CAPTAIN KLINKENBERG 51 



the ship's engineer. When told he must stop making 

 alcohol, he had received the Captain's orders with de- 

 fiance and had reached for a gun, whereupon the Captain, 

 to forestall him, had shot him with a rifle. An old man, 

 a member of the crew, had died of illness during the 

 winter; two sailors had lost their lives by traveling over 

 ice that was too thin. This was the first version we heard 

 of the tragedies that had cut down the Olga's crew from 

 nine to five men. 



The Captain's witnesses substantiated his story in every 

 detail. 



McKenna's ship was at this time not at Herschel al- 

 though expected momentarily from a whaling cruise. 

 Some of the other captains wanted the police to arrest 

 Klinkenberg for having stolen the Olga. This the police 

 did not see their way clear to do, but they told the cap- 

 tains they would restrain Klinkenberg if he tried to take 

 the Olga away from Herschel Island before Captain Mc- 

 Kenna arrived. This Klinkenberg probably had no in- 

 tention of trying. He had a whaleboat which was said 

 to be his own property. Into that he loaded his Eskimo 

 wife and large family of children, and sailed west. 



After Klinkenberg got away, the Island and fleet be- 

 gan to buzz like a beehive. The story now unanimously 

 told by the crew of the Olga differed entirely from the 

 one they had sworn to in Klinkenberg's presence and be- 

 came one of murder. The Captain was said to have killed 

 the engineer without provocation, and there were various 

 dramatic and blood-curdling details. The old man, whom 

 Klinkenberg had reported as dying from illness, was said 

 to have died in chains in the forehold, either from freezing 

 or starvation or a combination of both. It was said that 

 the two sailors who lost their lives had been the only eye 



