98 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



with us, excusing the unpleasant nature of his n^ssion, 

 and a good feeling seemed to reign. Born maintained 

 that he had a right to trade if not on shore, or if the ship 

 were not made fast to the shore by ropes. The marshal 

 did not, however, yield his ground. Born made light 

 of the matter after he had gone. 



The night shift made twenty-three bolts of five- 

 eighths-inch steel with a thread turned on each end and 

 tapped out forty-six old nuts to the proper size, besides 

 chewing at the rudder pintle with a hack-saw and the 

 one cold chisel that would stand the work. It had 

 become plain before this that the rudder was made of 

 excellent tough steel and had not been injured by its 

 long exposure to the weather. Indeed, the greatest dif- 

 ficulty we found was to cut it at all with the few tools we 

 had. These consisted of two hack saws and a half 

 dozen blades, one good cold chisel, two ratchets and 

 four three-quarter-inch drills. It was sheer drudgery 

 that the other men of the day shift seemed to avoid as 

 much as possible. The biggest job they did was to saw 

 the head of the rudder stock off at the proper place, 

 leaving to us the fashioning of it for the tiller. Even 

 with working at night each detail of the work required 

 such a long time to carry out that we became more than 

 anxious to push it as fast as our limited means permitted. 

 At its commencement the captain had set Friday night 

 for its completion. On Wednesday morning we now 

 started in to work in the day time as well, to try to save 

 half a day if possible, for we were accomplishing consid- 

 erably more than the crew in the same length of time. 

 Elting and I sawed away at the head of the rudder stock, 

 cutting slabs off four sides to square it for the hole in the 

 tiller. We took shifts at it with two saws, each scraping 



