As soon as the _Fox_ was made snug in winter quarters, McClintock and Hobson set out over the ice in search of some Eskimo. They were fortunate in discovering a couple of seal hunters, who told them that some distance away there was a larger party, amongst whom was a man with knowledge of the missing explorers. They set out with their two friends, but as night was coming on while yet they had not reached the camp, they decided to stay where they were till the morning. The two Eskimo, for one needle apiece, built a snow hut for them in an hour. All of them went inside the shelter, which they found very acceptable, and prepared their supper. The food they carried consisted of salt pork and biscuits, but the two Eskimo would not look at it. Their supper consisted of a piece of bear's blubber. When they had consumed it they squatted on their haunches and, with their heads drooped forward on their knees, went off to sleep for the night. The following day the main camp was reached, and the white men at once realised, by the number of articles of European manufacture in the possession of the Eskimo, that they must have found and looted the abandoned ships. One of the men told them, through the interpreter, that several years before there was a ship in the ice off the coast, but that when the ice melted it had sunk in deep water. He pointed out the direction where the ship had been, and where there had been a lot of drift-wood thrown up on the beach--wood out of which, he explained, they had made their spear handles and tent poles. Other relics were gradually forthcoming, upon the production by the white men of the barter they had with them, and a brisk trade was carried on, knives and needles being exchanged for spoons, forks, and other objects unmistakably from the wrecked ships. In addition to the relics, some dogs were also secured.