stefansson-wrangel-09-31-042r

SINKING OF THE SHIP AND JOURNEY ASHORE 49

dead but found none. During the next night the ice com-
menced working. The piece they were camped on was
a small, solid cake. The next morning at daylight they
found they were adrift on it with water all around them,
going to the west at a mile or two an hour. [Some similar
thing had probably happened to the Mate’s party].
After drifting a few hours, their cake touched the pack
and they were able to get off. One of their sleds collapsed,
so they cached their load—which was never found again.
On the return trip they met the Doctor’s party and found
them in pretty bad shape. The sailor, Morris, had blood
poisoning in one of his hands and poor Beuchat had
frozen both feet from the ankles down and both hands
from the wrists solid. He couldn’t get his boots and
stockings on or his mittens, and he was in a very pitiable
plight. The most cheerful one seemed to be Murray.
The Doctor appeared all in. They were double-tripping
their stuff and Beuchat remained at the camp to look
out for their things. Chafe wanted him to return to
Shipwreck Camp but Beuchat would not. He knew we
could not do anything for him there. The Doctor’s party
was never seen or heard of again, nor any trace of them
found.

That evening the Captain informed me that on the
12th of the month I would leave with the two engineers,
Munro and Williamson, the two firemen, Breddy and
Maurer, and Malloch, Chafe and one sailor. We would
have two sleds and would go to Wrangel Island. The
chief engineer, John Munro, was in command of our
party.

The next day we got everything ready. We had a lot
of collapsible iron stoves for burning driftwood and I
wanted to take two of them along to Wrangel Island