Up North, Captain Bob tells me, when we get out of water we just go alongside an iceberg and pump the water from pools on the berg over to our tank. For this we have a little pump affair with a piece of garden hose at each end. The melted water on the bergs is fresh, unless sea spray has blown up into the pools.
That morning in Sydney I wrote some letters, to Mother and others. And then in the afternoon Robert Peary, Art Young, Ed Manley, Fred Linekiller and myself went over to the town of Sydney in our little motor launch. Sydney is about five miles away across a big bay, and is far larger than North Sydney where our ship lies.
Over there we saw a very big old square rigger with gun ports all along her sides. She was once a frigate of the British Navy, I suppose about the time of Old Ironsides. [[18]]We went aboard and looked around to see if we could find any loose belaying pins for my collection, but without luck.
David Tries Carrying Art Young Through the Mud.
The next day Dad, Art Young, Carl, Mr. Kellerman and I went off to see if we could find any trout fishing in one of the brooks which came down to the bay a few miles from our anchorage. We left our boat on a sort of beach and walked up the stream to try our luck. There wasn’t any. After fishing for a while we went back to the boat, which we had anchored a little off shore. But the tide had gone out and we found her nearly high and dry in the mud.
We pushed and we shoved and pulled in mud up to our knees for quite a time until finally we got her off. Art had no boots on so I tried to carry him out but he was too heavy. Then we brought the boat pretty close in and Dad tried to carry Art out. Dad had Art on his back—Art is a big man and weighs I suppose 190 pounds—and was [[19]]starting to come out when the extra weight shoved his feet right down in the sticky mud over his boots and when he tried to pull up his legs one boot came off and they both lost their balance and fell into the mud and water. They took it as a joke and had to walk nearly a mile before we found a place where they could get aboard easily.
In the Cross Trees.
Over at another beach we ate our lunch which we had brought with us. And near there Art and I got the first game of the expedition. After sneaking up on it we charged in. And what do you think we found?