eover, the gangrene in my foot
became worse, and if it had not been for the opportune arrival in that
dreary land of an unfortunate young medical student, it in all
likelihood would have killed me.

XII. A STRANGE FUNERAL PROCESSION

The young medical student was George Albert Hardy, of Prince Edward
Island. Everybody called him "Doctor," and for all practical purposes
he was a regular physician and surgeon; for if he had been able to do
two or three months' more hospital work he would have received his
degree. The reason he had hastily abandoned his studies and sought
professional service with the lumber company that maintains camps at
the western end of the Hamilton Inlet was that he had fallen a victim
to consumption. He arrived at Northwest River Post on November 8th on
a small schooner that brought supplies from Rigolet for Mackenzie and
the Muddy Lake lumber camp at the mouth of the Grand River.

The schooner remained only an hour at Northwest River, and Dr. Hardy
had to continue on to Muddy Lake with her, but he found time to operate
on my left foot, which was badly affected, and advise me how to
continue its treatment myself. The doctor said that the mail boat, the
Virginia Lake, which had carried him to Rigolet, would return there
within three weeks for her last trip to Newfoundland of the season, and
he urged me to take advantage of that opportunity to go home, and get
proper treatment for my feet. The temptation was great, but I felt it
was my duty not to leave Labrador without Hubbard's body.

It was my plan to engage dog teams and start with the body for the
coast so soon as it could be brought to the post. Everybody agreed
that it could not be recovered before January, and Mackenzie argued
strongly against the practicability of transporting it with dogs,
suggesting that we place it in the old post mission chapel until
navigation opened in the spring, when it could be sent home on the mail
steamer. But I knew I must get home as soon as possible, and my mind
was made up to take the body with me, if I had to haul it all the way
to Quebec.

The great toe on my left foot growing steadily worse, it became
necessary for me again to see the doctor. Groswater Bay and Goose Bay
by this time were frozen solid, and on December 4th I travelled to
Muddy Lake, where Dr. Hardy was stationed, by dog team and komatik,
Willie Ikey, an Eskimo employed by Monsieur Duclos, the manager of the
French trading po