626 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



directed Mr. Dunbar to proceed ahead of the dog sled 

 to mark it for the heavy sleds, while I remained at 

 the opening ice - ridge. Toward midnight the sun 

 made several ineffectual attempts to break through, 

 and a line of soft fog rested low down between south 

 and west. I was somewhat in hopes that the sky would 

 clear and the fog roll away and show us land, but no 

 such good luck attended us. Sometimes it snowed, at 

 others a mist, cold and searching, surrounded us. 



July 6th, Wednesday, one A. m., found us halted for 

 dinner, about a mile from our starting point, at the 

 edge of a broken mass of floe pieces and water. The 

 wind had got to S. S. W. and began to freshen, and the 

 mist was colder and wetter than ever. At two A. m. 

 we turned to and immediately hooked on to a large ice- 

 cake for a ferry boat, and placing two provision sleds 

 and the dog sleds on it, we hauled it along two hun- 

 dred yards to the other side of the lead, launching and 

 paddling the boats after it. This took some time longer 

 than necessary, on account of the line parting and the 

 clingy getting adrift, but we finally had our things fer- 

 ried by four a. m. Pushing on across a second lead we 

 dug a road over a ridge of piled up hummocks, and 

 had nearly completed our second mile for the day when 

 we were checked by an ice opening thirty yards in 

 width. As I generally wait to see the rear safely up 

 before pushing ahead, nothing was done until I reached 

 the front again. A large piece conveniently at hand 

 was seized upon as a bridge, and things rushed across to 

 a camp at six ; but it was not until 7.30 A. m. that I 

 came up with the rear guard, and sat clown to my sup- 

 per — cold, wet, and hungry. Ericksen (who had no 

 sleep last night on account of toothache, and who suf- 

 fered very much to-day) brought up the clingy as a finish 

 to our day of ten and a half hours' work. 



