On the morning of June eleventh I was awakened by a terrific crash. I heard the swift scampering of feet along the deck toward the bow. I dressed as quickly as possible and hurried forward. We had bumped squarely into a young iceberg at full speed and had smashed our bow stem. This meant that we were caught in the ice floe with no means of getting out! We could no longer ram the ice with the ends of the planking exposed. It further developed that the owners had neglected to equip the boat with material necessary for repairs. But the Captain realized the necessity of doing _something_, so, in his dilemma, he ordered some of the steerage bunks torn up in order to get two by four lumber with which to patch the bow. It was wasted effort. The material was too light to be serviceable. It did not last as long as it took to put it on. One bump finished it. There was among the passengers a ship-builder named Trahey. Being a practical individual, he suggested chaining the anchor across the bow and ramming the ice with it. This seemed to be all right, and we were beginning to think that our troubles were over, but all of a sudden we struck an ice floe about thirty feet thick. The anchor slid up the side and tore out the planking. The Captain (and the rest of us as well) saw that he was up against it. The boat began to take water. We all realized that the situation had become serious. Presently the click-click of the wireless was heard. Calls for help were sent immediately. The first response was from the S. S. _Thedias_. She replied that she was stuck in the ice off Nome and could render assistance to no one. The second response was from the _Corwin_. She lay off St. Michael. She refused to come to our aid for less than six thousand dollars, which terms Captain W----, evidently valuing our lives at nothing, refused to accept. We carried no freight. Already the meals on the boat were getting poor, but at the moment no one was troubled with a large appetite! The Captain would give out no information as to his intentions, but it chanced that one of the passengers, an old friend of mine, a former Passenger Agent for the Santa Fe railroad, had been a telegraph operator and he kept me informed as the wireless messages broke over the antenna. In our helpless condition we began to drift toward the Arctic Ocean at the rate of four miles an hour and we could not keep our minds from reverting to the tragic experience of the _Portland_ which only a few years previously had floated about the Polar Sea all summer. It is needless to say that there was little sleep on the _St. Croix_ that night. I retired at eleven-thirty but was up again at four and entertained myself by watching the seals and walruses playing near the boat.