perfect
state of dirtiness, and in order to get the supplies from the _Erik_,
coal, etc., the movable articles, dogs, Esquimos, etc., will have to be
shifted and yours truly is helping.

The dogs have been landed on a small island in the bay, where they are
safe and cannot run away, and they can have a glorious time, fighting
and getting acquainted with each other. Some of the Esquimos' goods are
ashore, some aboard the _Erik_, and the rest forward on the roof of the
deck-house, while the _Roosevelt_ is getting her coal aboard.

The loading of the meat and coal has been done by the crews of the
ships, assisted and _hampered_ by some of the Esquimos, and I have been
walrus-hunting, and taxidermizing; that is, I have skinned a pair of
walrus so that they can be stuffed and mounted. This job has been very
carefully, and I think successfully, done and the skins have been towed
ashore. The hearts, livers, and kidneys have been brought aboard and the
meat is to be loaded to-morrow. Two boat-loads of bones have been rowed
over to Dog Island for dog-food.

Coaling and stowing of whale-meat aboard the _Roosevelt_ was finished at
noon, August 15, and all day Sunday, August 16, all hands were at the
job transferring to the _Erik_ the boxes of provisions that were to be
left at the cache at Etah. Bos'n Murphy and Billy Pritchard, the
cabin-boy, are to stay as guard until the return of the _Roosevelt_ next
summer. A blinding storm of wind and snow prevented the _Roosevelt_
from starting until about two-thirty P. M., when, with all the dogs
a-howling, the whistle tooting, and the crew and members cheering, we
steamed out of the Harbor into Smith Sound, and a thick fog which
compelled half-speed past Littleton Island and into heavy pack-ice.

Captain Bartlett was navigating the ship and his eagle eye found a lane
of open water from Cape Sabine to Bache Peninsula and open water from
Ellesmere Land half-way across Buchanan Bay, but this lead closed on
him, and the _Roosevelt_ had to stop. Late in the evening, the ice
started to move and grind alongside of the ship, but did no damage
except scaring the Esquimos. Daylight still kept up and we went to sleep
with our boots on!

From Etah to Cape Sheridan, which was to be our last point north in the
ship, consumed twenty-one days of the hardest kind of work imaginable
for a ship; actually fighting for every foot of the way against the
almost impassable ice. For another ship it would hav