THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 457 



as they are at Nome, a better method when speed is the first object. 

 The trail led from this campsite straight out to seaward. Being 

 interpreted by Sherlock Holmes methods, these and other signs 

 showed that the men who had camped there had done so because 

 they were lost in the evening and had the following morning been 

 able to see the ship or some landmark which they knew. Otherwise 

 they would certainly have followed the coast instead of leaving it 

 at right angles. A few minutes' walk verified this conclusion, when 

 the masts of the Star appeared through the storm three or four 

 hundred yards ahead. This w^as at half past one, and I had left 

 the camp near Bernard Island about eight the previous morning, 

 twenty-nine and a half hours before. 



What I am able to tell from experience about the effect on the 

 inclination to hunger of the habit of absolute irregularity in meals 

 should be interesting, for iew have had any opportunities to make 

 experiments in that field under natural conditions. I have men- 

 tioned that during my second year with the Eskimos I learned the 

 habit of getting up for an all-day hunt without breakfast and 

 eating twice within a period of three or four hours in the evening 

 after coming home from the hunt. I made then the special conclu- 

 sion that that particular arrangement was suitable and involved no 

 hardship. I have since frequently gone from twenty to thirty hours 

 without food, walking continuously or nearly so. I have never 

 arrived at the end of such a walk with an appetite keener than a 

 laborer feels when his meal hour has come or perhaps has been 

 passed by an hour or so. 



My welcome at the Star was warm and cheerful in every way. 

 Food was brought at once but I could not begin eating until plans 

 had been arranged for continuing the search for Emiu. He had 

 not arrived and his absence looked serious. Wilkins was going to 

 hitch up immediately and I think went so far as to do it, but the 

 weather began to thicken again and the afternoon darkness was 

 upon us already, so there was nothing profitable to be done till 

 morning. 



Wilkins had here the most comfortable and the most sensibly 

 arranged of our three winter bases. He had never built an arctic 

 camp before and had no one in his party with set views on just 

 how it should be done. This left him free to follow his own devices. 



The nearest analogy to Wilkins' camp is the common winter 

 dwelling of the natives of northeastern Siberia, where small tents 

 are pitched within other tents half a dozen times larger. Wilkins 

 had first put up a wall tent. Then at each of the four corners he 





