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of these comments changes the second year and the farther the diary goes the more frequent are the grateful and even enthusiastic comments upon Ada Blackjack’s improvement both in the work she did and in her cheerfulness while doing it. On December 12th, 1922, for instance, Knight says: "The Woman is doing wonderful work and is a great deal better than a year ago". By then she had almost finished a clothing outfit for Crawford and Knight for their proposed journey to Nome and they were evidently very well satisfied with it.

As December advanced bear tracks were frequently seen but the bears themselves were more elusive than ever. This is partly explained by the numerous entries of "cloudy", "cloudy and warm", etc. At 72° North Latitude, it is only on cloudless days that there is daylight enough at this time of year for reading or shooting four or five hours around noon. On a cloudy day a white thing like a polar bear is very difficult to see.

In the entry for Christmas Eve 1922 we have the first suggestion that the party felt the longer of provisions running short. "We are celebrating by having an extra hard bread or so apiece." The snow roof was completed today expecting the door and it is nice and comfortable in here tonight."

We have incorporated into this article in full every mention contained in the diary that relates to the proposed trip to Nome. On December 25th the subject comes up again. "I finished the complete set of dog harness for the trip and Crawford is busy making ridgepoles and uprights for the tent" - doubtless the tent

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which they intended to carry with them to use if they had to camp where there was insufficient snow for building a snowhouse. The next day, "Crawford working on the tent and I grought the sled indoors and made several repairs on it. Hope to finish it tomorrow. Snowing hard, so the trappers stayed in camp to-day." Before that time the diary tells us almost every day that two or three of the boys were out tending traps. Sometimes they came in with foxes and sometimes only with the reports of bear tracks and fox tracks seen.

On December 27th, "The sled and tent in good shape and all that is left for us to do is to get our outfit together".

January 4th we have the next mention of the trip. "I have been busy packing up today as we hope to get away in a day or two”. January 7, "Crawford and I spent the day getting ready, loading the sled, getting things together, etc. Maurer and Galle to their traps. Maurer got a fox and saw several tracks."

Then we have abruptly under date of January 7th, "At 1 P.M. Crawford and I started over fine going and making good time. We traveled south an hour and hit broken-up young ice with soft snow in between. The moon is about one-quarter on the wane and it was slightly misty. After numerous tip-overs because of increasing darkness, we camped. Our 1oad is rather heavy and the dogs soft from inaction. We lost one of our two ice picks and a pot lid. Rather a bad start."

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The diary entries at this time are lengthy and full of details that will all be printed in a letter book narrative, but here we can note only the most significant points. On January 8th, Knight says, "In all, we have about thirty days' rations and by then we should be in Siberia" - a more than reasonable estimate as Bartlett was known to them to have made the same journey from Wrangell to the Siberian settlements in twelve days. The food was pilot bread, dried meat and seal’s fat, with four new sealskins with fat attached - the last a form of dog feed that we frequently use, a "balanced ration" for the hide gives the protein and the attached fat the hydrocarbon. The load was 700 lbs. in addition to the sledge.

The entries for the first few days are of routine nature, indicating that the trip so far was to Knight only an ordinary journey, the success of which (reaching Nome, Alaska, to send me a telegraphic report of the two past years and get instructions for the next year) was in no doubt. Among the cheerful entries, troubles begin to appear, however. On January 9th, "(We) did nothing but sleep all day as both Crawford and I were badly chafed and sore. A rather poor excuse, but the only one we have!"

The only complaints in the diary are (as quoted above) that the dogs were "soft" because of having had no exercise for a long time, and that the sledge was weak for the very heavy load they carried. They realized later that they had made a mistake in weighing the themselves down and endangering the sledge with thirty

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days' provisions - fifteen days' would have been plenty; they could then have traveled less laboriously, faster and without fear of breaking the sledge.

January 12, after traveling about thirty miles (three days on the road and two in camp), we have the first mention of the trouble that was to prove serious. Knight was weak with illness. "I am nearly all in. I hate to admit this, but I am sure I can't help it. My scurvey has been coming back for the last month or two, although I have said nothing to any one about it except Crawford. When we started, I was in hopes of fairly good going and a chance to get fresh meat, which is a cure for scurvy, but I find that my legs go back on me in this rough ice where I am forced to get in harness to help the dogs and to prevent the sled upsetting, I am afraid of the sled which is none too strong. Our gait on level ice is about two and a half miles per hour." This is an average speed for dogs heavily loaded and shows the team were in at least fair condition.

Now for the first time we get evidence that they are beginning to feel that the plans of the party should be modified because of shortage of food. "This is what we have planned to do. We will go back to camp and lighten the sled load as much as possible (so there will be less danger of breaking the sled) and Crawford and Galle will start south and make as much time as they possibly can. It will be im-