At a quarter past five the next morning, Lieutenant Schwatka and I
started on our search along the coast, leaving the men to assist
Toolooah in loading the sled and making a selection of what to abandon,
if anything had to be left, and to follow later. We had not got more
than a mile on our way when we heard a gun fired from camp, and,
turning around, saw Frank running after us. We waited for him, and were
surprised to hear that the tide, instead of falling, was actually
rising, and that it would be impossible to load the sled. We therefore
had to return to camp. In the meantime it commenced raining, and when
we reached the tent we found the water nearly up to the door, though it
was the hour for low tide. About two hours afterward Lieutenant
Schwatka went outside the hut, and almost immediately called for his
glasses, saying he thought the ice was breaking up. We all went out and
saw the ice coming in from the Straits, and piling up in great masses.
Already the sled was crowded high up in the air, and one of the stoves
occupied a lofty position poised on the pinnacle of a hummock Toolooah
at once got upon a loose cake of ice, and pulled himself out to the
edge of the floe and brought the sled and stove down to where, when the
ice came in closer, they could be pulled ashore, and were thus rescued
from then imminent peril.
[Illustration: THE BREAKING UP OF THE ICE.]
It was now quite evident that our sledging was over for the season, and
we were stuck here with all our heavy stuff. All day long we could hear
the booming of the ice in the distance, as the great fields were torn
asunder, and we felt thankful that Toolooah had not already got started
when the break came, or he would have been in great danger. At any rate
we might have lost our sled, together with the dogs and all our
baggage, which would have been a sad affair for us. We determined to
cross the land to Terror Bay, and from there send down to Gladman
Point, or that vicinity, all that the dogs and men could carry, while
Lieutenant Schwatka and I waited for their return, and in the meantime
searched the coast back from Terror Bay to the inlet near Point Little.
Terror Bay was reached on the 3d of August, after a tedious journey
across the narrow neck of land that separates it from Erebus Bay. Our
camps were not far apart, as everything had to be carried upon our
backs or upon the dogs. It was necessary to make two, and often three,
trips between camps before everything was brought up, consequently only
two of the Franklin stoves were brought along. The largest and heaviest
of these Henry took in charge, and carried all the way overstrapped to
his back like a knapsack. Toolooah brought the empty sled over, with
all the dogs after removing the bone shoes from the runners.
[Illustration: THE MARCH SOUTHWARD.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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