RESCUE PARTY. 
189 
There was not a moment to be lost. While some 
were still busy with the new-comers and getting ready 
a hasty meal, others were rigging out the “ Little 
Willie” with a buffalo-cover, a small tent, and a pack¬ 
age of pemmican; and, as soon as we could hurry 
through our arrangements, Ohlsen was strapped on in 
a fur bag, his legs wrapped in dog-skins and eider¬ 
down, and we were off upon the ice. Our party con¬ 
sisted of nine men and myself. We carried 011 I 3 7 the 
clothes on our backs. The thermometer stood at 
—40°, seventy-eight degrees below the freezing-point. 
A well-known peculiar tower of ice, called by the 
men the “ Pinnacly Berg,” served as our first land¬ 
mark : other icebergs of colossal size, which stretched 
in long beaded lines across the bay, helped to guide us 
afterward; and it was not until we had travelled for 
sixteen hours that we began to lose our way. 
We knew that our lost companions must be some¬ 
where in the area before us, within a radius of forty 
miles. Mr. Ohlsen, who had been for fifty hours with¬ 
out rest, fell asleep as soon as we began to move, and 
awoke now with unequivocal signs of mental disturb¬ 
ance. It became evident that he had lost the bearing 
of the icebergs, which in form and color endlessly re¬ 
peated themselves; and the uniformity of the vast field 
of snow utterly forbade the hope of local landmarks. 
Pushing ahead of the party, and clambering over 
some rugged ice-piles, I came to a long level floe, which 
I thought might probably have attracted the eyes of 
weary men in circumstances like our own. It was a 
