Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/134



N the Viborg, off the south cape of the black, barren island, Margaret Sherwood had waited for three days and now through the morning of the fourth for news to come from the cabin on the shore of the polar sea. With but three men left on the ship after the shore party had gone it had not been possible for her to land. She knew that she had done the best thing in staying on the ship. Only in case of the party's finding the missing men at the cabin in dying condition could she have helped in any way by going. And she knew that that chance was very, very remote. The shore party either would find that the missing men had never reached the island or that they had come there and gone on or attempted to go on; and in this case the men alone would find the record more quickly and return to the ship more rapidly without her.

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