stefansson-wrangel-09-32-088v

376 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

every effort to save the life of her only human companion. The
thought of being left alone for an indefinite period would certainly
have restrained her had she had any tendencies to neglect Lorne
as has been suggested by Mr. Noice.

I have seen and talked with Ada, have discussed this matter with
her, and I am fully convinced that she was grossly maligned when,
“In a cozy room at the Villa Richard, Fort Lee, N. J. Mr. Noice
told a group of friends a far different story.’ He says that Ada
refused to aid Lorne and that she could have saved his life if she
had tried, and that is why I am writing this article. We have
had Ada as a house guest in our own home, and she has been ad-
mired and lauded by our friends and the friends of Lorne. I can-
not allow the stigma to be placed upon myself and my family of
having entertained a person so gross and monstrous as Noice would
have her appear now.

Noice has crossed himself when he says now that he found
Lorne's emaciated body and that “Mrs. Blackjack was well and
fat.” In his earlier articles he described Ada when he found her,
as a frail little creature weighing less than 100 pounds and in a con-
dition bordering on collapse. She tells us herself that she weighed
only ninety pounds when she reached Nome and her normal weight
is 120 pounds. To a person weighing normally only 120, the loss
of thirty pounds means a condition far short of normal. It is a
loss of 25 per cent.

Noice says that, “These (meaning the parts of her diary which
Noice claims to have later deciphered) revealed that Ada refused
to aid E. Lorne Knight of McMinnville, Oregon, actual leader of
the party as he lay dying on the island and that she probably
saved her own life with food that would have saved Knight from
starvation.”

In Noice’s early report of this tragedy, he stated that Ada was
down to her last case of sea biscuit, some tea and saccharine.
Lorne’s diary, all the way through the early stages of the sick-
ness which resulted in his death, tells of the lack of an antiscor-
butic which was necessary for the cure or the curbing of the scurvy.
He tells of the need he realizes of red meat such as the polar bear
contains, or the caribou, or the walrus, and Noice himself knows the
utter lack of good sense or of truth when he asserts that Ada
had this sort of food and refused to give it to Lorne.