OVER THE ICE 
145 
though it often took time and care to study out the 
way to go. 
At the fourth camp I found a note from Munro 
saying that they had been held up there by open 
water and a heavy gale, the same, evidently, which 
had detained us at Shipwreck Camp, and that they 
had shot a polar bear near by. This I knew even 
before I read the note for I found a big piece of 
bear-meat that they had left in the igloo for us. 
They had been unable to take all the pemmican 
at the cache here along with them; we picked up 
a few tins of it but could not take any more, for 
we were already overburdened. 
Munro’s note further said that the trail beyond 
was badly smashed but we went on as fast as we 
could, for we wanted to catch up with Kerdrillo and 
I was anxious to know that the advance party was 
continuing to get along well. At quarter' past 
four we reached the sixth igloo. These camps were 
from four to ten miles apart. We found at this 
camp five gallons of oil, which the advance party 
left, three cases of pemmican, four cases of bis¬ 
cuit and some alcohol. There should have been 
another cache near by but the ice had raftered 
under pressure of the recent storm and destroyed 
it, thereby losing us a lot of biscuit and pemmican, 
and, what was just then even more valuable, per¬ 
haps, twelve gallons of oil. 
