A TRIP TO CAPE RUSSELL 141 



The gale that night was little short of terrifying. 

 It howled and moaned and shrieked around the shack 

 and through the rocks and cliffs above, so loud and 

 shrill that it became nerve-racking. For a long 

 while, I lay awake, wearied to the last degree by our 

 hard journey, but still unable to sleep. My imagina- 

 tion at length transformed the moans and shrieks of 

 the wind into groans and cries of human beings in 

 mortal agony, and, driven to distraction, I arose and 

 stuffed cotton in my ears to shut the sound out. 

 Then I fell asleep, only to be aroused later by a suf- 

 focating odor of gas. I sprang up to find the stove- 

 pipe down, and the place so filled with coal gas that 

 I could scarcely breathe. I called my three Eskimo 

 companions, and they were all thrown at once into 

 violent paroxysms of coughing. It required our 

 united efforts for an hour to straighten things out 

 again and get the pipe in place. 



While we were in the midst of this, two other 

 Eskimos arrived, who had come from Annootok to 

 assist me in transferring supplies. They were very 

 cold, and one of them had a frozen face. When all 

 was snug, I prepared a good hot meal of boiled hare 

 and tea, for the Eskimos and myself, and then sent 

 the five over to their own stone igloos to sleep, while 

 I turned into my bunk in the shack. 



After twenty- four hours of its fury the storm ap- 

 parently blew itself out. Two more Eskimos joined 

 us, making a total of seven men and sledges. We at 

 once took advantage of the lull. On each sledge 

 were loaded one, and in some cases two, bags of coal, 



