"Stubbornly the 'huskies' contested every inch of the ground. Now and again they would crawl into holes among the rocks--but the Indians would find them there and cut them down without mercy, like animals trapped in their burrows. "The Eskimo had their choice between the Indians and the sea. They would carry their children and even their wives down to the boats on their backs, and sometimes the frail skin-boats would turn over, and all the people in them would be drowned. If they succeeded in putting out to sea, they had no place to go: the Indians waiting ashore would get them whenever and wherever they landed. "At last--there were only the Indians in their war-paint, dancing and howling on the beach--not an Eskimo was left to tell the tale." A few days later, Dr. Grenfell came to Hopedale. There, he found, the Eskimo believed that Queen Victoria, away off there on the other side of the ocean, was sitting on a rock waiting for the _Harmony_ (the Moravian mission ship from Labrador) to come in sight. They loaded him down with all sorts of messages they wanted him to give her. Especially, they wanted him to say to her that they were very, very grateful to her for sending him over the seas to help them. When they learned that England was at war in Egypt, and a brave general was holding the upper Nile against a crowd of savages, although they hadn't the slightest notion as to where Egypt was or who the Egyptians were, they got out everything they had in the way of firearms and began to drill up and down on the rocky beach. One old fellow had a policeman's coat split up the back and much too big for him, and he dragged the tail of it along the ground like a bedraggled water-fowl. He also had a single epaulet that had come in a box of cast-off clothing. On the strength of that uniform they made him captain of the company. Then they all marched up to the missionaries and said: "We want to go to war and help the English!" "It won't be any use," said the missionaries. "Egypt is a long, long way off--and the war will be over before you could get there!" "Never mind!" insisted the "huskies." "We want to go!" They kept on drilling and making warlike noises with their mouths till the ice melted and the cod came in. And after that, in the struggle with the cold sea and the barren land for a living they forgot all about war and the rumors of war. There were seals and bears and foxes to be hunted, instead of men. Dr. Grenfell found one man who was lucky enough to catch a black fox in a trap of stones. He was so happy over the catch that tears of joy ran down his face as he carried the precious skin to the store. He said God had heard his prayers and made his family suddenly rich. The storekeeper paid him forty-five dollars. That seemed like a fortune. The price was not paid in cash, however, but in food.