stefansson-wrangel-09-06-002

On a R. R. Train in Wyoming July 3, 1921

Dear Taylor:

I enclose a ck for ^$1,000 payable to the new company. I suppose it should have a bank account, and somebody in Vancouver who can sign checks. Would not that be you?

I am sending you a young man, Allan Crawford, who is to be in charge of our enterprize. Please have him sign what papers are needed to make his act. the acts of our Company - so for at least as the political objects of our show are concerned

Crawford has this idea - that being a limited Company we might fail while he is gone and he get no wages. I promised $150⁰⁰ per month. He wants some responsible person to sign a guarantee that if the company fails he will nevertheless get paid. I would sign, of course, only I am not very "responsible" nor shall I be there (in Vancouver) to do it. (He is to arrive the morning of July 6 from Toronto and will spend the day there, going to Seattle by the night boat and sailing from Seattle for Nome July 7). Would you sign the guarantee or else talk

(2) him out of the idea of the need of it?

As you may not get this letter in time I shall wire you tomorrow the substance of it.

Crawford will need not owe a hundred dollars in addition to his fare to Nome on the SS Victoria. While he will be in legal command at Nome and after, he will be the inexperienced man of the party and the outfitting and conduct of the enterprise should be [???] according to their ideas.

Besides what Lindeberg has bought in Seattle and shipped to Nome, the outfit will be provided in Nome by Lindeberg's nephew who is captain of the ship. Crawford need buy nothing at all in Seattle except one or two aneroid barometers perhaps, and spirit thermometers if you can't renew them from the weather bureau.

I am writing Crawford aboard the Victoria (care of the Purser) at Seattle.

V Stefansson.