Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/271

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"Yes." I had no need to inquire further. Jensen's face told too plainly the terrible truth,—Sonntag was dead!
 * quired eagerly if they brought news of Mr. Sonntag.

I sent Jensen back to see that the wants of our savage visitors were carefully provided for, and to question them further. They proved to be two of my old acquaintances,—Ootinah, to whom I was under obligations for important services in 1854, and a sprightly fellow, who, having had his leg crushed by a falling stone, had since hobbled about on a wooden one supplied to him, in 1850, by the surgeon of the North Star, and which I had once repaired for him. They both came on one sledge, drawn by five dogs, and had traveled all the way through from a village, on the south side of Whale Sound, called Iteplik, without a halt. They had faced a wind part of the way, and were covered from head to foot with snow and frost. Their wants were soon bountifully supplied, and they were not slow in communicating the information which most interested me. From them I learned that Hans was on his way to the vessel with his wife's father and mother. Some of his dogs had died, and he was traveling in slow and easy stages. There being no longer any occasion for my southern journey, the preparations therefor were discontinued.

Hans arrived two days afterward, and, much to our surprise, he was accompanied only by his wife's brother, a lad whom I had seen some months before at Cape York; but the cause of this was soon explained. His wife's father and mother, as Ootinah informed me, had journeyed with him, but they, as well as the dogs, had broken down, and were left behind, near the glacier, and Hans had come on for