stefansson-wrangel-09-32-062v

326 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

he had scurvy he knew also that the scurvy could be cured with
raw meat. He would thus have no reason for leaving the island in
search of a medicine for that disease. Knight himself tells us in
his diary that he felt the scurvy symptoms in November and dis-
cussed them with Crawford at the time. Perhaps that may be a
slip of memory on Knight’s part and that he really felt the illness
already in September.

When everything in Milton Galle’s fragmentary notes has been
deciphered, interpreted and pondered over, we are left with an
intensified feeling of what a pity it is that he did not leave behind
on Wrangel Island at least one of his two apparently almost
duplicate diaries, and what a pity it is that Crawford and Maurer
left nothing. Still, we may well be glad that this was so. It is
only our curiosity that is balked, and we have for recompense the
knowledge, made clearer than it could be through a mere inference
from an understanding of arctic conditions, that none of the party
had more fear than ice travelers always do that serious accident or
death would meet them between Wrangel Island and Nome. Had
the danger been considered very grave, certainly duplicates would
have been left behind. Had the danger been thought extreme, the
members would have stored all their most valued records on the
island both for the safety of the information and to lighten their
loads, for in a desperate situation every pound of burden may count.
While we are deploring the uncertainty of many things we must
remember the consolation there is in that very fact. That Crawford
and Maurer took with them all their records, and that Galle took
along even duplicate records, shows, as we have said elsewhere,
that death must have come with the suddenness of a railway
accident or a shipwreck; not anticipated, except as we all anticipate
dangers whenever and however we travel by land or sea.