The travel up the coast had the usual variety of dangers, hair-breadth escapes, and exhausting toil. A little flag-staff, planted by Dr. Hayes during the Kane expedition, was found bravely looking out upon the drear field it was set to designate, but the flag it bore had been blown away. Remains of Esquimo settlements long deserted were found. A raven croaked a welcome to the strangers, or it may be a warning, and followed them several days.
On the fourth day up the coast Jensen, the hardiest of the vessel's company, utterly failed. He had strained his back as well as leg, and groaned with pain. What could be done? The party could not proceed with a sick man, nor would they for a moment think of leaving him alone. So the following course was adopted by the commander: M'Donald was left in the snow-hut with Jensen, with five days' food and five dogs, with orders to remain five days, and then, if Hayes and Knorr, who were to continue on, had not returned, to make his best way with Jensen back to the vessel.
The journey of Dr. Hayes and Knorr was continued two full days. On the morning of the third day they had proceeded but a few miles when they came to a stand. They had on their left the abrupt, rocky, ice-covered cliffs of the shore; on their right were high ridges of ice, through which the waters of an open sea broke here and there into bays and inlets which washed the shore. Farther progress north by land or ice was impossible. They climbed a cliff which towered eight hundred feet above the sea, whose dark waters were lost in the distance toward the north-east. North, standing against the sky, was a noble headland, the most northern known land, and only about four hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. The spot on which our explorers stood was about one degree farther north than that occupied by Morton, of Kane's Expedition, yet on the shore of the same open water. Now, if they only had the boat they were obliged to leave among the hummocks in Smith Sound, with the provisions and men they had hoped to bring to this point, how soon would they solve the mystery locked up from the beginning, and in the keeping of his Frosty Majesty of the Pole itself! But, alas! there were neither boat nor provisions, and the movement of the treacherous floes warned the daring strangers that the bridge of ice over which they had come to this side might soon be torn away, and make a return impossible. They built a monument of stones, raised on it a flag of triumph, deposited beneath it a record of their visit placed in a bottle, and turned their faces homeward.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LAST INCIDENTS OF THE EXPEDITION.
DR. HAYES and Knorr were buffeted by a fierce storm soon after starting. They were over fifty miles from M'Donald and Jensen, only ten of which were traversed before they were obliged to encamp. But the storm howled, and tossed the snow-clouds about them, making it impossible to build a snow hut. After a brief halt, and feeding the dogs with the last morsel of food which remained, they pushed on. The snow was deep, often nearly burying the dogs as they plunged along; the hummocks and rocks over which they climbed lay across their path, and the wind blew with unabated fury; yet they halted not until the remaining forty or more miles were accomplished, and they tumbled into the hut of their companions. The dogs rolled themselves together on the snow the moment they were left, utterly exhausted. The weary men slept a long, sound sleep. When they awoke a steaming pot of coffee and an abundant breakfast awaited them. They had fasted thirty-four hours, and traveled in the last twenty-two over forty miles, which the hummocks and deep snow made equal to double that distance of smooth sledging. The last few miles were made in a state of partial bewilderment, so their final safety was another of their many marked deliverances. The remaining run to the vessel had its daily perils and escapes. As they were approaching the American shore they stepped across a crack on the ice. They had traveled but a short distance when they perceived that there was an impassable channel between them and the land ice. They ran back to recross the crack, and that had become twenty yards wide. They were, in fact, on an ice-raft, and were sweeping helplessly out to sea! They had hardly collected their thoughts after this terrifying surprise before one of the shore corners of their raft struck a small grounded iceberg, and on this, as on a pivot, the outer edge swung toward the shore, struck its margin, allowed them to scamper off, and then immediately swung again into the open water, and shot out to sea.
The poor dogs, being insufficiently fed, and necessarily overworked, now began to fail. Jensen's lameness compelling him to ride, increased their burden. One died just before the party left the hummocks, and two soon after. A fourth having failed, the commander, thinking to shorten his misery, shot him. The ball only wounding him, he set up a terrible cry, at which his companions flew at him, tore him in pieces, and, almost before his last howl had died away in the dreary waste, they had eaten the flesh from his bones.
They arrived at the schooner safely after two months' absence, during which they had traveled thirteen hundred miles.