stefansson-wrangel-09-25-007-017

17. ists can be held except by ignoring this and several other en- tries of the same sort. But On the basis of them the reader can form his own conclusions without editorial help. But in that cheerful entry the first sentence is ominous to us, though the context shows it did not have that meaning to [[Knight, Errol Lorne, 1893-1923|Knight]] as he wrote it. For the next several days he evidently thought of [[Crawford, Allan R., 1901-1923|Crawford]], [[Galle, Milton Harvey Robert, 1902-1923|Galle]] and [[Maurer, Frederick W., 1893-1923|Maurer]] as traveling steadily toward [[Siberia (Russia)|Siberia]]; and after that he supposed them to be passing in ease and affluence from settlement to settlement along the Siberian coast toward the telegraphs at [[Nome (Alaska)|Nome]]. He speculates on what I will think and do when I receive [[Crawford, Allan R., 1901-1923|Crawford’s]] report about [[Wrangel Island (Russia)|Wrangell Island]]. So easy in their minds were both he and the Eskimo woman, [[Blackjack, Ada, 1898-1983|Ada]], that even after [[Knight, Errol Lorne, 1893-1923|Knight]]’s death she never doubted the safety of the others. When the supply ship landed six months after the party left to find her watching alone by [[Knight, Errol Lorne, 1893-1923|Knight's]] body, her first and constantly repeated question was not if they were safe but where were they? As I write, I have just been talking with her in [[Seattle (Wash.)|Seattle]]. She is still firm in the belief that they are alive. "Why should they die?", she asks. "They were well clothed dressed, they had rifles, they had food, and the natives on the Siberian coast are kind to travelers". But she thinks badly of the Russians and insists: "How do you know they are not prisoners among the Russians? If they are dead, how do you know the Russians did not kill them?”