m THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
The next day we improved the time in overhaul¬ 
ing the house that we had built out of boxes for the 
Eskimo, to make it more comfortable. Later on 
I was in the supply tent when I heard a confused 
noise in the galley. I waited a moment and then 
heard a tremendous racket of dishes rattling down 
and equipment being upset. I hurried out of the 
tent and into the galley. The canvas roof of the 
galley was on fire and parts of the rafters near the 
funnel. It was a pitch roof and around the fun¬ 
nel, where it passed through a hole in the roof, were 
a couple of tin collars and some asbestos. The cook 
had the stove pretty hot and as the canvas was dry 
and got overheated it had suddenly burst into flame. 
He was waving his arms around and trying to put 
the fire out with water and as he was very much in 
earnest about it he naturally did not always look 
to see where he was going and bumped violently 
into whatever happened to be in his way; hence the 
noise I had heard. A block of snow soon had the 
fire out. 
McKinlay found a box of cocoa the same day 
and played a joke on us. When we were getting 
the emergency supplies overboard after the ship 
was struck I had given instructions that no tobacco 
should be saved, for I knew we could not afford to 
burden ourselves with a great supply of it on our 
