stefansson-wrangel-09-32-042v

288 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

native, are a kind and hospitable people. If they did
take a landing party prisoners for political reasons they
would treat them well. But the situation is even clearer
than that, for Aarnout Castel and August Masik, the
latter a Russian and both members of my 1913-18 expedi-
tion and comrades on it of Knight and Maurer, were
living the winter 1922-23 on the Siberian coast south of
Wrangel Island where our men would have landed had
they suffered no accident. Both Castel and Masik have
assured me in writing and verbally that no one could have
landed anywhere between East Cape and the Kolyma
without their hearing it.

So far as we have received it, Knight’s diary is cheer-
ful throughout. We have every reason to suppose that
the ten abstracted pages did not differ in this respect, for
Ada says that even after he became too weak to write his
manner remained cheerful to the end. There is not a
whimper anywhere nor a suggestion that he himself or
anyone else was to blame. There are no heroics, no vain
regrets. He was confined to the house by the gradually
increasing illness and wrote longer entries because there
was more leisure. It is a thrilling story only if one reads
the heroism between the lines. His was that type of
courage which never feels the need of becoming modesty.
It was not the attitude of the martyr before sacrifice or
of the hero giving his life for a glorious cause. It was
rather the light-hearted seriousness of the [Jommy]
going into battle.

Knight died on June 22nd, a little before the most
powerful ship could have reached Wrangel Island from Nome
in even the most favorable season. Ada Blackjack made
the record on Milton Galle’s typewriter: