stefansson-wrangel-09-34-015

11.

please. But the mood of the camp was not often suited to
smiling kindness. The thermometer was already dropping
below freezing, the season, of storms and darkness was on
its way, and there was much to be done before that came
upon them. The boys took themselves and their mission very
seriously and although they were nice enough , even Knight
was nice enough in the beginning, the fact was no one really
paid her much attention. She had not minded that, at first,
only she was never able to feel that she knew the boys or to
be at ease in their company especially when they were all to-
gether and she was expected to talk to more than one of them
at a time.

From the outset she had liked Crawford, the one
the others considered the leader although she noticed that he
always talked with Knight before deciding anything important.
Crawford was quiet, and patient, and he knew more about the
strange meteorological instruments than anyone else. She
thought he was probably the smartest person she had ever seen.
Galle, the youngest, not yet twenty, who spoke with a texas twangy
drawl and was the least experienced in the north country, was
not easy to talk to and Maurer, the only one who had been on
the island before, was often too busy writing letters to his
wife, whom he had married only a few days before sailing, to
talk to her at all.

Anyway, if she was not quite happy those first
days, neither was she unhappy and she had been able to tell
herself that her fears on the ship had been foolish. And for
awhile she had believed that to bo so, and was reasonably
content.