CHAPTER Y 
OUR WESTWARD DRIFT BEGINS 
The problem of laying in an adequate supply of 
fresh meat for the winter, for our dogs and our¬ 
selves, was now beginning to be a serious one. 
Long before this we had expected to be at Hers- 
chel Island but now with a fairly steady drift in 
the opposite direction it was evident that we should 
hardly be able to go the rest of the way before the 
ice broke up the next summer. This meant a whole 
year’s delay in carrying out the purposes of the ex¬ 
pedition, all on account of the unexpectedly early 
setting in of winter, and it meant, too, the unfore¬ 
seen question of a winter’s supply of fresh meat for 
the thirty-one human beings—twenty-four white 
men and seven Eskimo—now on board the Karluk. 
Without fresh meat there was always danger of 
scurvy, that blight of so many earlier Arctic ex¬ 
plorers, which later expeditions—notably those 
under Peary—had been able to avoid by system¬ 
atic killing of whatever game the country afforded 
for food. 
Our four Eskimo men made daily trips to the 
open leads to shoot seal; they were only moderately 
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