650 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



NNE of Mercy Bay and about forty miles southwest of Cape Ross 

 — sixty miles from our camp on Liddon Gulf. Why they turned 

 back we shall never know. It is possible they met open water; in 

 fact, that is the most logical supposition, except that it would be 

 extraordinary that the water should be open at that time. Apart 

 from this we might suppose that their difficulties had led them into 

 a despondent frame of mind. Inasmuch as they probably believed 

 the Bear had made no attempt to reach Melville Island they may 

 have reasoned that we might have had bad luck in hunting and 

 that even if they were to reach Liddon Gulf they might find us 

 starving and in no better condition to help them than they were 

 to help themselves. But it is clear that if there was no open water 

 they could have left the two sleds and loads there, hitched all the 

 dogs to one sledge and come through rapidly and light to Liddon 

 Gulf. One of the things they had in abundance was kerosene, for 

 Castel found that although they had taken a good deal from our 

 oil drum at Castel Bay, there was still some left in it when he got 

 there. They also had lanterns. It would have been easy for us 

 with lanterns and kerosene to follow the trail back, pick up the 

 sledges, and bring them to Melville Island. Even if there was 

 water in the sound they should have camped at the edge of it 

 to wait for it to freeze over, for at this time of year it surely 

 could not have been many days until the frost would have made 

 them a road. 



Fearing the worst now, Castel proceeded westward. At Castel 

 Bay he found evidence, as noted above, that they had taken kerosene 

 from a fifty-gallon drum. The depot had originally contained other 

 things but these had been removed by Lopez and Alingnak on their 

 way to Melville Island in May, 1916. 



The north coast of Banks Island is mainly precipitous. Under 

 the heavy pressure of the winter winds the ice is heaped up roughly 

 in ridges that seldom come quite to the beach. There is accord- 

 ingly a comparatively level strip between the precipitous land 

 and the rough ice, and this strip will naturally be followed by 

 any one traveling by sled, especially in the darkness of midwinter 

 when sufficient daylight is not available for picking a direct trail 

 across the bays. Castel assumed that Bernard and Thomsen must 

 have followed this strip. The trail was now months old and many 

 blizzards had intervened, so that it was only once every four or 

 five miles that they found on some hard snowdrift the tracks of 

 the sled and men going west. At first there were some dog tracks 

 but these became fewer, for the dogs had been dying one by one. 



