stefansson-wrangel-09-32-041v

286 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

Blackjack during the previous month had been followed
in each case by other entries where he cheerfully and
gratefully recorded her activities in securing food and
otherwise caring for him. He may have thought these
were mere changing moods of hers or he may have under-
stood, as we do, that when she was more sick than usual
she remained in the house and when she was feeling a
little stronger she gathered wood, tended the traps, and
did her best in every way.

But at this hopeful and critical time we come to a
sudden end of the record. This is where ten pages have
been torn from the diary by someone. Ada Blackjack
says these ten pages were still in the diary when she
turned it over to Mr. Harold Noice on the arrival of the
Donaldson at Wrangel Island. Mr. Noice says that the
pages had been torn out before he received the diary.
At one time he published a newspaper statement imply-
ing that Ada had removed these pages in order to hide
guilt, the nature of which he suggested. Later still he
desired to withdraw this definite charge against her but
continued to insist that the ten pages had been missing
when he received the diary. That contention brings up
the possibility that Knight might have torn them out
himself, but this is contradicted by Ada Blackjack’s
statement that the diary was intact when Mr. Noice
received it. So long as she maintains that attitude the
issue will remain between her and Mr. Noice. That
situation is gone into more fully in appendix IV
of this book.

From the point where the last pages are torn from
Knight’s diary we have the story of his illness in three
documents—Ada Blackjack’s diary, her statement to Mr.
E. R. Jordan, and her conversations as recorded by Mrs.