Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/270

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south until I reached the Esquimaux, for I could no longer afford to delay communication with them. Although the temperature had now fallen to 43° below zero, yet the careful preparations which I had made for camping relieved the journey from any risks on that account. The mercury froze for the first time during the winter while Dodge was absent, and I was extravagant enough to mould a bullet of it and send it from my rifle through a thick plank. Dodge, who was one of my most hardy men, returned from his twelve hours' tramp complaining that he had suffered rather from heat than cold, and he declared that, when called upon another time to wade so far through snow-*drifts and hummocks, he would not carry so heavy a load of furs. In truth, both he and his two companions came in perspiring freely under their buffalo-skin coats.

My projected journey was, however, destined not to come off. The sledge was loaded with our light cargo, and we were ready to set out on the morning of the 27th, but a gale sprung up suddenly and detained us on board during that and the following day. Early in the morning of the 29th, the wind having fallen to calm, we were preparing to start. The men were putting on their furs, and I was in my cabin giving some last instructions to Mr. McCormick, when Carl, who had the watch on deck, came hastily to my door to report "Two Esquimaux alongside." They had come upon us out of the darkness very suddenly and unobserved.

Conjecturing that these people would hardly have visited us without having first fallen in with Sonntag and Hans, I at once sent the interpreter to interrogate them. He came back in a few minutes. I in