CHAPTER VIII 
WE DRIFT AWAY FROM THE LAND 
The last day of September we got another 
glimpse of the land, seeing distinctly the low shore 
of Cooper Island, with its Eskimo houses. We 
were still to the eastward of Point Barrow, drifting 
slowly along in the pack. Mamen, the doctor and 
I went out to a ski-jump we had built and in try¬ 
ing a higher jump than usual I heeled over and, 
instead of landing on my ski, came down with a 
hard bump on my side. I didn’t let the doctor 
know how badly I was hurt because I didn’t want 
any one to know that I could be such a duffer but 
I was unable to lift my hand to comb my hair for 
several weeks. 
October came in with a snowstorm and a strong 
northeast wind which drove us fast before it. On 
the morning of the first there came a crack in the 
ice about a foot wide, running east and west, two 
miles from the ship. It was too far away for us to 
dynamite our way to it even if it had been a likely 
lead for navigation and besides when you dyna¬ 
mite ice you must have open water for the broken 
fragments to overflow into or they will choke up 
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