Three days later Dr. Grenfell reached the harbor where he was to board the mail boat upon her arrival.  He was wearied and stiff in his joints after the hard overland hike with a heavy pack on his back, and looking forward to rest and a good meal, he went directly to the home of a mission clergyman living in the little village.

His welcome was hearty, as a welcome always is on this coast.  The clergyman showered him with kindnesses.  A pot of steaming tea and an appetizing meal was on the table in a jiffy.  It was luxury after the long days on the trail and Grenfell sat down with anticipation of keen enjoyment.

At the moment that Grenfell seated himself the door opened unceremoniously, and an excited fisherman burst into the room with the exclamation: 

“For God’s sake, some one come!  Come and save my brother’s life!  He’s bleeding to death!”

Dr. Grenfell learned in a few hurried inquiries that the man’s brother had accidentally shot his leg nearly off an hour before and was already in a comatose condition from loss of blood.  The family lived five miles distant, and the only way to reach the cabin where the wounded man lay was on foot.

Grenfell forgot all about the steaming tea, the good meal and rest.  A moment’s delay might cost the man his life.  Grenfell ran.  Over that five miles of broken country he ran as he had never run before, with the half-frenzied fisherman leading the way.

The wounded man was a young fellow of twenty.  Dr. Grenfell knew him well.  He was a hero of the world war.  He had volunteered when a mere boy, served bravely through four years of the terrible conflict and though he had taken part in many of the great battles he had lived to return to his home and his fishing.

“I never knew a better cure for stiffness than a splendid chance for serving,” said Grenfell in referring to that run from the missionary’s home to the fisherman’s cottage.  All his stiff joints and weary muscles were forgotten as he ran.

When Dr. Grenfell entered the room where the man lay, he found the young fisherman soaked with blood and sea water, lying stretched upon a hard table.  The remnant of his shattered leg rested upon a feather pillow and was strung up to the ceiling in an effort to stop the flow of blood.  He was moaning, but was practically unconscious, and barely alive.

The room was crowded to suffocation with weeping relatives and sympathetic neighbors.  Dr. Grenfell cleared it at once.  The place was small and the light poor and a difficult place in which to treat so critical a case or to operate successfully.  He had no surgical instruments or medicines, and even for him, accustomed as he was to work under handicaps and difficulties, a serious problem confronted him.

The man was so far gone that an operation seemed hopeless, but nevertheless it was worth trying.  Grenfell sent messengers far and near for reserve supplies that he had left at various points to be drawn upon in cases of emergency, and in a little while had at his command some opiates, a small amount of ether, some silk for ligatures, some crude substitutes for instruments, and the supply of communal wine from the missionary’s little church, five miles away.