It was slow work. Not till three in the afternoon was the raft ready for the last load. Then sending Erichsen down first, De Long peered into the hut at Nindemann crouching before the fire.
“Pick up your traps, quartermaster, and get to work again!”
“Aye, aye, sir!” said Nindemann obediently, and hastily gathering up his load, he ran down to the raft where for the last trip he paddled over and then, dismantling the logs to recover the priceless lashings, he looked expectantly up to the captain for orders.
“Build a fire,” said the skipper briefly. “We’ll have dinner here and dry ourselves before moving on.”
They made four miles by dark, camped in the snow, froze as usual instead of sleeping, ate a skimpy breakfast, and with but a single meal left, the party was about to break camp, when far away Nindemann spotted some reindeer approaching the river. Keeping everybody down, the captain sent Alexey and Nindemann out with rifles.
Circling three miles to get to leeward of the small herd of reindeer, the two hunters crawled cautiously along on their stomachs another quarter mile, pausing, with their very lives depending on their care, each time a deer looked in their direction, then snaking along again through the snow. At last, within a hundred yards, they stopped, picked out the two largest bucks they could see, and at a word from Alexey, fired simultaneously.
Down went the buck at which Alexey’s Remington was aiming, but Nindemann’s Winchester misfired and before Alexey could get in another shot, the startled herd was off. Firing nevertheless, Alexey swung to the moving targets, but failed to hit again. Leaping up, the two men ran in to secure their prize and saw joyfully that Alexey had knocked over a fine buck, as large as both the does which he had previously shot. It took five men to drag him in to camp, and there, all thought of movement suspended, the ravenous men turned to on frying deer meat, gulping down three pounds apiece before the captain finally called a halt on eating, and ordering his crew to shoulder the remainder of the buck, provisions for three days more, they got underway again in the teeth of a driving snow-storm.
By the next afternoon, September 28th, having spent the previous night again in the snow, De Long came to an empty hut on a promontory and looking off ahead, found himself trapped! On his right, running north was the Lena; before him, running east, was another broad river branching away from it and neither one could he ford, nor after a diligent search, find any materials about of which to make a raft. Huddled in the dirty hut, his utterly tired men sprawled out before the fire, while Alexey scouted the river to the eastward for a ford, but found none.
For three days, the ill-fated refugees were forced to remain in that hut, unable to move in any direction except back northward, while a gale outside brought heavy snow; and bitterly cursing their enforced inaction while consuming their precious provisions, they waited, hopeless of movement till in the increasing cold, the river should freeze hard enough for them to cross. And meanwhile, fearing Erichsen would get lockjaw if he waited further, Dr. Ambler was forced to amputate first all his toes and then saw away a good part of the remainder of the unfortunate Dane’s feet, leaving him with useless stumps on which it was hopeless to expect, even with crutches, that Hans Erichsen would ever walk again.
The captain became desperate. He cut the issue of deer meat down to the limit, sent Alexey out in the blinding snow to hunt in one direction, Nindemann in another, and Görtz and Kaack with fish lines to see whether the rivers which were choking off their progress, might at least yield up a few fish to eke out their provisions. But except for one gull which Alexey knocked off a pole with a rifle ball, not a solitary bit of food did anyone get.