stefansson-wrangel-09-25-004-009

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what I thought of his doing this and I told him we would never find them,
or at least the chances were we woudn't, as the ice was on the move all the
time.

I forget who went on the first trip but on the second
one were Mallooh and Munro and they had a mishap. It was before they had
cached their loads. They started across a patch of young ice and got about
ten feet from the strong ice when their sled broke through and what they
didn't lose they got wet, with themselves in the bargain. So they dumped
their load and started back to Shipwreck Camp, but night ivertook them
before they reached it, as they were about thirty or forty miles away when
they broke through. When they camped, they had a very pleasant night of it
by their own account. I forget whether they lost their primus stove or
not, but if they didn't it would not burn, as everything was frozen up.
They had to stand up all night and move around to keep from freezing, waiting
for daylight, which in the early part of January was quite a long wait.
The next day they got to us more dead than alive. I forget who it was made
the next trip - the last. I was busy making sledges, so I made no trips.

I think it was February 4th or 5th that we heard dogs
howling several miles from camp. Some of the men went out to look and
shortly after the sleds returned to camp with the news that they had left
the Mate's party on the ice with about three miles of open water between
them and Herald Island. They had one sled, three seld-loads of provi-
sions and no dogs. The I feet of one of the four were badly frozen already.
I thought this a bad position for the Mate's party to be in, for if he
ice started to crush, which in all probability it would do, it was all off
with his outfit. They might save themselves but they wouldn't save much of
their gear.

[After describing how, through difference if opinions as