IN SEARCH OF OUR OWN EXPEDITION 185 



came to him annually from his parents in Massachusetts. 

 Later this failed and he made his living from the foxes he 

 trapped, for he was never very lucky with the gold. All 

 this I knew from Captain Leavitt, and also that Arey 

 was one of the most amiable and entertaining of men. 

 We learned from these Eskimos that he was now on a 

 visit to our ship at Flaxman Island. 



About the expedition we received two pieces of serious 

 news. The lesser of the evils was that the ship had 

 sprung a leak. As she was for the present frozen into 

 six or seven feet of ice, she could not sink. Her hold was 

 full of water, however, and she was expected to sink in 

 the spring when the ice thawed which now held her up. 

 Accordingly ail her cargo had been removed to the land, 

 she had been partly broken up, and from the lumber a 

 house had been built ashore. 



The more serious piece of news was that Leffingwell, 

 Mikkelsen and the first mate, Storker Storkerson, were 

 dead. Against the advice of all the Eskimos they had 

 gone away from land north over the moving sea ice. A 

 week or two later one of their dogs had come back. Evi- 

 dently this was the only survivor of the party. The Eski- 

 mos thought that the two sleds and all the men and dogs 

 had probably sunk through thin ice in trying to make a 

 crossing from one solid floe to another, and that this one 

 dog had wriggled free from the harness and had eventually 

 made his way to land. For some days after the dog came 

 ashore the Eskimos had hoped that perhaps one of the 

 men would also get ashore. This hope had now been given 

 up. An Eskimo might make a living for a long time by 

 hunting but white men would surely die unless they got 

 back to people within a few days. 



We were told that the camp at Flaxman Island was now 



