stefansson-wrangel-09-31-066v

96 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

hauled on the sled. Knight could not walk by himself,
but was able to stumble along holding on to the back
end of the sled for support. With grit such as few possess,
he even occasionally used the failing remnants of his
great strength to help the sleds over bad places.

The journey was a hard enough experience for the
Eskimo and me, but harder for the sick men, because
of their physical suffering and because of the gloom,
approaching melancholia, which is a symptom of their
disease. But to hear Knight tell it afterwards he must
have worried less than I, and that could mean only that
he had a firmer confidence than I in the theory on which
we were working—that game would be found and that
fresh meat would cure the scurvy.¹

Handicapped as we were by the rough ice, the sick men
and the weakening dogs, it took us sixteen days to get
ashore. When we landed in north western Ellef Ringnes Island we had half rations for the
men for six days and half rations for the dogs (consisting
mainly of new skin clothing) for six days also. We were
still five hundred and fifty miles from the nearest human
beings, so that our lives could be saved only by success
in hunting.

We did not stop when we finally got to the shore lead,
for it was temporarily closed by a west wind. The three-
mile belt of ice between it and the beach was smooth, and
the tired men and dogs made fairly easy progress along
the coast to the southeast while I walked a long curve
inland searching for game. I remember it as a discourag-
ing experience, for in twelve or fifteen miles I did not
see a sign of a living thing nor even a blade of grass.
In my whole arctic experience I have never been so near
discouragement as I was that night when I came into
the camp where the sick men were lying. I have no rec-

¹ For an account of how these
experiences struck the other
sick man, see the books by
Harold Noice: "With Stefansson
in the Arctic", pp. - -