THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 377 



The Captain and crew of the Bear agreed upon one prognosti- 

 cation as to the war; some said one side would win and some the 

 other, but all said the war could not last many months longer and 

 a few thought it would be over before they were back at Nome in 

 September. 



The question of how the news of a world cataclysm would strike 

 a person who heard of it only when the tragedy had been a year 

 in progress seems to have been generally interesting to newspaper 

 editors and paragraphers. First a reporter of the type who finds 

 the news or makes it, sent over the wires a "story." I have paid a 

 clipping bureau for several hundred copies of this account, and it 

 must have appeared in every American paper that has a telegraph 

 service, and in many European papers. A story that isn't true is 

 usually interesting — that is what it is made to be. This was ex- 

 tremely interesting, as the number of editorial comments proved. 

 It was usually printed under the heading, ''Stefansson Wept." 

 After a dramatic account of how the news of the war was brought 

 to me comes the climax: Under the crushing effect of the tragedy 

 that had come upon the world I broke down and wept. These 

 were not the ordinary snivelings of a sentimentalist — they were the 

 tears of a hero who had borne all the terrors of the polar wilderness 

 without flinching and who had met stolidly even his own semi- 

 miraculous rescue from the jaws of death. For it appeared the 

 Polar Bear had rescued me from starvation. (That she did so 

 with a warmed-up tin of corn was not specified.) 



The last ripples of my escape from death took the form of 

 advertisements: "The man who rescued Stefansson rides an Over- 

 land." The ads. did not say that my "rescuer" bought the Over- 

 land, and I hope he got it for nothing. Certainly I have every 

 reason to wish him well — not the inventor of the story but Captain 

 Lane himself, who did nothing wilfully to start the yarn and who 

 did me many favors then and after. His coming did not have even 

 a family resemblance to a rescue, but it was of great significance in 

 our expedition, as the sequel tells. 



Like any great event in life, such as the death of a friend or 

 relative, I found this news of a world war hard to realize. It was 

 certainly hours, perhaps it was days, before it began to weigh upon 

 me as it did then for all the years after. Through the circum- 

 stances of there being several German sympathizers on the ship and 

 through the nature of some of the American magazine articles I 

 read later, I never had the feeling of certainty that our side would 



