Part 35 (2/2)

by C. T. MADIGAN

Harnessed and girt in his canvas bands, Toggled and roped to his load; With helmeted head and bemittened hands, This for his spur and his goad:

”Out in the derelict fastnesses bare Some whit of truth may be won.”

Be it a will o' the wisp, he will fare Forth to the rising sun.

The Sledge Horse

The Eastern Coastal party consisted of Dr. A. L. McLean, P. E. Correll and myself. For weeks all preparations had been made; the decking put on the sledge, runners polished, cooker- and instrument-boxes attached, mast erected, spar and sail rigged, instruments and clothing collected, tent strengthened--all the impedimenta of a sledge journey arranged and rearranged, and still the blizzard raged on. Would we never get away?

November arrived, and still the wind kept up daily averages of over fifty miles per hour, with scarce a day without drifting snow.

At last it was decided that a start must soon be made even though it ended in failure, so that we received orders to set out on November 6, or the first possible day after it.

Friday November 8 broke, a clear driftless day, and Murphy's party left early in the morning. By noon, Stillwell's party (Stillwell, Hodgeman and Close), and we, were ready to start. The former were bound on a short journey to the near east and were to support us until we parted company.

All was bustle and excitement. Every one turned out to see us off.

Breaking an empty sauce-bottle over the bow of our sledge, we christened it the M.H.S. Champions.h.i.+p (Man-Hauled Sledge). The name was no boastful prevision of mighty deeds, as, at the Hut, a ”Champions.h.i.+p” was understood to mean some careless action usually occasioning damage to property, while our party included several noted ”champions.”

Mertz harnessed a dog-team to the sledge and helped us up the first steep slope. With hearty handshakes and a generous cheer from the other fellows, we started off and were at last away, after many months of hibernation in the Hut, to chance the hurricanes and drifting snow and to push towards the unknown regions to the east.

At the steepest part of the rise we dismissed our helpers and said good-bye. McLean and Correll joined me on the sledge and we continued on to Aladdin's Cave.

As we mounted the glacier the wind increased, carrying surface drift which obscured the view to within one hundred yards. It was this which made us pa.s.s the Cave on the eastern side and pull up on a well-known patch of snow in a depression to the south of our goal. It was not long before a momentary clearing of the drift showed Aladdin's Cave with its piles of food-tanks, kerosene, dog biscuit and pemmican, and, to our dismay, a burberry-clad figure moving about among the acc.u.mulation.

Murphy's party were in possession when we expected them to be on the way south to another cave--the Cathedral Grotto--eleven and three-quarter miles from the Hut. Of course the rising wind and drift had stopped them.

It was then 5 P.M., so we did not wait to discuss the evident proposition as to which of the three parties should occupy the Cave, but climbed down into it at once and boiled up hoosh and tea. Borrowing tobacco from the supporting parties, we reclined at ease, and then in that hazy atmosphere so dear to smokers, its limpid blue enhanced by the pale azure of the ice, we introduced the subject of occupation as if it were a sudden afterthought.

It was soon decided to enlarge the Cave to accommodate five men, the other four consenting to squeeze into Stillwell's big tent. McLean volunteered to join Stillwell's party in the tent, while Correll and I were to stay in the Cave with Murphy and company.

I went outside and selected ten weeks' provisions from the pile of food-tanks and piled them beside the sledge. McLean attended to the thermograph which Bage and I had installed in the autumn. Meanwhile, in a fifty-mile wind, Stillwell and his men erected the tent. Hunter and Laseron started with picks and shovels to enlarge the Cave, and, working in relays, we had soon expanded it to eight feet by seven feet.

The men from the tent came down to ”high dinner” at eight o'clock. They reported weather conditions unimproved and the temperature -3 degrees F.

Early next morning I dug my way out and found that the surface drift had increased with a wind of fifty-five miles per hour. It was obviously impossible to start.

After breakfast it was arranged that those outside should have their meals separately, digging down at intervals to let us know the state of the weather. It was not pleasant for us, congested as we were in the Cave, to have visitors sliding down through the opening with a small avalanche of snow in their train. Further, to increase their own discomfort, they arrived covered in snow, and what they were unable to shake off thawed and wet them, subsequently freezing again to the consistency of a starched collar.

The opening was, therefore, kept partly closed with a food-tank. The result was that a good deal of snow came in, while the hole diminished in size. For a man to try to crawl out in stiff burberrys appeared as futile as for a porcupine to try to go backwards up a canvas hose.

The day pa.s.sed slowly in our impatience. We took turns at reading 'The Virginian', warmed by a primus stove which in a land of plenty we could afford to keep going. Later in the afternoon the smokers found that a match would not strike, and the primus went out. Then the man reading said that he felt unwell and could not see the words. Soon several others commented on feeling ”queer,” and two in the sleeping-bags had fallen into a drowsy slumber. On this evidence even the famous Watson would have ”dropped to it,” but it was some time before it dawned on us that the oxygen had given out. Then there was a rush for shovels.

The snow, ice and food-tank were tightly wedged, at the mouth of the entrance, and it took some exertion to perforate through to the outside air with an ice-axe. At once every one speedily recovered. Later, another party had a worse experience, not forgetting to leave a warning note behind them. We should have done the same.

The weather was no better by the evening, and during the night the minimum thermometer registered -12 degrees F.

At six o'clock on Sunday morning, November 10, McLean dug down to us with the news that the wind had abated to thirty miles per hour with light surface drift.

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