CHAPTER XXVI 



WE DISCOVER THE MARY SACHS 



NEXT morning we decided to go down to the Cape itself and a 

 few miles beyond it before giving up finally the hope of find- 

 ing ship, beacon, or message. As usual, I started off ahead. 

 When I had gone a mile and a half I saw in the soft mud on the bank 

 of a little creek a nearly fresh human footprint. I had scarcely 

 realized its meaning when my mind went back with some irony to 

 the previous evening and to the moral value of the decision we had 

 failed to make. Had we taken a bold concerted stand to continue 

 for another year on the resources we had, we could have been proud 

 ever after of a "heroic" resolve, without having had the bother of 

 carrying it out. For this footprint meant that somewhere in the 

 vicinity resources of one kind or another were awaiting us. 



I was near enough to the camp to be able to wave a signal. 

 And then I did not stop to write a note but merely raised a stone 

 on end, for I knew the footprint itself would carry as much of a 

 message to Storkerson and Ole as it did to me. To me it was one 

 of the gladdest sights of my life. That it was the imprint of a 

 heeled boot meant white men. Half a mile farther south 1 came 

 upon a second track. This showed cross-hatching on the sole — ^the 

 sort of rubber boot privately owned by some of the members of 

 our scientific staff. This increased the probability that whoever 

 had been here, it was one of our ships that brought him. At first 

 I had thought it most likely to have been the Polar Bear party 

 who had promised to come if our ships failed. 



Three miles farther on, where the sandspit of Cape Kellett joins 

 the mainland proper, I found no signs though I looked carefully. 

 "But a mile or more east along the coast," to quote verbatim from 

 the diary for September 11th, "I got to the top of a hill from which 

 I saw the tips of two masts. I could hardly believe my eyes — some- 

 how it seemed unnatural to find a ship in Banks Island where it 

 ought to be." 



I ran forward, for the first thing that occurred to me was that 

 the ship was at anchor and might start away. Half a mile of run- 



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