THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 375 



the crew of the Sachs." Presently I heard Constable Parsons say, 

 "I think that's Stefansson," to which Captain Lane replied, "Don't 

 you think it. The fishes ate him long ago." A few yards nearer I 

 heard Kilian say, "By God, that is Stefansson." There were con- 

 tradictions from several others but my identification was soon agreed 

 on and Captain Lane shouted an order: "Don't a damn one of you 

 move till I shake hands with him!" The boat touched the beach 

 and the captain jumped out. His men delayed just long enough to 

 obey him and then scrambled out after, and I received the most 

 enthusiastic welcome of my whole life. 



Assuredly the idea most definitely connected with the Arctic 

 seems to be one of starvation, and Captain Lane's first thought was 

 what he could give me to eat. He said he had the best cook that 

 ever came to the Arctic and that the ship was full of good things. 

 Now what would I like? I had only to say what I wanted and the 

 cook would prepare me the finest dinner I ever saw. I tried to 

 make clear that while I was hungry for news my appetite for food 

 was very slight. In fact, the excitement had taken away what little 

 I might have had. As for that, I had been in the North so long that 

 I could think of nothing so good as exactly what we had been eat- 

 ing on shore — caribou meat. I had the delicacy to refrain from 

 stating to Captain Lane that none of his food was as good, but I 

 tried to put him off by explaining how eager I was for all sorts of 

 news that I knew he could tell me. But these diplomatic protests 

 evidently rather worried him, so I finally asked for some canned 

 corn. Corn has always been my favorite vegetable yet I don't 

 think I had eaten half a dozen spoonsful before I forgot to con- 

 tinue. 



The Karhik was what concerned me chiefly and Captain Lane 

 began to give me news of her. Incidentally he made some refer- 

 ence to "the war." Two or three times later during the next five 

 minutes "the war" was mentioned either by him or some one else. 

 At first it made no impression on me, but later I inferred that the 

 Balkan War was still going on or had broken out afresh. Wilkins 

 had been through two years of that war as a moving picture pho- 

 tographer and I knew from him as well as from the newspapers that 

 conditions in the Balkans were such that war might break out at 

 any time. But finally some one mentioned that some of the Karluk's 

 men had gone to "the war." It was only then that I realized this 

 could scarcely be a war in the Balkans and I asked, "What war?" 



There was a chorus of replies. "Don't you know about the 

 war? Didn't you know that the whole world was fighting?" Some- 



