6o NEAREST THE POLE 



from the rail to the ice-foot on the port bow, 

 quarter and amidships, and the boxes of provisions 

 shd down these, when men took them and put them 

 back from the edge of the ice-foot, where the women 

 loaded them upon sledges and pushed them beyond 

 any danger of loss by disruption of the ice-foot itself. 

 This work was greatly expedited from the fact that 

 practically all the supplies had been taken out of the 

 holds during the previous days and were lying on 

 deck. While the work was in progress one of the 

 Eskimos of my southwest scouting party came in on 

 foot reporting twenty-one musk-oxen killed in Porter 

 Bay. The next night there was a brief > and not serious 

 pressure, then the ice about the ship quieted down 

 again, though it ran strongly with the tides some 

 fifty yards outside of us. 



Of course this occurrence put all ideas of any 

 farther advance out of question, and the usual 

 routine fall work of an Arctic expedition and prep- 

 aration for 'wintering were inaugurated. Hunting 

 parties of the Eskimos were kept constantly in 

 the field, covering the country north to Clements 

 Markham Inlet and south to Wrangel Bay and Lake 

 Hazen. The results of these parties were satis- 

 factory, considerable numbers of musk-oxen and 

 reindeer being secured. Almost every day one or 

 two hunters went out from the ship and in this way 

 some hundred or more hare were secured in the 

 immediate vicinity. But musk-oxen were to be our 

 mainstay, and while my confidence that we should 

 find numbers of these animals within a comparatively 

 short distance of the ship was justified by events 



