126 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
men had had their dinner; then Mamen related his 
experiences. They had made eleven marches 
going in, until they were stopped by open water 
three miles from land. He described the land 
which they saw and I made up my mind that it was 
not Wrangell Island but Herald Island, a con¬ 
jecture which proved to be correct. They had had 
pretty good going, without the trouble with open 
leads and raftered ice which we had when we made 
our main journey later on. 
They had reached the edge of the open water 
January 31 without untoward incident, though one 
of their dogs had run away and King had frozen 
his heel. Mamen and the Eskimo had stayed with 
the shore party a day and had left on February 1 
for their return to Shipwreck Camp. The mate, 
he said, had decided to land as soon as the lead 
closed up; this worried me a good deal because 
the mate and his party were not familiar with travel 
over the young ice and, besides that, Herald Island 
is no place for a party to land upon, for it is in¬ 
accessible, owing to its precipitous sides, and, 
according to American government reports, has no 
driftwood on its shores. In fact it has practically 
no shore to speak of, excepting one short stretch; it 
is simply a rocky islet. Up to the time when Ma¬ 
men left there was no chance to land on the island 
and Mamen hardly thought that the mate’s party 
