BOAT JOURNEYS AND PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER 6 1 



been left in charge, greeted us, and we soon had all the oil- 

 stoves going, bread baking, rice cooking, beans heating, venison 

 broiling, and coffee dripping, and at two o'clock all sat down 

 to dinner and then turned in. 



Tuesday, September 29. The last three days have been 

 spent in hunting-explorations on the north shore and in prep- 

 arations for the winter. The stove has been put up, the 

 windows doubled, and the house made generally air-tight. 

 We find the ice in the bay becoming firmer day by day, and 

 in one of our expeditions we found it all but impossible to 

 force the boat through it. Mr. Peary has now left off his 

 splints and bandages, and has even laid aside his crutches. 

 After lunch to-day I started out with a couple of fox-traps, 

 and put them in the gorge about a mile back of the house. 

 The day was fine, and I enjoyed my walk, although I came in 

 for an unpleasant scare.. After leaving the traps, I thought I 

 would go over the mountains into the valley beyond, and see if 

 I could find deer. Half-way up, about a thousand feet above 

 sea-level, the snow began to slide under me, taking the shales 

 of sandstone along with it, and of course I went too, down, 

 down, trying to stop myself by digging my heels into the snow 

 and attempting to grasp the stones as they flew by; but I kept 

 on, and a cliff about two hundred feet from the bottom, over 

 which I would surely be hurled if I did not succeed in stop- 

 ping myself, was the only thing which I could see that could 

 arrest my progress. At last I stopped about half-way down. 

 What saved me I do not know. At first I was afraid to move 



