1915] TO RENSSELAER HARBOR 153 



the 12th with empty sledges, boots and mittens frozen, 

 and traces a ball of ice. We had tried for thirty-six 

 hours and had returned beaten — a common experience 

 in the life of the Smith Sound hunter. 



On the 12th, Hunt, in training now for a bear-hunt 

 in lieu of his abandoned ice-cap trip with Freuchen, 

 started on a twenty-five-mile walk to Etah, sleeping 

 with the Eskimos at Sulwuddy, ten miles away, the 

 first night and covering the remaining distance on the 

 second; he reached home about two hours previous to 

 our arrival from Peteravik, which we had left with our 

 dogs that morning. 



Our dogs were now in fair condition, and it was de- 

 cided that Hunt should accompany his favorite Eskimo, 

 Ak-pood-a-shah-o, to the musk-ox grounds beyond the 

 heights of Ellesmere Land for specimens. Ah-now-ka 

 and I would take a run up the Greenland coast in search 

 of polar bears, usually found off the Humboldt Glacier 

 in the spring of the year, searching in cracks in the 

 ice and at the base of bergs for their natural food, the 

 seal. We were off together on Sunday, April 18th. 

 Rough ice, however, in the vicinity of Cape Ohlsen, so 

 badly shattered Hunt's sledge that he was compelled 

 to return to Etah with his Eskimo for a new one, while 

 Ah-now-ka and I pitched our tent at Cape Ohlsen to 

 await their return on the morrow. 



Both parties proceeded northward again in the 

 morning, and called at Littleton Island for a cache of 

 eider-duck eggs left there the preceding June. The 

 sea ice north of the Polarises winter quarters near Life 

 Boat Cove was extremely rough, resulting in very slow 

 progress to Ka-mowitz, our usual first camping-place. 

 In the morning we bade good-by to the western party. 



