WINTER QUARTERS 135 



with open water, salty ice, deep snow, and dying dogs. It took 

 them five weeks to reach Herschel Island, and they arrived with 

 very few dogs, the rest having died and been eaten by the sur- 

 vivors. The S.S. Narwhal, Captain Leavett, was wintering 

 at Herschel Island, and he had given them sufficient food to 

 return. They had reached the mail, but had not met Mr. 

 Stefansson, who had gone down to Toker Point with some 

 Eskimos. While on Herschel Island Mr. Leffingwell's best 

 dog " Jim " was stolen, and although he tried very hard to 

 find out what had become of him, it was all of no use ; the dog 

 was gone, and he had to buy another. It was a splendid animal 

 he got, big, powerful, and of a kindly disposition, but Mr. 

 Leffingwell was sorry to lose the other one, as it was his pet 

 dog and named after one of his best friends. 



To my satisfaction, Mr. Leffingwell was pleased with the 

 arrangement I had made with Ned Erie, and said that he 

 would have done the same had he been alone, the more so 

 as we both looked upon Ned as a perfectly honest man and 

 knew that he would get some food in the coming year. 



Mr. Leffingwell and I had a long talk about the sledge trip 

 in the spring, and. as we both thought that we could do good 

 work if we started from where we were, he agreed to my 

 proposal that we should go out on the pack ice together, 

 accompanied by a third man. We would go north until we 

 either struck the desired deep water (400 metres) or the state of 

 our provisions forced us to return, if we did not find land before 

 that time. We were very hopeful, however, that we might do 

 so, as our information pointed in that direction. 



During Mr. Leffingwell's absence I had been spending much 

 of my time in going through lists of the outfits of various 

 explorers, and as soon as he had rested we made plans for 

 our new outfit, and the work was commenced at once. As the 

 party would now consist of three men instead of two, we had 

 to get some more deerskins for clothing, and we made an 

 arrangement with Uxra, giving him a good price for ten 

 skins. But Tullik was not satisfied, and the couple came 

 down on the following day, wanting to go back on their 

 bargain. 



Of course we could not put up with any nonsense of that 

 kind, so we told Tullik what we thought of her and Uxra, that 



