A Mans Woman | Page 3

tent, awoke the cook, and while
breakfast was being prepared completed his calculations for latitude,
wrote up his ice-journal, and noted down the temperature and the
direction and velocity of the wind. As he was finishing, Richard Ferriss,
who was the chief engineer and second in command, awoke and
immediately asked the latitude.
"Seventy-four-fifteen," answered Bennett without looking up.
"Seventy-four-fifteen," repeated Ferriss, nodding his head; "we didn't
make much distance yesterday."
"I hope we can make as much to-day," returned Bennett grimly as he
put away his observation-journal and note-books.
"How's the ice to the south'ard?"
"Bad; wake the men."
After breakfast and while the McClintocks were being loaded Bennett
sent Ferriss on ahead to choose a road through and over the ridges. It
was dreadful work. For two hours Ferriss wandered about amid the
broken ice all but hopelessly bewildered. But at length, to his great
satisfaction, he beheld a fairly open stretch about a quarter of a mile in
length lying out to the southwest and not too far out of the expedition's

line of march. Some dozen ridges would have to be crossed before this
level was reached; but there was no help for it, so Ferriss planted his
flags where the heaps of ice-blocks seemed least impracticable and
returned toward the camp. It had already been broken, and on his way
he met the entire expedition involved in the intricacies of the first rough
ice.
All of the eighteen dogs had been harnessed to the number two sledge,
that carried the whaleboat and the major part of the provisions, and
every man of the party, Bennett included, was straining at the
haul-ropes with the dogs. Foot by foot the sledge came over the ridge,
grinding and lurching among the ice-blocks; then, partly by guiding,
partly by lifting, it was piloted down the slope, only in the end to
escape from all control and come crashing downward among the dogs,
jolting one of the medicine chests from its lashings and butting its nose
heavily against the foot of the next hummock immediately beyond. But
the men scrambled to their places again, the medicine chest was
replaced, and Muck Tu, the Esquimau dog-master, whipped forward his
dogs. Ferriss, too, laid hold. The next hummock was surmounted, the
dogs panting, and the men, even in that icy air, reeking with
perspiration. Then suddenly and without the least warning Bennett and
McPherson, who were in the lead, broke through some young ice into
water up to their breasts, Muck Tu and one of the dogs breaking
through immediately afterward. The men were pulled out, or, of their
own efforts, climbed upon the ice again. But in an instant their clothes
were frozen to rattling armor.
"Bear off to the east'ard, here!" commanded Bennett, shaking the icy,
stinging water from his sleeves. "Everybody on the ropes now!"
Another pressure-ridge was surmounted, then a third, and by an hour
after the start they had arrived at the first one of Ferriss's flags. Here the
number two sledge was left, and the entire expedition, dogs and men,
returned to camp to bring up the number one McClintock loaded with
the Freja's cutter and with the sleeping-bags, instruments, and tent. This
sledge was successfully dragged over the first two hummocks, but as it
was being hauled up the third its left-hand runner suddenly buckled and
turned under it with a loud snap. There was nothing for it now but to
remove the entire load and to set Hawes, the carpenter, to work upon its
repair.

"Up your other sledge!" ordered Bennett.
Once more the expedition returned to the morning's camping-place, and,
harnessing itself to the third McClintock, struggled forward with it for
an hour and a half until it was up with the first sledge and Ferriss's flag.
Fortunately the two dog-sleds, four and five, were light, and Bennett,
dividing his forces, brought them up in a single haul. But Hawes called
out that the broken sledge was now repaired. The men turned to at once,
reloaded it, and hauled it onward, so that by noon every sledge had
been moved forward quite a quarter of a mile.
But now, for the moment, the men, after going over the same ground
seven times, were used up, and Muck Tu could no longer whip the dogs
to their work. Bennett called a halt. Hot tea was made, and pemmican
and hardtack served out.
"We'll have easier hauling this afternoon, men," said Bennett; "this next
ridge is the worst of the lot; beyond that Mr. Ferriss says we've got
nearly a quarter of a mile of level floes."
On again at one o'clock; but the hummock of which Bennett had
spoken proved absolutely impassable for the loaded sledges. It was all
one that the men lay to the