1915] WAITING FOR THE SHIP 193 



The story was told in a few minutes. The three- 

 masted auxiliary schooner, George B. Cluett, under the 

 command of Captain Pickles, had been chartered by 

 the American Museum of Natural History to proceed to 

 Etah for our relief. Dr. E. O. Hovey was the oflScial 

 representative of the Museum. Absolutely unfitted for 

 Arctic work, handicapped by a late start and several 

 delays along the Greenland coast, the ship had essayed 

 the crossing of ice-choked Melville Bay with a disabled 

 engine and with not a single man aboard who had a 

 knowledge of that uncertain stretch of water or that 

 inhospitable northern coast. 



Reaching Umanak (North Star Bay) after a long, 

 tedious, and somewhat dangerous voyage. Doctor 

 Hovey and Captain Comer, the ice pilot, decided that 

 the ship should remain in that port while Doctor Hovey 

 should proceed on to Etah, 100 miles to the north, in a 

 large, stanch power-boat, the property of the Danish 

 trading-station at Umanak. This was done with the 

 help of Freuchen, in charge of the station, and his men. 

 The party was now on its return to the Cluett with the 

 intention of proceeding home at once. 



In consideration of the fact that Doctor Hunt was 

 still in the North and that all of our equipment and 

 collections were at Etah, my desire to remain for an- 

 other year was strengthened. Jot immediately sig- 

 nified his desire to remain with me. Within a few 

 minutes good-bys were said and the boat sailed away 

 to the south, leaving us with our letters from home 

 and the latest news of the great world war which seemed 

 so remote and unrelated to our primitive life here — 

 existence in a canvas tent upon the shores of a Green- 

 land fiord. We can never forget the oranges brought 



