THE RESCUE 



ing, but Cramer asked "Have you any fruit?" 

 Yes, there was a can of peaches in the boat and 

 this can he quickly disposed of. 



In a few minutes the main outHne of events in 

 the flight and the subsequent wanderings were 

 narrated, and Etes and Stewart were informed 

 that the flyers had for more than two days dis- 

 cussed seriously making the flight again sometime 

 the next year. They certainly were game. 



Hassell explained that they had lighted a fire 

 to serve two purposes — to rid themselves of mos- 

 quitoes, and to attract the attention of a sail which 

 they thought they had seen. This must have been 

 the umiak with sail hoisted. Their intention was to 

 build a fire after nightfall and fire off the "Very" 

 signaling pistol from this point on the shore, which 

 it is interesting to note is exactly the one where 

 our canoe and cache of provisions had been left 

 for them but afterwards brought away. The fly- 

 ers had heard the hum of the outboard motor of 

 the Mullins boat when it was still some distance 

 away, but they had had hallucinations — they then 

 thought that the umiak under sail was one of these 

 hallucinatiion^ — and so they had concluded that 

 the hum was due mainly to the mosquitoes in 

 their ears. 



A half hour later Etes and Stewart began to 



271 



