POLAR BEAR AT HERALD ISLAND 117 



had reached open water and presently turned northwest 

 once more, for Wrangell. Two or three wahns rolled off 

 their pans as we passed through broken ice which grad- 

 ually increased in density. Murres scurried through the 

 ripples, seeming to emerge from underneath every cake. 

 Soon we had to steer off again southward and at noon a 

 rather vague dead reckoning placed us only fifteen miles 

 southeast of our position of twenty-four hours previously. 

 But we were outside the pack, instead of inside, and in 

 small ice. 



The floes increased in size; fog precluded any range 

 of vision and the wind had dropped. At 10 p. m. we 

 tried to moor to a pan, but the ice was so rotten that the 

 Eskimo sailors refused to set food on it, so we let the 

 ship drift in the light south air among the scattered ice. 

 A Uttle thermometer stood at 28° when I turned in, but 

 the extreme dampness made the chill felt clear through 

 the body. Putting on my parka with the fur inside 

 failed to give me a wink of sleep in the whole night, so I 

 got up at four in the morning and drank three or four 

 cups of coffee from the Thermos bottle which the cook 

 had filled for early morning use. In passing round the 

 deck I noticed that several basins containing photo- 

 graphic negatives had frozen. All the rigging and the 

 dark wood glistened with rime. 



Ice began to hem us in and the propeller bit hard at 

 one piece before we had started. Once on our way the 

 ice was more open, the wind light from the south. We 

 ran to and fro all day. Now we steered some hours 

 westerly till we found ourselves in pockets, the ice grow- 

 ing tighter and tighter till we could no longer push 

 through it; then we had to come out again and feel our 

 way, bend south and make to the westward when it 



