TRACES OF THE LOST MAN ON A BEEG. 



235 



and listened. I asked Johnston if he had heard any thing. He 

 answered nay ; adding, he thought it only my imagination. I 

 saw that my companion was getting exhausted. Here we were 

 far from the vessel, the sun sinking lower and lower, and the cold 

 increasing. 



" Somehow I felt that, upon the return of the three who left us 

 a little after two o'clock, the captain would send out a native 

 with kummitie (sledge) and dogs, suitably provided to co-operate 

 with me in keeping up the search. I regretted, indeed, that I had 

 not sent word by Morgan for the captain to do this. It would 

 be an easy matter to rind us, as the tracks of the three would lead 

 to ours, whence we could be traced. 



''Fifteen minutes after 4 P.M. the tracks of John turned south. 

 Johnston had said he would continue with me till we should reach 

 the coast on the west side of Field Bay, if John's track should con- 

 tinue there. Now they turned from the vessel south. Here, for 

 the first time, I solicited him to go with me as far as a point of 

 land toward which we were headed. He acquiesced. Passing 

 two miles south, a magnificent mountain of ice — an iceberg — 

 stood a little way to the left. As we came in line with it — the 

 berg bearing east — we found the footprints of John Brown square- 

 ly turned toward it. At any other time, how I should have en- 

 joyed the sight before me — a pile of alabaster, pinnacled as no 

 human mind could design or human art execute — here and there 

 a covering of cream color, the side facing the descending sun re- 

 flecting dazzling prismatic colors. To this, in the darkness of 

 night, John had directed his steps. As we arrived at its base, we 

 found that this berg was evidently grounded, the ice between it 

 and the sea-ice being in fragments, from the rise and fall of the 

 tides. We feared we might find that poor John had lost his life 

 about this berg, for his tracks showed that he had ventured where 

 no man by daylight would dare put his foot. One place gave pal- 

 pable evidence where he had followed around to the south side and 

 there fallen in. But from this he had extricated himself, and con- 

 tinued around to the east side, where he again ventured. From 

 appearances, I thought John in search of some place where he 

 could be protected from the wind and cold, where he could sleep. 

 He passed across the dangerous broken ice floating amid sea wa- 

 ter on to a tongue of the berg. He walked along a little cove 

 that was roofed by overhanging ice ; he finds no safe place there. 

 But where are his outward steps ? For a while we thought it cer- 



