1915] WAITING FOR THE SHIP 185 



to Upernavik. After considering it thoroughly for a few 

 hours, they gave up the plan, because of the lateness of 

 the season. We secured two or three tons of meat 

 during tlie time we camped here; the boys working 

 hard in cutting up the walrus and in placing them under 

 the rocks for our use the following winter. 



On the 26th Jot, Ah-now-ka, Ka-ko-tchee-a, and I 

 moved north to hunt about Retreat Cove and Cape 

 Alexander, thinking that if the party were divided, 

 twice as much meat could be secured. A few days later 

 we rashly decided to pitch our tent on the extreme end 

 of Cape Alexander, one of the pillars of Hercules and 

 the Cape Horn of the North. Standing there at the en- 

 trance to Smith Sound, beaten upon by the rushing winds 

 from the Greenland ice-cap, the storms from the south, 

 and the violent winds from the north, bridging out into 

 ice-swirling, ice-infested waters, it seems like some living 

 monster, striking in its savage personality. My wild 

 wish to camp upon this wildest-looking cape in the 

 North was at last gratified. 



The location of our tent only a few feet above the 

 water's edge must have amused and tempted the evil 

 spirits of that section. Water running through the tent 

 drove us out of bed the first night, the result of a heavy 

 sea from the south'ard. Pig-headed and obstinate, I 

 refused to move our camp to higher ground. The next 

 day we awoke with the same result. It was getting 

 interesting. 



To bed we went the third night, with a strong breeze 

 from the north, with heavy sea. At one o'clock in the 

 morning it was as still as death. Not a particle of wind, 

 the air a mass of big, feathery snowflakes, portending 

 what we mostly and justly feared — a storm from the 



