THE RESCUE 



field, which was clearly marked, and there is little 

 doubt that they would have made it successfully. 



I had not believed that they could come down 

 safely on the ice-cap unless they were to go in at 

 least fifty miles, but apparently to their surprise 

 as well as mine, they came down at a point prob- 

 ably not more than ten miles inland and in about a 

 foot of slush ice between ridges. They carefully 

 covered up the engine, locked the car, and taking 

 only a small lump of pemmican they started out 

 for our camp. They had become somewhat con- 

 fused, it would appear, in thinking that the lake 

 known as Taserssiak close to the ice-arm itself was 

 really the Sondre Stromfjord, or they would not 

 have started out with so little preparation. They 

 carried, however, the rifle and a hatchet and, of 

 course, the map. It was just fourteen days that 

 they wandered, first jumping wide ice crevasses 

 of the inland-ice, finding their way out to the mar- 

 gin after several futile efforts, then fording 

 streams bj'^ day, caught in quicksand, and huddled 

 together for the night, footsore and weary, half- 

 starved, but game to the end and with smiles on 

 their faces, they finally reached the point from 

 which they were rescued by Etes and Stewart. 



Shortly after getting down from tlie ice-cap 

 they had come upon a caribou that was apparently 



281 



