WAITING 
28 7 
was fitting out an expedition under Commander 
Schley to go to the Arctic to relieve Greely and his 
men. The Bear and the Thetis were all ready to 
leave St. John’s for their sealing trips, with their 
crews and outfits all arranged for. They were just 
the ships for the purpose and the United States 
Government bought them, paying, besides a liberal 
price for the vessels themselves, the amount of 
money that would have been shared by their officers 
and men if they had made good sealing trips. 
Many people, I have discovered, have supposed 
that the ships were given by England; what led to 
this supposition was the fact that Queen Victoria 
gave the United States the Alert, which, with the 
Nares Expedition, had spent the winter of 1875-6 
at Floe-Berg Beach, Grant Land, somewhat south 
of our winter quarters at Cape Sheridan in the 
Roosevelt in the winters of 1905-6 and 1908-9. 
Will Norman, a relative of mine, from my own 
town of Brigus, Newfoundland, went as ice-pilot 
of the Thetis , on her voyage for the Greely sur¬ 
vivors, and Captain Ash, from Trinity Bay, New¬ 
foundland, who afterwards for many years was 
master of the Red* Cross boats, plying between St. 
John’s and New York, was ice-pilot of the Bear . 
With the quality of the ship in mind, and her past 
record, to say nothing of her present work in Alas¬ 
kan waters, 1 felt no doubt that the Bear would 
