Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/70

Rh dépôt were summoned on board the ship, and on the evening of the 28th it was reported that some of them were coming. I went on deck, and asked one of the sailors, whom we called "Spikes," who was then on watch, where they were. He replied. He didn't exactly know, but thought they might be that way—pointing to an island southeast of us—for he heard voices in that direction. I listened, and then gave a shout. But my first idea was that Spikes had been mistaken, as the echoes of Innuit voices on Whale Island were often heard. Soon, however, I was satisfied. An answering shout from white men came back to mine. A boat, therefore, was soon manned by Smith, myself. Spikes, Bill, and young Smith, and away we went in the direction whence the sound had come. We made a quick passage down the harbour as far as open water permitted; then we struck into broken ice, where our progress became slower. But, by the good steering of the elder Smith, we still pushed on, oftener using the ice for our oars to rest against than water. We passed the "Ghost," which was now floating with the tide; and her bow—or so much of it as was above water—became a resisting medium on which the starboard oars of our boat found hold in several heavy pulls. Presently we came to a desolate island, and on it we found Morgan, Bailey, Keeney, and Ebierbing, who had come from a point some three miles below, and made their way there by trudging over ice, ferrying across spaces of water on drifting ice, wading, &c. This party was but a small portion of the one that left the whaling dépôt in the morning for the ship. The remainder had stopped for the night at a point below, where, owing to the ice, the boats they had with them could not be taken farther. Morgan and his company, however, felt determined to try and reach the vessel that night, but had run great risks in so doing. The ice between the islands below was all in a disruptured state, and only by great daring did they succeed in getting to the place where we found them. In making across several channels their only way was to