One day as the _Strathcona_ was scudding southward, her sails swelling with a stiff breeze, and the Doctor in a great hurry to reach a distant coast-line and get to work on some patients who had been waiting a long time for him, a little boat came and planted herself directly in the _Strathcona's_ path. The _Strathcona_ was a small craft herself, but she seemed a monster compared with this impudent sailboat. The smaller boat had a funny-looking flag, hoisted as a signal to stop. It was almost as if a harbor tug should attempt to hold up the _Leviathan_. Dr. Grenfell thought it must be some very serious surgical case. He gave the order at once: "Down sail and heave her to." Then an old, white-haired man, the only passenger in the small boat, climbed stiffly over the rail, fairly creaking in his joints. "Good-day," said Grenfell. "What can we do for you? We're in a hurry." The old man took off his cap, and held it in his hand as he looked down at the deck. Then he mustered up courage to make his request. "Please, Doctor," he said slowly, "I wanted to ask you if you had any books you could lend me. We haven't anything to read here." Dr. Grenfell confesses with shame that his first impulse was to return a sharp, vexed answer, and to ask, "What do you mean by holding up my mission boat for such a reason?" But then he realized his mistake. In a way, it would be as good a deed to put a prop under the old man's spirit with a good book as to take off his leg with a knife. "Haven't you got any books?" "Yes, Doctor. I've got two, but I've read 'em through, over and over again, long ago." "What were they?" "One is the Works of Josephus, sir, and the other is Plutarch's Lives." The old fellow was overjoyed when the Doctor put aboard his bobbing skiff a box of fifty books--a mixture of everything from Henty's stories to sermons. Dr. Grenfell never could tell what a day--or a night--would bring forth. If variety is the spice of life, his life in the north has been one long diet of paprika. Once late in the fall he was creeping along the Straits of Belle Isle in a motor-boat--the only one in those waters at that time. It broke down, as the best of motor-boats sometimes will, and the tidal current, with that brutal habit which tidal currents have, began to pull the boat on the rocks as with an unseen hand. They tied all the lines they had together, attached the anchor, and put it overboard. The water was so deep they could not reach the bottom. Darkness was shutting down--and it was an awful place to pass the night. Then a schooner's lights flashed out. "Hurrah!" cried Grenfell's men. "We're all right now!" They lashed the hurricane light on their boat-hook and waved it to and fro like mad. They MUST make those fellows on the schooner take notice and stop for them. The sea would probably get them if they failed.