“This suspense, unrelieved by action or efforts, was intolerable; we knew that there was no remedy but to reach the floe, and that everything depended upon our dogs, and our dogs alone. A moment’s check would plunge the whole concern into the rapid tideway; no presence of mind or resource, bodily or mental, could avail us. The seals—for we were now near enough to see their expressive faces—were looking at us with that strange curiosity which seems to be their characteristic expression; we must have passed some fifty of them, breast-high out of water, mocking us by their self-complacency.
“This desperate race against fate could not last: the rolling of the tough salt-water ice terrified our dogs; and when within fifty paces from the floe, they paused. The left-hand runner went through: our leader ‘Toodlamick’ followed, and in one second the entire left of the sledge was submerged. My first thought was to liberate the dogs. I leaned forward to cut poor ‘Tood’s’ traces, and the next minute was swimming in a little circle of pasty ice and water alongside him. Hans, dear good fellow, drew near to help me, uttering piteous expressions in broken English; but I ordered him to throw himself on his belly with his hands and legs extended, and to make for the island by cogging himself forward with his jack-knife. In the meantime—a mere instant—I was floundering about with sledge, dogs, and lines, in a confused puddle around me.
I. I. Hayes
“I succeeded in cutting poor Tood’s lines and letting him scramble to the ice, for the poor fellow was drowning me with his piteous caresses, and made my way for the sledge; but I found that it would not buoy me, and that I had no resource but to try the circumference of the hole. Around this I paddled faithfully, the miserable ice always yielding when my hopes of a lodgment were greatest. During this process, I enlarged my circle of operations to a very uncomfortable diameter, and was beginning to feel weaker after every effort. Hans, meanwhile, had reached the firm ice, and was on his knees, like a good Moravian, praying incoherently in English and Eskimo; at every fresh crushing-in of the ice he would ejaculate ‘God!’ and when I recommenced my paddling he recommenced his prayers.
“I was nearly gone. My knife had been lost in cutting out the dogs; and a spare one which I carried in my trousers-pocket was so enveloped in the wet skins that I could not reach it. I owed my extrication at last to a newly broken team-dog, who was still fast to the sledge and in struggling carried one of the runners chock against the edge of the circle. All my previous attempts to use the sledge as a bridge had failed, for it broke through, to the much greater injury of the ice. I felt it was a last chance. I threw myself on my back, so as to lessen as much as possible my weight, and placed the nape of my neck against the run or edge of the ice; then with caution slowly bent my leg, and, placing the ball of my moccasined foot against the sledge, I pressed steadily against the runner, listening to the half-yielding crunch of the ice beneath.
“Presently I felt that my head was pillowed by the ice, and that my wet fur jumper was sliding up the surface. Next came my shoulders; they were fairly on. One more decided push and I was launched up on the ice and safe. I reached the ice-floe, and was frictioned by Hans with frightful zeal. We saved all the dogs, but the sledge, kayack, tents, guns, snow-shoes, and everything besides, were left behind. The thermometer at 8° will keep them frozen fast in the sledge till we can come and cut them out.
“On reaching the ship, after a twelve-mile trot, I found so much of comfort and warm welcome that I forgot my failure. The fire was lit up, and one of our few birds slaughtered forthwith. It is with real gratitude that I look back upon my escape, and bless the great presiding Goodness for the very many resources which remain to us.”
On December 12, the party which had deserted the ship returned; they had had a bitter experience struggling for more than four months among the hummocks and snow-drifts, and were in a pitiable condition.
“The thermometer was at -50°”, writes Dr. Kane; “they were covered with rime and snow, and were fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use caution in taking them below; for after an exposure of such fearful intensity and duration as they had gone through, the warmth of the cabin would have prostrated them completely. They had journeyed three hundred and fifty miles; and their last run from the bay near Etah, some seventy miles in a right line, was through the hummocks at this appalling temperature. Poor fellows! as they threw open their Eskimo garments by the stove, how they relished the scanty luxuries which we had to offer them. The coffee, and the meat-biscuit soup, and the molasses, and the wheat bread, even the salt pork, which our scurvy forbade the rest of us to touch—how they relished it all! For more than two months they had lived on frozen seal and walrus-meat.”