OYER THE ICE 
141 
fork to comb my hair for I had given my comb to 
Keruk; it is surprising what an excellent comb a 
fork makes,—I recommend it for Arctic use. 
There was just a little tobacco left. Mamen 
found a small piece of chewing-tobacco under the 
boards. Keruk, whom we all called “Auntie,” had 
a little and when I wanted tobacco I would ask 
Auntie for a pipeful. 
On the twenty-third the storm was breaking at 
last. Huge banks of snow were piled high around 
the camp; we were all snowed in. The two crip¬ 
pled dogs were in the box-house with us; the other 
dogs were in the snow-igloo, which had been occu¬ 
pied by the men who had now gone to the land. It 
took us nearly all day on the twenty-third to dig 
our way through the snow from the box-house to 
the igloo in order to feed the dogs. We dug the 
supply tent out and busied ourselves getting ready 
for our departure. In fact we stayed up all night, 
giving the final touches to our clothing. 
At 4 a. m. on February twenty-fourth we had 
coffee and began loading our sledges. As soon as 
Kerdrillo’s sledge, a remodeled Nome sledge, was 
loaded I started him off. With him went his wife 
and their two children, and Templeman, the cook. 
Keruk carried her baby, Mugpi, on her back all 
the way to Wrangell Island; the older girl cov¬ 
ered the entire distance on foot, sometimes even 
