stefansson-wrangel-09-32-083v

366 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

Mr. John R. Bone removed editorially some of the most painful
errors from Mr. Noice’s articles as published by the Toronto Star.
He did not know at the time that they were errors, and removed
them on the mere ground of the pain they would cause. These
emendations were telegraphed to many other papers which had not
yet published those installments and were generally followed by
them. For this both the relatives and myself are deeply grateful
to Mr. Bone.

The interview with Mr. Noice left me baffled. I could not under-
stand the motives for his course of action which, while it gave me
added anxiety at a time when troubles were thick, could not fail
in the long run to hurt him more than it did anyone else. I felt
sure the story he was writing would convey a wrong impression
and I knew how difficult it would be to correct such an impression
later. I foresaw that he was going to injure considerably the cause
for which I was still working and for which my comrades had
died, but I was unable to think of a way to prevent it, since our
lawyers told us that technically it was our company and not Mr.
Noice personally that had sold the story to the newspapers, for
on the face of the evidence he had been able to show, the press were
legally justified in considering Mr. Noice to have been our agent.

I found the newspapers that were handling Mr. Noice’s material
very regretful of the complications. But, since the story was al-
ready in publication, there seemed to be nothing to do except go
ahead, especially as they were inclined to think Mr. Noice’s ver-
sion correct, because he had the documents and was for the time
successfully keeping us from seeing them—a quarrel into which the
newspapers did not enter. From my point of view it was too late
to make the press story really correct, and I would trust to a book
for a final statement; and perhaps to an eventual verbatim pub-
lication of every expedition document to give historians a chance
to form a correct impression if they cared to go into the matter.
I might say here that what we are actually doing is to furnish sev-
eral libraries with photostat copies of every document of the expe-
dition, including the correspondence of the boys with their fami-
lies and with me, both while the expedition was being planned and
during its progress. A study of these documents will serve anyone
who cares to form an independent judgment of the facts.

The story of Wrangel Island as published by the papers over the