Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/20

6 sailed in the Aurora from New York in May, four years before, had taken Eskimos and dogs from Godhaven in Greenland in July, and then had been lost for two years till a Scotch whaler picked up survivors of the expedition near Cape Sabine, Ellesmere Land, where Greely's men had starved to death thirty years before.

McNeal, the sailing master, Brunton, second mate, Koehler, physician and meteorologist, and Linn, the cook, were the four white men who, with three Eskimos, had dragged themselves to the shores of Smith Sound. They told how the Aurora had been crushed in the polar ice pack north and west of Mason Land, and how when the pack had parted the ship had sunk. The seven white men and five Eskimos while making their way back over the ice had been parted by a lead. Mullin, the first mate, and two Eskimos and a sledge team had gone through new ice attempting to cross the lead and were drowned. It was known that Thomas and Hedon, with their dog team and sledge, were upon the young ice of the lead at the same time. They were not seen to break through, as were Mullin and the Eskimos; but it was