CHAPTER XXXII 



WE REACH MCCLINTOCK's FARTHEST 



ON the afternoon of June 15th we had evidently come to the 

 north end of Prince Patrick Island. The two islets ahead 

 were clearly those shown on the Admiralty chart just north- 

 west of Cape McClintock. There was food for only a day or two in 

 our sledges so we headed for one of these islands as a good vantage 

 point from which to spy out seals. While my companions were 

 pitching camp, I climbed the fifteen or twenty-foot cutbank of the 

 island and looked around. There were three or four seals sun- 

 ning themselves on the ice, so the food problem was bj^ way of 

 being solved once more. I then turned the glasses to the east. 



On the tip of the land, just where I expected that McClintock 

 might have built a cairn, I saw a low, round heap so placed as to 

 suggest a work of man. Then I walked two miles across from the 

 island to the mainland and found the remains of a monument. 

 Probably the beacon was originally conspicuous, though now it 

 was only a rounded heap not much over a foot high. It was com- 

 posed in part of earth, in part of gravel and then of a few stones. 

 There was one slab of 8x12x16 inches, and one stone the size of 

 a pound loaf of bread. The rest were smaller, and all were half- 

 embedded in the sand and gravel. 



On removing the stones I found a papier mache cylinder similar 

 in size to an ordinary shotgun shell, except a bit longer. With 

 this I returned to camp. 



I got home about midnight, to learn by exactly what perversity 

 of nature each hunter had again been prevented from getting the 

 seal he went after. But another day was coming and these trials 

 of a hunter were soon forgotten in our interest in the McClintock 

 record. First we discussed how the cylinder should be opened, 

 and settled on cutting off one end with a penknife. With the three 

 others watching I did this very delicately, lest the document be 

 mutilated. But it came out in marvelous condition, considering 

 that the sealing of the tube with sealing-wax had not been quite 

 tight. 



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