382 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



would starve. Yet my own letter sent back with the support party 

 from the ice to Dr. Anderson had been clear that he was to assume 

 if I did not come back before midsummer, 1914, that I had gone to 

 Banks or Prince Patrick Island. In the hurry of separation out 

 on the ice I had not made out for transmission to the Government 

 a duplicate of these instructions. Indeed I did not think it neces- 

 sary, for I supposed that if I did not come back Dr. Anderson would 

 send to Ottawa a copy of my instructions to him and would sum- 

 marize them in his report. But he did neither, and the Government 

 and the press were left in the belief that my intention had been to 

 come back to Alaska, and that my failure to do so, instead of mean- 

 ing our probable success and our safety in Banks Island, meant the 

 failure of the enterprise and our death at sea. 



Thus it came about that Peary and others based their gloomy 

 views in part on reports from which a correct statement of our plans 

 had been suppressed. Thus came about, too, various other misun- 

 derstandings, among them some that hampered McConnell in his 

 attempt to organize a "rescue expedition." 



When I engaged McConnell as a member of our expedition I did 

 so by telegram. As he was not known to me then and I was taking 

 him on the strength of favorable report merely, I worded the tele- 

 gram to mean that I would take him on trial for one year, sending 

 him home at the end of that time if transportation were available 

 and I had concluded that I did not want him. The arrangement 

 was to be terminable at my option but not at his. At least that 

 is what I intended it to be, but he understood that it was an arrange- 

 ment for one year only on both sides. I soon found him one of my 

 best men even under the handicap of a weak ankle that had been 

 sprained before and kept getting sprained on slight provocation. 

 When it came to our parting on the ice in April, 1914, he considered 

 his term of engagement over and wished to go home. Although his 

 services had been most satisfactory I could not urge him to stay, 

 partly because the telegram by which I had engaged him was quite 

 open to his interpretation and partly because I thought the weak 

 ankle was a drawback. I suggested to him, however, that if he 

 changed his mind he might come north with Wilkins in the Star. 

 Wilkins and he were great friends. Thus we parted on the ice. 



McConnell later decided not to join the Star but to proceed south. 

 This may have been a fortunate decision, for it enabled him to take 

 an important part, as will appear later, in the rescue of the Karluk 

 crew from Wrangel Island. In that capacity he came in harrowing 

 contact with the scenes and circumstances of the loss of eleven men 



