The next march brought us to Cape May, where we found numbers of hare tracks but did not secure any of the animals. A few willow twigs obtained here enabled us to cook some of the pieces of remaining meat.
I had hoped on the next march to reach Cape Bryant and so be in a position to scout the neighbouring country for the musk-oxen which I felt sure we should find in the region from Cape Bryant to Repulse Harbour. Our strength, however, was not equal to the entire width of Sherard Osborn and St. George’s fiords at one pull, and we camped on the ice some four or five miles east of Cape Bryant. At this camp we finished the last of the musk-ox meat. Feeling sure that we should find musk-oxen in the rolling country from Cape Bryant westward I had made no attempt to restrain my men, and both during the march and while in camp they were eating continuously when not asleep. From this camp the entire shore from Cape Bryant into St. George’s Fiord was very carefully examined with the spy glass for musk-oxen or their tracks, but without success.
In the next march we proceeded to Cape Bryant where we came upon sledge-tracks several days old coming in from the north. An examination of these tracks developed the fact that there were two sledges and that the party with them had proceeded to a considerable eminence south and east of Cape Bryant evidently for the purpose of reconnoitring and then having obtained their bearings had taken the ice-foot around Cape Bryant and proceeded southwest ward along the coast. I felt there could be no doubt but that this was Marvin’s party, but there were no indications in the trail to show that that they were in serious straits.
This general scattering of my supporting parties, however, gave me a great deal of uneasiness as to Ryan and his party, and whether they had reached some of the other parties before the storm came on. The parties of the Captain and the Doctor being nearer land than the others, would, I felt sure, have been more out of the sweep of the drift than the others, and would probably have no serious difficulty in regaining the Grant Land coast.
At Cape Bryant I started two Eskimos with carbine and cartridges overland to travel about parallel with the shore and a few miles from it, in order to detect any traces of musk-oxen in the region. They had instructions to return to the shore a little east of Hand Bay at a place which I designated as being where we would camp for the night. Following the ice-foot we passed the cache of musk-ox meat which my supporting party Ootah and Pooblah, returning from Britannia Island in the spring of 1900, had obtained and left for me.
The two hunters joined us at the place designated for camp, and reported seeing no recent traces of musk-oxen. They had seen two hare but these were too wild for them to obtain a shot. So sure did I feel that there must be musk-oxen somewhere in the region about Hand and Frankford Bays that after we had had our tea I started two other men off with rifles, cartridges, matches, and a little oil, and an empty oil-tin for melting water, to work round the heads of these bays and join us at a place just east of the Black Horn cliffs some time during our stay there at the end of the next march. This gave them about twenty-four hours. Our stay at this camp and our march from here to the eastern end of the Black Horn cliffs was rendered disagreeable by a bitter and penetrating gale from the west accompanied by snow. The men rejoined us at this camp having been entirely unsuccessful, and feeling much disheartened that they had not even seen traces of musk-oxen, so we all went back to our diet of dog. I could not understand the present absence of musk-oxen in this region as it is a very considerable area connecting with the rolling country in the neighbourhood of St. George’s and Sherard Osborn fiords, and the seven musk-oxen which we killed here in 1900 certainly could not have been the only animals in the locality. The only possible explanation seemed to be that the animals might just at this time be way in at the heads of the fiords.
From a point of vantage well up the bluffs there was no indication of open water in front of the Black Horn cliffs as there had been both going and coming in 1900, and on leaving this camp we negotiated this difficult and treacherous part of the journey along the northwest coast of Greenland, without serious difficulty. We found no water, the pack ice in front of the cliffs was fairly decent, and the ice-foot extending up to the cliffs on both sides was passable.
Two men sent overland back of the cliffs from the camp to the east, rejoined us on the west side of the cliffs. They had secured one hare which they ate in accordance with my instructions. We saw where they had killed two ptarmigan near the ice-foot and had eaten them raw all except the feathers, not even throwing away the feet or intestines. When they rejoined us Ootah was still carrying and greedily sucking the well-cleaned skin of the hare. Our camp at the end of this march was at Repulse Harbour. All the way from the western end of the cliffs to the harbour we faced a strong and bitter wind and drift. We were now where Beaumont wrote and left his magnificent record of human endurance and courage ending with “God help us.” We were not as bad off as he and his party. We could all of us walk yet and I believed would all be able to walk to the ship, but it was essential that we get across the channel at once. We were getting weaker every day.
From the bluffs back of our camp after we had had our tea we could make out the Roosevelt lying at Sheridan, and my men were very much encouraged at the sight. It was a gratifying sight to me as well, for while I had not allowed myself to worry or lose sleep thinking about what might happen to the ship during our absence, I had of course, been fully aware that the storm which sent us so far to the eastward, might have caused such motion in the ice at Sheridan as to heave the Roosevelt up high and dry on the ice-foot, and in our present condition the idea of tramping all those weary miles which I knew so well between Cape Sheridan and our cache at Bache Peninsula did not appear at all attractive. As far as we could make out with the glasses, however, the ship appeared to be just as we left her.
At this camp we cached everything but instruments and records to be brought in later, and headed across Robeson Channel for a point a little north of Cape Union, the only direction in which our reconnaissance with the glass from the top of the cliffs showed the ice to be practicable. We passed a blinding day at our camp under the lee of a big ice hummock in the Channel, several miles off the Grant Land coast. Everyone was completely used up with the unwonted exertion of stumbling over the rough ice after our recent marches upon the nearly dead level snow surface along the Greenland coast. Clark did not come in until very late. Pooblah, the lame Eskimo, did not come in at all. I was partially snow-blind. I had hoped after a few hours’ sleep and rest here to push right on to the ship, but what with hunger and fatigue no one seemed able to sleep, and finally I told the men they could kill another dog. They hesitated at first saying they thought that we and the three remaining dogs would be able to walk to the ship without anything more to eat, but finally their hunger became too great and another poor crawling skeleton was killed and devoured. After the feed Ootah and another suggested going in to the ship to send someone out with food for us but I vetoed the idea at once. I had always hitherto been able to get back from my trips without assistance, and intended to do so now.