FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



been one of my warm friends. Lieutenant, afterwards Admiral, 

 Peary, I knew when he first came to Washington, where he 

 served first in the Coast Survey. Nansen I knew at the Club. 

 Amundsen I met on a transcontinental journey shortly after he 

 had discovered the Magnetic Pole, and later I talked with him 

 in Washington. I came to know one of the members of the 

 Greely expedition, a big young German named Biederbeck quite 

 well, speaking with him frequently after the expedition returned 

 to Washington. Later on, he held a post for a short time in the 

 Department of Agriculture, then joined the Customs Service at 

 the Port of New York. He told me that he was acting as hospital 

 steward at the time of the rescue of the party by Captain, after- 

 ward Admiral, Schley. He said that Greely was lying desperately 

 ill in the tent, and that he himself, getting up early in the morn- 

 ing, went out to the flagpole outlook and heard the first whistle 

 and saw the first smoke from Schley's vessel. He ran back to the 

 tent, opened the medicine chest, and poured the last remaining 

 drops of whiskey between Greely's lips. This may have saved 

 the General's life. We old-timers all remember how he was 

 nursed back to health in the hospital at Portsmouth, New Hamp- 

 shire, by Colonel Head of the Army Medical Corps, who had 

 hastened down from his summer home at Bar Harbor. 



One day in the Department of Agriculture lunch-room, Bieder- 

 beck introduced me to one of his Arctic companions, Lieutenant 

 Brainard, and we had a long chat. I mention this because of 

 what follows. That night (it was in the winter time) I was going 

 home late from the Medical College and stood upon the front 

 platform of the old horse-drawn street-car, smoking and occa- 

 sionally stamping my feet. The bearded driver turned and said 

 to me, "It's a cold night." To which I agreed very cordially. And 

 then he went on to say that I ought to wear sealskin boots with 

 the fur inside. I asked him what he knew about such things, and 



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