1916] TO KING CHRISTIAN ISLAND 227 



in a deep hole. Three of the dogs, in their endeavor to 

 get out, scrambled onto the back of the king-dog. For 

 a few minutes I thought that he would surely be 

 drowned. Weighing nearly one hundred pounds and 

 thoroughly water-soaked, it was only with great diffi- 

 culty that I succeeded in getting him onto the surface 

 of the ice. 



Gradually we picked up one another near Cairn 

 Point, each man's clothes driven full of snow, and his 

 sledge resembling a small iceberg. Open water off Cairn 

 Point drove us over the land to Ka-mowitz, where we 

 built two snow houses. Only twenty below zero! What 

 a contrast to my night here two years before at fifty- 

 four below! I remember well my entanglement of 

 frozen traces and well-nigh frozen fingers. There is- a 

 certain kind of work which one cannot do with mit- 

 tened fingers, such as repairing a harness, knotting a 

 trace, or making a whip-lash. It is then that one sings 

 familiar songs and wonders if "somewhere the sun is 

 shining." 



Shortly after starting in the morning, we narrowly 

 escaped a bad accident. Ah-kom-mo-ding-wa, my oldest 

 Eskimo, got away first and dashed along the ice-foot 

 some ten feet above the water. As he rounded the 

 curve of a small bight, fifty yards from camp, about ten 

 yards of ice-foot, which had been clinging to the vertical 

 face of the cliff, dropped into the sea with a crash, leav- 

 ing him fairly tottering on the very edge. My heart 

 was in my mouth in fear for the safety of him and his 

 team. The old man smiled, waved his hand, and then 

 chuckled at our predicament, wondering how we would 

 get by. It was certainly ticklish work, where a slip 

 or mistake in judgment meant a very cold bath. 



