n. But
he was now taken with what the folk of Buccaneer Cove called
"rheumatiz o' the knee." There were days when he walked in comfort;
but there were also times when he fell to the ground in a sudden agony
and had to be carried home. There were weeks when he could not walk at
all. He was not now so merry as he had been. He was more affectionate;
but his eyes did not flash in the old way, nor were his cheeks so fat
and rosy. Jim Grimm and the lad's mother greatly desired to have him
cured.

"'Twould be like old times," Jim Grimm said once, when Jimmie was put
to bed, "if Jimmie was only well."

"I'm afeared," the mother sighed, "that he'll never be well again."

"For fear you're right, mum," said Jim Grimm, "we must make him happy
every hour he's with us. Hush, mother! Don't cry, or I'll be cryin',
too!"

Nobody connected Jimmie Grimm's affliction with the savage teeth of
Tog.

* * * * *

It was Jimmie's mother who discovered the whereabouts of a cure.
Hook's Kurepain was the thing to do it! Who could deny the virtues of
that "healing balm"? They were set forth in print, in type both large
and small, on a creased and dirty remnant of the _Montreal Weekly
Globe and Family Messenger_, which had providentially strayed into
that far port of the Labrador. Who could dispute the works of "the
invaluable discovery"? Was it not a positive cure for bruises,
sprains, chilblains, cracked hands, stiffness of the joints,
contraction of the muscles, numbness of the limbs, neuralgia,
rheumatism, pains in the chest, warts, frost bites, sore throat,
quinsy, croup, and various other ills? Was it not an excellent hair
restorer, as well? If it had cured millions (and apparently it had),
why shouldn't it cure little Jimmie Grimm? So Jimmie's mother longed
with her whole heart for a bottle of the "boon to suffering
humanity."

"I've found something, Jim Grimm," said she, a teasing twinkle in her
eye, when, that night, Jimmie's father came in from the snowy
wilderness, where he had made the round of his fox traps.

"Have you, now?" he asked, curiously. "What is it?"

"'Tis something," said she, "t' make you glad."

"Come, tell me!" he cried, his eyes shining.

"I've heard you say," she went on, smiling softly, "that you'd be
willin' t' give anything t' find it. I've heard you say that----"

"'Tis a silver fox!"

"I've heard you say," she continued, shaking her head, "'Oh,' I've
heard