1914] IN SEARCH OF CROCKER LAND 57 



and equipment far back on the slope of the ice. E-took- 

 a-shoo, who simply loved hard work, put a tump-line 

 on his 125-pound sledge and started up the ice steps. 

 I said to myself, "He will never get there." But he 

 did, smiling and sweating. Two of the other men at- 

 tempted the same feat, one failing and one succeeding. 

 At dusk we had transferred over 4,000 pounds to the sur- 

 face of the ice, ready for loading the next day. That 

 night the Eskimos gathered around Pee-a-wah-to, the 

 only man who had gone over the glacier, to learn what 

 it was like, how far it was, if there were any more such 

 hard work, and if we could get back before the Sound 

 broke up in the spring. The next morning Mene Wal- 

 lace, the New York Eskimo, decided that hard work 

 did not agree with him and that he wanted to go home. 

 I knew that my Eskimos would all be the happier for 

 his going, and so I did not try to dissuade him. As he 

 rounded the point, about an hour later, Ekblaw de- 

 tected two sledges instead of one, and yelled to me, 

 "Did you know that Tau-ching-wa had gone, too.?" At 

 first I could not believe it, and thought he was upon 

 the glacier. A hurried search failed to find him. I 

 learned the reason for his hasty departure that night 

 when supper was ended and gossip and tobacco smoke 

 were equally thick. Tau-ching-wa had a pretty wife. 

 Mene certainly thought so; therefore he decided to 

 return to Etah, where he might enjoy her company. 

 Tau-ching-wa, unsuspecting, would go on with me and be 

 absent for several weeks. After Mene had gone, one 

 of the boys whispered into Tau-ching-wa's ea^-; as a con- 

 sequence, I lost Tau-ching-wa. He didn't bother to 

 climb the glacier and state his reasons for going. His 

 wife was at stake, and off he went. 



