stefansson-wrangel-09-32-087r

THE WRANGEL ISLAND DOCUMENTS 373

Noice in Nome, there had been no pages removed by anyone. This
was later than any possible access that Ada Blackjack had to this
diary. But while only reasonably certain that no pages were
missing, Mr. Lomen is quite certain that Mr. Noice told him
nothing about any pages being missing and that it was properly
to be inferred from Mr. Noice’s conversation that no pages were
missing. In Toronto Mr. A. J. T. Taylor is certain about the
story Mr. Noice told him. At that time Mr. Noice said that he
had removed certain pages, segregating them in an envelope. The
understanding then was that the pages so abstracted would be
turned over by Mr. Noice to me. Again, the witness is quite defi-
nite that Mr. Noice neither said nor implied that anything had
been torn out by anyone but himself. The New York witnesses
to whom Mr. Noice said that he had removed certain pages are
clear that he said that he had removed them himself and that he
did not intimate that anyone else had removed any pages.

At the time of the publication of Mr. Noice’s charges against her,
Ada Blackjack was on the Pacific Coast. On being questioned
both by newspapermen and friends she repeated what she had
told us before—that she carefully preserved Knight’s diary exactly
as he left it when he died and that the pages now missing were
not missing when she gave it to Mr. Noice.

Just before going to press we have been able to reach Ada Black-
jack and have a letter from her dated Seattle, January 25, 1925.
So far as it concerns our inquiry as to whether she thought it
possible that Lorne Knight might have torn out of his diary the
ten pages now missing, her letter is as follows: “I will tell you
I’m sure that Mr. Knight did not torn the leafs off his diary. Well,
I don’t know what the people are doing against me anyway. I’m
just telling all I know and all I seed and I cannot do more than
that.”

It is to be clearly understood that we print these things not in
accusation of Mr. Noice but only to defend Ada Blackjack from
the charges he has made against her in the press.

Whoever it was removed the pages, it does not seem likely they
ever contained any such damaging evidence against her as Mr.
Noice seems to imply in the World interview. Indeed, as we under-
stand it, Mr. Noice now no longer imputes to Ada the motive he