When Petersen said that he could do nothing with her, as she obstinately declared that she was going on for her husband, Dodge, greatly disturbed, was perplexed as to what action he should take. Fortunately there came to his mind a thought, kindred to that so forcefully and beautifully expressed by Tennyson in his lines, "Home they brought her warrior dead," and he continues: "Finding that Christian's arguments were likely to prove unavailing, I stepped up to Mertuk, lifted up a corner of the reindeer skin that she had thrown over her seal-skin hood, and pointed to the tiny baby who was sleeping quietly, and said [in English]: '_If you go on the child will die._' She could not understand my words, which the Dane did not translate, but something in her heart must have disclosed their meaning. For the first time she showed signs of irresolution, and her eyes filled with tears. Carefully covering the child's face, I brushed from the mother's hair and eyebrows the frost-feathers that had already formed through the awful cold. Looking steadily into her eyes, and talking in a low, firm voice, I told her that I would look faithfully for Hans, and bring him back to her if he could be found. "I shall never forget the expression of her countenance, the moonbeams streaming down on her eager, upturned face. Her lips were slightly parted, and her whole soul seemed to be shining through her expressive eyes, which were fastened fixedly on mine. "When I ceased speaking, she answered, talking in an eager, impassioned strain, which made her meaning plain enough, though her speech was in an unknown tongue. Finally she pointed to the south and said that she _would_ go on, but the trembling tones of her voice did not show the same firmness as it had done before. Christian would have interpreted, but it was unnecessary; the woman and I understood one another, and I felt that the victory was won. "Again I spoke to her in the same tone as before, and as she listened her eyes were once more dimmed by tears. I was sure that her determination was wavering. Now pointing first to the child, and then in the direction of the ship, I told her that she _must_ go back. Though she felt my meaning she stood for a moment, most resolute in her attitude, gazing intently into my eyes, until she must have seen something forbidding in my unrelenting face." Dodge later writes: "To fully appreciate the impressive effect of this most dramatic incident, the conditions under which it occurred should be remembered. We were far out of sight of the ship, were some distance off shore on the main ice-pack of Smith Sound, the moon was shedding a dim, ghost-like glare upon us, and it was the coldest day of the winter, the thermometer indicating seventy-five degrees below the freezing point."