204 GREELY EXPEDITION 



One of the most tragic incidents of this part of the terrible story was the 

 attempt of Corporal Joseph Elison and three other men to reach a cache of 

 meat that had been buried by Sir George Nares, an English explorer, in 1875. 

 The goal was only thirty miles from the Greely camp, yet its attainment 

 under the conditions and with the men half dead, proved disastrous. The 

 meat was not found, and on the return journey Elison froze his hands, feet 

 and face. His comrades stopped to do for him what they could and would 

 have lost their own lives had not one of them, Sergeant Rice, walked the 

 thirty miles back to the camp to take word of Elison's plight. He went the 

 distance without food, and when he staggered into camp he was scarcely able 

 to gasp out what had befallen. As soon as he made it known, however. Ser- 

 geant Brainerd and a party were sent to rescue Elison. Sergeant Brainerd's 

 diary, preserved in Greely's report to the government, tells the story as fol- 

 lows : 



"The darkness was intense when we started, and Christiansen (Brain- 

 erd's sole companion) and myself floundered about among the hummocks 

 and through the deep snow for some time without advancing very far. We 

 stumbled frequently, and often fell on the rubble, receiving serious bruises. 

 The monotony of the tramp was sometimes broken by my companion, who 

 uttered half suppressed oaths whenever he fell over a projecting point of ice. 

 About noon we reached the bay and found our three brave comrades huddled 

 together in the one sleeping bag in a semi-frozen state. Elison was still alive 

 and somewhat better than when Rice had left him. Elison repeatedly implored^ 

 me to kill him that the others might be saved. I tried to cheer him with the 

 assurance that we would all escape from these hospitable shores and return 

 to our homes together, but, shaking his head sadly, he would repeat in a low, 

 pleading tone, 'Please kill me, wont you.' " 



Brainerd did what he could to cheer the sufferer, and camped near by to 

 await the morning. He returned early to make a second attempt at rescue. 

 He says : 



"The poor fellows had not slept in my absence and when I reached them 

 they were shivering with the cold. It is almost surprising that they survived 

 the cold of last night. They were in a half-starved, half-frozen condition, 

 and the merciless storm had been incessantly beating down on their unpro- 

 tected covering of buffalo-skin. 



"I stopped for a moment to contemplate the scene. Nothing could be 

 more utterly desolate, dreary and forsaken than the spot on which these brave 



