28 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
McKinlay and Wilkins, also, could properly be 
regarded as passengers aboard the Karluk; their 
apparatus, however, was too heavy for safe trans¬ 
portation to the shore over the ice as it then was, 
loose and shifting. 
All hands busied themselves in getting Beuchat 
and Jenness ready for their journey. On account 
of the precarious nature of the young ice, however, 
which was making in the leads towards the land 
and between the older floes but was not yet alto¬ 
gether dependable, the start was not made until 
the twenty-ninth. They got away about eleven 
A. m. with one sledge and seven dogs and a sup¬ 
porting party consisting of Wilkins, McConnell 
and the doctor and three Eskimo, two of whom 
were to return to the ship with the sledge and dogs 
and the supporting party. On the sledge they 
carried a skin-boat in which Beuchat and Jenness 
might proceed to Herschel Island, where they 
would find plenty of food, whether the Mary Sachs 
and the Alaska succeeded in reaching there or not. 
The whole project went awry, however, because 
the party had gone scarcely a mile and a half from 
the ship when the skin-boat was damaged, as the 
sledge bumped along over the rough surface of the 
ice, and when Stefansson went out to investigate he 
ordered the whole party back to the ship again. 
