Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/163

Rh So McNeal took the Viborg down the shores of new Arctic lands. As the ship crossed a channel and sighted another cape the chart did not even pretend to know of this land. Though the coasts east and west and even those directly north of it were chartered and described, here for two hundred miles only a dotted, hypothetical line on the map recorded the geographers' guess of the coast. Just ten days after McNeal's assuming full charge the Viborg reached that coast. For two days the wind had gone down; the sea was calm and the freeze-up beginning in earnest. Another day down this land and a tiny haven, land-locked except for one narrow entrance from the sea, promised the little Viborg the shelter required for winter quarters. The narrow entrance would block any great iceberg from entering and endangering the ship; the harbour's basin was small but deep. New ice already lay about the edge of it. McNeal, driving the Viborg crashing into this ice, brought his ship into a good position in ten fathoms of water a hundred yards from the shore. There he anchored.