stefansson-wrangel-09-32-093r

THE CHARGES AGAINST ADA BLACKJACK 385

On October 28th, “The seamstress this morning refused to work
but after some persuasion by Crawford she finally went to work
in a rather sulky manner.”

So far we have been telling the story of the troubles with Ada
Blackjack chiefly from the pages originally removed from Knight’s
diary by Mr. Noice and returned to Mr. J. I. Knight in February
after they had been held from us for about five months (Mr. Noice
should have given them to me on the day after my landing in New
York when I had my first and only interview with him since he
returned from Wrangel Island). On November 2nd we come
to what must remain a blank in our story for the entry
is on a page that was so mutilated by Mr. Noice that eight lines
cannot be read. We are using a photograph of this page as one
of our illustrations so that the reader can see for himself as much
as we have been able to see. It is, of course, only an inference
that the eight lines here erased are part of the story of the trouble-
some seamstress.

On November 15th, “Crawford had some trouble with the woman
but I was away at the time and do not know the details so will
leave to Crawford to set down in his diary.” That part of this
unpleasant history, and the many more pleasant and more impor-
tant things which Crawford recorded, were all lost in the manner
we have told in Chapter XII of this book.

November 16th, “The seamstress is not doing anything to-day
and refuses to say a word.” On November 20th, “I asked (Ada
Blackjack) if she came along with the intention of marrying one
of us and she replied that she had. She went on to say that . . .
she was willing to marry any one of us. Rather a gloomy state-
ment for us! This may all sound funny to the reader but I can
assure him or her that it is not funny for the four of us to have
a foolish female howling and refusing to work and eating all our
good grub. Heaven only knows what she is liable to do to herself
or to one of us. To be continually watching her gets rather
monotonous.”

On November 21st, “The seamstress was told by me not to leave
camp but to do certain sewing, but just as it was getting dark
she came to the trapping camp, tired out. She said that she wanted
to see Crawford and Maurer and say hello. She evidently has
hopes yet of ‘getting a man.’ We brought her home on the sled.”