Maurer and Breddy came in soon after Chafe arrived; they reported that they had left their load safely at the fourth camp. All hands, except the four men of the mate’s party and the four of the doctor’s, were now assembled once more at Shipwreck Camp.
It was a severe disappointment to me not to have word of the safety of the mate and his party. I had thought that they might possibly return with Chafe and be with us on our final march to the island which I was now planning to get under way at once.
We had a northeast gale on the seventeenth which continued for many days. On the seventeenth and eighteenth we had all hands hard at work, drying out clothing and getting sledges and equipment ready for the march. There was a pronounced drift westerly so that on the eighteenth Herald Island bore southeast by south, half south.
CHAPTER XVI
OVER THE ICE TOWARDS WRANGELL ISLAND
On the morning of February 19, I called the cook at four o’clock, so that we had an early breakfast for the start of the advance guard.
There were two parties, each with a sledge and four dogs. In the first party were Malloch, Hadley, Williamson and Breddy; in the second Munro, Maurer, Williams and Chafe. Each party would have man-harness to help out the dogs when necessary.
On the first party’s sledge were six cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, two gallons of oil, 84 tins of milk, 2,400 tea tablets in tins hermetically sealed, one Mannlicher rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, one Ross revolver (Malloch’s own), 400 rounds of ammunition, one Primus stove, one gallon of alcohol, 500 22-calibre cartridges, one 401 Winchester, 100 rounds of ammunition, one pair of ski, matches, a pickaxe, hatchets, sleeping-robes and a tent. On the other sledge were five cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, 84 tins of milk, two gallons of oil, one gallon of alcohol, 2,400 tea tablets, one Primus stove, one Mannlicher rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, matches, pick-axe, hatchets, a tent, snow-shoes and a tracing of the map of Wrangell Island. Every man had a new suit of Jaeger underwear given him. The parties were to pick up supplies along the trail so that they would thus be replacing supplies used on the march, and take full loads with them in to the land. For this march was to take these eight men clear through to Wrangell Island and they were saying good-by to Shipwreck Camp for good. The men shook hands all around and got away about eight o’clock in the morning.
On one of the sledges they had a passenger. While we were fitting out the ship at the navy yard at Esquimault, some one presented us with a cat, as black as the ace of spades. She was kept in the forecastle at first; after a while she got aft and Mr. Hadley became greatly interested in her, training her to do tricks. When the ship was crushed and we were working to get things out of her before she sank I told the men to be sure not to forget the cat, but to put her in a basket and place her in the box-house. There she became very much at home. Early in her residence she got into difficulties with a dog, that had wandered through the entrance, by landing suddenly like an animated bunch of porcupine quills on the dog’s nose. The dog shook her off and tried to take his revenge. We saved the cat just in time. After that she never bothered the dogs again. When the advance party now started for the land Hadley and Maurer made a deer-skin bag to carry the cat and she rode on a sledge in state. Her food consisted chiefly of pemmican scraps.
With the rest of the party and all the supplies we could carry, I had intended to start the day after the earlier party. Kerdrillo, however, was in no condition to travel. He had hurt his back going in to Herald Island and it gave him a good deal of pain, so it seemed wise to wait until he was better. We had two lame dogs and the delay on account of Kerdrillo would give them, too, a chance to recuperate. Ice travel is as hard on dogs as on men and, besides that, the dogs were always fighting among themselves, if they were not sharply watched, and one of them had so bad a tear in his leg that Mamen had to take nine stitches in it, using the regulation surgical needle and silk thread. We had twelve dogs left besides Nellie, one of the dogs that had had pups. We had built a snow-house for her and her pups, but as it was clear that the pups would not be of service to us now, we had to have them killed to save Nellie’s strength. She improved enough to be of value later on.