Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/316



The report of Kalutunah being favorable, I dispatched Mr. Dodge to bring up the body of Mr. Sonntag. He took the two teams, Kalutunah driving one and Hans the other.

Mr. Dodge performed the journey with skill and energy. He reached Sorfalik in five hours, and had no difficulty in finding the locality of which they were in search, Hans remembering it by a large rock, or rather cliff, in the lee of which they had built their snow-hut. But the winds had since piled the snow over the hut, and it was completely buried out of sight. They were therefore compelled to disinter the body by laboriously digging through the hard drift; and it being quite dark and they much fatigued when the task was completed, they constructed a shelter of snow, fed their dogs, and rested. Although the temperature was 42° below zero, they managed to sleep in their furs without serious inconvenience. This was the first of Mr. Dodge's experience at this sort of camping out, and he was justly elated with the success of the experiment.

Setting out as soon as the daylight returned, the party came back by the same track which they had before pursued; but, greatly to their surprise, the tides and wind had, in the interval, carried off much of the ice in the neighborhood of the cape, so that they had before them the prospect of the very difficult task of crossing the glacier. This, not particularly embarrassing to an empty sledge, would have been exceedingly so to them. Fortunately, however, they succeeded with some risk in getting over a very treacherous place where the ice-foot, to which they were forced to adhere, was sloping, and one of the sledges had nearly gone over into the sea. Kalutu