THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 95 



tobacco had not been adulterated and that the whole thing was 

 imagination. Lately these fits had been coming on two or three 

 times a week. They had never lasted longer than a day. 



After a first momentary doubt I was convinced that Norem's 

 case was serious. Chipman told me that Norem had been acting 

 queerly for several weeks. Lately he had begun to tell members of 

 the expedition in confidence that he thought he was going crazy. 

 Hereupon the camp was divided fairly evenly into two parties: some 

 thought the trouble was really serious, while others believed it was 

 merely a trick to get out of doing his proper share of the work — 

 "malingering," although the war had then not yet enriched the com- 

 mon vocabulary with this word. 



It seemed that after the two ships went into winter quarters, 

 arrangement had been made that Charles Brooks, steward of the 

 Alaska, should be in charge of the cooking one week and Norem, of 

 the Mary Sachs, the next. This arrangement had been in effect only 

 a short time when Norem began to do his work badly. I found in 

 the camp a feeling against Dr. Anderson because of his leniency 

 towards Norem, whom some of the men regarded as a plain shirker, 

 and I knew my decision was by no means popular when I took 

 Anderson's view, confirming the arrangement that for the present 

 Norem should be required to do none of the cooking and should be 

 given the most healthful possible outdoor work, such as chopping 

 wood, going with dog teams to fetch driftwood, and the like. I 

 also arranged with Captain Nahmens of the Alaska, who had a 

 trapping camp about six miles away, to invite him now and then 

 for a visit. An apparently spontaneous invitation of that sort would 

 be more likely to relieve his mind than an order directing him to 

 go out to Nahmen's camp and stay there. 



For the time this plan seemed to work well and during my brief 

 stay at Collinson Point Norem did not have the melancholia. Cap- 

 tain Bernard and one or two of the others who had known and 

 liked him in the mining camps of Alaska were rejoiced at the 

 change, but others said that he was merely holding back so as not 

 to give me any chance to determine from his tactics whether his 

 condition was assumed or real. 



