600 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



had established camp at De Salis Bay at the east end of the over- 

 land route, where two men were stationed, Otto Binder and August 

 Masik. 



Before they started Herman had told the Captain that they 

 would be able to make the round trip easily in twenty-five days. 

 When they became overdue, Captain Gonzales went from the 

 Bear to the trapping camp and learned that the brothers had 

 passed De Salis Bay safely and had picked up Binder. He had 

 formerly been engineer on the Sachs and was a great friend of 

 Captain Bernard's so he had decided to go there for a visit. Masik 

 was worrying about Binder, as the Captain was about the Kilian 

 brothers, but nothing was done and the Captain returned to the 

 Bear. After his return to winter quarters he continued waiting for 

 the Kilians to come back until they were two months overdue, when 

 at last he started for Melville Island. 



After assimilating all the news I summarized it in my diary 

 for March 1st: "The Captain's arrival is fortunate. We are not 

 only relieved of the anxiety as to a possible tragic mishap to 

 his ship last summer but we also now know where to send our 

 people (the women and children). The load the Captain brought 

 is valuable but not indispensable. There are two excellent and 

 two fair primus stoves, over thirty-five gallons of distillate, seal- 

 skin boots, etc., that are very valuable. The food part is also 

 of some value, seeing he brought us dogs to haul it, but it will 

 probably not contribute noticeably to our success or materially to 

 our comfort. The anxiety as to the Kilian brothers and Thomsen 

 now takes the place of our former worry over the Bear." 



The more we thought about the Kilians and Thomsen the 

 more that anxiety increased. I could easily understand Thom- 

 sen's not having followed out the instructions of the previous year 

 to return in summer to Melville Island or spend the summer at 

 Mercy Bay. Thomsen was efficient and faithful, but his idea of 

 executing orders was to do so if it seemed wise or else to do 

 whatever seemed wiser. It is always easy to forgive such a man 

 although the results are sometimes bad, especially when coopera- 

 tion must be arranged from a distance. The world in general is 

 now so used to the telegraph and telephone that it may be diffi- 

 cult to realize how hard it is in the Arctic to coordinate operations 

 of parties in distant places and covering a year or more of time, 

 especially if directions are not followed whenever following them is 

 possible. 



March 3rd Storkerson, Knight, Illun, Pikalu and Ulipsinna 



