1914] IN SEARCH OF CROCKER LAND 77 



hole before we gave it up. We were only seventeen 

 miles from land, and there was only one conclusion — 

 our weight, which was a five-pound pick, was so light 

 that it was being carried off by the current probably flow- 

 ing into Nansen Sound. To get that wire and pick back, 

 with the thermometer at twenty below zero, was a long 

 and tedious job. Attaching a handle to the reel, we 

 relieved one another every fifteen minutes. At the 

 end of five hours we expected to hear Pee-a-wah-to, 

 who had the last relay, call out at any moment, "jTi- 

 mahl" ("Finished!''). Instead of this, he stuck his 

 crestfallen face in at the door with the announcement 

 that the wire had broken and our pick was gone! 



A series of soundings was so important that this loss 

 was a serious one. What could we use for a weight .^^ 

 Mentally we ran through every article in the equipment. 

 Only one pick was left; certainly it would never do to 

 use that. Our pemmican hatchets were too small. An 

 eight-pound can of pemmican would not sink. One 

 bottle of mercury for the artificial horizon — we must 

 have that for our observations. No, there was not a 

 thing that would serve. To think that my dogs had 

 pulled that reel containing 2,000 fathoms of wire and 

 weighing about forty pounds, for nearly 500 miles, only 

 to have it thrown away without a single sounding! I 

 felt as if I were a pall-bearer at a funeral as I carried 

 the reel to the top of the highest ridge and left it there. 



The first man who awoke in the morning rushed for 

 the peep-hole in the front of the igloo. Yes, the lead 

 was frozen; we could cross. Hitching up the dogs, we 

 ran along the lead to a section of the ice which we judged 

 by its whitish appearance to be the strongest. E-took- 

 a-shoo advanced cautiously and tapped it with his whip- 



