THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 151 



fifty miles away registered 86 miles per hour, which may have been 

 lower than the wind was, because these instruments tend to clog 

 through thickening of their lubricating oil at low temperatures. 

 The mild spell of the last few days had been too warm for snow- 

 houses, and we were living in tents which, although good as tents 

 go, were very unsatisfactory in such weather. 



Although the ice we were on had been frozen to the beach all 

 winter and in ordinary weather would have remained so till spring, 

 we realized that a piece of it might break off and carry us with it 

 out to sea. Andreasen, Crawford, Storkerson and I took turns 

 standing watch outdoors, but this was really only a matter of form, 

 for the blizzard was so thick that even while there was daylight 

 one's eyes could be opened only momentarily, and the howl of the 

 gale and the flapping of the tent made it impossible to hear the noise 

 of groaning ice which we could have heard easily inside a snowhouse. 



Many gales in the North last for three days, but this one had 

 abated by the following morning, and at noon it was practically over. 

 At first it did not seem as if anything particular had happened. 

 Looking towards shore we could not see the mountains, but this 

 was not surprising, for a haze commonly hangs over them for some 

 time after a storm. To find out the situation I walked towards 

 shore along the sled trail which should have wound in and out among 

 grounded pressure-ridges for six miles towards the beach. But it did 

 so no longer, for in less than half a mile I came to an expanse of 

 open water several miles wide. Clearly the "tide" had risen during 

 the gale, as it always does with violent sou'westcrs in this region. 

 The field of ice which was ours had first been lifted off the bottom 

 and then been broken off from the land floe, and we were afloat on 

 it and being carried we did not for the present know where. 



When I got back to camp with this news the air had cleared to- 

 wards the land and we could see the mountains. The Endicott 

 range to the south had been familiar to Storkerson and me for six 

 years. We knew every peak. There was no doubting the evidence 

 of our eyes, although it was a little startling to realize that the 

 mountains abreast of us were those which had been forty miles to 

 the east at noon the previous day when our two companions started 

 for shore. From the very slight elevation of the peaks above the 

 horizon we judged that instead of being six miles we were now 

 twenty miles from the beach. 



This was the second misfortune of a trip which as yet had hardly 

 begun. The separation from us of Wilkins and Castel was in its 

 effect more serious than the injury to Bernard. They were both ex- 



