stefansson-wrangel-09-25-007-019

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19.

formed and treacherous ice is covered by a white and uniform
blanketing of snow that has settled upon it fluffily in a calm.
On some afternoon, the party must have traveled too far into
the evening twilight and may have failed to recognize danger
because of the combined disguise of snow and darkness. If the
ice broke when the sledge was far from any solid floe, their
deathnwas catastrophically sudden. If they were near some
heavy ice the sledge and outfit may have been lost while some
or all of the men were temporaily saved. The former is the
xxxxxx likelier alternative and less painful to contemplate.
But in any case, we have reason to believe that Crawford, Galle
xxxxxx and Maurer faced the situation as bravely on the sea
ice as Knight did on the land.

There can be no braver document than Lorne Knight's,
diary after he realized that death was coming. It softens the
tragedy a little to know that for the first two or three months
he considered himself no less safe than he thought his comrades were
to be. When he realized his danger he took it stoically. What he
wrote is cheerful and Ada Blackjack says that his manner was
cheerful to the end. There is not a whimper in the whole diary
nor a suggestion that he himself or any one else was to blame.
There are no heroics, no vain regrets. He was confined to the
house by the gradually increasing illness and wrote longer
entries because there was more leisure. In a book sometime we
shall be able to quote them in full. It is a thrilling story only

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