coast; and with an accumulation of Arctic bergs and drift-pans, blown in by the last nor'easter, it was sluggishly moving into the black shadows of the open sea. And having observed the catastrophe, in a swift, sweeping flash, Billy Topsail stopped dead on the ridge of Spear Rock, dismayed and confounded.

To camp on Spear Rock was no incident of his dogged intention.

Bread-and-Butter Tickle, to which a persistent, feverish impression of urgency, divined from the puzzling character of the incident of the night before, had driven Billy Topsail since the drab dawn of that day, lay across the darkening reaches of Skeleton Arm. In the snug basin, beyond the heads of the narrows, the lamps were lighted in the cottages of the place. It was a twinkling, beckoning hospitality; it invited Billy Topsail to supper and to bed – to the conclusion of his haste and to the relief of his mystification.

But on the Labrador coast, as elsewhere, the longest way round is often the shortest way home. It was two miles across Skeleton Arm to Bread-and-Butter Tickle, on a direct line from Spear Head; it was four miles alongshore to Rattle Water Inlet, at the head of Skeleton Arm, and eight from Rattle Water to the lights of Bread-and-Butter. Billy Topsail reflected upon the discrepancy – the flurry of snow, too, and the swift approach and thick quality of the night; and having surveyed the ice, the fragments of which seemed still to be sufficiently in contact for crossing, he clambered down Spear Head to the shore of the sea.

"Can I cross?" he wondered.

After further reflection:

"I don't know," he concluded.

What mystified Billy Topsail, and drove and challenged him, as he had never been mystified and driven and challenged before, was a letter. Billy Topsail had come through the scrub timber and barrens beyond the first wild hills of Long-Age Inlet; and having came to the fork in the trail from Run-By-Guess to Poor Luck Barrens, where he was to camp for the night, he had been confronted by a new-cut stick, stoutly upright in the snow of the trail, and a flutter of red flannel rag, and a letter, snapped in the cleft head of the stick.

That the solitary wilderness of his journey should be so concerned with the outport world of that coast as to produce a letter was amazing; and that the letter should present itself, in the nick of time, where, probably, no other traveller except the mail-man had passed since the first snow fell, and that a fluttering flannel rag should declare its whereabouts, as though confidently beseeching instant conveyance to its destination, was more stimulating to Billy Topsail's reflection than mere amazement could be.

"Now," thought he, "what's this?"