name; and he knew that the cry would not be heard. Instinctively, he covered his throat with his arms when Tog fell upon him; and he was relieved to feel Tog’s teeth in his shoulder. He felt no pain–not any more, at any rate, than a sharp stab in the knee. He was merely sensible of the fact that the vital part had not yet been reached.
In the savage joy of attack, Jimmie’s assailants forgot discretion. Snarls and growls escaped them while they worried the small body. In the manner of wolves, too, they snapped at each other. The dogs in the outhouse awoke, cocked their ears, came in a frenzy to the conflict; not to save Jimmie Grimm, but to participate in his destruction. Jimmie was prostrate beneath them all–still protecting his throat; not regarding his other parts.
And by this confusion Jim Grimm was aroused from a sleepy stupor by the kitchen fire.
“I wonder,” said he, “what’s the matter with them dogs.”
“I’m not able t’ make out,” his wife replied, puzzled, “but–”
“Hark!” cried Jim.
They listened.
“Quick!” Jimmie’s mother screamed. “They’re at Jimmie!”
With an axe in his hand, and with merciless wrath in his heart, Jim Grimm descended upon the dogs. He stretched the uppermost dead. A second blow broke the back of a wolf. The third sent a dog yelping to the outhouse with a useless hind leg. The remaining dogs decamped. Their howls expressed pain in a degree to delight Jim Grimm and to inspire him with deadly strength and purpose. Tog and the surviving wolf fled.
“Jimmie!” Jim Grimm called.
Jimmie did not answer.
“They’ve killed you!” his father sobbed. “Jimmie, b’y, is you dead? Mother,” he moaned to his wife, who had now come panting up with a broomstick, “they’ve gone an’ killed our Jimmie!”
Jimmie was unconscious when his father carried him into the house. It was late in the night, and he was lying in his own little bed, and his mother had dressed his wounds, when he revived. And Tog was then howling under his window; and there Tog remained until dawn, listening to the child’s cries of agony.
Two days later, Jim Grimm, practicing unscrupulous deception, lured Tog into captivity. That afternoon the folk of Buccaneer Cove solemnly hanged him by the neck until he was dead, which is the custom in that land. I am glad that they disposed of him. He had a noble body–strong and beautiful, giving delight to the beholder, capable of splendid usefulness. But he had not one redeeming trait of character to justify his existence.
“I wonder why Tog was so bad, dad,” Jimmie mused, one day, when, as they mistakenly thought, he was near well again.
“I s’pose,” Jim explained, “’twas because his father was a wolf.”
Little Jimmie Grimm was not the same after that. For some strange reason he went lame, and the folk of Buccaneer Cove said that he was “took with the rheumatiz.”
“Wisht I could be cured,” the little fellow used to sigh.
CHAPTER III
In Which Little Jimmie Grimm Goes Lame and His Mother Discovers the Whereabouts of a Cure
Little Jimmie Grimm was then ten years old. He had been an active, merry lad, before the night of the assault of Tog and the two wolves–inclined to scamper and shout, given to pranks of a kindly sort. His affectionate, light-hearted disposition had made him the light of his mother’s eyes, and of his father’s, too, for, child though he was, lonely Jim Grimm found him a comforting companion. 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 35 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 you say, ‘if I could only find it I’d be happy.’”
“Tell me!” he coaxed. “Please tell me!”
She laid a hand on his shoulder. The remnant of the Montreal Weekly Globe and Family Messenger she held behind her.
“’Tis a cure for Jimmie,” said she.
“No!” he cried, incredulous; but there was yet the ring of hope in his voice. “Have you, now?”
“Hook’s Kurepain,” said she, “never failed yet.”
“’Tis wonderful!” said Jim Grimm.
She spread the newspaper on the table and placed her finger at that point of the list where the cure of rheumatism was promised.
“Read that,” said she, “an’ you’ll find ’tis all true.”
Jim Grimm’s eye ran up to the top of the page. His wife waited, a smile on her lips. She was anticipating a profound impression.
“‘Beauty has wonderful
