Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/128

114 sailing master, Dr. Otto Koehler, Jules Brunton, mate, and Hugo Linn, seaman and cook, and Eskimos Natsakat, Uluso and Tanniack arrived here safely upon the tenth of March of same year. They reported loss by drowning of Richard Mullin, mate, and Eskimos Panniuk and Akrut, by breaking through young ice with sledge and dog team attempting to cross lead on retreat from wreck of Aurora, which was crushed in polar pack on the first of February about two hundred miles N. W. This confirms our observation of same accident to Mullin and Eskimos, who undoubtedly were drowned.

Dr. Koehler, in his report written for the other party, expresses belief that Thomas and the writer also must have been lost at the same time crossing lead—

"We know all that," Latham urged impatiently.

"Hedon is properly reporting briefly what he himself observed," Koehler explained. "He could not assume that we got back home; and no one with any experience in the Arctic leaves any message assuming that any other, even in