OVER THE ARCTIC MOUNTAINS 207 



out displeasing the other, so I thought it better on the 

 whole to sever my connections with their expedition and 

 to try to organize one of my own the following year. 

 My heart was neither in the mountains nor on the sea 

 ice but rather in the mystery of the strange people with 

 blond faces and copper weapons whom Klinkenberg had 

 reported from Victoria Island. 



Captain Mikkelsen may have realized already that I 

 would probably not accept his offer to stay and help him 

 another year with exploring, or it may have been that in 

 his anxiety for his mother and for the relatives and 

 friends of Leffingwell and Storkerson he had forgotten 

 temporarily the plans he had been discussing with me. 

 At any rate, he came to me and with no reference to 

 what might be done in the North if I stayed another 

 year, he asked if I would undertake the forlorn hope of 

 outspeeding the bad news now on its way up the Mac- 

 kenzie by journeying south across the mountains to the 

 Yukon with the hope of getting to the wireless station at 

 Eagle City before Harrison got to the regular telegraph at 

 Athabasca Landing. He said this would have to be done 

 by me or no one, for I had greater experience in over- 

 land travel than any one else at Herschel Island. Fur- 

 thermore, all of the others were in such circumstances 

 that they could not very well consider going. Mikkelsen 

 could rot try it himself, for he would have to return to 

 Flaxm^n Island to close up the affairs of the expedition. 

 It was now the plan that all of the expedition except 

 Leffingwell would take passage west with an outgoing 

 whaler in September, connecting with the United States 

 revenue cutter at Point Barrow, or possibly in Nome or 

 Unalaska. Leffingwell alone would remain at Flaxman 

 Island for the purpose of his geological studies. 



