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HISTORY OF WRANGEL ISLAND DOCUMENTS 173

roughly between my dead comrades and their living com-
rade who has now turned their accuser.

The weight of scientific and historical truth is on the
same side as justice to the dead. Mr. Noice has in
his published account not only deviated materially
from the records we have but he has destroyed records
which he knew a man now dead had set down with par-
ticular care because he wanted those very things to be
explicitly known. He has even charged in the press that
one member of the party did not in good faith try to pre-
vent the death of another. In justice to the dead, who
must forego their deserved credit unless the truth be
established, and in justice to the one living member who
has been publicly accused by Mr. Noice of an inhuman
dereliction of duty if not a crime, we are compelled to
face in this chapter the disagreeable task of explaining
just how the misleading newspaper stories came to be
published by Mr. Noice.

The rest of this chapter has been moved into the
appendix where it will be found as section IV. Its place
is being taken here by the following brief summary:

October 19, 1924, Mr. Noice and his attorney came to
us to offer a retraction for us to publish in this book,
partly in return for the omission from the book of cer-
tain evidence and charges against Mr. Noice. They
stated they wished to give as explanation of his errors,
(1) that Mr. Noice had not himself written the story
published in the newspapers over his signature, (2) that
when he sanctioned its publication he had not as yet
read carefully enough the expedition documents and did
not realize the discrepancies between what he said they
contained and what they did contain, and (3) that he